What is the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge Mentorship Program?
We have made available a list of people in the business and academic communitywho have volunteered to serve as advisors to serious teams in the Challenge. These mentors have experience in a variety of areas: business plan writing, patent law, tax accounting and business structure, medical technology, securities law, engineering, small business lending, information systems, software development, and so on. Some of these mentors have successfully started their own companies and have gone through the process of writing a business plan, securing funding, getting a patent, and selling their company.
Since there will be many more teams than mentors, you should act immediately to apply for a mentor. We do encourage teams to recruit their own mentors.
The role of a Challenge Mentor
Mentors have many roles to fill within The Challenge. They include:
| -- | Provide focus |
| -- | Find holes in the business plan |
| -- | Make suggestions about incorporation |
| -- | Critique a team's presentation |
| -- | Suggest contacts and resource people |
| -- | Review marketing ideas |
| -- | Lend advice on protecting intellectual property and applying for patents |
| -- | Help a team find technical expertise |
| -- | Talk about management strategies and business models |
Consider This Before You Work With a Mentor
Our mentors are busy professionals. It is essential that the teams respect this and make sure that arrangements to meet or correspond via email or phone are clear.
Meeting With Your Mentor
This will vary from a couple of hours a month to a couple of hours per week. Be respectful of your mentor’s time. Be punctual to meetings. When cancellation is necessary, please let your mentor know in advance.
Mentor Matching
We will match teams with mentors according to interests and skills the best we can. This relationship is voluntary, though we require that both teams and mentors let us know immediately if there is a mismatch or difficulty in communications.
The relationship between mentor and team is a dialogue that can offer inspiration and an opportunity to reflect and learn. Take advantage of the opportunity and enjoy the experience.
For more information about the Mentorship Program, please contact the Bao Nguyen, the Director of Mentors.