Everyone tells you to "find a mentor." Career counselors, successful founders, LinkedIn thought leaders—they all say mentorship is critical.
And here's what nobody admits: most mentorship is fake. It's regularly scheduled calls where someone 10 years older gives you generic advice that sounds wise but changes nothing about what you're building.
I've had "mentors." Some were helpful. Most were just people who liked feeling important by giving advice to younger founders.
The mentorship fantasy
Here's what people think mentorship looks like:
Wise, experienced person takes you under their wing. Shares hard-won insights. Opens doors. Gives you brutally honest feedback. Invested in your success.
Here's what mentorship actually looks like most of the time:
Bi-weekly calls where you update them on what you're working on. They nod, say "that's interesting," share one vaguely relevant story from their past. You thank them for their time. Nothing changes.
The problem isn't that mentors are bad people. It's that the incentive structure for mentorship is broken. They get to feel helpful without any skin in the game. You get to feel like you have support without actually getting useful help.
Why most mentorship is low-effort
Real mentorship is expensive. It requires:
Deep understanding of your specific situation
Time to actually think about your problems
Willingness to be brutally honest, even if it hurts
Following up to see if their advice worked
Caring about outcomes, not just giving advice
That's a huge investment. And most "mentors" aren't actually making that investment.
Instead, they're doing what's socially expected: being encouraging, sharing some surface-level wisdom, and maintaining the relationship just enough to feel like they're "giving back."
Meanwhile, you walk away from calls feeling good but not actually knowing what to do differently.
The advice paradox
Here's the thing about advice from successful people: it's usually based on what worked for them in a completely different context.
Your mentor built their company in 2015. You're building now. Different market, different technology, different fundraising environment, different competitive landscape.
But they'll give you advice like their experience is universal. "You need to focus on product-market fit." "Don't hire too early." "Make sure you validate before you build."
All of this might be true. It might also be completely wrong for your situation. But it sounds wise, so you nod along and try to apply it.
The problem is that most successful founders don't actually know why they succeeded. They have a narrative they've told themselves, but it's partly luck, partly timing, partly decisions they don't even remember making.
So when they mentor you, they're teaching you their narrative, not necessarily what actually works.
When mentorship actually helps
I'm not saying all mentorship is useless. There are specific situations where it matters:
1. Domain expertise. If your mentor actually understands the specific technical or market challenge you're facing, they can help. But "founder" isn't a domain. "B2B SaaS go-to-market" is.
2. Pattern matching. Investors and operators who've seen 100+ companies can spot patterns you can't see yet. But only if they've seen enough to actually have pattern recognition in your specific space.
3. Introductions. A mentor who actively makes intros to customers, investors, or hires is genuinely valuable. But most mentors don't actually do this.
4. Accountability. If your mentor is someone whose opinion you genuinely care about, regular check-ins can create useful pressure. But only if they're actually paying attention.
The problem is that most mentorship relationships don't have these ingredients. They're just... conversations.
The better model
Instead of "mentors," here's what actually works:
Find builders, not advisors. The people who can help you are usually the ones actively building something similar right now. They have current knowledge, not historical narratives.
Pay for expertise when it matters. Real help is worth money. If someone can solve a specific problem you're facing, pay them as a consultant. It ensures they're actually invested in solving it.
Join communities with skin in the game. YC, On Deck, founder group chats where everyone's actually building. Peer mentorship from people going through the same stuff is often more valuable than top-down advice.
Ask specific questions, not general advice. "How should I think about my startup?" gets generic wisdom. "How do I reduce my LLM API costs by 50% without hurting quality?" gets useful answers.
Give before you get. The best relationships aren't mentor/mentee. They're mutual. Find ways to actually help the people you're learning from.
The red flags
Your "mentor" is probably wasting your time if:
They're mentoring 10+ people (they don't have time to care about you specifically)
They ask the same generic questions every call ("so how's it going?")
They've never actually built something in your domain
They don't follow up on previous advice to see if it worked
They spend more time talking about themselves than asking about you
They've never introduced you to anyone useful
You leave calls feeling good but not knowing what to do
If most of these are true, you're in a fake mentorship relationship that exists because both of you think you're supposed to have one.
What I learned the hard way
I've had "mentors" who were completely useless. Thirty-minute calls every two weeks where I'd update them and they'd say things like "just keep pushing" or "make sure you're talking to users."
Thanks. Super helpful. Definitely couldn't have figured that out myself.
The people who actually helped me? Usually not official "mentors." They were:
Other founders slightly ahead of me who answered specific technical questions
Users who told me exactly why they were churning
Investors who passed but explained specifically why
People I paid to solve specific problems
None of these were "mentorship" in the traditional sense. But they were way more valuable than the official mentor relationships where we both pretended to get value out of generic conversations.
The honest assessment
If your mentor relationship ended tomorrow, would your progress slow down?
For most people, the answer is no. Because the relationship isn't actually driving progress. It's just... a relationship.
And that's fine. Having people to talk to is valuable. But call it what it is—networking, or support, or just staying connected.
Don't pretend it's mentorship unless they're actually investing significant time in understanding your specific situation and giving you advice that's actionable, honest, and grounded in real expertise.
Most "mentors" are doing you the favor of listening. Not the favor of helping.
— Arjun