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An increasing number of entrepreneurs are seeking out mentors, hopeful that their experience and insights will steer them to success. But are mentors really all they’re cracked up to be?

When Ranu Vohra, Gaurav Deepak and Kaushal Agarwal wanted to start an institutional services firm in 1999-2000, they had little finances to get it off the ground. “We were looking for funds when we met Saurabh Srivastava who, at that time, owned Infinity Capital India. He agreed to invest in our venture. From then on, we worked very closely with him,” says Deepak, Managing Director, Avendus Capital.

Today, Avendus is one of the top five investment banks in India. Between 2005 and 2008, it closed deals worth Rs. 7,440 crore.

Avendus, however, is not an exception when it comes to reaping the benefits of mentoring. In India, formal mentoring is finally coming of age; many startups have already benefited from it.

The practice of mentoring has been in India for decades, if not for centuries. Before the influx of big multinational corporations, family-run businesses were a hive of mentoring activity. Elders would handhold youngsters, initiating them into a business that has been handed down through generations. Those planning to start up a new venture would turn to family members or the community for funding. However, this age-old method of being mentored and funded by one’s own family has seen a change over the past decade. With the influx of foreign venture capitalists and their western view of mentoring, the activity has taken on a whole new meaning in emerging India.

“During the old days, in family-owned businesses, parents and uncles used to mentor the next generation for years before they could take on the mantle themselves. In today’s world, people mentor others because it gives them an opportunity to help a nextgen, and perhaps get some shares as an adviser or participate in investment,” says B.V. Jagadeesh, Exodus Communications.

Jagadeesh and his partner K.B. Chandrashekar immensely benefited from mentoring they received from Kanwal Rekhi while they were setting up Exodus Communications.

When Kartik Jain was setting up Picsquare, a photo sharing and online photo prints website that delivers anywhere within India, his mentor, Sanjay Swamy, CEO of mCheck, helped him in “building the product, which is aimed at a niche NRI audience, and also in accelerating the product toward that market,” says Jain.

Today in India, there is a mad rush of entrepreneurs, not just in metros, but even in rural India. Where do today’s entrepreneurs turn to for mentoring? Most of them look at organisations The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) or the Indian Angel Network (IAN) or the lucky ones in metros get access to incubators. Most of these organisations are in the process of putting together a formal mentoring structure.

“Mentoring is not a one-way street, and it’s not altruistic at all. A person like me learns as much as he teaches. I cannot keep up with fast-moving technology and the markets. As I talk to entrepreneurs about their plans, I learn where the world is heading. Without this, I will be out of touch in no time,” says Kanwal Rekhi, Managing Director at Inventus Partners and a mentor to large number of Indian and Silicon Valley-based companies.

“Having a mentor brought a lot of focus to our business,” says Vaibhav Tandon, business head of Indiakhelo.com, an online platform that helps talented, grassroot-level players gain recognition. “It had initially started out as a B2C concept, open for anyone to use. But our mentors advised us to shift focus toward schools and sports academies. Through them, we were able to network with sports officials and government bodies. They guided us on strategies and how to manage our funds.”

Kiran Karnik, former head of NASSCOM, feels that more than contributing knowledge about a certain sector, what a mentor actually brings to the table is years of experience. “Although I cannot specify a ripe enough age to become a mentor, a person should have a good 15-20 years of industry experience to be able to guide others,” he says.

Karnik also feels youngsters today might have more domain knowledge about the sectors in which they operate than the old hats in the industry. However, they do need help with things like people management, developing interpersonal relationships and dealing with government offices and regulations. This is where a mentor can step in and fill in the blanks. “Young people mostly mingle with people in their own peer group. So, when they have to hire employees who are much older than them, they sometimes find such situations difficult to cope with,” he adds.

Citing the Information Technology industry as an example, Karnik explains how mentors can help: “The Indian IT industry is only about 15 years old. It is a very young industry that—other than the dot-com bust—had never seen bad times [until now]. People in IT, therefore, have not developed the skill set required to overcome the challenges of a downturn. That’s why the current downturn has made them flock to mentors to find ways to tide over the financial crunch.”

R. Sriram, President of TiE and co-founder of the Crossword Bookstores chain, concurs with Karnik. “It’s not necessary to have a mentor-mentee team with both belonging to the same sector. A mentor from a different industry can bring in a fresher perspective to a problem, as he won’t be playing by the book. After all, innovation is about diversity,” Sriram says. Chemistry between a mentor and a mentee, he believes, is the most important factor to consider while selecting each other. “We think there is a need to put together a formal mentoring practice in India if we need to foster entrepreneurship. Many a times, companies fail due to lack of proper mentoring,” Sriram points out.

Mentoring in India is now available in many forms and for all stages of business. The most popular—but fallacious—assumption is that mentors are investors. And the most frequently asked question directed at mentors? Not surprisingly, it has to do with how funding can be obtained.

Manu Parpia, founder and Vice Chairman, Geometric Global, chairs the mentoring committee for TiE Mumbai. In his experience as a mentor, Parpia found that youngsters are often blinded by their passion for their projects. “I tell them to look at the ground realities, instead of rushing to the market for funds. There have been times when we have had to stop mentoring some people, because all they wanted from their mentors was funds.”

Jain, on the other hand, approached his mentor for reasons besides funding. “[Our team] needed help with our business plan and execution strategy. Having a mentor with experience also adds credibility to a startup when you are hiring people,” he points out. Jain’s mentors also helped him get the right industry contacts to grow his business and for handling financial and legal matters.

Similarly, Cafegadget.com’s Hitesh Dhingra approaches his mentors primarily to discuss macro issues, such as long-term strategy, expansion plans and financial issues. To him, mentors are like teachers. “They help you move in the right direction; the success or failure of a venture depends on the execution,” he says.

As first-generation entrepreneurs, Priyanka and Ritesh, co-founders of Hungrybangalore.com (a website through which customers can order food, book tables at restaurants and order food in Bangalore) found their mentors’ advice particularly helpful. “[B.G. Mahesh and Sanjay Anandram] gave us insights on how to do things right, how to approach the right people and the best ways to network. We had made our business plan with the help of some friends; Sanjay helped us fine tune it, so we could take it to angel investors. Mahesh helped us market an online business, and sometimes put us onto people in his own company for further help. We spent 1.5 hours everyday discussing and deliberating with each of our mentors.”

Phanindra Sama, co-founder of redBus (India’s first online portal for bus reservations) believes that having mentors definitely accelerated the growth of his business. “We met them for a few hours every week over a consistent period of time. You need someone to look up to and give you step-by-step guidance. Having a mentor sets in discipline, helps you define targets and ensures that you meet them,” he says.

In addition to benefiting from his experience, Deepak says that Srivastava has now also become a close friend of all the founders of Avendus. “Mentoring, for us, has never been about troubleshooting,” says Deepak. “Srivastava has provided us advice and guidance on almost every issue. Along with all his skills, he also brought along his amazing network of contacts.”

Mentors, though, have their own take on a mentor’s role. Parpia thinks mentors should ideally serve as a sounding board for ideas. Their views are objective, as they are usually external to a company’s financials. They also encourage entrepreneurs to ask commonsense questions about their business. But what people mostly turn to mentors for, according to Parpia, is fresh ideas.

While different reasons impel different people to take to mentoring, a common thread of “giving back to society” runs through. After many fulfilling years as one of India’s leading IT entrepreneurs, Srivastava was enticed by the idea of helping young entrepreneurs reach their goals. “I decided that I would do what I like doing the most: helping others who were starting a venture,” he reminisces. “I decided to mentor them, invest in them and become a coach rather than a captain.”

Srivastava admits that mentoring has not always been a one-way route; at every stage of the process, he has picked up invaluable lessons. “The reality is that no one knows everything. Successful people also make a lot of mistakes, but they do not repeat the same mistake twice,” he adds. Parpia agrees, as does Karnik.

Then there’s Ravi Narayan, a serial entrepreneur who launched two companies in the U.S. and three in India before launching Mentor Partners in 2006. Within a year, he had started mentoring three companies. “Mentor Partners aimed to hone people to [develop] great companies, not just great technology. I usually spend three to six months with each company, mentoring them before funding them. Last year, we spun out Mentor Square, an online platform for entrepreneurs all over the world.” Narayan considers mentoring to be something “sacred” and believes “it is the stage where all the deliberation happens.”

Anandram, a mentor at Mentor Square, returned to India from the U.S. in 1999 and started India’s first e-magazine for entrepreneurs, initially called JumpStartUp and subsequently VentureKatalyst. “I used to write a section called Gurukul that targeted both wannabe entrepreneurs and existing ones,” he says. “It covered sales, marketing, HR issues, finance and business planning, among other topics relevant to startups. I used to get a lot of questions from the readers—I guess you could say that that was the beginning [of my mentoring days].”

Formal mentoring is currently on an upswing in India and is increasingly finding acceptance among young entrepreneurs. Says Samir Kumar, Managing Director of Inventus, “I was partly responsible for setting up the TiE mentorship program. When we kick-started the program 5 years ago, we used to get only 3-4 mentees at a time. Today, we have about 20-25 mentees every month, each with a mentor. At the TiE Summit itself, we had 140 entrepreneurs over two days.”

So, what has contributed to this surge in demand for mentorship? Vijay Anand, a mentor at IIT Chennai’s incubator, explains “First of all, less than 10 percent of companies ever get funded; in India, it’s more like 1 percent. There is a high demand for companies to survive and, to do so, be smart in every decision. Having a mentor could help achieve that.” Most entrepreneurs who approach mentors are from the IT and financial sectors. This could have a lot to do with the fact that people from these sectors are more aware of the western concepts of mentoring and external funding.

Anand, however, is sceptical about the mentoring scenario in India. “I don’t think mentoring is a career path as yet. I haven’t seen too many people who are professional mentors. Folks like Ravi [Narayan] are building an entire model around it; but as of now, not many are dedicated to it. You want a mentor who knows how to run a business, but given the growth stage that India is in right now, most of these folks are seeing opportunities all around. They are building businesses and making money themselves, rather than mentoring.”

Despite this, mentoring is slowly but surely catching on in India. But there are those that believe that it isn’t all that it’s made out to be. While big names like Kanwal Rekhi and Saurabh Srivastava are synonymous with mentoring, many feel that mentors do not really have enough time to spend with mentees. Mentoring in India, in fact, occurs mainly on an advisory level. Besides, very little help is available to our rural entrepreneurs, as formal mentoring is still driven largely by organizations and funds—and mentors associated with these have little to no expertise in rural entrepreneurship. Clearly, mentorship has arrived, but has a long way to go yet.

Next: Interview with mentor B.V. Jagadeesh ->>>

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