“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” -Mark Twain
A fellow entrepreneur, David Garland, wrote a post worth reading entitled, “Don’t Entrepreneur Alone: The Importance Of Mentorship For Young Entrepreneurs.” As I thought about the subject, it seemed necessary to expand upon David’s thoughts and touch on the importance of ‘quality’ mentors.
A common misconception is that all mentors are helpful. Unfortunately, the reality is that it’s fairly difficult to find a mentoring team that adds any real value. The wrong mentors will actually be detrimental to your startup. At best, bad mentors will waste a startup’s already limited time. In worse situations, poor mentoring advice may actually sink a young, susceptible startup.
So how do you go about qualifying a solid mentoring team? There’s no specific formula, but here’s a set of loose rules I have found useful in finding mentors that add real value (please note that this set of rules applies more so to business mentoring than it does to purely technical mentoring):
- Find at least a few mentors that have endured the wild ride of a startup: Avoid the career, mid-level corporate guy who recently retired and wants to give back. While he’s probably well-intentioned, it’s hard for this individual to offer practical and realistic advice in a world he’s never spent an ounce of time in himself. For example, honing your financing pitch with someone who has never raised money is pointless. Equally pointless is asking for advice on strategic decisions, product decisions, or anything else critical from someone who lacks an understanding in the unique nuances of a startup.
- Find at least a few mentors that are knowledgeable about your market and type of startup: The more knowledgeable a mentor is about your market and type of startup, the more he/she will be able to see the market’s problem and help you build a realistic solution to solve it. Justifying the various product development stages of a consumer technology product to someone in a service-oriented business (from an unrelated market) will leave you pulling your hair out in frustration.
- Find mentors with the ability to challenge you: Initial ideas usually suck, even for the best entrepreneurs. Great mentors are the ones that can tactfully challenge your assumptions, successfully pulling out from your team a more polished business strategy and/or product.
- Find mentors that will answer a phone call at 11pm: In other words, find mentors that are willing to be emotionally invested in your startup and will go the extra mile to help you succeed. I can name several of my mentors that have literally taken calls at 11pm (or later). That’s something I’ll never forget.
- Find mentors that are willing to offer introductions: Raising capital is greatly influenced by your ability to get your team’s product/idea in front of the right people. Credible mentors are capable of opening doors. Besides, a mentor’s willingness to offer introductions is a vote of confidence that he/she truly believes in the solution your team is building. We were introduced to our first investor through one of our mentors.
- Find mentors with at least a shred of humility: Dealing with a ‘know it all’ mentor will only push you into creating a copycat of this mentor’s previous wins. If you do this, you’ll fail. Markets change fast. Solutions change fast. Work with mentors that are cognizant of these inevitable changes and understand that the best solutions are yet to be invented.
The search for quality mentors can happen anywhere. Ask to grab coffee (or hot chocolate) with anyone halfway relevant who is willing to hear your startup’s story. Read relevant blogs and books. Ultimately, understand that most potential mentors will be a waste of your time, but the value you’ll ultimately receive from the few good ones is usually worth it.
I’d love to hear any thoughts/rules regarding your experiences with finding quality mentors, as well as your experiences with the not-so-good ones.
Lastly, thank you to all of my mentors; you know who you are 
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