[pmjordan]

I can't help myself, I'm always extremely skeptical when incubators and YC-like startup programmes have long lists of mentors and/or when the mentors have no actual skin in the game. What are their motivations for mentoring, exactly, if they hold no equity? They usually hold a full time job elsewhere and do the mentoring on the side. Even if the motivations are purely selfless (yeah, right) I question the utility of the advice they give under the circumstances. Very few seem to have their ear quite so close to the startup ground as YC.

That said, talking to founders of portfolio companies seems to be an established (and sane) part of due diligence before accepting any kind of investment. I'd say you should apply it to seed/incubator stage as well. (after all, you're usually giving away equity at a fairly low valuation on paper - you can't measure advice, so you can hardly make the transfer of equity contingent on its quality)