Material Will Exceed The Money

Software developers David Lifson, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik had plenty of experience writing code when they conceived Postling, an online service to help small businesses manage their social media presence in 2009. Big companies use mentoring programs to train younger employees for leadership positions.

Now dozens of U.S. startup incubators, economic development groups, and others who want to see new companies succeed are developing mentoring programs to pair less-experienced founders with veteran entrepreneurs. The Startup America Partnership, launched in January at the White House with the goal of supporting startups, will this fall begin pairing entrepreneurs with mentors from dozens of partner organizations. The Small Business Administration is matching 100 cleantech ventures with mentors through a program begun in February and hopes to expand that to 1,000 companies in different industries.

Existing mentoring programs are seeing greater interest. Score, a 47-year-old volunteer group the provides mentoring and training for entrepreneurs, counseled more than 400,000 people in 2010, according to data from the SBA, which helps fund the group. As interest in mentoring grows, some successful programs are spawning lookalikes.

The decade-old Venture Mentoring Service at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has worked with about 1,000 ventures started by students, faculty, staff, and alumni, says its director, Sherwin Greenblatt. The council connects its members with mentors through live webchats, panels, and online discussion forums. Aspiring entrepreneurs “are starting pretty much fresh with no background,” Gerber says. The four-employee startup now has about 22,000 businesses that pay $1 per social media account that the service manages per month, according to Lifson. He says Thompson’s perspective was as important as her business.