How to build your team

Renat Usman

12 Mar 2024

33 min read

Introduction

This module gives practical advice on how to build your startup team, including how to find cofounders and recruit your first employees and contractors.

When you're working on founding an early-stage startup, you might wonder:

  • What it's really like to found a startup.

  • How to manage your time and energy.

  • When to transition to building your business full time.

This module expands on these concepts and covers practical tips for building a high-performing startup team. It also discusses steps that you can take to more easily manage your team as it grows and to set up your company for success.
Effective communication is essential for remote teams. Utilize a variety of communication tools such as video conferencing, chat platforms, and email to keep everyone connected. Schedule regular check-ins and team meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page and address any issues or concerns promptly.

Note

Every startup is different, and every founder has their own unique perspective. This module will discuss principles that apply broadly rather than try to be prescriptive about what your startup team should look like or how you should go about building it.

What does an ideal startup team look like?

It's important to consider the value of teams versus sole founders. Startups are often started by a sole founder. But before long, most sole founders realize that having a team is critical to the success of their company. Hiring a team doesn't just help manage the volume of work, but also helps tap into a broad range of skills and perspectives. Being part of a team also provides moral support.

In this unit, we're going to talk about startup teams. We'll first look at the personal attributes that are highly correlated with success in startup teams. We'll then consider functional roles and how to ensure that they're filled at the right time.

Attributes of successful startup teams

This section lists important attributes that should exist within every startup founding team. It's not essential (or likely) that every team member will have all these attributes, but it's highly desirable that each of the attributes exists somewhere within the team.

It's also important to look for these attributes in early employees, because they tend to correlate with high performance. Also, it's vital to have a good cultural alignment between founders and key employees.

Curiosity

Curious founders are genuinely interested in understanding problems. Curiosity leads to solutions that better meet customer needs.

Founders who have this attribute:

  • Are willing to spend large amounts of time talking to customers to understand their needs at a nuanced level.

  • Genuinely enjoy exploring possibilities and new ideas.

  • Tend to have a breadth of knowledge across a wide range of topics.

  • Often have acquired a range of self-taught skills to satisfy their thirst for knowledge.

Domain knowledge

Startups that deeply understand the domain in which they're operating are more likely to have important insights that are invisible to others.

Founders who have this attribute:

  • Might have worked in the domain for an extended period.

  • Have often experienced the pain point themselves.

  • Have rare or unique insights that might be counterintuitive.

  • Have established networks with potential customers or suppliers.

  • Are viewed by their peers as a domain expert.

When combined with broad curiosity, this attribute can lead to T-shaped skills in which the person has a formidable combination of breadth and depth.

Bias toward action

Speed of execution and rapid iteration are important competitive advantages in any startup.

Founders who have this attribute:

  • Focus on taking action wherever possible.

  • Tend not to engage in prolonged deliberation or strategizing.

  • Are willing to make decisions based on imperfect information.

  • Aren't perfectionists, and realize that perfect is the enemy of done.

  • Demonstrate in other aspects of life that they consistently take projects to completion.

Determination

Startup founders need to be able to persist despite challenges and setbacks.

Founders who have this attribute:

  • Consistently get more done than other people in the same amount of time.

  • Can delay gratification by working hard toward a long-term goal despite little near-term payoff.

  • Have high levels of resilience and aren't easily discouraged.

  • Have a genuine, deeply felt desire to solve the problem on which the startup is focused.

This attribute is often closely connected with high levels of optimism.

Optimism

Successful startup founders understand objectively that most startups fail, yet they have sufficient optimism that they're willing to back themselves to succeed.

Founders who have this attribute:

  • Have a default mental state of this could work as opposed to here are all the reasons this probably won't work.

  • Are willing to explore new, untested, and absurd-sounding ideas.

  • Recognize that unfettered optimism isn't helpful and are able to balance their optimism with open-mindedness.

Open-mindedness

Startups don't follow a linear trajectory, so it's important to be able to pivot and scrap plans when initial assumptions turn out to be invalid.

Founders who have this attribute:

  • Are able to think rationally and dispassionately.

  • Are willing to listen to and act on feedback, even if it contradicts their existing views.

  • Have a high-level of commitment to the problem, but a low-level of commitment to their current idea to solve it.

  • Can manage their ego and separate their own identity from that of the startup or the idea they're working on.

High emotional intelligence

Startup founders need to be able to maintain a good working relationship, even in a chaotic and stressful environment.

Founders who have this attribute (also known as emotional quotient or EQ):

  • Have a default demeanor of friendliness and agreeableness.

  • Tend not to overreact in stressful situations.

  • Are able to understand other people's perspectives and respond with empathy.

  • Can engage in disagreements without becoming personally wounded.

Task: Identify strengths and weaknesses on your team

If you're already part of a team, consider each team member's strengths and weaknesses in relation to these attributes. Are any attributes conspicuously absent?

If you're a sole founder, consider your own strengths and weaknesses and identify any gaps. This information will be useful to have in mind as you think about who else to bring into your team.

Core roles in startup teams

Let's now look at the core functional roles that need to be filled in a startup. Because every startup is different, you'll have your own ideas about the specific roles that you need to fill in your company.

The following table lists broad functional roles that need to be filled in most early-stage startup teams. In the early days, it's not essential (and often not possible) to have a one-to-one mapping of an individual to a role. One person might have multiple roles, and roles might be split across individuals.

However, it's critical to make sure that every member of the team is clear on which functional roles they're responsible for. You also must make sure that all roles are covered, or that you have a plan for how to cover them as you grow your team.

Expand table

Functional roleKey tasksLeadershipCommunicate the vision for the company

Be the primary point of engagement with external stakeholders, such as investors and the media

Take primary responsibility for day-to-day decision-making, but involve all cofounders in many decisions

Provide financial oversight, often using an external accountant as needed

Raise external capital if neededProduct developmentBuild the minimum viable product (MVP)

Choose the tech stack and cloud services

Build the product

Manage the product

Track key usage metrics

Manage additional developersDesignLead UX and UI development

Work closely with the product development team

Lead brand strategy and brand management

Support digital marketing and sales teams with visual assets as requiredDigital marketingLead customer acquisition, including paid and unpaid channels

Engage specialists in areas like ad creation, copy writing, and content marketing as neededCustomer successOnboard customers and ensure that they have the tools, training, and support needed to successfully use the productSales and business developmentEngage with customers and partners to close sales or partnership deals

Founder, employee, or contractor

Startup founders often struggle with the question of whether they should bring in another cofounder, hire an employee, or outsource tasks to a contractor.

There are no absolutely right or wrong answers to this question, but let's review some practical considerations.

Bringing in a cofounder

If you're a sole founder, or on a small founding team, you might decide to try to fill gaps in skill sets by bringing in another cofounder.

If your startup is still at the idea stage, this might be a great option. If you bring in someone at (or close to) the beginning of the journey, they'll be able to help you with crucial tasks like developing hypotheses, interviewing customers, running experiments, developing your value proposition, naming the company, and building and launching an MVP. Because they've joined before any real value has been created, there's a good chance they'll feel like a cofounder and make a serious commitment to the company, even though they didn't come up with the initial idea.

Successful founding teams frequently have an existing strong relationship between cofounders, sometimes developed over years of working together in other settings. When cofounders already know each other well, it's common for them to have worked out how to:

  • Function effectively as a team.

  • Understand each other's strengths, weaknesses, and communication styles.

  • Navigate difficult decisions and deal with conflict.

Therefore, a good place to start your cofounder search is in your existing network.

If you don't have a potential cofounder in your existing network, you might choose to seek out potential cofounders through networking events or online matchmaking services. Bear in mind that bringing a cofounder into your company is a little like marriage. It's generally a good idea to build a relationship with the person over a long period of time before asking them to make a long-term commitment.

Sometimes the best approach is to invite the person to work with you on a specific task, paid if necessary. Use this as an opportunity to evaluate their fit. It's generally not a good idea to offer them any equity at this point.

If you've been working on your startup for a while, and especially if you've already launched a product, the idea of bringing in a cofounder can be less straightforward. Anyone who joins as a cofounder at this point will likely face the question of whether they're genuinely a founder. You and any other original founders might be viewed as having a different status.

Late-joining cofounders are often offered a lower-equity stake than the initial founders in an attempt to reconcile the fact that they weren't involved in coming up with the idea or taking the first steps to pursue it. As a result, their level of commitment can be considerably lower. This can lead to tensions within the team.

In these situations, you might be better off hiring an employee or a contractor.

Hiring employees and contractors

In the early days of most startups, there's limited funding to pay anyone. So the founders do most, if not all, of the work.

After the company has funding, from either customer revenues or external investment, you'll be in a position to hire employees or contractors and begin scaling the company's operations.

TipDon't wait until you're ready to recruit to start looking for candidates. Start building a wish list of possible candidates and cultivate your relationships with them as early as possible. By staying in touch and keeping them informed about the progress you're making in your company, you'll be in a much stronger position to find and hire the right person quickly when you have the need and the funding.

Here are some pros and cons of bringing in a cofounder versus hiring employees or contractors.

Expand table

ProsConsCofounderHigh level of commitment to success of the startup

Might be willing to work for little or no salary

Primary financial objective is to create long-term value (realized at exit)Small talent pool to draw from (typically limited to people you know personally)

Hard to get someone to make a commitment if your startup is still unproven and they're leaving a paid job

Hard to remove from the company if they don't performEmployeeCan recruit from a large talent pool and bring in specific skills

Can create some incentive to stay and perform via issuing stock options

Can terminate employment if they don't performOften not as committed as founders

Might leave if they receive a better offer from another company

Often need to pay a competitive salary, burning through the company's cash faster

Viable only after there's a substantive ongoing need for their particular skill setContractorCan engage for short periods or specific tasks, even when the startup is still unproven

Can utilize freelancing platforms to hire from a large talent pool, including countries/regions that have a low cost of labor

Can generally access ratings and feedback from previous clients

Can scale up or down (or terminate) their time commitment as needed

Good way to evaluate someone who could become an employee in the futureLikely to have less commitment than founders or employees

Can be more difficult to manage, particularly if in a different country/region or time zone

Need to pay, often either an hourly rate or an agreed project fee

Motivation is to get the job done and get paid, rather than to create long-term value

Availability and responsiveness might change if they give other projects higher priority


Risk management in startup teams

This unit covers how to manage risk in startup teams. We'll start with managing conflict between cofounders. Then, we'll discuss how to use vesting of founder shares to help protect the company if one founder leaves.

Cofounder conflict

Disagreement among cofounders can lead to a breakdown in working relationships. If this breakdown isn't addressed, it can cause startups to fail.

If you haven't already, download and complete a Founder Alignment Exercise. It can be a useful way to unpack the expectations of each founder and identify any mismatches before they lead to breakdowns in team cohesion.

Another simple strategy that can reduce the risk of serious cofounder conflict is to discuss how the cofounders will work together at the outset and reflect what's agreed in a cofounder agreement.

A cofounder agreement is a simple legal agreement. It sets out how the company will be run, how the cofounders will make decisions, how they'll resolve disagreements, and what happens if an agreement can't be reached.

The key elements of a cofounder agreement typically include:

  • A brief description of the company and what it's setting out to achieve.

  • The names of the cofounders. (It's surprisingly common for some individuals to assume they'll be a cofounder, only to later realize that their teammates held a different view.)

  • The contribution expected from each cofounder, including time and capital.

  • The equity stake that each cofounder has.

  • The process for reviewing and adjusting equity stakes over time.

  • Salaries or other financial compensation. (This element is relevant after the company starts generating revenues or raises external capital.)

  • The functional roles and responsibilities of each cofounder, and what decisions they're responsible for making. (Keep in mind that in the early days, it's generally best not to be overly prescriptive about roles, because everyone has to do a bit of everything.)

  • The process for making different types of decisions, and who will be involved.

  • The process for conflict resolution if a decision can't be reached.

  • What happens if a cofounder leaves the company (including some consideration of whether they leave on good terms or bad terms).

  • Non-compete clauses to prevent a departing cofounder from starting a competing business.

  • The circumstances under which a cofounder can be removed from the company, and the process for doing this.

  • The events that can trigger a winding up of the company, and the process for doing this.

It's important to draft a cofounder agreement before anyone has created any substantive intellectual property (such as writing code) or there's any money involved (either customer revenues or investor funds). Last, make sure that each cofounder signs the agreement!

Vesting of founder shares

Despite your best efforts, it's possible that you or one of your cofounders will decide to leave the company. Departure of a cofounder in the first few years of a startup is surprisingly common. It can happen for many reasons, including financial pressures or disagreements between founders.

A founder leaving but remaining a large shareholder can be a major demotivating factor for the remaining founders, who are working hard for no additional benefit. It can also make the company much less attractive to investors, because a sizable chunk of equity is now owned by someone who's (at best) passive and not contributing, or (at worst) disgruntled and actively seeking to disrupt the company by blocking decisions or refusing to sign critical documents.

To address this problem, startups frequently adopt founder vesting. That is, each founder earns equity over time, contingent on their ongoing involvement and performance.

The mechanics of founder vesting vary somewhat by region. In essence, they enable issuing of shares to cofounders on company formation. The company holds the right to buy back some or all of those shares at nominal cost if the individual leaves.

The longer the person remains in the company, the more of their shares vest (ownership transfers permanently to the individual).

The main benefits of founder vesting are:

  • It incentivizes founders to stay for the long term, because they'll earn a substantial shareholding only by remaining involved.

  • It protects the company if a founder leaves by minimizing the chances of them walking away with a large unearned shareholding.

Founder vesting has two components:

  • Cliff. A cliff is typically a one-year period from the date of incorporation in which none of the founders have any vested shares. At the end of the year, assuming that each founder has remained involved, 25 percent of their shares will vest.

    If a founder departs within the first year, they forfeit all of their shareholding. This makes sense on the basis that in most startups, not much value is created in the first year.

  • Monthly vesting. The remaining 75 percent of each founder's shareholding is vested in equal installments over the following three years.


What happens when the company raises money from investors?

It's common for early-stage investors to insist on a reset of founder vesting so that each of the founders has to re-earn their shares, including any that had already vested.

This can be a contentious point, but investors often request it because they want to have confidence that all members of the founding team are committed to the business going forward.

What happens in an exit?

If the company is acquired before all of the founders' shares have fully vested, it's common for vesting agreements to allow for immediate vesting of unvested shares. This process is known as accelerated vesting. It ensures that founders are properly compensated alongside investors, employees, and any other shareholders.

Build diverse teams

This unit explores how inclusive hiring can be a source of competitive advantage for your startup.

We'll look specifically at gender diversity, ethnic diversity, neurodiversity, and people with differing ability, but the concepts that we discuss are intended to reflect a focus on diversity in the broadest sense.

Gender diversity

In the United States, only 20 percent of seed-funded startups have a female founder. Startups founded by women receive only around 2 percent of all venture capital invested.

One of the reasons for those low numbers is that only 8 percent of partners at venture capital firms are women, and three-quarters of US venture capital firms don't have any female partners. It's been shown that bias, unconscious or otherwise, has a dramatic effect on investment decisions.

Nevertheless, a recent study by BCG found that venture-backed startups with women founders generated more than twice as much revenue per dollar invested than startups founded by men.

Ethnic diversity

According to a recent study by Kauffmann Fellows, founders and executives of US startups are 79 percent white, 16 percent Asian, 3 percent Latinx, and 2 percent black. Yet the same study found that ethnically diverse startup founding teams raise significantly more money per startup from investors and generate greater returns.

Again, bias has been shown to play a large part in this discrepancy. A study by Paul Gompers and Sophie Wang from Harvard Business School showed that investors are 39 percent more likely to invest in startups founded by people who share their race. At the same time, only 2 percent of venture capital investors are Hispanic, and fewer than 1 percent are black.

The reasons for greater performance by ethnically diverse teams include greater diversity of ideas and perspectives, greater objectivity in decision-making, and less susceptibility to group-think. For more information, check out Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter by Harvard Business Review.

Neurodiversity

It's estimated that around 17 percent of the population is neurodiverse. This definition includes people with autism (2 percent of the population), ADHD (4 percent), and dyslexia (10 percent).

According to Perrine Farque, author of the book Inclusion, neurodiverse people can excel in thinking creatively about problems because they've had to adapt to difficult situations and solve problems in their own lives.

Also, many on the autism spectrum can sustain focus over longer periods of time compared to neurotypical employees. They can also pick up patterns and connections especially well. These abilities make them valuable in roles that involve pattern recognition or data analysis, such as software QA, image analysis, or cybersecurity.

For these reasons, large companies such as SAP, Hewlett Packard, and Microsoft have created programs to attract neurodiverse employees. In numerous examples, participants outperform other employees by as much as 30 percent.

People of differing ability

One in four adults in the US has some type of disability, which includes challenges with mobility (12 percent), cognition (12 percent), hearing (6 percent), and vision (5 percent).

The inclusion of people with disabilities in product development has been shown to greatly improve companies' success in building products that need to be accessible by those with disabilities. Building accessible products is becoming not just desirable, but mandated in many settings. It's much easier to achieve if your team includes people with a disability.

Research has also shown that teams composed of people with disabilities make better business decisions and develop products that are more in tune with customers' changing needs. This leads to revenue increases of up to 19 percent.

Yet workers with disabilities represent a large, underutilized talent pool. In late 2020, the unemployment rate for workers with disabilities was twice the nationwide average.

Other types of diversity

As noted earlier, this unit sets out to cover diversity in the broadest sense. Examples of other types of diversity that you should consider include:

  • Religious beliefs

  • Age

  • Socioeconomic status

  • Former incarceration

  • Sexual orientation

  • Gender identity

  • Cultural identity

How and why to build a diverse team

Here are some of the ways in which startups can benefit from building teams that embrace diversity and inclusion:

  • Greater diversity of ideas and perspectives

  • Avoidance of group-think caused by team homogeneity

  • Greater employee job satisfaction, trust, and engagement

  • Enhanced team decision-making

  • Stronger corporate practices in social responsibility

  • Better reputation and goodwill in the community in which the company operates

  • Higher sales conversion rates (Research has shown that consumers are more likely to purchase a product if they perceive the company to be diverse or inclusive)

  • Better understanding of diverse customer groups, reaching product/market fit faster

  • More authentic communication with diverse customer groups

  • Ease of recruiting candidates from diverse backgrounds

  • Ease of recruiting candidates for whom a diverse workplace is an important consideration (A survey by Glassdoor found that 67 percent of candidates consider workforce diversity when evaluating a job offer)

  • Minimized staff turnover caused by lack of diversity in the workplace or a lack of consideration for the needs of diverse employees

It's clear that creating a diverse team can be a massive competitive advantage for startups. A diverse population is a highly skilled but underutilized talent pool. Startups that can attract and retain the right candidates can use this enhanced talent to their advantage and outperform companies with less diverse teams.

Calendly is a great example of a company benefiting from a focus on diversity. It implemented diversity programs to encourage and support employees from diverse backgrounds, including programs specifically for women of color. It's become recognized as a highly desirable employer, with 93 percent of employees reporting it's a great place to work compared to a US average of 59 percent of employees.

Attracting and retaining diverse candidates requires creating a work environment that allows them to deliver their best work. Companies need to think about how to achieve this before recruiting. For example, there's no point in recruiting a candidate with autism unless you've understood their needs (which might include minimizing visual and auditory distractions) and created a work environment that allows them to be productive.

How you go about building a diverse team depends on where you're starting from. As a rule, what you start with scales. If your founding team lacks diversity by the time it has around 12 people, that level of diversity is likely to remain static as the company grows. That tendency is largely due to the influence of unconscious bias in hiring decisions. A company that has a homogenous founding team whose networks lack diversity will need to take deliberate steps to broaden its reach and overcome unconscious bias in hiring.

On the other hand, if you have a high level of diversity by the time you reach 12 people, there's a much better chance that you'll be able to attract and retain a diverse workforce as the company grows. And it will take only a modest amount of extra effort.

Here are some practical tips for inclusive hiring, based on lessons from founders who have successfully built diverse teams:

  • Understand the makeup of your existing team and acknowledge any lack of diversity from the outset.

  • Consider taking unconscious bias training. It might reveal biases that you or your cofounders weren't aware of and help you to overcome them as you grow the team.

  • Develop a strategy for inclusive hiring and publish it on your website. Avoid diversity theater and ensure that your hiring decisions match what you say in your strategy.

  • Review all your communications, including website, social media, and email campaigns. Reflect on whether they represent the diversity that you're seeking to achieve within your company.

  • If your team is still small, consider enlisting a group of peers from diverse backgrounds to sanity check your diversity plans, communications, work environment, and hiring processes.

  • Appoint someone within your team (ideally a founder) to lead diversity and inclusion, and attach performance metrics to the achievement of agreed diversity goals.

  • Reach out to programs that support the development of diverse communities and look for ways to tap into their networks.

  • Connect with other founders who have successfully built diverse teams and seek out their advice. Some of them might also act as a referral source for great candidates.

Make use of mentors

The term mentor can refer to many different types of relationships. In startups, it's generally a reference to tapping into the expertise and networks of experienced founders, industry professionals, or investors.

The main reason why startup founders seek out mentors is to short-circuit the learning curve. By tapping into guidance from more experienced founders (especially those who have been through the startup loop multiple times), new founders can more quickly find the right path to growth, overcome obstacles, and avoid making critical mistakes. A good mentor can also help startup founders broaden their network and connect with others who can help them as their business grows.

Just as inclusive hiring can be a source of competitive advantage, broadening the capabilities of your team via experienced mentors can be a hugely beneficial step.

In this unit, we'll focus on two types of mentoring:

  • Informal connections that you make directly with experienced founders and investors

  • Structured mentoring relationships, such as those found in most incubator and accelerator programs

We'll also briefly discuss the mentor network that's part of the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub and explain how you can tap into this valuable resource.

What makes a good mentor

Not everyone who's launched a startup makes a good mentor, even if they've been successful. As highlighted by venture capitalist Bryce Roberts, "When successful people give advice, I hear this: Here are the lottery numbers I played. They worked for me!"

In many cases, successful entrepreneurs have difficulty articulating what led to their success. When they have single-time successes, their one set of experiences might not be directly relevant to other startups. That's especially true if those startups are in different industries or pursuing different business models.

The best mentors are often those who have broad positive and negative experiences with startups, along with a deep understanding of startup best practices.

Here are some attributes to look for when you're seeking out a mentor for your startup:

  • Experience in more than one successful startup as a founder, early employee, or early-stage investor.

  • Experience in failed startups, particularly if they're able to articulate why the failures happened.

  • Experience in running startup programs such as incubators or accelerators, as long as it's coupled with direct, hands-on experience in startups rather than an academic perspective.

  • A broad network of founders, investors, or potential customers with whom they could help you connect.

  • Willingness to give up some time to work with founders with no expectation of payment. (This attribute is related to the next section about mentor motivations.)

  • Willingness to say "I don't know" when asked a question that's outside their expertise.

  • Absence of an attempt to sell services such as consulting, which can mean that the mentoring relationship is a thinly veiled business development activity.

Good mentoring generally follows a Socratic approach. The mentor guides founders by asking open questions and encouraging them to consider other possibilities. The mentor doesn't try to give founders the answers (or even worse, tell them what to do and expect compliance).

What motivates mentors

As stated earlier, mentors are successful and experienced people who are willing to give you their time for free. It's important to ask why people with such valuable skills might be motivated to do this.

If a mentor is an experienced founder who has achieved success, it's common that they themselves have benefited from access to mentors as they grew their own company. In most startup ecosystems, there's a strong pay-it-forward ethos in which successful founders give back to the startup community through mentoring and sometimes angel investing.

This ethos is at the heart of successful startup ecosystems such as Silicon Valley. It's increasingly common in other maturing startup ecosystems around the world, because of the valuable flywheel effect that it has on attracting and producing founders and investors.

Many successful entrepreneurs are willing to provide mentoring to first-time founders as long as:

  • They can see a fit between their experience and the startup.

  • The founders are coachable and willing to listen to advice.

  • The founders are respectful of the mentor's time.

There's a growing number of mentors whose motivations hinge on increasing diversity in startups and supporting founders from minority backgrounds. Some of these mentors are available through startup programs that work exclusively with underrepresented founders.

If the mentor is an early-stage investor, their motivation might be a combination of paying it forward and a desire to find and cultivate high-quality deal flow. In some cases, the mentoring relationship will work only if the investor views the startup as a genuine investment prospect.

If the mentor is employed by an organization that runs a startup program such as an accelerator, their role will generally include providing mentoring to those startups that have been accepted into the program. In many cases, this role is called an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR).

Finally, there are opportunities to engage experienced founders and others in a paid capacity. This engagement is more commonly viewed as consulting rather than mentoring, and it meets a different set of needs.

How to find good mentors

There are many ways to tap into high-quality mentoring. The best way to find good mentors depends on the maturity of your local startup ecosystem. Here are some practical tips that are likely to be helpful no matter where you're located:

  • Engage with your local startup community via networking events, pitch competitions, hackathons, and mentor-matching events.

  • Take part in a structured startup program such as an accelerator, as long as it's delivered by mentors who have broad startup experience.

  • Connect with other founders, ask them who they've found to be good mentors, and ask for introductions.

  • Search online for people who have built successful companies that have some similarities to yours (sector focus, customer persona, or business model). Reach out to them directly.

  • Utilize the mentor network that's part of the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. (You'll learn more about that later in this unit.)

How to make the best use of mentors

Because mentoring is usually not a paid relationship, it's critical that you make the best possible use of this scarce resource and ensure that you don't overstep reasonable boundaries.

Here are practical tips to help you make the best use of mentors:

  • Have an agenda for your mentoring meetings. Ideally, have no more than three topics on which you're seeking input.

  • Avoid asking your mentor questions that you could answer by doing a quick online search, reading a basic startup book, or asking one of your peers.

  • If you have an ongoing mentoring relationship, have a summary of the key points from your last meeting and demonstrate that you've acted on them.

  • If you're seeking introductions, have a clear idea of who in the mentor's network you want to be connected with and why.

  • Make it easy for your mentor to introduce you to others by sending them a short email with a brief background, the name of the person with whom you're hoping to connect, your specific question or request, and your contact details. Many introductions will be in the form of a double-opt-in, so don't be surprised if it takes a couple of days or more to make the connection. After you make contact, be sure to close the loop with your mentor by sending them a brief email about the outcome.

  • If you have access to multiple mentors, be prepared for mentor whiplash: receiving different perspectives from different individuals. This is a common occurrence and reflects the reality that in startups, there's generally no absolutely right or absolutely wrong answer. Your job is to consider each perspective fully, make a decision on the course of action to take, and keep your mentors informed of your progress.

  • Mentor meetings usually are no more than 30 minutes long. This limit helps you focus and reduces the overhead on the mentor's busy schedule.