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From antiquity through to modern times, the role of the mentor has been very important across all walks of life. The term 'mentor' occurs in Greek mythology—Mentor, the son of Alcumus, in his old age, was the friend of Odysseus who, on leaving for the Trojan War, left Mentor in charge of both his palace and son, Telemachus.Closer home, we have the legend of Krishna mentoring Arjuna resulting in the Bhagavad Gita which is now well considered to be a universal treatise. The first recorded modern usage of the term can be traced to a book entitled Les Aventures de Telemaque, by the French writer Francois Fenelon published in 1699 where the protagonist is the Mentor. It is believed that this is the source of the modern use of the word mentor: a trusted friend, counselor or teacher, usually a more experienced person. Today, mentors provide expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks.In many different arenas, people have benefited from being a part of a mentoring relationship. In politics, Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great; in music Bach mentored Mozart; in acting Laurence Olivier mentored Anthony Hopkins and Martin Scorsese did so with Oliver Stone at New York University.Corporate mentoringIn a modern corporate sense, mentoring has been around in India for some time but largely confined to family owned enterprises, where the elders guide and mentor the younger members of the group. However the term mentoring is now normally used to refer to situations where people who have "been there, done that" help and guide those who are not usually their family members. In that sense, mentoring is in its infancy in India.Celebrated examples would be my friends Narayana Murthy at Infosys and Tarun Das at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Globally, corporate mentors are people who are usually successful, first generation entrepreneurs, who have founded and exited one or more ventures and have thus been through at least one (if not more) cycle(s) of wealth creation. These people do not come from business families and treat their having become a business person as an accident and not destiny. They usually do not push their children into the business, preferring to give them the same freedom of choice they themselves had. Having come from middle class backgrounds, with varied interests, such people predictably tire of running businesses after creating a few successful ventures and with enough money given that their financial needs and aspirations are relatively modest compared to business families. However, they have begun to love the thrill of creating something out of nothing and see opportunities to create new ventures in myriads of circumstances. Yet, they do not wish to get into the drudgery of the day to day running of a business. So they choose to transition from being a captain to a coach and take to mentoring and advising younger entrepreneurs, thus continuing to feel the thrill of venture and value creation without the toil and the sweat.Sometimes they also invest in these ventures and are then called angels. However, largely they become mentors for the reasons mentioned above as also because they feel grateful for their unexpected success and have a desire to give back to society and the ecosystem that helped them succeed.Thoughtful mentoring can be invaluable for entrepreneurs and help them avoid making costly mistakes that come in the way of creating a successful business. Good mentors (and this is why first time entrepreneurs make the best mentors) have learnt, through experience and making mistakes, how to marshal scarce resources effectively, create and grow ventures, manage conflicts among team members, market and sell against bigger and more established competitors, focus on the right things, etc. Mentors not only pass on these learnings to entrepreneurs but also give them valuable introductions and access to their vast network of valuable business contacts, which greatly enhances their business prospects.Mentoring and angel investing are extremely critical components of a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem and flourish in highly successful clusters like Silicon Valley and Israel. The people who gain most are first generation, middle class entrepreneurs, who have a great vision or idea, a burning passion and tremendous ambition, but limited resources and no one to help and guide them as their friends and family members have had no experience of creating a successful business and not wealthy enough to offer financial support.The reason mentoring and angel investing are in their infancy in India is because, as stated earlier, only first generation, middle class, serial entrepreneurs who achieve success, become mentors. And in India, this class of entrepreneurship started in all earnest only two decades ago, when the economy was liberalised. As a result, most of these first time entrepreneurs are still in the process of creating and growing their first venture, have not had an exit and so have neither the time nor the money to become mentors and angels.One industry where this has happened to a fair extent is the IT industry as it was largely created by middle class, first time entrepreneurs and, as it has grown from $60 million to $60 billion in two decades, many entrepreneurs have had the opportunity of creating more than one venture and even exiting some of them. Fortunately for us, the entrepreneurial and angel investing ecosystem in India is coming of age quickly.Organisations such as TiE and the Indian Angel Network are leading the way. This is great news for India because entrepreneurs, as Israel and the US amply demonstrate, are the greatest creators of wealth and employment in any nation. And India's ambition of becoming the third largest economy in the world will only be achieved through an exponential increase in our entrepreneurial activity which delivers 10 million jobs a year and 10% GDP growth for at least the next decade.The writer is chairman, CA Technologies (India)
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