Business advisors can bring a wealth of experience to your startup. It’s more important to find the right advisor than to find someone with plenty of time on their hands. Here are five questions every entrepreneur should ask a potential advisor:
1. What business experience have you had that is similar to my situation?
You want to find someone who has gone through a similar experience to the one you are dealing with now and preferably someone that’s in the same industry segment.
2. Are they potentially competing with you?
You want an advisor who doesn’t have a conflict of interest with their company. Those who skirt the ethics issue are questionable members for your network to begin with.
3. What kind of success did they achieve at their company?
You want someone who is successful at the trade. Success can be defined differently based on the circumstances. In emerging markets, someone who can stand up a company and grow it could be considered a success even though it didn’t yield an outsized return for investors.
4. Will the advisor benefit from the relationship as well?
One way to ensure full engagement by the advisor is to find an advisor who will benefit from working with your company rather than just a give back. The advisor may want to keep up with the industry or is considering making a financial investment and wants to learn more about the company before pulling the trigger.
5. Can you work well together with the advisor?
As in so many other startup relationships (investor, cofounder, board member) you will end of spending a great deal of time with the advisor so you want to make sure you are compatible and can work well together.
TEN Capital Network is proud to announce our Advisory Program which provides a roster of qualified advisors to assist in supporting your company in its growth plan. This includes increasing revenue traction, identifying the business model, and helping prepare the company for a fund raise.
This program is only available to companies enrolled in the TEN Capital funding program.
If you want to find an advisor for your business, please contact us at info@tencapital.group.