Let's make mentorship abundant and even the playing field.
where we are today
We've helped hundreds of mentees network with leaders and mentors in their fields to grow their careers & open new doors.
We're particularly proud of our industry-leading interview coaching success rates:
🚀 To date, 93% of job searcher mentees have landed their dream jobs after working with our mentors.
✊🏻 ✊🏼 ✊🏽 ✊🏾 ✊🏿 The majority of Pocket Board users are immigrants and/or BIPOC.
💰 We've helped create more than $10MM in new generational wealth in historically underserved communities
where we're going
We're looking to scale our impact & expand our reach, in particular to women, non-binary, BIPOC, and immigrant populations.
We're lining up resources from incredible grant-making organizations to enable us to 🛠️ build, 🧪 test, and 🚀 launch capabilities to reach the people we think can benefit most from our network of mentors.
A few hypotheses 🤔 we'd like to test 🧪are listed below. Each is scoped at a high level and awaiting 💸 funding to unlock🔑:
Group Mentoring
What we know
synchronous human-to-human learning on our platform delivers outsized career growth
Our hypothesis
mentees in group settings benefit in multiple ways, including by from learning from others
What we'd build
mentor-led group sessions with cost-splitting
How we'd measure success
rate of utilization of group sessions
user feedback from group sessions
career outcomes from group session users
Scholarships
What we know
most of our mentee users come from underrepresented and/or underresourced backgrounds. Many of them struggle with a scarcity mindset or limited financial means, which makes it hard for them to realize the full benefit of the platform.
Our hypothesis
if we offer scholarships for populations that are particularly underserved, we can remove a major access barrier and drive to better career outcomes.
What we'd build
a scholarship application, plus front end, API, stored value, and backend capabilities to enable the concept of PB scholars.
How we'd measure success
engagement of selected scholars and their mentors
feedback from scholars & mentors
outcomes from scholars
Free Sessions
What we know
many mentors would like to offer free sessions, and many mentees would like to book these sessions
Our hypothesis
fundamentally, we believe that mentors should be compensated for their time and knowledge. To this end, we'd like to find two kinds of partners to fund this work. One partner would fund the sessions, enabling us to pay a fair market value for the services rendered. The second partner would be given that fair market price every time a free session is booked, and they would do good with the funds, ie remove CO2, plant a tree, clean water, deworm a child, donate med supplies, etc.
What we'd build
there would be a number of engineering projects needed to enable free sessions, from front-end, workflows, API, backend, and even accounting changes. But we think it's worth it!
How we'd measure success
engagement from mentors who offer free sessions & mentees who use them
net positive good achieved
Bundles
What we know
most mentees book multiple sessions with a single mentor, and mentors love when mentees come back!
Our hypothesis
mentors and mentees want to work together more frequently, and by offering bundled packages, mentees can
What we'd build
there would be a number of engineering projects needed to enable bundled sessions, from front-end, workflows, API, backend, and even accounting changes. But we think it's worth it!
How we'd measure success
number of mentees who book bundles
NPS score, review rating average, and /or review tone for mentees who book bundles vs single sessions
Calendar Integrations
What we know
right now, the single largest operational lift arises due to our current brittle calendar integrations, and it's a mentee pain point (reschedules, cancellations) as well as a mentor friction point (maintaining a separate calendar for PB)
Our hypothesis
if we make calendaring respectful and harmonious for mentors, we reduce our operational costs while increasing mentee trust and likely encourage additional mentorship supply
What we'd build
integrations to a central scheduling service that enables mentors to have multiple calendar authentication
How we'd measure success
mentor NPS on scheduling before vs after
Average weekly number of mentorship slots available per mentor (before and after)
Charitable Mentorship
What we know
many of our mentors want to offer mentorship at a fee (for mentees who have the means to afford it), but prefer to donate their earnings.
Our hypothesis
enabling mentors to donate their earnings will unlock new mentor archetypes and enable mentees to feel that their fees and supporting worthy causes
What we'd build
there are a number of accounting, taxation, and legal considerations for this feature. we would first investigate what is possible and what optimizes for mentor satisfaction and impact. Then, we'd implement.
How we'd measure success
new mentor sign-ups (# and reasoning for joining)
# of mentors who change their profiles to donate
mentee feedback on how much the mentor donation impacts their decision to choose a given mentor and/or to book a session at all.
do you know a grantmaker? are you a grantmaker? 👀
please, reach out to erika@pocketboard.co
We're so excited to get started on this roadmap, and all we need to unleash these projects is 💸 funding and 🫱🏽🫲🏿 partnership!