Where to find mentor for startup?
 

As the title suggests, where and how can I find a good mentor locally?

I am doing my startup now with Vancouver being the pilot market, and we have developed the product (an app) as we wanted it to be, and we are getting into the launch phase.

We have some ideas as far as marketing goes, but in reality, we are just going through the trial and error part as none of us have significant experience in launch an app, or more precisely, in the field that the app is intended: brick & mortar retail.

We have done our homework on how other startups do it, but TBH, there is still too many variables beyond our controls.

I thought by bringing in a seasoned pro in the field as a mentor would help us significantly and achieve a higher effectiveness of our marketing budget.

We'd need someone that can spare a few hours per week to discuss with us regarding our plans and give us some feedback based on his/her experience.

So, for something local (or relatively speaking), where is a good place to start?

I'd go to a meetup group for entrepreneurs and ask around there.

Cafe 1029 in richmond

What is your budget? What is your expected ROI on the investment in a mentor?

Budget on mentors?

Most mentoring programs seem to be looking for equity or for pro-bono/good faith rather than a cash-payout. But I am open for discussion.

Ultimately, giving out equity is a complicated and long term commitment. If I could find the right person and they demand a payment for their wisdom/connections, I'd rather do that.

look into places like launch academy, boot up labs. follow some of vancouvers investors on social media...see where they hang: ryan holmes, the guy from POF, yaletown partners(vc)

i'm surprised that you've built an app yet you aren't aware of the industry... makes me think you are a wantapreneur than an entrepreneur. you should be sleeping eating breathing tech!

also it'll be hard to get say ryan holmes to give you 1-2hrs per month pro bono... if you've seen Silicon Valley the show, you need an Erlich not a Peter Gregory at this point.

develop the product to a point where it's market ready first. by market ready, i mean you need to be able to readily define how you are going to make your money and have support that people will actually pay.

worry about marketing/branding later, as that stuff will change direction so quickly and substantially as your company find its footing.

There are a lot of incubators and shared office spaces (the Hive was a good one back in the day) locally, so perhaps that would be a good place to start looking for help, even if its just to chat. Reaching out on linkedin is actually sometimes the best way to get at someone specific, and don't be afraid to pick up the phone or knock on some doors. You're going to have to bootstrap most of your costs at first, but if you really believe in something this shouldn't be a problem for you.

Vancouver's start up scene is very, very young, and very, very fickle, so be sure to have a solid product and thick skin.


/worked at a local VC for a few years

cool, mind if i ask who was the VC?


To OP:
as other posters have said, go to the local meetups and talk to other people who are in the game. you basically need to make friends and break into that social group.

also to help your google-fu, try the term Growth hacking.
eg
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/learn-growth-hacking/

The thing is that I come from an investment/consulting background while my partner is IT/CS. I could go on and on with VC and technical perspective, but the reality is that for physical retail, I can only rely on a few friends/acquaintances who operates their own retail in various level.

As of right now I need someone very specific... someone who has a deep understanding on how to market to physical retails. And I have tried to reach out with my own connections, but I couldn't quite find this person (mainly because they were Toronto based and the industry they were in differs to what I'm doing. Most importantly, I need someone local or at least accessible)

Thanks for all the comments, keep them coming!

I will start heading to few events on meetup.

Thanks. That's the person that I'm looking for. A growth hacker to the physical retail sector who knows this industry inside out. Because we can plan all the marketing we want... but the fact is that we have no idea whether or not the method would work or if there's any better way.

I'd like to have someone on board, to guide us how to best utilize our limited resources to achieve the maximum impact. I just haven't had any luck meeting that person.

Have you considered going to Small Business BC?

http://smallbusinessbc.ca/

I think growth hacking for for physical retail is a pretty slim cross section of the growth hacking community, so you may need to widen the criteria and generalize a bit on their field knowledge.

Having said that, try https://squareup.com/ . Tweet at their chief marketing officer and what not :)

You may ultimately be needing to take this on / take some of it on by yourself. Its a good thing for a founder to know some growth. although, the biggest challenge seems to be that Growth Hacking is not a one shot deal, rather a continuous integration of metric gathering, analysis (+ cohort analysis), hypothesis testing, implementation, and repeat. This person needs to be integrated with product and engineering.

https://growthhackers.com/questions/...growth-hacking

Ries (author of lean startup)
Sean Ellis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Ellis_(entrepreneur))

as a general tip the best way to garner interest is to market both your product/service and yourself ultimately to the self interest of the VC or mentor

put yourself in their shoes and think, why would I want a stake in this project?