Ask HN: Where do budding entrepreneurs find mentors?

Instead of searching for a list of battle-hardened entrepreneurs, which you won't find as you discovered because they're busy in battle, take a proactive approach.

Outline the persona of the type of mentors you'd like to chat with. For instance, if you're building a social app, a battle-hardened health entrepreneur might not be the most helpful person. A battle-hardened social entrepreneur would be much better.

Once you have your persona go out and find them. Where? Lots of places. But LinkedIn and Angel List would be the 2 places I'd start looking. Reach out and maybe offer a coffee to have a chat about their companies. Don't approach them just begging for help.

To be honest though, a lot of great startup advice and potential pitfalls are all over youtube, hn and other websites as well. Nowadays, you can simply just read post-mortems of companies similar to yours to get a good feel for potential headwinds.

Beautifully designed and informative landing page! Makes me want to find a reason to use the product :)

Since you seem to live in the Bay Area, have you tried reaching out to some people in the industry you admire? Also, you must have some existing network, maybe some folks who work in large tech companies with experienced managers, or friends who run startups and have advisors/investors. Why not ask for referral and introductions there?

Vet advisors and potential investors like you would any new hire. Understand their unique background and why they would be valuable to your startup, and then communicate that to them in your initial conversation. Let people know why you want them as your advisor. Wouldn't hurt to throw them some upside, or ask them to invest if you are raising capital :)

Also, always get a second opinion on any advice. A lot of the time, you will get conflicting wisdom and you have to ultimately decide what's right for your company.

Best of luck!

I have once contacted a CEO via Instagram on a different matter (I offered him some ideas) and he was very open and asked me to explain him in detail via email. We've even met and he thanked me numerous time for being direct with him and for my approach and analysis. I've also once offered one company to work for them because I was passionate about their product and as I was growing tired of waiting for an answer, I started following them and the founders on all social networks. Now I am invited to work with them. Point is, don't be afraid to reach out to them on their personal social networks or mail, admit why you admire them and maybe talk about their achievements a little. And then get what you want.