Behind Every Great Entrepreneur is a Great Mentor
Building a startup is an arduous task but fortunately, entrepreneurs do not have to get through this journey on their own. One of the biggest challenges they face is knowing if they’re building the right product for the right market at the right time. Great mentors can help them navigate that uncertainty and support them pave their way to success.
Why does it really matter?
Only a few entrepreneurs can claim that they can go it alone. But why should you when you know that collaboration will drastically help you build your product and bring it to the market. By supporting other startups, mentors are strengthening their tech ecosystem and contributing to its momentum. Startups need a welcoming and supportive environment in which they can bounce ideas off, dare to try but also fail quickly and get back on their feet.
Today’s world is changing at such a fast pace that collaboration is more important than it has ever been. Obviously, we can’t see it all, know it all and do it all. Learning from others, sharing of ideas across cultures, is an exciting process and key to building your own success.
Sharing Experiences vs. Giving Advice
Having a mentor can help you avoid common pitfalls and make better decisions that will determine the success of your product. But what does being a mentor really looks like? A mentor is an individual who shares practical experience, proven best practices, and knowledge with another individual. He or she has the ability to understand entrepreneurs’ challenges, provide relevant feedback and eventually have a constructive dialogue that leaves them better off. Mentoring is not about giving advice but helping entrepreneurs understanding their problem and finding the answers on their own. Mentoring is guiding and challenging but not imposing a point of view. Impactful mentoring focuses on improving their ability to make the correct choices, at this moment, but also in the future.
“Success is a team sport. You don’t have to know all the answers and you don’t have to pretend you do. Anything you want to achieve is going to take the commitment of other people — and you can’t buy commitment. No amount of money can buy loyalty. It takes committed and loyal people who are inspired by a vision and want to contribute their talents to see a shared enterprise advance.” Simon Sinek
To bring the best out of the mentoring process, both mentors and founders need to be very open and direct with each other. Being open and direct sometimes has a certain level of brutality as it leads to everything being addressed and brought to the table. Although difficult, those conversations offer founders an opportunity to understand they are really creating value and also grow personally and professionally.
What should you look for to find your match?
Having great mentors around you can undeniably propel your company to the next level. Although a mentor could be great for you but not relevant for someone else. So what are the aspects you should consider to make sure you can most benefit from this exchange?
There is no such thing as a perfect match but there are definitely hard facts you can consider. Experience needs time but you can shortcut your way through it. You first have to understand what it is that you are trying to achieve and then look at how your mentor can support your goals and objectives.
What is the experience your mentor is bringing?
If your mentor also is an entrepreneur, he or she will understand the thrills and spills of building a company but also the obstacles and setbacks. This person will understand the different stages a company goes through and can support you with their big-picture vision. Moreover, surrounding yourself with like-minded people will make it easier for you to go through difficult times.
Some mentors never started their own company but can support you with their expertise and skills in user experience, sales, finance, marketing whichever topic could benefit your company. On top of that, the industry knowledge of your mentor will enable to get a better understanding of the customers you are addressing and potentially connect you to major players in the industry if necessary.
To know which parameters matter the most to your company, you should consider the stage you’re currently at and focus on the milestones you are trying to reach. In his book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Steve Blank addresses the four different stages startups go through and the aspects they should focus on:
- Customer Discovery — understanding your customers’ problems and which segment to address first.
- Customer Validation — determining the way to sell to your customer’s segment.
- Customer Creation — scaling and customer growth.
- Company Building — leading a team and operations.
Nevertheless, no matter what stages you are and the amount of support you get, putting your customer at the forefront of your actions and working hard to create value for them, will be the best way to create a successful company.
“In my view, this is the nastiest of all startup sins: failing to involve customers and their feedback from literally the first day of a startup’s life, keeping the most vital opinions silent — those of the eventual customers — for far longer than necessary.” Steve Blank on its article Why Too Many Startups Suck.
It’s a human connection
Despite the importance of industry knowledge, skill set, and overall experience, the human aspect is a very important component and will determine the effectiveness of your mentoring. You may meet someone that seems fabulous on paper but not connect with that person. Within that space, you may not be able to receive direct feedback or be open enough to discuss certain issues. This is because human beings are a complex mix of personality traits, preferences and everything in between.
That being said, personality plays a tremendous role in the mentor-mentee matching. Contemporary psychology has defined personality in five broad traits called the Big Five.
- Agreeableness: Individuals that are usually high on agreeableness are usually kind, sympathetic and empathetic. They show concern for you and are cooperative. It’s important to have a mentor that is moderately agreeable as mentoring requires time and investment and you want to feel that this person cares about your growth.
- Conscientiousness: People that have a high degree of conscientiousness are reliable, organized, competent and achievement oriented. This trait is highly relevant, as you want to work with someone that has a certain level of competencies but also someone that inspires you to always be a better version of yourself.
- Extraversion: Extraverts gain energy from interacting with other people. Those who score high on extraversion are often assertive, active, and sociable. This trait has a moderate impact on the quality of mentoring. Your mentor has to be extroverted enough to be willing to connect with you on a regular basis.
- Openness: Someone who has a high level of openness likes to learn new things and enjoy new experiences. They have a large array of interests and are usually quite imaginative and insightful. This is obviously that every mentor should possess as such people do not want to see clones of themselves are open to different perspectives.
- Neuroticism: This relates to the level of emotional stability of an individual and the degree of negative thoughts someone experience. Highly neurotic people are usually moody, nervous or lose their temper easily. Individuals who score on the low end of neuroticism are more likely to feel confident, sure of themselves, and this is probably the kind of mentor you want to have around you.
This also applies for founders has mentors will probably have a hard time supporting someone that is unreliable or does not accept criticisms. The only point founders should pay attention to is how agreeable they are. Being pleasant and willing to compromise is a good thing but this should not prevent you from asserting your own ideas.
Finding a match is one thing but building a relationship is another one. If you are looking for a long-term you have to ask yourself what it is that you’re bringing? New perspectives, new ways of thinking? What can you learn together? A relationship is a two-way street and your mentor will be willing to support as long he or she sees the benefits.
How do we approach mentoring at APX?
The mentoring program enables mentors to connect with ambitious entrepreneurs that will have a global impact. Mentors will have the opportunity to encounter new ideas and technologies but also to expand their network.
We have two mentorship formats: long-term mentoring and an “impulse mentoring format”, that connects mentors and startups for a few hours only. We also encourage all mentors to participate in our regularly occurring Mentoring Days.
Long-term mentoring relationship
This is a relatively new format in which we match one mentor and a startup with the intention for them to connect on an ongoing basis for several weeks, months, or even longer. They would connect multiple times and have an ongoing process of sharing experiences and knowledge. The mentor/s also serve as a sounding board for the topics the startups are working on. The content and frequency are up to the mentors and startups. We typically recommend connecting on a weekly basis, but this is a highly individual relationship and we leave it up to you.
“Impulse” Mentoring
We recognize that some startups need help in the form of a one-time or short intervention; and that some mentors prefer not to commit to a long-term mentoring relationship. We thus facilitate impulse interactions with our startups so that they can get swift access to information, experience, and know-how from some of the top mentors in their field. Examples include feedback on budgets, technology choices and development challenges, UX improvement on an app, or how to build and execute a marketing plan.
Mentoring Days
We organize 4 mentoring days per year, during which we match the participating startups with selected mentors. The goal of the mentoring days is to create an atmosphere of trust, rapid exchange of experience between mentors and startups during several one- hour long sessions. There is no obligation for the same match-up to come together again. Our matching process takes into account several dimensions:
- Topic fit
- Personal fit
- Startups’ challenges
- Mentors’ wishes
If a mentor and a startup have chemistry and want to continue working together beyond the mentoring day(s), we usually support them in coming up with a long-term mentoring relationship. Mentoring has a tremendous impact on our startups’ growth and we know that the value and the quality of our program will not be the same without their contribution.
