When you’re working in a big market, there’s bound to be competition. We were already keeping a keen eye on Unacademy after their TapChief acquisition. Today, they announced Relevel - Apply to India’s Finest Companies with One Score. It’s not a new idea - we started working on this problem about a year back and know others who tried too.
Since morning, I’ve been reflecting on the similarities and differences between what we intend to do at roc8 and what Unacademy has in mind:
Similar Values
Here’s an excerpt from Relevel’s website:
“We believe that hiring should depend only on your capabilities and skills, not your college degree. We imagine a future where candidates have a transparent path to the career of their dreams. At Relevel, we believe your background doesn’t matter. Your skills do. Your network doesn’t matter. You do!”
We have a very aligned vision at roc8:
“Resumes are dead. The best way to get a job is by showing proof of work. Don’t have a CS degree? Our hiring partners don’t care about your background. We make sure that you get the offer you deserve irrespective of your current package.”
Different Execution
Since it’s an Unacademy product, it HAS to work at scale. As of today (launch day), they have business development, frontend, and backend tracks. We are focused on frontend as of now, and plan to expand to other domains once this scales up well.
On the business model front, Relevel charges Rs. 2k for applying. This makes sense for them as they will have hundreds of thousands of applicants, making ~50-100 crores in the long run. We are free on the candidate side as of now, which helps us remain equally (if not more) invested in the success of our candidates.
To sum up, our scale and focus is very different from theirs - and that’s okay. I’m excited to see how we both evolve with time.