At GrowthMentor HQ we are all about the yin and the yang.

Keeping both sides happy on a two-sided marketplace can be tough.

The two main things we are focusing on with this feature is ensuring that our members can get 1:1 advice from amazing mentors at reasonable pricing AND respecting the mentor’s time and compensating them for it.

Our Give First Pricing Model does a pretty good job of taking care of both of the aforementioned concerns.

  • Growth Mentors are able to charge money for their sessions once they have three reviews
  • Mentors are only allowed to charge over $100 per hour once they have ten reviews

Before I go into details about our thought process, I just want to say that there have been ZERO issues with this.

Members have never complained about high pricing nor have the mentors on the platform had a problem with giving their time for free.

It’s all pretty zen around here (probably because of Dani Hart and her breathing exercises).

Problems

Offering world class advice for people in every sociodemographic category

Not everyone has a budget for a growth team or even for one person solely dedicated to marketing.

Are these folks out of luck when it comes to getting quality guidance because they can’t afford to pay hefty consultancy fees?

If there are bright, industry leaders who are willing to give some of their time for free- we want everyone around the world to be able to tap into it.

Living in a remote area of the world with no startup community?  No problemo!

This has been the BEST mentor call I’ve had on GM so far. So so much value dropped in a short period of 45min call. Problems identified, solutions and action items implemented ready for me to take away. Offered extensive knowledge in the ecom space, offered further assistance after the call. Highly recommended. I’d pay thousands just to work with Mark! Definitely worth the free sessions. Appreciate the time and effort put into it.

 Jeff Cheng

Experienced professionals usually charge a lot of money

With this new model, members can schedule calls with super experienced mentors for free while the mentor is building up their reviews.

One day you might be scrolling the mentor feed and 24 hours later you find yourself on a Skype call with the growth lead at Mozilla Firefox who just joined the platform.

Talking through the issues you are facing with someone at that level (for free) is pretty amazing.

Wow! Agata has real-world experience and knowledge about so many important aspects of growth marketing. And she is super friendly and genuinely cares about helping. Thank you Agata for your generosity!

 Sammy James

Maintaining a ‘genuinely want to help’ vibe

Anybody can say they want to help and give back, but this feature is coded into our platform so it literally enforces ‘giving first’.

We want to ensure that the mentors we have on the platform are here because they are interested in sharing their knowledge and helping others.  This is an extra little nudge that we’re serious about giving first- not just saying it.

I didn’t know what to ask before the call, but Andrew was incredibly patient and willing to get things going with a few questions of his own. I felt like he understood the problems we are facing and had experiences to share within the first 5 minutes! We didn’t waste any time, but I never felt rushed. I can away from the call with a clear and simple methodology for prioritizing new features, several new pieces of software to test, and a new step to add to our onboarding process (which I’ve already added). It was clear that Andrew loves giving back to the community, and I can’t express how much I enjoy being part of that community! I’m looking forward to sending Andrew an update once I’ve had a chance to implement all of his advice.

 Duncan Hamra

Compensating busy mentors for their time

People got bills to pay, we get that!  With this pricing model, if mentors choose to charge for their time, they are welcome to do so after they hit three reviews.

Why three reviews?

Trial period: As cool as we thinking mentoring is, it is not for everyone.  Maybe the mentor doesn’t like it and it doesn’t feel natural for them- this is a good trial period to test the waters.

Social proof: Having those reviews on their profile shows members what they can talk to this mentor about and how their previous sessions went.

It’s friendly: Again- that whole helping others thing.  It feels good to share knowledge with others especially when you are helping someone out who is under financial constraints and doesn’t have many resources.

What’s up with 10 reviews before being able to charge over 100 bucks?

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we want to offer help to everyone.

Not everyone can afford $200 an hour to get help with their Facebook Ads.

If a mentor is doing a great job and gets shining review upon shining review- we want them to be able to be reimbursed for their time.

With ten reviews on your profile, you have proven that you are a valuable asset to our community, you can charge whatever you like.

Side Bonus

No Pitch Zone

We do our best to weed out mentor applicants who seem to only be interested in making an extra buck and scoring new clients.

This feature is a great thing to mention in the application process to be very transparent about what we are trying to achieve – world class advice, at reasonable pricing.

If someone is solely looking to widen their client base and charge high fees, they usually aren’t interested in putting in time for free.

We aren’t throwing shade on anyone who only wants to charge money for their time, it’s just not what we are going for here on this platform.

You can make it rain somewhere else.

 

But seriously, why are you doing this?

We put a huge emphasis on Human Relationships while building up GrowthMentor – it is even one of our core values.

So many people are caught up in ‘the race’- the race to funding, the race to acquisition, the race to the next career level, etc…

We’re not so interested in the above.  (Well I’m not at least- Foti on the other hand, it depends on the day of the week!)

GrowthMentor was built to give everyday people access to quality, personalized advice AND to connect those with the knowledge, to those who can greatly benefit from it.

#PeopleHelpingPeople

Current State of Affairs

This new policy is retro-active.  So if you had your eye on a mentor, but couldn’t afford them- have a scroll again and you just might find they are listed as free.

Free Growth Mentors 

Not a member?  You can play with the filters on the side to see more mentors in specific areas who are free 😉