25
Unpopular opinion: Startup incubator mentorship programs are just networking theater.
They pair you with advisors who have zero stake in your success, so the advice is often generic and useless. It's more about appearances than actual growth.
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
grace1681mo ago
Wow, they're still using advice from 2015? That playbook is older than my truck's transmission. No wonder it doesn't work for real businesses.
9
The most useful part is actually watching the mentors check out. You can see the exact moment they remember they have fifteen other portfolio companies and zero equity in yours. Their advice becomes copy-pasted from a SaaS playbook they read in 2015, completely useless for anything involving physical products or a real sales team. The program gets its photo op, the mentor ticks a box, and you're left with a to-do list for a business that isn't yours.
6
aaronj431mo ago
But come on, is that playbook really all bad? Basic stuff like keeping costs low or talking to customers still works for a physical product. Sure, the SaaS growth hack stuff misses the mark, but some advice on hiring or managing inventory is pretty universal. Maybe the real issue is founders expecting custom blueprints from people who just met them. Could you be putting too much weight on one chat?
2