Okay, so far my entrepreneurship has been going good. Not smooth but good in the sense that I am finally getting the traction I always wanted. We’re getting work, we’re busy every day and things are moving fast. I am getting incorporated now and there is just one thing on my mind – absolute growth!
Till today, I have taken all decisions myself (I am a single person start up). Tried, failed, changed, tried again and that’s been the process. Its worked great so far and I have learnt a lot. But now, i feel I need guidance.
My vision is clear and I know where I have to be. But the decisions I take now need to be big/more accountable. The problem is that I dont have a mentor. How do I find one? [this thing has been ringing in my head since the Delhi open house where having a mentor was ‘really’ stressed upon by Alok sir. it only took me a month to realize why it could be that important.]
I also have some silly questions. In start up parlance: what exactly does a mentor do? i mean is it just plain pure guidance and bye-bye? Can a mentor also invest in the business? or maybe expose you to people who would? Also, but can a mentor also charge you (per hour or per day basis)?
by the way, I tried connecting with some people on FounderMates but that did not work.
This is my website: www.getsetResumes.com
(5 person company, located in Noida)
Update [Jan 7, 2014]:
Following this post, I have had a chance to connect with Aman Jha, and Darshan. Darshan has been particularly accurate in identifying my pain areas and has been very keen to offer help. Thanks Darshan!!
But I have been proven wrong on one area, that is FounderMates (see comments). FounderMates helped me connect to 2 experts – one in Delhi and one from the middle east. Both experts were very nice to talk to and offered help and guidance. From Delhi, I am in touch with Gagan and will be meeting him soon and probably try to take things ahead with my ideas and his opinions. I have to appreciate Raunak here for the really nice platform these guys have created. Keep it going!
I will try my best to post more on Rodinhoods about the progress. 🙂
Aman Jha
Hi Rajat,
You can’t find a mentor by searching for one on different portals. Keep interacting with people, keep discussing your issues… Over the time you will have someone standing beside you every time supporting you, opposing you, advising you and appreciating you. That guy might choose to mentor you.
The one you are searching on professional channels are not mentors but advisers and there is a huge difference between both of them.
Yes, mentor may charge you as well and its acceptable too. Just post your queries here on TRHS and observe who is helping you going out of his way, may be he can be your mentor.
Mentor may or may not invest in your venture but don’t set that as a parameter for searching a mentor. If a mentor invests in your business then he is playing two roles i.e. mentor and investor but both the roles would be independent of each other.
By the way I am in Delhi for next few days, so if possible we can connect.
Regards,
Aman A Jha
9892621090
Rajat
Thank you for your post Aman.
I will be calling you today or tomorrow. Lets discuss!
Rajat
9711988383
Raunak Guha
Hi Rajat,
First of apologies that you have not yet received benefit from using FounderMates. I have already emailed you and lets talk in detail as to how we can improve your experience.
Regarding your query about mentors:
1. In start up parlance: what exactly does a mentor do? i mean is it just plain pure guidance and bye-bye?
The word mentor is highly misunderstood in startup parlance. A mentor can be anyone who is there to guide you when you need him/her. In most cases a mentor will purely guide you on one-off occasions and then bye-bye. A mentor will never take ownership of making you a successful startup.
2. Can a mentor also invest in the business?
Yes, if he has loads of money and wants to invest in your business. There is no hard and fast rule.
3. or maybe expose you to people who would?
Yes, definitely if he has lots of contacts and he trusts you.
4. Also, but can a mentor also charge you (per hour or per day basis)?
Now this brings me to the fundamental question “Who is a mentor?”. Traditionally all family business in India have thrived because the sons had fathers or uncles as mentors for them. And mentoring was largely community driven earlier (amongst Marwaris, Parsis, Chettys etc.).
However, in the digital era, the term “Mentors” has been coined in the Silicon Valley. Mentors are those people who have been successful entrepreneurs, have pots of money and they just love to give back to the community. In India, unfortunately there are hardly any
“mentors” like in Silicon Valley.
Few Reasons for this:
1. India has seen very few success stories unlike Silicon Valley. So very few mentors exist who want to “give back” and have the right credentials.
2. Indians like to earn and save money for their children unlike the Americans: In US, most parents will earn for themselves and will not look at securing their child’s future. In India, the basic mindset is, whatever extra you earn, invest in property or something so that your child has a secured future. Hence mostly the “experts” will never work for free unlike a mentor will do in the US.
In India you will have only consultants, industry veterans and domain experts who are best suited to grow your business. Why?
These people are specialists in their area of work and will take ownership for your success and failure. A “mentor” will never take ownership.
India has a huge pool of great consultants who if tapped into properly can really benefit a startup. Only the SMEs and MNCs with deep pockets get this benefit and startups cannot.
Which means, there is demand, there is supply, however, the economics are not working and there is a huge gap to be filled in.
Consultants usually work on per hour or per day basis (which is their standard).
So, when you say “mentor” charging on a per hour/per day basis, I would not say “Yes”, but in India, since the terms experts and mentors are used interchangeably, we get confused when they talk about their per hour rates. Actually they are experts (consultants, industry veterans and domain experts), not “mentors” in the true sense.
Sorry for drafting such a huge reply. But I am sure it will be worth a read. Look forward to other’s views on the same.
Thanks
Raunak
Co-Founder – FounderMates
M: +91 9008 639 690
Abhik Prasad
Hi Rajat,
Its an interesting problem you are looking at solving.
As an employer its quite frustrating to see majority of the resumes we get as part of job applications. Its even more irritating when people just send you their resume without even a subject line, forget about a cover letter.
One of the things that you could push is also, HOW to apply for jobs instead of just fixing their resumes. Another business oppportunity could be to conduct workshops at engineering colleges advising students on resumes and job applications, and most importantly, what are some of the things first and second year students should be doing so that they have something substantial on their resumes by the time they graduate.
Regarding mentors, are there any specific areas of advice you are looking for or are you looking at help with raising capital ?
Drop me a line at abhik@experiamedia.com and we could chat further.
cheers
Abhik
Rajat
Hello Abhik,
Thanks for your post. I agree with your suggestions and as far as taking the business forward is concerned, I have a few ideas on my own so that is actually not much of concern area for me at the moment. The thing is that I need somebody to consult on a few things that i want to do, and maybe the approaches too. As I said, I am a single founder and often feel alone when it comes to taking decisions – alone as in the only way is to do something and see if it works rather than have a brainstorming before an implementation. Because of this I incur delays and at times lose money. So need a mentor or an advisor 🙂
Again, raising money is one of the areas where I want somebody to advice me. Should i go for it (start pitching) or should i continue with my model and see how it goes for another year or so.
Rajat
Rajat
Thanks Raunak for your reply.
About FounderMates: I really think it is a very good idea. tough luck it hasn’t helped me so far, but I am sure it will. More on email.
About your reply: I agree with all your points. Now what I really need is someone who can genuinely take interest in helping me out here rather than making money from me. I am absolutely okay if that person gives me advice, tests me on his own parameters and if he likes what he sees, invests or takes ownership in the business. But the help part should not be about money 🙂
This is one reason why I am apprehensive to talk to somebody who gives me a bill for the 2 hours he sits and talks to me because my whole focus would be to minimize the time spent and maximize the output that I can get from the expert.
asha chaudhry
rajat,
you MUST meet abhik whenever you can. i call him up when i want to bounce an idea!!!
Raunak Guha
Hi Rajat,
You are missing a fundamental point here. You want to engage someone actively, who will give you advice and if he likes you, then splits equity or invests in you. Till that time will he engage with you for free?
I can honestly tell you that idea will never work. Essentially you want someone to be like a partner to you (who takes equity after he sees you grow and takes the risks if you fail). But why will an expert do that? What about all the opportunity cost for him while he is actively engaged with you?
Think about it, you are making someone work actively for you for Free. All with the promise that you will split equity sometime later on.
In today’s world, what do you get for free? Free itself has no value. The moment something is offered for free, it means there is no value.
If you want free advice, there are enough forums, workshops etc. But all you get is generic “gyaan”. What you need is specific advice targeted for your need. And that has to come at a price.
No expert will ever bill you for the first couple of hours.You should instead take that time to gauge whether the expert is right for you. However, no business can ever be built by just couple hours of gyaan.
What you need is dedicated execution along with the expert for few months to see the results. And that can never happen for free.
In FounderMates, we have tried the free model extensively for over 6 months. We allowed entrepreneurs to email experts and discuss things for free. However, sadly there is no value. In most cases, we have seen, entrepreneurs talk to experts and then they never get back. Experts keep emailing entrepreneurs for updates but most entrepreneurs never get back. Entrepreneurs are not serious to implement the advice.
Initially lot of people advised us to NOT keep things free. But we disagreed. But we tried, burnt our fingers and we realised that to bring discipline into the system, entrepreneurs need to pay.
We are not Silicon Valley (as I explained earlier). To take Indian startup eco-system to the next level, we have to take this step. We cannot make things happen for free. Even if entrepreneurs need to pay trivial amount, they need to pay. Because money brings seriousness. And only a serious entrepreneur can thrive.
Abhik Prasad
🙂 Merry Christmas…watch –>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM
asha chaudhry
rajat… waiting for an update 🙂
meanwhile – have you read alok’s latest post?
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/of-men-mentors
Of Men & Mentors
My column in the May 2014 issue of the Entrepreneur magazine:
Of Men & Mentors
This title of this article is inspired by John Steinbeck’s classic book ‘Of Mice and Men’. If you haven’t read it, get yourself a copy. You will appreciate my title better, then.
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Heracles and Asopis. In his old age Mentor was a friend of Odysseus who placed Mentor and Odysseus’ foster-brother Eumaeus in charge of his son Telemachus, and of Odysseus’ palace, when Odysseus left for the Trojan War.
When Athena visited Telemachus she took the disguise of Mentor to hide herself from the suitors of Telemachus’ mother Penelope. As Mentor, the goddess encouraged Telemachus to stand up against the suitors and go abroad to find out what happened to his father. When Odysseus returned to Ithaca, Athena appeared briefly in the form of Mentor again at Odysseus’ palace.
Because of Mentor’s relationship with Telemachus, and the disguised Athena’s encouragement and practical plans for dealing with personal dilemmas, the personal name Mentor has been adopted in English as a term meaning someone who imparts wisdom to and shares knowledge with a less experienced colleague. (credit Wikipedia)
Now, that I have set the context, let me nail the concept down by playing a mini Rodinhood Quiz with you.
It’s well known that one of the greatest leaders and inspirations of the world – Mahatma Gandhi mentored Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. The question is – Did Mahatma Gandhi have a mentor himself?
Yes he did. Gandhi learned from Dadabhai Naoroji, an Indian leader who helped to start the Indian Independence Movement in 1857. Upon learning of Naoroji’s intentions, Gandhi was eager to join in the efforts. In 1888, he wrote Naoroji a letter, which read, “…you will, therefore oblige me greatly if you will kindly direct and guide me and make necessary suggestions which shall be received as from a father to his child.”
Naoroji took Gandhi under his wing and instilled in him the importance of peaceful protests. Thanks to the teachings, Gandhi was able to hold the largest demonstration of nonviolent resistance in 1947, which handed the country of India back to its people. Upon describing their relationship further, Gandhi would later write, “The story of a life so noble and yet so simple needs no introduction from me or anybody else. May it be an inspiration to the readers even as Dadabhai living was to me. And so Dadabhai became real DADA to me.” (extract from DegreeScout)
I assume that you would have understood the message by now – Mentors are important and can help people. If Gandhi needed one, I guess we can do with one too?
Let me speak from experience.
– As a child, growing up in Campion School in Colaba, Mumbai, I reflect back and think that all my teachers were my first mentors. Especially the teachers that made me do stuff I was not good at (Physical Training), lazy at (mugging up Geography maps) or dumb at (learning Marathi). They pushed me to do what I had to, but did not want to.
– In college, I began to work with my Nana (maternal grandpa) and he gave me a free hand to experiment with ideas in his transport business. He was a different kind of mentor – someone who knew me well and was keen to make me succeed.
– Post college (errr…I am just an M.Com), I worked in my father’s socks factory, where the MFBS – Marwari Family Business System mentored me, in a negative-positive way! Because my Dad had to confer with his brothers for most decisions, I learnt how to be patient, precise, calculative and demanding. The MFBS faculty also taught me when to quit and walk away!
– As an Internet entrepreneur, I was mentored by my clients and my co-founders. The unique situation was that I was their equal and was learning from them as much as teaching them. This was symbiotic mentorship!
If you paid attention to the italics of my personal story, you will have picked up the key points of Mentors and Mentorship: It is personal, it is about wanting to make you succeed, it is sometimes negative as much as positive and it is about mutual help.
As an Entrepreneur, why do we need Mentors and what should we expect from them?
1. Compression of knowledge
Creating a business that has a chance to succeed in this age and time needs ‘knowledge compression’. It’s like asking you to read all the Wikipedia pages on your industry, trawling through all the Google links and then forming a view on what you should be doing, in a few days! A mentor that comes from your industry has that knowledge and can condense wisdom required for you in a few lines. Consider my co-founder who helped me start my first advertising-based business, contests2win.com. He was the Creative Founder of MTV and when I started thinking of campaign creatives, he said, “Alok, focus on exaggeration. When you exaggerate something creatively, people take notice. So if you are thinking of adding a squirrel in your creative, then make the squirrel a paan-chewing dude with a black eye and foul mouth. That will get noticed.”
I have never stopped exaggerating ever since!
2. The ability to drive you to the limit.
Bosses demand things and torment you to deliver results. Mentors motivate you and make you do better than yourself. Take the case of a business co-founder of mine. During the dark, holocaustic days of the Internet, he told me, “Alok, you have to go out and meet 5 clients a day and convert 2 of them. That’s what I did in my previous Company.” I took his word for granted and began to pound the pavement like a mad man. Two months later I went up to him and said, “What you told me seems impossible. I managed 3 meetings a day and converted 1 client everyday.” He smiled at me and said, “That’s what I was talking about.”
We survived the Internet doom because he took me to the limit by motivating, not tormenting me.
3. To encourage you to fail!
When I started up my gaming company, we began by trying to establish a new genre of gaming in India called MMORPG. We raised a few million dollars on that promise but soon after we hit the road, we realized that India was not the market for this genre of gaming.
It was my lead VC who saw through the situation and said, “Alok, shut that business down! You are an entrepreneur and you will figure out something! We will patiently wait for you.”
That day my VC became my mentor because he moved from being selfish or despondent to beinggenuine. I took his advice, moved to online & mobile gaming and remain standing today, to write this tale.
By asking me to fail, my mentor encouraged me to succeed.
Rather than elaborating on more examples, let me summarize who I believe become great mentors for entrepreneurs:
– People who have time. Please do not go and sign up mentors that look good in selfies with you, but have no time to meet you in real life.
– Someone who will learn from you. Time and again I have seen that when mentors learn from mentees, the relationship really shines!
– A successful personality that is “extreme”! Strong, opinionated and high-strung people make me tingle. They expose the edge of achievement and make strong impressions that I imbibe and remember.
– People who have nothing to gain from you other than the satisfaction of seeing you succeed! A rare breed to find, but they exist.
– Someone who you don’t like. Usually such people represent what you are running away from, and they bring you back to reality.
In Of Mice and Men, there is a line that goes “…I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.”
Mentors have only one interest – to make you succeed. That is their Karma and Dharma! All you have to do is find one!
*****