Build Before You Pitch
Investment-Ready Training for Pre-Seed & Seed Founders
Build the Foundation Investors Want to See
In today’s funding climate, great ideas aren’t enough. Investors want solid foundations, evidence of traction, and strategic partnerships that prove your business is real.
Build Before You Pitch transforms technical founders into investment-ready entrepreneurs. You’ll build the seven pillars of your company that investors actually fund.
Build Before You Pitch is an intensive, accountability-driven program designed to accelerate your journey from concept to confident investor conversations. This isn’t just pitch coaching, it’s about building the foundational pillars of a successful company
About the Program:
Pre-Program
Week 0: Submit Your Business Plan (Virtual)
Complete and submit your business plan by Friday, August 28, using the provided template (submission link will be sent via email)
Program Curriculum
Week 1: Business Plan Mastery (Virtual)
Lead Instructor Drew Felker reviews your plan and sets the strategic roadmap for your 8-week journey based on your current baseline.
Week 2: Customer Acquisition & Strategic Partnerships (📍 IN-PERSON)
Concrete strategies for finding your first deals and customers, building partnerships, and pilot collaborations tailored to your sector and early adopters.
Week 3: Legal Foundation (📍 IN-PERSON, with Cooley LLP)
Incorporation structures, IP protection, equity allocation, and the legal frameworks investors expect to see.
Week 4: Team Architecture (📍 IN-PERSON)
Early-stage hiring decisions, compensation structures, equity allocation, and building teams that scale
Week 5: Value Proposition (📍 IN-PERSON)
Articulating the core problem, target audience, and unique positioning in clear, compelling language that resonates with investors and customers.
Week 6: Competitive Intelligence (📍 IN-PERSON)
Analyzing your market position, defining competitive moats, and clearly communicating differentiation against incumbent solutions.
Week 7: Financial Fundamentals for Founders (📍 IN-PERSON)
Practical early-stage financial management: cash flow modeling, budgeting, and understanding key financial metrics that VCs analyze.
Week 8: Final pitch polish & feedback session (📍 IN-PERSON)
Intensive pitch practice, peer & mentor feedback sessions, and final preparation for investor presentations.
Capstone Event
Week 9: Demo Day (📍 IN-PERSON)
Present to a curated network of investors and receive direct feedback.
Post-Program: Your Journey Continues
Program Schedule:
Dates: Friday, September 4 – October 30, 2026
Time: 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM (Lunch provided)
Location: Daybreak Labs, Livermore, CA
Format: Week 1 Virtual | Weeks 2–9 Mandatory In-Person
Investment: FREE for Daybreak Labs members & pipeline founders | $750 for external applicants
Capacity: Limited to 25 founders
Program Location:
Daybreak Labs
7683, Southfront Road, Suite 230
Livermore, CA 94551
Program Facilitators
Business Plan Mastery
Drew Felker
Serial Founder
” I advise a couple of startups, an angel investor in a few more, an advisor at Daybreak Labs, raised VC money, bootstrapped, and founded companies in Carbon Sequestration, Aerospace Manufacturing, Advanced Radar, Rocket Engines, and Energy Efficiency. Always open to sharing what I’ve learned. My success is because I’m focused on helping businesses get what they need, and of my favorite hobbies is helping people get what they want from life. If you’ve asked yourself the question “what do I want?” and have a trajectory but can’t decide on a path, happy to be a resource to you.”
Customer Acquisition & Strategic Partnership
David Shefler
Investor at Impact
Today, I split my time between innovation and service. I actively invest in and advise early‑stage founders working on meaningful problems in health, sustainability, and resilience. I also serve as Director of Strategy and Security at Livermore Valley Opera, International Services Chair for the Rotary Club of Livermore, Advisor to Daybreak Lab, and President of my HOA. These roles allow me to contribute locally and globally through nonprofit leadership, cultural stewardship, and community development.
Retirement, for me, isn’t stepping away — it’s stepping toward what matters: helping founders build with intention, supporting organizations that elevate community, and contributing to positive change wherever I can.”
Legal Foundations
Lauren Creel
Partner at Cooley LLP
Lauren represents startups from formation through exit, including in pivotal private financing transactions, entity formation, and governance matters. She works closely with startups in healthcare, life sciences, biotech, medtech, digital health, and medical devices, as well as general technology. Her clients include Alumis, Archive Resale, Cala Health, Carmot Therapeutics, Kriya Therapeutics, NGM Bio, Path Robotics, and Science Corporation, with deals ranging from Seed Series to Series G. In addition, she counsels venture capital investors and strategic investors investing in healthcare and life sciences as well as in technology generally. Her clients include Axon Capital, Overwater Ventures, Santé Ventures, and Sonder Capital.
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Legal Foundations
Madhuri (Madi) Roy
Partner at Cooley LLP
Madhuri (Madi) focuses her practice on developing and implementing comprehensive patent portfolio strategies for biotechnology, pharmaceutical and chemical companies. This work includes patent preparation and prosecution, strategic patent counseling and intellectual property due diligence. She also has carried out investor-side and company-side due diligences, freedom-to-operate analyses, patentability analyses and pre-litigation work involving questions of validity and non-infringement.
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Competitive Intelligence
Jason Sydow
Partner at Next 47
Jason Sydow is a Partner with the investment team in Palo Alto. He has led investments in BuildOps, Bonsai.ai (acquired by Microsoft), Identify3D (acquired by Materialise), Riffyn (acquired by Siemens), Falkonry, Citrine, Realtime Robotics, CarbonCapture Inc, Heirloom, and Titan Advanced Energy Systems.
Before joining Next47, Jason was a Partner with QuestMark Partners, an expansion-stage venture capital firm focused on enterprise software. Jason led investments in Enpirion (acquired by Altera), NComputing, and Guavus (acquired by Thales). He also served on the board of RF Code (holding acquired by Yet2 Ventures). Previously, Jason led licensing and new company formation efforts for engineering and physical sciences in the Technology Transfer Office at Arizona State University. Jason was the general manager for medical batteries at EaglePicher Technologies, an energy storage company. Initially, he worked for four years at The Boston Consulting Group as a consultant and project leader.
Jason received his doctorate in Physics from Cornell University, a Master of Philosophy from the University of Strathclyde in the UK as a Marshall Scholar, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia.
Team Architecture
Luis Martinez
Principal at Capital Factory
Dr. Martínez is a multifaceted expert in startups and innovation, excelling as a strategist, venture capitalist, and mentor. He has guided over 200 entrepreneurs to successful exits, secured $60M+ in funding for student ventures at Trinity University (earning them a top award), and built startup ecosystems through mentorship at prominent organizations. His background includes scientific research, patents, and industry experience in healthcare PR and consulting, culminating in a unique blend of expertise that drives entrepreneurial success.
Value Proposition
Linda Liu
Partner at 3E Bioventures
Linda is a passionate entrepreneur, biotech veteran, and venture capitalist. 20 years of industry experience in business strategy, technology assessment, R&D, product development, and operations. Co-founded Apton Biosystems (acquired by Pacific Biosciences) and built it from scratch into a blue-chip VC-backed company. Excels in dynamic and demanding environments with limited resources and diverse cross-functional teams.
Financial Fundamentals for Founders
Carole-Lynn Glass
COO and CFO at Engine Room
Carole-Lynn Glass is a client service and project management dynamo who brings unequaled expertise in designing and implementing scalable processes and financial systems for growing businesses. Having served as a financial executive across both privately held start-ups and large public companies scaling from pre-revenue to over $300M—including senior roles at RoseRyan and Kranz & Associates, VP of Finance at companies like Ion Beam Applications and Synthego, and CFO/Interim CFO positions at SteriGenics, Freedom Debt Relief, and Meissa Vaccines—she is an expert team builder with extensive hands-on experience in M&A, due diligence, accounting operations, budgeting, and financial reporting. Beyond her strategic leadership in supporting early-stage, venture-backed companies alongside business partners and VCs, Carole-Lynn is also a dedicated advocate for special needs children and their parents.
Financial Fundamentals for Founders (Fall 2025 & Spring 2026)
Jing Nealis
Energy Tech CFO
Over 20 years of experience assisting public and private companies grow their business worldwide. Led a number of emerging energy transition companies through successful scale-up and commercialization. A demonstrated track record in leading successful going public, executing M&A transactions across the deal lifecycle in domestic and global markets, leading successful green field investments, and optimizing financial management processes in a complex global business environment.
Investor Partners
Investor Partner
George Parrish
Chief Evangelist at Bay Angels
Executive Director of Entrepreneur Lab LLC, headquartered 90 minutes East of SF/Silicon Valley in the Central San Joaquin Valley, with a branch launched in Tracy, California. Chief Evangelist for Silicon Valley’s 2nd-oldest Angel Investment group, Bay Angels. Mentor and Advisor to 100’s of Startups, both in the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Europe. Advisor – Italian Accelerator InnovitSF, Contributor/Lecturer HEC Paris, ESCEN and ESAM universities in Paris, France, Guest Advisor CSUEB, and Advisor for EastBay SBDC. “REMEMBER…. IF YOU ARE ALWAYS COMING FROM A PLACE OF NEED AND WANT, YOU’LL NEVER GET WHAT YOU NEED, AND NEVER GET WHAT YOU WANT!”
Investor Partner
Simon Ng
Deal Flow Committee at Bay Angels
With over 20 years of experience bridging finance, technology, and pharmaceuticals in the Bay Area, I am deeply passionate about scaling innovative startups. Having navigated the journey from finance executive to founder, I use my operational expertise to help emerging companies secure funding and build the right strategic partnerships. I am dedicated to empowering fellow founders to navigate complex growth stages and make a lasting impact in their industries.
Our Sponsors
Sponsor
About Cooley LLP
Cooley LLP is a premier international law firm that serves as a core partner to the global startup ecosystem. Recognized as a powerhouse in tech, biotech, and life sciences, Cooley advises thousands of venture-backed companies worldwide. From structuring early-stage incorporation and founder equity to safeguarding critical intellectual property and executing cross-border transactions, Cooley’s multidisciplinary team equips founders with investor-ready legal foundations to scale confidently. To learn more, visit Cooley LLP.
Our Partners
Partner
About Bay Angels
” Bay Angels is comprised primarily of former entrepreneurs, X-CxO, and eco-system active members. Our members understand the challenges and complexities of launching a new business thru own experiences in startups, SMB, and Large Ent. Our style of mentoring involvement begins with a thorough evaluation and due diligence process. Then we provide needed counseling during the critical launch phase. Many of our members continue providing consultation throughout the early years of a new businesses’ growth to ensure its success. Our in-depth investing process increases the likelihood of success—for the company and our investors. Bay Angels is managed by Jordan Wahbeh and Founded by Roger King
For newly established companies already showing significant progress, Bay Angels provides the necessary funding to help them reach the next stage of their growth. Our investors have helped infuse dozens of early stage companies with the capital necessary to accelerate their success.”