Building a startup is an exercise in navigating the unknown. You are constantly faced with decisions you have never made before, from equity splits to firing your first employee. While you can learn a lot from books and blogs, nothing replaces the specific, contextual guidance of someone who has walked the path before you. This is the role of Mentorship.
Mentorship is a relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. In the startup world, it is the transfer of wisdom and pattern recognition from a veteran to a rookie.
A mentor does not do the work for you. They do not run your company. Instead, they help you see around corners. They warn you about the potholes that are not visible on the map.
Mentorship vs. Advising vs. Coaching
#Founders often use these terms interchangeably, but they represent very different relationships with different economic structures.
A Mentor is usually an informal relationship. It is rarely paid. The mentor helps you because they like you or they want to pay it forward. Their focus is on you as a person and your long term career growth, not just the specific success of this one company.
An Advisor is a formal relationship. You typically give them equity (somewhere between 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent) in exchange for their name on your deck and specific domain expertise. Their focus is on the success of the business entity.
A Coach is a transactional relationship. You pay them cash to help you improve specific skills or behaviors. Their focus is on performance optimization.
Understanding these distinctions prevents awkwardness. You should not ask a professional consultant to be your mentor for free, and you should not expect a casual mentor to review legal contracts for you every week.
The Art of the Ask
#The biggest mistake aspiring entrepreneurs make is sending a cold email asking, “Will you be my mentor?”
This rarely works. It feels like a burden. It asks a stranger to sign up for an undefined commitment of time and energy.
Instead of asking for a title, ask for specific advice. Find someone you admire, ask them one specific question that shows you have done your homework, and then go execute on their answer.
If you report back to them two weeks later and show them the results of taking their advice, you have started a relationship. Mentorship is not granted. It is built organically through a cycle of advice, execution, and feedback.
The Filter of Context
#While mentorship is powerful, it carries a risk. Mentors give advice based on their past experiences. However, the market changes fast. What worked for a founder in 2010 might be terrible advice in 2024.
You must listen to your mentors, but you must not obey them blindly. You have to filter their wisdom through your current context.
Always ask yourself a critical question. Is this advice based on a universal principle of business, or is it based on a tactic that is no longer relevant? You are the captain of the ship. The mentor is just reading the weather report from the shore.
The Two Way Street
#Finally, remember that mentorship is an exchange. You might not have money or experience to offer, but you have energy and gratitude.
Mentors get value from seeing you succeed. They get energy from your hustle. If you are constantly taking without giving updates or showing progress, the relationship will die. You pay your mentor back by winning.