What I have learned as a start-up mentor over the last 7 years, so that you feel encouraged to do it too.
My relationship with mentoring came about by chance, as it was a term I had barely heard in my previous professional experience, even though I had been mentored by bosses and colleagues and had mentored my own employees without knowing it.
I started to become familiar with it after becoming active on websites such as Angel List, Foundum and F6S.com, start-up ecosystems.
The definition given by Mentoring Spain is: “Mentoring is the offering of advice, information or guidance by a person with experience and skills, for the benefit of another person’s personal and professional development.”
Thanks to its chairman, Julio Rodríguez Diaz, I was able to get to know this discipline in more depth and throw myself into it.
I started mentoring, let’s say, informally and without much structure, with a good number of entrepreneurs at AJE Madrid when I was its executive director. It was very rewarding to see how my humble advice, based on my previous experience, and opening doors for them through my network of contacts helped them grow, go faster, validate their business idea, reach more customers and gain more visibility.
Everything changed when we signed a partnership agreement between the Cámara de Comercio de Madrid (Madrid Chamber of Commerce), the Fundación Madri+d and AJE Madrid to create the first Mentoring Network in the Region of Madrid.
We created a programme to boost 25 entrepreneurs with 25 top-level mentors. The programme was run by Julio Rodríguez, and from then on my vision of mentoring and the way I do it changed completely.
The first organisations where I began mentoring in a professional, structured way were the Linktostart programme of the INLEA Foundation and MET Community, mentoring women entrepreneurs. Here I am on Capital Radio with Ana Torregrosa, an entrepreneur in the fashion sector.
Looking back these days, it turns out I have more than 500 flying hours directly mentoring entrepreneurs, and more than 200 flying hours mentoring entrepreneurial teams at events like “Startup Weekend”, which I love so much.
| Start-up | Entrepreneur | Sector | Year | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beebrite | Alex Casamayor | App – Education | 2012 | 20 |
| Foodinthebox | Alvaro Cuesta | eCommerce | 2012 | 20 |
| Letzee | Victor Lozada | Web – Events | 2012 | 10 |
| Lets Lunch | Syed Shuttari | Web/Social network – Events | 2012 | 50 |
| Bleep | Ingrit Moya | App – Small retail | 2013 | 20 |
| Quedamus | Carmen Tejedor | Web – Events | 2013 | 20 |
| Recetags | Jorge Ruiz | Web – Foodies | 2013 | 10 |
| Delusse | David Nath | Social network – Luxury | 2014-2015 | 30 |
| Meetmaps | Gerard Salvia | App – Events | 2014-2015 | 20 |
| Insulclock | José Luis López | App/ IOT – Health | 2014-2015 | 100 |
| Beyourcar | David Mateo | App – Automotive | 2014-2016 | 50 |
| Milingual | Gabriel Pazos | Web – Languages/Education | 2015-2016 | 50 |
| The Shopping Stage | Ana Torregrosa | ecommerce – Fashion | 2015 | 20 |
| Pink Rose | Carolina Hoyos | ecommerce – Fashion | 2015 | 10 |
| Luxury Place | Fabian Espinoza | Web – Tourism | 2015 | 10 |
| Bevegelse | Jorge Fernandez | ecommerce – Fashion | 2016 | 10 |
| Intoino | Marco Bestonzo | IOT – Education | 2016 | 20 |
| Teach App | Alejandro Zuloaga | App – Education | 2016 | 20 |
| Social Codes | Guillermo Peña | Social Marketing | 2017 | 20 |
| Keepiz | Florent Bannwarth | App – Logistics | 2017 | 10 |
| 520 |
As you can see, I’ve turned my hand to many things, but what I have undoubtedly sought from day one is consistency. Stick to what you know: in other words, I only lend a hand to start-ups whose business model I understand, mostly ones aimed at B2B (businesses), which is where I have always worked, and always focusing on helping them with their marketing, sales and communication strategy, which is the only area where I have professional experience.
What have I learned as a mentor?
Keeping up to date and discovering
Focusing on marketing and sales forces me to always be up to date, on the cutting edge, so I got to grips with email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, SEM, analytics, CRM and affiliate marketing, which I wouldn’t have discovered on my own.
Discovering the latest in technology
Working every day with tech start-ups has made me dive deep into everything involved in developing an app from scratch, an e-commerce site (and telling Magento from PrestaShop), the power of tablets and QR codes, and the IoT (Internet of Things), which I discovered thanks to Beyourcar and Insulclock…
Understanding their language… this is developed in Python, HTML, Java, API, integration with this and that, Cloud, peer to peer, Big Data. Phew, exhausting.
Not being shy and aiming high
If a start-up needs a key contact, I put a knife between my teeth and do everything I can to set up a meeting for them with the key person they are looking for. Entrepreneurs shouldn’t feel self-conscious about approaching top companies and top executives in search of a key deal; that’s what I learned working for multinationals.
Legal matters
Entrepreneurs have to know from day one what a “shareholders’ agreement” is, so they don’t get any surprises in the future with their partners, collaborators and investors. On this point you have to be their ally, the voice of their conscience, so that they lay good foundations from the start that protect them. On the other hand, there is everything to do with patents, trademarks, domains, data protection law (LOPD), e-commerce law (LSSI), etc., so that they don’t slip up in these areas and they protect what they have developed, their customer base, their product…
Building a winning team
Without a doubt, one of the keys to a start-up’s success is not its idea or its product, but its team. I encourage them to build a winning team of top players. No friends or brothers-in-law: look for key people who bring value to your start-up. If you can’t pay them what they are worth, give them equity, don’t demand full-time or part-time hours from them, make the most of all their expertise and their network of contacts, and reward them whenever you can.
Finding the right investor
Many entrepreneurs are tempted to fire off their business plan to every investor they know, or don’t know, via LinkedIn or cold emails: “MISTAKE”. Not every project is investable, and not everything is investment via business angels: there are banks, credit lines, grants, awards and public funding before you get to them. Each investor has a different profile and comes in at the seed stage or in later rounds; some invest from €5,000 and others up to €500,000; some are bigger fans of social impact start-ups, of fintech, tourism or some other niche they understand.
Having been in the entrepreneurial ecosystem for almost 10 years, since I worked at XING.COM, has allowed me to get to know more than a hundred investors on first-name terms, whom I only approach when I have the right project, one I know they’re going to like.
Making the news and appearing in the media
With several of the start-ups I have worked with, it didn’t take much effort to get on television, in the press, on the radio and in magazines. You need to be particularly sensitive when approaching a journalist or media outlet with something that is really of interest to them. You have to be clear about what you are offering and what benefit it brings, and back it up with data; the media are open to telling stories, and those stories have to be authentic.
The power of influencers and word of mouth
You shouldn’t settle for having a media presence: you need to know how to reach the influencers, the key people in your sector. Having someone key in your sector post a tweet mentioning you or linking to your website or app is gold, not to mention if they write a review or post about you or your start-up on their website or blog. Identify them and pamper them.
You can also take the fast track and reach thousands of influencers with SocialPubli.
As you can see, it’s not only the entrepreneurs who will gain from your advice and experience, with their companies consolidating and growing: you too will grow as a professional and feel proud of having contributed to their success.
If you’d like to become a mentor, we’ll be waiting for you at MENTORING SPAIN.
Categories