Gnosis Chain 🛠 From Hack to Startup

foreign [Music] guys again so today we will go and talk more about the business business stuff less about technical stuff because about technical stuff you can find the thousands of workshops courses etc etc so and now we will be talking about something which are hided in the developer but in developing process uh so you as you know my name is arseni I develop relations in glasses Builders uh I in crypto since 2018 and I previously was founder of two startups so for this reason I uh I went for all stages which I will talk in today so I I'll also aluminumist accelerator is like white combinated but for B2B starter B2B startups and I also part a few dollars and won a lot of hackages so what we're talking about so how what's the what's the hackathon could be useful for build a project how usually I look on the building project at some kind of um summary about experience of a lot of my friends and uh articles from YC and lectures and a few books and also we will talk how effective use the hackathons in this conclusion and we'll try to help you convert your idea of the hackathon to the business in this area so let's start from the reason why the people in general participate in Cricket on we most of people wish I met and I wasn't maybe on more than 100 100 hackathons third of this I won so and I meet a lot of people around the world most of people I arrived for make some achievement to to take some achievement for CV spoiler it's not working usually each Arts I really don't understand what this hackathon is how it's working about uh uh brings realize the reputation this is the most important thing point I think earn money Bounty style hunting it's also work partially because for my expertise when you're traveling to offline hackathon in for exactly to Europe or United States you not earn money because a trip and accommodation cost uh it or all your prizes it doesn't matter how much money you want it will be spoiling on the travel but it's a good point if you're going as a con also to conference partially worked for creating MVP and uh to be ready to rise a rice Grant or Rising the institution but it only depends not only your technical almost mostly depends on your not your technical skills is more depends on your soft skills and business skills uh improve Network also very important part find it find the job uh to be on the side never never find the job of the hackathons but you can find the by networks the guys who can hire you in the future and learn new technologies that's also worked partially because the people who arrive the conference are mostly uh marketing guys or developer relations guys and they and they provide you basic workshops and you still need to spend time to learn it by ourselves so we still need to learn by yourself it's not working uh so let's start how usually uh what I can recommend to prepare uh how organized the process of creating new ideas I use it standard white combinator one pager uh as example you can see on the right uh on the on the right of the slide it's usually consists of one liner problem product Market size Revenue model traction team competitors and finance financing uh to be success on the hackathon and to be success in risingly granted in building the project success project will be generate not only wasting money but also Revenue you need to answer these questions and be ready to answer this question to guys who you pitch it it's also help you to trans transmit your idea to other guys and attract people to Europe uh to your team so let's start from one liner on the right part you see the example and let's see on this so good one liner consists of the problem solution as a result so the problem is I didn't is identified identification as a problem which you're trying to solve and usually um it's related with customers which are focus on to solve this problem for the solution is usually a description how products are going to solve this problem to customers which you mentioned on the first part and the result is describe the success is usually describe what kind of goods or pain points will be solved for customer and how and the good if you can add add mechanics how you're going to run to earn the money from this from this uh solving the problem so this example many people struggling with answering what they do visit clarify and confidence so this is description of the problem there's a two abstract many peoples but still working the story brand one liner is a simple format this will help people realize why they need your product and service uh uh the story brand is a name simple formula it's a description of solution and result that people will be realized their products and service they need the product and service so it's an example of this formula uh creating quad liner is a really important part because if you start if you will watch why why combinator videos about how to pitch the pitch your ideas to investors they have a classical formula uh with a 30 second speech or they also name it as elevator pitch and also starting from one liner the one liner is the first first touch Visio investor or customers to describe what you really do and it will be at it should attract attention uh of people we should talk in with to to raise interest why they need to listen you next so then usually going there more more information about the problem the problem the problem could be divided to main uh to four four type types is finance Financial it's a usually how uh your pro uh what's the financial problem of what's the kind of problem what kind of financial Goods you're going to bring to your customers it's usually reducing cost or higher price money or give opportunities to raise money from some you know uh free assets for example productivity pain point is usually improves the time management of your customers for example uh with our salute with our solution you will be uh don't waste time on the cleaning your house for example it's about time Effectiveness uh process uh important it's about how you're going to improve the process it's pretty close to productivity but more about process itself whereas uh where them very involved with more people just than just you and support pain point is um sorry uh is a it's a it's a problem for example when you situated in a critical situation and you need some kind of pro uh some support it's it could be as a good example of the supporting point is a lot of startups we should provide the chatbots or personal assistants Etc uh etc etc uh then going with switching to the product uh usually descriptions of products are strong related to the customers here every time you should think about who are the main customers it could be one it could be if you uh it also should connect it to the problem and uh but in this in this point you need to be focused on how you're going to solve a problem and please do not use the technical terms for example we are going to use the keyboard for blah blah blah just remove the technical technical stuff and we focus on the solving of the description how what's the problem and how you're going to solve or what's the what's the form for customer or for user will be and of course you need to be transparent to understand how you go to earn money from this uh one is a good uh I can invite show you um the better a bad example of this we are we are creating uh ZK Bridge uh as a product description it's not uh it's not transmits the value it's not transmits who the customers it's not transmit what what's the difference with the competitor Etc but if you convert this product to we're going to make a service which allows in permission uh which in permission and less and protected by the game mathematics the K mathematics is useful to describe that you don't need to pull off validators uh that help people to transfer money from one to one chain to other chain and we focus for example on hedge funds it's uh shows that you focus on the big big sums or you are focusing on interability messaging it means you will be focusing on the developers of defy Pro cross chain the five protocols Market size uh the few terms I don't don't want to spend much time on description because I'm not so good in marketing size but this uh usually uh if you want if you will uh if you can calculate a total addressable Market service addressable Market service or obtainable Market there's a different uh points which can which can help you to understand is it is it a big Market uh what's the part of Market you're going to cover with your with your with your service and uh what what usually what what kind of money you need to cover these type of Market it's usually helps you to to create hypothesis hypothesis because at the stage when you create idea you you you make a lot of predictions and this in this type of research I help you to understand how big is the market and how many people you need to attract and how to attract these people what's the cost of attractions is people people and to really help you to build the mark Market business model is help you to build the business mobile and understand and understand from the beginning as a good as a good project to spend time it's in general or it's just a two small Market it's in better to uh change ID a little bit or change customers uh Target Auditors I think you know something like this so it will be have to prove that this idea is a big enough to earn money on this sorry yeah I say I put some video about the description what is a market size so use use this as a prefer because he because this guy is more professional in the market size stuff uh Revenue model uh yeah you should be transparent it's one of the important stuff when you pitch ID on the hackathons because most hackathons are focusing that you after hackathon you're going to uh the sponsor expects that you will be build the business and it's important to be to tell people why uh why your project will be profitable and because if it will be not profitable uh you can lose some motivation to spend time for nothing to building this project and and sponsors don't understand why they need to support you if you're not going to continue work on this project uh and in a very early stage of the project of course you can make it just hypothesis uh how you go into earn the money but it's good to start think about this this process from the beginning because it can be it can be important to architecture and structure of your smart contracts or processes to be ready accept the payments or other type because if your bills for example effective uh some tools which have for free solves a problem but you need don't put any stuff how to earn money from this solving the problem it will be bad product first of all for you because you will not receive the money from this um it's attraction it's more about the after after hackathon stuff it's more about her attraction is usually proof that your predictions about the solution about our Target auditory about Market about the business model makes sense because attractions is only proof that shows that you was right the attraction could be different on different stage of mnp because MVP also could be different it could be subscribers on your Twitter because you you provide some interesting stuff or you provide the different interesting update and people really wait when the when you will be released but in this uh but in this type of Attraction it's really hard to to understand first of all for yourself that your your product interested or your Twitter interesting you should be careful with this uh this uh distraction uh it's loyal is letter of intense it's really cool Stars exactly for B2B um B2B project to have letters of the potential customers who already know about your projects here already want to buy your goods it's a really um it's it's much better than nothing of course lawyer is usually not every time a lawyer converts it to the deal but it's much better than nothing uh daily active uh active wallet wallet so yeah sorry my mistake uh it's a daily active voice uh it's some kind of uh abstractions that we when we believe there's one wallet one user and it's only one characteristic true characteristic which could be getting Unchained from the your defy protocol so and usually when you see the statistic of the broad of the big players like one inch or uni swaps it shows that active wallets or or how many stockings take it how many will be tokens Etc and of course turnover it's and turnover it's also not Direct start exactly on the early stage but it's but it's more important uh progress of the turnover it's a going it's a going cup it's a good sign it's going down or not going at all it's a bad sign it's uh and but important that you to show a dynamic of of these parameters also and most important stuff at the beginning is because of team because on the early stage investors are more interesting as a team so you need to show that you are able to build the projects you're able to understand that your products are not good enough and you make a wrong decision at the beginning and you should be and you should you should show that you're ready to understand this mistake and make a private before that you just will be uh out of my of investor money and receipt and arrive to new grants so you should show that you um how how what the what's the way how to show it first of all uh you need to you need be a team which have worked together for you sometimes so it's uh one minimum one guys from your team should be expert in in area where you're building a business you also need need to all come all com all expertise which required for this type of project and uh it's very cool if you have some guys who already have success exit from the previous startups these points are usually give Advantage Advantage compared with the same team with the same product in in the pitching to investors and encrypted people really afraid to put their real photos to the pitch decks and but we still humans we still believe only in people who which we meet in person I have a lot of examples when the when we have a call and then meeting and then have one more call it's produced totally much better result since we just have a calls result out any handshake and physical activity and and it's much worse when you we just talking with the guys on the call and don't show their face and we didn't see this guys in presentation too so I it's really not bring the connection and brings the relations because uh investor you should choose investors much careful than your wife because wife you can change an investor sometimes no uh competitors competitors is also important stuff it and it's important to show direct and indirect competitors as a classical example of this is a A or B and B uh not Airbnb sorry um there's some there is a platform for uberization Uber uberization cleaning service for example when you can uh request the cleaning for your apartment in Uber style so in the same time we when or a little bit in advance they direct they have direct competitor is a cleaning firm which I have you need to book in the one week you need a big apartment because they request a lot of time for this but the main competitor was interact in direct competitor in this example is a is a people who clean their their about apartment by ourselves so it's also important to have a direct indirect competitors and understand why uh who are bigger competitor and how you're going to fight with him uh shows the difference and sometimes a fast uh fast and cheaper exactly when you have a B2B business is not a true competitor advantage which you should be careful with this but if there isn't any difference you need to show to prove to show or describe to your potential investment customers how uh potential customers how you're going to compete how we're going to attract the users have already existing um services and also very hard to build your own business to build not your it's very hard to build your new market like it's produced by Uber before Ubers we haven't any uh we haven't any aggregators of Taxi so they create a new totally New Market and they spent time and money for educate people to grow these Market from the from the beginning and for this reason there are no competitors is usually bad sign because you need to be in two times or three times more experience it and this good backup by investors and experts uh and very very belief in your idea because when you don't don't have competitors it usually means that the people don't need this type of service you should be careful with this uh financing is usually last part when you already have some prepare all other slides you understand how many money you need to prepare the time sheet about how many money for which type of activity you need to prepare uh some some investors I recommend to avoid naming crowd like don't name is Serie A or Serie B because it's bring a label says bring expectation of the size the size of the round so though some people are avoid this and have a good traction about it uh don't include the terms because sometimes it's really flexible stuff so there isn't any best there are few best practices but it's so flexible because there's a investition market is so more exactly on the preced stage it's really uh a relation a relation focused so you can make a really different uh you have a really different terms compared with your competitors with a better uh better him relation with investor or opposite uh it's really good to make the investition a Milestones or money spending connect to roadmap it's really can can show that easy to show why you need this money and if you have a plan how do you're going to spend this money that you see the risk and how you're going to manage this risk one of the weaknesses of the a lot of Greater Creator startups is they ask money mostly for technical technical stuff for developing or team Etc and I totally forgot about go to market and marketing stuff or any initial sales lower stuff audit stuff etc etc so it's important to include to the budgeting also this non-technical stuff also for Incorporation so how usually how typical process of success startups looks like from my retrospective uh first of all you need to you should make a team you should be really good cool professional to guess I wish I will comfortably work together you should understand weaknesses and benefits of all to members and use and how to work with these guys uh I know a few teams which I was which met on the one hackathon and the after five or six hackathon after a year in the house they they build a strong project which are rising money so the proheaton is really a good place to meet uh to men's team members to build the project in the future uh find the pro finding a projects finding a problem it's also not clear to developers guys because they working only in technical stuff and they think this okay I will create this tool and it will be useful for every every developers but is unfortunately it's not working in this uh in this way so you you need to use the researchers you you it's a good idea to use already prepared research it's good idea to create your own research my customer developing make interviews talking with experts is one of the reasons why in team you it experts in the area who work more than 10 15 years in area and he knows the pain point of this industry and understand who are the main customers then we'll be creating a product hypothesis uh this I'm talking before is about this is a problem it's a problem for this type of customers this type of these customers already propose this amount of money this and these customers this number and big enough and a lot of hypothesis and you need to prepare the way how to check this hypothesis and what is a successful rate uh what what will be successfully show this hypothesis is working it's also important stuff uh so it could be solved by interview it could be solid by surveys it could be solved by a b testing it could be solving this a lot of stuff there if you in their free not a lot of companies who may who provides this type of service so and also painful stuff at the same time it's transparent by own chain activity so we can use uh only after this I recommend you to go to the hackathon because you already have Team you have already problem you already have hypothesis you only need to create something technical to prove this hypothesis and also in hackathon you can get the first reaction first of all you can go to the sponsor to make of intense letter of intense you can go or use hackathon participants to for example mean mint some nfts or mixer wave is provide some other type of activity and usually it's work really cool because people people who attract hackathons are really already active so they really like to learn something they're really active they're really ready to try it and they open to any problem issue will be which there which which they are facing during the using your better version for example then usually after when you receive the track and you have a hypothesis you have for example this type of pitch deck of course you're going to write some money and you've successfully rise the money you will start scaling so you get more traction you get more features you get more Etc and you start to just traditional um uh Loops of the biogel methodology so what to do on the hackathon so let's imagine that we arrived with Team or we find successfully fine Siemens hackathon and we find the idea so on the hackathon you can do market research customer development you can build your network of the early adopters or early users uh it's a good idea to prepare a list of questions an organizers to effect to effectively work on the venue uh create a team if you still haven't a team it's good to create a team to the next hackathons creating VP was part of the MVP or checks the hypothesis that is impossible to implement this store is this point or see there's a technology have a backs and you need to improve and the owner of the technology need to solve the problem before you're going to create MVP get attraction because you during during the hackathon you can build for example some tooling which you can definitely ask to use by users or organizers uh and of course learn something new we're providing workshops you ask us in the telegrams or Discord and other channels and we're trying to help you and you do buy your the more important you read something you will try something and of course you need to have a fun because it's it's your life and you have it's too boring to spend all life on this I'm seriously uh what to do after hackathon it doesn't matter are you going I will be winner or not winner it's only if your useless achievement in your portfolio because from my experience it's really not help to raise the money if you just hack it on winner without other stuff like strong team and traction uh only winning kakaton is not bring you nothing um after hackathon you still have a group of the people which are uh participate you still have a connection uh with a sponsor and organizer so continue make research continue make customer development continue talking with the people and provide updates about your project or other project or the same project which you build on the hackathon also I use this active guys to to get attraction and of course spend time on the prepare new haircut and learn new features and make everything from the list from the beginning