„SWEET & SOUR” #2: MENTESSA

HOW TO START YOUR BUSINESS & AND NOT START YOUR BUSINESS

Starting your own business can be the best and worst thing happening to you. Potentially even at the same time. „Sweet & Sour” is a series about Wayra startups. Learn from other’s mistakes. Benefit from their experience.

Meet: Tina, founder of Mentessa, a business matchmaking application and mentoring software.

It´s like Tinder for business! Mentessa is a matchmaking app that enables people at work to find just the right expert at the right time — for mentoring or exchange in general. Call it the #mentoring revolution!

Tina, why did you start your own business, and what has been your biggest challenge so far?

As an experienced entrepreneur, I have spent the last ten years in dozens of mentoring programs, both in the startup and corporate environments. It disturbed me that until today, people get matched manually, by a third-person, limited by bias, hierarchy, or their formal roles. The whole process is “facilitated” by countless emails, appointment finding, and too much hustle standing in the way of what it is about — connecting the right people at the right time so that they can grow together. Just imagine what would work be like if this was possible!

The most challenging job for the team right now is to prioritize and focus on the right feature subset to develop first. Mentoring, diversity, collaboration, culture, talent development … there are so many areas where the right match could make the difference.

What’s your advice for starting a business?

Whatever you do — do it on purpose. Deliberately and to create a better world for all of us.

What’s the most annoying advice you get over and over again?

Hehe! As a founder of a mentoring startup? For me, the advice is a conscious effort to offer help, so I don’t find any advice annoying. But there is the art of “commenting around” which does not create much value.

Please show us your digital fingerprint: take a screenshot of your frequently used emojis.

Do you want to join the #mentoring revolution? Do you want to find the right mentor in your company? Do you want to offer that within your organization? In whatever constellation you are and whatever questions you have:

Get in touch with Tina and find more about Mentessa

Originally published at https://medium.com on September 5, 2019.