Latest / The Career Mentor Podcast with Fexingo: Finding Mentors, Sponsors, and Career Advisors / How to Find a Mentor When You Work in a Small Company
Transcript
- Lucas: You work at a small company — maybe thirty people, maybe a startup where the CEO is still writing code. You'd love a mentor, but there's nobody who's obviously senior to you in your function. You're the only marketer, or the only product person. So what do you do? Luna: That's a really common problem. I've heard from listeners who say, 'I can't find a mentor because my company has like two layers of management and my boss is the VP of everything.' Lucas: Right. And the typical advice — 'ask your manager' or 'find a senior leader in your org' — just doesn't apply. So today I want to talk about three specific strategies for finding mentorship when the organizational chart is flat. Luna: I'm all ears. Lay them out. Lucas: Strategy one I call the 'one-room schoolhouse' approach. In a small company, you have people who are maybe only one or two years ahead of you. They're not senior in title, but they've solved problems you haven't faced yet. A junior engineer who's been there eighteen months can mentor a new grad about how to navigate the codebase and the unwritten rules of the culture. Luna: So it's about looking sideways, not up. Don't fixate on finding a vp level mentor. Lucas: Exactly. I worked with a marketing coordinator at a twenty-person fintech startup. She was the only marketer. She started a weekly coffee chat with the lead designer — same tenure, but the designer had been at two previous startups. That designer taught her how to pitch campaigns internally and get buy-in from engineers. That's a mentorship, even though neither one outranks the other. Luna: I like that. Peer mentorship works especially well in small companies because there's less status anxiety. You're both in the trenches. Lucas: Strategy two is the 'outsider mentor.' If your company is too small to have a senior person in your field, go outside. One of the best mentors I've ever heard of was a product manager at a forty-person company who cold-emailed a former VP of product at a larger firm in the same industry. She didn't ask for a formal mentorship. She asked for a thirty-minute call to discuss one specific decision she was wrestling with. Luna: That framing is key. 'I need your perspective on this one thing' is a much easier ask than 'Will you be my mentor for the next year?' Lucas: Exactly. That call turned into a quarterly check-in that lasted two years. The VP got to stay connected to the startup scene without leaving his big-company job. It was a low-commitment, high-signal relationship for both sides. Luna: And the outsider mentor brings something you can't get internally: a benchmark. They know how other companies do things, so they can tell you, 'Hey, that's not how it works at most places, here's a better approach.' Lucas: Strategy three is to leverage what I call 'networks within networks.' If you work at a startup that's part of an accelerator, an industry association, or even a Slack community for your niche — those are full of potential mentors. I know a data scientist at a ten-person analytics shop who found his mentor through a local chapter of the Data Science Association. They met at a meetup and kept talking. Luna: So the mentor doesn't have to come from your company at all. It can come from your professional community. Lucas: Right. And that mentor understands your world because they're in the same industry, but they're not tangled in your office politics. They can give you advice that's actually honest. I think small-company employees often underestimate how willing people outside their firm are to help. Most senior professionals are happy to pay it forward — they just need a specific, low-friction ask. Luna: Let's talk about that ask. Because if you're at a small company, you might feel like you're not important enough for someone senior to want to talk to you. Lucas: That's impostor syndrome, and it's especially common in small firms where nobody has a big title. But here's the reality: senior people at big companies are often curious about what's happening in startups. They're considering a move, or they want to stay on the pulse of innovation. Your small-company perspective is actually an asset. So when you reach out, lead with that. Say, 'I work at a startup doing X, and I'd love to get your perspective on how to scale Y, because you've done it before.' Luna: Flattery but genuine. You're acknowledging their expertise and offering a window into a world they find interesting. Lucas: And keep the ask small. Not 'Can you mentor me?' but 'Could we do a twenty-minute call next week to talk about your experience with X?' If that goes well, you can ask if they'd be open to a follow-up in a few months. That's how relationships build. Luna: I want to come back to something you mentioned earlier — the idea of peer mentorship. Can you give a concrete example of how to make it structured and not just a casual chat? Lucas: Sure. The marketing coordinator I mentioned — she and the designer set a recurring thirty-minute meeting every two weeks. They each brought one problem they were working on. For her, it was 'How do I get engineers to review my copy?' He gave her specific language to use in the request. For him, it was 'How do I defend my design decisions in standups?' She helped him frame his rationale in business terms. It was reciprocal, which made it sustainable. Luna: So the key is that both people are getting something. It's not one-sided. That's more likely to last. Lucas: Exactly. And if you're at a very small company — say, fewer than ten people — your peer mentor might be someone at a similarly-sized company in a different industry. I know two founders who started a 'CEO support group' where they meet weekly to trade advice. They're not competitors, but they face the same challenges around hiring, fundraising, and burnout. Luna: That's a genius model. You get the empathy of someone who's in the same boat, but the advice isn't biased by company politics. Lucas: And it costs nothing but time. So to sum up: if you're at a small company, don't assume mentorship is unavailable. Look sideways at peers who are slightly ahead of you. Look outside to people in your industry who might be curious about your world. And look to professional networks that connect you with people who've been where you are. Luna: I think the biggest takeaway is to stop waiting for a mentor to appear and start making specific, low-stakes requests. People are more generous than we think. Lucas: Absolutely. And speaking of generosity — a quick note. This show is ad-free, and that's entirely because of listeners who support it through small contributions. If you've gotten value from episodes like this one, buying us a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely helps us keep going. It's a couple of dollars a month, and it adds up. Luna: Yeah, it makes a real difference. We're grateful to everyone who chips in. Lucas: So back to the topic — one last thought. If you're in a small company and you've tried these strategies and still feel stuck, consider starting an informal mentorship program yourself. Pair up junior and slightly less junior people for mutual learning. You don't need permission. Luna: That's a great point. In a small company, you have more agency than you think. You can create the culture you want. Lucas: Next episode, we're going to talk about what to do when your mentor moves companies or retires. It's a transition a lot of people don't prepare for. Until then, keep asking for those twenty-minute calls. Luna: See you next time.