(2022) Startup Mentoring Platform: 4 tricks to find your best mentor
Online mentoring platforms for startups are known to have a huge impact in instantly bringing expertise to founders. I often say that talking to the right mentor for your startup challenges is like using the "search" function in a 500-page book -- and getting the exact, evidence-backed sentence that you need to overcome your challenges, over and over again!
However, not all mentoring programs are created equal. There's many mentors who often give out mediocre or untested advice.
Let's walk through the fundamentals of mentorship for startups, what mentors can do for you and the questions you can ask to filter out the great ones for your startup.
Table of Contents
What does a startup mentor do?
A startup mentor learns about your business, and provides you practical advice to overcome your challenges. They help you differentiate short and long-term goals and help you plan your next steps to solve your deepest issues and scale your company.
That's why I built Sparrow for founders just like you.
“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself” — Galileo Galilei
I always recommend making sure the platform you're using goes through a mentor vetting process to ensure the ones giving you mentorship actually have the credentials and experience required.
At Sparrow, every mentor is thoroughly vetted by me.
Do startups need mentorship programs?
A mentorship program can benefit founders especially when they're in the early days of building their startups.
As I mention in my article about finding your startup coach, under "Which startup coach is best for me?" you'll notice that different mentors may be effective for different stages of a startup.
You decide what level of help you need.
There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to mentors. Your mentoring sessions can be more tactical (e.g., your mentor showing you how to do video prospecting) or purely strategic (e.g., high-level conversations on measuring the effectiveness of your current marketing channels.
Before you begin your mentorship program, you should have an open discussion with your mentors about what kind advice you're looking to get and how you expect your future sessions to be.
If you need further instructions on this topic, feel free to use our library of templates for preparing for your mentoring sessions.
"Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Offline mentoring sessions
Given COVID-19, a lot has changed in how founders talk with each other and deliver pitches to investors. Coming out of the pandemic, I personally became more comfortable taking more video calls online than before.
But you and your team might find offline interactions with your mentor much more effective. If you choose to go this route, I recommend getting in touch with your city's incubators (public/private) and accelerators.
Generally, for a monthly fee or startup equity, they'll let you interact with a vetted mentor. But the laws written within this article still apply.
Don't just take any mentor who is sent your way - you must be ruthless with your choice as they can largely affect your startup's success (or failure).
Online mentoring platform
Online mentoring programs are great because you receive instant guidance by only paying with money instead of company equity. Additionally, you get to speak with mentors who hav mastered several topics -- all on the same mentoring platform! More details below:
Instant advice, not weeks
Within days, you're able to book time with a mentor to understand if they can genuinely help you succeed. For an offline mentoring platform, it may take you months to get accepted into their cohorts, and only then do you have access to their mentorship. Year 2010 vs. Year 2022.
This is the future. You decide.
Cash over equity
Unless your company is worth over $10mm and you need an advisor to work with you for 10-20 hours a month on a very deep level, I don't recommend parting with equity. It's less riskier to part with a thousand dollars over a few months with mentors who are uniquely positioned to help you.
The only exception here is aligned incentives - as the value of the equity rises, the more you grow from their advice.
Help on many topics, all in one place
Physical geographies can often limit the kinds of mentors the accelerators and incubators can have access to.
A mentoring platform built online allows you to access internationally successful founders, with expertise across a large number of topics including marketing, growth, operations, acquisitions, etc. Our mentors cover all these topics.
How to build great mentoring programs.
A good mentoring program focuses on what you and your team needs to accomplish -- period. For every great piece of advice on the internet, there's 5000 lines of generic, unhelpful advice that goes nowhere.
“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” — Oprah Winfrey
Below are my tips on building a great one:
Step 1: Map out your needs and gaps
You can't build out a learning system for yourself, if you don't completely understand what you need. Keep track of (a) your immediate and long-term goals (b) what you need to accomplish them and (c) what you're missing/need help with.
That way, you'll have a much better idea of who to reach out to for mentorship and once you do, you can tell them with confidence what exactly you need help with. It also makes you look good since you appear prepared and organized.
Step 2A: Reach out to your network - LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
Now that you have an idea of what you need to talk about, you can start to reach out to your successful founder friends. Leverage your LinkedIn connections. Ask your immediate acquaintances to provide warm introductions to individuals who may be your best mentors.
This is often very painful, but can prove to be extremely useful when reading out to entrepreneurs and industry experts for what your product and colleagues need help with.
Step 2B: Reach out to Entrepreneurs In Residence (EIRs)
Often overlooked and underrated, these EIRs are generally vetted by the organizations who hire them. My University had an EIR who got acquired by IBM and he was very helpful when I reached out to him.
The connection you may have with directly talking with an EIR in your own city/hometown is unmatched by any online mentoring platforms and this is where you may have an unfair advantage over those who rely heavily on them.
Step 3: Draw a picture of your mentoring network
Now that you've decided who you want to talk to, it's time to start drawing out (a) when you'll talk to them (b) how often (c) and about what topics specifically. I've made a Google Sheet just for this purpose and I really hope it helps you! This is part of the library I've built for founders.
Remember, your mentoring network will make or break you. So do not skip ahead to the next step without doing this first.
Step 4a: Iterate your personal mentoring program
You've done a great job mapping out what you need to do. Now, it's time to get to work. Most people love to talk and "take mentoring" but never find time to execute on them. Please don't be like that.
As you keep going into 20-minute and 60-minute calls, you should start writing down the direction you receive and implementing on the ones you're confident about.
In the beginning. you'll find that you may be receiving generic/useless advice. That's okay. Maybe you're asking questions which are too generic. Or, you're not asking the right person just yet.
This is why you should keep having calls/touch-points/emails with multiple mentors to see who gives you practical advice that you can relate to.
And then over time, drop those who're not providing enough value. Just like a startup, you must also have a lean mindset when building your own mentorship journey.
Step 4b: Execute like a madman
Whichever online mentoring platform you decide to use (Sparrow or not) you need to consistently execute on the recommendations you receive. When I struggle with an idea or challenge, I run my same question by 2-3 respected individuals in my network to see what they suggest.
I then filter out the good advice from the bad ones, and then start planning out how to execute on it. The planning must take the least amount of time -- do not let the planning overtake the actual need to do what must be done.
And then, I start trying to execute on the recommended steps! It's really that simple.
What questions to ask startup mentor?
Every mentoring platform will have a mix of bad and great individuals who can help you. Generally, these are the questions you should ask them before you start paying for sessions:
Question 1: Given what you know about my business, are there any high-level ideas you recommend I try out? How many calls on this mentoring platform do you personally think we'll need together?
Question 2: How does your past mentoring experience make you a good fit for my exact goals?
Question 3: Have you previously provided guidance to other entrepreneurs with similar backgrounds like mine? What results did they achieve and was it on this mentoring platform?
Question 4: What is your mentorship style? For my exact issues, will you be providing tactical challenges (e.g., optimizing landing page, step-by-step help setting up Google Ads) or more strategic help (e.g., planning which acquisition channels to test, high-level discussions about brand positioning, etc.)
Question 5: How much time commitment are you able to provide? What does a perfect mentor-mentee relationship look like to you?
During your sessions, great mentors ask more questions than they give direct advice. So don't bombard them for answers to every question you may have.
With that in mind, here are my tips for you:
Be organized
Use the templates I made on the library page to prepare and present your case. Be clear on what topics you desperately need guidance on vs. things you don't need much help with.
Be fair
Don't expect the other person to have instant answers to all your questions and understand everything you say in one go. Sometimes a live call helps both parties seek further clarification, before giving a decision/suggestion.
Not all mentoring platforms are created equal.
Be Honest
Don't try to hide what you're bad at or don't have the skills for. Pretending makes it much harder for the other person to grasp what the actual issue is. Plus, you'd be wasting your own money going into a session and not getting the actual answers you need.
So when your advisor asks you about metrics, goals and challenges - be direct and honest.
Final words about mentoring platforms
Being the founder of Sparrow, I may come off as a little biased towards the skills you would learn from seasoned entrepreneurs on our platform. The truth is your success depends on you as the mentee, and the industry experts who will coach you.
Overtime you confidence will grow as you interact with more experts on different mentoring platforms. But throughout your journey with your mentors, the more diligent and confident you become, the more seriously you will take your startup journey.
Something I often tell founders is not prioritize action over "getting advice". Because most of us love to talk with experts but are terrible at testing and executing on ideas. There will be days when things feel blurry and entrepreneurs around you feel smarter than you - but you'll come through - I promise.
It just takes a lot of persistence to see results in the early days of building a company.
The journey to become a great person who builds a sustainable business is on your back. And you'll be leading your product and company into the promised land. No the naysayers. Not the doubters. But you.
I take hours to write each of these blogs so I can help you to the best of my ability. If you'd like to read more, head on over to our master page. And when you're ready, feel free to book a call with any of our fantastic advisors! We'd love to hear your story :)