A new website offering free one-to-one mentoring for budding and existing entrepreneurs was launched today.
horsesmouth.co.uk is an online mentoring community which allows users to share their experiences on a wide range of topics in a safe and anonymous environment.
The site’s search functionality allows business owners to locate mentors who have first-hand experience of the issues they need help with, be it starting up, fundraising, marketing or business development. Business owners can also register as a mentor themselves to help others and list their own areas of expertise.
Users are given the opportunity to publish their conversations, through mutual consent, in the hope that the site will eventually become a substantial information bank, said founder MT Rainey.
“I was inspired by the idea of Web 2.0 and peer-to-peer communication to create something to do good and transform big areas of public service provision, such as careers advice, into something more scalable and fit for purpose,” said Rainey.
“I really believe that the knowledge and experience people carry around with them is a huge untapped resource, if eBay is about the stuff you’ve got locked up in the attic, then horsesmouth is about the stuff you’ve got locked up in your head and heart,” she added.
Business owner Andy Pickles, chief executive of u-xplore, is currently mentoring through the site and has recently advised a 23-year-old who is about to join her family business and a man looking to set up his own IT firm.
Pickles said he liked the fact that mentors can control how much time they spend on the site and the number of messages they receive, so they can turn it up and down as it suits them.
horsesmouth is currently partnering with a number of organisations which specialise in entrepreneurship, such as Everywoman and Make Your Mark, which will also offer mentors.
Currently funded by The Edge Foundation and the charity v, the site will function as a social enterprise once it reaches sustainability and is looking to generate revenue through sponsorship and licensing the platform to other organisations.
Following the launch of the beta site eight months ago, the site, now officially launched, already has 4,500 registered users, of which 2,000 have signed up as mentors.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008