Leap and Do Work You Love
Here’s an interesting thing I realized when I was thinking of the previous post :
From my stint in Chikka, I know around 7 people who have developed (or are developing) startups upon leaving the firm.
In my own startup, STORM, a company of around 12-15 people at any given time, 2 people who’ve left the firm have formed their own startups (hello Kiko Loseo and Ope Linchangco!).
Knowing how sparse Filipino startups are, this is no coincidence: working for a startup prepares you to run one.
If I had not joined erstwhile startup Chikka Asia back in 2004, I most probably would not have had the inspiration and mindset to start my own firm. Back in those times, I only had one mindset – climbing the corporate ladder. My experience in Chikka broadened my career horizons and got me thinking, “hey, maybe I can do it!”
Previous to Chikka, I was working with companies which had really “corporate” cultures, where we had to go to work in ties and all. As I started in Chikka, I quickly noticed some differences, such as:
1) a hatred of formality (yep, it’s a strong word, but I’m sticking with it)
2) there were no special rooms for “Management,” everyone had the same table and chair like and with everyone else
3) there were interesting perks (beer after 6, lechon feasts during birthdays of founders, etc…)
4) LOUD meetings
5) approvals were A LOT faster
I mean, some of these might seem run-of-the-mill now, but during that time, and especially with my very corporate-conservative background these were all NEW.
And I loved it. I thought the lack of formality made for a more creative atmosphere.
Most importantly, I sucked up the entire experience like a sponge, paying attention to stuff like: how the CEO thought, how the COO just EXECUTED, how quickly ideas were turned into action, how problems were handled, how employees were empowered, how ambiguity was handled, how open the Management team was to new ideas, and very importantly, how the company grew from its very humble roots.
Actually, when I joined Chikka, I was already talking to Pao about forming STORM. In retrospect, joining Chikka was precisely what I needed at that time – I needed to understand firsthand that a Philippine startup COULD work. (thank you, God) My experience in working for a startup solidified my intention in building one. If I had joined that apparel company which also gave me a job offer, I remain convinced that I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing now.
If you are hesitant to dive headlong into starting a startup, joining one provides a very strategic bridge. Startup life and corporate life are SO dissimilar. Corporate life does little to prepare you for the challenges of running a startup. Joining a startup can provide you with a great way to experience startup life with minimal risk (you still have a salary). You can ask some of the founders to mentor you (If they are open. If they are not, then that might not be the right startup for you – startup founders are typically quite enthusiastic with mentoring newer startups). At the very least, I can almost guarantee a great learning experience.
(7 slots remaining for JuangreatMEET on March 27! Do email me at pcauton@yahoo.com to reserve a slot!)
Okay. I’ve postponed this long enough.
Let’s meet.
I know a number of you have wanted to meet up – I’m so sorry if I haven’t replied with a definitive schedule on a coffee talk just yet, as my schedule’s been crazy. I pray you’d be okay with this in the meantime.
Let’s not complicate things. I’ll just give a short short sharing of My Own Startup story, we’ll have a Q&A portion, and then it’s Mingle Time. I’ll invite a handful of other entrepreneurs and founders who want to help out so the learning experience and exchange would be at a maximum.
It’s going to be free, of course 🙂 Sagot ko na muna.
If you’ve been sitting on your behind just reading posts and don’t know where to start, this might be a great way to kickstart your process.
If you’ve recently founded a startup and have some questions, then it might be a good venue to get some advice, network, and even help out.
If you’re in the process of starting up, then it might be a good place to find a support group who will listen and help out.
I’ve reserved a room for around 30 people, so the atmosphere would be more intimate and comfortable. Obviously it will be limited seating. So if you are bringing friends, please bring people who are seriously interested in startups. You can leave your significant other just this once, so we can maximize the slots for truly interested people (assuming your partner isn’t a startup enthusiast like you).
Also, if you are say you are going, please don’t flake. I trust you and I will reserve a place for you if you are among the first to reserve.
No need for a Facebook event page, I think. Let’s again make this simple. If you want to go, shoot me an email at pcauton@yahoo.com ASAP and tell me how many you will be. First 30 people get in. That’s it.
WHAT: Juan Great Meet
WHERE: Chelsea Room, Astoria Plaza, Escriva Drive, Pasig City
WHEN: Tuesday, March 27, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
WHY: Ultimately, to LEARN
Seeya!
Earlier today I talked to a startup founder who told me his startup story – he made A TON of money in corporate, decided to retire early, and then one day he woke up thinking that he just had to start something. So he created a company he ran from his living room, which grew by leaps and bounds over the last three years. Now he runs a sizeable tech startup operation at Fort Bonifacio. I was just in their office, which looked just AMAZING. He’s also very evidently pumped up.
On the other end of the spectrum, I know more than a few founders who are struggling. They scrap and hustle like crazy to make ends meet and barely make it. And you know what? They, too, are having the time of their lives.
Some of these guys make it big. You see them in the news. Some of these guys will experience moderate success. A bunch of these guys will not make it. You will see it in their Linkedin accounts, where you see 1-2 years of “President and Owner, ABCD Company” in between corporate jobs. Talk to these guys. You will learn a lot. None of them it seems regret the experience, and in fact, most will say it was the best learning experience they’ve ever had. Most will say they had the most fun in that stint.
It seems that startup success IS NOT a determinant of founder joy – just jumping in seems enough.
Interestingly, most of whom I’ve talked to who’ve founded startups which have folded are raring to do it again. They might have gone back to corporate, but a number are just biding time to cook another idea. I would love to work with entrepreneurs like these – failure is almost a pre-requisite in startup success.
Try looking for an unhappy startup founder. You won’t find one. You could have a number of frustrated ones who are stuck with a problem. Or struggling ones. Or poor ones. Or confused ones. ALL of them though, I can almost assure you, are having the times of their professional lives.
There is a different joy your soul experiences when it is fed with the pursuit of its passions.
Okay, so for a number of posts now I’ve been talking about how difficult startups are, overcoming huge obstacles, the bootstrapped life, how sheer hard work is a requirement, etc…
But you know what? Startups are just F-U-N.
I’ve never been more engaged in my life, and now I’m really just addicted to the experience of STARTING.
Here’s a quick list of reasons why!
1. You can opt not to work with people you don’t want to (either client or employee)
2. The feeling of that first office when you get the furniture in
3. Seeing the idea you thought of ACTUALLY being bought
4. Seeing that FIRST check, cash, or deposit from a customer
5. Unencumbered creative brainstorming knowing the discussion could go ANYWHERE
6. Not being able to sleep because you’re psyched about something you want to implement
7. Winning a bid over a more established competitor
8. Working in the trenches with your startup team, CREATING SOMETHING
9. Pizza
10. Overnight overtime resulting in MAKING the deadline
11. Working on a truly innovative idea
12. Working with great people
13. Working on something YOU OWN
14. Getting a sincere “thanks” from a client
15. Pizza
16. Feeling momentum build
17. Great people saying “yes” to your job offer
18. The ability to MAKE your job your ideal one
19. Freedom from incompetent bosses
20. Freedom from useless meetings
21. Freedom from the need to suck up
22. Freedom from tyrannical bosses
23. Freedom from CYA culture (cover your ass)
24. CREATING a culture, not merely assimilating yourself into one
25. The continuous process of LEARNING about stuff are truly passionate about
26. Working on WORTHWHILE projects
27. Making the rules up as you go along (or as you need them)
28. Less talk, more action
29. It’s an investment and a day job (with a salary) at the same time
30. Exchanging ideas and war stories with other startup owners
31. The slow realization that you don’t need a corporate job to survive
32. The slow realization that there aren’t any limits
33. Current customers creating new leads through unsolicited referrals
34. Freedom to choose what sort of condiments you like for the pantry (like good brewed coffee, knorr seasoning, or banana ketchup)
35. Not only could you let your hair down and be yourself, you could be your BEST self
These are just SOME of the multitude of reasons why Startups are just awesomely fun.
Got more? Please feel free to hit the comment box to add reasons!
I’ve been around a number Corporate CEO’s both in my corporate and consulting lives. What these CEO’s have in common is the capacity to craft and articulate the view from 50,000 feet. That is, to craft and articulate the big, hairy vision that the company seeks to accomplish, and the major strategies to enable this vision to happen.
This huge responsibility ALSO falls on the shoulders of the Startup CEO.
The big difference is what happens after. The Corporate CEO will then DELEGATE. She will assemble her MANCOM, communicate the 50,000 foot vision, and ask them to carry out her orders. Seldom does she get her hands dirty, and with very good reason – she has to take care of the Big Picture.
The Startup CEO, meanwhile, will do most of the heavy lifting AS WELL. The more nascent the startup is, the larger the heavy lifting of the Startup CEO will be. The Startup CEO NEEDS to be on the ground simply because there is simply little or no organization to carry things out at the detail or standard she wants.
This distinction makes huge difference.
Whereas the Corporate CEO would tell her Sales Director “let’s call all the major accounts and push this new product of ours,” (and the Sales Director would probably bring down that directive two more levels down), the Startup CEO would begin doing the calls herself. This is literally something I know a number of startup CEO’s have done.
This ability – the skill of deftly shifting between 50,000 feet AND 50 feet on the ground, is a crucial, crucial skill. While the Corporate CEO has to deal with much larger scope and sophistication, the Startup CEO has to deal with the difficulty of rapidly and humbly changing hats very very often.
It is very easy to lose track of the former while working on the latter, and vice versa. For example, if you are busy in the trenches selling your product with customers, it’s very easy to get consumed by the detail and by numbers and forget about the overarching strategy. This is dangerous of course, as the startup relies heavily on the CEO to provide big-picture thinking – and ensuring the fledgling firm doesn’t fall from the path.
At the same time, let’s say you’ve just done your super strategic business model/vision for a product, and you’re feeling mighty proud of the product of your mental weightlifting, it takes quite an effort to motivate yourself to dive in and start doing the dirty work yourself, such as driving around to deliver items yourself, or picking up the phone to call 30 people in the next 2 hours, or washing the plates after you eat. Of course, without the groundwork, nothing would happen.
This is what makes the job of a Startup CEO quite challenging – she needs to be ready to ride a high-speed elevator at any given time. This is also why I think it’s such a tremendous, tremendous learning process. Got an idea? Go do it. That’s end-to-end learning.
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I was in a startup pitch event some months ago attended by a good number of people, a lot of which had corporate day jobs. I was listening intently to the ideas being pitched, and I jotted each of them on my tablet to get some sort of idea as to what exactly people wanted to get into. Almost EVERY idea pitched was a B2C (business to consumer: a business which offers products directly to consumers). A good number of them were social networking sites. A good number of them were location-based apps. A good number of them were online marketplaces. In fact, a couple of people thought of exactly the same idea.
This is all well and good, of course – it’s very good to think big. Why not create the next cool social network? Why not create the next killer location-based app? By all means, let’s dream big.
On the other hand, I was thinking the idea distribution was SO skewed towards these “sexy” apps: location-based, social, etc… There were hardly any B2B (business to business: a business which offers products to other businesses) ideas thrown on the table. This was surprising for me. My first thought was wondering about how many people around the world they were competing with. Moreover, there’s that danger of having a giant like Facebook or Google making a feature out of your idea – you’d be out of business in a hurry.
People, why not B2B?!
Here are some powerful reasons to consider it:
1) Online Purchasing Isn’t A Standard (yet)
While internet penetration is uncommonly high here in our country, online purchases are far from the norm. Not yet, anyway. And since our country is a third world country, it may take a while to get there. Since online purchases are commonly the lifeblood of web startups, it becomes a challenge to create a sustainable business model for those who insist on them. You could target a first world country nowadays, of course, since the world is flat – but then you’d have to worry about a ton of competition and a disadvantage of knowing the market a bit less.
2) Take Advantage of Your Corporate Domain Expertise
The ironic thing is that most of the people in that room with me were corporate lifers. Do they hate their corporate jobs that much that HARDLY any B2B idea were generated?
If you spent 5 years in Finance, or 7 years in Supply Chain Management, or 10 years in Human Resources, one thing is for sure: you know more about your corporate domain than most people. You know gaps / problem areas, or at the very least know people who would know about these gaps in detail. These gaps are tremendous opportunities. The fact that they are still gaps means you can come in and take that strategic early mover advantage. (instead of being, like the 167th mover in one of those “sexier” areas)
Also, while a great number of people do not like their corporate JOBS, I’m betting it’s not because of the domain. For example, I was in corporate HR for a good decade before taking the leap. It WASN’T HR that I loathed about corporate – it was the politics, the narrow responsibility sets, the butt-kissing, rigidity, etc… But HR as a domain and body of knowledge? I continue to love it.
I bet you feel the same way about your domain – marketing, sales, finance, etc…. There might be a reason you gravitated towards the domain. It might just be love of the game.
3) Take Advantage of Your Corporate Network
In corporations, one thing you have the opportunity to do a lot is to network. There is a TON of ways to do so: of course you start with your co-workers, but then you also have your suppliers, or the would-be suppliers who send you proposals, those people you met in trade shows or public training courses, business partners, and clients. Why not build something where your existing network can still be useful, instead of creating a new one from scratch?
4) Corporations Have Money
Of course, during economic downturns, it might prove to be a bit difficult to get them to open their wallets. But you know what? If you solve a significant problem for them, you’d be amazed at how easy it is to do so sometimes. Oh, and yes, and corporations have credit cards.
I have discovered that locally owned companies tend to open their wallets faster than their multinational counterparts, probably because they don’t need to consult their regional counterparts for significant purchases. These might be good to target first.
5) B2B Firms Work
Amazon, Facebook, Mang Inasal, Zynga – these are all shining B2C examples. If you’ve got a killer idea like that, then by all means, take the plunge. But do take a look at some of the biggest successes in the startup world: Salesforce, 37 Signals, Linkedin (used mostly by business professionals), Success Factors (recently bought by SAP for $3 Billion), Taleo (recently bought by Oracle for nearly $2 Billion as a counter to SAP’s purchase), I could go on and on. These firms work. These firms scale.
6) Yes, You Can Go Multinational
Creating a B2B firm does not mean you’ll get stuck in just the local market. On the contrary. First, a lot of the companies you can target here are MNC’s. This means have regional affiliates they meet and talk to very regularly. This is one of the EASIEST ways to get to go international – just ride with your MNC clients. Do a good job with the local affiliate and they just might recommend you to their neighboring counterparts.
Another idea is viewing the local clients as a way to perfect your products for the international market. It will obviously be easier (and cheaper) to sell stuff here. You can start with that. Then as your portfolio grows, it becomes a virtuous cycle – you make your products and services better to account for the increased clients, and as a result your portfolio will grow even more – allowing you to position yourself nicely for international growth.
If you are a corporate lifer thinking of making a jump, then a jump to becoming a corporate entrepreneur does make a ton of sense, especially here in our country.
We are smart people. So before we started our startup, we thoroughly thought about our business strategy . Perhaps we drafted a comprehensive business plan which outlined our specific market and how to leverage our competitive advantages.
Armed with our plan, we started. We marketed and began selling. We talked to our customers.
Here is where it always gets interesting. When we offer our product, a lot of times, the consumer will ask us for something else. Another way to use our product. An altered product, perhaps. Or a service related to what we are offering, but not exactly what we are offering. When I was selling our HR technology products in our startup STORM, I was asked several times by HR Directors about whether we did executive search. I always thought it was a good thing that I kept on saying no.
Since we are smart, we would probably invoke Steve Jobs and think about his “Focus is saying no” mantra. You might be tempted to say no and say “the money’s good , but this will be a distraction.”
Let me give you one piece of advice:
Do the service. Bend over backward a bit. Then take the money.
When you begin startup operations, there should be one thing that should consume you above everything else: SURVIVAL. A lot of us have grand plans and we dream of raking in the dough the moment we start. Then we do start and the dual-reality hits us: it’s hard to get customers to open up their wallets and costs are higher than we expected. The dream then transforms into a (necessary) desperation.
Most startups kick the bucket in 5 years. 99% of them do so because they didn’t have enough cash to sustain operations. Cash is king.
As CEO, would you rather deal with a profitable company dealing with lack of focus, or a “strategic” company going under? Thought so.
Beggars aren’t choosers. Startups are essentially beggars. So take whatever money that you can to survive.
Saying no to focus is crucial, but it normally comes after a few years when your startup more or less has created an identity and is a bit more financially stable.
Cash allows your startup to be flexible. Cash will give you leverage – and time – to solve problems. Lack of cash is the opposite – it is a death sentence.
For startups, survival is success. If your startup idea is a good one, I guarantee you this: as long as you survive those critical first few years, IT WILL GET BETTER. But until it does, you have to hang in there and just concentrate keep your head above water. This means saying yes to any and every monetary opportunity available, as long as you don’t veer so much from your main vision ( a judgment call). Keep your head above water – there is nothing more crucial than this when you start. Eliminate luxuries, create an ultra-conscious culture to keep costs low, and maximize every earning opportunity.
The mind-blowing thing is, that “extra” thing that you were asked to do might be the bigger business opportunity than your original plan. Paypal started out as a Palm Pilot electronic wallet idea. The had an online emulator which did payments online, and at first, they were ignoring the sudden rush of people which wanted to do online payments. Then it finally hit them in the head that they were inadvertently sitting on a goldmine.
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(This is the second post in a two-part series. Part one can be found here.)
Here are three more crucial tips in getting your startup to work while maintaining a day job.
I got this idea from my friend Elmer, who works fulltime in a service firm and manages to have time for a couple of startups. What I’ve seen Elmer do TWICE already is to plan and execute a STARTUP POWER WEEK.
Here are the steps:
a) Take a 5-day Vacation Leave 2-3 months in advance.
Of course, a vacation is the LAST THING on Elmer’s mind, in fact the opposite is more appropriate. The nine days he will free up is the startup equivalent of what Santa Claus does on Christmas Eve – Elmer will be delivering an insane number of items.
b) Arrange and Schedule EVERYTHING on these 9 days.
Think of the work you CAN’T do during your spare time, the work that can only be done during official work hours. These might include: face-to-face selling to a huge client, talking to a big supplier, or market research. Call a ton of people. Get them to commit to dates and times. Cram the 9-days with every strategic item you can get to work on. Yep, work the nights as well for crucial interviews or coffee talks.
Why don’t you just spread the leaves out instead of doing it all in a week? For Elmer, he HAS to do it this way because he works in the US and his startups are local – so he TRAVELS here during the nine-days. He can’t spread ’em. But there is another reason you might want to consider: momentum. I’ve SEEN first hand how Elmer makes these power weeks work – they are EXTRA productive for him.
During this one week, you will NOT be distracted by your day-job requirements (well, hopefully). During this one week, you can go into a deep dive. You can be totally immersed and it can be exhilarating – you get a a week’s feel of the startup life. At the end of the week, great momentum is created which can’t help but get carried over the succeeding ones. Momentum is everything.
c) During and preceding these 9-days, take plenty of vitamins (oh wow, getting hit by the bug here would be such a choke-job).
First order of business: find a passionate, FULLTIME co-founder. There is a MUCH greater chance for your startup to succeed if SOMEONE is fulltime, preferably that someone who will do a bit of sales, marketing, or business development. Can you imagine doing sales for your startup while having an 8-5 job? (think about that for a moment)
I’ve done that. I’ve had to cancel meetings with my startup AN HOUR before the scheduled time because my boss just wanted to talk to me. Quite tough to operate this way.
I’ve now started quite a few startups – some have failed, some have succeeded. What do all the successes have in common? Each of the successes had a fulltime partner. I can’t over-emphasize how crucial this is.
Note: you can HIRE for this full-time need and pay an employee to do it. However, one big factor I’ve discovered is: if you have a fulltime job, you”ll only have a limited time supervising and leading an employee. There is a GREAT chance that not only will your employee end up being unproductive, but demotivated as well. A co-partner, on the other hand, will have equity in the firm. The equity will likely make him much more invested and motivated in building the firm – especially if you aren’t around most of the time.
Under no circumstances must you compromise your integrity by compromising the interests of your current employer. None.
As tempting as it may sound, you mustn’t allow yourself to do your startup work during official working hours, or compromise the quality of your work in any way because you were too distracted with a startup-related project.
There are practical reasons for this: getting caught (and fired), ruining your reputation (which is crucial when you start selling stuff in your startup), the company confiscating your startup work (whatever is saved in your company laptop DOES NOT belong to you), and others.
But I think it can boil down to one thing: the golden rule.
Plus, karma’s a bitch.
Do check out this related post about planning carefully for the startup runway.
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No startup is an island.
Since independence is a pretty common entrepreneurial trait, going at it alone becomes a mistake that’s easy to fall into for a lot of startup founders.
This is a mistake.
Listen carefully. Developing an honest-to-goodness startup is a difficult chore. Most startups still fail within 5 years of being founded. You need all the help you can get. When you get started, one of things you should always remember is to develop your support structure. You need mentors.
Notice I used the plural form there. It’s easy to think that you have to go looking out for one mentor. Do more. Get an army of great ones. This ALWAYS pays off.
Expect not only to receive wisdom and sage advice from your mentors, but possibly even the following items:
1) friendship and emotional support
2) a large network of very useful contacts
3) possible clients
4) possible capital
In corporate, I’d had an image of a mentor – an older person in the same company who is typically an expert in what I am doing.
What I’ve discovered in startups is that there can be many different types of mentors. Here’s my list.
1) The Domain Mentor
This is the mentor you run to for advice with regards to the particular field your business is in. Having established an HR solutions firm with STORM, it was important for me to have people to run to with regards to HR. I ran to Gina Hechanova and Bopeep Franco of Ateneo CORD for HR advice when STORM was growing. We even partnered for some projects were they needed a technology partner.
2) The Entrepreneurial Mentor
No matter how long you talk to your domain mentor, it would be really impossible for her to relate to what you are going through as a startup founder. Knowing what the business is about is vastly different from running the business. It would be quite advantageous for you to talk to someone who knows what exactly it takes to build a successful startup – who has felt what you feel, who can tell you “that’s normal” and “you should abandon that now.”
This was our challenge when Pao and I built STORM, we had no entrepreneurial mentors – so we had to go through everything through trial and error. This almost killed our firm many times. I have no doubts that if we could have networked with an entrepreneurial mentor early on, it would have been smoother sailing.
3) The Peer Mentor
Karen Yao is the founder of the HR Consulting firm Congruent Partnerships. She is my age and is an awesome HR practitioner and facilitator. Around once a month, we would have coffee and we would talk and exchange ideas about HR and startups. We usually exchange advice on stuff like hiring, office space and rent, the future of our respective firms, what the other would think about a new concept the other would like to introduce, and so much more. Karen is what I call a peer mentor – the direction of the mentorship is two-way, and we see each other as peers. I am lucky to have Karen to talk with because she functions as both a domain mentor and an entrepreneurial mentor – this always makes our talks so much more interesting. And naturally, we have given paying projects to one another.
4) The Life Mentor (Or Life Coach)
So how will startup life affect your relationships with your family, friends, and loved ones? When does work become too much? How is your prayer life? How are you eating?
Taking the plunge and forming your own startup won’t really be a cure-all. Yes, it can make your professional life that much more rewarding. I am into the notion though, that a happy life is a balanced one. There are other aspects of life that you cannot take for granted: physical, emotional, social, spiritual. A poorly managed dimension can easily drag all the rest of the dimensions – so it’s very important you have someone in your corner whom you can talk to about not merely your startup, but how it relates to the rest of your life.
I am quite lucky in this regard because I married one of the wisest people I know.
5) Encouraging Friends
Doesn’t really fall into the “mentor” category, but does so in the “support structure” concept. I’d thought I’d might as well throw this in here.
Are some of your friends negativity-mongers? You know, those people who always complain, who always see the glass half-empty, or will always point out the huge risk you are taking in going after your idea. Lots of these in corporate. (some are just plain negative and cannot help it, but some are crabs)
You are who you surround yourself with.
So be sure to surround yourself with people who encourage you, who will stand by you. Not only that, but also try to surround yourself with people who are less afraid of taking risks in their lives, people who are willing to put stuff on the line in going after what they want.
So there you go – different types of mentors for the startup founders. I purposely didn’t include here “formalized” mentors like the Board of Directors or Advisory Boards – this will be taken up in a future post.
Just some last things. Of course, I recommend you take initiative and ask people whom you respect if they are open to being your mentor. (you’d be surprised at how some people would just want to help) Just two pieces of advice:
1) Know if they’re a good guy or a bad guy
Doesn’t get any more basic than this. The main thing about being a mentor is not only the wisdom you will gain, but more importantly, that the mentor has a personal stake in your success. Remember that. A mentor wants to see you succeed.
You may know a number of entrepreneurs who are all about money. You know who I am talking about. The first thing this person would think of when they meet you is “how can this guy make me more money?” There are also arrogant ones who think they are God’s gift to the industry, or people who simply will not share anything with you “keep their edge.” Avoid these people like the plague. You, like most people, can probably smell them a mile away.
Go after good guys. Look at their backgrounds, see what type of work they’ve done and who they’ve associated with. Talk to people who’ve worked with them. You, like most people, can probably smell good guys a mile away as well.
2) Don’t force it
The big thing about the mentor-mentee relationships is that you should have a high degree of comfortability and compatibility: there should be chemistry, you should like one another. This is why a lot of the formal corporate mentor programs don’t work – it feels forced. So don’t force it.
It might not be a good idea to just email someone “Can you be my mentor?” Have coffee with the person first, get to know the person first. Check for rapport, check for chemistry.
Remember, you cannot afford to be an island. Surround yourself with great people you can turn to for advice, who will be there for you, and who want you to succeed.
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