Mentor Corner: Meet Doug Stidolph

Mentor Corner is a monthly feature highlighting the incredible contributions made by our mentor network to our venture community.

At entrepreneurship@UBC, we are privileged to work with a pool of 250+ mentors across the Vancouver and BC innovation ecosystem who invest their time, expertise and insights into growing the early-stage ventures of tomorrow. From entrepreneurial leadership development to scaling venture creation, our mentor network is fundamental to what we do here and we are excited to introduce you to them in our monthly feature, Mentor Corner!

Meet Doug Stidolph

Doug Stidolph is a serial entrepreneur and brand marketer from London, UK. First starting his career at Red Bull in 2010, he’s helped grow some of the most successful start-ups in Europe, and has started companies across the adventure sports, events, professional development, fitness, gaming and - recently - blockchain sectors. In 2020 his gaming company, Quell, was accepted into Y Combinator at only 2 months old, and managed to scale to a $15m valuation just 3 months later. He has worked with leaders at JUUL, Transak, Gener8, The Yacht Week and more.

As part of our Mentor Network over the last 6 months, Doug places the majority of his time into Lab2Launch, but looks forward to diving into CORE when he gets the chance to. He's worked with great teams across both - including SmartMom, IRLY (formerly Vibe), Alpha Lotos, AIMA and Stamp.

Learn more about how Doug works with ventures as a mentor, what advice he’d give to our community and the most important lessons he’s learned along the way.

 

How did you get into mentorship? What brought you here? What keeps you coming back?

My academic background was in technology entrepreneurship, and this proceeded almost immediately after graduation with working in startups, and soon thereafter starting my own, so I’ve really not known much else than the day-to-day rollercoaster that is business creation and growth! Most of my energies were dedicated to building the companies in question, although soon after starting I had people coming to me with queries of their own about the journey, and the troubles they were facing. Unlike almost all other lines of work, entrepreneurship doesn’t come with a clear guidebook or anyone to tell you the right answers, and this can throw a lot of first-time founders who come from backgrounds with more stability and feedback. I couldn’t tell anyone the right answers in those early days (I still can’t), but very quickly some of those I was sitting down to talk to were introducing me to others and asking me to help them too. It seemed the anecdotes and mistakes I was making in my own business journey were helping me better guide those coming to me for help! Mentoring founders has become something that exists seamlessly alongside my own journey as a business creator these days - I actually find it hugely rewarding, and it is the best way I can give back from the thousands of hours I’ve dedicated to learning the hard way on my own journey.

 

 

"Mentoring founders has become something that exists seamlessly alongside my own journey as a business creator these days - I actually find it hugely rewarding, and it is the best way I can give back from the thousands of hours I’ve dedicated to learning the hard way on my own journey."

- Doug Stidolph

 

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your mentorship career?

As a mentor, you are there for the low times more often than the high times with your founders - sometimes this calls for high-energy, problem-solving attitudes and an approach that challenges the founders to push harder, but at others it asks for patience, understanding and counseling. Those founders you teach to accept the times they fail and learn constructively from them can go on to do great things in their future ventures, so to be a good mentor you have to be able to guide mentees on both the way up and way down. Take time to develop your ability to help in both dimensions.

 

Working with early-stage startups, you have the opportunity to make a huge impact on the founders you are working with. What impacts have founders made on you?

Entrepreneurship has spent years being glamorous and in the spotlight - how many founders cite Elon Musk as a hero? Of course the reality is that this journey is incredibly tough, deeply uncertain, and for the most part thankless. The people who come into our programmes and decide to actually follow this path are some of the most resilient, engaging, dynamic and fun people I meet. Psychology and sociology teach that as humans we tend to reflect the energy, habits and attitudes of those we spend the most time around - our tribe - so by working with founders at these early stages, I am lucky enough to gain from this collective energy every day. It is so inspiring.

 

 

"The reality is that this journey is incredibly tough, deeply uncertain, and for the most part thankless. The people who come into our programmes and decide to actually follow this path are some of the most resilient, engaging, dynamic and fun people I meet. "

- Doug Stidolph

 

 

If you could impart one piece of sage advice for our community, what would it be?

Network, network, network. And don’t just collect names for your LinkedIn follower count; invest in people. Listen to them. Spend time around them. Try to help them more than they can help you at that moment in time. This is a long-game strategy, but nothing has helped me more than the doors these amazing people have later helped me open when I need to count on them. Of course, you have to actually do the work too, so learn to become a master of your time-management. And whatever you do, unplug from social apps when you’re trying to do deep work.

 

"This is a long-game strategy, but nothing has helped me more than the doors these amazing people have later helped me open when I need to count on them."

- Doug Stidolph

 

What book are you reading? What playlist are you listening to? What is the app you can’t quit?

Book: Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. My reading list tends to be a blend of marketing and social science, and I always look for a personal recommendation before starting it. This one was suggested to me by cognitive neuroscientist Dr Javid Farahani - one of the smartest people I’ve ever had the privilege to mentor.

Playlist: Anjunadeep 13. I struggle hugely with focus (if you are lucky enough not to, learn your magic trick and bottle it); these 2-3 hour mixes from Anjunadeep give me the ability to get lost in flow for a little while. Best for a late-night session.

App: Elevate! I play it daily. Everyone should. This app could be 3x the price and it would still be insanely good value. Make it part of your daily habit stack and I promise you’ll feel serious upside from it after a few months.

 

What do you wish you would have know, when starting out?

You are not your startup. Your startup is nothing more than a hypothesis - an experiment - and you are the mad scientist standing over it trying to bring it to life. The experiment will not go as predicted. When this happens, you tweak some variables and keep testing the central hypothesis (or tweak the hypothesis based on what worked that you didn’t expect to). There is no failure - there is either a successful business or knowledge you can take forward to future experiments.

I made the mistake of getting too personally attached to my first venture, and refused to let the idea die for 2 years longer than I should have. It hurt, and the pain wasn’t a waste. You will go on to do many things in your life, do not let your attachment to a nascent idea take you down, ever. Most startups fail, and founder mistakes are only one of a multitude of reasons for this. Expect to have many experiments before your eureka moment.

 

"You are not your startup. Your startup is nothing more than a hypothesis - an experiment - and you are the mad scientist standing over it trying to bring it to life...There is no failure - there is either a successful business or knowledge you can take forward to future experiments."

- Doug Stidolph

 

Thank you Doug for your expert insights and continued impact on our community!

Are you interested in joining our mentor network? Learn more here.