One-on-one advising for founders raising a pre-seed or seed rounds.
Founder Quest is my advisory practice. I work directly with founders raising their first 500k to 1.5M from angels, usually the ones who don't have an investor network yet and are trying to build one from nothing.
If you're here because you heard the name somewhere, this is the short version of who I am and how to work with me.
MEET your guide
I'm Lance Cottrell
I've helped over 1,200 founders raise their $1m pre-seed rounds (on average).
I created Founder Quest™ to share my fundraising system with you, so you can raise $1M or more in 3 months without a network.
When I founded my first company, Anonymizer, I struggled to raise the capital we needed.
I had no idea why investors turned us down when I thought we had such potential.
After my successful exit, I started angel investing and immediately realized what I had been doing wrong.
Now I want to share that knowledge and experience with you.
Helped 1200 founders raise their $1m pre-seed rounds.
Raised millions of dollars for Anonymizer
Made over 30 angel investments
President of the North Bay Angels
How this works
Everything starts with one paid session. You send me your deck and whatever else matters ahead of time, I read it before we talk, and we spend an hour on what's actually blocking your raise rather than on background. You get a written summary afterward. It's $500, and
you can book it once.
From there, some founders take what they got and go execute on it. Others move into
ongoing monthly advising and we work through the whole raise together. Either one is
fine.
The first session exists so you can find out which you want without committing to
anything up front.
I used to run group programs. Those are paused while I focus on one-on-one work.
What I don't do
I don't sell investor introductions. I'm an angel, and I run an angel group, so people reasonably assume that's the product.
It isn't.
Mixing the two would compromise both the advice and the investing.
If we work together and I later want to invest, that's a separate conversation on separate terms.
Not ready for that yet
I've published a lot of free material at Feel the Boot covering most of what founders need to sort out before they start raising.
Videos, blogs, and podcast episodes on fundraising, pitching, and startup strategy.
If you're early, start there instead.
The Fundraising Toolkit is the fastest way in. It's free.
Copyrights 2026 | Founder Quest™ (part of Feel The Boot™)