Ask HN: How to Approach a Potential Mentor?

2 pointsvonadz3y ago2 comments

I'm normally a very optimistic person, but doing five years of bootstrapped startups and side projects with no major wins feels like I'm a pair of molars being worn away by a habitual teeth grinder. I feel like I've spread myself too thinly across a number of projects (a startup, a newsletter, consulting, another website, writing), but am having difficulties deciding on what to prioritize, what to completely drop, and how to approach deciding it in a structured manner. I think third party advice from a respected mentor can help get me out of the weeds.

How would you recommend approaching a mentor for this? Should I reach out via LinkedIn, personal email, or a forum like Reddit/HN? There isn't anyone in my direct network who I think "yeah I'd want to be where they are in 5 years following a similar path". Should I lead with these issues or keep it more general at first?

For reference, I'm the technical cofounder, but with all of the side projects, I've had a couple of years of part-time experience in marketing/growth hacking (ew buzzword, but just think growth with $0 spend) and sales too.

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DamonHD3y ago· 1 in thread

Personal intros? I/we had a mentor for a while, who was great. Even came up with the name of our product! Would not take money etc. I think that he was via a personal intro from someone that knew us all.

But here (HN) is good, and LI may be good if you have the right visibility. Even Twitter if you use it.

Do you have any contacts in accelerators given that they often have a network of the right sort of people?

vonadzOP3y ago

Personal intros could definitely be an option, although no one jumps out, so I might have to take a more systematic approach.

Hmm, I didn't even consider accelerators (how ironic). I do think I have a couple of "weak" contacts there. Thanks for the tips! :)

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