Startup Mentors: A Need or Luxury?

Entrepreneurs typically delve into the market with disruptive ideas and big visions, and often than not explore diverse avenues to take the idea(s) to the end of the tunnel and may get entangled and spoilt for choice and scamper to find that one right path to tread on, either tried-and-tested on into the unchartered territory on an unexplored trek. A big impediment in the path of many entrepreneurs is that although they have no perceived dearth of subject knowledge and market dynamics, there are hints of inexperience when they start a business. This hypothesis is backed by the fact that almost 90% of Indian startups fail within the first 5 years, mostly because of inexperienced founders. While this may be a big concern, hell did not break loose and hope is not lost yet, as a way to overcome this obstacle is to engage with an advisor, mentor, coach, or guide, as one would like to call them.

Mentorship is a key factor that shows the way for startups to reach heights. A perfect mentor provides tried and tested ideas, fills your knowledge gap, and helps to reach your goals with less stress. That brings us to the most important set of questions - Who can be the right-fit Mentor for the Idea? Where to find this Mentor? and How to get the best out of the Mentor?

While startup mentors are extremely critical, the foremost objective is to not find "a mentor" but "mentors" who are experts in different fields, because any single mentor may not be capable or sufficient to solve all the problems that the entrepreneur or the venture was, is or will be facing.

There are several diverse factors that contribute to eventual success and meeting the entrepreneur objective and vision of the business. The robustness of the idea, cohesiveness of the team, the sense of association and being integral part of the vision from the employees, the go-to-market strategy of the company in terms of product/solution, promotion, pricing, and timing among others, and the entrepreneurial experience of the frontrunner, These sought-after startup mentors help to maintain focus on the business problems and provide alternative solutions to the problems.