Often times, when the going gets tough, sound advice from others can make the difference. For nascent entrepreneurs looking to launch their very own startup, entrepreneurship can be a daunting process filled with mistakes and learning along the way. However, making all the mistakes in the book is not necessarily a prerequisite to becoming an entrepreneur. Essentially, entrepreneurship is still a mindset and not a job. Hence, a solution for such a scenario would be to find a good mentor that might have already made those mistakes in the past, in order to give you a proper heads up when the situation calls. A former startup founder, business angel or experienced advisor, are all well-qualified for assisting you in your journey.
But how the heck do you go about finding one of these mentors and get them to mentor you in the first place? In this article we will be covering the top 10 tips for finding a startup mentor successfully. Whether you are at the idea stage, seed stage or pre-everything stage, the tips provided below should at the very least give you some new thinking material! These are very much applicable to a founder that is just starting out with their first venture (idea).
Tip #1: Start With Who You Know
Friends, family, work colleagues – are all people you can approach and ask for a contact that could be a startup mentor for you. As a founder, getting a good intro from someone you know helps to break the ice and connect with a total stranger somewhat quicker. You never know whom a friend or aunt of yours may now so don’t be afraid to ask and explore. Most people have a (former) entrepreneur in their family somewhere so it would not be a waste of time to ask that person for some advice and their thoughts on finding a startup mentor to guide you.
Tip #2: Contact Local Incubators
Incubators in your city usually have a good network of investors, advisors, founders etc. that are interested in being pitched and assisting early-stage startups. Taking part in an incubator programme therefore has its added advantage as you are able to tap into their network and find yourself a good mentor. Note that some incubators charge a fee, while others are free of charge with many being based on an equity share.
Tip #3: Attend Startup Events
Investors, founders, and advisors are all attending startup events regularly (us included!). While you may not be their top priority when doing so, coming across a new founder and hearing about their venture is always interesting. The key here is to entice the person and get them interested in who you are and what you’re doing. It is always good to figure out what the person’s interests are with regards to startups (to see if you’d be a good match) but also get a feel of their time availability and wiliness to provide advice. In general, the idea is not to hop on a flight to Lisbon and attend Web Summit this year per se, but definitely start locally with smaller startup meetups and events. These can be found via Facebook groups, accelerators and incubators. Your local chamber if commerce might also be active and organizing events so look out for those as well.
Tip #4: Use Your University’s Network
If you are attending a university education programme, then it would be an idea to do some extra curricular activities and approach the entrepreneurship club for example. Any good university has a massive network of researchers, entrepreneurs and so forth. Getting an introduction from one of your lecturers could also be a way to kick things off and find a mentor. University teachers typically do research and attend events all-over, meeting various people from a range of professions. Thus, if you are not sure where to start, knock on the door of someone after a lecture and see what happens. There’s no downside in trying.
Tip #5: Follow-up!
People are busy, and this is especially true in the startup community. Someone not getting back to you does not mean they’re not interested right away. A follow-up here and there will let you know if the mentor is really engaged or not. Also, use their time wisely. If you’re having a meeting, put an agenda together, send a status report prior to the meeting in order to get the most feedback during this time. Not only does it show that you take things seriously but it also helps to structure things and guide the mentor as to how they can help you. Identifying the problems to tackle is key, and discussing these with a mentor is what can benefit a founder the most.
Closing Remarks
Finding a mentor to guide you during your entrepreneurial journey can make a big difference in the outcome. Not only can such a person help you to analyze ideas, but a mentor can also impute their knowledge and experience into you which can help you as a founder avoid (costly) mistakes. Know that a good mentor is someone that is there for you but won’t necessarily baby-sit you. It is someone that makes time to meet with you and that follows-up. While a good mentor might not fly out every month to your city to meet with you, it is someone that you can call, give you intro’s and helps you as a founder in organizing your thoughts. Above all things, a good mentor challenges you and your ideas before you rush and act upon them.
All images in this article were sourced from unDraw unless otherwise stated. This is an excerpt of a medium article. To stay in touch and receive our blog updates, please follow us on twitter.