I am passionate about start-ups, in a dispassionate way. What do I mean by this?

My passion is working with founders and start-ups. I have been involved in over 100 start-ups, and I am more convinced than ever that having a (paid) mentor is a significant factor in an enterprise's critical success.

As a founder, it can be a lonely journey. Investors, customers, exec team and reports are all pulling you in different directions, and work life is the challenge of maintaining these relationships whilst holding strategic and operational strands at once. Those founder/ leaders with investors will often have one of more non exec directors on the board which in, and of itself, can be both rewarding and time consuming.

I have always found that having a critical friend (or two) sitting metaphorically alongside me is vital for my and my team's mental health as well as efficacy/ efficiency. These folk can be called board advisors or, I prefer, "mentors". They provide wisdom, advice, insight, challenge, direction (if required) and, more importantly, a black book of contacts across disciplines. This is the dispassionate or objective part.

I have worked with VC investors, accelerators and tech transfer units (recently with Rockstart, The Pioneer Group, Northern Triangle and Set Squared) that all recognise this and offer mentoring programmes.

I would urge any early stage founder to consider one - pick up the phone or book a slot to have an initial chat without prejudice. You won't regret it.

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