We define and differentiate the often nebulous roles of mentors, advisors, and coaches for founders, explaining their relatives strengths, weaknesses, and how to use them to drive impact.
Mentors tell you what they did.
Advisors tell you what you should do.
Coaches help you figure out the answer for yourself.
Mentors are typically founders or operators a few steps ahead of you. For instance, a Series A founder might informally engage a Series C founder to talk through common issues faced at their stage. Mentors can be valuable role models, confidants, help you see around corners, and offer solutions to problems you are facing - all based on their own experience.
Overfitting: Mentors can fall into the trap of assuming the solution that worked for them is universally applicable. What worked for them might not work for you.
Unstructured: Mentorship tends to be unstructured and ad-hoc. This can work very well when you know a problem exists, however, falls short when you are unaware of the issue or have trouble articulating it.
Advisors are typically subject-matter experts in specific domains. For instance, a Series B founder may formally engage a multi-time Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) from their industry to help them scale their sales team. Many startups build a bench of advisors over time composed of experts in areas where they lack experience, or need more expertise to succeed.
Treating Symptoms: Advisors will help you see and solve tactical issues within their domain quickly. This approach is great for solving problems fast, however can cover up deeper issues if the problem is symptomatic of an underlying root-cause.
Narrow Expertise: Advisors have a domain of mastery, and outside of that domain they are far less useful. Their advice will be laser focused on one-area of the business, and can miss the forest for the trees.
Coaches are typically former founders or operators who now dedicate the majority of their time to helping founders grow. A coach might work with a founder to develop their management/leadership skills, by asking questions that help their clients see their situation clearly and discover solutions they hadn't considered before. Coaches are ideal for deeper personal and professional development, focusing on root-causes rather than symptoms.
Coach Quality: Everyone is a coach these days, which makes finding a good one challenging and time consuming. Low quality coaching might feel good, but can be a distraction from company growth and inhibit personal development.
Hard to Measure: Coaches help CEOs & founders discover and work on the deeper issues affecting them and their company. This process can take time and the results are often very hard to measure or quantify.
Each role—mentor, advisor, and coach—has its place in a founder's journey. The best approach often involves having all of them and knowing when to leverage the strengths of each.
Mentors for experience-based advice
Advisors for specialized knowledge
Coaches for deeper self improvement and company/team development
Titan is solving for quality & measurement in executive coaching. We help founders & C-suites engage top 1% executive coaches, founder coaches, and performance psychologists and make the results visible and measurable.
Discover how Titan can elevate your leadership journey and measure ROI by emailing us at founders@withtitan.com.
