
Mentors Are the Secret Weapons of Successful Startups - mw67
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/22/mentors-are-the-secret-weapons-of-successful-startups/
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julianpye
Key is that the mentor is 'an experienced entrepreneur'. This is very
important - everywhere I see nowadays are startup programs with 'mentors',
most times they are just corporate employees with no entrepreneurial
trackrecord.

What do experienced entrepreneurs know?

Their advice is initially ignored and they know that that's normal. Every
first-time entrepreneur has wrong assumptions that they are advised against.
But they just must test them out themselves. Non-experienced entrepreneur
mentors want their advice followed and quickly give up mentoring if it isn't
so.

That advice is still very important: the advantage is that you get to a point
quick where you remember the advice initially ignored and pivot faster and
learn much quicker.

~~~
cbsmith
I think this other comment describes the reality more accurately:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9247352](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9247352)

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davidu
Alternate headline: Very successful people seek out mentors to enhance their
own capabilities.

More seriously, I've always found two distinct types of mentors, and
discovered it's crucial to separate the two types apart from each other and
not confuse one for the other.

One type is the "been there done that" type with decades of experience in one
particular area, and they simply share with you lots of anecdotes about how
things have played out in the past as empirical evidence of how they may play
out in the future.

The other type is the kind of mentor who provides you with an analytical
framework to be able to prioritize and evaluate decisions on your own. This
person often helps you see the forest from the trees, or helps you recognize
blindspots you might not be aware of.

Both are valuable, but it's important to know the difference.

~~~
strathmeyer
I've always been seeking a mentor, but have literally never met someone who
would help me in life. All I want to do is be a programmer? You're saying
that's not why I've has such poor success at finding opportunities or applying
myself correctly? You're saying that isn't a field that someone can easily
help someone else succeed in? The people I helped get jobs in college didn't
seem to have any problems. Please explain!

~~~
davidu
Perhaps english isn't your first language, but your grammar is so painful it's
hard to know what you are asking.

If you are seeking a mentor for programming, join an IRC channel dedicated to
your current favorite language and start listening, learning, and asking
questions. Over time, a mentor will emerge.

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bsbechtel
I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately. If you give up typical
mentor equity - ~0.5% in exchange for someone who can open doors and quickly
make connections for you, payable upon company exit, this can end up being a
pretty good deal. Consider this, many of the things mentors can do for a
startup are things that could be done by a high level employee, but could take
up lots of time - sourcing talent, getting intros, removing roadblocks, etc.
If you hire someone to help with these things, it costs you $100,000+/year in
your prime growth stage where working capital is vital. If you have a mentor
who can do these things in a fraction of the time because of his or her
network and experience, if you have a $100mm exit, this ends up costing you
$500,000 somewhere between 5 and 10 years later. It also frees up that salary
which can then be used to finance growth in operations or some other vital
need. Of all the financing and investment options a founder has available, if
you have access to good mentors, this seems like one of, if not the, best
option to help with the growth of your company.

~~~
sytelus
There are too many things wrong with your calculation. First, you need mentor
exactly because you can't replace that role with your high level employee.
Mentors are typically a successful founders themselves and have enough cash in
bank not to worry about employment. Good mentor don't help startups _because_
they are getting 0.5% equity but rather because they see new founder as image
of themselves, huge promise in their approach and yeah, may be a big bucks
they can generate one day. If your mentor is haggling about equity% then you
are probably talking to wrong guy. Also it's hilarious to me that you think
$100K salary can buy a person who can do the job of a mentor. The role of
mentor works exactly because they are not your employee and they can tell you
to your face that your suck at XYZ. It also works because mentor typically has
seen the movie dozen times and can compare and contrast in their past
experiences.

~~~
bsbechtel
Keep in mind the fact that lots of high level employees play the role of
mentor on the side for other start ups, and at the same time, many high level
employees are individuals who have started their own successful ventures at
one time or another, and now prefer to work for someone else for various
reasons. These two roles are far from mutually exclusive. I also never stated
anywhere that it would be acceptable for a mentor to haggle about his equity
stake. ~0.5% is a rough estimate of what most mentors receive in exchange for
their advice and help. Frankly, you're right that most mentors do it out of a
desire to help and their equity position should be just enough to have some
skin in the game. However, those mentors also have a responsibility to help
you. That help comes in many different sizes and shapes. My point was that
some of the things a mentor does to help is to make connections that can take
lots of time to otherwise make, and to help overcome hurdles that otherwise
would likely prevent success.

As far as their role, if you need a mentor to tell you that you suck at XYZ,
you're probably not ready to run your own company yet. A great founder knows
his weaknesses and surrounds himself with people who fill those gaps and raise
the bar for the entire team. Sure, there are inexperienced founders who need
to be told this, but if that's the mentor's main job then that start up is
going to have bigger problems than the equity stake of the mentor vs a high
level employee.

I think you might've misunderstood my point. I wasn't saying that $100K will
buy you someone who can do what a mentor can do. I was saying that a mentor
can help do many of the things that a $100K employee would otherwise need to
do, at a fraction of the cost and much more efficiently. This is of course
dependent on a founder making a prudent choice of mentor(s), which if he was
the type of founder described above, he will have done.

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Fede_V
The article itself is not terrible, but I have a strong aversion for horrible
titles like that. Why not just say something like: "Start ups greatly benefit
from experienced mentors"?

I get the same kind of eyeroll response when people define themselves 'social
media ninjas' or 'growth hackers' or 'panini artist'.

~~~
jl
When I read the headline, my first thought was, "This must be a guest post on
TechCrunch."

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karambahh
Glad to see a "proof" of the gut feeling I have had since before launching my
startup. I chose to turn down VC money and accept deep-pocketed BAs instead.
First, we all have "skin in the game" Second, and more importantly, a 50-thing
BA with several successes and/or failures is much more valuable to me than a
20-30-thing analyst whose job is to check my excel files, do a broad market
analysis and inform his boss.

(I have nothing against 30-things, I am one myself. I value our generation new
ideas, but I also admit that experience is useful :-) )

~~~
morgante
What is a BA?

~~~
randomname2
Business Angel?

~~~
karambahh
yup.

Mine are individuals who succeeded in their respective fields, all related to
our product.

Accross the board I can get a quick answer to two crucial questions:

a-Would you buy this?

b-How would you sell it?

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brianstorms
And unsuccessful companies usually ignore their mentors' advice and fail (all
the while scratching their heads as to why the mentors quit).

I can't tell you how many startups I've mentored where the CEO/CTO/founders
would not listen to me or the other mentors/advisors on the team, and
eventually it gets to the point where there is no reason to continue, the
company's doomed to fail or stay stagnant in terms of growth/additional
funding.

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jkaljundi
The key is knowing when to listen mentors - or actually doing what they
suggest - and when not to. The more seasoned, experienced and older you are,
the better you can filter the advice given.

One of the worst things is first-time entrepreneurs bombarded by mentors and
their advice, and the startups then actually doing everything they're told.
Have seen many great startup teams and ideas ruined by that. Happens
especially at 2nd rate accelerators.

~~~
KFW504
pretty good proxy for life advice, am I right?

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vonnik
That's kind of like saying Harvard is the key to getting a high-paying job.
The novice entrepreneurs that build successful relationships with experienced
ones are also sending signals that they will succeed before that relationship
begins in earnest. The previously successful entrepreneurs are picking winners
whose efforts they can magnify.

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SpacemanSpiff
I believe this to be true in other aspects of professional life as well. When
I was learning to fly to become a commercial pilot having a mentor who was
himself an accomplished pilot and mechanic helped tremendously. I was able to
advance through my flight ratings at a much greater speed than if I had been
learning on my own.

~~~
m1aw
I think it's true in everything. Is one of the most powerful things that you
can have IMO.

Having someone that went through the same that you did, and that now is
helping with insight, and that tries to motivate is the key of success in
anything.

This is one thing that I noticed reading biographies on successful people,
they always, at some point had contact with other successful people, became
truly inspired by them.

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ChuckMcM
My experience is that mentors, being one step removed from the company, also
have the ability to see the things that the founders don't want to either
believe or see. But it also reminds me of the story we had a couple of years
ago about how you can't recognize greatness if you haven't actually
experienced it. So you think this friend of yours is the greatest <foo> you've
ever seen and yet your mentor feels they are good, but not great, and you need
to improve that area, what comes out is the 'mentor just hates my friend'
which is the easier logic for the founder.

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FrankenPC
It's interesting how the loss of elderly wisdom in our society has came back
in the tech arena. People who have legitimately been around the block know
things. Strategy being one of the most important.

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johndevor
If anybody is on the East coast, I highly recommend Mike Krupit:
[http://www.trajectify.com/](http://www.trajectify.com/)

He's helping me and he has some really great experience to back up his advice.

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krschultz
Mentors: it's like hiring experienced people, but without paying them!

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tlogan
The best mentors are elders in your family: dad, mom, grandparents, uncles,
etc. Sadly we ignore them very often.

They also say that majority of successfully entrepreneurs are one where
parents were also entrepreneurs.

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jadhavchetu
But sometimes Mentor drive wrong way to company

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codewithcheese
"Correlation does not imply causation". That these founders are mentored by
very successful people is not proof alone of the value of mentoring. It seems
like mentoring is very powerful, but the fact these founders have access to
such successful mentors may say more about the environment these people are
founding their company, rather than the quality of mentoring.

~~~
Gifford
What else is in the "environment" that could be helping? It's made of people.

~~~
codewithcheese
I was referring to more than just the mentor. Such as the ideas, practices and
culture of their peers.

~~~
strathmeyer
You are still describing a mentor.

~~~
codewithcheese
I am also describing their competitors, teachers, parents and adversaries

------
pain
"Shrinks for startups?"
([http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608](http://twitter.com/mikellsolution/status/571590631304388608)
) might be part of a mature stack.

