MindFrame Connect’s origin story is like most startups. Co-founder, Brice Scheschuk identified a pain point as he was embarking on his own mentorship journey. Lots of organizations offer mentorship programs, but rarely do they offer any support or training for those mentoring (and vice versa for the mentees). The result is many mentors do not know how to effectively support their mentee and their mentees, in turn, do not know how to properly manage the relationship – leading to inefficiencies.

This sparked a deeper exploration of mentorship in Canada. Over 150 interviews were conducted in 2020 and resulted in a draft manuscript titled “Mentoring Innovators”, which now serves as the anchor for our mentorship programming. These interviews made clear that mentors are eager to enhance their craft.

Another gap was identified during this exploration - the need to support entrepreneurs beyond the development of venture-building skills, but from a psychological and behavioural perspective. Covid-19 and its residual effect have brought prominence to the idea that supporting an entrepreneur means supporting the whole of a person (like a professional athlete).

While programs focused on prototyping, building an MVP and scaling are critical, what if they were complemented with training that built individual and team resilience so the people building our next generation of start-ups can thrive under pressure.

The need to address both of these gaps in the Canadian ecosystem became obvious (and somewhat urgent). If Canada wants to compete on the global scale in innovation, we need to produce better companies. Better companies are created by better entrepreneurs. Better entrepreneurs are developed by better mentors and support systems. And that’s why MindFrame Connect was created.

Meeting these needs in the ecosystem requires resources and likeminded people. Through funding from Future Skills Centre (FSC) and partnerships with Ryerson University, Dalhousie University, I-INC, and Globalive this idea became reality.