Scale Up

What makes a good mentor? And what should you do to be a good mentee? In our final episode of Level Up, we'll answer these questions and talk about how to get started with your own mentorship relationship.

We're joined by Lucy Lloyd, Co-founder of Mentorloop, which is an online matchmaking site for mentoring relationships. She shares the lessons she's learned from observing hundreds of mentorship relationships in action.

In an interesting twist, however, we learn that Lucy's own relationship with her mentor isn't the formal relationship you might expect from someone who runs a business focused on mentoring. Sure, Lucy and her mentor Aaron Wallis guide each other through some tricky business challenges, but they also like to enjoy a few cheeky wines along the way.

Katy Stevens had already built a career working in Customer Success (with experience in huge corporations like Microsoft) when she met her future mentor, Didier Elzinga. Little did she know, Didier was about to make her question everything …

She took a role working at Culture Amp; a homegrown, Melbourne-based, high-growth technology start-up. But Katy ended up getting more than she bargained for.

Some might find Didier's mentoring methods a little challenging. But Katy credits her success to those moments, and she's thankful for being pushed to new heights. She credits her relationship with Didier as a driving factor in her success today.

Today's episode captures one of the more unique styles of mentoring relationships — 'co-mentoring'.

Mark and Marty are, independently, two very successful entrepreneurs. And they've joined forces to leverage the power of co-mentoring one another.

But … their relationship began under some pretty unique circumstances as well. It all started when Mark turned up to a job interview at Marty's company wearing a neck brace. As it turns out, he'd broken his neck.

With success comes unexpected challenges. And Renee found this out the hard way …

Renee Moore is the Founder and CEO of Cinch Skin, a multi-award-winning skincare brand that exploded onto the shelves of Priceline — one of Australia's largest beauty retailers. But when Cinch Skin grew 400% in a short space of time, Renee realised she needed some help.

So she turned to SBE Australia, an organisation which supports and accelerates women-led business through programmes and mentorship. This is where she met her mentor, Jodie Imam. After bonding over sleepless nights and the unique challenges women face in business, Renee and Jodie soon decided to make their business relationship official.

Kinfolk is a social enterprise cafe that provides training and work experience for people in marginalised communities. It was started by Jarrod Briffa, who's lack of hospitality experience often led to struggles. Enter Paul McConville, a loyal customer at Kinfolk, and a hospitality industry veteran.

It wasn't uncommon for challenges to be afoot at Kinfolk. But one day, after the power tripped out yet again, Paul decided that Kinfolk needed a bit of help.

Paul began to help out, and eventually became Jarrod's mentor. But what he didn't expect was the impact this experience would have on him. In this episode, you'll hear how Paul and Jarrod have been inspiring one another, both professionally and personally, for over ten years.