Mentorpedia: A Journey of Building, Learning, and Growth
Role: Founder, Product Designer, and Team Leader
Timeline: January 2024 – April 2025
Website: mentorpedia.io
Status: Closed
The Vision
Mentorpedia wasn’t just an idea; it was my passion brought to life. It was born out of a deeply personal desire to create something meaningful—a platform where mentorship was accessible to anyone, anywhere.
I had experienced firsthand the challenges of navigating life’s crossroads without proper guidance. I wanted to build a solution that could bridge that gap—a place where students, professionals, and dreamers could find mentors who believed in their potential and helped them realize it.
Our journey was even featured in an article by KaroStartup titled, Friends Turned Founders Amish Srivastava & Fahad Ali’s Mentorpedia is Revolutionizing Guidance for Dreamers. The article captured the heart of our mission and the passion that drove us forward.
My Role: Wearing Many Hats
Building Mentorpedia was an all-encompassing journey. As the founder, I wore multiple hats and embraced each challenge with determination and a hunger to learn.
Product Designer
Designed every aspect of the platform, ensuring it was simple yet powerful for users.
Conducted deep user research to understand pain points and crafted an intuitive experience.
Developed features like:
Customizable Mentor Profiles for showcasing expertise.
Session Management for booking mentorship calls effortlessly.
Secure Payments for a seamless transaction experience.
Feedback System to continually improve mentor-mentee interactions.
Every pixel and every interaction was crafted with love, hoping it would make a difference in someone’s journey.
Sales and Marketing
Took on the role of a salesperson, pitching our vision to mentors, mentees, and investors alike.
Launched campaigns that resonated with our audience and onboarded early users who believed in our mission.
Learned the art of storytelling—how to communicate the why behind Mentorpedia and inspire others to join us.
Finding Product-Market Fit
This was the toughest part of the journey. We poured our hearts into understanding our users, iterating the product, and experimenting with business models.
Some ideas clicked; others didn’t. Every step taught us something new about the market and ourselves.
Team Management
Led a small but passionate team, ensuring everyone was aligned with our vision.
Navigated the highs and lows of leadership—hiring people who became family and making difficult decisions when resources ran thin.
The Journey: A Mix of Highs and Lows
There were moments of triumph—like launching mentorpedia.io, raising a seed round, and hearing users tell us how Mentorpedia had changed their lives. Those moments felt like pure magic, validating the countless hours of hard work.
But there were also moments of heartbreak—when our ideas didn’t resonate as expected, when we struggled to scale, and when we finally realized that finding product-market fit wasn’t just a challenge but a wall we couldn’t overcome.
Closing Mentorpedia was one of the hardest decisions of my life. It felt like saying goodbye to a part of myself.
What Mentorpedia Gave Me
Despite the closure, Mentorpedia wasn’t a failure—it was the most profound learning experience of my life. It transformed me as a person and as a professional, teaching me lessons I’ll carry forever:
Empathy for Users: I learned to deeply understand people—their struggles, their needs, and their aspirations.
Adaptability: The importance of iterating, pivoting, and never giving up, no matter how tough things get.
Resilience: How to navigate uncertainty and come out stronger on the other side.
Leadership: The joy and responsibility of guiding a team and making decisions that affect their lives.
Reflections
Mentorpedia was more than a platform; it was a dream that touched lives and left a mark. The connections it fostered, the journeys it enabled, and the lessons it taught me are its true legacy.
As I move forward, I carry the spirit of Mentorpedia with me—the belief that no dream is too big, no failure is the end, and every step forward is an opportunity to learn, grow, and build something new.
This chapter of my life shaped me in ways I never imagined, and while Mentorpedia’s story has ended, my journey as a builder is just beginning.
