Case snapshot

Product: EasyCV (简单简历) — an online resume builder for internet professionals
Person: Zhang Xuan (Viking), indie maker
Launched: around August 2022
Public figures (author’s posts): in ~1.5 months after launch, ~220 signups, ~250 resumes, ~21 paid (incl. lifetime); after adding ~¥20 quarterly plans, they reached about one-third of paying users; monthly revenue stepped through ~¥2.1k / ¥3k / ¥4.3k; later, peak season ~¥5–6k, promo highs ~¥10k, off-season ~¥3–4k; after ~3 years, ~30k users and income continued with little promotion.

Many makers’ first instinct for a small tool is: make it SaaS, charge monthly, add an annual plan if possible.

EasyCV started that way too.

Then Zhang noticed something plain: people do not seriously work on resumes twelve months a year. Most need one in a burst—edit, apply, interview—then barely touch it once they land a job.

So annual pricing was not merely “too expensive.” The billing period did not match the period when users actually need the product.

He dropped annual and added quarterly pricing aligned with a job hunt. The annual tier almost nobody bought was soon replaced by quarterly as a real revenue line.

It looks like a price-table tweak. The business logic changed:

Don’t make users fit your pricing. Fit pricing to when they actually need you.

1. Don’t build “everyone’s resume tool”

Resume products scale easily in the imagination: students, engineers, designers, sales, teachers, lawyers—endless templates. One person cannot serve all of that well.

Zhang cut a clear niche: internet professionals he already knew. Teaching frontend, he saw a pattern—strong skills, weak resumes. Generic templates often just restyle Word docs; they miss how tech people show projects and share links.

The user path stays short:

Pick a template → fill experience → tweak style → download / share → apply

Big products ask what else they can do. Small tools should ask: what does this user need to finish? EasyCV did not become a “career OS.” It helped someone job-hunting ship a resume they can send. Scope for product, users, and pricing starts there.

2. The first users were already nearby

No ad spend first. The first cohort came from existing circles: students, peers, content and social followers.

The question was not “how many people in China need resumes?” It was:

“Will the internet people I already know actually build a resume here?”

About 10 seed users came first; launch then rode personal brand and social reach. More important: people did more than sign up.

In First 300 users: from about Aug 19 to end of September, ~220 signups, ~250 resumes, ~21 paid (incl. lifetime)—near a 10% pay rate.

Signups show interest. Finishing a resume and paying starts to show a business.

3. The real issue: people used it—why didn’t annual sell?

The problem was not “nobody pays.” It was: why is annual so weak?

Like many indie makers, he shipped subscriptions—monthly, annual, lifetime—because everyone talks MRR and retention. Users don’t. They know: I’m job hunting for a couple of months; after I get an offer, I may not touch a resume for half a year or more.

Selling a year means asking them to prepay for demand that may never return.

Product assumption	User reality
Long-term subscription	I’m only job hunting now
Annual is a better deal	I don’t know when I’ll need this again
Keep the membership	I may never open it after I get hired

Annual failing often means wrong timing, not only wrong price.

4. Drop annual, add quarterly

The change was simple: remove annual, add quarterly.

In the ~¥2,000 MRR post: quarterly at about ¥20 (roughly one-third off) quickly became about one-third of paying users—far above the near-empty annual tier.

Why it worked: “I’m job hunting now; one quarter is enough”—a lighter ask than “become a year-long member.”

Before: subscribe? → will I use it all year? → probably not → no.
After: job hunting → need it for a month or two → buy a quarter → enough.

Price barely moved. Billing finally matched usage.

5. Many small tools should not force annual SaaS

It’s easy to copy $9/mo → $99/yr → MRR → ARR and assume you must too.

Usage cycles differ: email and project tools may be daily; resumes cluster around job hunts; tax once a year; weddings, store launches, exams are seasonal.

Force long subscriptions onto seasonal needs and you raise friction. Ask when users need you most—not how someone else’s SaaS bills.

EasyCV’s answer: job-hunt windows → quarterly beats annual.

6. Flat months are normal

After the pricing change, revenue did not climb every month. It moved with the hiring calendar.

Public posts show steps around ¥2k → ¥3k → ¥4k; later peak season ~¥5–6k, promo highs ~¥10k, soft months clearly lower.

When nobody is hiring, who rushes a resume? Peak demand → more pay; off-season → less. That is a seasonal business, not a broken product.

7. Accepting seasonality makes solo life easier

Treat it like classic SaaS and every dip triggers panic: more features, deeper discounts, ads, campaigns.

Once you admit the usage cycle, the playbook is simple:

• Peak: conversion, product polish, promos
• Off-season: content, SEO, fixes, prep for the next peak

The curve need not look pretty. It needs to be understandable: earn enough in season, keep costs low off-season.

8. Acquisition: from people you know to people searching

Early strength was an existing tech audience. Personal reach cannot stay the only channel forever. Content and search carried more of the long game.

People search how to write a programmer resume, frontend templates, Golang/React samples, how to describe projects… Useful pages on those queries can land them in EasyCV.

Acquisition shifts from “friends / social → product” toward “search a problem → sample or guide → build → pay.” Ads die when you stop paying; good content keeps sending people. Content is not just marketing—it is acquisition.

Someone arrives for “how to write a programmer resume,” notices they can build one here, and later leaves searchable samples behind. One strong page can work for a long time—ideal for a solo maker.

9. Why one person can run it for years

The scale is not flashy. That is the point: not dozens of hires or huge ad budgets.

The structure is light: clear audience → focused product → clear usage window → search-friendly content → billing matched to usage → low fixed cost.

Later, with much less promotion, the year-end note put users around 30k, with income still seasonal. Not a unicorn story—often more useful: many people want a few thousand or tens of thousands a month without babysitting the product every day. EasyCV shows that shape is possible.

10. Don’t copy “quarterly”—copy the question

The shallow takeaway is “resume tools should sell quarterly.”

The real lesson: see when users need you, then choose how to charge.

• Daily use → monthly can fit
• A few months in a row → quarterly can fit
• Once a year → per-use or a short window can fit
• One-and-done → buyout can beat subscription

Pricing is not a template. It should grow out of how people actually use the thing.

11. Three easy mistakes in small businesses

1. Treating subscription as the “advanced” model.
Not every product needs MRR. Forcing long plans on short-lived needs only adds friction.

2. Reading every revenue dip as failure.
Seasonal demand means seasonal revenue. Prefer “is this peak better than last year’s peak?” over “was this month higher than last month?”

3. Hunting a stranger megamarket first.
First users are often people you know → an industry you know → an audience you already have. For solos, that beats “a platform for everyone.”

Close

What EasyCV got right was not “another resume generator.” It was a shift: design for SaaS fantasy first, then redesign the business around real life—quarterly for job-hunt windows; acquisition gradually handed to content and search; seasonality accepted so peaks earn and troughs maintain.

One map of the business:

Clear audience (internet job seekers)
        │
        ▼
One concrete job (ship an apply-ready resume)
        │
        ▼
Heavy use inside the job-hunt window
        │
        ▼
Pay when it matters (quarterly aligned to that window)
        │
        ▼
Content / search keep bringing new users
        │
        ▼
Low fixed cost → one person can run it for years

The line to keep is not “switch annual to quarterly.” It is:

Don’t pick a business model and force users into it. Learn when they need you and for how long—then decide how to charge.

For a small tool, matching billing, usage, and acquisition usually beats shipping more features.

Product

• EasyCV