Online startup mentor?

Does it make sense to find a mentor who can help you out in your startup, online? He's not going to be physically present, of course. And you run the risk of him running away with your idea. But that can happen even when you physically meet.

Mentors definitely make sense.

One of the strategies that people who are really good at using mentors have is to:

• Identify which specific skill they need mentoring in
• Find someone who is excellent in that area
• Find out specifically what that person does to be excellent
• Try out the mentor's strategy in their own situation
• Make any modifications or adaption they need to to make it their own.

The cool thing about this, is that you can have many different mentors and are not looking for the one perfect person who can mentor you through the whole process. It also eases the burden on the mentors and means most people are happy to help because they don't have to make a permanent commitment.

It also means that one mentor doesn't hold all your IP.

Good luck
Susan

(I mentor people in planning the business (commercialisation) side of their startup. If I can help feel free to contact me or visit my website.)

If you're at all worried this person is going to "run away with your idea," you don't trust them enough to be a mentor either.

If you get even a small amount of traction, 100s of other entrepreneurs and competitors will see what you're doing well enough to copy it anyway.

Yes it makes sense to have a mentor even if online and not present, assuming the person has experience you lack and has the ability to communicate and translate their experience into things you can use and do.

It makes sense (a lot of sense ) as soon as this person is credible (as in trust as well as history -successful startups, mentorship etc.-)

It probably make sense. I have personalty mentored some friends regarding the setting up a web site, design and marketing. Person with required skills and experience can speed up initial set up. Every startup fights with time.