Paying it forward
The UK’s founder community is built on a few simple truths. One of these is that founders, regardless of the stage of their business, are often keen to help other founders. Perhaps because they recognise a kindred spirit and empathise with their situation, founders are willing to give up time to assist a fellow founder.
25 November 2024
As we enter Entrepreneur Week 2024, Barclays Eagle Labs wanted to explore this phenomenon in greater depth. To examine this willingness to give back, or pay it forward. Why do founders seem so keen to help each other? We wanted to understand the combination of formal and informal support networks founders draw on and feed into, including formal mentoring and networking, lectures at business schools and even the casual conversations at the coffee machine in a shared workspace.
To explore this subject in greater detail, we spoke to five founders, ranging in age, sector and experience, all of whom engage in mentoring, networking and giving back. All agreed that they have always drawn on formal and informal support networks.
Our approach wasn’t a formal or scientific, quantitative analysis. Conversations were unstructured and relaxed, not tightly controlled research interviews. But six themes emerged:
The desire to help is driven by loneliness
That the founder’s life can be a lonely one came up a lot in our conversations. Those that mentioned it said it came from being the person responsible for the success of the business. Because they’ve experienced that pressure, former founders can be a useful support outlet. Knowing what it feels like can also be a driver for them wanting to help people experiencing it now. One counter to this, suggested by some of the founders we spoke to, was that loneliness can be a choice. Some decide, consciously or not, to keep to themselves. This may be personality (shy founders exist), or because they feel the world won’t understand or isn’t ready for their idea.
Only other founders really understand
The idea that only other founders understand founders came up a lot. A founder’s life is so distinct, the challenges so different, that it takes one to understand one. Outside of a few academics, the sense was that only someone who has “been there and got the t-shirt” could help. As one interviewee put it, “One reason people seek mentors who are a founder is they’re equally crazy; someone who dreams something at three in the morning, then gets up and tries to make it happen.”
No advice is worse than bad advice
There is a downside to founders being so keen to offer advice – the fact that some of it is unwanted and plenty of it may be bad advice. One founder mentioned she’s found the value of advice correlates to whether it was asked for or not. When someone offers her unsolicited advice, she is more wary. At least when she seeks advice, it is less likely someone is trying to get something from her or her business.
Pick your support network with care
Our founders also talked about finding the right help and support and recognising it changes over time, as a business grows and develops. It means someone who may be invaluable early on may be of less use later. As one put it, “pick your tribe and if you haven’t got a support network, get one”. Something not mentioned was whether the value of founder-mentors diminishes as a business grows in complexity and scale. At what point might someone with experience leading large organisations be more useful?
Structure matters
All the founders we spoke to engage in a structured mentoring programme, either as a mentor, a mentee or sometimes both. And they all value what it has brought them and how it has contributed to their success. One was clear the structure of a regular monthly group forced her to be more accountable, while others compared mentoring to counselling. As a consequence of how blurred the boundaries between work and home life can be for founders, even these structured sessions can get very personal.
But the informal support is crucial
No one denied the key role played by informal networks and support. We spoke to two founders working in a Barclays Eagle Lab, both getting a huge return from other founders in the Lab. One joked that, despite being a tea drinker, she’s had chats at the coffee machine that have developed into “meaningful business relationships”. Another spoke in glowing terms of one fellow resident in an Eagle Lab playing a crucial role in helping him early on.
The value of professional business mentoring
To get some thoughts on the value of mentoring, we also spoke to Kerrie Dorman, Founder and Chief Ambassador for the Association of Business Mentors. Dorman is a natural advocate of mentoring, saying that it drives business growth and wellbeing. “It provides them with strategic support and emotional resilience, addressing the unique challenges and intense highs and lows of running a business,” she says.
Dorman agrees that no advice is often better than bad advice. “Studies show that professional mentoring positively impacts business performance and founder well-being more than informal advice or peer-to-peer support alone. Professional mentors bring a combination of practical experience, having run their own business or played a senior role in one, and mentoring skills and qualifications.”
This blend of skills and experience allows them to provide structured guidance that’s both empathetic and has impact. “This combination is rare in free or informal support structures, where consistency, quality and accountability can vary.”
Mentors, says Dorman, increase growth potential by providing “short cuts” to success. “They support you through the highs and lows of running a business and hold you to account on your goals and objectives, but they do so with empathy.”
Read on to meet the founders
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