Re-create

What Re-create does

Re-create (legal entity: re:create) is a free, community-led global mentoring platform that connects aspiring creatives — primarily students and early-career professionals — with experienced industry mentors who volunteer their time. The platform allows mentees to browse mentors by location or discipline, submit a portfolio with a brief introduction, and, if accepted, enter a flexible mentoring relationship structured in 3, 6, 9, or 12 month blocks. Sessions can be conducted in-person, via email, phone, or video-chat (including Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts), giving both parties latitude over communication style and frequency. The mentor roster spans 40+ countries and includes professionals from independent practices, boutique agencies, and major creative employers such as Facebook, Twitch, AWS, Condé Nast, GE Digital, AKQA, Sky, Home Chef, K-Swiss, and Target McConnells.

The underlying technology is unremarkable from a defensibility standpoint: the platform appears to be a standard WordPress-based website (hosted on AWS S3 in the eu-west-2 region), with no proprietary algorithms, no native mobile app, and no disclosed API or integration surface. The product's value derives from the curated mentor supply rather than from technological differentiation, and the matching process is manual — mentees apply and mentors self-select.

The business model is opaque. Re-create explicitly states the service is free for mentees and offers no paid tiers, subscriptions, or transaction fees; mentors are unpaid volunteers. No revenue, funding, sponsorship, or alternative monetisation mechanism is disclosed. The founder, Steve Brown, simultaneously serves as Creative Director at Edinburgh-based web agency Primate, indicating the venture is not commercially self-sustaining at present and is likely funded personally or operated as a passion project / pro-bono community initiative rather than a venture-backed business.

Name

Re-create

Legal name

re:create

Website

https://re-create.com

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Re-create is a free, community-led global mentoring platform that connects aspiring creatives (students and early-career professionals) with volunteer industry mentors across 40+ countries and multiple creative disciplines, with no disclosed revenue or monetisation model.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Free Mentoring Platform: The platform provides free mentoring services to mentees. Revenue model is not explicitly disclosed in the source material. The company states they get 'a kick out of helping aspiring creatives' and keep the experience 'free for everyone', suggesting either a passion project, donation-based model, or alternative monetization not mentioned.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Re-create runs a free, self-serve web platform that connects aspiring creatives (students and professionals) with experienced industry mentors across photography, design, UX/UI, art direction, product design, and other creative disciplines. Mentees browse mentors by location or discipline, submit their portfolio with a short introduction, and are hand-picked by mentors. Engagements run in 3, 6, 9, or 12-month blocks and are conducted via in-person meetings, email, phone, or video-chat tools; the service is entirely free for mentees.

Product overview

Re-create is a single, unified mentoring platform for creatives that connects aspiring designers, photographers, and other creative professionals with experienced industry mentors worldwide. The platform operates as a free service for mentees, offering flexible mentoring arrangements with session blocks of 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. Mentors and mentees connect through various communication channels including in-person meetings, email, phone, and video-chat platforms. The service features a browsable mentor directory searchable by location and discipline, where potential mentees submit portfolios and introductions to secure mentorship relationships.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Re-create Mentoring Platform A free web-based platform that matches aspiring creative students and professionals with experienced industry mentors across photography, design, UX/UI, art direction, product design, and other creative disciplines. Users browse mentors by location or discipline, submit a portfolio with a short introduction, and mentors hand-pick mentees. Mentoring engagements run in flexible 3, 6, 9, or 12-month blocks and are conducted via in-person meetings, email, phone, or video-chat tools. Targeted at individual creatives globally — including students seeking real-world insight, emerging professionals breaking into the industry, and experienced professionals wanting to give back. The service is entirely free for mentees, with mentors volunteering their time.

Named customers2 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• MentorCruise: Marketplace for paid, structured mentorship engagements with vetted mentors in tech and adjacent fields. Directly comparable business model to Re-create's portfolio-submission-and-match flow, with the key difference being MentorCruise's paid mentor compensation model.
• GrowthMentor: 1:1 mentorship marketplace focused specifically on growth marketing. Operates on a very similar directory-plus-application matching flow as Re-create, though narrowed to a single discipline.
• ADPList: Global 1:1 mentorship marketplace connecting professionals with mentors across product, design, engineering, and data. Closest direct competitor to Re-create, with a similar mentor-browsing and request-based matching model — though ADPList operates at much larger scale and includes paid tiers.

Emerging players

• The Futur: Creative-business education brand offering courses, coaching, and community for designers and creative entrepreneurs. Targets a similar audience (creative professionals seeking career and craft development) and overlaps in the coaching/mentoring layer, but is more course-and-content-led than peer-mentorship-led.
• Dribbble: Design portfolio and hiring platform with a strong creative community. Overlaps with Re-create on serving designers seeking feedback and visibility, though Dribbble's monetization is built around hiring and design marketplace rather than mentor matching.
• Behance: Adobe-owned portfolio and community platform for creative professionals. Re-create's portfolio-submission-and-review flow parallels Behance's portfolio-and-feedback dynamic, though Behance is a portfolio network rather than an active matching marketplace.

Broad incumbents

• Skillshare: Subscription learning platform with a heavy creative catalog (design, illustration, photography, writing). Reaches the same aspiring-creative audience as Re-create via project-based courses, though Skillshare is course-based rather than mentor-based and operates at vastly larger scale.
• Domestika: Large-scale online learning marketplace for creative disciplines (design, illustration, photography, craft), pairing independent creators with global learners. Comparable in targeting creative professionals and operating as a creator/learner marketplace, though Domestika focuses on paid pre-produced courses rather than live mentorship.
• Clarity.fm: On-demand expert advice marketplace where professionals book paid short calls with vetted experts across many domains. Comparable marketplace structure to Re-create's directory and engagement model, though Clarity.fm monetizes per-call and operates across all professional verticals.

Others

• Creative Mornings: Global community-driven breakfast lecture series for the creative industry. Targets the same aspiring-creative audience as Re-create and operates a similar community-led ethos, but delivers in-person talks rather than 1:1 mentorship relationships.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/WeAreRecreate
• Facebookfacebook.com/recreate
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/recreate-mentoring

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Re-create