The Munich startup Mentessa aims to revolutionize mentoring programs in companies with its matchmaking app. The app is designed to help employees quickly and easily find the right mentor, helping them overcome hierarchies and prejudices. We spoke with Tina Ruseva, co-founder of Mentessa.
1. Who are you and what do you do?
We're Tina and Ivan, and we're developing a matchmaking app for the office, a kind of business Tinder. It helps you find the right expert at the right time, helping you work better and happier. We met at Wayra, Téléfonica's Open Innovation Hub, where we both worked. Residents In the Wayra community, this kind of regular exchange among peers is commonplace. It's rather rare in large companies. We're both 37 and second-time founders in the software industry.
Matching in-house
With our Startup We want to eliminate barriers to informal knowledge sharing, such as hierarchies, prejudices, and, above all, effort, in order to shape a future of work characterized by diversity and collaboration. Our first customers are operators of mentoring programs that currently manually match mentors and mentees and manage the pairings with Excel spreadsheets and emails. Instead, we offer self-directed, peer-to-peer matching. This way, you can find not just one mentor per year, but dozens per week, if you like. This transforms mentoring from a program to a resource. This is a new kind of collaboration.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Sure, there's nothing that doesn't already exist. And yet: As a mentor in dozens of formats and a member of many communities, I'm still introduced to my mentees via email. Then we have to connect, meet, and only then do we know if the chemistry is right. People aren't just a collection of professional backgrounds and skills, but also their values, their interests, and the meaning they seek. All of this can be wonderfully measured online these days. This way, you can find the right match faster and more efficiently, get help more often, and get involved more easily.
“This is the future of work!”
3. What are the three main ingredients for your recipe for success?
Mentessa is a decentralized matchmaking app that works without a central contact person. This saves HR resources, which can then be invested in other value-added activities, such as mentor training. The peer-to-peer approach ultimately empowers everyone to find a mentor or become one themselves. This not only scales, but reflects reality—each of us has strengths and can share them with others depending on the situation. This is the future of work! Our app creates holistic profiles that go far beyond professional bullet points like on LinkedIn. This makes it possible to match people based on skills and values to form purpose-driven tandems.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
Mentessa was founded in March. Currently, pilot projects are underway with Wayra and, starting in September, with the 'Start Munich' founding association. We're very proud of this and hope to soon have 1,000 users on the platform. At the same time, we're currently in talks with several large companies in and around Munich and hope to generate initial revenue from licensing.
“The future cannot be predicted, neither in startups nor in life”
5. What does Munich mean to you?
I've lived in Munich for half my life. The city is my home. Above all, I attended my first business plan seminars here at TUM ten years ago, founded my first company, Gymzap, and have been actively shaping Munich's startup scene ever since.
For Mentessa, Munich is an advantage as a location because it is home to many large companies that now have to prepare for the future of work and are looking for solutions to connect and motivate their employees.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
Hehe, you can't predict the future, neither with startups nor in life. But we're motivated, we see the problem, and we've gained a lot of experience. A lot of people support us. Now we just have to work really hard—that's the reality for unicorns, too.
7. Isar or English Garden?
English Garden! Just out of nostalgia for the good old days at LMU Entrepreneurship Center with Gymzap. We often held team meetings while walking in the summer. Those times still shape me.
