By Chris Heivly, Managing Director at Build The Fort and Startup Community EIR @ Techstars

Have you ever been asked, “How do I become a good mentor?”  It usually comes from someone who’s eager to help but unsure how to start or what the role really demands. But that is an answer for one. Now, I’ve got a better question for you: “How do we build more good mentors in our community?”

Because here’s the truth — great mentors don’t grow on trees. But if we want our startup communities to thrive, we need more of them. A lot more.

Let’s start with the obvious: mentorship is essential. It's the grease in the gears — helping first-time entrepreneurs navigate uncertainty, make fewer mistakes, and grow faster. But too often, mentorship becomes this passive thing we hope just happens. It won’t. You’ve got to build it.

The first thing builders typically do is to figure out a way to programmatically solve this problem at scale. I say this is a bad idea. This just automates an already difficult challenge. It usually starts with assigning a mentor to a founder. Bad idea. If there is not a natural connection, the mentorship usually falls flat. Sometimes ecosystems pay mentors to mentor. Bad idea. This alters what should be a natural connection into more of a transaction. A transactional mindset is bad for mentorship. 

The best mentorship is 1 on 1 and naturally bubbles up from a connected ecosystem. A well-connected ecosystem (and this can be measured) creates opportunities for natural collisions to occur, and those natural collisions turn into connections, which turn into mentorship.

As an ecosystem builder, your job is to intentionally create the conditions for those natural collisions. Here are 3–5 things you can do to inspire and foster that dynamic:

1. Introduce Like a Connector, Not a Gatekeeper - Don’t wait for someone to ask for an intro—be proactive. If you meet a new founder, introduce them to someone who can challenge or support them. Add context and encouragement, but let the relationship grow naturally. You're the spark, not the engine.

2. Host Consistent, Low-Barrier Events - Think coffee meetups, founder happy hours, or “lunch & learns” that don’t require a suit, a pitch deck, or an RSVP. The goal is to get people in the same room where casual conversations can happen. These are the breeding grounds for organic mentorship. Make them frequent, make them informal, and make them safe for first-timers.

3. Normalize “Give First” Behavior - Use your influence to celebrate and model the givefirst ethos. Highlight mentors who show up, not just the ones with the biggest exits. Encourage experienced founders to meet with one early-stage entrepreneur a week. When generosity becomes cultural, connections deepen faster.

This part’s more behind-the-scenes but could be very useful. Use tools (like surveys and/or network maps) to track who’s meeting whom, what connections are forming, and where gaps exist. This helps you fine-tune your activities and prove that these collisions are more than just warm fuzzies — they’re working.

By creating more opportunities for real people to connect in real ways, you’re not just building a mentor network — you’re building an ecosystem where mentorship is the natural outcome. And that will drive the progress you wish to make.

Learn more about Techstars Startup Community partnerships, a new way for you to build your thriving startup community as a member of the Techstars network.

Read More