Startups – Are you asking tough questions to your mentors?
No doubt that every startup should have a mentor, but the reality is that many a times startups start seeing mentors as a magic potion and very often build wrong expectations.
Since there is enough literature on ‘qualities you should look for in a mentor’, there are couple of salient points that I’d like to mention here, when it comes to managing mentor-startup relationship.
Mentor doesn’t know it-all
Unless you have a mentor who is from a similar background (as your business), chances are that mentors may not know each and every aspect of your business. Likely chances are also that your mentor is actually a big shot in ‘some specific’ domain and will tend to look at your business problem statement from his own perspective.
Mentor doesn’t have all the time for you.
Like it or not, most of the mentors are too busy running their own business / managing their own life to even spend lots of time with you.
So the result of a startup-mentor discussion is (in most of the cases) limited to low hanging fruits. For instance, how do I improve usability of the product? How to get more eyeballs? etc etc.
Be it shorter timeframe of discussions, combined with infrequent meetings – most of the startups really look for solutions to the problems they are facing ‘currently/at that moment’.
But, the bigger and tougher questions are left out, i.e. How do we build a business here?
The point I am trying to bring here is that if a startup isn’t asking tough questions to mentor(s) (or to put it the other way, is taking an easy way out), you are surely not reaping the benefit of relationship and chances are that you could be taken in certain directions which may not be the most sensible for your business.
What’s your opinion?
Question to ponder – Your investor as a mentor? How good/bad idea it is?
-
Related posts:
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
I think there are a lot of assumptions as to what a Mentor/Advisor will do for a startup. Helps to clarify that.
http://www.slideshare.net/guest1fe3e0c/advisors-and-mentors-the-role-and-how-to-find-them
Or even consultants, VCs. “Tough” here, I guess, should be in the sense of “make it count for yourself” rather than trying to paint people into a corner
Essentailly – just because there’s a mentor, or an active investor, or a consultant you’re paying, you do not get a license to shy away from the tough calls and decisions.
Oh yeah..by ‘tough’ I did take that pt. into consideration
Hi Ashish,
Is there any list of organizations/individuals offering mentorship in India? (sector specific categorization would help)
Yes TIE does that, visit http://www.tie.org it has banches in various cities. They help you a lot!
I have a very contrarian view of “mentorship” especialy in INdian startups. I know of quite a few people who are very active in blogging / VCcircle etc who are mentors for different startups. From personal experience I have seen that they add very low value and a lot of hot air to the whole process.
In many cases the expectations are very high (I admit), but I guess having a VC representative act as your sounding board (and contact aggregator) or even reaching out to pluggd / tech bloggers is usually a cheaper and much more effective way of getting feedback and contacts.
I came across a mentor who never spoke of ‘business’ beyond his own personal engagements, meetings and contacts. And that to he never seemed to bring a meaningful conclusion of how and what he can do to ascend our expectations as a start-up. We quit on him to save precious time.