How to screw up a startup community

Wow. This hit way too close to home. I was in the early stages of this almost-exact situation 6 months ago.

I was part of a small four-man team, all undergrads, yet somehow we bootstrapped our way to $60k revenue in the first 3 months.

Eventually we found our way into the local startup community, soon after adopting one of the main community organizers as an adviser. The team as a whole lacking in experience, we were glad to have a mentor make him self available to us. I was skeptical though.

From the very start when I first met him I felt something was off. His intentions were very opaque and I could never figure out what his endgame was; despite being very open and direct about it he always managed to dodge my inquiries. That gut feeling was strong, and I went with it, leaving the team to pursue other opportunities. The rest of the team stuck with him.

Within the past month this 'mentor' launched a direct competitor to our team's product with a different team he was 'advising'. I feel bad for the old team, and can't blame them for having faith in someone they thought had their best interest in mind. The one thing I learned from the experience is that predators really do exist, and they hide behind unclear intentions.