First, let me start with a big “Thank you” without mentors this program would be like a lot of other programs – wondering around looking at a map and missing the real scenery.

Mentors make a difference every month in the program by helping the founders get past their confirmation (and other) biases to ask the hard questions about their idea. You see it all the time, founders get focused on an idea and try to answer the question of “can they build it” forgetting to ask the question “should they build it”. Your goal is to help them with the “should question.” As in “should” you spend the next six years of your life trying to build a company or take the next six months testing their assumptions.

We require their table mates to check their monthly deliverables and OK the fact that they get to provide a narrative version to you. If they didn’t do the work, they don’t get to talk, they get to listen to the other founders get feedback from you. This isn’t school, it’s their business. If they don’t do the work or if they “phoned it in” it doesn’t warrant your time.

The general objectives for mentors at each session are:

  • Provide radically candid feedback to the founders. Knowing what you know, are they working on the right priorities?
  • Don’t let them ask rhetorical questions that just confirm what they want to hear
  • Don’t let people ramble – it takes time from other participants if they start to ramble let them know and just move on to other founders in the group.