Ex-Google engineer · 3x founder
Building AI for manufacturing. Exploring go-to-market and early customer validation.
Founder peer groups · San Francisco Bay Area
Doing something new is hard.Doing it alone is even harder.
Midair is a private, vetted circle of founders at your stage. A 12-week cohort bookended by in-person Bay Area gatherings, with 90-minute online sessions every other week, weekly accountability, and one year inside the founder community.
12 weeks · In-person kickoff + close · Groups of 6–8 · Interviewed and vetted
Our members
Meet some midair founders.
A few of the people in circles this season.
Life sciences veteran
Building AI for regulatory approvals. Iterating on product and early customer discovery.
Ex-investment banker
Now a fintech founder building AI for CFOs. Validating the market and preparing to raise.
4x founder · ex-CTO
Former staff engineer, now automating go-to-market for healthcare. Heads-down on traction.
2x life sciences founder
Mid-pivot, working through founder-problem fit for the next company.
Stanford ML engineer
Starting a new consumer AI company. Deep in problem validation.
Founder backgrounds
Member backgrounds include founders and operators connected to programs, firms, and teams like:
Why midair exists
Starting something is the loneliest, scariest thing most founders ever do.
You can't say the scary thing to your team, your investors, or your family. So most founders carry it alone. The numbers match the feeling.
- 1 in 3
- founders say they have no one to talk to about the hard parts.
- 81%
- hide their stress and anxiety from the people around them.
- 65%
- feel like a fraud, especially early on.
- 95%
- hit a goal when they're accountable to a peer who's watching.
Figures from published research on founder mental health and accountability. Ask us and we’ll share the sources.
Member benefits
What you actually get in midair.
A quarter-long cohort, weekly accountability, and a founder community that stays with you for the year.
A private board of founders
Six to eight vetted peers at your stage, plus a trained facilitator who keeps the room honest. Advice when you want it, sharper questions when you need them.
90 minutes every other week, built for both halves
Your 12-week cohort starts and ends in person. In between, half the online session is the company: the decision, the blocker, the thing you're trying to make real. Half is the person carrying it.
Weekly accountability that compounds
Every week, you name one specific commitment and report back to the group. The rhythm keeps momentum alive even on the weeks without a live session.
Two in-person Bay Area gatherings
Start and close the cohort in the same room. The in-person kickoff builds trust fast, and the closing gathering helps the relationships keep going beyond the 12 weeks.
Expert access when you need it
When your circle hits a question outside the room, we bring in operators, founders, and domain experts for targeted AMAs, office hours, and warm answers from people who have been there.
One year inside the community
Your membership includes a year of community access: your cohort, other Midair cohorts, and a private founder group for the questions that come up between sessions.
The bar
Who is midair right for?
The average Midair founder is exploring entrepreneurship seriously: in an early incubator, working full-time on a new direction, or getting ready to leave a job and take the leap. They bring 9 years of professional experience. 60% of our members are repeat founders.
Each applicant is interviewed and highly vetted. To keep midair intimate, we limit the number of groups started each season, and we review applications on a rolling basis. If spots fill up for Fall 2026, we will notify you when the January 2027 cohort opens.
- 9 years
- average professional experience
- 60%
- of members are repeat founders
- Early-stage
- incubator, full-time exploration, or ready to leap
To be clear
What Midair is not.
The room works because it stays specific. It is not another feed to manage or another place to perform.
- A pitch night or an investor demo day.
- A 10,000-person Slack you'll mute by Friday.
- A course, a cohort MOOC, or a webinar library.
- A status club full of valuations, name-drops, and velvet rope.
Fall 2026 cohort · Applications open
Think you're a fit?
Let's find out. Applying takes ten minutes, and every application gets an answer.