Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 2/5

Sid Sijbrandij: Pitch a specific 10-minute problem instead of generic mentorship

Sid Sijbrandij · Sid Sijbrandij: How I Founded GitLab; Remote Work vs In-Person; CEO Coaches | 20VC · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 20, 2022 · at 22:14

Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and CEO of GitLab, offers tactical guidance on mentorship outreach and securing advice from experienced leaders.

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“I think what's really, what I see sometimes is that people reach out and ask whether you want to be their mentor. And I think that's Unlikely to be a yes for me, but I think also from other people. I think you want to kind of, you want to start small, iterate maybe you want to reach out and say, look, I got this problem. This is why it's super important for me to solve it. This is what I think about it. This is what I would do if I won't talk to you. This is why I think you're like the most qualified person in the world to help me with that. Could we help on a 10 minute call to have a back and forth? I think that's, you're much more likely to find your mentor that way than just a cold reach out.”

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