S
M
MentorCruise
Login Join Starter Story
Source
Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 31 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
MentorCruise logo

How MentorCruise Grew

Mentorship marketplace connecting aspiring professionals with industry experts.

How did MentorCruise grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

MentorCruise initially grew through content marketing and SEO, leveraging blog posts and organic traffic from search engines, which led to backlinks and visitors from sources like Reddit. Word of mouth also played a significant role, especially as prominent industry mentors joined and their networks brought more traffic and bookings. More recently, MentorCruise has invested in paid advertising on platforms like Meta and Google, spending around $1,000 per month and aiming to push growth further. Additionally, the company sustains growth through a combination of an affiliate program, a referral scheme for mentors, encouraging mentors to share more, and maintaining a community blog.

Channels

10 channels · grouped by how MentorCruise grows

  • Word of mouth

    · 5 mentions · 4 sources
    “Teams is something that happened almost naturally over the past couple of years, which is what happens is a mentee signs up for Mentor Cruise as a mentor, has a really good experience, goes to their boss and says like, hey, I'm getting tremendous amount of professional value out of this. Would yo...”
    high
    Show 4 more quotes
    “But in the end, it’s all about the service. The fact that existing mentors tell their coworkers and friends. The fact that mentees write about us and tell their friends. It’s a nice network effect where every new mentor usually also attracts other mentees and mentors.”
    high
    “As a marketplace, MentorCruise always had a certain level of virality and word of mouth built in. This was only accelerated when many of the mentors that joined were prominent members of the industry. Once their networks would find out that they were available as a mentor, we got some more traffi...”
    high
    “As a marketplace, MentorCruise always had a certain level of virality and word of mouth built in. This was only accelerated when many of the mentors that joined were prominent members of the industry. Once their networks would find out that they were available as a mentor, we got some more traffi...”
    high
    “Right at the beginning, it was really just the quality of mentors. The fact that they came with a network and just kind of encouraging them to share that they're available now...a lot of people brought the first few mentees from their networks. That was kind of the initial flywheel.”
    high

  • SEO

    · 4 mentions · 3 sources
    “I had a solid background as a technical writer. So the first real traction channel that opened up was content marketing and SEO. I simply started blogging through my own product, which led to some first backlinks and visitors from other sources, like Reddit. I realized that SEO would become and s...”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “Turns out, their mentor profile got indexed by Google and when they were researching about this known developer figure, they found the offering and took the chance. So, I’d say this was probably how we got our first 10 paying customers.”
    high
    “I had a solid background as a technical writer. So the first real traction channel that opened up was content marketing and SEO. I simply started blogging through my own product, which led to some first backlinks and visitors from other sources, like Reddit. I realized that SEO would become and s...”
    high
    “And that's definitely the case for us as well. And at times, I think it always scales a little bit at the same time, just because our marketing channels are kind of the same, which is like word of mouth and SEO.”
    high

  • Advertising on social media

    · 3 mentions · 2 sources
    “Today, we do a lot to sustain our growth and momentum. We have a new affiliate program, we run a referral scheme for mentors, we do paid ads, we ask mentors to share more, we have a community blog and incentivize mentors to do well.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “Only this year, we also started investing in paid ads through Meta and Google. We’re currently spending $1,000 per month on these and are usually around break-even, with lots of potential to push further.”
    high
    “Only this year, we also started investing in paid ads through Meta and Google. We’re currently spending $1,000 per month on these and are usually around break-even, with lots of potential to push further.”
    high

  • Organic social media

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “what worked much better than cold email was Twitter DMs for me. So I ended up investing a lot of time and effort into that just because you at least have a face there.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “we ask mentors to share more, we have a community blog and incentivize mentors to do well.”
    high

  • Referral Program

    · 1 mention
    “Today, we do a lot to sustain our growth and momentum. We have a new affiliate program, we run a referral scheme for mentors, we do paid ads, we ask mentors to share more, we have a community blog and incentivize mentors to do well.”
    high

  • Pay Per Click Advertising

    · 1 mention
    “And then somewhere along the line just got kind of overtaken by actual marketing strategies, which was like SEO at the start, later on email marketing, paid ads, all of that.”
    high

  • Webinars

    · 1 mention
    “We've been doing a lot of free webinars as well where people join, do a live stream, and you can spend an hour with an expert, not in a one-on-one setting, but you can ask some questions and maybe get a bit of a better insight.”
    high

  • Email marketing

    · 1 mention
    “And then somewhere along the line just got kind of overtaken by actual marketing strategies, which was like SEO at the start, later on email marketing, paid ads, all of that.”
    high

  • Affiliate program

    · 1 mention
    “Today, we do a lot to sustain our growth and momentum. We have a new affiliate program, we run a referral scheme for mentors, we do paid ads, we ask mentors to share more, we have a community blog and incentivize mentors to do well.”
    high

  • Partnerships

    · 1 mention
    “So I call it marketing, but the tasks vary quite a bit, anything from like actually publishing SEO blog posts, which are probably marketing and reviewing paid ads to having like a partnerships call, doing a podcast, stuff like that.”
    high

How 2,722 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — MentorCruise’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    69% ◀
  • Social media
    60% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    57% ◀
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    34%
  • Content/Inbound
    33%
  • Partnerships
    31% ◀
  • Paid ads
    24% ◀
  • Events
    24% ◀
  • Press/PR
    18%
  • Outbound/Sales
    16%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    9%
  • Product expansion
    2%
  • Influencer partnerships
    2%