Our mission
One-to-many mentorship
for the students everyone forgot.
Hoddle Melbourne is a free mentorship platform built for first-year international students. Not tutoring. Not a job board. Peer wisdom from high-achievers who've overcome exactly what you're up against — and scaled to reach every student who needs it.
The problem
“It’s 2am. The assignment is due at 9. There’s no one to call.”
— Priya, first-year student, UniMelb
Priya arrived in Melbourne in February. She'd spent three years preparing for this — the visa, the tuition fees, the goodbye at the airport. What nobody told her was what came after.
The grading system worked differently here. The group projects were assessed differently. The internship applications required a cover letter format she'd never seen. And her parents, 6,000 miles away, were proud and supportive but couldn't answer the questions that kept her awake.
She wasn't failing. She was just navigating in the dark — alone.
Across Melbourne's eight universities, tens of thousands of students are having Priya's night. At the same time, thousands of high-achieving seniors — who survived exactly those nights — have advice that no platform is letting them share at scale.
Hoddle closes that gap. Not by booking 1:1 calls. By letting one mentor's hard-won knowledge reach every student who needs it, exactly when they need it.
The research
Built on what students
actually told us.
We spent two semesters listening. Eighty first-year international students. Four Melbourne universities. Dozens of repeating patterns — all pointing to the same missing piece.
72%
of international students would trust a high-achieving peer over any professor, advisor, or counsellor.
58% + 9.7%
have tried approaching another student for guidance — and one in ten got nowhere.
39%
say the missing piece is honest advice from someone who has already succeeded here.
Career. Academics.
the two goals tied for #1 in every cohort we spoke to — everything else came second.
Methodology · 80 semi-structured interviews · 4 Melbourne universities
How it works
Three steps. No pressure.
Match with a mentor who's walked your path.
Tell us your field, your challenges, and where you're from. We surface mentors who share your background — someone who knows what it's like to navigate the same system you're figuring out.
Consume their advice on your own schedule.
Read their guides, watch their Q&As, join their live sessions, ask questions in the forum. No scheduling pressure. No awkward cold emails. The knowledge is there when you need it.
Share your own story when you're ready.
The students who struggled most often become the best mentors. When you find your footing — your first High Distinction, your first internship offer — we make it easy to give back.
Who we are
Built by people who remember.
Every mentor on Hoddle arrived in Melbourne as an international student. They built careers here. Now they share everything they learned.
Browse all mentors →
Samridh Limbu
Chief Technology Officer at Hoddle Melbourne / Co-Founder & CTO at TapCraft Studio
Itahari, Nepal → Melbourne
CTO @ Hoddle Melbourne · Co-Founder @ TapCraft · DSEC President · CS Student at Deakin
Tanvir Kaur Sohi
Student at Deakin University (Bachelor of Psychological Science)
Punjab, India → Melbourne
VC 100% Scholar · Psychology Student at Deakin · Founder of Hoddle · headspace Youth Advisory Group
Chirag P Agarwal
Founder at mymor One
Gaborone, Botswana → Melbourne
Founder @ mymor One · Social Work Master's Student at ACAP · Study Melbourne Leadership 4Impact Team Lead
The team
Research & development.
Hoddle was conceived, researched, and built by five people who spent two semesters listening to international students before writing a single line of code.
Luca Paoletti
Lead Developer & Product
Architected the platform from database schema to deployment. Previously built student tools at UniMelb.
Aisha Kamara
Research Lead
Led the student needs research across four Melbourne universities. Synthesised 80+ interviews into the product brief.
James Nguyen
UI/UX Design
Designed the visual language, component library, and every interaction from onboarding to the notification system.
Meera Iyer
Backend & Data
Designed the matching algorithm, RLS policies, and the notification pipeline. Previously interned at a Melbourne fintech.
Tom Blackwell
Content & Community Strategy
Shaped the editorial voice, forum structure, and the mentorship model. Recruited the founding cohort of mentors.
For mentors
Your hard-won experience
deserves an audience.
You've cracked the assessment rubrics. You've landed the internship. You know which societies actually open doors. That knowledge disappears when you graduate — unless you put it somewhere that scales.
- Reach hundreds of students with one article or Q&A session — not one.
- Build a personal brand that follows you into your career.
- Verified mentor status recognised by Melbourne's top employers.
- Your story lives on. Students you'll never meet will thank you for it.
1 article.
One well-written guide can answer the question 500 students are afraid to ask — for years after you graduate.
Verified.
Hoddle-verified mentors are vetted by our team. It's a credential that means something.
Ready to start
Find your mentor.
Or become one.
Both paths start with a two-minute sign-up. No subscription. No payment. Just the knowledge you need, from someone who's been there.