Good look on your search.
It's always nice to sit/talk with people who are more experienced than you in a particular subject of interest. My wish.
Ask HN: how to find a good mentor?
11–15 of 15 posts
Re: Ask HN: how to find a good mentor?
#12Check this book out - there's a whole section on mentors...
http://www.amazon.com/The-Students-Guide-Success-Connections...
Re: Ask HN: how to find a good mentor?
#13In order to find a good mentor you need to know what you need to be mentored on - that is, what do you want to get out of the relationship? As you are starting a startup you can possibly find a mentor in any type of startup-related activity (startup law, accounting, programming, marketing, growth-hacking, etc). Only by starting your startup will you figure out what explicitly you need help with and can then figure out who is the right mentor to approach.
So I agree with georgespencer - you don't need a mentor right now, you need to start doing things. As you do these things it gives you something to talk about with various people and then you can dive into a mentorship relationship.
Regarding bidirectional exchange - perhaps you are very good at some things others are not. You can use this to mentor your mentor.
As you grow and learn your mentoring needs may grow and change, so what you are really should be seeking is a community not a mentor. Go to the meetups / hackathons and make friends so you can join the community.
Re: Ask HN: how to find a good mentor?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks georgespencer, that got me realise probably I'm just planning stuff that doesn't go planned. I was going to meetups and LRUG, but in most of them I just found people that talk and don't do, so I decided I stopped going until I roll out something or at least do some customer dev. Thing is with this approach I won't meet any fellow entrepreneur, too extreme, isn't it? ;)
I'm going to disagree with georgespencer -- not with his perfectly reasonable suggestions, but with the premise that it's not worth seeking out a mentor. On the face of it, nobody "needs" a mentor, but the entire idea behind a mentor is face-to-face networking and advice. In addition, you will be borrowing your mentor's bona fides when you're having lunch with connections you've made via your mentor, and this can go…
I didn't mean to imply that in general it's not worth seeking out a mentor: I meant that for OP it's not worth it because he doesn't have anything he needs mentoring on.
If he needs mentoring on founding his startup or building a working version of his product, he's falling at the very first hurdle (beyond "having an idea"), and also the part of the process which is incredibly well documented online and elsewhere. It's formulaic.
We have two excellent NEDs at my company who are about as good as it gets, mentor-wise. But I'd never have gotten anywhere with them without first doing something.
Re: Ask HN: how to find a good mentor?
#15You don't need a mentor. You need to start doing interesting things. When you're doing interesting things you will meet people who are motivated to help you. People won't take much of an interest in a person who is looking for a mentor but not doing anything. Stop overthinking this. Establish relationships with other entrepreneurs near you. You can shoot the shit with them when things are good and when things are bad…
Thanks georgespencer, that got me realise probably I'm just planning stuff that doesn't go planned. I was going to meetups and LRUG, but in most of them I just found people that talk and don't do, so I decided I stopped going until I roll out something or at least do some customer dev. Thing is with this approach I won't meet any fellow entrepreneur, too extreme, isn't it? ;)
It's not an uncommon trait in entrepreneurs to want to plan everything down to minute details. Don't be discouraged by that tendency.
If you want to chat sometime, I'm on Gtalk & Jabber 24/7. My email address is in my profile.