AIBU to ask if you would pay for this?

[Sunflowers095]

I have a business idea but I wonder if there would actually be a demand. Essentially, I've been thinking a lot about how different backgrounds affect your ability to succeed professionally, as well as how graduates are struggling for work.

It would be a platform for women, the main idea is mentoring. So for example, a student (or someone looking for a career change) would have access to things like CV templates/reviews, forum, 1 on 1 calls with women who have experience/are accomplished in their careers and can act as a mentor.

This would exist as a free and premium version (mentoring would be premium).

It would be a partnership with the mentors directly (where they would be paid a fee) or an agreement with their company to have them represent the business as a mentor. The companies/mentors would benefit by having younger people with skills but no experience provide ideas/small projects. A bit like a competition but the company can use winning ideas.

I am yet to iron out exactly the details but want to validate it first. Personally I would pay for a service like this & I think new generations are less family oriented and more career driven.

It could make a great addition to the CV of the younger women as well as the mentors, serve as a community aimed at helping women succeed professionally.

If the premium version cost for example £20 would you buy it? Assuming it's a monthly rolling subscription that can be cancelled anytime and you can benefit from unlimited resources and a monthly mentoring call? Thanks in advance!

Get your hard hat on OP - this is AIBU. You may get some strong opinions on here and they won't all agree with you.

@Sunflowers095 I'm not here to be nasty. I'm being realistic. Someone asked you what your experience is to be able to build a model like this and you completely avoided the question.

A lot of people are giving you genuine advice and things to consider and you're dismissing them completely. You can't build a mentorship programme by completely dismissing people who may have experience is areas you may lack, like operations, marketing or finance.

I do also think you would have trouble getting the alot of companies on board with looking their staff out, in the hope these people come and work for them for a bit.n

No.
You’re hoping wc women pay for a mentor. TBH there is plenty free good advice out there
Seems unnecessary frankly

[quote girlmom21]@Sunflowers095 I'm not here to be nasty. I'm being realistic. Someone asked you what your experience is to be able to build a model like this and you completely avoided the question.

A lot of people are giving you genuine advice and things to consider and you're dismissing them completely. You can't build a mentorship programme by completely dismissing people who may have experience is areas you may lack, like operations, marketing or finance. [/quote]
I actually don't think you need to be the expert to own a business. Many successful business owners are not experts, they know how to use the expert's expertise.

With that said though, if relevant, I'm at director level in media and have mentoring experience.

I understand concerns on here about how this would work or if I'm qualified enough. But this is a completely hypothetical situation and an idea that might not be pursued at all if there's no demand. That's why the first question is would you pay for this.

How would you ensure that the mentees were not exploited? I know of several large tech companies who use mentoring to take on interns (unpaid) and have them dangling expectantly for years for a full time role that never materialises.

There are many charities and organisations that do this kind of thing already though - linking internship and mentoring opportunities to certain under represented groups.

There's also the danger that women have it tough in organisations and generally get landed with a ton of shitty admin already because 'they're good at it' and they get stuck with career support of others because they're token women so adding to that is not really benefiting the mentor unless they're senior enough to have taken a step back and have spare time to devote to it.

I've not read the full thread.

But no, I wouldn't pay for any kind of career subscription service like this. Firstly - £20 a month seems very expensive - especially as there's tons of free career advice online. What would you be offering that's not available on Google or various job recruitment sites?

Secondly, how would it be profitable? How many mentors would you have and how many subscribers would you need to be able to pay them all?

I'd be interested, I'm looking to change after years experience in health but have no idea which way to go so would love to talk to people in sectors I'm interested in. Might be good for people like me who just don't no and have no contacts in the industry they are interested in. I think you could charge more for mentoring though. Good luck

Thank you for all of the replies! Totally agree on all the points about challenges in making it work, the ready availability of free resources, etc.

Personally I have definitely noticed some kind of gap existing considering how many women struggle professionally but maybe my idea wouldn't help bridge that gap the way I would hope it would. Maybe I've just not been exposed to some of the resources mentioned by other posters or have just been personally unlucky in my career when I was starting out. Back to the drawing board it is!

My young adult DD is so confident that I don't think she'd want your random mentor support. She'd be keen enough about a mentor she met thru her professional contacts & approached directly, but not someone chosen by equivalent of a dating algorithm.

£20/month. Would your mentor get £10 of that? That's like 5-30 minutes of their time, right? Not very much, is it? Else they volunteer & you're just an intermediary, who does exactly what... the vetting? DD would trust personal recommendations & her own instincts to vet people over your service vetting.

I think new generations are less family oriented and more career driven

Some of us are neither family nor career driven.

I think a lot of young people tend to be quite resistant to the "women's network" groups. I know when I was starting out I didn't understand them. I thought my experience as a women in a STEM industry was exactly the same as any man's.

It was only 10 years later, when my peers started having children that I realised how wrong I had been, and the value of female support. So that aspect would have put me off.

I wouldn't have paid for mentoring, with no tangible value for money.

I work for very large organisation that deals with a lot of approaches from companies that offer training/ advice to young people. What would be a big no no for me is charging the mentees for the service.
You could charge the companies for a partnership but you really need to demonstrate that it’s different and to be honest if you’re looking at graduate level there are plenty of initiatives at universities that do exactly what you mention.

How will you build a pool of reputable credible mentors who want to work for you
Why would a mentor only have female mentees?

Look, I get the issue you’ve identified and it’s v worthy and yes an area for development

I came from a wc background into a profession and discrimination is overt and covert. What school one attended and what ones daddy does matter

@Claudia84

I work for very large organisation that deals with a lot of approaches from companies that offer training/ advice to young people. What would be a big no no for me is charging the mentees for the service. You could charge the companies for a partnership but you really need to demonstrate that it’s different and to be honest if you’re looking at graduate level there are plenty of initiatives at universities that do exactly what you mention.

This is so sad though. If there are so many resources why are so many young people absolutely clueless? I've heard this among my peers too when we first started out in our careers - no idea how promotions work, how to approach xyz, how to improve earning potential, etc. Maybe people just aren't using the free resources? I must be missing something

@Sunflowers095

Thank you for all of the replies! Totally agree on all the points about challenges in making it work, the ready availability of free resources, etc.

Personally I have definitely noticed some kind of gap existing considering how many women struggle professionally but maybe my idea wouldn't help bridge that gap the way I would hope it would. Maybe I've just not been exposed to some of the resources mentioned by other posters or have just been personally unlucky in my career when I was starting out. Back to the drawing board it is!

I don't think it's a bad idea. I mean I know people who pay £40 a month to be part of an online coven to be training in witch craft.

Now I am pagan and have seen their training an its really basic and can't make its mind up if its witch craft or pagan or both. And when you look at their Facebook page, thousands are paying it.

But I think before it can be decides wether it's viable, it needs some further thought and planning.

This is so sad though. If there are so many resources why are so many young people absolutely clueless? I've heard this among my peers too when we first started out in our careers - no idea how promotions work, how to approach xyz, how to improve earning potential, etc. Maybe people just aren't using the free resources? I must be missing something

My opinion is 2 reasons.

Firstly you don't know, what you don't know. So how do you search for it?

And when you do alot of the information is generic, fluffy and doesn't translate into people's real lives.

When faced with 100, 000 links about career advice its overwhelming. But non give advice that's personal. Or feed back.

It already exists, it's called Linkedin Premium, in house graduate mentoring schemes, professional registration mentoring schemes and most importantly university careers services.

women struggle professionally

This happens due to sexism, not because women do not access mentoring...

Admittedly, I am an accountant so I just want to know how this is a viable business.

A successful business isn’t just spotting a gap in the market, that’s not enough.

Another company you may be interested to look at is Psalt. They are a charity, offering support in a variety of ways, including mentoring.

my parents didn't have any experience or understanding of how corporate environments work

My mum was on disability benefits and my dad was a factory worker, so I think I’d have been your target audience, although I should say that I hated the mentoring and things from uni/graduate jobs aimed at people from poorer backgrounds.

But DHs parents had corporate careers, and to be honest, I don’t think that’s helped him… they’re quite out of date with their knowledge. For example, DHs dad has a final value pension. He had his whole career with the same business and thinks loyalty is massively valued.

I’m a part of a few professional organisations for my industry that offer mentoring but I’ve never used it. I’m a mentor on LinkedIn, but that’s free.

My instinct is that whether this works would depend on who you can recruit - for example; Google has its own mentorships; so might not get involved - and whether the people who need this enough to pay for it could pay for it.

For me, I’d probably keep paying for my professional organisations instead, as it also counts for CIPD, and is recognisable on my CV, etc.

There's lots of orgs in my industry that do this for free I'm afraid.

Who would pay mentors? Why would career women give up a lot of time to mentor if they don't get paid and its not a charity (since mentees would be paying a fee)? Also, unemployed graduates who can afford to pay time of a successful 'career' woman usually don't need that kind of help.

We already do this in my industry for free

I think there is mileage in the mentoring/leg up idea. But cut the "skill sharing angle". A subscription service maybe around the 5-10 pound a month mark with articles written by experts in certain fields, video lessons, motivational talks, monthly meet ups, etc.