Some lawyers who charge $400 per hour would give advice to startups for free. And, believe it or not, some have trouble finding startups who need the advice.
Founder Adam Fridman started MeetAdvisors after meeting one such lawyer. The site connects entrepreneurs with mentors in fields like legal, marketing, and business development. Before choosing one of their 150 advisors – including the COO of SEOMoz, Sarah Bird – you can read reviews by other mentees to find the best fit.
Once you find a mentor, you submit your request – which gets reviewed by the MeetAdvisors team – and the mentor chooses to accept or reject it. And then the mentorship begins, whether that’s by email, phone, or in-person meeting.
MeetAdvisors is a two-month-old site and still improving. But here are two reasons you might want to check it out:
It’s free. Your other option, the major startup mentorship site Clarity, has many of its 7,500 mentors charging at least a few dollars a minute for advice (and $166.67/minute for Mark Cuban).
You don’t have time to sort through mentors. MeetAdvisors mentors are already vetted by the company, and sometimes even interviewed. And you can be sure they’ll respond to your request – if a mentor stops giving advice, says Fridman, their profile and any posts on the blog are removed. If you use Clarity, you’ll have to do the sifting yourself (since anyone can create a mentor profile), check out their curated lists of advisors, or submit a request for help.
That said, it’s worth some time to research the available mentors. Advice can be found anywhere – we have our own section devoted to it – but the best advice comes from people who understand your industry and have experience in the trenches.