Translator: Timothy Duffy Reviewer: Denise RQ
In 2011, when these three nice gentlemen
gave us an offer we couldn't refuse at AdMob
and we sold it for 750 million dollars,
that gave me an opportunity, I suppose, to re-evaluate my life and goals
and decide what I wanted to do next.
And, my idea was basically, to help the UK to be
a better place to start and run a tech startup.
That was my big, hairy ambition,
and obviously, the emphasis there was on helping rather than doing it all myself.
I did that in two ways: first of all,
what I identified as being one of the most important things
was investing in startups and helping them financially to get going.
But probably the most important part of it was actually to become a mentor.
This gentleman, on your right, is the original mentor, called Mentor,
fair enough, from whom we get the name.
And he helped Telemachus to be inspired to go off and do whatever he was doing.
Mentor himself actually wasn't a very good teacher.
He was occasionally occupied by the goddess Athena
who used him as a sort of vehicle to give great advice,
and that is where the name came from.
Unlike a lot of angel investors,
I wanted to actually get involved and mentor the companies I invested in.
Since then I've invested in 25 companies, and I've also joined the government
to help startups fundraise in what's called the Afterburner program,
which I will talk about a little more in a minute.
I've also joined Techstars accelerator which helps startups,
and in total, I've mentored
around 100 companies since I started to do this.
These are the particularly successful ones that have gone on to raise
Series A funding from venture capitalists,
so they are well on their way to becoming hopefully future AdMob's.
Now, why mentoring is important?
Is something I've noticed while I've been mentoring these 100-odd companies,
is that how these founders think about mentoring
actually is a predictor of their success.
The ones who attract mentors, attract lots of mentors,
and then actually manage to be singularly disrespectful of their time.
In other words, they get much more time out of these important people
than they would perhaps deserve, is a real skill.
Something which these guys have mastered,
and hopefully, will go on to master for other people as well.
But I think the corollary is also true.
The people who don't master mentoring, never seem to get off the ground.
So if I invest in a company, and I don't hear from them for a month,
I've sort of mentally written them off,
because they are not going to master the skill.
They think they are going to be doing it on their own, and that's a fallacy.
They won't be able to do it.
So great mentors attract great founders, and great founders attract great mentors,
and that's important to understand.
So what does mentoring mean exactly?
First of all, it's somebody who is going to help you repeat their success.
Somebody who has done it before
and who will help you on your journey in startup world,
or indeed any new skill you're likely to master.
As an example, if you want to learn polo,
the person who is going to be able to teach you best
is the best person you know who can play polo.
Not somebody who doesn't know how to mount a horse.
It can actually be around one specific area.
For instance, we often hear these days of young people mentoring older people
about things like social networking and technology.
But where it's effective in my life about mentoring
is the Afterburner program I mentioned before.
In the UK, startups find it difficult to go on to raise Series A funding,
so it's quite easy to raise their initial little seed fund round,
but to go and get a venture capitalist
to actually invest in you and your company is notoriously difficult.
So when I joined the government I was asked how we would tackle this issue.
Having a little bit of experience in this
I decided that the fundamental issue wasn't the companies weren't good enough,
it's just that they weren't very good
at actually raising money from venture capitalists.
They didn't know what to say, their pitch decks weren't very good,
their presentation style wasn't very good
so mentoring around a specific topic which you want to master is really important.
I'm pleased to say that with Charles [surname]
my colleague out in California who helps with this process,
that since April of last year, April 2014,
we've gone on to raise 50 million dollars for the companies we've been mentoring.
So I think that proves that mentoring around a subject, as well as generally,
kind of works.
You want to avoid bad actors.
(Laughter)
Unfortunately, Sylvester Stallone won the Worst Actor of the 20th Century Award
in the Raspberry's recently.
But in the context of mentoring what does that mean?
Well, I think there are two things:
one of which is have they done this before?
That's really important.
A lot of people try to get into mentoring when they aren't ready,
or they haven't got the right skills to teach.
But I think more importantly it's an attitude thing;
why are they doing it?
The best mentor relationships don't start off as a financial arrangement.
You shouldn't be paying your mentors.
Although that relationship might change over time.
But the most important thing
is that they agree to give you their time and effort
because they believe in you, and your vision, and your idea.
So if they're asking for money from day one,
it's completely the wrong choice in a mentor and you should run a mile.
But the other thing is that mentors are like any other employee,
you need to take references out on them.
So just so somebody wants to be your mentor
and you think that they have succeeded, I think you should talk to your peers,
your colleagues, other people they've mentored in the past,
and find out if they've really done a good job.
Chemistry is also really important.
You got to spend time with these people, they've got to share your values.
And you've got to enjoy each other's company
because hopefully it's going to be a long, long journey together,
you'll be seeing each other regularly, and it's important you get along.
The most important quality of a mentor is to tell you the truth
in a completely unadulterated fashion, if you like in a blunt fashion.
You don't want people to sugar coat their words and their advice.
And if you cannot take their bluntness,
you shouldn't really be an entrepreneur in the first place.
In criticism and helping you avoid the rocks on your journey
is really really important,
so they must be prepared to tell the pure, unadulterated truth,
and you must be prepared to listen.
I think the most important skill of the mentor is to be a great listener.
If they do not listen to you and your problems,
how are they really going to solve them and think them through?
In my head there are two types of successful people:
one of whom is very ego driven.
They like the sound of their own voice
and when you listen to them, or overhear them
giving a mentoring session to somebody else,
it is all about them, and they are talking all the time.
But actually, that's not very helpful for you.
You don't want to know what they've done,
you want their opinion on what you've done.
So being a listener and an effective listener,
and then telling that truth back to you is the most important thing.
It is also very important from a mentor's point of view
to take a step back and realize you are no longer the one in the driving seat.
Your job is to advise, to whisper in their ear,
to help them through their problems,
but at the end of the day it is their decisions.
The reason why those successful people I've mentioned earlier are great founders
is because they ask lots of people their advice,
and they listen to lots of advice,
and then they come up with their own decision.
They are in the driver's seat, and it is no longer the entrepreneur
or the mentor who is actually being the successful one here.
A mentor needs to be upbeat and positive.
God knows being a founder, an entrepreneur,
is a really tough thing to do.
It's probably the most tough thing you can ever do in business.
And it's going to be a rocky ride even in the best startups.
So your mentors need to be your greatest supporters
and help lift you up when you feel down.
And when you are going through that grind when everything seems to be going wrong,
they are your cheerleader.
So how do you get a mentor?
Easier said than done.
I think the hack here, the easy way to do it if you were a startup
is to join one of the world-class accelerator programs that exist these days
which are very much driven by mentoring.
TechStars is one I mentor at, in London.
But there are 1,500 applications for every 10 seeds.
So it's pretty tough competition.
Y Combinator is another great one.
You can tell by an accelerator how effective they are
by the quality of their mentors.
It's not just about the people they've got on their website,
it's are they going to work hard and actually do some mentoring,
rather than just lend their names to it.
It's not for everybody, going to an accelerator.
How would you go about doing that if you didn't go into an accelerator?
Well,, there are a couple of ways:
one of which is you can ask them for a cup of coffee.
Seriously, never ask them for a cup of coffee.
I get 80 cups of coffee offers every month,
and even in the best possible way I could never take it all up.
It's also, even if I wanted to, an impossible use of my time.
And anyway it's not being very creative at the end of the day, as an entrepreneur.
You need to tap into your inner-Steve Jobs,
your genius of your foundership,
and work at how you can actually get peoples attention.
So, one way, as an example, which I've seen very effective
is to find out what your prospective mentor wants in life,
what they are interested in, and see if you can be useful.
So perhaps your expected mentor will be giving a TEDx talk
in a couple of months time, and could you help with the slides,
could you help with the sounding board, could you help them rehearse,
that would be an example.
Or if they are really into charity, can you help them in some way?
Another very effective way I've seen doing it
is to ask them a specific question and ask for a 10 minute Skype call.
That's very easy for me to turn down an hour's cup of coffee,
but I'll probably make the time,
as indeed most people who are into mentoring,
to discuss a very specific topic around a ten-minute Skype call.
So again, that's a starting point, and once you've started
you can start building the relationship, and who knows where it is going to end?
So I suppose my message today
really is if you're a young person wanting to make your way in the world,
mentoring is a very important tool, and it can accelerate your success.
That's particularly the case if you are a startup
but also if you want to learn any specific skill,
ask someone who has done it before to be your guide.
And the other thing I'd like to say is that if you have skills
which the world can share, you want to be a mentor,
it is tremendously satisfying,
and I urge you to take the plunge, it is great.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)