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Peerly · 2025–2026

A mentorship program for people navigating breast cancer, from a manual pilot to a platform.

Peerly pairs people facing breast cancer with mentors who have been through it. I built a manual first version so the team could learn how the program should work before we automated it.

Product strategy / Platform build

The brief

Peerly was a new program, not an established process waiting to be put into software. In 2025, the first version used Notion, n8n and SendGrid so the team could handle intake, vetting and matching themselves.

Every match needed a person’s approval. Consent and controlled access to health information were part of the workflow from the start. Keeping it manual also kept it inexpensive to change.

What I did

Started with the admin tools

The proposed second version included a website, mentor portal and admin portal. I narrowed that to an admin-first release until the leadership team had seen real demand.

The new platform brought intake, people, matching, email and analytics into seven admin views. A working prototype was in the team’s hands six days after kickoff.

Kept people in charge of matching

Matching logic suggests mentors, but a coordinator approves each match. Veriff supports mentor ID verification, and sensitive health information is encrypted field by field at rest.

Mentors use magic links to set up their profiles. The program team can edit the email copy themselves, from the match introduction through check-ins at days 2, 7, 10, 30, 60 and 90.

Tested before moving the data

I moved the migration to the end so test accounts could run through first. After the platform went live, we imported 67 mentors, 41 mentees and 31 matches from the pilot, with zero rejected records.

Result

46

Active mentorships

Out of 54 matches on the platform, as of 24 September 2026. This is a usage snapshot, not a measure of health outcomes.

The platform went live with the pilot's data carried over.

The platform went live about ten weeks after kickoff. The team now has one place to manage the mentorship lifecycle, with its pilot history carried across.

As of 24 September 2026, the platform has 54 matches, including the 31 imported from the pilot, with 46 mentorships active.

What they said

“If I were to build a technical team from scratch, Martin would be one of the first people I call. He diligently and carefully thinks through every piece of an implementation and provides clear, detailed recommendations to accommodate different scope, timeline for implementation, and cost. He breaks down complex topics and makes them accessible, enabling you to make informed decisions.

He has been a collaborative partner on every level: roadmap planning, bug-squashing, and iterating on ideas to land at the best outcome. Martin is one of the loveliest people I work with, and his enthusiasm, candour, and great personality makes every meeting a joy. It’s a privilege to work with someone that you can trust completely to build something right the first time around and deliver quality in every piece of what they do.

We worked with Martin to build out a custom platform that will act as the critical foundation to enable scale. I’m looking forward to continued collaboration with Martin as we plan for the future of the platform and the many iterations to come.”

Hannah BeckettFractional COO, Peerly

“Martin took our vision for Peerly and brought it to life! He didn’t just work through what we asked for, he anticipated what we would need and considered things we hadn’t even thought to ask. We have 100% confidence in our platform because of the care, attention to detail and skill he brought to this project. And on top of that, he’s an incredible person. I would jump at the chance to have Martin on my team, every single time.”

Stacey KlineCo-Founder, Peerly

Scope

Product

  • Manual pilot workflow
  • Admin-first release scope
  • Coordinator-approved matching
  • Editable lifecycle emails

Engineering

  • Admin platform and analytics
  • Field-level encryption at rest
  • Veriff integration and magic-link access
  • Historical data migration

ToolsNext.js, Postgres, Clerk, Resend, Veriff and Vercel.

Milestones

  1. First version built with Notion, n8n and SendGrid, for intake, vetting and matching.

  2. Admin platform built and launched, bringing intake, people, matching, email and analytics into seven admin views.

  3. Pilot history imported: 67 mentors, 41 mentees and 31 matches, with zero rejected records.

  4. Handover completed.

Have a hard problem of your own?

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