Business Mentors for Startups: The Secret Weapon of all Successful Startups

As a startup founder, you’ve probably heard it more than a few times. Everybody tells you to get a mentor. The only problem is, how do you find a business mentor for startups? Since 90% of startups fail, it’s clear that not every founder is getting the help they need.

Want to know who did get the help they needed? Mark Zuckerberg. Indeed, it was none other than Steve Jobs who mentored a young Zuckerberg while Facebook was in its infancy. It’s connections like those that fuel the most successful startups throughout history. You need someone who’s been there before.

At GrowthMentor, you can find a business mentor for startups of all kinds. Whether you’re trying to bootstrap your SaaS business or you need advice for your eCommerce brand, we have the perfect mentor for you.

After you read this article you’ll know:

• Why you need a business mentor
• How to find a business mentor
• A few famous business mentors and some business mentor questions we’d all like to ask them.

What is a business mentor for startups?

A mentor is someone who gives you advice from their own experience. A business mentor for startups is someone who gives you business advice from their own experience running a startup. This is the perfect way to get a pair of fresh eyes on your startup. You can trust their judgment because they know what it takes for a startup to succeed.

At every stage of your startup, the business mentor provides advice. From evaluating your business model to overcoming flaws that magnify at scale, the mentor will offer insight based on how they did things as a founder.

Why startups need a mentor for business

A startup mentor will have all kinds of insight based on their vast experience. For instance, they can teach you how to build a growth team. Since running a startup requires speed and precision, they’ll be able to identify the good and the bad pretty quickly. That means you’ll waste less time on self-reflection.

They can see your potential

Canadian author Bob Proctor once said that “a mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you”. This is one of our favorite business mentoring quotes. We’ve often seen it in practice.

Some startup founders crumble when they encounter their first major tests. This is normal. With a business mentor, you’ll get a lot of encouragement to help you overcome those challenges. Having dealt with plenty of situations before, they’ll swiftly take stock of your strengths to see where your focus should lie.

They can also tell you what you should change

Here is another one of the great business mentoring quotes: “my job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” Mark Zuckerberg’s mentor Steve Jobs said that one. It should come as no surprise that Jobs was a bit of an authoritarian.

Sometimes, that’s exactly what startups need to unlock the next step on the way to success. Growing your business will require sacrifice. A successful startup founder knows what is at stake, and often, how to motivate you to do better.

Insight from a business mentor

Etan Efrati is an accomplished business mentor. He’s already led two venture-backed startups in the past 6 years. There is one notion that he wants to debunk though, you shouldn’t be obsessed with growth.

This seems counterintuitive, but growth begins well after you start. Etan claims that in the initial stages you should only care about survival. After all, there are several expensive ways for your startup to grow that could end up costing you your entire business. A business mentor will help you to choose your battles carefully.

Related: Everything you need to know about entrepreneur mentorship.

How to find a business mentor for startups

Traditionally, it’s expected that you narrow down your choices of business mentors based on the industry you operate in. To onboard your first 100 SaaS clients, you might prize hiring a SaaS coach above all else.

Of course, don’t take the coach’s word blindly. Usually, they will tell you what companies they’ve founded or worked for. Take a look for yourself and decide if this is someone whose advice you want to hear. Google, LinkedIn, and client reviews are all excellent resources through which you can conduct this research.

Find a business mentor from a mentorship marketplace

We can all agree that the free market is pretty efficient, right? So why not use an online marketplace to find a mentor for business. Search through the profiles to identify a mentor that suits your needs. If you like what you see, check if you can afford their rates.

Compared to other strategies, finding a business mentor through a marketplace can be far more effective, as it allows you to compare and analyse different mentors and their expertise alongside one another. All the tools you need to validate their success are right there. A few reviews, a list of their experience, and perhaps a short video will tell you all you need to know.

If you use GrowthMentor, you’ll have access to mentors who rank in the top 3% in marketing and growth. Moreover, you’ll only need to pay a monthly membership fee to access a wide selection of startup mentors.

Each business mentor will have their conditions. For instance, the number of meetings you can have with them per month and the number of times you can contact them outside of that.

Go to industry events

Look online, if you’re in a big enough city, there will be lots of industry events available. These typically feature a mix of speakers alongside other opportunities to ask them questions and mingle with your peers.

You don’t need to target the speakers as mentors. Everybody else probably has the same idea in mind. Instead, talk to as many people as you can. You never know what kind of people you’ll meet. It could be your next mentor.

Reach out on LinkedIn

You can easily search “business mentor for startups” on LinkedIn and get hundreds of relevant people to connect with. Of course, this might require a bit more vetting on your part, but if you have a mutual link, it could be worth it. Make sure to narrow down your search once again by only selecting people relevant to your industry.

Robert Lai showing some love about his marketing advisory on GrowthMentor.

Get a referral

Word-of-mouth connections are the best. If you did a good job meeting people at events, you might end up getting someone to refer you. Otherwise, you can burrow into your personal network to see if anybody knows a business mentor who might be interested in elevating your startup.

How much to pay for a business mentor

Business mentorship could range anywhere from $100 per session to over $2,000 per month. It depends a lot on which mentor you choose. The more specific your needs as a startup founder, the higher the price you need to pay.

Of course, a monthly subscription to an online mentorship marketplace could give you the best of both worlds. You could try out numerous mentors while only paying a flat monthly fee.

By joining GrowthMentor you’ll be able to book unlimited calls with any of the startup mentors listed as free. A refreshingly affordable alternative to paying thousands on a per hour basis with traditional startup consultants.

3 Famous business mentors

Pretty much every big-name entrepreneur that you know had a mentor. While some are lesser-known, you might be surprised at which household names were also business mentors after making their millions.

Steve Jobs

As you already know, Steve Jobs mentored Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Sounds like a high-octane duo. Steve’s influence on Mark is unmistakable. Like Apple, Facebook always focuses on producing new, high-quality products.

When Facebook hit a rough patch at the beginning of its life, Mark had to turn down plenty of what he must have considered low-ball offers. Steve encouraged him to stick to his vision and always return to Facebook’s true purpose.

Mike Markkula

Mike’s name is not as well known, but he’s a major part of Apple’s legacy. Indeed, you could say that he’s Mark’s grand-mentor because he mentored Steve Jobs.

After meeting with Jobs, Markkula was immediately convinced of his vision. That’s why Mike was one of Apple’s first angel investors; he gave Steve a quarter of a million dollars.

Perhaps, Mike was the influence that made Steve into the uncompromising powerhouse he was during Apple’s later years. It’s often thought that Mike contributed to getting Jobs fired in Apple’s initial phases. Talk about tough love.

Warren Buffet

On the other side of the spectrum, it was Warren Buffet who helped transform Bill Gates into the innovator that he is today. Bill mentioned that Warren helped him with the type of long-term thinking that brought Windows into homes and offices around the world.

This relationship extends to today where Warren Buffett remains one of the largest contributors to Bill’s charities. They share many of the same values.

If you ever have the chance to get in front of a business mentor, consider yourself fortunate. You won’t want to waste much time with pleasantries. To advance your business, you should ask tough questions like these:

What do you think of my vision?

It might sound a bit general, but it’s worth asking. Make sure that you communicate your vision clearly to the mentor before asking this question. Usually, you can point to your mission statement to enlighten your business mentor on your vision.

Once you get an initial answer, you can begin to drill down on the parts that are of interest to you and ask specific questions. Some mentors will be able to talk at length about your business simply because they’ve seen a lot of similar startups.

What do you think are my biggest weaknesses?

This is always a sensitive question, but it’s good to hear. You might have some preconceived notions of what your weaknesses are, but it always helps to ask for a second opinion. You might uncover some truths about yourself that you overlooked, or might have tried to forget. Knowing these weaknesses could help you bring in key people to help cover them up.

How are you currently growing your business?

They can’t share too many details, but understanding growth is of massive importance to you and your business. Most people have a hard time learning from generalized advice. So instead of asking how to grow, ask the mentor how they grow. You’ll be able to draw comparisons and apply some of their practices to your business.

For instance, if you asked Zan Cmeresek, the founder of Lili, how he grew his business, he would tell you that he leveraged communities. By being active on ProductHunt, he managed to attract several people to Lili and was featured as the product of the day.

What is one of your biggest mistakes?

You don’t want to make your mentor uncomfortable, but this is an extremely valuable question to ask. You might notice similarities between their purported mistakes and some of the things that you’re doing. That will be your cue to change things up on your end.

How did you overcome a challenging situation in business?

Grow your startup with GrowthMentor

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. As a startup founder, you might feel that it’s you against the world. That’s not always the case. Reach out to a mentor for a guiding hand.

If you weren’t sure where to look for a business mentor, then GrowthMentor is your answer. Search our impressive roster of startup founders to find the right business mentor for startups like yours.