Ask YC: Choosing advisors for your Startup?

There's not a formal line you cross where you say, "OK, now I need advisors". Talk to experienced people, get advice, and make the people that give you good advice your informal advisors. It's easier if you let it be a natural process, rather than a forced "advisor recruitment drive". It's never too early or too late for good advisors. A Board is a different matter entirely, and something that someone more qualified can comment on.

Startups are freaking hard - simply because it is very easy to screw up lots of things and any one of those could be easily fatal.

You might already know that startups are hard, but in all liklihoods you won't know what 'hard' means.

Value an experienced startup entrepreneurs advice more than anything you learnt at school, and hunt one down as soon as possible.

I'd like to have more seasoned advisors.

Is this a situation where a market could exist? Some kind of matchmaking system for founders/mentors independent of the YC/YC-clone world?

My advisor's are actually people that I already knew and are experienced entrepreneurs that I kept going back to for advice. I didn't seek them out and say "will you be my advisor?", it just naturally occurred. The advisor's I have are people that know and trust; they are also people that have 'been there and done that'. I have found my advisor's to be a great source of experience that I can tap into, and they are also great at keeping me focused and grounded - I tend to get too excited and carried away with my ideas.

It's always a good idea to find advisor's/mentor's that can help guide you along a successful path, and with whom you can bounce ideas off. I found the best way to find advisor's is to just find someone experienced in what you need advice in; if you keep going back to them for advice, then they naturally become your advisor's.

There are also different types of advisor's: business advisor's, technical advisor's, funding advisor's. Therefore, the type of advisor you need really depends on what stage you're at. Ideally, you would find one that has experience in a range of areas.

Have a read of: http://venturehacks.com/articles/advisors

Just get investors. All good investors are advisors. And if an advisor isn't willing to invest, that's a worrying sign.

1. IMO yes. My first action--after carefully sketching and editing a two page business plan--was to seek a team of advisers to provide feedback and advice.

2. No. All I had was an idea, a 2 page document with bullet points outlining the idea and key issues (and seven months experience at an Internet startup following graduation).

3. Right away. I reached out to a co-founder of Google and a partner from Sequoia, both of whom I hadn't met, and they both have been kind enough each week to give me 45 minutes or so over coffee or the phone. Along with two friends I've known for the past two years this advice has been instrumental in helping me get the demo going.

CAVEAT: Don't confuse advisers for team members. Although they are great and essential to have, my team is definitely more key to me.

We've had "brand name" advisors before. I suppose you think of them like decals on NASCAR cars. The question ought to be, "did anyone on Hacker News ever get any benefit out of having advisors?"

Discussed here at another thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=105144

A good business mentor/advisor can be extremely helpful at the start, although finding one can be difficult if you don't know what you're looking for, which was my experience. My first business mentor, while excellent at running his business, didn't know anything about running a startup or web business. While much of his advice on running the business on a day to day basis was invaluable, he was pointing my business partner and I off in the wrong direction long term. We ended up wasting a lot of time focusing on the wrong areas. We had similar problems with other advisors. We even had one attempt to defraud us into giving him control of the business. Basically, our advisors were no wiser than us on how to do a startup (rather than a lifestyle business) but we were too naive to see this and far too often blindly followed their advice.

Over time we became quite jaded about having advisors due to repeated bad experiences. We decided to implement the policy 'never take advice from someone who's not a millionaire'. We also learned to trust our own judgement and gut instinct a lot more and it often proved correct (not always though :-). Eventually we found a successful entrepreneur in a comparable field who was able to give us excellent advice. Because of that advice our startup is now growing in leaps and bounds.

I know I probably sound quite negative about advisors but I believe the right advisor at the right time to can mean the difference between success and failure. I experienced what happens when it goes wrong and the business was lucky to survive it. If you can't get the right advisor (someone who's both successful and in a similar field) you're probably better off with none at all. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming them though, most were well intentioned, excellent at their chosen professions, and I'm still grateful to the time they gave to me. However, I was 19 years old when I began my startup and still very naive and in a catch 22 situation. I knew I needed advice but didn't have the experience or someone to advise me as to who to get advice from. In hindsight, had Paul Grahams essays been available back then it would have saved me a lot of pain as that's exactly what I needed to know. I expect that since everyone here has access to them they'll be better equipped to avoid making my early advisor mistakes.

Oh, and just a small observation I've noticed with advisors. The better suited they are for your business the less they need to say. They can just cut through the crap and tell you what you need to know. The more they talk the more it's likely that they're well meaning but don't really know what to tell you so they tell you everything.

1. No.

2. Yes.

3. When you find you are out of your element, for example when raising financing or negotiating an acquisition.