Mentorship support

Starting a business requires access to a broad range of experience and expertise that an early-stage startup usually lacks. Lack of experience in crucial areas can seriously impair their ability to grow a successful business. Mentors can provide timely access to critical expertise otherwise not available to a startup.

Roles and expectations

Provide guidance: As a mentor, you will provide guidance in areas crucial for startup growth

Identify needs: Be a sounding board for the founders’ ideas, and engage in discussions to help them think deeply about the problems they confront.

Grow connections: Introduce the founders to people, teams, and organizations that can help them grow.

Mentor requirements

We are looking for mentors who meet the requirements below:

A strong understanding and knowledge of business operations and scaling

Strong listening skills and self-awareness

Domain expertise in a specific area of business development: product development, marketing and sales, legal and compliance, finance, accounting and early-stage startup investment, human resources, business modeling etc.

A good track record of helping early-stage startups to grow

Entrepreneurship experience

Mentor selection criteria

Experienced business leader and entrepreneur

Passion for business and supporting new entrepreneurs

Extensive networks in the local or global entrepreneurship ecosystem

Substantial experience, expertise, and success in their respective careers

Able to commit 1 hour to the mentor onboarding training, 2 hours a month post-training for 1:1 mentorship sessions as a lead mentor, or at least 30 minutes a month as an ad-hoc mentor.

Able to commit to a minimum of 1 year for lead mentors

Willingness to participate in mentor monitoring and evaluation surveys

Become a mentor

We invite experts to serve as mentors for startups in our one-year incubation program. Mentors build personal one on one relationships with a startup’s founders and become intimately familiar with its business as it grows. Meetings can be either in person or remotely. We invite mentors in the two categories below:

Lead mentor

Lead mentors commit to supporting 2 startups throughout the course of the program. Lead mentors meet each of their matched startups at least once a month for one hour over the course of the program. Meetings can be either in person or remotely.

Ad-hoc mentor

We understand that some mentors may be willing to support, but not available regularly to support teams as lead mentors. Through our ad hoc mentorship program, mentors commit to at least 30 minutes a month throughout the course of the program. Startups can book 1:1 mentorship sessions or general sessions to discuss a particular domain topic.