Mentors & Advisors
Your experience can change a founder’s next decision.
Hospitality founders need people who understand real operations, difficult customers, long sales cycles, implementation risk, and what it takes to earn trust in this industry.
The Proxenos Network brings those people into the work—sometimes for one focused conversation, sometimes as an ongoing mentor or advisor.
Founders rarely need someone to take over. They need someone who can help them see what they cannot see yet.
What founders need
Experience becomes useful when it enters the room.
A founder may know the product but not the buyer. They may understand the technology but not how a hotel, restaurant, attraction, or venue makes decisions during live operations. The right person can shorten that learning curve without pretending to have every answer.
01
Judgment
Help a founder see around the corner, challenge an assumption, or recognize a risk before it becomes expensive.
02
Context
Explain how hospitality decisions are actually made—and why a promising idea may still fail in practice.
03
Access
When appropriate, help a founder reach a person, organization, or opportunity they could not reach alone.
Ways to participate
Give the time that fits your life.
A meaningful contribution can be one honest conversation. You choose the level of involvement that fits your experience, availability, and interests.
Focused
One Conversation
- Founder Q&A
- Pitch or product feedback
- Topical expert session
- Showcase judge or panelist
Occasional
Network Mentor
- Office hours or drop-ins
- Cohort feedback sessions
- Introductions when appropriate
- Periodic founder check-ins
Ongoing
Founder Advisor
- Support one or two founders
- Provide sustained guidance
- Prepare for pilots or funding
- Continue when mutually useful
Joining the network does not commit you to a fixed number of hours or an ongoing assignment. We will ask before connecting you with a founder.
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Small-group founder feedback, office hours, or an operator reviewing a product with a founder.
The network in action
Useful help is specific.
Mentoring does not need to be abstract or ceremonial. It can look like:
- A revenue leader challenging a founder’s pricing assumptions.
- A hotel operator explaining why an implementation would fail at property level.
- A product specialist reviewing a prototype before development continues.
- An experienced founder preparing someone for a difficult customer conversation.
The goal is not to make decisions for founders. It is to help them make better decisions for themselves.
Why the name?
What’s a Proxenos?
In ancient Greece, a proxenos was a trusted local who helped visitors enter an unfamiliar community. They offered guidance, relationships, and credibility until the visitor could find their own footing.
That is the spirit of this network. A Proxenos does more than offer opinions. They help founders understand an unfamiliar industry, ask better questions, and reach the people who can move their work forward.
A Proxenos helps someone enter a world that once felt closed to them.
Who belongs
A title does not make a mentor.
The strongest mentors are people with useful experience, sound judgment, and a willingness to be honest with founders. You do not need to be a celebrity executive or have every answer.
- Hospitality operators and practitioners
- Founders and business builders
- Technologists and product leaders
- Finance, legal, sales, workforce, and marketing specialists
- Educators and researchers
- Investors and capital advisors
The network is being built deliberately. We are inviting people who care about the quality of the guidance as much as the size of the directory.
Bring what you know into shared use
Help someone find their footing.
You do not need to make an open-ended commitment. Start by telling us where your experience may be useful and how you would prefer to participate.
Questions first? Start a conversation →