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Where Have All The Good Mentors Gone?
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I confess to being a Shrek fan. My kids made me (well, sort of) buy the music CD to Shrek 2 and my favorite song on that CD is the Jennifer Saunders song - Holding Out For A Hero. When they were little we would play it over and over again in the car. I had that song ringing in my head as I joined a few other start-up mavens at a recent gathering last week organized by Scott Kirsner at the Microsoft NERD Center in Kendall Square. One of the topics we discussed was: where have all the good mentors and angels gone from Boston? Unlike in Silicon Valley, where successful entrepreneurs seem to jump back into the fray start-up after start-up, Boston’s successful entrepreneurs seem to fade off into the sunset. Two of the more successful companies in Boston in the 1980s were Lotus and Powersoft. Their founders — Mitch Kapor and Mitch Kertzman, respectively — are brilliant guys with an incredible amount to offer. Unfortunately, both moved off to California and are active investors and mentors for young start-ups out there. I served as an executive team member of two companies in Web 1.0 era who were very successful in their day - Open Market (IPO 1996, peak market capitalization of $2.5 billion) and Upromise (acquired by Sallie Mae in 2006 for 9 figures and today has $21 billion assets under management in 529 college savings accounts and 12 million members). My two bosses, Gary Eichhorn (Open Market CEO) and Michael Bronner (Upromise founding CEO), were incredible mentors to me, but both are now retired and focused on non-profit activities and family. Unfortunately, for the next generation of young entrepreneurs in Boston, there simply aren’t that many former founders/CEOs who built large, successful companies hanging around. I can’t blame them, but in order for this community to build the next wave of billion dollar companies, we need more senior talent mentoring and investing in our youth. There are some signs that things are changing. For example, Bill Warner (founder of Avid) has invested a ton of energy in helping get TechStars off the ground. And it was good to read in last week’s news that Don Maclagan, Nicholas Negroponte and James Pilotta have stepped up and invest in music-intelligence start-up Echo Nest. I would love to see more of this going forward. We need the old heroes to stick around and teach the next generation! “Where’s the street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?” - Jennifer Saunders. Jeff is a partner with Boston-based VC firm Flybridge Capital Partners. Read his past peHUB posts, or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bussgang.
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January 12th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Jeff,
Venture has become increasingly sub-prime which makes it increasingly less interesting for smart people to get involved. So, much so now that even public markets don’t believe in this nonsense anymore.
You asked the question.
Best,
Georges
January 15th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
I understand that this post refers to the still young entrepreneurs who have had great successes coming back into technology, and can therefore mentor younger entrepreneurs. This may be hard to find on the east coast. Still, I very much rely on mentors, and the ones I look to most are not always billionaires or famous. They are just full of wisdom. A Professor and friend Dr. Meinecke provided me with a love for polymer physics. He is retired, but is still my and many other peoples mentor. The investor and entrepreneur David Larkin, who is working with me on several projects is a mentor to me. He comes from internet technology, and media, while I come from Material science and Physics. This also changes the way we see business. This difference is something that I learn from, making David a mentor as well. All I say, is keep your eyes open for mentors all of the time. They are important.
January 19th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I couldn’t agree more: mentors are important for young entrepreneurs. And Matthew is right — a mentor doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same industry in order to help an entrepreneur advance their business. We should always keep our eyes open for possible mentors. They are around, we just need to know where to look.
Finding a mentor who has had success in your area can be vital to an entrepreneur who is moving quickly in those critical early days. Whether it is 10 minutes of their time or 10 hours, we need to suggest that senior business people consider making themselves available to mentor others. The problem then, whatever region you are in, is connecting the mentor and the entrepreneur. Sure you can keep your eyes open and ask around, but that doesn’t always work — particularly if you don’t have a big network or geography isn’t your friend. Social media can definitely help in this area.
IdeaCrossing (www.ideacrossing.org) is a free site that can help. It uses its matching technology to connect Entrepreneurs with Business Mentors in their industry. The Mentor can privately and securely view their matches, read the entrepreneur profiles, and contact only those that they would like to explore further.
While there is no magic bullet, the key is putting yourself out there.