Founders without direction go nowhere
Every few weeks I write articles on IndieHackers.com and share cool startup and VC tweets on my Twitter. If you want me to write about anything specific or share my insights based on conversations I have with other startup founders, feel free to tweet to me!
Everyday, I speak to indie founders from different parts of the world about their tech startups. It’s always a pleasure sharing what I learn from their experiences at it helps me get closer to the kind of founders Sparrow serves and deeply understand their core issues, challenges and goals.
“How do I do this, exactly?”
If you are running a business, own a business or work at a business, there will always be a time when you scratch your head and ask how you do a certain task, design a specific process or build a most-wanted product feature. There’s no exception to this, regardless of your startup stage / background. And so for times like this, there are two ways to get over the hurdle:
(a) Pay for a quick fix for the short-term: This may include hiring a consultant to get the job done or asking your smart friend to finish the job for you.
(b) Learn how to overcome similar problems in the long-term: Although some issues could require an immediate fix, ultimately the best way to continue learning to adapt to such situations is to gain the knowledge and put it to practice. But where do you start?
“Can I ask you for help?”
Depending on your network, there may be several places to seek help. It’s common for founders to reach out to their LinkedIn connections (or ask for warm intros) to people who can guide them to go the (b) route. Others find it easier to approach a startup incubator and understand their options for gaining knowledge / help. Either way, the sustainable, long-term solution is to find a mentor or advisor who can guide you through your startup’s challenges and hurdles.
The Mentee and Mentor
Your relationship with your mentor (or advisor) can help you achieve quite a few things depending on your context.
Here’s where I found their value lies the most:
If you’re attentive, you learn quickly over an interactive 30-min call, than you would reading a book on that topic e.g., sales mentoring, leadership mentoring, mindset mentoring, etc.
When you care about the “mentee and mentor” relationship, you ask questions about your mentor’s professional and academic background which helps you add context to their mentoring. This actually allows you to better understand where they’re coming from with their words.
Through a clearly defined mentorship program, you’re able to avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes that other founders may often make in your situation.
Get clarity in a new domain, industry or field of expertise. When you’d like to build a business around a new vertical that you’re not 100% familiar with, having someone with hands-on experience in that area helps you get miles ahead of your competition who may instead be spending hours trying to learn more about the topic. Both are good, one’s faster / more relevant than the other.
How to Find a Great Mentor
I would be lying if I told you there is a surefire way to find a perfect list of mentors and have the greatest fit on the first try. As the coordinator on Sparrow, I sit down with your and your team to understand your business and white-glove, custom match you a Sparrow Advisor (or business mentor) best fit for your goals and challenges. But in complete transparency (because I want you to learn from my honest experiences) I also have a hard time sometimes determining who’d be a perfect fit for your company. Why? Because there’s almost never one person who can solve all your problems.
It Takes Time.
It takes several calls and meetings to find a person truly fit for what you’re looking for because of many reasons:
You: Your personality, character and how you take critical feedback will change over time.
Your product: Your product / initiative will require different kinds of input and feedback at different parts of your startup journey.
Complexity, background and context: This is by far the hardest point because sometimes you difficulty of your challenges may require feedback so complex, that it’s hard to find someone who’s a 100% fit for what you need at the moment. On top of that, sometimes your mentor’s background (although they may possess the right skillset) will not match your exact niche or industry, which make it harder to define the weight you add to their advice.
One of our Advisors, Jeff Ponchick, writes about the 3 different kinds of mentors you need in your startup journey. I like him because he’s empathetic, cares about our purpose at Sparrow and also sold his company to SoundCloud for double digit millions. Cool guy, you can read his exit story here on IndieHackers.
But hey - Here’s a Silver Lining.
Whether it’s sales mentoring, leadership mentoring, mindset mentoring or anything else in between like growth, marketing, hiring, etc. - there will always be someone who will be happy to sit down with you for 20 minutes to give you their take on your problems. The more you speak with people with varying levels of expertise, the better you understand how (or whether) to take their advice. And ultimately, you become much better at applying and practicing the guidance you receive, over time.
I will write another startup blog on how to understand if a mentor is a good fit and what questions to ask them, but for now, here are 3 tips to ensure you are getting the best out of your mentorship sessions at Sparrow:
Think twice about who you approach - Not everyone can mentor or care enough to give back. And not everyone who can mentor, is particularly good at what they’re doing at their company. You do however need to draw a balance between these two. But here’s the tricky part.
Why are they mentoring exactly? Is it to “give back”? Money is good incentive but do they care about your outcomes?These questions are hard to get straight answers to when you ask them. So my advice is to look for subtle tells in how they give you advice, read what they post online and try to understand how they think about the world around them. It may sound silly, but once you’ve spoken with someone for an hour, you’re usually able to pick up on these. Like I said, it takes time.
Learn their story - Before I invite anyone to join Sparrow, I do hours of research on their personal and professional lives, read / watch their interviews and really try and ask myself “is this someone I trust?”. I do this because as a founder myself, I am a user of my own service and trust / transparency is the first thing that determines if I can listen to someone with my heart and mind.
When you decide to approach someone with your challenges, dig deep into their history and roots and ask yourself how they learned to create the things they did and what exactly their roles were in their organizations. Aiming for shiny people with long resumes which “look good” is just going for “form over function” and most of the time, their advice will bring generic, low quality value to your team.
Ask yourself “why them” - Be objective, ask a friend or ask me (no strings attached) if the person you’re looking to be your startup mentor or business mentor is a good fit for what you need exactly. Just because someone worked at Microsoft as a Product Manager for 2 years, doesn’t mean she would be able to give you extremely relevant advice for your SaaS tool because (a) there’s 4 different kinds of PMs at Microsoft and (b) your tool might be in an extremely early-stage for her to comment on since she may have worked on a more developed product during her tenure.
It’s never straightforward, but that’s where the fun really starts. Talking to 10 mentors on the same topic in the same field may feel like a waste of time, but over time, you get better and better at applying the most relevant advice to your team’s progress and before you know it, you’re the Jedi of receiving critical feedback and applying them to your business like a pro. That, or you can always rely on us (;
It’s such a pleasure to write for you guys. Love you, and thank you for being with us on our journey!