Our Mentor Spotlight series highlights the incredible contributions of Innovation UBC's mentor network to our venture community. We're privileged to work with a community of more than 250 mentors — entrepreneurs, operators, and industry leaders from across Vancouver and BC's innovation ecosystem — who generously invest their time, expertise, and insights to help early-stage founders navigate uncertainty, build confidence, and move their ventures forward. Through these spotlights, we're proud to share the stories of and celebrate the people behind that guidance.
In this spotlight, we are thrilled to introduce you to Dave Taylor. Dave has mentored with Innovation UBC since 2016 and estimates he's seen around 400 ventures come through our programs.
Meet Dave Taylor
What experiences or areas of expertise do you bring to the table?
I trained as an electrical engineer before pivoting into geophysics, which took me from the jungles of Borneo to a long career as an exploration geophysicist with BP, living and working across four continents. After leaving the corporate world, I co-founded two oil and gas startups, including one that made a major discovery in Trinidad, giving me firsthand experience with fundraising, building a team, and pitching investors. I've been mentoring with Entrepreneurship@UBC for nearly nine years and estimate I've seen around 400 ventures pass through the program.
What's a moment from your time mentoring that has stuck with you?
For me it’s more of a recurring feeling rather than a singular moment: meeting young founders from such a wide range of backgrounds through the UBC program and watching them choose to start their entrepreneurial journey years earlier than I ever did. It genuinely gives me hope for the future, seeing how motivated and driven this generation is to bring their ideas forward. It's also part of why mentoring matters to me personally because it keeps me mentally engaged and connected to how the world is changing rather than coasting through retirement on the sidelines.
How has being a mentor shaped or surprised you?
Mentoring to me isn't about professional growth in the traditional sense because that part of my career is behind me, it's about getting better at reading people and helping them see their own blind spots. I've found that the longer-term mentoring relationships, where I can watch a founder and venture evolve over years, are more rewarding than shorter engagements because I actually get to see the impact of my advice play out.
What's a pattern you keep seeing in early-stage ventures, and what role do you think mentorship plays in helping founders work through it?
One thing I consistently see is founders do not know what they don't know, they fall in love with their idea before ever testing whether anyone actually wants to buy it, which I think is the reason most startups fail. I see mentorship as a way to help founders avoid the most obvious pitfalls and sharpen how they communicate their story to investors and customers, skills I leaned on heavily raising money for my own companies. As I put it, there's no real substitute for experience, but a good mentor can at least help founders skip a few of the painful lessons.
What's keeping you busy or bringing you joy outside of work and mentorship?
Now retired after a 40-year career, I fill my time with daily exercise, walking my dog, traveling, and staying social. With no one telling me what to do anymore, I get to spend my time on things of my own choosing, and that freedom is a big part of what makes this stage of life so enjoyable.
Connect with Dave on LinkedIn.
Interested in mentoring early-stage ventures at Innovation UBC? Learn more.
