Entrepreneurship is difficult by design. Even the most resilient business owners need support as they navigate the entrepreneurial journey, making something out of nothing, and hiring at rates exceeding any other industry. The converging crises of this epoch has proven to make these journeys even more challenging.

Entrepreneurs need support to not just survive but thrive during these difficult days. Industries, markets, technology, customers, and buying habits are rapidly changing at a pace faster than ever before. The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, an independent non profit committed to advancing entrepreneurial education worldwide, has collaborated with MentorCloud, a purpose-driven mentorship technology company, to launch Mentor Makers, a free mentoring community platform for entrepreneurs, with access to a network of industry and topic experts to answer tactical business questions via this online experience.

Entrepreneurs from underrepresented and marginalized communities are less likely to easily find mentorship, especially in these crisis times. Black and brown founders, women entrepreneurs, and those from marginalized groups and rural communities speak about not finding people that look like them or that understand from where they are coming when starting their businesses. Separately, it is often viewed that mentorship comes at a cost -- that mentors are only available to entrepreneurs when they aim to get a piece of the pie. With Mentor Makers, we aspire to change that.

Mentor Makers is a social platform that makes connecting and engaging with mentors easy for entrepreneurs of every background. It is a movement to inspire successful business leaders to provide valuable mentorship for 1-2 hours a month in support of entrepreneurs across all races, sectors, and geographies. The inspiration and guidance needed to avoid obstacles and push through challenges can be found simply by booking a session with one of the mentors on the platform.

Offering a robust and scalable online solution for entrepreneurs to access and mentors to share expertise, Mentor Makers facilitates one-on-one mentoring sessions in 30- or 60-minute increments via built-in scheduling, video, and messaging tools.

Nicola Corzine, Founding Executive Director of the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center stated, “When an entrepreneur creates an advisory board of mentors, they are able to find the help they need when they need it the most, gaining insights and support to survive what can seem un-survivable in the moment. Being able to learn beside others who are helping build, or may have already built, successful businesses can help entrepreneurs avoid costly mistakes and leverage their capital, resources, and most importantly their time and energy wisely.”

More than 1,000 mentors and entrepreneurs have already joined the movement, benefitting from engaging mentoring conversations since the platform came out of beta in January this year. John Tilak, an entrepreneur on the platform recently said, “The mentors share profound insights that resonate deeply because they have been there before. I find myself taking a lot of notes and reflecting later on their nuggets of wisdom. My startup is in a better place because of this community. And the impact is lasting.”

Wintley Phipps of US Dream Academy, Kevin Harrington of Shark Tank, Jason Feifer of Entrepreneur Magazine, and Janice Bryant Howroyd of The Act One Group have all joined us in support of the movement. Together, alongside our partner network, Mentor Makers aims to build the greatest exchange of knowledge and expertise in service to entrepreneurs in business today.

“Beyond getting capital support from government and other sources, what entrepreneurs need is mentorship to come out this crisis strong, pivot their businesses and business models as necessary, manage their cash flow, refine their products and services for the new post-pandemic world and and prepare for rapid growth in 2021 and beyond,” says MentorCloud’s Founder & CEO Dr. Ravishankar Gundlapalli. “As a society, we need to reduce entrepreneur failure rates just as intensely as we did in the early 1900s to reduce infant mortality rates,” added Dr. Ravi Gundlapalli.

We’ve partnered with a group of entrepreneurial advocates to expand the networks of support for entrepreneurs within their respective communities. These organizations include: Discover Financial Services, Center for American Entrepreneurship, the Founders Institute, AARP, A Seat At The Table, the Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs, the Association of Women’s Business Centers, Score!, City Light Capital, ESO Ventures, Hello Alice, Sista Circle: Black Women in Tech, Techstars, The ActOne Group, VETSinTECH, Voyaj, Visible Hands, Data 360 Labs, Global Chamber of Business Leaders, the ParentPreneur Foundation, Emirates Trade & Investment, MilsoMuster and many more.