When you found a startup, one of the first pieces of advice you get is to find yourself at least one mentor – a more experienced businessperson that can guide your decisions.
This is all very reasonable and many funding organisations in the startup space even provide formal ways to introduce you to potential mentors.
I feel, however, that far too much emphasis is put on the practical side of this important relationship, and it is far more valuable from a founder’s mental health perspective.
Not having a mentor is a mistake I made in my first three businesses, and one that I am glad not to have made in this one.
In my case, because I set out to start a business, and did not fall into one (accidental entrepreneurs can often be more successful because they come to the talks without prejudice), I was caught up inside my vision, and did ‘not have time’ to worry about help with decision-making. Counter-factuals are always a dangerous game, and so much of business success does depend on luck and timing that it’s hard to say if my former firms would have been more successful with good mentorship.
What is certain, however, is that I would have handled the stress of running those businesses with less damage to myself and those who were around me.
Let me distinguish what I mean by a mentor from a business adviser.
A business adviser is not what you want in this case. You must certainly have advisers; they may even end up on your board.
I advise several companies on the technical product side of their business. But like many advisers, I do it because I enjoy it, and enjoy helping entrepreneurs on a practical level.
I don’t get paid, and neither do most advisers. The advice is informal and irregular; people are busy.
It can stray into wider territory, such as challenges with employee performance, but on the whole, things remain practical and assume the founder is operating at full capacity. The relationship remains at the professional business level.
When I use the word ‘mentor’, I mean someone who understands the pain of running a business. Who understands sleepless nights, and the pain in your stomach when you know you have to let people go the next day, or have a difficult meeting with a client that won’t pay (but you still need as a reference).
Or when the numbers aren’t there and you think you need to change strategy and ‘pivot’, or when you’re going to hit your overdraft limit.
I’ve suffered all these, and more. Having co-founders when things are tough is a great help, and that relationship is vital.
And yet your co-founders can also be a source of stress. Who do you talk to then?
What you need in a mentor is someone who understands not only the drive to succeed and build a business, and understands the personal cost of that decision – someone who helps you to follow through on the decision to make a company work.
It can be a very lonely place founding and running a company, and you need someone who has been there.
You need to be able to have honest conversations about all the other people who affect the business; about your feelings toward them.
That is why the mentor role is so much different than an adviser role: it’s about you personally as a founder. Many founders that I know have mentors that stay with them through multiple businesses.
I am very lucky myself to have found such a mentor for this business, and it has very much made navigating all the challenges easier on my mental state. Your mentor does not solve your problems, but helps to make sure that they do not crush you.
If you are without such a mentor, where do you find one? Some who advise are also willing to take on this more intense mentorship role.
By the nature of the work, a good mentor can only work with a limited number of founders. Start with your advisers, and their networks.
As a founder, it is also important to have a good network of fellow founders to lean on. These too can provide introductions to good mentors, of whom you have personal experience.
When you get a good introduction, be upfront about what you want out of the mentoring relationship.
It has to be about you as the founder first, and the business second.
Be prepared to end the mentoring relationship quickly if there is not a fit, and be upfront about this too. Good mentors will not mind and are looking for a good fit as well.
Finally, be prepared to pay. Just as with more traditional counselling, this is labour, and you should pay for it. It’s important because it establishes the gravity of the mentoring role.
You may not be able to pay until you have proper funding, and you might need to delay the start of the formal mentoring until then. But, again, a good mentor will understand and keep the conversation open.
You may think funding will solve all your problems but, in reality, it brings many more, and you’ll find yourself very much in need of mentorship when you’re responsible to investors.
Metrics: this week, we have 44 open issues and 183 closed issues – we’ve cleaned out a lot of old irrelevant stuff
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