Page 139 - guidance-supporting-europe-s-aspiring-entrepreneurs-policy-and-practice-to-harness-future-potential

Guidance supporting Europe’s aspiring entrepreneurs
Policy and practice to harness future potential

Example 30. Netmentor, Portugal

NetMentor is an internet-based tool created to support both new and more established
entrepreneurs. Its aim is to make it easier for those in isolated areas and with poor transport links to
have contact with business advisors, allowing the target groups to access quality advice and training
from their own home. The main target groups consist of women with caring responsibilities who find
it difficult to travel, entrepreneurs in rural areas, and, young people without access to transport.
NetMentor aids discussions and exchanges of information between mentees and mentors. It
also collects business information through an extranet linked to an Excel document. This creates a
database which enables regularly updated information on accountancy and other business issues to
be accessed and shared by users.
Advisers and mentors are also able to build up an electronic store of knowledge about the
opportunities and risks of business creation in particular sectors which will in turn improve the
quality of the advice that mentors can give to new entrepreneurs. It also helps to compare the
performance of potential start-ups from the same sector at a local level.

5.1.6. Mentoring and career management skills
Our research, interviews and the Swedish case suggest that the potential
benefits of mentoring go beyond business management skills. Mentoring has the
potential to support the career management skills of aspiring and novice
entrepreneurs by helping them to:
• understand which management and generic business styles come naturally to
them and what aspects are or can be a struggle;
• understand how other entrepreneurs network, think and learn;
• improve their ability to learn, deal with changes in internal and external
circumstances of their business and career, and overcome problems;
• understand and appreciate their potential as an entrepreneur, including
providing tools and building the confidence required to ‘step-out’ and start or
continue a career as an entrepreneur, or to close down their company if it is
deemed to be the right option;
• understand their readiness for a career as an entrepreneur, including the
socialisation and orientation aspects of an entrepreneurial career;
• become more aware of the opportunities for help, advice, grants, loans and
networks available to support them in their entrepreneurial career, and what
needs to be done to access them.
• improve their business and managerial performance, by adding value to the
original business idea or model, stimulating thinking and providing reality
checks; also becoming more organised, practical, realistic and target-driven;
• provide a listening ear when they need to talk something through or consider
ideas with someone.

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