This career coach turned herself into an AI recruiter

^{A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.}

Good morning. As an Australian living in New York City, this week’s AI founder story is a special one. 

She completed her MBA online, flew to the U.S., then used that degree to get on the invite list for AI networking events in NYC. She pitched her idea, found someone (who has had a successful exit) to help her build it, bootstrapping until she proves it’s working.

Talk about hustling. 

You won’t want to miss this one. 

Let’s dive in.

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Company background: Chloe AI 

Founded: April 2023 

Team size: 2 

Funding to date: Bootstrapping 

ARR: Not disclosed 

Growth metric: Having an MBA helped her get in rooms with founders who have had successful exits. 

Chloe Spillane’s non-linear career led to her business idea. She studied acting but landed in travel sales then onto recruitment and talent acquisition. She hopscotched between different careers and companies, ultimately deciding to bet on herself and get her MBA. 

Spillane completed her MBA with the Australian Institute of Business, where she now sits on the alumni industry panel as a leadership and HR management leading voice. 

After running a global talent acquisition team across Australia, New Zealand and Europe, Spillane saw the issues and inefficiencies with recruitment on both sides. 

99% of the time, employers wouldn’t get the candidate they needed through a job ad. It was simply exposure for the brand to show the company was hiring and “doing well.” Most companies struggle with their employee value proposition (EVP). On the other hand, job seekers struggled to position themselves and articulate their value. Some people would have incredible resumes but not interview well, and vice versa. 

“There’s a lot of up and down in hiring. Employees today need to become as versatile as possible, because if an organization thinks your role isn’t necessary or contributing to profit, you’re in danger of losing your position,” she said. 

So, Spillane started posting career coaching social media content. Within a month, she had thousands of followers across Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Today, she has close to 70,000 followers. She started out doing resume reviews for $99, and now, facilitates intensive 1:1 career coaching up to a year – but she realized there must be an offering in-between. 

She saw AI as a way to scale as a solo operator. 

Spillane flew to the U.S. and spent six months in New York, going to weekly networking events to hone her idea. “I was given the opportunity to be in the room with some very influential people in the AI space. At one AI networking event, there was a panel of business owners and founders who built multi-million-dollar AI companies. I went up to the panel moderator and pitched him Chloe AI. He said, "Let me help you build it.” 

Having her MBA with the Australian Institute of Business helped her get in that room as an Australian, where she met her builder who became her AI innovation lead. 

At its core, the idea was for Chloe AI to be a career coach/recruiter assistant. “We started off placing it in OpenAI, as a custom GPT that was trained on all my knowledge, courses, and client material. We had that in testing on the OpenAI model for free for a year, then we decided to elevate it with a video avatar,” Spillane said. 

It was less of ‘let me help you with your resume and LinkedIn’ to more holistic, high-level advisory. They’re still in beta phase, focusing on their positioning as more consulting businesses are making their digital twins. 

Her goal is to be the job search and career development tool for anyone in the world at any stage of their career – while piggy backing off her personal brand in the career space. 

Spillane recognizes she needs to hire software developers, operations, and marketing support. She’s currently speaking to investors getting good feedback. 

“They’re asking what is the $100 million scale point of difference? Others are saying to go out and get more customers, more sign-ups, more retention, and then come back to us. We’re in that let’s build more evidence that this will work phase. I’m working on this alongside the physical part of my career coaching business,” Spillane shared. 

She’s constantly looking at the data coming through from users to make development decisions. “We recently had 250 conversations, so we’re reviewing what’s been asked, what people need, and the common themes. This informs how we train it on my inputs.” 

Users are wanting to know how they can get in the interview room, especially with more employers using AI in their vetting. 

Chloe AI is subscription based. It’s a three-tier model, priced between $9-$59. Spillane got her first users from her past and current coaching clients. They said it sounds just like her. It started as a monthly subscription but they’re changing it to three, six and 12 months to cater for the short-term needs of her users. “If you’re looking for a job or to develop your career in some way, you don’t need something ongoing. This is why I’m switching from monthly to signing up for a certain block of time.” 

Chloe AI is an extension of her personal brand, so all growth has been organic so far. Spillane uses her LinkedIn for manual outreach on the job seeker side but also plans to invest in lead gen for larger partner organizations. E.g. universities and recruitment firms. Chloe AI would be integrated into their businesses. 

Events and PR are part of her long-term growth goals. She’s focusing on Australia and the U.S. but plans to push it out globally. 

Creditability of an MBA 

As a first-time founder, Spillane said having an MBA gave her the knowledge, confidence and credibility to strike out on her own. But you have to back-up the education with real-world evidence that you’re actually doing the thing. Having her MBA helped her get in rooms with people she otherwise wouldn’t have met. 

In the era of no-code building, where speed is everything, it still pays to upskill. 

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