Mentors

Founded by Leonid Boguslavsky and H-FARM

← The manifesto11 / 12 · As a nAItive mentor

11

Keep it confidential. Declare conflicts.

What Fellows share stays with you and the nAItive team. Disclose any investment, client or competing interest before you engage.

Mentoring only works if founders can be completely open: about their numbers, their team problems, their doubts, their fundraising. They will only be that open if they're certain it stays private. Treat everything a Fellow shares as confidential unless they tell you otherwise.

Conflicts of interest are normal for experienced people. You may invest in a competitor, advise a company in the same space, or have a commercial interest in what the founder is building. The conflict itself isn't the problem; hiding it is.

Disclose any potential conflict to the Fellow and the nAItive team before you engage, and step back if the conflict is too close. When in doubt, disclose.

All principles

  1. 01Keep the founder in the driver's seat
  2. 02Build capability, not dependency
  3. 03Be direct
  4. 04Ask for evidence, not opinions
  5. 05Separate fact, experience and hypothesis
  6. 06Say “I don't know”
  7. 07End with a next step
  8. 08Show up prepared
  9. 09Be responsive and follow through
  10. 10Open doors
  11. 11Keep it confidential. Declare conflicts
  12. 12Earn your place in the pool