Mentoring: The need of the hour for start-up entrepreneurs

Start-up Challenges

Rahul has always been a creative kid. He is among ideas and comes out with solutions on how to improve things, fill the gaps and resolve challenges being faced by humanity. Everyone known to him expected him to make a good entrepreneur and later a successful industrialist. After his engineering studies, he went ahead in right earnest to bring up a company by converting some of the ideas that he had nurtured long in his mind, into product solutions.

As Rahul started up, he began facing many challenges in the company related to manpower, governmental regulations and in organizing finance. He never had any inkling of these before and never faced any of it. Alone, he started getting into the resolutions and in the process, his product ideas completely took a back seat. Instead of spending quality time on his ideas, he began running after government offices and financial institutions to solve the impediments that never seemed to end. After two years, nothing happened and Rahul by then had turned out into a tired, unhappy, passion less person. He was completely crestfallen and he dropped out of his entrepreneurial journey.

Mohan was a young person full of ideas and passion with a high level of innovation within him. As he finished his studies, he wanted to try his hands in entrepreneurship. Though he had fairly good idea of his product solution, in order to understand the business and its processes, he started attending seminars and workshops related to entrepreneurship where he established traction with some experienced people. In the process, he could get a fairly good know of things in the anvil. It is then he decided to get an experienced, empathetic advisor on a long term basis to guide him in his difficulties. His search led to a former CEO of a company who accepted to take up the role. As he started his journey of entrepreneurship, Mohan could seek guidance from his advisor on a continuous basis and with that, he went on building up his company and turned out to become an award winning start-up entrepreneur in two years’ time.

Perhaps if Rahul, instead of jumping right into making of the company all by himself, had taken the route of Mohan, he too could have become a successful businessperson.

The difference between Rahul and Mohan is very clear; Mohan had a mentor which Rahul didn’t have.

Who is a Mentor?

The story of Mentor comes from the Greek classic; Odyssey by Homer. Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, before he goes to fight the Trojan War, entrusts the care of his son Telemachus to Mentor, his friend and relative, so that Mentor could bring up Telemachus as a King in his absence which Mentor did, in the due course.

The word Mentor evolved to mean trusted advisor, friend, teacher and wise person. History offers many examples of helpful mentoring relationships: Socrates and Plato, Hayden and Beethoven, Freud and Jung etc. Mentoring is a fundamental form of human development activity where one person invests time, energy and personal know-how in assisting the growth and ability of another person. The mentor may be older or younger, but have a certain area of expertise. It is a learning and development partnership between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn.

History is replete with feat of princes and kings making their mark which we read and get thrilled, but people like us can also get into accomplishments and each of us has a birthright to actualize our potential.  It is where mentors come, as they help us to move toward that actualization.

The person in receipt of mentorship is was earlier known as a ‘protégé’- an apprentice and in the recent years, as a ‘mentee’.

The act of Mentoring

As mentioned in the beginning, mentoring is the process of informal transmission of knowledge, social capital and psychological support received from an experienced person by a recipient as relevant to his work, career or professional development.  Mentoring usually is informal communication, mostly face-to-face, for long-term duration, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge or experience and a person who is perceived to have less.

Mentoring existed since Ancient Greek times. By 1970s, it spread to the developed industrialized nations like the United States of America and later to other parts of the world, mainly in individual developmental context.  American management describes it as an innovation in people development.

Mentors bring a positive difference in the lives of the mentees. They wear many hats, acting as consultants, counselors, role models, cheerleaders, advocates, and friends. Mentors share some basic qualities such as:

·         A sincere desire to help a person

·         Respect for young people

·         Active listening skills

·         Empathy

·         Ability to see solutions and opportunities

·         Farsightedness

·         Flexibility

The start-up entrepreneurs need an ecosystem to succeed. They are constantly breaking rules and making mistakes in their effort to drive the businesses forward, not knowing whether they are doing the right thing or not. For this very reason, having a mentor is invaluable.

It is unto the mentee to choose his mentor. Essentially a business mentor must be a person of experience in the domain the mentee dwells. He must have ‘been there and done that’. Such a mentor understands the business completely; its best features and the pitfalls. The mentee must take notice of the background of the advisor and approach the person to be his mentor. Such a relationship will add immense value to the business.

As an aspiring company-builder, the entrepreneur always find himself in situations where  he “doesn’t know what he doesn’t know” but he has to stay in the motion and make decisions regardless. The smaller the company, the faster is the need to move, often without enough information to make perfect choices. Without a savvy guide, in the form of a mentor, he may end up making crucial early mistakes that could have otherwise been avoidable.

Every single day, the start-up entrepreneur face challenges. It is where having good mentor becomes essential. A good mentor’s advice will help you take action on your imperfect “good plans” because they can give you extra confidence to move forward without hesitation. The mentees can talk to their mentors frequently and it helps them take timely sensitive decisions to move forward faster

A mentor also connects the mentee to the stake holders in the business eco system. It could be the customers, the regulators or the financiers. So when the mentee does not know whom to meet for a favourable decision, it is the mentor who with his years of acquaintance with many professional and entrepreneurs around, calls them up and connect them to the mentee. It goes a long way as otherwise the mentee would only have been cutting circles in the periphery and wasting his time.

What Mentors are not

A mentor is not a bank that he would dole out funds for the young entrepreneur whenever he is in financial trouble. At the first place, a mentor could oversee the financial situation and assist the mentee not to create a financial mess or if genuinely funds are required, he could get the mentee connected the appropriate agencies such as Angel/Venture capitalist, Financial institution etc.

A mentor is not a punching bag. Many often it happens that the mentee gets into deeper emotional relationship with the mentor. It is really detrimental to the progress of the organization as the emotional bond will take away the objectivity that the mentor could bring into the relationship. When the objectivity is lost, the mentor-mentee relationship truly loses the value.

A mentor is not a ‘no’ man. The changing times has brought in so much of changes in the buyer/customer/consumer behaviors. The old rules and process of engagement may have been obsoleted. If a mentor clings to those and does not understand the changing times and adamantly advises the mentee to stick to basics, then he is not delivering any value but also retards the progress of the enterprise.

A mentor must not be part of the loot. He should never lead the mentee to any unethical/illicit situations. In this world of fast bucks, it is possible that the lure may tempt the entrepreneur to go after it. So making short cuts and greasing palms could therefore be a way. If the advisor too is guiding his ward into the world of quagmire and deceit, he is not qualified to be a mentor.

The ‘Start-up India’ Program

It is really exciting times for the start-ups in India. The union government has taken many entrepreneur friendly policies to help the startup revolution that they plan to bring out in the country. Dedicating INR 10,000 Crores towards it, the government plans to exempt the startups from paying income tax in the first three years, allowing 80% percent deduction in patent fees, starting up industry specific incubators, industry-academia  partner program etc. All these will give the necessary fillip to the new startup entrepreneurs.

In his announcement speech at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi; Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken time to tell the entrepreneurs assembled there and to those listening to him from various parts of the nation thru electronic media, about the necessity of having good individual business mentors to help the start-up.

It is indeed a good advice to heed. A good mentor reduces so much of business risk. Being alone at the top, the entrepreneur really could be on the lookout for a sounding board or a saner advice at the difficult times and having a good mentor by the side is a great relief

Conclusion

Mentoring, at its core, guarantees young people that there is someone who cares about them, assures them they are not alone in dealing with day-to-day challenges, and makes them feel like they matter. This increases the entrepreneur’s self-esteem considerably and gives him the confidence to move forward as he would be assured of an experienced sane advice at all point of his forward momentum.

Research confirms that quality mentoring relationships have powerful positive effects on young people in a variety of personal, academic, and career situations. Ultimately, mentoring connects a young person to personal growth and development, and social and economic opportunity.

The sad fact is that in spite of the understanding, yet one in three young people will grow up without the critical asset called a mentor!