Support for launching and growing a tech career for underrepresented folks. Connect with mentors in product management, software engineering, or product design.
Looks great except for one bit about mentors not getting anything in return for their work. I get it would be hard to create a monetization scheme for it, but it looks to me that a big part of the value this app has comes from them, which means their participation is a core component for you system to work and that can hardly be maintained on prestige alone.
All the best!
Hey! @luis_carlos_moyano_medina - thanks for the thoughts! This is actually a common misconception. The mentors get a lot of real experience and broaden their network in a way that directly improves their current jobs and future job prospects:
- They use it to learn new skills by helping people with real problems and challenges
- Diversify their own network beyond folks at their job and existing referrals
- Learn about real people and problems beyond their own
Many of our mentors are senior individual contributors, who are interested in exploring management in a lightweight manner, or early managers who are looking to meet more folks and learn about more real-world scenarios. The experience of mentoring others directly helps them learn these skills and apply them to their real life.
Hope this answers your question!
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@luis_carlos_moyano_medina@randolphebrown I second this! Putting aside the "paying it forward", which also contributes to why I am on Merit, someone you mentor now might be an excellent hire in the future or might be a lead in a job search or a connection to solve a problem.
Hey Product Hunt - excited to be here!
My co-founder @kirk_fernandes and I started Merit because we believe that mentorship is the most effective way to build your network and career.
I previously built a diversity recruiting platform and saw many people leave promising jobs and opportunities because they didn’t know where to go next and didn’t have the support system to help guide them.
Kirk previously was a product manager and leader at big tech companies and startups. He saw that the most effective way to expand people’s careers was to broaden their network and horizons.
We started working together because we thought that the best way to improve tech was give everyone—especially those in tech without an existing network—a way to grow their craft, career, and confidence. You can read more about how we got started on our blog: https://blog.get-merit.com/the-s...
🤝 We connect curious, eager members with mentors who want to impact the tech industry for the better. Our vision is a real meritocracy for the tech industry, and we’ll get there, one conversation at a time.
📹 For those looking to learn, Merit is an easy way to connect with senior mentors in the field for 1:1 video calls. In seconds, you can browse topics and mentors to:
- Navigate a promotion
- Job search
- Career switch
- Learn skills
🤲 And for mentors, Merit is an easy way to:
- Hone your own skills by teaching others
- Broaden and diversify your network
- Give back to tech at large
We make it easy to help relevant people while putting in place controls so your conversations remain focused.
We feel we are are best positioned to help the careers of those working in product management, product design, or software engineering in the US and Canada. We’re looking to expand to additional markets in the future.
Happy to answer any questions!
Best,
Randy
Congrats on the launch!
For anyone who's new here, I've been on multiple mentorship platforms, and it's a hard problem to solve. Every platform has tried to solve this by paying mentors or passing on the cost to employers, and it's led to a cesspool of self-promotional platforms.
Merit is different — their structure creates meaningful mentor/mentee relationships, and it's been the best way to pay it forward as a mentor, while getting to know other awesome folks in tech. It seems simple to say, but my interactions on Merit are purposeful, and I'm excited to see how they go.
@arj_shiv thanks for all of the support and being a mentor! And yes, this is exactly what we're going for. The goal is to create purposeful professional conversations. By finding a way to align incentives for mentors and mentees we believe this is the best way to enable that for everyone.
Amazing product that helped catapult my career after moving to NYC and going full-remote in 2019. The conversations that I had with @randolphbrown and @kirk_fernandes helped me cement what sort of engineer I wanted to be and the explorations I needed to continue in regarding my career path. Definitely recommend this platform to both prospective mentees as well as mentors who want to share their career insights!
Congrats Kirk and Randy! It’s a fantastic product for people looking to learn how to transition into different tech roles or to level up. Excited for your launch!
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