How Can A Mentor Help Me Grow My Startup?

There are several ways a mentor can help startups grow. However, before outlining them, please allow me to briefly explain what we consider being a mentor; the profile of a mentor and the ethics linked to mentoring.

(Author: Rachel Gaessler, BusinessMentoring / Image Credit: Austin Ban)

I consider a mentor being a successful business leader with at least ten years of experience. It is a person who has experienced all the stages of a business including creation, development and takeover, and faced all aspects of corporate management such as fundraising, recruitment, management, etc. So it is someone who has lived through the experience theirself, seen the good and the bad, and has a lot of wisdom to pass on to “young” entrepreneurs.

More specifically, in the framework of the BusinessMentoring program, the mentor supports the entrepreneurs on a voluntary basis for about 4 hours per month and adheres to the ethics of mentoring (i.e. no conflicts of interest or financial interests).

My mentorship has had a direct impact on my personal development, which is directly linked to my startup’s activity » – Patrick Rahme, Co-founder and CEO of All Square.

The role of the mentor is crucial to the entrepreneur. Below are some key benefits that entrepreneurs of startups can profit from:

  1. Have an attentive listener. The role of the mentor is to listen carefully to the entrepreneur (“startup therapy”), hear his fears and his doubts. It’s a partner to share the ups and downs of running a company with and someone who can act as a sounding board to help the entrepreneur ask the right questions and feel more confident in the business decision process.
  1. Share stories and experiences, not advice. Instead of trying to solve the problems encountered by the entrepreneur, the mentor is willing to share relevant experiences—bad or good—and let the entrepreneur figure out if/how it’s applicable to their current situation.
  1. Break down the isolation of the entrepreneur. In a startup ecosystem, entrepreneurs are constantly looking for ways to serve their customers better and usually walk their journey alone or with their co-founders. They are running after time, money, clients and are stuck in their daily business, unable to define a long-term vision. Having a mentor helps them to step back from the daily business and look at the market from a fresh perspective and steer them along the right track.
  1. Develop a learning process. Sharing and being inspired by a mentor’s experience allows the entrepreneur to learn about himself, about his company and push him to reflect.

All of these benefits have an impact on the personal development of the entrepreneur (enhancement and improvement of soft skills) which is directly linked to the evolution of the entrepreneur’s company.


This article was first published in SILICON

Total
0
Shares
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts
Total
0
Share