ADPList: A Conversation With Felix Lee on Mentorship, Community and Building for Real Impact
Mentorship often begins with a quiet moment. Someone looking for direction. Someone else willing to give a little time. For years, these moments happened in hallways, after meetings, or between people who simply crossed paths at the right time. They were meaningful, but rare, and depended almost entirely on luck.
In the early months of COVID, that luck disappeared. The hallways emptied. The conversations stopped. People were losing their jobs while the world held its breath, and the one thing many needed most guidance suddenly slipped out of reach.
I reached out to Felix Lee to understand how ADPList emerged from that moment of uncertainty. This piece is shaped around the written responses he shared with me, and the story behind them reveals a product built not from opportunity but from necessity. ADPList is a platform that connects people with mentors across design, product, and tech, making high-quality guidance accessible to anyone around the world.
How It Started
When I asked him what originally inspired ADPList, he answered with a clarity that usually signals a lived problem rather than an abstract idea. His response cut straight to the heart of it.
“People were laid off during COVID and couldn’t find mentorship,” he said.
There was no dramatic buildup, no polished founder narrative. Just a simple truth about people in need of guidance, unsure where to turn. For him, this wasn’t a conceptual or strategic challenge. It felt immediate and human. He wanted mentorship to be reachable for everyone, everywhere. That intention became the foundation for everything that followed.
A short time later, he made the decision that would define the platform.
“Making mentorship completely free,” he told me.
It was a simple call with unexpectedly large consequences. Mentors joined because they genuinely wanted to contribute. Mentees arrived without hesitation. Removing the price tag created trust faster than any growth tactic could. That single decision set the cultural tone and shaped ADPList’s trajectory.
Building a Community by Letting It Breathe
When I asked how ADPList grew into such a broad and surprisingly positive community, his response was almost understated in its simplicity.
“Authenticity and giving first,” he explained.
There was no engineered mechanism behind the growth. No aggressive playbooks. People had meaningful conversations and shared them with others. Companies discovered ADPList in exactly the same way. The product moved through individuals, not campaigns.
Curious about how they maintain this experience at scale, I asked which signals the team pays most attention to. He continued with the same thread.
“Quality conversations. Repeat sessions. Match quality. Feedback. That’s what we focus on,” he said.
ADPList was never intended to be a massive directory. It was built to make the right conversations happen. The metrics they track reflect that intention: depth over volume, impact over activity.
Where AI Fits Into Mentorship
In 2025, any product conversation eventually finds its way to AI. I asked how he sees AI shaping the future of mentorship and how it already fits into ADPList today. His answer was thoughtful and measured.
“AI helps with matching and discovery. We’re exploring how AI can enhance, not replace, human mentorship,” he said.
AI, for him, is a supporting layer rather than the centerpiece. This approach aligns with the thinking in his “Design by AI” ebook, which frames AI as a collaborator that expands creative possibility instead of flattening it.
Across all his answers, one theme returns consistently: technology should lift the human connection, not overshadow it.
When Companies Join Through Their People
ADPList’s homepage features companies like Booking, Notion, Spotify and Figma. I asked how these relationships began, and his explanation reflected a pattern already visible in the platform’s growth.
“They came organically,” he said. “Employees used ADPList, loved it, and brought it into their companies for internal mentorship programs.”
No partnership pipeline. No outbound effort. Just individuals who found value and carried it into their teams. In many ways, this mirrors how ADPList spread publicly. Trust moved quietly at first, then consistently.
Before we wrapped up, I asked him if he had any final thoughts for readers of product.blog. He paused, then offered a single line that captured everything he had expressed throughout our conversation.
“Build for impact, not just growth. When you solve real problems for real people, everything else follows,” he said.
ADPList didn’t begin with a plan for scale. It began with a need and a decision to meet that need. In a world crowded with products competing for attention, his story is a reminder that meaningful things often begin quietly, with a simple intention to help.
Check out ADPList: https://adplist.org/
ADPList: A Conversation With Felix Lee on Mentorship, Community and Building for Real Impact was originally published in product.blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.