How One Company Is Making It Easier than Ever for Entrepreneurs to Find a Mentor

While successful tech startups are springing up in all sorts of places not named Silicon Valley, those companies and their founders still face a networking and community-building disadvantage, right? Not anymore. Discover how one entrepreneur is working to bridge the gap by opening up access to one of tech’s most valuable commodities — battle-tested advice.

When serial entrepreneur Dan Martell sold his social marketing startup Flowtown to Demandforce in 2011, the Canadian native with small town roots decided to take some time off, relax, and think about his next move.
In the process of doing that, however, he started to reflect on the advisors, mentors, and colleagues who had helped him get to where he was.
“Anytime you build and grow a business to the point of acquisition, it’s rarely done alone,” says Martell, who previously founded Spheric Technologies and led it to a successful exit in 2008. “Whether it’s an advisor who pushes you in the right direction, an investor who buys into your idea, or a mentor who can help you develop your weaknesses, every entrepreneur needs some help.”
So when fellow entrepreneurs began to flood Martell’s inbox with requests to pick his brain about his Flowtown experience and review their business plan, he couldn’t resist the temptation to help.
“It’s kind of like paying it forward,” Martell explains. “I just felt like if I could have a positive impact on those entrepreneurs, I was obligated to do that given the number of people who had done the same for me.”

Turning Personal Advice into a Marketplace of Advisors

A funny thing happened on the way to providing that entrepreneurial advice, however.
As a way to make his communication with aspiring or current entrepreneurs more efficient, Martell decided to develop a URL platform in which people could submit their contact information, the topic they needed help on, and when they were free for a call. That way, when Martell had free time, he could simply push a button, pull up an entrepreneur’s information, and give them a ring.
Today, that seemingly simple system has evolved into much more.
About a year ago, Martell officially launched his newest business, Clarity, which he describes as an advice network of 13,000 experts from every industry, discipline, and business background. The idea, quite simply, is to connect experts with entrepreneurs via one-on-one calls to deliver advice that covers virtually every facet of starting, growing, managing, and selling a business. Clarity has already received $1.6 million in seed funding from a roster of investors that includes Mark Cuban and 500 Startups.
“Our mission, and I know this sounds a little crazy, is to have a positive impact on a billion people — via the entrepreneurs we help — by 2022,” Martell says. “And I think we can do it. I’ve been blown away by the response so far, but I can’t say I’m shocked. I wish there was something like this when I started my first company.”

Exploring the Clarity Model

The beauty of Clarity, Martell says, is that it gives entrepreneurs on-demand access to advisors that they may never have been able to communicate with before.

“In a way, it’s breaking down walls that might put a tech founder in Kansas City at a significant disadvantage to a similar founder in the heart of Silicon Valley,” Martell explains. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t think it’s important to spend some time in tech hubs like San Francisco, New York, or Boston, but Clarity does give entrepreneurs an opportunity to make better, faster decisions to grow their business without having to hop on a plane.”

How Clarity works:

• Browse or search Clarity’s community of experts to find the advisor who is right for you (that network, by the way, includes names like entrepreneur and investor extraordinaire Brad Feld, The Lean Startup author Eric Reis, and Mark Cuban himself).
• Request a call. Select three dates and times that work for your schedule and specify the reason for your request.
• Receive confirmation of your call with a calendar invite, conference line, and access code, and invite up to eight other members of your organization to join.
• Connect, talk, and pay. Calls can last anywhere from five to 50 minutes, and most advisors charge by the minute, Martell says. And if, by chance, you’re dissatisfied with the advice you received, Martell says Clarity will refund your payment and review the credibility of the expert.

For Martell, the value of a community of experts like the one Clarity has developed is potentially enormous.
“The bottom line is that every startup founder or growth-stage executive needs help at some point,” Martell says. “You can get that advice organically through your personal network, but at what point do you tap that social capital and kill your network in the process?”

The Importance of Face-to-Face Interactions

With all of that being said, Martell is not suggesting that Clarity is a replacement for good, old-fashioned networking.
In the tech world, he explains, it’s still critical for entrepreneurs to get out of their office — particularly if they operate anywhere outside of major tech hotspots — and develop real, meaningful relationships with entrepreneurial advisors, mentors, and investors.
In that way, Clarity is simply a supplement to an entrepreneur’s relationship and knowledge building efforts.
“I grew up in this tiny town in Canada where all of my friends had small retail shops or worked in government,” Martell says. “I didn’t know one person who could use a computer, let alone write code. I had to hustle to find people who could help me, and this idea today that you can sit in your basement and create the next Facebook is ludicrous. You have to put yourself out there — online and in-person — if you hope to build relationships with people who you can lean on in the long run.”

Are you a founder working outside of a tech hub? How have you built your network and connected with other entrepreneur communities?