Differentiate between the topics that apply to you as a founder versus the topics that apply to aspects of the business
As you were jotting down ideas, you likely focused on areas where you could use help, individually—things like "dealing with failures"—as well as areas where the business could use guidance—things like "understanding financials."
While mentorship can be an effective method of helping with both types of topics, you're going to want to separate the business topics from the personal topics. This will help you better understand the areas for improvement. Just as important, this will help you focus your conversations with mentors on the topics and areas of expertise that are most relevant for the mentor.
Pen and paper exercise: Divide your notes into "personal" and "business" piles
What topics are best for mentor conversations?
Given the variety of topics you've documented, there may be several possible paths for engaging with mentors. There will also be topics that are not appropriate topics for mentorship or that require some sort of effort or work to achieve. You want to focus on selecting and highlighting a subset of the topics that are most opportune for mentorship.
Remember that mentors are individuals with startup experience who volunteer their time to provide advice to startup founders, based on their own experience in the startup world. Mentors share their opinions; they do not do work. Therefore, it's important that you come to mentors with topics that do not involve asking the mentor to perform tasks or projects. You're going to attempt to engage the mentor in ways that allow them an opportunity to share their opinion in a way that helps you make decisions about your startup.
Tip
If you're arguing with yourself about which direction to take on a particular topic, that is an excellent topic to discuss with a mentor.
Make sure the topic can be addressed in the time allotted
Attempting to cover too many topics—or to force fit a lengthy topic into a single conversation—can be a recipe for failure. It's important to acknowledge that you only have a short period of time to engage with the mentor and that a successful outcome on a discrete topic will be far more valuable than a surface level conversation on a complex issue. Use your time accordingly and structure your discussion to ensure you can adequately engage with the mentor on a particular topic.
Carefully evaluate the topics you'd like to discuss with your mentor and determine that financial modeling is the most pressing. What's more, you recognize that a financial model can be something to which every founder is exposed, so your mentor is likely to have a beneficial opinion to share.
Tip
Try to break your needs into topics that can be discussed and covered in 30 minutes or 30-minute increments over the course of multiple meetings. This ensures that you're able to cover the issues at hand, even during the shortest meetings
Next, we're going to learn more about your mentor so that we can best align the areas you need help with the mentor's experience and expertise.