You've done this before.They're about to do it for the first time.
Everyday Mentors are volunteers with practical business, product or engineering experience. You lead one structured group session a month for young people building their first real businesses.
It is a voluntary, unpaid role: two to three hours a month, including prep, for ten cohorts. No 1:1 mentee, no on-call commitment, and no need to teach the tools.
We run the programme in collaboration with Accenture, and CoEngineers shapes the learning. There are more names to come before November, and we'll add them here as they're signed.
Who we're looking for
Experience that helps founders make better decisions
We're looking for people with experience in one of two areas: building the business, or building the product.
Business
You've started or run a business, sold something difficult, set prices, won customers or dealt with the practical realities of trading: invoices, contracts, refunds and difficult conversations.
Product and engineering
You've built, managed or shipped digital products. You know how to make sensible trade-offs, reduce scope and get something real over the line.
You do not need to have worked in a tech startup. You do not need to know Claude. Everyday provides the method and the tools; you bring experience and judgement.
The sessions
Choose the point where your experience is most useful
The programme provides the structure, tools and guidance. Everyday Mentors join at the points where experience and judgement can change what a founder does next.
Test the offer
Help founders work out whether someone will actually pay. Expect optimism, a fuzzy idea of who the buyer is, and a price picked out of the air.
Suits: business experience. Anyone who has priced their own work and got it wrong at least once.
Make first sales
Help founders tell interest apart from real buying intent, and get ready to ask for money. Most of them never have.
Suits: business experience. Anyone who has sold direct and heard no a great many times.
Get the build unstuck
Three weeks into building. Help founders reduce scope and focus on what can actually ship.
Suits: product and engineering experience. You need to have shipped something to a deadline, not to know their tools.
Finish the build
The first build session helps founders reduce scope. This one helps them deal with the more specific problems that appear later, when there is less time left to ship.
Suits: product and engineering experience. Plenty of mentors take both build sessions, and it works well, because by then you know the group.
Deal with first customers
Help founders handle the practical realities of trading: invoices, an awkward refund, a feature request from the only person paying, and whether this is a business or a project.
Suits: business experience. Anyone who has run a small business and dealt with the realities of trading.
Two more sessions run in every cohort, the kickoff in week 1 and the close in week 26. Our team hosts both, and you're welcome at either.
Time and commitment
Time. Two to three hours a month, including prep.
Commitment. One group session a month, for ten cohorts.
Payment. This is a voluntary, unpaid role.
You will have all ten dates before you commit, and you set the time for your session within its programme week.
Your diary, your room. Use your own Meet, Zoom or Teams link. We won't ask you to work around our calendar or learn a new tool.
Group sessions, not 1:1 mentoring
All mentoring happens in groups. There is no one-to-one mentoring and no direct messaging between Everyday Mentors and founders.
This is a deliberate safeguarding decision. It gives founders clear boundaries and protects mentors too.
You'll have access to the Everyday community and a weekly digest of what founders are posting. Take part as little or as much as you like. Nothing is required of you between sessions.
What you'll see. The cohort's launch posts, their live product links, and what they post in the community each week. Enough to walk in knowing what this group is building.
What you won't see. Their private work, their conversations with Nim, the programme's own guide, and anything inside their own Claude workspace. We tell founders plainly what we can and cannot see, and that covers mentors too.
Why Everyday exists
What founders are signing up to
Everyday gives young people who may not otherwise see business ownership as an option the chance to build something real. Most are between 18 and 30, and many have been out of work or education for a while.
Over 26 weeks they go from a problem they care about to an incorporated company, a working product and their first paying customers.
The sessions land in weeks 7, 11, 15, 17 and 25, at the points where the work is hardest to judge alone.
The programme provides the structure, tools and support. Everyday Mentors bring the experience, judgement and candour that can make a first attempt more viable.
Joining
A recommendation-led application process
Everyday Mentors work with founders at an early point in something that matters to them. We keep the mentor group small and ask every applicant to name the person who recommended them.
- Tell us about your experience and who recommended you.
- We will respond within a week. We may have a quick word with the person who recommended you, or ask you for a short conversation.
- If it is a fit, we will agree the session you will lead, give you the dates, and ask you to agree a short code of conduct.
Ready?
The first cohort starts on 2 November 2026, and a new one follows every month until August 2027. The first mentor sessions run from December.
About five minutes. You'll need the name of the person who recommended you.