How Do You Scale Mentoring?

By guest author Irina Patterson

To date, on this blog, we have interviewed more than 30 incubator managers and more than 40 angel investors, and all of them are looking for solutions to scalable and effective mentoring resources.

Most mentors are active or retired entrepreneurs, senior executives, and incubator managers themselves. Most seek not only emotional satisfaction from mentoring but also a return on their time (and often money) investment.

If you are a senior executive, your time is worth anywhere from $500 an hour and up. Mentors spend anywhere from two to 100 hours a year with each entrepreneur. So, they invest anywhere from $1,000 to $50,000 in each entrepreneur in terms of time.

Now, consider an alternative. The 1M/1M Premium Curriculum covers all the core groundwork on bootstrapping, positioning, market sizing, customer validation, financing, customer acquisition, team building, and so on. In addition, we have electives that are specific to industry segments like Web 3.0 and e-commerce, cloud computing, healthcare IT, online education, mobile and social apps, gaming, outsourcing, and more.

At 1M/1M, we ask each entrepreneur to spend at least 50 to 60 hours digesting the curriculum so that by the time they engage with a local, live mentor, they have already mastered the basics.

Once entrepreneurs know the basics, local mentors could do higher caliber coaching. This way, everyone stands to get greater return on their time (and money).

By everyone, we mean the entrepreneurs and their local mentors, the incubators and regional economic development organizations and, of course, the local and global communities at large.

Note: The 1M/1M team has invested significant resources to engage with and understand the challenges of the Incubator industry around the globe. You can sign up for our opt-in mailing list to get this information via email on an ongoing basis.

Business Incubator Series: Fred Hoch And Terry Howerton, TechNexus, Chicago, Illinois (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Terry: ITA, the Clean Energy Trust and almost 75 other organizations meet at Tech Nexus every month –roundtables for entrepreneurs, legal discussions and also a huge number of user groups, special interest groups, things like the Amazon Web services group, the Lean Startup group or the Adobe Flex User group.

So, it’s really an opportunity for the company that moves in to figure out how to engage and plug in to the learning and collaboration opportunities that surround them here. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Diane Dimeff, eSpace: The Center for Space Entrepreneurship, Boulder, Colorado (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay

Irina: Would you give us more details on your three programs?

Diane: Yes. The first program is the eSpace incubator, which we have talked about quite a bit.

The second program is called the Straight to Space (S2S). In this program, we provide entrepreneurial aerospace companies both in our incubators and outside our incubator with training grants to support the training of technicians and engineers they have hired from outside the aerospace industry. >>>

Business Incubator Series: John Richards, BoomStartup, Provo, Utah (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

John: I took me a couple years or a year and a half to research and decide what to do. I was going to launch in 2009 but the economy … you know, you start these things for a summer program in February or March. >>>

Business Incubator Series: John McIntyre, Citrix Startup Accelerator (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

John: If a company we invest in exits down the road at some point, either through acquisition or going through a public market, that equity will come back for Citrix, which would be great.

[However], that won’t be the measurement on sustaining the program. The measurement on sustaining the program is does Citrix feel that we’re learning enough, that we’re supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a way we want to, that we think this is a good overall thing for us to be involved in. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Troy Henikoff, Excelerate Labs – Chicago, Illinois (Part 7)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Did TechStars implement their universal application idea that David Cohen discussed with me when I interviewed him?

Troy: TechStars is working with the Kauffman Foundation on implementing it.  They are working on it.

Irina: How do you process your applications?

Troy: We get hundreds of applications every year. I don’t think the process is perfect. We do the best we can. We have to balance – and this is sort of like entrepreneurship – there’s a saying, “Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.” When you’re launching company, if you want the company to be perfect, you’ll never actually launch it. You’ll always be working on your product. You’ll be internally focused. You’ll miss the opportunity. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Troy Henikoff, Excelerate Labs – Chicago, Illinois (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Troy: The ecosystem is ripe for high-tech startups in Chicago.  We have great universities.  There are more Fortune 500 companies based here in Chicago than in any other metropolitan area, so – on the B2B side – we have the businesses to sell to. >>>

Business Incubator Series: Ross Sanders, Bizdom U – Detroit, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio (Part 8)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Praveen Karoshi

Irina: What are some of your successes stories?

Ross: We already talked about the online training company [Launch Learning Group]. They have been doing it for only six months. They have raised outside funding.

Campus Commandos is another good one. It does marketing and brand awareness on college campuses. So, if you are a brand, a large brand, and if you want to spread awareness on a college campus, this young man – his name is Adam Grant and he came out of Michigan State University – he will go on a college campus and do promotional programs, contests, and spread brand awareness. He has already covered his expenses for several months and is making good progress. >>>