When Should you Look for a Startup Mentor?

This article is contributed by multiple Startup founders from different fields.

The journey of an entrepreneur is filled with excitement, hard work, and a great lot of patience. In this journey, while building up your dream from the scratch, can sometimes feel exhausting. At this point, you need someone who you can look up to when there is a necessity. Those people not only have more experience than you, but they will also advise you and teach you new strategies and tactics to handle your business. These are the people who will give you ideas regarding your current situation and they are called Mentors.

In this article, we will find out, when an aspiring entrepreneur should look for a mentor. Some of the successful entrepreneurs presented their take on this topic. Let's take a look.

Manav Shah  | Founder, Eduvacancy

For me, a mentor is someone who I can look up to as a role model. I wanted to always find a mentor with whom I could discuss, share and debate about the obstacles, I am facing in my startup. When I started building Eduvacancy, I realized in the preliminary months that I needed a role model or mentor to guide me and prepare me for the various difficult decisions I’d have to make. When we began working on building the platform and implementation of the technical aspects, I thought of finding an ideal mentor who would be a strong guiding force and pillar of strength for me. Therefore, before I began full-fledged platform operations, I felt the need of finding the right mentor who would guide, hear and teach me to sail through the difficult phases of building a startup.

Kunal Ahirwar | CEO & Co-Founder, Earnvestt Technologies

Mentorship is an integral part of the entrepreneurial community. For the Earnvestt team, the biggest reason we needed mentors was when we were running our first beta test and we were not getting sufficient sign-ups from the users that we had personally spoken to, which indicated that our product and user flow was not good enough.

Neha Indoria | Co-Founder, Boingg!

It was an organic process that originated from us trying to find answers to problems that presented themselves as we tried to navigate the process of setting up a business by ourselves. Some advise seemed needless and, in some cases, the insights made us re-think our strategy entirely, and slowly we were able to identify the areas in which we will need continued guidance.

Utkarsh Gupta | Managing Director, Ramagya Mart

When I was pondering over a business idea, which finally culminated in the formation of Ramagya Mart, I wasn't very sure if I should rely on the mentoring acumen prevalent in abundance in my family, or should I seek professional mentoring. As destiny would have it, I was at this crucial stage when I decided to look for a mentor who could professionally guide and personally navigate me to take the right direction.

Pallavi Utagi | Founder & Mom-in Chief, SuperBottoms

There was never a defining moment in my life when I felt like I needed a mentor.
It just happened organically through inspiring people who came into my life
through my student and professional life. No one really wakes one day and
says, 'hey, I need a mentor'. You just feel the impact and connection with someone
and reach out to them from time to time.

Ritesh Ujjwal | CEO & Co-Founder, Kofluence

As Sir Isaac Newton famously said in his 1675 letter, “If I have seen further, it is by
standing on the shoulders of Giants”, in my opinion, most of us need guidance for clarity of thoughts/ directions through individuals who have chartered similar paths earlier or for a fresh perspective. Thankfully, I realized the value of mentors right during my engineering days and I was fortunate enough to be able to find amazing folks across academic, industry leaders as well as a couple of batchmates in front of whom I could be absolutely transparent and leverage their insights. I have been continuing the same ever since and the ‘mentors’ circle has expanded with amazing new folks from different spectrums of life especially during the last 3 years of building Kofluence.

Conclusion

The need for a mentor can arise anytime. Maybe, at a time when just an idea for a startup is peeking inside your head or in the middle of launching a new product for your startup. You should definitely go for a mentor whenever you feel for one.