Joan Westenburg: Welcome to the unfunded podcast, where we tell stories of founders building impactful and independent businesses without relying on venture capital or external funding. Unfunded is part of the day one podcast network dedicated to sharing the real startup stories to inspire founders, operators, and investors.

Joan Westenburg: Today I am

Joan Westenburg: joined by an incredible founder, I'm a big fan, Lucy Lloyd, who has built MentorLoop.

Joan Westenburg: Lucy, welcome.

Lucy Lloyd: Thank you for having me, Jane. Nice to be here.

Joan Westenburg: Today we're going to be diving a little bit into your story.

Joan Westenburg: So I'd love to start by just understanding how you came to build MentorLoop. And what the inspiration was to start this company, start this startup.

Lucy Lloyd: Sure. Thank you. I, my background before mentor loop wasn't necessarily traditional tech but I did fall into digital marketing and digital project management as well. But where mentor loop came from was my co founder. Heidi Holmes and I, we'd known each other forever. We actually had met, 25 years ago while we were at school.

Lucy Lloyd: And over a wine one night, we were discussing our careers, as you do with your friends our, the challenges you face, the, difficulty when you make a transition in your career, whether it's, to a new job or even, jumping over to a new industry. And we were wondering aloud why there wasn't a dating site for mentoring relationships, why there wasn't a way for you to connect with a future version of yourself to help you navigate when you're making those big changes in your careers.

Lucy Lloyd: And mentoring was really what we were talking about. And it was captured our imagination and we started to research the space and that's how mentor loop developed. So mentor loop is a platform that helps organizations build a mentoring culture for better productivity engagement and retention.

Lucy Lloyd: We work with companies, big corporates through to communities, industry bodies, universities, anyone with people, be they employees, members or students that they want to connect in development relationships. We were also really, motivated by access. We believe that the right connection can change your life and we wanted to make those connections more available to more people.

Lucy Lloyd: And by platforming mentoring, you open doors. As you mentioned gatekeeping, by platforming something you make it more visible and you remove some of those gates that prevent people from accessing those opportunities to connect.

Joan Westenburg: I'd love to talk minimum viable product for a moment. How did you first launch MentorLib and what did it look like at its inception?

Lucy Lloyd: Uh, so we we spent a lot of time on research first up. And so we did we had that kind of period of speaking to people running mentoring programs, so often up to their elbows in spreadsheets and emails. We would then go back to them with vaporware. So basically like a slideshow of what the products could look like, wireframes, and we talk them through that.

Lucy Lloyd: And eventually we got a customer who was, interested enough to almost like partner with us to build that, that MVP. And neither of us is a natural engineer. Neither of us, is a software engineer. And so we needed to engage an agency to build that first product. And so because we were tipping in our own money, and often one of us would take turns each month, one of us would put in money.

Lucy Lloyd: We, um, because we couldn't spend time building a feature bloat, but because we had this customer on board, we were able to focus in on the features that were most important to that customer and, build something that they could still use, despite the fact that it wasn't, the most beautiful product experience in the world.

Joan Westenburg: But you got it out there and you got it into the hands of the customer. And that

Lucy Lloyd: Exactly, got it out there and got paid for it, even though it was a terrible experience, it's still, it was still something that was valued by the customer.

Joan Westenburg: And so you had your first paying customer before you went to, to look into VC funding. Is that right?

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, that's absolutely right. So it took us a while, as I said, because we were tipping in a bit of our salaries each month from our full time jobs. But we, yeah, eventually had, by the time we started our first raise, we had three paying customers.

Joan Westenburg: Alright, and that first race, that was around 2017, am I right in

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, 2000, actually 2016. So it was a very, We brand it as like a pre seed these days, it was really just one of those, I guess a round of a few motivated kind of angels, friends, family and fools, that kind of round. And yeah, we had a small, got a small round up then, and then we later raised a round that involved some VCs in 2017.

Joan Westenburg: So walk me through that VC funding approach. What was that like? It can be a bit of a pressure cooker, it can be fantastic. How did you find the experience?

Lucy Lloyd: We, we started by doing Startmate. I don't know if you're familiar with Startmate. It's a, wonderful accelerator program. And we'd met some wonderful mentors as part of that Startmate experience. And a lot of them were connected to VC. And I think Startmate at that point was really geared to, attract VC funding basically, it seemed like in the industry at that time that the only measure of whether your business could succeed, whether it was viable was it investable. And so we, we got on that train too. And I guess the industry is geared up to celebrate the raise and we wanted to be part of that club.

Lucy Lloyd: But we didn't just raise VC. It ran what we call a party round where we raised a combination of VC, family office, angel investors. We raised a couple of rounds in total over, over 2017 18 with no one huge check or huge single investor, but lots of contributors, both financially and with advice as well.

Joan Westenburg: Once you had started that raise, how did that change the strategy behind Mentor Loop? Did it start to shift what you were working on and how,

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, I think, I think it builds a whole lot of accountability and very quickly, you've taken the responsibility on of taking on that investor's money. And so you need to, you need to start. Multiplying it basically so the raise was, first of all, it was amazing external validation for mentor loop.

Lucy Lloyd: And, I built further conviction for Heidi and I, that we were doing the right thing with our lives by working on this business. And then the coverage of that raise made it easier for us to go to market. It made it easier for us to attract great talent and to bring engineering in house.

Lucy Lloyd: We'd previously been paying a third party like external engineering agency and then the money it's. more quickly. We could build a better product, we could hone our go to market in I think we raised it at the start of 2017, so that year we grew our revenue by five times, in 2018 we tripled our revenue, then in 2019 we doubled our revenue and opened a UK office.

Lucy Lloyd: And none of that, Kind of speed to market would have been possible on that timeline for us without the angel and VC funding that we took

Joan Westenburg: so you mentioned the the pressure of external accountability. How does that compare to spending your own monthly paycheck building the startup in the early days? Which is harder? Is it your own paycheck going to it, or is it somebody else's money that you know? you have to make an account for.

Lucy Lloyd: I think there's pros and cons of both and we have had it both ways. So When it's your own money, you certainly have to run extremely lean. And I think that, that lieness is a good, is a positive thing in the end. But I suppose we're also pretty distracted. And so it took a long time.

Lucy Lloyd: So we were, both trying to, have our personal lives as well as our full time jobs. And so that was difficult because I think there was always that, That question of are we doing the right thing and probably the most difficult period for us as founders was when we were making that decision to jump full time into mental loop, like, how do we, objectively judge whether this is a real product.

Lucy Lloyd: This can really be a business and, Yeah, it is terrifying and the easiest clearest way to do that was to get an external signal and a raise was a Really good external signal and so that kind of was what tipped us over full time in the business It's if we can get the conviction of investors to back, you know The traction we've got so far the product we've built in the founders that we are then we're doing the right thing You know, let's go full time.

Lucy Lloyd: Let's make this out, life's work basically, so I think that conviction is came for us with that external validation.

Joan Westenburg: So there are obvious positives here to that VC path. There's external validation, there's the ability to scale, the ability to focus. A core part of that, that I've always thought would be very important for you and what you've been building, is the level of mentorship that you get from the VCs who come on board.

Joan Westenburg: Was that a helpful part of it?

Lucy Lloyd: And from the VCs I guess what they bring to it is not just their own, individual knowledge and wisdom and advice, but also the patterns that they're seeing in the market and the trends that they're seeing across other businesses that might look like yours have a similar kind of customer profile to yours.

Lucy Lloyd: So you're not just tapping into these incredibly smart people. People and their, their wisdom. You're also tapping into their broader experience and the patterns that they're seeing, which is wonderful. We also have, angel investors other investors, not just VCs that, that help us in that regard too.

Lucy Lloyd: And I think we are always reminding ourselves to do better at asking for that help from the mentors that are available to us because it really is, it's a superpower to be able to ask for help when you need it.

Joan Westenburg: Alright, so definitely positives, and that early venture capital that you did seek, it enabled you to put MentorLoop on the map. But what are the challenges and the pressures that came along with that? Because, if there's one thing we know about VC, it's not all roses. It's not all roses.

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, and I think we, we were on this kind of this you get on this cycle, this raise raise grow raises, raise, you've got to keep growing to justify the next raise. And I think Heidi and I didn't think critically about what that really meant for the business.

Lucy Lloyd: We just got on. But we didn't have a very good long term plan for when and if the money ran out. And I think a lot of founders operate like this in the early days. You're overly optimistic, you 100 percent believe in your product. The deals will come, people will be convinced, and then you'll find the next funding round.

Lucy Lloyd: And at the time we had the funding, other founders, mentors say to us, when you're raising this round, you should be thinking about the story you're going to tell for the next round and how you're going to get there. And we were like, just please God, let us get this round out of the way. So we were never, we were in the game, but we weren't thinking critically about the game that we were in.

Lucy Lloyd: And I think we ended up contorting ourselves to, to some extent to match this cycle. So we focused on that one key metric, which was growth, that would match and meet VC expectations and enable us to raise again. And we probably focused on that at the expense of other parts of our business.

Joan Westenburg: Yeah, and that's something that a lot of founders have said to me is that raising funding and being in that cycle becomes a full time job, and then that becomes the CEO entire responsibility.

Lucy Lloyd: It's, you living two worlds as well because you are thinking about the Ray's story and the, and then there's a lot of great strategic stuff that goes into building that Ray's story, but you also at the same time are looking at the reality of the day to day of your business. And in the early days, there are things.

Lucy Lloyd: that you come across every week that could kill you. And so you are almost, I wouldn't say living a lie, but you're living two worlds. You've got these two kind of parallel realities that you need to reconcile and they don't always reconcile.

Joan Westenburg: No. Did it help having a co founder in Heather?

Lucy Lloyd: Heidi. Yep. A hundred percent. Yeah.

Joan Westenburg: that question again. Did it help having a co founder in Heidi?

Lucy Lloyd: 100 percent I think that's one of my key bits of advice to any founders that I meet if they're solo founders is to find a co founder and Heidi had probably led the original idea for mentor loop. And then we came together over it and I think we're a really good balance and Heidi's very optimistic.

Lucy Lloyd: Naturally super entrepreneurial. She had this enthusiasm for the business we were building and I was a little bit more kind of risk averse and stand back and, a little bit more let's, think about this. And so I think it was a really good combination. And then naturally, when one of you is up, the other one is down.

Lucy Lloyd: Can be down and vice versa. And so you just get this balance that, that grows over time. And I think that the longer time's gone on, the more I realize how important that kind of foundational relationship is.

Joan Westenburg: As a team, as a duo, at what point did you start to step back and have those conversations about whether VC was working for you and whether it was working for MentorLib?

Lucy Lloyd: So it happened with the pandemic. And it, in early 2020 we were we were gearing up for, what would be defined as a series A round, in the classic definitions. So we had good results. We'd just gone into the UK market and we were thinking about raising, let's say 5 million, for example.

Lucy Lloyd: And so we started those conversations and as in early 2020 is when the world stopped still for a while. And so when. Sorry, what was that?

Joan Westenburg: The unprecedented

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, it was very all unprecedented all the time. And so we in, Feb had started to have those conversations and then obviously Everything stopped and there was this Paralysis in the market.

Lucy Lloyd: I think there were paralysis in a lot of different markets But you know particularly, speculative investment markets people were sitting on their hands, And we realized we weren't going to get a funding injection quickly in that market And now we look back and could we have gotten around up?

Lucy Lloyd: We were we were bullish but you know The market was very much wait and see and we knew how from our cash flow that if our sales also stood still, we'd be dead, in three to five months if a new business dropped off a cliff for us. And so COVID is what triggered us to change course and basically get off that, that hamster wheel of a grow grow, raise, hose, raise cycle.

Lucy Lloyd: So while COVID was tough, it also provided opportunities to connect isolated people together in meaningful mentoring relationships. And we lost some clients, like big travel related customers like airlines hotels, universities, but we gained in other areas because, people needed to connect, they needed to complete, continue developing, even though they were stuck at home.

Lucy Lloyd: And then we undertook kind of pretty aggressive cash management. Simple stuff like before we'd always just build monthly because that's how our subscriptions were built and we switched to 12 months up front. We also took the team down to 80 percent for a couple of months to conserve cash and we also switched out our go to market to more recession proof businesses like supermarkets, government and utilities.

Lucy Lloyd: And so really at the time we were just trying to survive. But then in that trying to survive, we got to a kind of neutral cash flow position where we could make our own decision about what we did next.

Joan Westenburg: So how did that conversation start then? Who sat down and said, you know what? We could do this on our own.

Lucy Lloyd: I think, yeah, there are a few weeks there where It felt terminal for MentorLoop. So I think the, like all businesses where the pandemic felt terminal, it was just, we cannot continue. And so that, that prompted us into action. And Hyde and I do tend to thrive when things get. So there was a lot of talk between us about the wartime versus the peacetime CEO and the beauty of the old school business that's just there to make money.

Lucy Lloyd: It doesn't need to do anything else except make more than it spends. And we also had a lot of, quoting of we use a quote by Warren Buffett. I don't know if you know it, but it's be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful. And while it doesn't necessarily always pay off.

Lucy Lloyd: We found that quote really motivating and we were just like yeah, let's be greedy. Let's keep our company, let's maintain as much kind of equity as we can. And yeah, so we've looked deeply into each other's eyes and ask the question, what kind of business are we really building here?

Lucy Lloyd: What do we want mental loop to look like? Where do we want to go to work? And that, that really changed the conversation for us.

Joan Westenburg: All right. So difficult conversations are gonna follow anything like that, what was that like talking to the VCs that you had on board?

Lucy Lloyd: Look, I think. Our VC's are all very supportive of us. I think we had one conversation with an investor that, that was really illuminating for us. And they're, they've given us some advice about how we were going to survive the pandemic. And I said, Oh, look, if we do, if we take those measures that you're describing, then we're not going to be running MentorLoop according to our own values.

Lucy Lloyd: And that investor said if you keep running it according to your values, you'll be dead in six months. And I think that the kind of that statement echoed in our heads and we're like what are we here for? If not to run a business according to our values, that's the beauty of what we're doing.

Lucy Lloyd: And so that, that kind of, that was really motivating for us. So let's build the business we want to build. Let's build the business that matches our values. But overall, I think Our investors, everyone was dealing with their, their own world of pain at that moment. And I think for our investors, Mental Loop saying, look we're going down this path.

Lucy Lloyd: We can get to profitability at this timeline was great. Go do it. God bless, et cetera.

Joan Westenburg: So the the end goals for a startup with VC funding are often one of two approaches. It's you get to an IPO or you get to an acquisition. And that makes a lot of sense because the VCs have invested the money and they want some kind of a return.

Joan Westenburg: Once you've stepped off that hamster wheel, how has the end goal shifted for you?

Joan Westenburg: Have the goalposts moved?

Lucy Lloyd: the goalposts have just have changed slightly. So I think now we prioritize building the best business that we can. And that might sound counterintuitive because of course, if you want to get a great exit, you'd build the best business that you can. But we, we focus more on building an excellent business than we do on building a business for acquisition.

Lucy Lloyd: But at the same time We still want to, we still are super motivated to get a return for our early investors and the benefit for us is that because we haven't taken too many rounds of dilutive funding, any exit event will also mean a return for us and for our team. And so it's still an extremely motivating thing to get that exit.

Lucy Lloyd: It's just that now it is more likely to happen on our timeline, rather than an artificial timeline.

Joan Westenburg: So that external validation that we spoke about earlier, do you find that you no longer need that because you've got the customers, you've got the team, you've got the product, and you're confident in what you're building?

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, to an extent, but I miss it. As I said, like it, it when you have that kind of close relationship with investors, and you have that scrutiny I still do miss that occasionally and even the wrap over the knuckles and things. And so I I think we, we try to seek that out in different ways and obviously running a mentoring company mentoring is always going to be part of the answer, but we.

Lucy Lloyd: Try to tap into this kind of, our own advisory board that isn't necessarily just, investor driven or investment driven but helps us to still get that because, it takes a village like you cannot do this alone. And there's so much benefit out in the market out in the Australian tech industry.

Lucy Lloyd: So many amazing people who have built amazing things and seen some, crazy stuff. So it's wonderful to be able to connect with those people and show them what we're doing and hear their experience.

Joan Westenburg: So you must be running quite lean now since making that decision, very aware of the next dollar and what it means.

Lucy Lloyd: We are we are. And look, we're still bullish about building the number one global mentoring platform. We definitely are competing against companies and we're on a fraction, 1 5th or 1 10th of the budget that these other companies are on. But again we thrive when we get strapped scrappy and when you run lane, you, it doesn't matter.

Lucy Lloyd: You can, you make smarter decisions, you make decisions that are more efficient. And I think the other thing we do is we really niche down. So when we're looking at the U. S. market at the moment. And so we don't have the war chest to go into the U. S., all guns blazing.

Lucy Lloyd: So instead we've got a niche right down to a very particular profile. But the beauty of a market as big as the U. S. is that, you can niche down and still be talking about, a market worth hundreds of millions.

Joan Westenburg: So looking back, are you comfortable with the decision that you made to step away from VC funding? Comfortable and happy? Thriving?

Lucy Lloyd: Yep, I'd say, yeah, definitely comfortable and happy. I think I think, we're, we do watch every dollar. And so not a lot has changed for us in that sense. We are very cashflow conscious and because we want to get the balance right of how much, exactly how much we're investing into our growth as well.

Lucy Lloyd: And so I think it's a very comfortable position to be in, maybe a little too comfortable sometimes, we, Yeah. We work hard to set strategies that will motivate our team to continue to punch above its weight. And yeah, but it's definitely, it feels great. We can be really authentic with our team.

Lucy Lloyd: We're quite open about how we're running the business and what our goals are. And I think the team can have confidence that there's not going to be this huge strategic pivot after a tricky board meeting, because we are masked for our own destiny.

Joan Westenburg: With that, how does the team respond to the new strategy? Were they welcoming it or were they absolutely terrified? Does,

Lucy Lloyd: with COVID everyone, there was a little bit, everybody was anything goes, and so I don't think it was necessary question at that point. Once the pandemic, subsided to a certain extent, I think that, the way we run our business now, like our really goal is to keep headcount fixed, but, continue to increase revenue over time.

Lucy Lloyd: And so for team members who maybe love the cache of a, big funded, high profile tech business. We're no longer that profile. And who maybe he wanted to develop by being in something fast moving where they would amass a team under them quickly. That's not what mental loop is anymore, but I think we can bring other advantages to play.

Lucy Lloyd: And I think, we can hand on heart, be a culture first company because, we can afford to invest in building a great culture.

Joan Westenburg: forgive me if this question is too thorny, but does MentorLib have an employee equity program and has that shifted or changed as a result of stepping away from VC?

Lucy Lloyd: it we set up our ASOP, like our employee equity program With the advice and collaboration of our VCs, it was almost their policy and we're like, yep, great policy. So what's changed for us is once we got onto this track, of uh, still working toward an exit at some point, on our terms we moved from just offering a ESOP to, certain members of the team to making it a blanket offer.

Lucy Lloyd: As soon as a team member has been with us for three months, they're on the ESOP. So it's something that we just. is part of everybody's employment now at MentorLoop rather than being something that, you just negotiate with a select few.

Joan Westenburg: that bring a real sense of community and ownership to that team? Yeah.

Lucy Lloyd: think we've always, Heidi and I, have always been careful of putting too much onus on ESOP. We don't want people to feel like we're, incentivizing them with imaginary money or anything like that. We want people to be comfortable, living their best lives at this moment.

Lucy Lloyd: But definitely, the fact that everybody knows that everyone else is on the ESOP, I think there's definitely a camaraderie and a pulling together that comes about as a result of that.

Joan Westenburg: In just a sense of everyone having skin in the game.

Lucy Lloyd: Absolutely. And I think for some more junior members of the team, they don't necessarily know what that means, or maybe they don't yet. We take some time to educate on what ASOP is, and it's not something that necessarily motivates, but once, we educate and show and they understand everybody's on it, then yeah, it's quite a powerful thing to all have ownership in what we're building.

Lucy Lloyd: We do

Joan Westenburg: What's your relationship like now with the investors that you first brought on board? And I'm talking all the way from that friends and families round, those first believers, to the VC funds who backed Mentor Loop. Do you still have a strong relationship?

Lucy Lloyd: I think we, I'm really glad that when we were first taking on investment, we were really, we made sure that they were people that we were happy to, catch up and have a coffee or a beer with. So we continue to do that. I think. During the pandemic, we were really in batten down the hatches mode, so we definitely had our heads down.

Lucy Lloyd: We were getting to profitability and, on the VC side, they had bigger fish to fry than us. So we probably had a period of not talking to each other, like no animosity, but just not being on each other's radar so much. But now we're we're much closer. We keep all of our investors updated with the quarterly newsletter and then there's an invitation to find out more and we'll catch up for, lunches and things like that.

Lucy Lloyd: And then, We're also still active in our VC communities. We have some wonderful investors Blackbird Rampersand Folklore. They each have built their own founder communities. And so that's an amazing resource that we draw on too.

Joan Westenburg: As a founder, would you ever want to go down and The VC or angel investor route, having seen it from the founder's perspective, would you want to go and become an angel or become an investor?

Lucy Lloyd: Oh, would I personally become an investor? I think I wouldn't be very good at it because I love every idea and think every founder is doing a great job. So I suppose I am a little bit Excited about all of it from that sense and I also am I love the execution You know, I love getting into groups with something and making it work So I think it's probably not completely a natural fit for me But I do love I love the advice part, you know I love chatting to founders and showing them things that we've done and helping them helping illuminate opportunities for them But I don't think I'd necessarily sit on the other side of the table

Joan Westenburg: It's almost like you're very passionate about mentoring.

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, that's, yeah, that's exactly it.

Joan Westenburg: So thinking back to your starting days your early founding days, do you think you'd, VC funding again if you had the chance?

Lucy Lloyd: I think it would depend on the business I'm building. And if it's meant to loop. But what I mean by that is there's a lot of different, there's many ways to skin a cat, there's a lot of options for funding out there that aren't all VC. And so I, I think what I do is I sat on a panel recently where one of the participants talked about how, So accelerating commercialization, boosting female founders, like there's a few grants out there that you can access.

Lucy Lloyd: And she mentioned how influential grant funding had been in their business growth and another panel member who'd had, a big whack of VC fundings scoffed and said, I don't have the time to bother applying for grants. And it really like. Illuminated to me how we're all on a different journey and fundraising of any sort takes a lot of time and attention So what I would do is I would evaluate the funding landscape at that time.

Lucy Lloyd: I'd look for equivalence to my business And to my model into my market and even to my demographic and I judge where my time is best spent So that could be conversation could be angels, could be family office, could be impact investors, or could be grant funding. And I suppose I'd look for a like for like journey that I could model.

Lucy Lloyd: Because, certain types of businesses, certain types of markets, certain types of founders attract certain types of funding.

Joan Westenburg: And certain types of customers I would assume as well.

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of things, there's a lot of ways out there to evaluate the right journey for you as well. So many more than when we got started. Start Mate existed then, but now this week there was formerly Heads Over Heels, they're now called Apropella. We went to one of their events here in Melbourne, which was fantastic.

Lucy Lloyd: That's a kind of pitching event where the ask isn't about investment. The ask is more about customers and connections and things like that. There's springboard. Of course there are all the mentors in the industry that I've mentioned. So there's a lot of ways to evaluate what kind of funding is right for your business before you go down a particular route

Joan Westenburg: And of course bootstrapping building

Lucy Lloyd: of course bootstrapping. Yes.

Joan Westenburg: and getting the customer, which is exactly what MentorLive did.

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, absolutely.

Joan Westenburg: So I want to delve into marketing a little bit. One of the, one of the biggest spends that we often see when you get VC funding is you spend to scale and you spend to grow and marketing is expensive.

Joan Westenburg: How have you been approaching that without the VC money to fall back on?

Lucy Lloyd: We. We're lucky in that my background and my co founder Heidi's background were both in marketing prior to starting MentorLoop or marketing adjacent industries. I in particular had a background in SEO, search engine optimization. So search and content strategy, so organic search and building a content strategy has always been a really core part of our go to market.

Lucy Lloyd: Like our engine is an inbound engine. We, we build a content, I guess universe where customers discover us when they're thinking about mentoring or thinking about jobs that are adjacent to mentoring like diversity and inclusion, succession, planning, engagement, retention, et cetera.

Lucy Lloyd: And from there, they, we reel them in by casting a very big net in terms of the content that we publish and the tools that we put out there. So the beauty of a I guess the drawback of a strategy like that is it takes. It's a leap of faith. It takes a lot of work up front to put it out there.

Lucy Lloyd: And this more than anyone being the content expert that you are. So there is a leap of faith. There's an investment required. But then once you have made that investment you really reap the rewards and you can continue to, to, to maintain that. That dominance and maintain a certain amount of organic traffic really naturally.

Lucy Lloyd: The other beautiful thing for us that we're just realizing now is now at the emergence of, large language models and an A. I. Is that because we have so much content out there in the market already, we Have a presence in a lot of, if you're having a conversation with chat GPT, for example, it is aware of mentor loop.

Lucy Lloyd: And so that's really exciting for us. It's another way that content, that vast net that we've put out of content has paid off for us. And then also, again, because of AI has helped. It's made it easier for us to optimize our content and to make it higher quality and to make it more relevant to our product as our product continues to develop.

Lucy Lloyd: So you know, long story short, sorry, what I'm saying is that it was a leap of faith, but once the content engine is there it's really easy to maintain and it continues to pay dividends for us.

Joan Westenburg: I'm going to jump wildly off topic here for a moment, but this is this is getting into the mentorship and I keep on seeing these AI products that are promising that they can give you an AI based mentor and you can go and chat with Steve Jobs and people talking about this a lot and I would love your take on the, on that idea.

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, we're not building that. We we, I guess one, we were motivated by accessibility with building mentor loop, but also we were motivated with, by the fact that tech was taking the humanity out of so many of our interactions. And we wanted to use tech to put the humanity back into our interactions.

Lucy Lloyd: How can tech break down barriers? How can tech, cross geographical divides? How can tech make these connections more accessible to people? So we very much do believe in the human connection. But we are using AI, but when we use it in more of a concierge, prompting nudging way.

Lucy Lloyd: And so it's much more about, here's this other friend in your chat that helps you get started, introduces you, nudges you, maybe gives you some tips on some conversation starters or how to set an agenda, that kind of thing. But it's very much about still being that human to human mentoring connection.

Joan Westenburg: I think that's so important. I'm such a believer in keeping that human aspect, because if we lose it, we lose everything,

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, yeah, I think we saw with the pandemic that there were, there was an isolation event, but then there was also this community event that came out of it because you did spend more time at home and with your kids and, walking around your local park.

Lucy Lloyd: And so I think we got a taste of that community aspect again. So I'm hopeful that we continue to value it. And I think we were headed down a really isolating path before then.

Joan Westenburg: VC funding, you've gotten to profitability, you've started building things your own way.

Joan Westenburg: Has there ever been a moment where you've looked around and thought, you know what, I'm ready to be a mentor now.

Lucy Lloyd: Sorry, I just, I lost that question and I know that the actual recording is higher quality, but I didn't hear. I just dropped out for a second.

Joan Westenburg: it out.

Lucy Lloyd: repeating it?

Joan Westenburg: I'll go again, yep. It's been about eight years now building Mentorloop. You have created a startup, you have self funded it, and then taken on VC funding, and then gotten to profitability. These are pretty major achievements. Have you ever had a moment where you've looked around and said, Wow, I'm ready to be a mentor now.

Joan Westenburg: Or do you still have that imposter syndrome that I guess so many of us have?

Lucy Lloyd: I think, that's one of the big things of stopping not getting off the VC, cycle. Huge imposter syndrome about the businesses that we were hanging out with. And so our peers have gone on to raise, bigger money and they're growing at a faster rate. And I think that's something that I that I when I walk into a room of founders, I need to overcome.

Lucy Lloyd: I'm like no, just because you haven't raised as much as any of these businesses doesn't mean that your experiences isn't a value, valid, et cetera, et cetera. So definitely still imposter syndrome. I think, we all have it whenever you take a track that's a little bit different from the norm.

Lucy Lloyd: You're naturally going to be like, why don't I match the pattern of what's around me? There's something wrong here. But in terms of being a mentor, I guess what we do at mentor loop is we try to remove the hierarchy from mentoring relationships. And I think as soon as you start a business, you're ready to talk to someone else about their business, because I find that often the most.

Lucy Lloyd: illuminating bits of insight that the real wisdom comes from people who are only a couple of months ahead of you, not from the people who are streets ahead of you, because the people who are only a couple of months ahead of you or maybe a year ahead of you still have that that I guess they never made all the right decisions, like they still have some insecurity about the decisions they're making.

Lucy Lloyd: And when you have some insecurity about the decisions you're making, you're still analyzing them really deeply. And it's in that analysis that, the gold comes from. Whereas if you're a super successful founder, having, had several exits, sometimes you lose that perspective. And you, rightly start to believe that the decisions you made with the right decisions, because, decisions rather than because you necessarily, sorry I've really garbled this, I'll answer, sorry.

Lucy Lloyd: Is that alright? Can you, will you be able to get what you want from that?

Joan Westenburg: That's solid, yes.

Lucy Lloyd: Sorry, I just had this moment I came to and I'm like Lucy, you are garbling, yeah.

Joan Westenburg: not at all, not at all. From your perspective, do you think there's a paradigm difference between building a startup and building a company?

Lucy Lloyd: Yeah, and I think they need to, Come together and they need to converge a bit more than they have and I think you know we don't say startup anymore We say business and I think that was something that we've consciously said, old school business rules rule You know, make more money than you spend like that.

Lucy Lloyd: It just you'll never go out of business doing that and so we It definitely changed how we spoke about MentorLoop and said no it's not a startup, it's a business. This is a business we're building. And then by extension, the business rules apply. I think that when we say startup, sometimes that can separate we'll create a separation in our minds that, means the old school business rules don't apply to us.

Lucy Lloyd: Because, we're this special kind of beast. And so I think there needs to be more of a convergence of those two concepts.

Joan Westenburg: What advice would you have for other founders who are considering VC funding or considering a different path?

Lucy Lloyd: I think always, sorry, I'm sorry about this, but always my advice is Ask for help, you know is seek out mentors. It really is a superpower when you are starting something sometimes you want to do it all yourself and so you do turn inward because you want to prove That you can be as good as everybody else and you're less likely to ask for help But that is that those times of like serious discomfort when it's most important that you ask for advice and ask for help So if you are considering, VC chat to companies who have taken VC money and who haven't you know?

Lucy Lloyd: I guess try to build as Bigger data picture as you can of the possible futures for your business. And from there, navigate your own path. And I guess that's the other thing is, when you do speak to too many mentors, you can start to feel like you're being blown in all directions, but you've still got to back yourself.

Lucy Lloyd: You're the person who knows your business best. And the kind of, the genius is in grabbing as many data points as you can, but then having that, that, that belief that you can navigate them yourself and make the right decisions.

Joan Westenburg: And if you're a founder who wants to get off the hamster wheel, how do you start having those difficult conversations with the investors? How do you broach that topic?

Lucy Lloyd: Look, I think, I just think they'll be really receptive, as were, I think, I suppose don't come in with a half formed thought. Think about, imagine what it looks like in five years for yourself if you do take that course of action. Discuss it with your co founder.

Lucy Lloyd: Discuss it in confidence with, people, other founders that you trust. And, when you are ready to have that conversation. The stakeholders, the investors in your company make sure that you have some conviction in what you're doing. I think, be intentional about that discussion not as a kind of a sounding board, but really more as, okay here's the situation I'm in, here's the strategy I want to follow and here are the reasons why.

Joan Westenburg: I guess the last question here is, how do you and Heidi celebrate what you've done and the achievements and milestones? Do you take a moment to sit back and look at it all and just feel that sense of pride?

Lucy Lloyd: Yes, but I think we could definitely be getting better at that. And I think that's something that we discuss a lot in our business is you're always looking at the next milestone. We're always looking at that next, be it revenue milestone, be it customer, etc. And We make sure we're scheduling social things to celebrate success.

Lucy Lloyd: And then Heidi and I individually, we're friends as well as founders. So we do make sure at least quarterly that we're catching up properly for a dinner or a lunch to, to just have a look at it and go, how much fun are we having? How lucky are we? And I think that's really important.

Joan Westenburg: And for any VCs who might be listening to this podcast, what could they be doing to support founders, to reduce the pressure, or to be really receptive to people who want to build things a different way?

Lucy Lloyd: , the most powerful thing I think that VCs can do is open up about their processes. And I think VC can sometimes seem like a black box, how do they make decisions? What are they really evaluating here? It can seem it's a lot of gut feel or there's some inside knowledge that, that founders aren't necessarily aware of.

Lucy Lloyd: I think, so that's one is open sourcing, open up, opening up a little bit more about their processes. Creating opportunities to connect founders together is always going to be excellent. I think VCs have that unique position where they do see a lot of different founders in the industry.

Lucy Lloyd: So they can be those critical connectors between different people. And finally, I think the quick no is something that We're still not quite at and we've, I guess I still see it with founders that I'm talking to today where VCs will have a look at their business and say, okay, that's interesting, keep us in touch kind of thing.

Lucy Lloyd: And they're not getting to that quick decline, that quick no of this is actually not investable for us. So we are always super grateful or have always been super grateful for the quick no so that we can put a line in it and align through it, sorry, and move on. And I think that's something that VCs still need to be getting better at.

Joan Westenburg: Well, Lucy, thank you so much for your time today, and thanks for talking about the MentorLoop journey. My takeaway for everyone listening to this is ask for help. That is the biggest message that I'm getting, and I think it's an important one. Thank you for being with me today.

Lucy Lloyd: Thanks so much.