Mentoring others will make you a better entrepreneur and leader

Paul Rivett is on ventureLAB's team of expert advisors. ventureLAB's advisors come from all backgrounds and industries to guide and support companies like yours to become globally competitive tech titans. Paul Rivett has been active in the York Region entrepreneurship ecosystem for 15 years, applying business and technology experience to help technology companies launch, grow and scale. After extensive operations and engineering experience at Alcatel Canada, serving telecom, medical, avionic and industrial markets with advanced photonics hardware, Paul founded Resonance Photonics Inc and raised seed and venture capital investment.

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A mentor can guide and inspire you as you launch and grow your business. But did you know that being a mentor can also help you reflect, reconnect, and strengthen your own experiential learnings? Besides being a generous activity, mentoring others will make you a better entrepreneur and leader.

In my 11 years as a ventureLAB advisor, I’ve learned that listening to entrepreneurs, asking questions to understand their business, making suggestions, connecting them to partners, investors and possible team members as they face obstacles and doubts is uniquely helpful to them - and myself.

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Meeting with entrepreneurs to discuss their business and challenges has given me a wide perspective on:

• The diverse challenges founders encounter in their industries and teams, as well as their creativity in developing solutions
• The fine balance between urgency in making decisions and actions and pausing to seek a new approach
• The value of connecting with peers and learning best practices in many areas of business - from adopting technology and building teams to connecting with the market and managing people

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It has also taught me about the benefits of mentorship as it enables founders to access an independant sounding board. As a mentor, I have had the opportunity to exercise my own critical thinking as I navigated the entrepreneur's challenges to provide sound knowledge and advice.

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I had seen much of this in earlier business activity, but my first year mentoring was like drinking from a fire hose. Within a couple of years, I realized that I had learned more about entrepreneurship by helping startups than I learned in business school.

I encourage all business leaders, including alumni of ventureLAB,  to consider mentoring some enthusiastic founders - it will make you a better entrepreneur, manager, and investor.

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About Paul Rivett

Paul Rivett has been active in the York Region entrepreneurship ecosystem for 15 years, applying business and technology experience to help technology companies launch, grow and scale. After extensive operations and engineering experience at Alcatel Canada, serving telecom, medical, avionic and industrial markets with advanced photonics hardware, Paul founded Resonance Photonics Inc and raised seed and venture capital investment.

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About ventureLAB

ventureLAB is a leading global founder community for hardware technology and enterprise software companies in Canada. Located at the heart of Ontario’s innovation corridor in York Region, ventureLAB is part of one of the biggest and most diverse tech communities in Canada. Our initiatives focused on raising capital, talent retention, commercializing technology and IP, and customer acquisition have enabled thousands of companies to create over 4,500 jobs and raise more than $200 million in investment capital. At ventureLAB, we grow globally competitive tech titans that build-to-scale in Canada, for global markets. 

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