Lived experience has value.
About Somebody Like Me
A marketplace built so more people can find somebody like them.
We help lived-experience mentors turn what they have learned into responsible, paid support—and help families find them without a gatekeeper choosing for them.
My story
Family love did not erase the unanswered questions.
I am a Black adoptee who was raised in a white adoptive family. I know what it is to love your family and still carry questions about race, identity, belonging, gratitude, loss, and what it means to become your own person.
Some parts of that experience are difficult to explain to people who have not lived them. Loving my family did not erase the parts of my story they could not live with me—and needing somebody who understood did not mean I was rejecting them.
I created Somebody Like Me so adoptees and foster youth could have honest conversations with someone who genuinely understands. It began with the kind of person I needed. The marketplace expands that idea beyond me: many lived experiences, many mentors, and many ways for a young person to recognize themselves in somebody further down the road.
Somebody Like Me does not ask families to accept whoever an agency assigns. Mentors create profiles and offerings after earning verification. Participants and parents can see the real person, compare relevant overlap, and decide for themselves.
— Pete Drake
What we believe
Access and standards can grow together.
The participant is the expert on their own life.
Mentors should control their time and rates.
Verification must be earned—not purchased.
Honest discovery is better than forced matching.
Boundaries protect participant and mentor.
A profitable marketplace can still lead with care.
More mentors should mean more kinds of recognition.
From the founder
The Pursuit of Identity
A quieter companion to the broader conversation about identity and the founder’s story.
Meaningful overlap, chosen by you