Finding Good Mentors While Starting A Business
An important question that remains impressively unanswered is ‘How Do You Find A Mentor?’ Some believe that the relationship and guidance that a mentor provides is paramount to one’s success in all activities. Therefore, the first place to look for a Mentor is your area, So, what happens if all the mentors in one’s area are not worthy to be tagged mentor, hence this leads to the question.
Question: How Do You Go About Finding A Mentor In Your Area When They Are not Any Available In Your Area?
Karthic Gurnani
Answer: I find it hard to believe that mentors aren’t available in your area — they are everywhere. There may not be a specific organization for mentor matching in your area, so you may need to do a little poking around.
Take a look at friends and family. My father ran a successful small business after a career in corporate America. When I decided to leave my job at Dell to be an entrepreneur, I started having a lot of business conversations with my dad. I also turned to friends and bounced ideas off of them on a regular basis. It was great to get their feedback, as they are successful in their own right, know me well and give great advice.
Good mentors are not paid. If you have to compensate mentors then they are not mentors, they are consultants.
Mentors do it for one of the following reasons
1) They know you and want to help.
2) They like helping startups because they have gone through this before.
3) They like the problem you are trying to solve
If you can find such a mentor, you are well on your way to find a good mentor.
When the startup is doing well, you as founder may choose to compensate the mentor in some form. However the mentor never expects nor demands any compensation.
Do you agree with Gurnani?
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