Using Emotions to Stand Out: Marketing an AI Interview Platform Without a Marketing Budget

Hey👋 Oleh here, founder of Prepin.ai. I've been building in public for a few months, and today I wanted to share our marketing journey and get your advice on reaching early users.

The Product

Prepin is an AI mock interview platform with a twist: it tracks your emotions in real-time while you practice. Think of it as having a coach who can tell you exactly when you appear nervous or confident during your answers.

Marketing Journey So Far

What worked:

1. Content creation focused on interview anxiety (10k+ views on Medium)

2. Posting before/after emotion tracking visualizations on LinkedIn

3. Direct outreach to career coaches (20% response rate)

4. Reddit posts in r/cscareerquestions and r/jobs (400+ signups)

What didn't work:

1. Generic "AI interview practice" ads (too competitive)

2. Cold emails to universities

3. General social media posts without emotion tracking visuals

Current Strategy

We're focusing on differentiating through our emotion tracking feature:

- Creating video content showing real emotion analysis during interviews

- Building case studies with actual improvement metrics

- Partnering with career coaches who can validate the technology

- Targeting communities where interview anxiety is openly discussed

Looking for Advice

1. How do you market a feature (emotion tracking) that needs to be experienced to be understood?

2. Should we focus on B2C (job seekers) or B2B (career coaches/universities)?

3. Any experience with marketing to anxious job seekers without being predatory?

4. What channels would you explore that we might have missed?

Current Metrics

- 1,200 signups

- 300 active users

- 18% weekly retention

- NPS: 42

- $0 spent on ads

Next Steps

Planning to:

- Launch a free tier focused on emotion tracking only

- Create educational content about non-verbal communication

- Build partnerships with bootcamps

- Develop an affiliate program for career coaches

Would love to hear your thoughts, especially from those who've marketed B2C tools successfully. How would you approach growing this?

Edit: The comments have been incredibly helpful! Based on your feedback, I've started working on a freemium model and reaching out to career counselors. Will post updates!