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Mentored startups survive at 2x the rate of non-mentored ones, yet 97% of founders who apply to accelerator programs are rejected. The founders who need guidance most have the least access to it.
Today we are announcing the acquisition of Sphere, the mentorship methodology and technology created by serial entrepreneur Colin Christensen, and the launch of our Advisors module. Structured, phase-appropriate mentorship is now available to every founder on the Startup Science platform.
A large market with no infrastructure
The advisory space for startups is large and almost entirely unstructured. An estimated 200,000 to 500,000 mentors and advisors actively serve startups in the United States alone. But the market operates on informal introductions, one-off conversations with no continuity, and coaching relationships that depend on the founder remembering to reach out.
There is no shared infrastructure connecting mentors to founders at the right time, on the right problem, in the right phase. The Advisors module is built to change that.
The methodology behind the module
Colin Christensen is a serial entrepreneur with 15 ventures who developed the Sphere methodology by mentoring over 2,500 entrepreneurs across five continents. He trained mentors through translators in communities where business is the primary path out of poverty. He worked with tier 1 VC firms in Riyadh helping venture-backed founders scale deep tech.
His core insight: entrepreneurs do not need courses that pause their momentum. They need structured conversations around the specific problem they are working on right now. If a founder is validating their ideal customer profile, the mentorship conversation happens there. If they are wrestling with financial projections, the mentor meets them in that context. Colin calls this rapid iterative development: micro-lessons and structured frameworks that allow mentors and founders to work on real problems in real time.
"The mentor-entrepreneur relationship is the most sacred, the most important one in this ecosystem," said Christensen, now Head of Advisory at Startup Science. "Whether a founder is selling salsa in Honduras or scaling AI in the Middle East, the fundamentals are the same. The difference is whether they have a system to work through those fundamentals with a mentor, or whether they are doing it alone."
What the Advisors module does
The module matches founders with mentors based on their Startup Lifecycle phase, expertise, and goals. Here is what that looks like in practice:
For founders: You see mentors matched to your phase and the problems you are facing right now. Your mentor sees your progress between sessions. Structured check-ins keep you engaged instead of going silent until the next meeting. No application, no acceptance committee, no waiting for a cohort.
For mentors and advisors: You see which founders need attention this week, organized by Lifecycle phase. Before each session, you have full context on where the founder is and what they have been working on. You track tasks and outcomes across your entire practice. The system is designed to scale mentorship the way platforms like Upwork scaled freelance services: by adding infrastructure, matching, and accountability to a market that previously ran on relationships and memory. This is not volunteer work. It is a practice with real structure and real revenue potential.
For ecosystem organizations: A structured referral pathway for the founders you cannot accept. Instead of a rejection email and "come back later," direct founders to a platform where they receive mentorship aligned to their stage.
Why we acquired instead of building
"Colin has experience in startup advisory that is distinct and deeper than anyone on our team, including me," said Gregory Shepard, Founder and CEO of Startup Science. "That is exactly the kind of expertise you acquire, not replicate."
Get involved
Founders: Explore the Advisors module at startupscience.io/solutions/mentors.
Mentors and advisors: Interested in joining the network? Contact Colin Christensen, Head of Advisory, at colin@startupscience.io.
Ecosystem organizations: Interested in structured referral pathways for your founders? Reach our team at press@startupscience.io.
