What it Means to be a Mentor
No human is an island, as the saying goes.
This is especially true in the world of startups and entrepreneurs where people are constantly branching off on their own without comforts like salary, benefits and the set business plan of an employer.
The startup community, especially in an area as small as New Brunswick, is a close-knit one where connections are as abundant as the networking events that facilitate them. For most entrepreneurs, these connections are a vital part of their success. Connections mean mentors and mentors mean getting guidance from someone who has been there.
Anna Schneider works as a business intelligence coordinator at Ignite Fredericton and as an independent graphic designer. A recent graphic design graduate when she first started at Ignite Fredericton, Schneider didn’t believe she had much to offer the entrepreneurs at Planet Hatch, but with some encouragement, has helped many recognize what they need graphic-wise as well as direct them to other important resources and connections.
“After my first office hours, I realized that being a mentor in any field was extremely helpful to the community,” she said. “Additionally, I was able to greatly broaden my network, both with mentors and mentees. I have met with many people in a variety of sectors, all in different stages of business, all with different visions and questions. I love identifying what they need most.”
Schneider says she herself has been mentored in the past and is still being mentored today. She says that mentorship isn’t about learning the pitfalls in order to avoid them, but getting insight into how others have dealt with similar problems.
“I firmly believe that you need to learn from your own experiences. The true value from meeting with someone who has been there before is a mixture of support, resources, connections, and knowledge. You learn from their life, how they persevered, how they learned, and you apply it to your own background and experience.”
Jeff Morehouse is the co-founder and CEO of rayZen, an online service that takes the risk and stress out of fundraising for nonprofits. Since the company is still in relatively early stages, he says he’s benefitted greatly from mentorship both through the startup community as well as his co-founder Rivers Corbett.
“He’s really well connected so it’s been a lot easier in that regard and he’s been through a lot,” Morehouse said. “He’s had failures and triumphs and everything else so he just tries to steer me in the right direction based on his past experiences and what happened to him and what position he was in and how he handled it.”
As a first-time CEO, Morehouse is coming across a lot of areas where mentors are crucial for success. He says that the resources and connections offered through the Propel program have helped him see the company from an outside perspective and think about issues in different ways. He says that Propel entrepreneur in residence Al Sturgeon was especially helpful in opening his eyes to the possibility of reaching a larger scale market.
“It’s helped my business as a whole really from all the different areas of a business that I never thought of before. It’s kind of put it in perspective, things I have to start thinking about or doing,” Morehouse said.
“Everybody I’ve talked to either wants to help in any way they can or push me at somebody who can help … It seems like for here anyway, from my experiences, everybody wants to help everybody even if you’re competitors to some degree. Some competitors will actually talk to you and say ‘this is how we did it. These are some issues we had so maybe you won’t have those mistakes or go through those challenges.’”
Dave Gallant, managing director of innovation services at Venn, has been a mentor for a number of years through Futurpreneur Canada and on a more casual basis. Since he’s now building an adventure brand called Gridless Life, he’s seeing the other side of mentorship for the first time in a while.
“To me a good mentor is not a person who gives all the answers. A good mentor is the one who draws the answer out of the entrepreneur and helps them answer the question themselves,” Gallant said. “It’s almost like a skill set. It’s not so much that the mentor has to have all the answers, but the mentor has to be there to be the voice of reason because being in a startup is highly emotional as well.”
Gallant says that it’s often hard to “read the label from inside the bottle,” that the greatest value in mentorship is having someone give you perspective and an objective viewpoint, leading you in the right direction rather than giving you answers outright. He believes that everyone can do this since everyone has particular experiences they can bring to the table.
Anna Schneider believes in the support system as well, that people can get places without mentorship but that it’s a huge mistake to not take advantage of the great amount of experience at the disposal of new entrepreneurs.
“I believe anyone with knowledge and experience in at least one area, regardless of how refined a focus it may be, can be a mentor,” she said.
“I think that the whole of a community is stronger and healthier when people are willing to mentor, and be mentored. We can all work towards our collective goals faster by sharing our knowledge and experiences. Never be afraid to ask for a mentor, either; very few people turn down the opportunity, and those that do likely wouldn’t be a good connection to have.”