Are you starting, or running, a business? Are you an entrepreneur in the making? I’m going to give you a secret that will get you a ton of incredible advisors and mentors to help you move forward. I’m assuming you’re far enough along to know that building your own cadre of advisors/mentors is massively valuable. People you can take for coffee when your shit hits someone’s fan.

I spoke at Guelph web maker meetup recently about how to quit your crappy job. The talk was a tongue in cheek way to talk about what a real business is. I used Josh Kaufman’s definition, which is this:

“Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they’re willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser’s needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation”

Most startup folks think they need Fred Wilson, Guy Kawasaki and Clay Shirkey as advisors. While I’m sure those guys would be great to chat with, you don’t need them. I’m not suggesting you turn them down but what you need are folks who have experience building real businesses, ie those 5 points above. Chasing rock star advisors is a massive waste of time with questionable returns. To continue that metaphor, most rock stars are so far removed from the required grunt work of an early stage touring band that they can hardly relate. Can they write a cheque, make some intros? Sure but that’s likely not what you need today.

For someone who has yet to start and run a successful business, your available pool of mentors includes everyone who has done just that. For me, my mentors include the woman who owns my local coffee shop, the guy who cuts my hair, my bookkeeper, the hot dog cart guy downtown, etc.

At their roots, even sexy tech startups are still just plain old businesses. Yes those folks can’t help you decide whether to build native mobile apps or html5 but those are the easy parts. Stop chasing or waiting for the rock stars. Trust me, they will be lined up at your door once you have your thriving business alive and growing. Go out now and buy a coffee for a new mentor, share with them and most importantly, listen!

Every great sitcom eventually needs a Robert Downey Jr but he’ll gladly sign up for season two. No one wants him for their pilot.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011 at 5:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.