To build a stable and effective organization you need a good team. In the beginning, it is recommended to have a team of at least two or three members. Mentoring is the core business and should be in focus. The most important role in the organization is therefore the mentors. In the beginning, it is natural that all employees are mentors. One of the members should, in addition to being a mentor, take the role of the leader.

When the organization grows and has the resources needed, you can extend the organization to have people focusing on promoting the service, planning events, and helping startups with specific tasks and problems. Remember that all employees should sign a confidentiality agreement/NDA so the organization is a safe space for the startups to discuss ideas.

Mentors

The role of the mentor is to provide guidance and support to the mentees to help them pursue their ideas and guide them through the entrepreneurial journey, regardless of how mature the idea is. Both the mentee and the mentor can learn a lot from the experience, so the mentor should be eager to learn. As previously mentioned, you can read more about the role of the mentor in this handbook: How to: Be a mentor.

When recruiting mentors, think about how the different mentors would have contributed to giving the best offer to the mentees possible. Recruit people with different knowledge, experiences, and methods. There are also some specific qualities you can look for in a candidate. Mentors should have or want to acquire a coaching mindset. Working with people should appeal to them, and they should be motivated to learn from the process and be able to challenge established mindsets. If they do not have any previous experience with entrepreneurship, they should have an interest in learning more about it. What characterizes a good mentor is being able to work independently, being self-driven, and likes helping people succeed.

The leader

The leader’s key role is to ensure mentors can work efficiently by securing resources, recruiting competent staff, and fostering a positive organizational culture. They must build strong relationships with university organizations and ensure the service is visible and accessible.

Add-ons

As the organization grows, recruiting roles for marketing, events, and IT becomes valuable. Spark* NTNU also has a deputy head, head of mentors, and head of soft-funding.

A good place to start recruiting is to find out where students with an interest in entrepreneurship are today. You can ask if you can give a short presentation in classes that are about innovation or entrepreneurship. Maybe there is a coworking space or some organizations where innovative students go today, where you can hand out flyers and give information. Go to events that attract the most engaged and committed students and ask to set up a stand. It is always easiest to start where there are people who already have shown interest in entrepreneurship.

It is highly recommended to recruit a diverse group of people on all levels. This includes students from different study programs, gender, age, and cultural background.

At Spark, all leaders, administration, and a lot of the mentors are replaced by new employees every year in the spring semester.

Already in January, they hire a new leader, and this person leads alongside the previous leader in over a month before the previous leader leaves their position. After that, in February, they recruit the deputy head of the organization and the head of mentors.

In March, they recruit the new mentors and transfer the startups to the new mentors. This involves giving every new mentor a buddy, who is responsible for giving them the knowledge and the help they need to get comfortable with being a mentor. In addition, they have mentoring sessions with both new and previous mentors present, to make sure the startups get to know the new mentor in a comfortable setting. The new mentor can learn by observing the mentor and how they work with the different startups.

When the new employees are settled in May, the whole organization has a large social event where the new employees get to know the employees that are leaving. The point of this is to create a low threshold for asking previous employees for guidance and help in their new position. This also helps set the standard of how the organizational culture is and kicks off the next school year with a new generation of employees.

In addition to the core activities, which is mentoring the students, there are a lot of different offerings that can be useful for the startups and for your organization as activities can give you a lot of attention from potential startups and mentors.

Even though the employees mostly work independently, they must feel like a part of a team. It is important that all employees know each other, to lower the threshold to exploit each other’s knowledge. Spark* NTNU have some tips to ensure a good internal culture:

• Meetings with all mentors every other week, with check-ins and the opportunity to ask questions to the other mentors. The point of this is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experiences, and that the mentors help each other. These meetings should be social events that the mentors enjoy going to.

• Once a month, Spark NTNU has a meeting with the whole organization, including the ones working with promotion, events, administration, boosting female entrepreneurship, and soft-funding. This makes sure that the threshold to contact each other across departments is low. This is also a social event with food and mingling.

• Have a Slack channel or another low threshold communication platform where people can post questions and get quick feedback from other employees.

• During the whole year, Spark NTNU hosts several different team-building events for all employees. This can be everything from cabin trips to inviting all employees to eat cake together at lunchtime.

• Invite an entrepreneur or investor that has a cool story to share and invite only the employees, so that they can experience that together.