Working With Investors
A fund can engage you to advise the companies it has backed. The mechanics mirror an incubator association, but the counterparty is different and so is what you are walking into.
What you will learn
- How a fund invitation differs from an incubator one
- The payment models and who carries the cost
- What to check before accepting
- The conflict question nobody raises for you
How it starts#
A fund browses the mentor directory, finds you, and sends an invitation with proposed terms. It appears on your Investors page. As with incubators, only verified mentors are visible to them.
Good to know
Accepting moves you out of that fund's discoverable list and into its associated mentors. If you disappear from a directory after accepting, that is why.
The payment models#
| Model | Who pays | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Investor pays | The fund | Portfolio support the fund treats as its own cost |
| Startup pays | The portfolio company | The fund introduces; the company buys your time |
| Subsidised | Split | The fund covers a share to make you affordable early on |
| Retainer | The fund | Fixed amount and fixed hours across the portfolio |
| Free | Nobody | Usually traded against access and relationships |
‘Startup pays’ changes who your client is
The fund made the introduction, but the company is paying. If those two want different things from the engagement - and they sometimes do - you are working for the one holding the invoice. Decide how you will handle that before it happens, not during.
Before you accept#
- 1
Check the terms
Payment model and agreed rate, plus amount and hours if it is a retainer.
- 2
Ask what the engagement actually is
Advising three companies deeply is a different commitment from being on call to twenty. The invitation rarely says which.
- 3
Check for conflicts
If you already advise a company that competes with one in this portfolio, that is your problem to surface. Nothing in the platform checks it for you.
Conflicts are not detected automatically
The platform will happily let you mentor two direct competitors through two different funds. Keeping track of that is entirely yours.
Once you are associated#
- Portfolio companies can book you under the agreed terms
- Those bookings appear in your normal Bookings list
- Settlement follows the association, not your public price list
- Either side can end the association; confirmed sessions stand
Yes, and many mentors do. They are independent, and each carries its own terms.
Treat the session as confidential to the founder unless the terms of the engagement say otherwise, and be explicit with the founder about which it is. Ambiguity here damages trust faster than anything else you can do.
That is a legitimate arrangement, but it must be disclosed to the founder before the first session. A mentor quietly reporting to an investor is not a mentor.
