A question for solo / early-stage founders
Would you prefer to have a startup mentor if it was budget-friendly?
I am starting episolo.com, a platform for early-stage startups to find affordable & experienced startup mentors. I suffered a lot from being a solo founder, and my mentor worked like magic for me. But it was very difficult for me to find one suitable for my budget. I realized there were many experienced people either mentored before or want to mentor, but they didn't have access to people who need such a service.
What is your opinion about such a platform? I am open to any type of feedback, really appreciate it!
Solo founders often carry every responsibility themselves, which makes prioritization incredibly important.
The biggest challenge isn't usually lack of ideas, it's deciding what deserves attention right now.
Curious what has been the hardest part of your journey so far.
Yeah, I think I would be interested. What's the price point?
Hey Steven! Thanks for your comment.
The product is currently on beta, and 20$ is just the minimum price asked per session by our current mentors. But we haven't decided our payment model yet, whether it will be either a subscription or commission-based one. We want to decide it later after free-mentoring sessions, based on the feedbacks.
Cool, I’ll probably give it a go.
It looks like a cool idea... However, $20/30min makes me seriously doubt about those mentors... Freelancers charge more, I would expect mentors to deliver a higher added value than that...
Also, I would say who the mentors are... Because of how the website looks, I would say there is only one mentor, and the 'become a mentor' button, gives the feeling of a marketplace, not that you scouted the mentors.
Anyways, good luck, it can become an interesting idea!
Hey Aquiles, thanks for the great feedback!
Actually $20 was the minimum price asked per session by one of our mentors. But now I see that putting the lowest-price is not a good way to attract customers, even for the low-budget solopreneurs. There should be good indicators on the landing page such as the quality of our mentors, not the lowness of the price.
"Become a mentor" button should be actually sth like "Apply to become a mentor", definitely agree with it. It is simply registering and then becoming a mentor. I just wanted to open a gate for other possible mentors, that's why put a simple form for now. But it seems it may be misleading.
Thanks a lot for your good wishes. Hope I can make it!
58% of our mentors have PhD on their field - should I care?
70% have their own startups, so I'm likely to get one that never worked on startups?
I think the question before I'm gonna signup is like "who?" am I going to be talking too... to me that seems to be the main question, and the page is fairly vague on that.
"Cancel any time." am I starting a subscription?
Possibly the story here for the service is, founder-mentor fit, cheap doesn't make it all just fit.
It's a bit like a dating thing...
GL, keep us posted.
Thanks for the great feedback!
PhD seems important for technical mentoring, as it was one of the questions I received most during the early-customer interviews: "What is the academic qualifications for a mentor in ML?" for instance. But for non-technical areas, agree, definitely you shouldn't care.
By "70% have their startups" I was trying to say "they work/worked in their own startups", not in someone else's startup. There are many startup mentors out there, who never experienced of the difficulties of having a startup, and I don't see any value of getting help from such people tbh.
"Cancel any time" is meaningless, I agree. The payment model is not fully determined, we will decide it based on the free-session feedbacks. This information doesn't explain anything, it's unnecessary for now.
Cheap doesn't make it fit, agree. I will be focusing on the quality of the service more. I will share a few mentors as headliners and focus on their values. I'll share the feedback they've received etc.
These are very valuable comments, thanks again! I will definitely keep you all posted!
Well, "70% have their startups" can be read in reverse "30% have no relationship to startups" (since a seller is likely to exaggerate statements and such, I'd assume somehow there is >50% chance I'd get someone who is not...)
If you say something like "100% built a startup at some point or X.."
It would resonate more IMHO.
Yeah, you're right. I haven't looked from that perspective. Thanks for this constructive feedback!
Hey, what did you use to build your landing page?
https://episolo.com/
Hey! I used a Jekyll template to build it.
Thanks!
You're welcome!
For most, a startup mentor is like snake oil. Avoid at all costs. Network with others and start a mastermind group.
I would use, but the pricing should be higher I guess
Definitely agree. It is not a general pricing policy. It is indeed the starting price. But it seems it is misleading.
As a pure soloprenuer, I wouldn't pay for a mentor.
Thanks for your comment Yaroslaw! Let's hope there may be others to pay for it :)
I am not sure whether I would go for another co-founder or a mentor if I suffered from solo. It depends also on the pricing as well.