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Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

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Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#41

Post by tndata »

mock-possum wrote: post #32
jononor wrote: post #7

https://Codementor.io is a platform designed for exactly that. I am registered as a mentor there, though not so active. I have not used it as a mentee, so cannot vouch for the process or mentor pool though. AI is very broad, what exactly are you wishing to learn/build/accomplish and where are you in the process? I specialize in ML that intersects with time-series, sensor/IoT data and audio. Info in profile if anyone…

What have your experiences mentoring there been? I’ve been considering checking it out - do you have to do much to ‘sell yourself’ there in order to get clients? Do you have to deal much with poor spoken English skills?

I have been doing a few mentoring sessions there and it has been a great experience. However, I don't see that many people asking for mentorship there, I wish the volume of mentees was higher.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#42

Post by ghaff »

neom wrote: post #28
c_o_n_v_e_x wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a few companies out there that provide these "expert networks." GLG or AlphaSights Not necessarily tutors, but I run into the same issue in Product Management. I need to do customer research, but the process of finding people to speak with is time consuming and very much like sales. To have 10 conversations, I'll probably have reached out to at least 40-50 people. I have to build a "funnel" of people in order…

I was an AlphaSights "expert" on cloud for a while, they paid me super well and the people asked good questions, I stopped doing it because It was mostly hedge fund managers I was talking with, but given how much they paid me, I can't imagine what their clients must have been paying.

I did a few calls with an expert network firm once upon a time when I was an analyst. My limited experience was that they were really looking for inside information rather than broader insights and a lot of product companies actually forbid engaging with them.

Super-well paid is a matter of perspective. As I recall it was about $500 for an hour call but it's not like I personally got all that and was pretty normal as a consulting rate.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#43

Post by ghaff »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #12
joshdavham wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might honestly not be the worst idea! People could put up basic profiles with their skills listed and you could purchase a time slot with them. It’d be relatively low commitment for both the experts and also the advice seekers. Some technical problems might be verifying expertise but this could be handled with a sort of social proof like how LinkedIn allows users to vouch for certain skills. In fact you could probabl…

I agree. I’d like to be able to share my knowledge from time to time for a small fee and little hassle on my part. I made some money on Codementor for a time and enjoyed it while I was between jobs, but wasn’t easy to balance that with FTE so I dropped it after a while.

Every now and then when I was working full-time, I had some piece work things that made me some reasonable pocket change. They were sometimes interesting (e.g. being a judge for a best-of award at a conference) and/or a way to fill a few dead hours and have an interesting chat. But if you have a good job, they're mostly a distraction for not that much money in the scheme of things.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#45

Post by neom »

ghaff wrote: post #42
neom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an AlphaSights "expert" on cloud for a while, they paid me super well and the people asked good questions, I stopped doing it because It was mostly hedge fund managers I was talking with, but given how much they paid me, I can't imagine what their clients must have been paying.

I did a few calls with an expert network firm once upon a time when I was an analyst. My limited experience was that they were really looking for inside information rather than broader insights and a lot of product companies actually forbid engaging with them. Super-well paid is a matter of perspective. As I recall it was about $500 for an hour call but it's not like I personally got all that and was pretty normal as…

Mine as after DigitalOcean went public, I was long gone from it, they mostly wanted to talk about where cloud is going (would managed hosting/ftp hosts go away, what do you think will happen to the front end, blah bah blah) - They paid me hourly well over an order of magnitude more than what you were paid, heh. :)

Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#46

Post by jononor »

mock-possum wrote: post #32
jononor wrote: post #7

https://Codementor.io is a platform designed for exactly that. I am registered as a mentor there, though not so active. I have not used it as a mentee, so cannot vouch for the process or mentor pool though. AI is very broad, what exactly are you wishing to learn/build/accomplish and where are you in the process? I specialize in ML that intersects with time-series, sensor/IoT data and audio. Info in profile if anyone…

What have your experiences mentoring there been? I’ve been considering checking it out - do you have to do much to ‘sell yourself’ there in order to get clients? Do you have to deal much with poor spoken English skills?

A bit of a mix to be honest. The practical/technical aspects of the platform is good. There is some basic quality checking (and guidance) of mentors - good without being onerous. And the 1-on-1 experiences I have had were good. But I found it difficult to get a reasonable amount of gig the few weeks I tried it more actively. Majority of the requests posted are very low effort, barely two coherent sentences about what they needed. For a subset of more serious requests, that fit my skill set, I wrote personalized messages describing how I could help. I also made clear I offered half price for students and early professionals. But the hitrate was extremely low, maybe 2%. Probably my rate was too high for those requests. But it is already set lower than what I charge for regular longer term engagements. Maybe it looks bad I only have 3 reviews, idk... Overall I have found that it is not good as an added income source (as someone in a high CoL, Norway) - but it is great as a low-friction offer for those that find me and really want a bit of my advice in particular. They then find me via GitHub etc

Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#47

Post by tomashertus »

Founder82836 wrote: post #20
tomashertus wrote: post #4

Heh, a couple of years ago, I had an idea for an "Uber for Experts." It would provide a similar experience to Uber, but instead of a ride, you'd get 30 minutes with a domain expert of your choosing. I never got around to working on it, but there might still be an opportunity for something like this.

Remember that for any startup idea, there is reasonable chance that Google launched it and already killed it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Helpouts

Wow! I had no clue that this ever existed. I guess it was DOA given its short life-span.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find domain experts for 1:1 tutoring?

#48

Post by dSebastien »

I've found the key people at work, and took every chance to learn from them. But in general I've learned the most via blogs og people I identified as great sources (eg Joel Spolsky, Jeff Atwood, Bruce Schneider, and many others). I remember printing hundreds of pages a week, books and blog articles, to explore concepts and ideas (old days :p)

I'm on the other side now, and actually struggle to get visibility. I focus on Knowledge Management, not software development so much these days. I hoped to be in a new category on platforms like MentorCruise, but they considered it too nice. So I rely on my blog, my newsletter, and Gumroad: https://developassion.gumroad.com/l/pkm-coaching?layout=prof...

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