Serena Williams wishes she had a mentor when she started her VC career…

Despite building a $111 million VC fund, backing 16 unicorn companies, and being married to a successful cofounder and investor, Serena Williams wishes she had more guidance when she launched her VC firm, Serena Ventures, over a decade ago.

“In hindsight, I feel like I should have had more mentors,” Williams, 44, told Business Insider.

While the tennis superstar said the mistakes she made were important for her to grow, she still asked herself: “Why learn them when you can learn them from someone else?”

It’s a good question from Williams, who, over the summer, became an “entrepreneur-in-residence” at Reckitt Catalyst.

Reckitt, a British hygiene company known for its health and cleaning products, including Lysol, has a social impact investment program aimed at delivering “health and hygiene solutions to 5 million people worldwide by 2030,” according to the company’s press release.

Catalyst recently expanded to the US, with Williams now mentoring US-based founders, including Erik Cárdenas, a founding member of Amazon Care (previously ranked on Business Insider’s 30-under-40 list in 2020), who started Zócalo Health to help Medicaid families in underserved communities.

“I feel like you learn something new every single day,” Williams said of joining the initiative. “I loved school, and I feel like I’m in school all day.”

Putting Williams in the professor role, Business Insider asked Williams to share the advice she learned from her investing experience, from refining an idea to dealing with setbacks.

Like most investors, when deciding whether to invest in a company, Williams first asks herself if there’s a true marketplace for the idea. “The founder can be amazing and smart and super likable, but if it’s not needed in the market, then it doesn’t fit,” she said.