Get Advice from Eric Ries, Dave McClure, and Others on Clarity

Kira M. Newman May 3, 2012 Tweet

Want advice from the big names in tech?

Sign up for Clarity - which launches publicly today – and you’ll have the chance to chat with Eric Ries, Dave McClure, Hiten Shah, Andrew Chen, Mark Nager (CEO of Startup Weekend), Peter Pham (cofounder of Color), Josh Elman (principal at Greylock Partners), and over 1,000 others.

Clarity is a platform to book calls with “micro-celebrities.” Simply head over to your favorite entrepreneur’s profile, schedule a time, then call directly from the site. Seek advice about your product, or just get to know someone before asking for an intro to a VC. (If you don’t know whom to call, Clarity can give you recommendations.)

Some advisers chat for free, others donate a fee to charity, and a few are a bit pricey – like Mark Cuban at $10,000 per hour.

Founder Dan Martell believes in the power of mentorship to steer businesses in the right direction. “The big ambitious goal was how do you impact a billion people in a positive way over a 10-year period?” he explains. Now an angel investor and mentor at 500 Startups, he remembers some key advice that helped him build and sell two successful companies:

“Always hire above you, always hire A players. People say it but not a lot of people do it. It’s easily probably the #1 best thing you can do.

The other one would be only get advice from people that have succeeded in the thing you’re trying to accomplish. Most entrepreneurs turn to their parents, their friends, or their coworkers, and they just don’t have the perspective and context – and honestly they just don’t want to see you screw up, so they usually give you advice to play it safe.”

My advice? Check it out.