What Questions Should I Ask My Startup Advisor?

If you’ve realized you need a business mentor, and are worried about how to evaluate them and the main questions to ask your startup advisor, this article gets straight to the point.

I’m a founder myself. I’ve built Sparrow from scratch. Our startup advisors help SaaS startup founders scale their revenue and bring in more customers - in 90 days. You get to learn directly from founders who’ve built, scaled and sold their own companies for millions.

When we started, the platform had nothing. It was hard. But I came through. I’m telling you this so you know that my guidelines below come from experience and also from talking with over 50 startup advisors, business mentors, venture capitalists (also known as VCs) and the “aspiring” entrepreneurs. We’ve got fantastic testimonials on our homepage and wall of love.

Below are the top three questions you should discuss in complete honesty before formally agreeing to bring them on-board. Do bear in mind, an “advisor” doesn’t always need equity in your company. Sometimes, advisors/mentors are reachable based on their availability and can provide stunning advice for what you need. That’s precisely why I built Sparrow and I believe I can help you see things from a different, hands-on lens. Let’s dig in.

The startup advisor’s experience, background and track record

You need to understand how exactly their past relates to what exactly they’ll be helping you accomplish. There are too many charlatans pretending to know things and ultimately providing garbage / generic advice to founders, which really only wastes their time.

Generally, when you start your search by approaching a well-known incubator or accelerator, the folks there are already vetted by that organization - but this shouldn’t stop you from asking questions to understand their past experience (e.g., tactical vs. strategic) and how they did the things they claim they do on their LinkedIn or speeches.

Be sure to do your homework. Some advisors already put out a lot of content about what they love doing, dislike about founders, etc. Be sure to read up their blogs, listen to their podcasts and get a good feel for how they are and what they do, before setting up your first 20-min call with them. If you are new to setting up calls and taking charge, this HackerNoon article may help.

The startup advisor’s incentive and how exactly they intend to help

I personally admire mentors who are open about why they want to help founders. Maybe it’s equity (i.e., shares of your company) or maybe they want to get paid by the hour for their time, or they just want to help because it makes them feel smart. Either way, you need to understand their personal and selfish reasons for helping you.

And then, you need to be clear-cut about HOW they’ll be helping. Will they make intros to experts in your industry? Do they have subject matter expertise with hardware that’ll help you build out your product to MVP?

As mentioned, if you are approaching an online platform like Sparrow or an offline accelerator, it may be that you do not need to ask these questions as they’ve previously stated their reasons to said organization. So do your homework, be cognizant and get to the finish line.

The startup advisor’s quantified commitment and contract

You need to understand how often they’ll be helping you, how exactly they’ll be helping (last point) and the means of communication between yourselves. Are they agreeing to sit down with you and your team for 2 hours a week for x months? Or is this more of a pay-by-the-hour kind of relationship where you only bring him in when you need him on specific things? And is communication going to be over texting, email, Zoom - learn the facts, be extremely clear about YOUR expectations and get it all in writing (if appropriate).

I genuinely hope this helps. When I had 0 customers and 0 advisors on Sparrow, I had to convince advisors to join me even when I had nothing. That’s why, over time, I was able to harness my strength to (a) ask tough questions that help me understand the mentors better and (b) find ways to quantify the quality of their advice over time. It took hours of pain, sadness and being lost. But I’m learning as I go, and I thought you’d love the few tips i found.

If you loved this article, hit the love button and show some affection! If you didn’t love it too much, tell me why! I’d love to know how to improve and add more informational bits and pieces in the weeks and months to follow as I’ll be writing once a week for HackerNoon!! Cheers and stay saucy.