One of the massive benefits for founders on the Impact Central Accelerator Programme is the support provided by our impressive line-up of mentors. We believe that mentoring can really help transform business performance, generate a step-change in impact and set founders up for real success. Therefore, we have focused on making our mentor programme as strong as we possibly can.
We have seen for ourselves the positive effect a mentor can have on early-stage ventures, and this has been confirmed by all the founders we have spoken with; they’ve told us that their business mentors have helped in countless ways at critical moments in their journey.
How Can a Mentor Help a Business?
A mentor can be a challenger, friend, supporter, critic, and encourager. The best mentor encompasses all these traits, knowing which is needed and when.
Whilst a mentor won’t be directly involved in the founder’s business, the support they provide is immensely beneficial to founders by working on their business. As well as having clear commercial benefit, a mentor helps to guide and direct a founder with their own decisions and choices. This is particularly powerful for founders aiming for financial success alongside social impact. The accountability of the mentoring relationship ensures that founders keep remembering and returning to their ‘why’, making steps toward financial success without compromising on their impact.
Being a founder can often feel like a lonely activity, and so a mentor acts as a truly effective sounding-board; someone to bounce ideas off, who can draw on their experience to provide guidance and advice, listening and providing feedback.
It can also be a tough challenge to work out how to deal with all your competing priorities. Founders have told us how their mentors help them see the wood for the trees, ensuring that they focus on what needs to get gone today, alongside what is vitally important for the future.
Founders have also said how their business mentors have added huge value by making introductions and creating connections. A mentor’s established network in a particular sector often proves to be a great asset for start-ups. Identifying a new contact to support in the supply chain, linking up with a successful brand-builder, or finding a partner for a new sales opportunity all helps founders to scale their impact venture.
Lastly, mentors can give powerful insight on specific topics where a founder is short of experience, for example in HR, legal or financial affairs.
What mentoring does Impact Central offer?
Each founder works with a lead mentor who is with them through the second half of our programme. It is a dedicated and intentional relationship, with the mentors committing to conversations on a weekly basis. These conversations will focus on important and immediate priorities, alongside plans for longer-term strategies. We encourage founders to take the lead in preparing for these conversations.
The lead mentor is carefully matched to each founder, based on their business plan, their impact ambitions, and the personal fit. We take our time during the first half of the programme to make sure we get this match just right.
Alongside the lead mentor, each founder has continued access to our wider pool of subject-matter experts. One of the roles of the lead mentor is to help identify what relevant support the founder might wish to draw from these subject-matter experts. This could be to talk through a specific issue, facilitate a particular opportunity or assess a thorny challenge. There is real flexibility in enabling founders to connect with subject-matter experts through their lead mentor. We make these connections so that founders can develop their resources and their capabilities as the need arises.
What’s so different about the Impact Central mentors?
The experience, skills and credibility of our mentors are without doubt. Beyond that, though, it is crucially important for Impact Central that our mentors share our values, our passion for impact, and our drive for greater diversity. We involve mentors who are enthusiastic and committed; are encouraging and give practical advice; and who provide honest feedback and constructive challenge.
An Impact Central mentor might be:
– An experienced business adviser with great commercial insight
– Someone who has credibility and contacts in a given industry sector
– Someone with hands-on experience in start-ups or innovation
– A person with specific skills and knowledge in areas relevant to the founder
– Someone who has executive coaching or teaching skills
We introduce founders and mentors during the first half of the programme, allowing founders to initially establish themselves with clarity and purpose. Thereafter, mentors work alongside founders until the completion of the six-month programme. This represents a far longer period of mentorship than typical accelerators.
What else?
Not only does each Impact Central mentor play a key part in the success of venture founders who are achieving growth and change; in addition, they have the platform to grow their network and community in this exciting phase.
As an impact start-up founder, the opportunity to be coached through the entrepreneurial process by a seasoned mentor is at your fingertips. Sign up for our accelerator programme HERE! Applications close 30th June.