Alliance 🛠 How to Find a Winning Idea and Team in Crypto

[Music] today I'm going to be speaking about how to find a an idea in crypto it's uh sounds like an easy topic but it's actually quite difficult and and so I'll walk through some of the steps in finding the right ideas in crypto and then I'll also talk about uh how to find a co-founder um I'd love to see a raise of hands uh for those that are looking to start a company okay uh it turns out hackathon is a great way to find uh the resourcefulness that you're looking for in other co-founders before you start a startup it's like a great stress test so I'll walk kind of us through some design exercises as well uh so I'm Imran I'm one of the founders of Alliance which is a crypto accelerator program we've had startups like uh tenzer which is an nft uh Marketplace on salana we have zerx um dydx kyber and many many others that have gone through our program we've supported over 200 Founders uh and teams globally and uh and we have a team of 20 that has expertise in many areas of crypto to help support our Founders we take about 20 to 25 startups per batch twice a year and the goal is to make sure that our Founders are successful and the way we do that is in four steps one is helping you find the right idea two is product validation so helping you get uh and Source your first 50 to 100 customers three is helping you with the design uh uh or what I call like the game theory design which could be a token it could be a game it could be uh speculation and the last is you know kind of regulatory support and hiring and and things like that um and obviously you know there's a demo day where we help support our Founders uh through um you know VC introductions and and things of that nature so it turns out the easiest way to build build something uh to find a great idea is to figure out um what are the things that your close network of friends or family are going through what are some of the hurdles that they're going through and how do you solve for that and it turns out like the often ideas that you'll find are things that have haven't been solved but they seem very easy I call this like low hanging fruit um and the way you'd want to think about that is in four steps one is uh um often times F uh the people that are closest to you are the ones that are going to have areas of opportunities in terms of like uh onboarding so an example of this is how do you onboard the everyday user into crypto two is um how do you think about the the problems that they're seeing in the space so uh an example of this I can give is um within crypto it's very hard to find uh you know consumer applications that could solve real world problems so thinking about ways where you could leverage crypto as a way to enable some sort of problem that they're going through and being able to solve that three is um from a game perspective like you know there's a lot of you know web 2.5 web 3 games um but the core aspect of the games that they're that people are building what what uh parts of that is crypto and how do you enable that to be uh a way that you could drive more users to the platform and the last but not least the way I see this is um taking what I think is uh this is a very controversial topic but people often say that speculation is actually a very bad thing for crypto I think the the counter which is I think speculation is very good it's just you have to embrace it in a way that could be net positive um and so some examples I can give you from this is uh front Tech um has used speculation in a way that can enable some positive activity which is like using speculation as a way to create more social activity as an example you saw a a recent um uh development with uh friend pet which is a another like kind of speculative uh game where you feed a a pet you you deposit some eth and there's this virtual cycle where the friend as you feed the pet then you know you get some points and then etc etc I don't think they're breakout apps yet but these are the early instantiation of products that can be built by using speculation so I'll talk a bit more about that um the other mistake that I see that uh people make when they come into crypto is they usually do something that's part-time and the problem with this is that it's very hard to find the right problems uh if you aren't full-time um and so here's like a perfect example um in defi summer um it like for those that have participated 5 summer one of the biggest problems back then was the fact that onboarding was a mess uh on ramping off- ramping was a mess um the ability to uh yield farm and all of the other things that come around it was a mess and um you know there's many products that solved this today like yearn that kind of Aggregates yield uh liquidity and helps find the best yield Etc there's many things that have solved but the only way you could actually find out of of a problem is if you personally experience it and the only way you could experience it is if you're full-time and you're actually using the products um 50% of the time I talk to Founders uh that are trying to solve a problem turns out they haven't even used def uh the product itself or they haven't actually experienced the sector that they've been a part of so what I say to the founders that are solving the that's trying to solve a problem in their space in their domain is to start to use a products and start to like experience what users go through if you haven't been rugged yet go get rugged I mean that's kind of the the examples I'm giving you because those are the only ways you you'll be able to find the problems that the everyday user goes through and this is kind of you know coming to my next point which is I think every person that comes into crypto has a superpower um and what I mean by this is like everyone has this a special domain expertise whether you have a love for AI whether you have a love for security uh whether you have a love for Consumer all of these like domain expertise is very important when when it comes to crypto because what crypto enables you to do is build helps you build a product that's very differentiated um I think of crypto as a a layer that sits on top of all of the verticals that exist today and the idea is how do you take the the domain expertise that you have or of special sectors that are out there and using crypto as a way to build products that are very very unique so an example I can give you is Amir halem who's the founder of helium um he founded uh uh you know a company that allows you to mine uh coins and what you have to do is like share your internet connection into a Wi-Fi connection then he started with hotspots now he's building a mobile network that sits on top it turns out his experience goes further back and it turns out it has a lot to do with uh networking infrastructure and so he leverages his experience with networking infrastructure to build something that's very differentiated in crypto and it turns out that is what is unique like if you look at the competitors for helium there's off there there aren't many I I obviously there there's probably none and so I what I what I'm saying here is like there's a unique DNA that every person has use it to your advantage and don't shy away from it um here's a list of how to not find winning ideas in crypto and uh and uh you know you hear about this quite often people always tell you to talk to users I think it's important to talk to users but talking to users and leveraging what like taking their feedback uh accordingly uh is probably something that I wouldn't advise so there was a funny meme that was being shared around Twitter uh a couple months ago I don't know if you've seen it if you haven't you should look it up but it was a meme of an iPhone that had a antenna it had a like a VCR it had you know a bunch of different gadgets that was attached to the iPhone and the top of the meme it says like if Apple took advice from every customer customer that gave them feedback it was a very like weird looking product and but it tells you something right what it tells you is that customers often times don't know what they want and they will tell you things and it may sound right to you at the at the offset but it really turns out the real insight is like solving a problem that they don't know yet exist um and that is kind of the special power of what I call what a Founder should be really thinking about which is like what is what is the core root problem of this customer and then and you know validating that across all the other customers that give you this feedback so going back to my point which is when you talk to customers try to figure out the root problem but don't take their feedback literally um this is obviously a funny one um but I agree with this which is like oftentimes VCS write a lot of reports um but it turns out um often times doesn't land the way it does because they aren't very close to the customers uh and so a lot of the ideas you may see may sound great but ultimately you're not going to find out about the idea the problems that your customers are going to go through unless you talk to them um and so um I would advise read the VC thesis papers that's fine but often times that's not where you're going to find your next billion dollar idea you're going to find your next billion dollar idea by either you yourself going through the problem uh by going full-time and and going through the problems that everyday users go through or talking to customers and understanding uh like your close friends and family and seeing what problems that they're going through and being able to find a problem that uh that you're able to solve I also want to touch on um how to find a co-founder and uh the reason why I'm bringing this up in a hackathon is because um often times founders uh that find another co-founder often times is at a hackathon um and I think when I think about hackathons yes we're all here to have fun you know hacking and it's just a great way to network and meet people but sometimes someone has a lightning and a bottle moment and that lightning in the bottom moment turns out to be a billion- dollar idea and I'll give you a couple examples 2017 I was a a judge at uh 2018 I was judge at uh eat San Francisco and inap uh Team flew in from India and I was one of their judges and I actually uh uh judged them and I gave them the thumbs up to get the reward to be a winner at eth IND uh e San Francisco and I didn't think about it at the time but it turned out to be a billion dollar idea um same thing happened with one inch and same thing happened with many many other startups that came out of these eth events um what I'm saying here is have fun but also keep it back of your mind that you know if you're really here to build something big you know you should take some prec cautionary steps um and and I want to go through just how to find a co-founder because I think it's important if you're looking for someone um as you're building this out um how many of you have a co-founder already how many of you do not have a co-founder yet okay so this might be useful for you um and I think this will be useful for those that have a co-founder because there's some exercises that you guys can do to really test and see the validation of uh of the bond of the of the connection and and and some of the other things I'll be talking about um I I I guess I have five more minutes so I'm going to try to run through this um but what's important is like the why what and Synergy um why why are you guys teaming up you know are you guys aligned in terms of where you how you see the future um what problems are you solving and do you feel like you're aligned from that perspective um can you trust each other um do you feel like each both of you have High agency um you know how do you go through stress uh and the ability to be resilient when you're uh going through problems as a founder or co-founders and it turns out like one of the re biggest reasons why Founders break up is because of stress and not being able to handle it second biggest reason is trust uh and so there are ways to um do fact patterns to figure out whether or not both are resilient um often times you know uh you know Paul Graham says this and many others say this which is like having co-founders is always in that positive I I tend to agree but it doesn't mean that you can't start a f a company being a solo founder but it'll help you if you want to um grow fast and expand and things like that but some of the reasons is like productivity uh ideation and being able to get moral support um and it turns out like stress although it's heavy being able to have someone that you can lean on is also very very important um and it helps you in terms of being able to scale and grow fast um what I look for in co-founders um is are they domain experts um who wants wealth who wants control um a perfect example of this is the coin based co-founders Fred and Brian um Brian um is the control uh meaning that he wants to be the face of the company he wants to have uh the direct control of how the company uh build builds AC Cruise value and where it's strategically going to go next Fred was more on the wealth side he goes look I'm here for the I'm here to build this company and make it generational but I don't necessarily need to be the person that's in under control and it turns out control is also another big problem in terms of why Founders break up because both want control so when you're looking for a co-founder think about who has who wants to be control and who wants the wealth um and often times this is a good way to stress test and to see um you know who uh can sit in one side um this is very obvious do they compliment you you know obviously you want to find people that you can work with that compliment you um and making sure that there's very little overlap because as a company you're going to be wearing four to five different hats and uh when you wear those hats you want to make sure that um they're wearing hats in different domains so that way you can scale quickly a good book I can recommend is elod Gill's book on how to scale a company um and it talks about how to appropriately skill a company when you find product Market fit um and this is a stress test I advise all co-founders to do uh when you're starting a company it's very important um it takes 5 to 10 minutes um an example is um does anyone know tenzer the nft marketplace on salana no okay um they went through a program and they did this test when they found each other um and it's five minutes 10 minutes long they did this at a hackathon uh I I so for those that are looking for a co-founder I even probably would do this for people that already have a co-founder kind of gives you an alignment in terms of where each other are why do you want to start a a startup where is your priority in your life are you control wealth oriented which is something that is very important when you ask a co-founder this uh what's important to you uh top three to five traits um when you're hiring someone any ongoing commitments and what happens if we make no money in 12 months actually that the last point is very important which is like what happens if you make no money in 12 months this is when you know like if someone's all in or not and you want people that are all in and this is the the rest of the questions here um you can take a picture of if you'd like but I think it's being streamed so uh you could rewatch The the stream to get the questions um so I'm going to end it here um and if you're looking for your next startup idea in crypto we have a ton if you visit our website alliance. XYZ ideas and uh if you uh we are offering mentorship today tomorrow and Sunday you could book time with me by scanning this QR code or with any of our expertise here at uh India uh but scan this QR code you can find time with me I'd love to learn about what you're building and how I can help you and uh help you get to product Market F thank you so much