Mentoring

While your own great ideas are essential to your business, through mentorship entrepreneurs can have a powerful asset to get you through rough times when your self-confidence may be waning. Be careful to take your time about entering into mentorship relationships. Many mentors have had excellent careers in corporations BUT corporations are very different to start-ups and people who excelled as leaders in large enterprises may find that those skills do not seamlessly transfer to micro enterprises. The ideal mentor is one who has successfully scaled a business in a similar industry to the one you are in but they may be impossible to find so be aware that finding the right mentor is not just a matter of contacting a local organisation.

Good mentorship will show you new perspectives and pathways to success and can help a fledgling entrepreneur think through strategies, crunch numbers, and create a business or marketing plan.

You can try local business and start-up networking groups as well as the leadership of community non-profit organizations to find mentors. Business incubators and accelerators are also great places to frequent if you want to establish connections with entrepreneurs at all levels of experience. Also try Chamber of Commerce meetings, local business roundtables, social media communities, and industry conferences.

Here are a few ideas on a local level:

• FPEI is a joint venture between the DIFME partners Malta Business Bureau and the University of Malta –'its first focus is on alleviating the access to funding problem and on providing support to entrepreneurs to start-up and scale-up.'
• Malta Business Bureau organises a number of mentoring programmes on a regular basis. Follow them online via facebook and search their mentorship programmes here.
• Start your own Enterprise - TAKEOFF The Enterprise Campus business incubator gives you the know-how, tools and mentoring to turn a good idea into a great business. It works closely with Malta Enterprise and Business First to move entrepreneurs along the right path.
• Start-up Support - As part of Business First, it is Maltese Government’s main point of contact for the business community and for aspiring entrepreneurs. It provides a holistic business support centre acting as a first point of contact for business and a centre for business support.
• Mita Innovation Hub – YouStartIt (mih.mt) will guide you in the validation, testing and execution of your business idea, helping you identify and develop all the individual building blocks you need to build a product with a unique selling proposition. You will get the opportunity to connect with mentors, expert networks, business angels and funding institutions.
• Malta Enterprise is the country’s economic development agency, tasked with attracting new foreign direct investment as well as facilitating the growth of existing operations. Malta Digital Hub | Malta Life Sciences Park located within the Malta Life Sciences Park was conceived by Malta Enterprise, to provide an international class facility for life sciences and information technology development.
• The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry is the independent voice of the private sector in Malta. Its principal mission is to actively represent companies from all economic sectors and ensure that entrepreneurs enjoy the best competitive environment and regulatory conditions possible for the conduct of business.