Dial-A-Mentor Service Clarity Talks Stats: 12K Calls Across Nearly 50 Countries [TCTV]


A new startup called Clarity launched five months ago with a straightforward but lofty goal: It wanted to give people all over the world access to the kind of expert advice that could help them attain success in their careers and running their own businesses.

To do this, Clarity built a platform to arrange one-on-one phone calls between budding entrepreneurs and mentors such as successful businesspeople and venture capitalists. The people who are giving advice, which include billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, 500 Startups venture capitalist Dave McClure, and “lean startup” guru Eric Ries, can either talk for free or set a price for their time — those fees can be either kept or donated to a charity. Clarity makes money by taking a 15 percent commission on non-charity fees.

It is a really fascinating and positive concept, but you have to wonder — have people really used it? More and more people say they don’t conduct their communications over the phone, and there is the potential for the mentors to lose interest in giving advice.

So it was great to have Clarity’s founder and CEO Dan Martell swing by TechCrunch TV this week to give an update on how the service has been going since launch and share some stats. According to him, the company’s traction has indeed been strong: More than 12,000 calls have been processed through the service, with entrepreneurs from nearly 50 countries around the world. Its mentor list is at 6,000 and counting, he says.

Watch the video above to hear Martell talk about the company’s growth thus far, why he started Clarity, its latest feature updates, what the most common piece of advice he personally hands out on the platform is, and much more.