Mentoring Young People Into Enterprise, Not Just Employment

Aspiration is inherited, not taught

A young person's sense of the possible is set almost entirely by proximity. If nobody in their immediate orbit has built something, enterprise remains an abstraction they watch on a screen.

The most useful thing a mentor provides is not advice. It is proof — a real person, close enough to be plausible, doing something the young person had filed under 'not for people like me'.

Teach the boring skills

Enterprise is glamourised into pitching and branding. The skills that actually determine outcomes are unfashionable: showing up on time, writing a clear email, managing money, following up, finishing.

I would rather a sixteen-year-old learn to send a professional follow-up message than learn to make a pitch deck. One of those compounds across every future path.

Give real responsibility early

Simulated projects teach simulated lessons. Give a young person something real with a genuine consequence — a small budget, a live customer, a deadline that matters — and the learning rate changes completely.

Then let them get it wrong while the stakes are still small enough to recover from.

Character before capability

Ambition without character produces damage at scale. I spend as much mentoring time on how someone treats people with no leverage as on strategy or skills.

The market eventually forgives a weak first business. It rarely forgets a reputation formed at twenty-two.

• Meet consistently — monthly for two years beats intensive for a month.
• Introduce them to two people in your network per year and let them lead the follow-up.
• Tell them the truth kindly; flattery is the least useful thing a mentor can offer.