The mentor who gave nothing

The GoFest ran a matchmaking service, GoMatch, meant to connect founders with investors and mentors. The funnel eroded before it began: four promised matches became three on the platform, one woman declined, and after Juan confirmed the remaining two, another declined ▸ 5:03. One left, a man who builds apartments in Ibagué, presented as something like an angel investor, though Juan’s own research with Claude turned up no trace of him having invested in anything. First-timer, maybe.

They woke late, ran for the bus, arrived at table 215 five minutes past eleven, and he wasn’t there. He had never cancelled, though the platform lets you cancel at the last minute with no penalty. He simply didn’t come, and they’d eaten the whole trip into Bogotá for it. They weren’t the only ones; over the next hour something like five people arrived at that same table looking for the same man, and each time Juan had to say, no, we’re not the investors either.

mi conocimiento yo no lo regalo →

An organizer improvised, waving over the man sitting at the next table, who said yes. He opened by clarifying that he wasn’t there to invest, but to mentor, to help ▸ 9:00, which Juan heard as good news: fine, tell us if we’re on the right track, point out what’s broken, any help is useful. So they pitched him the whole idea.

His entire response, delivered as he was already standing to leave: this is my LinkedIn, follow me, my success stories are there, my companies are there, and this is my card ▸ 9:26. Nothing else. Not a crumb, ni una pizca. Juan stopped him to ask what he actually does, because from what he’d said it was impossible to tell, software? sales? nothing was legible. The example he gave back: a man who worked with him for eight months building an app to connect startups, and who by the end had discovered that what he really wanted was to make social-media videos about entrepreneurship. So, a coach.

And there Juan’s read lands, unsentimental: the man wasn’t mentoring, he was selling ▸ 9:48. His knowledge is inventory, and inventory isn’t given away; it’s sampled, just enough to make you follow the LinkedIn and eventually pay. Which is a legitimate business, and also the exact opposite of what a free mentoring slot at a founders’ fair advertises itself to be. The lesson isn’t that the man was a villain. It’s that “I’m here to help” and “I’m here to sell help” wear the same jacket, and you find out which one sat down only by asking a direct question and watching whether anything real comes back…