Finding a Mentor - How do I give them value?

[Gregory Pitts]

Hey All, 

I'm starting out with investing (purchased my "live in" fixer in Jan) but the market is obviously hot right now and so I want to go off market with my next property. I feel like I need a mentor to help me through an off market deal or two to get my feet under me.

I'm part of a Facebook group, comment (sometimes) and DM people, and plan to go to in person meet ups when they restart to try to grow my network. All that good stuff. I have a goal of two additional properties this year and I'm not great at networking, so I'm worried I won't make enough progress to give me enough lead time to find a mentor, then close two deals in 2021. Yea, dates are arbitrary but I'm a goal oriented person.

I'm not cash constrained, I just don't know how to execute nor do I have a network in the city I'm in (Rochester, NY).

In order for mentor ship and/or an expert's time, I want to offer them value. Even if someone was willing to mentor me for free, I wouldn't feel right without returning the favor somehow. Anyways, because I'm a rookie in Real Estate, I don't know what is valuable to potential mentors.

My skill set is software development, masters degree and 10 years experience. I've built a ton of different stuff, and also worked as a "CTO" of a small, 10 person non-tech company... which isn't the same as a CTO of a tech company but probably closer to a "jack of all trades" of tech.

I know this skill set can help people, but I don't know how to frame this as value to a potential mentor, because I don't know what types of problems investors have that are software/technology related.

How can I present this skill set as something that a potential real estate mentor would need so that I can find a mutually beneficial relationship? What types of problems do investors have that I can solve with this skill set?