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HOW I GOT TIM FERRISS, JAMES ALTUCHER, AND PAT FLYNN TO BE MY MENTORSHaving mentors is a game changer. People can confuse “mentors” to mean learning from some old guy who speaks only in proverbs. Mentors can be anyone who has been in similar shoes before, gained experience, and can help you on your journey. Roy H. Williams had a great quote;“A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.”This is the question that I’ve been trying to solve for the last three years. To my luck, I’m extremely grateful to have successful entrepreneurs like James Altucher, Tim Ferriss, and Pat Flynn as some of my mentors.What’s my secret? Simple. I read their books. I listen to their podcasts. I consume their work.Another illusion about mentorship is that the “mentor” has to be right by the “mentee” holding their hand. But if a mentor is someone who has been in similar shoes and is willing to help you out, aren’t books and podcasts technically a form of “mentorship”?Take James Altucher as an example. He is a famous investor, author, and entrepreneur most known for his authentic writing style. James has over 20+ years of experience over me in areas like business, writing, and life. I’ve consumed a significant amount of James Altucher’s work including his most recent book, The Choose Yourself Guide To WealthThat book single handedly inspired me to develop a daily practice and improve myself in four main areas of my life: Emotionally, Physically, Mentally, and Spiritually. James’ Podcast Episode 21 titled, College Is A Scam, was the tipping point for me to drop out of school. Ep. 23 with Steve Scott, an author of over 40 e-books, sparked my interest to write my first book which is up on Amazon right now! Ep. 90 with Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, helped me reflect on my life identify what I truly wanted in life.When a prolific author writes a book (or appears on a podcast) and distills their knowledge into a condensed piece of art, it’s time to pay attention! I would even argue a few life-changing books would be more useful than an entire year of college classes. My favorites are:a) How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegieb) The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holidayc) The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life by Chris GuillebeauOn top of consuming their work, I took it a step further and started my own podcast. This gave me a chance to interview brilliant people every week including, Charlie Hoehn (Former Director of Special Projects for Tim Ferriss), Ryan Porter (Tech Entrepreneur & Youth Speaker), & Dave Fontenot (Hackathon Leader).You can learn ANYTHING from the BEST people in the industry for less than the cost of your next lunch at Chipotle. Podcasts are free (including starting your own). YouTube is free. Quora, Reddit, or any blog on the internet is free. Online college courses are free! Scott Young got an MIT education at the comfort of his own home. He also made a bunch of MIT students incredibly envious from the amount of money and time he saved. Books are dirt cheap, especially on Kindle. Online Courses are embarrassingly affordable (most are free). Make the world your classroom and keep track of your learning with Degreed!To say that James Altucher and other mentors had a big impact on me is a huge understatement. Although I never met James, Tim Ferriss, or Pat Flynn in person, their mentorship has been one of the biggest factors in accelerating my learning.If you want to have your own high-class mentors, start with these three basic steps:1. Go find 3 people in your space that you admire and want to learn from2. Consume their work: Books, Podcasts (See if they have been interviewed on other podcasts), Courses, Blogs, Video.3. Use their advice and take ACTIONBonus step: Send your new mentors an email telling them how much they have changed your life. They will seriously appreciate you, trust me.

I echo Tim Berry, Christopher Mirabile's answer is great and comprehensive!Due diligence is part of an investor’s path to reach an investment decision and start an investment relationship (or more accurately, continue an investment relationship that began when they first met an entrepreneur).In all my dealings with investors - whether they are investing in large, established companies or early-stage startups, the questions on their minds are essentially the same:When will I get my money back?What are the outcomes from this investment that will please me?Can I trust you with my money?The information gathered during due diligence is sought to answer these questions (to be clear, question #1 is about return of capital and question #2 is about return on capital and includes other pleasant outcomes such as enjoyment, status, reputation, and others…)I have not seen a standard due diligence practice followed by all investors, however I have a process that I follow for all of the early-stage investments made by Pique Fund, an angel fund that I manage, as well as investments I make personally.There are two key parts: experiential due diligence and a collection of evaluation tools.Experiential due diligence starts with meeting entrepreneurs over time and observing whether they do what they say they are going to do. I also get a chance to experience how we get along, how we both deal with “bad news” or challenges, and how we build upon opportunities.The collection of evaluation tools I use is made up of the following:Traditional Evaluation ToolsThis is a combination of analytical tools such as:scenario analysis - has the entrepreneur considered “what if” situations or “Plan B” if something doesn’t go to plan?review of financial projections - what are the underlying assumptions, to what extent are they guessing or basing their projections on data they’ve collected and validated?SWOT analysis - good old-fashioned strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threatsrisk analysis - what are the risks and how are they being managed?Venture Development and Evaluation ToolsWith the number of tools available to entrepreneurs starting new ventures, I took some of these and applied them from an investor perspective:business model canvas - as much as this is a business model design tool, it is also useful for communicating a business model and use by an investor to understand the business model of a startupseven domains model - this tool concisely guides entrepreneurs to evaluate the market and industry they are in, the customers they serve and their competitors, and the qualities of their team. Equally, investors can use this tool as a memory aid to remind them to evaluate the market, industry, and team domains in relation to a companyImpact Identification and Evaluation ToolsI’m an impact investor, so I also evaluate the positive (or negative) social impact a company may have. For this, I developed my own tools.access to essential resources matrix - this helps me identify what type of essential resources the company provides access to and what level of accessbusiness impact canvas - this is a variation of the business model canvas and looks at where in the business model, positive impact is happeningcost/benefit analysis for all stakeholders - this evaluates the cost and benefits to stakeholders including customers, partners, suppliers, employees, the community, and the planet (particularly useful for identifying negative externalities)impact summary - I capture and summarize four areas of impact in my evaluation - business impact (potential for the usual - revenues, profit, etc.), social impact (that which can be counted), qualitative impact (impact that is difficult to measure, but can be captured through stories), and macro impact (the broader systems-level impact they are trying to achieve, but may be difficult to trace directly to the company)I collectively call the evaluation tools the Integrated Investing Toolkit and they are described in greater detail in Chapter 7 of Integrated Investing (coming Fall 2016). A short version of the Integrated Investing toolkit is also available (happy to let you know how to get a copy).I meet entrepreneurs often, over time - experiential due diligence is constant and ongoing (I’m always doing due diligence, even when people don’t think I am. I can’t help it, it’s in my blood) and if I think a company may be a good fit as an investment, I do preliminary due diligence (with Pique Fund, I talk to my investment committee colleagues and together we green light those opportunities that go to detailed due diligence). Since due diligence is time consuming, I tend to do detailed due diligence on the companies I feel we have the best chance of finding good fit and reaching agreement to invest. After we complete detailed due diligence, we review legal agreements and negotiate any final terms in the documents.

One of my favorite things to do over the last 12 years is to sit down with a successful entrepreneur and to learn from them.Recently, one of my close friends asked me if I would be interested in meeting Mike to hear the story of how he started his solar company.I said yes and met Mike for a few hours. His story really inspired me and I hope it inspires you.One year ago, Mike was laid off along with his team and several hundred other employees as his last company chose to go in a different strategic direction. It was one of the hardest things he had to go through in his life. That moment felt like rock bottom for Mike.But he bounced back.Fast forward to today, and he’s running a solar company that hit one million in sales in just 100 days. They followed that up and hit two million in sales just 30 days after that.Along the way, Mike learned a lot of lessons that were absolutely critical to his success. He wanted me to share these lessons with you in the hopes that it could help you in your entrepreneurial journey.Here are the 14 lessons directly from Mike:1. Everyone is in sales - If you want to generate one million in sales in your first 100 or 200 or 300 days, then everyone in the company needs to be in sales, whether you’re the President of the company, an installer, a project administrator, or any other position. At Lumina, everyone has a role that other people rely on. But everyone is also in sales and helping to drive prospects toward the business and the mission. Always be selling.2. Speed is critical - We view speed as one of our most important differentiators. Speed to market, speed to installation, speed to customer response time, speed to product launch and speed to solving issues. And if we can’t be fast as a 4 or 10 or 25 person company, we will never be fast as a 100 person company.There were several key things we implemented with amazing speed. We got our installation team and ability to install in place quickly with the appropriate licenses and expertise. Once this was solidified, we created a strong product offering, including cash, finance, and lease options. Then we created our design, proposal and contract processes within 2 weeks. Lastly, we worked hard to find customers quickly. We reached out to our network, piloted a variety of marketing tactics and began meeting with prospects.In retrospect, all these areas could have taken months to build, but we attacked these issues fast and were in position to go to market soon after we incorporated. It was a ton of work, but speed was one of our stronger assets in growing this business the first 100 days and we plan to continue to use it to our advantage.3. Build the Right Team is Critical- Bringing together the founding team of Colin Gload, Zac Hare, and Ryan Farrell was the most critical piece in getting off to a fast start. I can’t imagine starting a business alone. With those three plus our other team members, we were able to delegate tasks and accomplish exponentially more by working together as a team.4. Treat people well throughout your career - You’ll be more effective in your current role and will have a more enjoyable working environment in the short term. You also never know who may come back to help you. We’ve been fortunate to receive a lot of help from past colleagues, vendors, and friends.5. Trust your people - This is easy to say. It’s much harder in practice. During the first month, I tried to be involved in every aspect of the business. After incredibly late nights with little progress, we started truly delegating tasks and giving the team complete ownership over their objectives. It’s fun to be involved in everything... until you’re involved in everything. When you take a step back and let people do their work, you can accomplish significantly more. You may not agree with every decision or every word of copy, but that’s okay. Give people true ownership of their work. They may be right anyway and you’ll get a lot more done.6. Do hard things outside of work - This provides perspective. One of my co-founders, Colin Gload along with myself, my brother and brother-in-law went to Tanzania and hiked Kilimanjaro last fall after Colin and I were laid off. The 6 day hike up the Macheme route was one of the most beautiful and hard things I’ve ever done. We all agreed that the 7 hour Summit on day 5 starting at midnight was physically the hardest thing of our lives. Climbing the mountain at 4 am was absolutely brutal. But getting to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro for sunrise was one of the most rewarding moments of all. Everytime I deal with something challenging, I think back to that midnight climb and things feel a little easier. Solving a vendor issue seems a lot easier compared to hiking up in pitch black darkness at 18,000 feet with limited oxygen.Run a half marathon. Go on a long hike. Do things outside of your comfort zone to give yourself a landmark in time that you can look back on that will provide some perspective to the daily challenges you face.7. It is always better to slightly overpay people than to underpay them - And if you combine that with giving people the respect they deserve, you’ll build yourself a team that works hard through the good times and pushes through the challenges. This can come in a variety of ways. Take people out to lunch. Listen to what they have to say. Celebrate victories every week.8. Read Ben Horowitz’s Hard Thing About Hard Things - I don’t often read books more than once, but I’ve read this 7 times since it came out in 2014. It’s easily my favorite book and one that can be applied across an infinite number of businesses. It helped me handle the layoff with my team last year, even though I was part of the group getting laid off. It’s helped me determine what’s important when building our company culture (hint: culture is not perks, it’s the collective behavior of your organization). And it’s also helped us determine what is important to focus on as we build.9. Build a plan for your goals - It can be very easy to get side tracked, but you have to determine what your goals are and plan how you’re going to get there. For example, we approach sales with a principles first mind-set. How much are we going to sell in our first 100 days? How many appointments do we need to run to get there? Where are we going to source those appointments? What activity is necessary to generate those sources? Once we understood some of these questions, we built out a plan to execute. If you take a more scientific approach to sales, you’ll find it’s much easier to hit your objectives than winging it.10. Don’t let problems sit - Attack them as quickly as possible. Early on, I could tell someone on our team was having challenges with a few issues. The easy path was to ignore it and move on. I wasn’t even sure what all the issues were. So we grabbed dinner one night and talked through the problems. Some of the issues I had a sense for, but others I wasn’t even aware of. We talked through them, and I learned a few things I needed to do better. But what I really learned is that most of the problems were simple communication issues that didn’t have a proper forum to address. The following week, the co-founders and I held a 6 am breakfast meeting to talk through the issues and get on the same page. It wasn’t always a fun conversation, but we all handled the handled it like pros, got on the same page and were able to move forward. In retrospect, that week is one of the better weeks we’ve had even though it was hard. It taught us all how to address challenges effectively as things grow quickly and how to run an effective communication line when the next challenge pops up. It was a tough week, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It made us better.11. Give yourself perspective - The days can feel incredibly long, and often, it doesn’t feel like we’ve made much progress. But every single week, we’re able to step back, look at the bricks we’ve laid and appreciate the progress. At our team meeting every Tuesday, the first thing we do is look back and celebrate all that we accomplished the previous week. We built a million dollar business because we planned it out, worked incredibly hard, measured our progress weekly and celebrated weekly. We woke up 100 days later with over $1,000,000 on the books.12. Don’t forget about those you care about - My wife and I have been together almost 10 years and married for 3. We’re expecting our first child this fall. I’ve never worked as hard as I’ve worked this year. But we don’t skip date night any week. If you don’t remember and take care of the ones you love, then what’s the point?13. Learn from your mistakes quickly - Don't stick with a process that isn't working. We started out our first few weeks with a design and proposal tool that had a beautiful demo, but was not a strong tool once we starting quoting in real time. We quickly moved to the best design tool in the industry (Aurora) and it added a completely different layer of expertise to our designs. And our customers recognized it. Sales increased and our sales team was much happier being confident in their designs. It cost us a little money to cancel the first contract and we’re paying more for the second tool, but it still fits in our financial model and it’s been the number one adjustment we’ve made from a customer facing perspective.14. Have a powerful why - We know more about climate change than ever before and the human impact on our environment is slowly being seen. We felt this first hand climbing Kilimanjaro. Our guides had been doing this for years. It was scary hearing them tell stories of the glaciers from their first hikes in 2006 and how only 6 of 11 glaciers remain. They’ve observed something without agenda and it reminded me of how important our mission is. Our goal is to help the world transition to renewable energy so we can mitigate the impact of climate change more important to us all.These are the lessons I’ve learned since I’ve started my company and I hope it helps you take your company to new heights.Now it’s your time to shine.