The launch is scheduled for the end of July, 250 experts already on board, ten thousand those it aspires to involve, AskMe offers itself as a resource for those who need targeted advice to make decisions regarding their course of study or career, to verify a business idea, to clarify issues related to the development of a startup. Precise questions of a strategic, technical, legal nature, which can be answered in a matter of minutes.
The new platform enters an already very crowded market, for good reasons: on the one hand, students, workers, professionals, startups and companies have to deal with a dynamic and geographically broad horizon, with respect to which the need for guidance is growing. , on the other hand, the network presents itself as an invaluable pool of experiences and skills, which, however, it is difficult to draw upon through direct contact.
So many platforms that mediate between demand and offer of expertise have been born in these years. The growthmentor.com site a year ago made a list of them (outdated in the meantime, but it is a good starting point): they selectively address startups, entrepreneurs, those looking for support for choices related to studies or career, or to areas related to software, design or art; there is also a section dedicated to software applications for internal use by companies. The assistance is offered on a subscription basis or paid for per consultancy unit, sometimes completely free of charge.
So how does AskMe intend to stand out? First of all in the broad spectrum of the offer, explains Shabnam Mohammad, CEO and co-founder with Yasser Amer (president) and Ahmed Riad (responsible for strategy and innovation) – the three have jointly founded Butterfly Creations, of which AskMe is the first project, a second one (a social network that measures the vibe of places in real time) is under development. The new platform is not limited to a specific sector or a particular point of development of the academic and professional career of a person or an entrepreneurial entity, but wants to become the place where questions of a different nature can converge.
Other aspects in which AskMe intends to differentiate itself concern the quality of the experts, invited individually after evaluating their credentials in terms of studies, experience and ability to assert themselves at an international level, and the way in which the platform is structured. This is well designed, transparent and intuitive. The user identifies the expert who is right for him and books him for a predefined time in 20 minutes. The price, of which AskMe retains 15 percent, is clearly indicated, and ranges from the 50 dollars requested by the marketing expert Steve Blakeman, to the 100 dollars of the senior data scientist of NASA David Meza or the very young Kristína Moss Guđrún ( Jobs for the future), to 500 by Nir Eyal, author of the bestseller Hooked. 24 hours before the meeting, the expert and the client have a chat available to anticipate the question and any documents, the interaction remains possible for another 24 hours after the videoconference.