On New Years’ Day, 2021, the CEO of a hot new start-up slid into my DMs.
‘Well, how about that?’ I thought. ‘Maybe this year will be less of a dumpster fire than 2020.’
I’m going to show you how I created something that got this response from that CEO…and how I did it all in less than two hours!
But first, let’s start at the beginning.
On January 1st, 2021, my phone pinged.
I opened Twitter to a message from Raphael Allstadt, CEO of tl;dv, a start-up in the video conferencing industry.
In case you somehow missed last year (you lucky so-and-so!), video calls are impossible to escape.
No matter whether they’re with your boss, your friends or the weird cousins you haven’t spoken to in years but for some reason INSIST on doing a weekly quiz, video calls are everywhere.
Following a successful seed round, tl;dv was hiring across the board and Raphael was looking for recommendations for content and social media marketers.
This year, I’m aiming to supplement my freelance work as a content strategist and copywriter for the SaaS industry with equity in another business.
After a quick glance at the job spec to confirm they were offering equity, I decided to recommend myself. Cheeky, I know.
To land an interview at an exciting new company, I knew I’d need to stand out.
But where to begin? I’m confident in my writing ability, but I SUCK at design. Seriously, my wife buys all my clothes like I’m some sort of 31-year old bearded baby.
I was going to need a tool that made it easy for design-impaired noobs with zero coding skills to put something professional together.
Enter Carrd
I’d heard about Carrd (affiliate link) a few weeks earlier when I was researching no code products, and they were listed as the leading one-page website software.
Eager to get hands-on experience using the product, this seemed like the perfect test project!
As time was a factor, I decided to start with a template rather than from scratch. I used the one shown below to create my one page application.
Normally when I try a new tool, I have a play with it to get a feel, then seek out tutorials to help me get the most from it.
Not with Carrd.
When you choose a template, you’re met with this screen:
Super helpful!
The user interface was intuitive and easy to use. It handled text, images and GIFs with no problems.
All the elements played well together and operated as you’d expect, which was a relief as there’s nothing more infuriating than a buggy drag-and-drop tool!
As I went down the page, I customized the template.
Here’s the top section, where I uploaded my headshot into the circular image and made it slightly larger (vain, I know!)
I also came up with a slightly nonsensical headline to pique their interest (don’t worry, I do end up referencing a canine chum later on.)
And since tl;dv’s job spec mentioned their interest in memes, I decided it was a good idea to lead with an outdated reference 🤦♂️
I moved down the page and continued customizing the lorem ipsum text with my own examples of work carried out and mentions of Chihuahua’s in corsets (‘cos, you know, why not?!)…
…and followed it up with a section about my podcast experience as I knew tl;dv wanted to create their own video podcast.
I copied and pasted my testimonials into the next section:
Added some shameless flattery…
…and finished up with a CTA to get tl;dv to book a call through my Calendly (which I’ve now removed!)
So that’s that. From start to finish in less than 2 hours. Cheers, Carrd!
All that was left was for me to send over my application:
And here’s the CEO’s response:
My heart beat a mile a minute. I showed my wife and beamed with pride as she said ‘wow, YOU made this?!’
Yep, I did.
I was able to create something professional, sleek and eye-catching that got me an interview with a start-up CEO.
And I did it all in less than 2 hours, thanks to Carrd.
That’s yet another feather in the cap for No Code tools that are democratizing software…one cheesy job application at a time!
If you want to hear more about No Code tools, content strategy or marketing, make sure to follow me on Twitter or subscribe below.
And if you want to see the full Carrd job application, click here.