In this interview, Evan Carmichael and Stephen (SKellyCEO) discuss practical strategies for finding and working with mentors. They emphasize seeking mentors who share your vision and have walked a similar path, allowing them to guide you around "bear traps" and toward quick wins. They advocate informal mentorship—quick coffee chats, hallway conversations, and volunteering—as low‑barrier ways to gain advice, noting that most experienced people are willing to help. They advise mapping your business’s biggest risks (product, technology, etc.) and then targeting individuals who can fill those gaps, while being cautious of inauthentic online contacts. Stephen cites Evan himself as a mentor who provides ongoing, honest feedback. Evan adds the concept of aspirational mentors—figures you may never meet, such as Jeff Bezos—whom you can learn from through books, talks, and interviews. Combining traditional, reachable mentors with aspirational ones creates a "dream team" that can accelerate growth and even become future investors.
And Keith is writing in, who is your mentor? And also, how do you find a mentor if you don't have one?
That's a great, great point. I think actually in terms of smart risks, the key thing is, um, generally you want to attach yourself to someone who shares your vision, is a disruptor, but also ideally who's got the experience of having walked on your journey before. So, you know, they know where the bear traps are, but they know kind of where the quick wins are, all those sort of things. And they can really help you navigate and manage the risk to, you know, the pot of, um, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Uh, so I, I would say I've really been lucky. I've had lots of mentors, but they're both like formal mentors. But I love just informal mentors. Now, I encourage in our company I say to people, all our colleagues, you know, if there's someone you really respect, just go and grab them in a hallway and say, look, would you mind coming for a coffee with me? Mentoring can be over a coffee and a 30-minute conversation, and I've never known anybody with experience to say no. Um, they always, you know, everybody likes to help, and everybody loves to help the next generation. Everybody— I love going out. Tomorrow I'm going with Sage Foundation, we're going to have food banks with kids. And volunteering, uh, and we're going to be out with teenagers. And you know, what better way for me to spend some time? And honestly, I think, um, I think again, you've got to stop those voices in your head, um, telling you I can't ask that person to be my mentor. Um, and I wouldn't even use the word mentor. Just say, look, can I have some advice? I've got massive respect for you, you've achieved a great deal, and I just welcome some advice. I've never known anybody to say saying no. So I would also say the other thing is, you know, there's lots of people you need to go to. When you look at kind of the risk in your business, you'll say, what are the big risks? Is it product risk? Is it, you know, can I build a website? Can I— is it technology risk? And then once you've identified that, go and find the people who can kind of plug the gaps, either in your network, on social media. There's tons of people out there who are available out on social media. You want to make sure, you know, they're authentic, uh, and they're not looking to kind of make money or exploit you. So you've got to be sensible there. However, um, then you can, um, I, I'd say this guy Evan, I'd say Evan's one of my mentors. You know, Evan gives me advice, he pings me, you know, a little tweet, he pings me an email, he tells me what we're doing okay, he says where we can do better. I love that, I love that, because, um, it just keeps me honest. And I think what I'd say therefore is you should have a— you shouldn't spend all your day being mentored, but there's key people that you respect that can help you navigate the risks and overcome them, and you should reach out to them. And I guarantee that they'll be there for you and they'll be there to support you. And sometimes, you know, if they're really amazing people you know, and you grow your business, you get 10 people, 20 people, and sometimes you're going to think about, you know, investment downstream. They'd be amazing people to invest in your business as well.
The only thing I would add is I also benefit tremendously from aspirational mentors. You can learn a lot from people who you will never meet. Uh, and so if you look at people who have done what you want to do and, you know, read their books. Stephen recommended a number already, Jeff Bezos and a few other ones. You can find videos of them. I do a lot of them on this channel. You can find aspirational mentors in addition to traditional mentors who you're going out and meeting for coffee and having that one-on-one relationship. You can reach out to people just by researching them and find interviews and learn from somebody who's done, like, way more than somebody, you know, way more than you thought your expectations yourself might be, and that pushes you to want to be able to do more. So I would just couple those together, traditional mentorship plus the aspirational mentorship to make your dream team to help your, your business be successful.
