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Film-style poster for the Prepare Your Mentor presentation

A guide for founders A guide for founders

How to brief your mentor so their help fits your startup.

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What this guide covers

What this guide covers

What this guide covers

Asking for help

People say yes more than expected

Mentors want to help, so your work is making the ask easy to answer.

50% How far people underestimate how many others will agree to help them Flynn & Lake, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008

The one-page brief

Send one page before you meet

Three sentences, your number and its trend, runway, three ranked problems and two asks.

The help you need

Name the kind of help

Say if you need a thinking partner, know-how, introductions or someone to hold you to account.

  • Thinking partner test our reasoning
  • Know-how a sector or a function
  • Introductions customers, hires, investors
  • Accountability check our promises

Ground rules

Agree the rules in meeting one

Settle reply times, what stays confidential and how you talk between meetings.

  • Reply time two working days
  • Confidential numbers and names stay with us
  • Between meetings short messages
  • Rhythm every three weeks

Your own hypothesis

Bring your own answer to test

Say what you would do and why, so your mentor can test your thinking.

  • What should we do about churn? Too open: you get a lecture.
  • We think churn starts at onboarding. What are we missing? A view your mentor can test.

Doing it on Mentornity

Set it up on Mentornity

Your team and its profile let your mentor know you before the first meeting.

Add your teammates

Meetings and notes then reach every founder on the team.

Fill in the profile

Its fields feed matching and brief your mentor.

Book from their open hours

Pick a free slot, and the video link creates itself.

Send your page ahead

Message the one page before the meeting.

Add your teammates

Meetings and notes then reach every founder on the team.

Fill in the profile

Its fields feed matching and brief your mentor.

Book from their open hours

Pick a free slot, and the video link creates itself.

Send your page ahead

Message the one page before the meeting.

Write your one page today

Half an hour of writing saves your first meeting for the real problems.

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