Everyone deserves an Uncle Bob.

“My first job search was brutal.”

I was a first-generation immigrant who paid my own way through college. I did everything right: learned real skills and worked hard.

When the internships didn’t come, I started asking whether the degree was worth more tuition and more loans. That doubt showed up long before graduation. It changed how I felt about staying enrolled. Then I graduated and kept getting rejected.

My roommate finally told me: “Rod, you have to play the game.” The skills you need to get a job are different from the skills you need to do the job. Nobody taught me that.

Some kids have an Uncle Bob. A family member who walks them through everything: how to write a resume, how to network, what to say when the interviewer asks about your weaknesses. The rest of us figure it out alone, or not at all.

I became a career coach at a technology bootcamp. Same story, different scale. Incredibly talented people struggling to land a job because nobody showed them how. The institution had good intentions but no bandwidth. Spreadsheets, one-off advice, and way too many students for too few advisors.

I started building Prentus in my apartment during COVID. The idea was simple: what if every student had an Uncle Bob? Not a chatbot. Not a portal nobody logs into. An actual agent that reviews your resume, preps you for interviews, and follows up when you go quiet.

That’s what Prentus does. The mission hasn’t changed since day one: the guidance that used to depend on your last name should depend on nothing at all.