Adam Mitcheson’s start up my2be is an online mentoring network which at summer 2017 is in the process of receiving investment funding from a partner he met through the Manchester Tech Trust.

Adam, a former account manager at BNY Mellon, was inspired to set up my2be after receiving valuable mentoring through the bank’s internal employee development programme.

Now a start-up entrepreneur, 31-year-old Adam’s concept is to connect students and professionals to mentors with knowledge and experience to help their career progression, and to help them make the right choices at key moments in their lives.

He was selected by Tech North to join a group of ten Northern-based business leaders which visited the US West Coast in 2016 to meet Silicon Valley tech companies, a huge compliment given the other businesses were at far more advanced stages.

The first iteration of his business will be a freemium model, but the recruitment opportunities created are expected to produce income streams.

Adam says the site, when fully operational, will use the latest personality matching techniques to match mentors and clients online.

One of Adam’s investment partners is Ian Brooks, director of Cake Invest (now The Startup Factory.Tech). who he was introduced to by MTT’s Peter Lusty after meeting Adam at a MTT dinner, Silicon Valley Comes to the UK, in late 2016.

Adam had already agreed some initial funding with Scott Fletcher of ANS Group, but was seeking more investors in order to complete the initial phase of funding.

Adam says: “Peter was great, he looked at my slide deck, made some comments and gave me advice, and then connected me with Ian, all for free of course, as that is the ethos of the Trust, which is a charity.

“I got on with Ian straight away and his investment and the work which TSF.Tech are now doing on the site to make it more robust, is putting us in a solid position to relaunch my2be later this year.”

One MTT connection leads to another and Ian has a further investor who he is talking to. “All this has come through the MTT network, so I can only speak very highly of what Peter and Neil have done for me personally well as for the wider tech scene in Manchester,” adds Adam.