it easy on both the startups and the mentors to sign-up, show up, meet, and go on their merry ways. Both founders and mentors rate their experience in order to keep the quality high. Those with consistently poor scores are not invited to return.
Mentor and “domain expert” presentations: Getting expert advise from those that have “been there, done that” is extremely valuable. Some experts don’t have the time to mentor founders one-on-one, and some topics are better presented in groups than in one-on-one sessions.
Choosing a mentor: A full program would encourage founders to meet with as many mentors as possible to figure out the two or three they’d like to work with more closely. Founders and mentors would meet at least every other week to provide updates on specific action items, progress on specific metrics, current needs, and to determine their objectives for the next week or two.
Establishing customer metrics: A startup’s progress must be monitored and pushed forward. The only way to do this is to put a stake in the ground (here’s what we should accomplish in the next week or two) and measure against that stake. Not achieving the objective is the beginning of the conversation, not the end, and leads to actionable measures that can be taken.
Metrics vary, depending on the type of business, the customers, and the startup’s stage of development. The mentors work with the founders to formulate a set of hypotheses around which the startup’s progress can be measured. The organization might facilitate tracking, but fundamentally, the founders should