Introduction

Finding Mentors are hard work. Finding good mentors that help you to raise your standard is harder. Despite I had been a recipient of mentorship in the past. Which help me to break into a startup to become a developer.

Moving forward in my next tour of duty is gonna be a rollercoaster ride. That I'm prepared when embarking on becoming an entrepreneur to serve people.

I'm glad that I had been preparing, being with a group of people from Bulldog Mindset community, friends, digging the well before I'm thirsty. I think listening to podcasts like Startup Threapy, Indie Hackers or Starting Greatness and reading books like The innovator's Dilemma helps you make better decisions.

Mindset & Mental Models

When your finding mentors, you really need to understand yourself of what is your intent on why you should get a mentor. Since mentorship is a two-way street for both the mentor or mentee benefits from the blending of each other's background experiences with insights to propel each other to grow faster.

My suggestions are to always seek out mentors with the mindset, mental models and their voice that resonate with you to bring you from point A to point B. Be it through their life journey, the choices they had made and the people they surround themselves with.

The ball is in your court to take in advice or as an external point of view. To help you to notice the gaps in your thinking before making and proceeding with your decision through action. No one knows you better you than yourself so think and digest every piece of advice by your mentor to make decisions and act on it.

Looking at Their Background & Experience

When selecting your mentor besides the mindset, mental model and voice. You should seek to understand on what area for your startup or activities they can help you in from their skills, network or experience within the industry.

With a vague idea that I want to be part of startups ecosystem in Singapore as either a technology salesman or a developer.

I remember I hated software development to the core due to my bad experience in my degree program. I had never once wanted to be a blogger or a developer. Nonetheless, I search for help to become a developer and a technical blogger.

My mentor gave me the advice to upgrade my rusty skills to apply for internships or coding boot camp or any other ways. Due to various clients, he had worked with had problems in transiting into a developer. Therefore he thought that is considered a waste to not use my background in it. Which allowed me to break into startups as a developer. So that I could be attractive and relevant for the startup within Singapore.

Conclusion

Lastly, Mentors are usually doing it out of their free time, goodwill and compassion to help startups or people like you. Do not seek to expect a lot of hand-holding or intensive help from them.

If you were to seek them to provide focus advice on activities to help your startup. They should be treated as your advisors or coaches. Which an agreement should be drawn. To compensate either through your shares or retainer fees based upon the expectation. Between both sides will not be soured when you do ask them to come on board to advise your startup.

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The original post was on Finding Mentors For Your Startup - Reading Time: 3 Mins
and cover image by NEXT Academy on Unsplash

Reference

• Bulldog Mindset
• Startup Threapy
• Indie Hackers
• Starting Greatness
• The Innovator's Dilemma
• Mentors are the Secret Weapon of Successful Startups
• The Importance of having Startup Mentors & Advisors
• What I Learned From Mentoring Startups in the World Best Accelerators
• A Complete Guide to Startup Advisors and Mentors
• What's the Difference Between a Mentor, Advisor and a Coach?