Raising seed funding

There are a number of great guides on seed fundraising on the internet. These guides are mostly written for software startups, but because many of the new generation of seed investors come from the Silicon Valley startup world, many of the lessons apply to biotech companies raising seed capital. This post will provide some additional information that is specific to biotech.

If you are raising seed money for the first time, these are a few of the excellent resources you should read:

• How to raise money by Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combinator
• Ten Tips for Raising Startup Capital in Biotech by Bruce Booth, Partner at Atlas Venture
• How to pitch to biotech VCs: two 'mock pitches' and VC panel discussion (video)
• How to convince investors by Paul Graham
• How to pitch your company by Michael Seibel, President of Y Combinator
• Of abundance and scarcity in venture capital by Bruce Booth
• A tale of two startup worlds: biotech and tech VC ecosystems by Bruce Booth
• How 5 young founders started and funded their biotech companies (video)
• A guide to seed fundraising by Geoff Ralston, president of Y Combinator
• Process and leverage in fundraising by Aaron Harris, parter at Y Combinator
• Early stage biotech investing with Doug Cole, Flagship Pioneering
• How to build your seed round pitch deck by Aaron Harris
• Venture Deals book and free class by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson
• A fundraising survival guide by Paul Graham
• Mechanics of venture capital by me
• 16 definitions on the economics of VC by Scott Kupor, Andreessen Horowitz

Many of the above resources are created by people from the tech software world, and some are from traditional biotech investors. There are many differences between these two broad categories of investors, some of them very deep. A unique challenge of raising capital in biotech is navigating these differences.

Differences between "tech-bio" and "biotech" investors

Many of the biotech investors who come from the software world refer to themselves as "tech-bio" or "bio" investors. From ~2000 until a few years ago, "biotech" was a dirty word in the Silicon Valley software world – most big tech VCs specifically avoided biotech. Recently, many of these tech VCs have started active biotech investing practices, and they've created new terminology to describe the space. I’ll use "tech-bio" or "bio" to refer to investors coming to biotech from the software world, and "biotech" to refer to investors who have always specialized in biotech. When I say "biotech" to refer to a topic other than investors, I'm just referring to the industry as a whole.

One of the major differences between these categories of investor is that tech-bio investors are much more active and founder-friendly at the seed stage, so they are your best bet for raising initial capital. However, tech-bio investors are not as active at the Series A stage as biotech VCs (with the exception of a few firms like a16z and DCVC). So you will likely need to raise your Series A from traditional biotech investors, or a mix of biotech and tech-bio investors.

The transition from tech-bio VC-funded seed stage company to biotech VC-funded Series A stage company can be difficult. You may get conflicting advice from seed and Series A investors. Biotech VCs may expect very different things than tech-bio VCs during a fundraising process, including much more scientific diligence and a different kind of pitch. Biotech VCs may want a much lower valuation than you were expecting. They may want to replace or supplement the senior management team, or have input into the scientific direction of your company (often focusing more on products than the platform). They may take a more active role in your future fundraising and BD strategy.

There are several tech-bio VCs that are active at the seed stage and have great relationships with Series A biotech VCs, or that lead Series A rounds themselves. Raising from them can ease the seed-to-Series A transition (though there are downsides as well). Getting feedback from Series A investors during your seed process (even if you don't expect to raise from them) can also help you figure out what kind of company to build that will attract Series A investors.

While raising a Series A round can be tough now, the capital markets are evolving very quickly, and in a year or two, there may be many more VCs active in the Series A market. There is a large wave of companies that raised seed rounds in the last few years that are starting their Series A process. Many of them are high-quality companies with great teams that are finding a shortage of investors who support their vision. Series A investors who combine the scientific rigor and expertise of biotech VCs with the ambition of tech VCs will find many quality companies eager to partner with them.

Types of investors

From the 2000s until a few years ago, the tech and biotech startup worlds have been largely independent. Few investors funded both tech and biotech companies. That has changed significantly in the last few years. Below are some common types of investment firms that you may come across:

“Traditional” early-stage biotech VCs: These investors are large, established venture funds that primarily invest in Series A or later rounds, and primarily fund therapeutics companies. They also do seed investing and venture creation as a way to feed their Series A investing practice, but they make their money on Series A and later-stage investments, not seed investments. For many years, these were the only investors that regularly invested in seed-stage biotech companies, even though seed investing was an ancillary focus for them.

These funds are highly specialized and experienced. They have the most domain expertise, best track records and deepest scientific and industry networks of all early-stage biotech investors. These firms are generally staffed with PhDs or MDs who understand science and have deep experience in the industry.

Examples: 5AM Ventures, Atlas Venture, ARCH Venture Partners, Flagship, The Column Group, Versant, MPM Capital, Third Rock Ventures, Polaris Partners

Tech-bio VCs: These are the software counterparts of the traditional biotech VCs -- the blue-chip venture funds – that have decided to invest in biotech in addition to tech / software. Like their biotech counterparts, they make their money on Series A investments, but use seed investing to support their Series A and later-stage venture business. These funds often got into biotech by doing seed investments to test the biotech waters, but many are becoming very active at the Series A stage. Some of these funds have dedicated investment vehicles for biotech (like a16z and DCVC), some invest in biotech from their main software / tech fund, and some have dedicated funds for seed investing while others invest from the same fund for Series A and seed. Most of these firms started out as software investors, but others (like Lux and DCVC) have traditionally invested in “hard tech” (robotics, AI, energy, etc – anything that isn't a mobile or web app), of which biotech is a subset.

These funds have a different approach to investing than biotech VCs. They tend to do diligence more quickly than biotech funds, offer more founder-friendly terms, and focus more on marketing to attract deal flow, win deals, and raise money from LPs (this is why so many tech VCs blog and tweet, while very few biotech VCs blog). They also tend to be more open to investing in younger technical founders than biotech VCs.

Examples: a16z, DCVC, Lux Capital, 8VC

“Tech-bio” seed funds: These funds are typically started and managed by people from the “tech” startup world, but differ from “tech-bio VCs” in that they make their money on seed investing and rarely / never lead Series A rounds. They invest in software, biotech and / or other “hard tech” verticals like energy, robotics, food-tech and AI.

Seed investors became very common in the software industry in the late 2000s and early 2010s after seed investors in companies like Facebook, Uber, and Twitter generated returns of 1,000x or more. Some investors turned 5-figure investments in these companies into hundreds of millions of dollars.

In biotech, where companies don’t return 1,000x, there has not traditionally been a dedicated seed investing ecosystem. But that is changing.

These funds can be some of the most founder-friendly investors out there, closing deals quickly with attractive terms. The best of them can also help you raise a good Series A round – because these investors aren’t interested in leading your Series A round themselves, they will want you to run a competitive process and get good terms.

Examples: NfX, 50 Years VC, ARTIS, HOF Capital

Biotech seed funds: These are an even more recent phenomenon than hard-tech seed funds. These are seed funds dedicated to biotech. Most of these investors come from the tech world, but some come from the biotech world as well.

Examples: Longevity Fund, Humboldt Fund, Mars Bio, Genoa Ventures, Civilization Ventures

Angel investors: VCs and seed funds are professional investors that manage other people’s money. Angel investors are wealthy people who invest their own money. These can be some of the best investors because they can be very flexible (they don’t have investment mandates imposed by their fund) and in some cases they are successful entrepreneurs with relevant experience and networks. Often angels invest as syndicates – a group of wealthy people who invest together.

Traditionally, angel investors in biotech have been a less-than-optimal funding option, as many biotech angel syndicates in the past were not very founder-friendly. But the new generation of angel investors come from the tech world, where angels are some of the smartest, most supportive and founder friendly investors.

Examples: Paul Graham, Paul Bucheit, Sam Altman, Augustin Ku, James Hong

Accelerators: Accelerators are investment groups that fund companies in batches and provide formal mentorship to help early-stage founders build their companies. Accelerators generally invest a small amount per company, have fixed terms (although in some cases they negotiate), and fixed application timelines. In addition to providing capital and support, most accelerators also organize “Demo Days” at the end of the batch where all companies pitch to an audience of hundreds of investors. A Demo Day at a top-tier accelerator can massively jumpstart a fundraising process. At the best accelerators like Y Combinator, a very large percentage of companies raise money, and some raise many millions shortly after Demo Day. Accelerators are a great option for all early-stage startups, but especially those that aren’t ready for seed or venture money or those who don’t have good networks in the investment world.

There are many accelerators, and it is important to do your homework before choosing one. There are very few accelerators that have track records of success, and inexperienced accelerators can provide bad advice or onerous terms (all of the accelerators listed here have significant biotech experience and good track records).

Examples: Y Combinator, IndieBio, Apollo, AGE1 / Longevity Fund

Overview of the fundraising process

The fundraising process generally includes the following steps. These are all well-covered in the resources I linked above, but I will provide some biotech-specific color to each item.

• Prepare yourself
• Refine and validate your idea
• Execute on your business
• Plan your raise: when to raise, how much to raise, which investors to target
• Develop your pitch
• Get intros
• Run an effective process
• Other ways to fund your startup

The best way to learn how to fundraise, figure out which investors to talk to, and to get good introductions is by talking to founders who have recently raised from the kinds of investors you are interested in. Founders are generally open to help people who are a year or two earlier-stage than they are – many received invaluable help along the way and want to pay it forward.

If you are at an academic institution, you can probably get connected to founders who have affiliations with your university. Your university probably also holds startup-oriented events which can be a good way to meet founders. You can also find them through your network, or even cold email them in some cases (although warm referrals are best).

If you don't have a good network of founders, we're experimenting with a few programs to help:

• Office hours and pitch feedback from founders who've recently raised seed capital
• "Founder support groups" where 4-6 founders get together each month or so to help each other out.

If you're interested in participating, let us know here.

Don’t just send someone a pitch deck and ask for an intro. Try to help them in some way in exchange for their time, and take the time to build a relationship with them before asking for intros. When someone intros to you to an investor, they are putting their credibility on the line. You won’t get a good intro unless you’ve taken the time to build a relationship and make a good impression.

Prepare yourself

Despite what you may see in the startup media, raising your first round for a biotech company can be a long and grueling process. It is a full-time job for several months. Even the most well-connected founders often meet with 50-100+ investors before they get a yes.

Prepare yourself for a challenging process, and do your homework before you start raising.

Validating your idea

One of the most common (and most uncomfortable) reasons that startups have trouble raising funding is that their company is simply not appealing to investors. Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, says it well in this tweet: "The reason most founders are surprised by the difficulty of fundraising is that they're learning something about themselves, not something about fundraising. They know fundraising is hard for startups that don't seem appealing to investors. They just didn't realize they had one".

In software, you can iterate out of a bad initial idea quickly because it is so quick and easy to build and test software products. In biotech, developing your tech and testing your scientific and business hypotheses takes much longer, so a bad initial idea can be fatal. If you are considering starting a company, take some time to explore and validate several ideas before jumping in 100%. If you start a company, you are devoting 5-10 years of your life to a single project. It’s worth spending a few months to make sure you devote those 5-10+ years to the right project.

You don't have to start a company based on your grad project. From a purely statistical point of view, most grad projects aren’t venture-fundable (a company is venture fundable if it can grow from $0 to $1B+ in 5-7 years). That’s ok – with a bit of work, you can find a project that is both venture fundable and related to your area of expertise.

There are a number of ways to come up with startup ideas and test whether they are fundable:

• Brainstorm startup ideas with friends, or organize a startup-oriented journal club. Ideally include some people with venture or startup experience. If you do a decent amount of work on an idea or have technical expertise in the space, many VCs would be willing to hear a quick pitch and give you feedback.
• Talk to other founders who have raised money and get their feedback on your ideas.
• Work for a high-quality venture fund to learn what VCs look for in ideas. Getting a full-time position can be tough, but many funds are open to part-time work or informal (ie unpaid) projects.
• Find some startups you think are interesting, email investors telling them why you think the companies are interesting, and ask for their feedback. Be very concise -- no more than a few sentences. Anything too long won't get a response.
• Invest in biotech stocks (only invest what you can afford to lose!) and discuss investment ideas with friends (ideally who have a bit more experience than you). This will familiarize you with how value is created in biotech and give you exposure to common business concepts.
• Follow the news and read about the kinds of companies that are getting funded. This will help you learn what kind of companies investors look for.
• Speak with investigators at your institution who have spun out companies and ask what investors liked and didn't like about their companies.

For more on coming up with ideas for biotech startups, I made a video describing some common techniques..

Over time, you will develop better instincts for what is fundable and refine your techniques for validating ideas.

One caveat: be careful whose feedback you listen to, and never rely on just one person’s opinion (this caveat includes this post!). Many people critique your idea without taking the time to understand your company. Some people have bias that guides their advice. Some people just don’t know what they are talking about. Getting accurate feedback on your idea is an art form, but with practice it will become easier.

Execute on your business

It is unlikely you'll be able to raise a seven-figure seed round with just a paper or a patent. You will need to execute on your idea for a year or more to prove to investors your idea is viable and your team is capable. The chicken-and-the-egg problem of needing progress to raise money, but needing money to make progress, is very difficult in biotech. This discussion is outside the scope of this post, but grants, accelerators and friends and family / angel investors can help with this.

Planning your raise

The best fundraising processes should be well-organized and well-executed. It can be tempting to pitch any investor that you come across, but an unorganized process puts you at a significant and unnecessary disadvantage. Running a well-organized process maximizes your chances of success and gives you the most leverage.

Planning your raise entails figuring out when to raise, how much to raise, and who you want to raise from.

When to raise

Geoff Ralston, president of Y Combinator, has this to say on when to raise: “Investors write checks when the idea they hear is compelling, when they are persuaded that the team of founders can realize its vision, and that the opportunity described is real and sufficiently large. When founders are ready to tell this story, they can raise money. And usually when you can raise money, you should.”

Every investor will have a different set of criteria for when they can invest in a company. Some will want solid animal data, some will want a lead compound with composition of matter IP, some will want a good publication and line-of-sight to licensing key technology, some will invest in anything that comes out of certain accelerators, some will invest based on an impressive founding team and an idea. Do some research on your target investors to get a sense of whether your company would be a fit, and when you'd be able to raise from them.

How much to raise

The amount you should raise depends on two things: how much you need to reach key milestones, and how much investors are willing to invest.

Whenever you raise money, you are promising to investors that you will use that money to increase the value of your company. Theoretically, you determine the amount you need to raise by figuring out what the key “value inflection” points are for your company, and then figuring out how much you’d need to spend to reach that point (a “value inflection” point is an event where the value of your company dramatically increases, often when you get positive data from a key experiment). For example, you may determine that successful data in a gold standard animal model will be the best way to increase the value of your company, and you need $1M to reach that point, so your target raise is $1M.

But that is just part of the equation. The size of your raise will also depend on the types of investors that you are able to attract. Most investors have a certain amount that they want to invest in each deal, and a certain amount of equity they’d want in return for that investment.

If you raise from Series A biotech investors, you will likely raise $30-50M+ in exchange for 30-50% of your company. If you are too early for Series A investors, you will raise from seed investors, and will probably raise a few million in exchange for 10-30%+ of your company. If you are too early for seed investors, you will need to raise from angels or an accelerator, and will likely raise six-figures in exchange for 10-20%+ of your company. If you are looking to raise a different amount, say $10-20M, you can either raise multiple seed rounds, raise a large seed round (which would require bringing more investors to the table) or raise a smaller Series A from tech VCs (Series A rounds in software are generally lower than Series A rounds in biotech). Note: these numbers are for Silicon Valley-based investors as of Q4 2020. If you are raising elsewhere, it will be more difficult to raise, and the terms will not be as good.

Who to target

In order to run an efficient process, you will need to create a target list of investors before you start pitching. Your target list should be large: you may need to meet 50-100+ to get funded. The above list is a starting point, but you should do your own research. Talk to people in your network (ideally founders who have recently raised). You can also read the startup news, Crunchbase or google around to find viable investors.

Develop your pitch

Before pitching investors, you need to create and hone your pitch. You will need a few slide decks, as well as well-rehearsed verbal pitches of different length. You want your pitch to be clear, concise, compelling, and tailored to the investor. The best way to improve your pitch is to practice and get feedback from people who know what they are doing (founders who have recently raised or quality investors who invest in companies like yours).

Clear and concise: Investors have incredibly short attention spans. Communicating what your business does as quickly and clearly as possible is priority number one.

To develop a clear and concise description of your business, practice with your friends and other founders that you know. Describe your business to them in 30 seconds. Then ask them to repeat your description back to you in their own words, and ask them what the least clear part was. If everyone you talk to you can accurately paraphrase your business, then you have a clear description. If you have particularly pithy friends, you can even incorporate their descriptions into your own.

You can also do this process over email, as Michael Seibel suggests. As your first interaction with an investor will likely be over email, this is an especially useful thing to practice.

Compelling: A typical investor might see 1,000 pitches in a year and only make 5 investments. A clear and concise pitch is necessary but not sufficient to break through the crowd. You need a “hook”.

The good news is that investors want to be hooked. When an investor meets a truly impressive company, they can become borderline obsessed with the company. It can be the benchmark they compare all other companies to, and they can spend months looking for more companies like that company.

Paul Graham's advice for a compelling pitch is essentially to let the business pitch itself, rather than relying on some flashy narrative:

1. Make something worth investing in
2. Understand why it's worth investing in
3. Explain that clearly to investors

Tailored: Every investor gets excited about different things, has a different level of knowledge about your area, and has a different investing strategy. Some investors will want to spend 80% of the meeting on your science. Some will want to focus on the market, and will assume your science works. Some will want to ask lots of questions, while others will prefer to let you walk through the pitch and ask questions at the end. Some prefer platforms, while some prefer assets. Some complete diligence in a few hours, while some take months. In some cases, an investor will have already funded a company similar to yours, and is just trying to get competitive intel. Some are just taking “tourism” meetings to learn about a space without having any intention of investing. Some want initial meetings to be casual, 10-20 minute chats, with or without slides; some want initial meetings to be hour-long discussions of scientific data.

Research the investors you meet and tailor your pitch to them. And actively listen during your pitch -- make it a conversation, not a monologue.

Practice

The best way to improve your pitch is to practice. Practice being simple and clear, listening actively, and handling common questions and objections.

Getting intros

Some investors are open to cold emails or cold outreach on Twitter, and these investors will generally make it very clear 1) that they are open to this and 2) how best to email them. As a rule, however, investors prefer or require warm intros.

But not all warm intros are created equal. In general, investors prioritize emails they receive in the following order, based on who is sending the email:

1. An LP (an LP is an investor who investors in VCs): An email from an LP will jump to the top of their inbox. However, intros from LPs are very rare and are not expected, so you shouldn’t try for this route unless you have a good relationship with an LP who likes your company.
2. A founder who has made the VC money in the past: VCs’ second-favorite people are successful entrepreneurs who made them money. It can be difficult to get these referrals and they are not expected, but if you have someone like this as an advisor or angel investor, it can be tremendously helpful.
3. Other VCs that have invested in you: VCs also take warm intros from other VCs. Most VC deals are syndicated – ie more than one VC invests – and good VCs have strong relationships with many other VCs. The major caveat here is that you should avoid getting intros from investors who have passed on you. A corollary is that if you have a choice of investor, pick the one that will best help you raise your next round.
4. A founder that the VC has recently invested in: The most common way to get intros to investors is through a founder that the VC has recently invested in.

Ask for intros respectfully and develop a relationship with the person before asking. If they don't like you or aren't impressed by you, they either won't intro you or won't give you a quality intro.

Julie Grant, General Partner at Canaan and serial entrepreneur, offers great tactical advice on getting intros and building relationships with VCs in this clip.

If you are interested in getting feedback on your pitch or meeting or biotech founders, we're experimenting with a few programs to help: 1) office hours and pitch feedback from founders who've recently raised seed capital and 2) "founder support groups" where 4-6 founders get together each month or so to help each other out. If you're interested in participating, let us know here.

Managing the process

Once you get your intros, prepare your pitch and get your initial meetings scheduled, you need to manage the process.

This guide by Aaron Harris of Y Combinator and this essay by Paul Graham are great tactical overviews of how to manage a process.

This clip of a talk by Julie Grant at Canaan also provides excellent biotech-specific tactical advice for running a process. She is specifically discussing Series A fundraising, but many of the lessons apply to seed rounds as well, such as backchanneling with your scientific advisors to see which investors are serious, being organized and proactive in responding to investors and moving the process along, and being disciplined about saying no to investors who are wasting your time.

A note on NDAs

Attitudes towards secrecy vs. openness differs greatly between academia and startups. Many first-time founders initially don’t include any scientific information in their initial pitch, and require an NDA before having a meaningful discussion of the science.

You don’t want to reveal proprietary information without an NDA, but you need to talk about your science in a non-confidential manner to get investors interested enough to continue the conversation. If investors can’t understand what you are working on or don’t see some evidence of why it will work, they will pass before signing an NDA.

The risk of investors stealing your idea is much lower than most people coming from academia expect. Investors see tons of ideas and 99% of ideas aren't exciting enough for them to steal even if they wanted to. Investors' reputations are also important -- founders talk, and investors can quickly develop bad repuations. Further, most VCs aren't in the business of starting companies and wouldn't do anything with your idea even if they wanted to (although some VCs very much are in the business of starting companies).

The bigger risk than someone stealing your idea is a competitor passing you because you are reluctant to discuss your idea. You need to talk about your idea to raise money, hire people, get partnerships, etc. If you aren't doing these things, competitors will.

That said, obviously don't share sensitive information or trade secrets without an NDA. Generally there is a very big middle ground between saying nothing substantive about your science and revealing sensitive information, but there will always be some pieces of information for which it can be tricky to decide how openly to share.

Other ways to fund your startup

While most of this post is written about how to raise venture capital to fund your startup, there are many other ways to get funding. Raising venture capital is a big commitment -- you are committing to dedicated years of your life to building a billion-dollar company -- and it isn't right for every company or founder. Below are some other funding options.

Grants

Grants, especially SBIR grants in the US, can be a great way to get your startup off the ground. They are non-dilutive (meaning you don’t give up any equity in exchange for the capital), and can be significant, ranging from $200K or so up to seven-figure amounts. Applying for grants is also a more familiar process to many academics than raising money from investors.

SBIR grants are an important funding source and every early stage company should explore them. Many companies only focus on grants, as grants were essentially the only way to fund your company in the past. However, in an active seed market like today, you should consider raising from investors as well as from grants. Raising from investors has some advantages over grants.

There are downsides to grants, however. Grants are slow it takes a lot of time to write, to review, and to disburse the grants. Grants also won’t help you raise your next round, while a good seed investor will continue to invest in your company and also help you raise subsequent rounds. The work you do to get a grant also may not be the work that investors need to see in order to be convinced of an investment – you don’t want to spend a few years getting a grant and carrying out the experimental plan, only to learn than investors wanted to see a different set of experiments. Grants are also limited at a few hundred thousand or, if you get follow on grants, a million or so. That can sound like a lot, but it isn’t likely you’ll get to a Series A with just grant money. You’ll probably need to raise a seed round at some point.

Bootstrapping

One commonly overlooked funding mechanism is "bootstrapping": working on your startup on the side of a full-time job, or living off savings, until you can fund your company through generating revenue. This is not really possible for companies developing their own therapeutics, but can be a very compelling option for companies selling products or services to other biotech companies (computational chemistry companies, companies that provide services, tools or reagents, etc). Bootstrapping has three main benefits vs. traditional venture capital – you don’t give up any equity, you don’t give up any control, and it is the best way to validate your product. Customers are the ultimate arbiter of value for your company.

Successfully bootstrapping can make it easier to raise venture capital because 1) you don’t need investors as much and 2) your business is growing and becoming a more attractive investment.

For most companies, venture capital is not a good option. VCs want to invest in companies that can become worth $1B or more within 5-7 years. Not every company can do that, and not every founder wants to do that. If you want to build a business on your terms rather than rushing for a huge exit, bootstrapping is probably the right choice. Additionally, if you aren't sure whether your business can be venture-scale, bootstrapping is a good way to keep the VC option open while continuing to grow your business.

Downsides to bootstrapping include that it is slower than raising from investors and, in winner-take-all markets, forgoing venture funding can leave you open to getting passed by the competition. Bootstrapping is also unfortunately not a viable option for many people, as it requires either working nights and weekends plus a full-time job, or having enough savings to go for 12+ months wihout income until your business generates enough profits to sustain you.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding can initially seem like an attractive way to raise funding, but generally crowdfunding in biotech is more difficult than traditional fundraising and has a lower likelihood of success. A successful crowdfunding campaign requires a lot of marketing effort, and if you don't already have a large audience and good marketing skills, you probably should seek other funding sources.

Get help with fundraising

If you are interested in getting feedback on your pitch or learning more about investors and fundraising, we're experimenting with a few programs to help: 1) office hours and pitch feedback from founders who've recently raised seed capital and 2) "founder support groups" where 4-6 founders get together each month or so to help each other out. If you're interested in participating, let us know here.