Sorce

What do they actually do

Sorce is a consumer job-application app that lets candidates upload a resume once, swipe through roles, and when they like a job, an AI agent goes to the employer’s site to fill out and submit the application for them. The goal is to cut out repeated data entry and reduce the time it takes to apply across many company portals (site, product blog).

The app also supports tailoring application materials (for example, cover letters) and tracking status, and is available for iPhone via the App Store (App Store listing, site).

Who are their target customer(s)

• College students and recent grads seeking internships and first jobs: They need to apply to many roles and repeatedly fill in school/personal details; keeping up with applications across portals is slow and exhausting (Sorce blog, YC page).
• Candidates targeting competitive tech/startup roles: High competition pushes them to send many tailored applications; they lose hours rewriting cover letters and re-entering resume fields, reducing volume and chances.
• Career switchers or applicants moving across functions/seniority: They must constantly customize resumes/cover letters and juggle dozens of portals, a process that’s error‑prone and time‑consuming (product description).
• Hourly and entry‑level workers (retail, hospitality, etc.): Account creation, long forms, and fragmented flows on hiring sites create friction that limits how broadly they can apply (Sorce site).
• Time‑poor professionals (e.g., senior engineers, managers): They want opportunistic discovery without paperwork; they avoid evenings of repetitive forms and prefer a low‑effort way to apply from a single profile.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Use founders’ networks (classmates, ex‑colleagues, YC/college connections) and concierge onboarding sessions where a founder demos the swipe+apply flow and files initial applications; refund failed applies to ensure a working first experience (YC profile).
• First 50: Spin up a campus ambassador program with resume‑clinic + live demo events and authentic success posts in student Slack/Discord/Reddit; pay per verified referral and offer free‑trial credits to drive peer‑to‑peer signups (blog).
• First 100: Layer small, targeted social ads (TikTok/Instagram) on students/bootcamp grads, publish how‑to/SEO content and short apply‑clips, and run employer feedback calls to focus job inventory where users succeed; keep concierge support for new users and showcase case studies (amplify via App Store + YC launch) (App Store, YC).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

In the U.S. there were about 71 million hires in 2023, a useful upper‑bound proxy for how many successful employment matches (and preceding applications) occur annually, with 7–10 million openings at any time (BLS JOLTS, BLS JOLTS releases).

Bottom-up calculation:

Bottom‑up, a student‑first wedge includes ~25.7M U.S. postsecondary enrollees and ~2.0M bachelor’s grads/year; even a 5–10% active‑search subset represents 1.4–2.8M candidates, before extending to large hourly sectors like leisure & hospitality (~16.8M) and retail (~15.7M) and professional & business services (~22–23M) (IPEDS, NCES degrees, BLS/CES, BLS CES).

Assumptions:

• Only a portion of each segment is in active job search in any given period (e.g., 5–10%).
• Users are willing to adopt a new consumer app to streamline applications (free tier or paid).
• Sorce can source enough relevant roles and successfully automate a high share of employer portal applications.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• LinkedIn (Easy Apply): Massive professional network with an on‑site “Easy Apply” flow that prioritizes speed and reach; strong for opportunistic mid‑to‑senior candidates but can create high‑volume, mixed‑signal pipelines for recruiters (LinkedIn help, analysis).
• Indeed (Indeed Apply / Apply Now): General job board at national scale with one‑page or integrated apply experiences that reduce friction, especially for hourly and high‑volume roles (Indeed Apply docs).
• Handshake: University‑centered network focused on internships and early‑career roles; overlaps the student/recent‑grad segment that Sorce targets by aggregating campus opportunities and workflows (Handshake).
• WayUp: Internship and entry‑level platform for students and new grads; competes for early‑career users wanting curated, easy application routes and employer matchmaking (WayUp).
• Simplify.jobs: Consumer tool offering a unified job profile, AI‑assisted autofill of applications (browser extension), resume tailoring, and application tracking—closest to Sorce’s “one profile, many applies” workflow (Simplify).