I’d Like To Mentor Startups

Note: A version of this post appeared in my semi-regular column on AlleyWatch.

I both love and fear that phrase.

I love it because a deep network of qualified mentors is a major asset to an accelerator program. It is one of the big differentiators between a top 10 accelerator and the other 1000+ unproven* ones.

(Although you sometimes have to dig a bit to tell the difference between a page of impressive faces who are rarely actually engaged and bona fide mentors… but that’s a topic for a different piece.)

I fear it because so many of the offers I get come from people who aren’t really qualified to mentor startups and I struggle with finding a polite way respond to these offers. After all, their hearts are in the right place and it is hard to say no without sounding like an asshole.

The following is a response I wrote to a friend who said that a “big time lawyer” ** he knew had expressed an interest in mentoring startups. I tried really, really hard to be tactful.

TO: <My Friend>

Your friend needs to think very carefully about what specific expertise he can offer to startups. If I were to tell him “I’d like to give legal advice to large corporations”, he would recognize that for the ridiculous statement that it is. I have zero qualifications and any advice I gave would be as (or more!) likely to damage the recipient, as it would be to help. They would be fools to even listen to me.

But somehow when you change “give legal advice” to “mentoring” and “large corporations” to “startups”, it suddenly sounds plausible.

In my case, I *might* be able to give large corporations advice on a few very narrow topics like what terms are typical in early stage investments and how to approach contracts with startups (viz., keep it loose, don’t over lawyer it – their incentives to please a large corporate pilot customer mean that they will overdeliver but they don’t have time or money to waste on drafting minutely detailed contracts). But that’s it.

Most “big time lawyers” have never run a business, much less a startup, so the value of any strategic business advice they might give is questionable at best. Their tolerance for risk and ambiguity and their need for speed are both *way* lower than an entrepreneur’s is (or should be) so their tactical advice will likely also be off base.

If your friend has deep expertise in a heavily regulated industry, that advice would be relevant to startups in that space. If he has deep and varied connections with large corporations who he would be willing to introduce startups to so they can get those critical first big name clients, that would also be hugely valuable. Similarly, if he wants to try to get his own firm to pilot with startups (e.g., legal tech startups, relevant enterprise software), that would be helpful.

If he’s willing to give free legal advice/work in areas that are relevant to startups and has expertise in those spaces (e.g., real estate lawyers have no business drafting seed round docs and vice versa) in exchange for just seeing what cool stuff is out there (and possibly investing), that is ok too.

In all of these examples, the key is sticking religiously to what he knows well and that is also applicable to startups and not straying into areas that are fun and sexy but where he has no business giving advice. In all but the last example, it also means focusing narrowly on the right industry where he has value to contribute.

If he has given this some thought and has specific areas where he thinks he can contribute, I would be happy to have a conversation with him and help get him more involved.

I hope this is helpful and that you can phrase this response in a way that does not make me sound like a dick.

Yours,
Andrew

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* How is that for diplomatic?

** I’m not picking on lawyers here. Some of my best – well, reasonably good – friends are lawyers. Feel free to substitute “accountant” or “banker” here if you’d like.