1 December 2023

Industry expert or business mentor: what does a startup need?

Does a startup mentor need to know the industry, or the business? Usually both, and rarely from the same person.

People sometimes ask how I can mentor across so many sectors: cybersecurity, space, clean energy, decarbonisation, health, education, agriculture, food. The question behind it is fair, and it is really about two kinds of mentor.

The business mentor

A business mentor sees strategy, finance, marketing and operations as one picture. The skills carry across sectors, and so does the network. The weakness is depth: industry-specific nuance, and the technical detail of a niche field.

The industry expert

An industry expert knows how the market works, which regulations are coming and who matters. The weakness is the mirror image. They can overlook the wider business, and they can lean too hard on how things have always been done in their sector.

Putting them together

The business mentor asks the questions that make founders justify their model. The industry expert checks the answers against reality. Each covers the other’s blind spot.

For programme designers this has a practical consequence. Build the mentor pool with both profiles, and make sure they actually talk to each other. A founder should not have to referee between two mentors who have never met.

I mostly work as a business mentor, and I try to say clearly when a question belongs to an industry expert and not to me.