Startup Advisors: What They Are + 11 Places to Find Them

It's great to have someone with more drive and experience to guide the growth of your business.

In this article, you can find the best places to find these startup advisors.

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What is a Startup Advisor and What Do They Do?

In a nutshell, a startup advisor is a specialist with training and experience in a certain sector or industry who provides advice, mentoring, and networking opportunities to startup founders. 

They help entrepreneurs leverage their skills, experience and connections to maximize the potential of their new startup. 

Below are 8 platforms on how to find advisors for your startup.

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8 Platforms to Find Them Online

1) GrowthMentor

GrowthMentor is a platform providing on-demand growth advice from vetted experts. You can start by booking a free onboarding call to discuss your needs after signing up. Then filter through experts and book Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Skype Calls right on the experts’ calendar.

How to sign up: Click the signup button, fill in your information, and make the one-time payment with a credit/debit card. You’ll have immediate access after signing up.

Price: GrowthMentor offers three tiers of startup advisor plans: Light ($50/month) includes 3 monthly calls and access to an advisor video library; Pro ($75/month) offers unlimited calls and hands-on matching; Team ($200/month) provides analytics, custom roadmapping, and other features for larger groups.

Things to consider: Over 60% of the mentors offer their sessions for free. This is great when trying to find out how to find advisors for your startup. For the other 40%, you'll have to pay them per hour (it is not included in the $100/mo plan).

You can filter experts by the tools they use and by their expertise, like growth hacking, social media, content marketing, outbound marketing, and more.

They have a strict vetting process in place for the experts.

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2) MentorCruise

MentorCruise is a platform providing mentorship with tech leaders. There are ongoing sessions a monthly fee or one-time consulting calls.

How to sign up: Click on "Get Started", fill the form with your information, search for the mentor you want through a huge list of candidates and apply for the mentorship.

Price: Depends on each mentor, it can go from $100/month to several hundreds per month.

Things to consider: You can filter mentors by expertise, like entrepreneurship, social media, growth hacking or Javascript skills.

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3) Clarity

Clarity is another platform to get on-demand startup advice from experts. Browse the community of experts to find your fit. You then request a call with your chosen expert and connect via the conference line provided.

How to sign up: Sign up for free by clicking the signup button and filling in your first and last name, email, and password.

Price: Free to join Clarity. Then you’re charged for the calls based on the expert’s per minute rate.

Things to consider: There is potential to build a relationship with an expert that results in an advisor, but it’s not the outright purpose of the site. And you’re pre-charged for an estimated call time at first, and then the charge is adjusted for the actual length after the call.

4) CoFoundersLab

CoFoundersLab is a platform that gives you access to over 400,000 potential cofounders, team members, and advisors.

How to sign up: Sign up for the site for free with LinkedIn. You’ll fill out your profile completely for access.

Price: There is a free membership with limited benefits. Then there is a premium membership which is $29/month. The membership gives you access to unlimited co-founder search, exclusive discounts and events, educational resources to start and grow a business, pitch coaching, networking opportunities, and more.

Things to consider: There’s a 3 step process in place: sign up for free with LinkedIn, complete your profile to activate the matching algorithm, then search by skill, country, city, industry, business stage, or startup experience to find potential advisors, team members, and cofounders. It’s one of the largest startup platforms on the planet. But you’ll absolutely need to do those warm introductions after the algorithm starts the process.

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5) MicroMentor

MicroMentor is a free, nonprofit platform connecting entrepreneurs and volunteer business mentors.

How to sign up: You create your profile, highlighting what you do and what you hope to accomplish. You’re then able to reach out to others in the community with messages about your interest in starting a mentoring conversation with them. Start the mentorship with phone calls and getting to know each other, on to goal setting, problem-solving and so forth. Continue that mentorship with development tools provided by the site.

Price: Free

Things to consider: Love that it’s a free social network, but the quality of mentors you’ll get and how much one on one help and for how long isn’t clear. That’s something you’ll need to discuss if you do get to the point of finding a mentor you like.

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6) StartupWeekend

StartupWeekend is an experience that consists of 54 hours of life at a startup:

Day 1: Network/pitch/choose a project/build a team.

Day 2: Learn from mentors/Get to work on the chosen project and utilize resources and mentors to do everything from building your product or service to finding customers and so forth.

Day 3: Your team presents the product/service in front of the crowd and expert panel, and when that’s all done, celebrate all your hard work and success.

How to sign up: Every TechStars Startup Weekend event has a corresponding website with a registration page. Start by browsing events in your city here.

Price: Ticket prices vary by event, skill set, and purpose.‍

Things to consider: You’re expected to participate all 3 days. They send you off with next steps and hopefully, you’ve built a network and resources to carry with you to make your idea a success. 

Love that it gives you real-life experience and drops you right in the thick of things. But it’s just a weekend and more of an opportunity to network than anything.

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7) Sparrow Startup

Sparrow provides hands-on affordable mentorship calls with founders who have built, scaled and sold their own startups.

How to sign up: You have to apply for their waitlist. Only 5 startups are given access each month.

Price: Sessions start at $125/hour.

Things to consider: Unlike other websites, there’s no monthly fee on Sparrow. Once you apply, you are asked about your startup’s growth goals and offered a 30-minute free demo call with your advisor of choice. Their founders testimonials can be found here.

8) Founders Network

FoundersNetwork offers peer mentorship to tech startups globally.

How to sign up: Click the "Request invitation" button, go over the membership criteria, and then fill in your information. They’ll contact you if you pass the initial screening and you’ll continue from there.

Price: With passing the initial screening, you’ll then need to choose one of the four memberships based on your experience level.

• Bootstrap: $73.62/month (billed annually) - For Founders with experience generating annual revenues or raising funding of less than $150,000.
• Angel: $133.25/month (billed annually) - For Founders with experience generating annual revenues or raising funding of $150,000 - $1.5M.
• Series A+: $$374.92/month (billed annually) - For Founders with experience generating annual revenues or raising funding of $1.5M+.
• Lifetime: Not disclosed (one time fee) - For Serial Entrepreneurs. A one-time payment and never pay dues again.

Things to consider: Each month the Membership Committee admits a new group of full-time tech founders who are nominated by an existing member. If you get an opportunity for mentorship, there are added bonuses like startup discounts and free promotion to their newsletter readers. This is a great opportunity for tech startups, but you’ll have to do some work to get accepted

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Comparing These Online Tools

All of these offer an amazing opportunity when figuring out how to find advisors for your startup. You can filter your choices and find advisors on different stages of a startup and for different purposes like finance, marketing, operations, sales, IT, HR, etc.

If you’re just starting out, go with Startupweekend or Micromentor for their ability to match you with great potentials. And StartupWeekend’s push for networking and getting right into the nitty gritty of the startup life is a huge plus and fun idea.

GrowthMentor, MentorCruise, and Clarity are going to be your on-demand resources. If you’re not really sure about deciding on just one advisor, these give you an opportunity to try out a few before you’re ironclad on one. 

You can ask questions and get advice from people on different levels. You get to soak in all the information and figure out your direction.

Quora provides an opportunity to pose your questions and provide advice to others. You get a chance to immerse yourself in a community of entrepreneurs, but there’s no real purpose to match you with an advisor. 

If you’re willing to do the work, it could turn out that way. But don’t go in expecting anything more than information.  

And finally, if you’re ready to make some solid ground on your journey to finding a startup advisor, CoFoundersLab and FoundersNetwork are going to be your best choices. They are very vetted and offer some great bonuses in addition to high-level advising.

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3 Places to Find Them Offline

1) Networking Events

Industry Centers, conferences, speaking events, book clubs and readings, volunteering and more. These events are designed to bring people together.

And it’s not as scary as your heart flutters try to make it. Don’t be afraid to mingle and match. You can’t get your business out there if you don’t get out there.

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2) Startup “Hotspots"

‍There are thriving startup scenes in every city. From coworking spaces for entrepreneurs to those frequent creative get-togethers at local libraries, to grand openings.

Frequenting spots and events that gather those like you will put your business in a position for growth and with a little elbow grease, land you right in front of your startup advisor.

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3) Friends and Family

Your very own circle could have the successful entrepreneur you’ve been looking for to help advise you in your startup journey.

Scour your network and try to have a conversation or two a week about developing your business until you find the right advising relationship. These connections are easiest to build and can also help in securing a top-notch business mentor even if you’re tight on finances.

Wrapping up

So, should you get a startup advisor? We think so.

Despite an entrepreneur's success in their startup, it is essential to have expert advice and support to ensure the continued growth and sustainability of the company. A startup advisor is a valuable asset to any organization, helping to provide the guidance and networking opportunities needed to achieve success.