If you start a company, chances are that you’ll fail within the first year of operating.
What might improve your prospects is having a good mentor. Someone who’s been down that entrepreneurial path before and has made those mistakes already, so you don’t have to. Someone that has seen a lot of startups succeed and fail, and has a sense for what the right ingredients are to win customers. Someone who can connect you with investors when the time’s right for funding.
Sean Wise has been that person for many Canadian entrepreneurs. The Ryerson University professor, online host of CBC’s Dragon’s Den, and host of the upcoming show The Naked Entrepreneur is now also the winner of Startup Canada’s mentor of the year for 2014. Hit play on the video above to hear his advice on good mentorship for startups.
Here’s a complete list of the winners for Startup Canada’s 2014 awards, which saw 3,500 voters help a panel of judges decide the outcome:
- Startup effect award: Startup Festival
- Post-secondary institution: University of New Brunswick
- Startup community: Startup Calgary
- Anchor company: Microsoft Canada
- Incubator: TEC Edmonton
- Accelerator: Wavefront
- Professional services: Ernst and Young Canada
- Government organization: Build in Canada
- Non profit organization: MaRS Discovery District
- Entrepreneur eco-system builder: Chris Johnson, Startup Winnipeg
- Mentor: Sean Wise
- Investor: Randy Thomson
- Educator: Mary Kilfoil
- Media person: Rick Spence
- Young entrepreneur: Linda Maziaris
- Lifetime achievement award: Gerry Pond