How to Learn From Experts With an AI Mentor
· MentorClone Team
Most of what you need to know has already been said by someone who's done it. It's sitting in a podcast back catalog or a pile of old posts. Search matches titles, so it rarely finds the idea you half remember. Rewatching takes an evening. And when you do find the passage, it was said to everyone. Working out what it means for you is still your job.
An AI mentor built from one person's work does that last part. Here's how to get good answers out of one. The examples use the two mentors live on MentorClone, Rob Walling and Arvid Kahl, both on building a business. The habits work for any subject.
1. Pick someone whose judgment you'd follow
Each mentor answers from one person's work and nothing else, so the choice matters. Pick the person you'd actually want in the room.
- Rob Walling, from the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast. Good for pricing, validating ideas, hiring, and growing a self-funded SaaS.
- Arvid Kahl, from The Bootstrapped Founder articles and videos. Good for audience-first businesses, finding problems worth solving, and building in public.
Each mentor page shows how many sources it's built from and which topics it covers. Look before you ask.
If nobody on the list is someone you'd follow, email hello@mentorclone.ai. We build every mentor ourselves, and requests decide who's next.
2. Tell it where you are
This is the step people skip, and it's the one that matters most. Compare:
- "What does Rob Walling think about pricing?"
- "I run a B2B tool for small agencies. 40 paying customers at $29 a month, and nobody has complained about the price. Should I raise it?"
The first gets you a summary. The second gets you told what to do. Give it your numbers, your stage, and what you're leaning toward.
It keeps short notes on your situation, so next time you can skip the backstory. You can see and delete them in settings.
3. Open the links before you act
Each point in an answer links to where they said it. For video, you land on the moment. For a post or episode page, you get the page.
Click the ones that would change your plan. For the pricing question, Rob's pricing topic page has this line from Episode 702:
"if you're not getting any complaints about price, then your price is too low"
It also has the caveat from a 2025 episode about companies that raised prices too far and "outpaced the market." Read both before you email your customers. If an answer ever doesn't match its source, you'll see it right there, and we'd like to hear about it.
4. Take "no source" seriously
Sometimes the mentor says the person never covered your question. That's the most useful answer it gives. A chatbot would have filled the gap with something plausible. "Arvid never wrote about this" tells you to look elsewhere before you act on advice that was never his.
5. Check the date
People change their minds. Advice from someone's first company and their fourth can point in opposite directions.
Each mentor has topic pages that list what the person said on a subject, with dates. On Arvid Kahl's pricing topic you can read his 2020 advice that "Early bootstrapped pricing is often too low" next to his 2022 account of how FeedbackPanda raised prices by 50 percent.
6. Ask the other mentor
Put the same question to both. On validating a new idea, Rob's material leans on conversations and landing pages. Arvid's starts from an audience's problems. Where they agree, move. Where they split, you've found the real trade-off.
If you work with an AI agent, it can ask the same mentor before it builds something for you. Here's how that works.
What it won't do
The mentor is built from the person's public work. They didn't write it and haven't endorsed it. It only knows what they published, in English for now. And it won't make the decision for you. Use it to make a better call, then go test that call in the real world.
For how this differs from a chatbot playing a role, see AI Mentor vs an 'Act as Rob Walling' Prompt. If you're weighing a notebook tool, see MentorClone vs NotebookLM.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I learn from experts with AI?
Pick an AI mentor built from one expert's public work, describe your situation, and ask what to do. Then open the links and read the expert's own words before you act.
How do I know the answer really comes from that person?
Each point links to where they said it, with the exact moment for video. If they never covered your question, the mentor says so.
Can I add a mentor myself?
No. We build and check every mentor. Rob Walling and Arvid Kahl are live, and you can request someone by email.
Is it free?
Free while in beta. You need an account, no card.
Start with the decision in front of you
Pick Rob Walling or Arvid Kahl, tell it where you stand, and follow the links. Free while in beta.