3 ms·

How-to get that guy as your mentor

58 points by duck 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago
I agree with the basic principle but I'm not sure that every mentor relationship should turn in to an equity based one.
zf0_fan 16y ago
I wish zf0 would mentor me
rumpelstiltskin 16y ago
On their end, the equity should be enough where it is motivating to stay engaged. In practice, I think this is 2%+. That is significantly higher than normal advisor relationships. How much equity would you give for a normal advisor relationship?
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  Varies on person/startup/etc., but 0.25-0.5% is common.
  - rumpelstiltskin 16y ago
    Thanks!
bryanh 16y ago
At risk of tooting my own drum (did I say that right? ;-), you could always sign up at http://EveryMentor.com http://EveryMentor.com and try to get matched to a mentor there. I envision it as the online equivalent to a workout buddy. There are a couple hundred "mentors" on there now at varying skill levels, with several dozen happy matches.
- luckystrike 16y ago
  Interesting concept. Few thoughts on it: As Gabriel mentioned in the blog post - "Identify people that would make good mentors, i.e. with the right domain experience." The site looks very generic from outside and forces me to signup without even giving me a peek of kind of people I can expect to see in the community. I might be looking for a startup mentor in a particular domain, and may be there is none of that type on it right now. Or may be some people on it are providing mentor-ship on how to go about learning a specific skill like flying etc that I am interested in, but since I have no clue, I probably won't sign up. You can think of highlighting a few profiles or at least a few categories helping a visitor understand whether (s)he should join this community or not. Good luck, and hope it becomes a good success.
  - bryanh 16y ago
    Thanks for the feedback, right now it is HEAVILY weighted towards hackers and such (my main push has been in Hacker News) although one girl found a wedding designer match. That's kind of unexpected!
- MartinCron 16y ago
  Hmmm... I'm trying to sign up right now and I'm stuck at the "Ideally, how would your mentor's experience level compare to yours?" single-item drop down. You see, I think I would make a good mentor for a junior software developer. I've worked in a lot of different domains, using a lot of different tools. I took the Construx "peer mentoring" course, have led educational seminars, etc. But, I'm also part of a small team working on a brand-new startup, and would love to be on the learning side of a mentor relationship with someone who has early-stage startup experience. And I have to pick just one option. Seems conceptually broken to me. Maybe I'm an outlier.
  - bryanh 16y ago
    A lot of folks signed up for multiple accounts. Just think, finding some with the exact mirror of you might be difficult, but you could fill both roles with two different "mentors". But, I still totally see your point. During streamlining, I made the decision to simplify a lot of the matching.
sdrinf 16y ago
Aside: that earn-mojo thingie on the right side? that just earned it's rightful place in my /etc/hosts deny list. Please don't.

58 points by duck 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

I agree with the basic principle but I'm not sure that every mentor relationship should turn in to an equity based one.

zf0_fan 16y ago

I wish zf0 would mentor me

rumpelstiltskin 16y ago

On their end, the equity should be enough where it is motivating to stay engaged. In practice, I think this is 2%+. That is significantly higher than normal advisor relationships. How much equity would you give for a normal advisor relationship?

epi0Bauqu 16y ago
Varies on person/startup/etc., but 0.25-0.5% is common.
- rumpelstiltskin 16y ago
  Thanks!

bryanh 16y ago

At risk of tooting my own drum (did I say that right? ;-), you could always sign up at http://EveryMentor.com http://EveryMentor.com and try to get matched to a mentor there. I envision it as the online equivalent to a workout buddy. There are a couple hundred "mentors" on there now at varying skill levels, with several dozen happy matches.

luckystrike 16y ago
Interesting concept. Few thoughts on it: As Gabriel mentioned in the blog post - "Identify people that would make good mentors, i.e. with the right domain experience." The site looks very generic from outside and forces me to signup without even giving me a peek of kind of people I can expect to see in the community. I might be looking for a startup mentor in a particular domain, and may be there is none of that type on it right now. Or may be some people on it are providing mentor-ship on how to go about learning a specific skill like flying etc that I am interested in, but since I have no clue, I probably won't sign up. You can think of highlighting a few profiles or at least a few categories helping a visitor understand whether (s)he should join this community or not. Good luck, and hope it becomes a good success.
- bryanh 16y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, right now it is HEAVILY weighted towards hackers and such (my main push has been in Hacker News) although one girl found a wedding designer match. That's kind of unexpected!
MartinCron 16y ago
Hmmm... I'm trying to sign up right now and I'm stuck at the "Ideally, how would your mentor's experience level compare to yours?" single-item drop down. You see, I think I would make a good mentor for a junior software developer. I've worked in a lot of different domains, using a lot of different tools. I took the Construx "peer mentoring" course, have led educational seminars, etc. But, I'm also part of a small team working on a brand-new startup, and would love to be on the learning side of a mentor relationship with someone who has early-stage startup experience. And I have to pick just one option. Seems conceptually broken to me. Maybe I'm an outlier.
- bryanh 16y ago
  A lot of folks signed up for multiple accounts. Just think, finding some with the exact mirror of you might be difficult, but you could fill both roles with two different "mentors". But, I still totally see your point. During streamlining, I made the decision to simplify a lot of the matching.

sdrinf 16y ago

Aside: that earn-mojo thingie on the right side? that just earned it's rightful place in my /etc/hosts deny list. Please don't.