Startup Mentors are a thriving breed & flashy class of new professional field. There are plenty Mentors now in the Indian Startup ecosystem. This Mentor Class emergence is a recent phenomenon & correlated with rise of Startups in India.
What are the drivers for this Mentor Boom?
- Government Startup policy & program having pre-requisite of enrolling Mentors
- Mushrooming of Incubator, Accelerator & Startup Events, Festivals & all such activities need Mentors
- To be a mentor doesn’t require any qualifications & no yardstick to evaluate the “Mentoring” done.
- Mentors don’t have skin in the game, allowing them to recluse & escape.
- Startups are clueless on what type of Mentor they require. Leading to entry of anyone as a Mentor
- Startups believe Mentor can make them successful & have some magic wand. So Startups lap up any Mentor.
I believe having a right Mentor can make a difference to Founders life & positive impact on their Startup. During my entrepreneurial journey I didn’t have a single mentor. Individuals gave me some valuable inputs & suggestions which definitely assisted me.
I got a chance to closely observe Startup Mentors’ during my work experience, on knowledge tours, at pitching sessions, business plan competition, etc. Admittedly the below is not POV on all Mentors but the ones I encountered.
What Role Mentors are doing? How are they conducting themselves?
Mentors are advisors, Mentors are Gurus
Mentors at the Incubation centers, College E-Cell forums & University Startup events advise startups. Retired Bureaucrats, Technocrats, Managers over 45 years were judges of Business Plan competition in which participants were less than 20 years. Surprising was many mentors here had no venture experience but were giving ideas & advising founders on their Startups.
Mentors are writers, authors. Mentors are Judges. Mentors are Shark from Shark Tank.
Mentors had written books & were experts in rating startups. They sat with Founders & ordered them to write notes on what to do, what’s wrong with their startups, so on so forth. Guess Shark Tank’s Kevin is an inspiration for few Mentors. Even some mentors had audacity to call Startup ideas as failures (which IMO is ludicrous from my personal experience as everyone called my successful venture ideas as JUNK in the initial few years).
Mentors are Consultants with Corporate experiences & can play God.
Mentors who work with Big Four & Large corporates had more diverse and quality experience than my myopic experience of only Starting up. Mentors’ judged founders & assigned marks to their Startups based on which the Startups received or not received facilities from government including Funds. This was really brave of them as someone to play God.
Mentors’ are affluent & have Local connect & affluent network.
Though a native of Rajasthan (1 more reason to have come here from Mumbai), am born, brought up & all my work experience is in Mumbai & West. I lacked understanding of the Local behavior pattern & culture compared to mentors from Jaipur, Rajasthan.