one-month trimesters. The first month is completely dominated by mentor meetings. The second is about getting a product built and in front of customers. The third is preparing for funding via customer acquisition and pitch coaching.
According to a recent Techstars graduate, Al Bsharah of Embarke, he and his co-founder had five to six meetings per day with different mentors for the first month. After 4 weeks, Bsharah and other founders chose two to three mentors with whom they work closely for the rest of the term. The choice is mutual, based on needs, rapport, and passion. This is mentor dating on steroids!
To another Techstars graduate, Rares Saftoiu of Shopventory, the mentors are there to kick ass. It’s not simply advice, it’s making demands that simultaneously teaches the entrepreneur how to be a better entrepreneur AND moves the company forward. In The Lean Entrepreneur, we tell the story of the Techstars graduate Simple Energy, wherein a mentor demanded that founders go speak with 20 utilities about their business plan. And like Steve Blank would predict, the plan lasted one day in the market.
Challenging entrepreneurs in this way is what separates great mentor programs from “hit and run” mentoring, which offers advice without follow-through and puts the onus of managing the mentoring relationship solely on the founders. Successful programs design a program to maximize the potential for the founders’ success. If this means kicking them in the ass, then let the kicking begin. Such programs, of course, don’t guarantee success. But designing the program with this philosophy increases the likelihood that a) the founders find what works; or b) they learn as quickly as possible when an idea won’t work. Of course, (b) is better than (c), which is where companies “graduate,” or are spun out of a mentoring program without a clear path toward growth or a clear path toward a pivot (or bullet).
Program Framework
Without putting a time frame on individual elements, the general framework might look like:
Mentor speed dating: As part of Startup San Diego (not affiliated with UP Global), Austin Neudecker and Melani Gordon spearhead a mentor “speed-dating program,” whereby several times a year founders choose four mentors from a curated list to meet with, in one evening or morning event. The program works because they make