Talential
Private · Friends Circle · April 2026

Hiring is frozen.
We're the thaw.

A private invitation — before we open to the world. We're building the local talent network. And we want you in early.

01 — The Opportunity

Get in early.
Get in at a discount.

Before we close our main round, we're reserving a slice for people we trust.

$5K
Minimum ticket
$50K
Total reserved
for this circle
−25%
Valuation discount vs. largest ticket in main round

This is not a pitch deck you found online. This is us, reaching out to the people who've watched this be built — and giving you the chance to be part of what comes next. The discount is real. The window is limited.

02 — Problem / Solution

Four acts.
One broken system.

This is the story of hiring — and why it's never worked.

01
Hiring never worked

The resume is a self-written list of claims. Every real observation a recruiter ever made about someone — it stayed with them. Never passed on. The next employer started from zero. This has happened a billion times. Nobody built anything to stop it.

02
AI made it worse

Job description: written by AI. Resume: written by AI. Matching: done by AI. A machine talks to a machine. The actual human — trying to find work, trying to build a team — is invisible. Hiring is not broken. It is frozen.

03
Locally, you're on your own

You need a marketer. Lives nearby. Available next week. Knows your industry. Your options: a job board (6–8 weeks), a recruiter (2 months' salary), or Facebook — where you get no context, no validation, no signal. The local talent market is not just broken. It doesn't exist.

04
Never built for the talent

Every hiring tool was built by large companies, for large companies. LinkedIn serves senior professionals in established careers. The sales rep, the marketer, the developer, the event coordinator, the ops person — anyone building a career outside a corporate ladder has no tool designed for them. They apply. Wait. Hear nothing. Start over. Every time.

A local talent network.
Built around the talent.

Direct connection — no middleman, no recruiter, no job board, no AI writing both sides of the same conversation.

Hyper-local, real-time — like Google Maps for talent. The people near you, available now, visible for the first time.

Peer-to-peer validation — not what talent claims about themselves. What the community says about them. Real observations, from real businesses.

Potential over Credential

"Talential connects businesses directly with nearby people based on peer-validated strengths — not AI-written resumes."

03 — Where We Are

On the ground.
In motion.

We're not pitching a concept. We're already working.

Round structure
$400K total
Two tranches — currently in negotiation with VCs and Angels
VC & Angel investors
$350K
Several investors currently negotiating terms
In negotiation
Friends circle — you
$50K
$5K minimum · 25% valuation discount · 10 slots
Open now
10+
Businesses in Saigon
already working with us
→ 20 by end of April · 50 by end of May
5
Universities in active
discussion
On-campus activation in Saigon
MVP
Product is ready
Design complete · Testing live
The Team
Gwen
Gwen
CEO
LinkedIn ↗
Andrew
Andrew
CTO · AI Researcher
LinkedIn ↗
Nath
Nath
Ops Lead
LinkedIn ↗
Rebecca
Rebecca
CFO
LinkedIn ↗
Quynh
Quynh
Operations
LinkedIn ↗
Uyen
Uyen
Product Design
Phuc
Phuc
B2C & University
LinkedIn ↗
Alex
Alex
B2B Activation
LinkedIn ↗
04 — The Product

MVP is ready.
See it yourself.

Not a mockup. Not a concept. A product that businesses in Saigon are already using.

Product Design
View preliminary design on Figma
Investor Deck
Full presentation — strategy, financials, roadmap
Company Filing
Incorporated in Singapore · ACRA registration document
05 — How We Make Money

Simple pricing.
Massive market.

The model is built for SMEs — the most underserved segment in hiring. Most don't even have an HR department.

Today — Job Board
You do all the work

Post a listing. Collect resumes. Screen manually. Interview. Repeat. Weeks of work. No guarantee of quality.

Unpaid labour
Today — Agency
You pay someone else

Hand it off to a recruiter. Wait 2 months. Pay up to 2 months' salary as commission. No refund if it doesn't work out.

2× salary fee
Talential
Pre-evaluated. Pre-screened. Ready to meet.

For $8, a business gets a candidate already validated by other businesses — through real interviews, real probations, real behavioral tags. We cut sourcing time by 80%. No agency. No noise.

$8 per job description
Revenue Phases
Phase 1 — Now
Per-job pricing

$8 per job description. SMEs pay for speed and quality. No subscription needed to get started.

Phase 2 — After MVP
Monthly subscription

Once we have enough behavioral data, we expand beyond sourcing into onboarding and training — and move to recurring revenue.

2,000
Active F&B job ads in Saigon right now
$15K
Monthly opportunity — Saigon F&B alone
$250K
Monthly revenue target — within 12 months
80%
Reduction in sourcing time for businesses
06 — Roadmap

Where we're going.
Step by step.

We start focused, expand fast, and go regional. Every phase builds on the network effect of the one before.

Phase 1
Now →
Sept 2026
F&B, Events & Hospitality — Saigon

The entry market. High turnover, constant demand, zero digital infrastructure. We build the network density that makes everything else possible.

500 businesses
Phase 2
End of
2026
Digital Workers — Social Media, Video, E-Commerce

The freelance and gig economy. Marketers, content creators, e-commerce operators — high demand, no reliable local matching layer. We bring peer validation to the digital workforce.

50,000 talent
Phase 3
Post-Tết
2027
All Job Types, All Levels — Ho Chi Minh City

Tết triggers the largest job turnover of the year. We use that moment to expand beyond our entry categories — every type of hire, every level, still in Saigon. Deep before wide.

Full category coverage · HCMC
Phase 4
Mid 2027
Tier 1 City Expansion — Bangkok, Hanoi, Singapore

Same playbook, new cities. Each shares the same structural gap: no local, peer-validated talent layer. We bring the network to the next tier of ASEAN.

3 new cities
Phase 5
End of
2027
Visible to All of GenZ ASEAN

Every young professional in Southeast Asia with a skill to offer and a reputation to build knows Talential. Not a job board. The network.

ASEAN footprint
07 — The Bigger Picture

A new category.
Not a better job board.

Airbnb didn't fix hotels. They built something else entirely. Nobody thought it should exist — until it did, and then it was obvious.

Airbnb didn't fix
Hotels
→
They built
A new category
Talential doesn't fix
Recruitment
→
We're building
The alternative

Direct. Local. Peer-validated. No machinery in the way. It sounds like it shouldn't exist yet. That's exactly where the opportunity is.

"The talent who's proven themselves across five real placements has more credible signal than any CV could ever produce."