HackFS Summit 🚀 Why apply for a PL Accelerator Program - James Tunningley

foreign [Music] we're going to invite up James uh James's uh on the accelerator side and Partnerships uh as part of that funnel as well um and uh as kind of Reuben mentioned you know there's sort of the zero to one moments of of creating ideas and and executing those ideas and building an MVP that's what the hackathon is for um and then once you're done with that thing and you start getting traction there's just a bunch of new things that pop up new problems to answer and it's the best thing that that's possible is to have people around you going through the same thing and we've got through that before as well so uh inviting up changed the stage to kind of chat about how the accelerator program um that pl's been leading and uh to share more about that so James when you're ready thank you very much Jacob uh and great to see everybody here today um I'm going to talk a little bit about um how and why you should be applying for a protocol Labs accelerates program um we're going to touch a little bit on the what's and the whys of acceleration we're going to talk about the protocol Labs approach to accelerators we're going to touch upon how you become a protocol lab standard and what that means uh it's not all one way we're going to hear a little bit about our expectations of Founders on our programs and then obviously the next steps for you guys on how to apply so first and foremost the what and why of acceleration as I'm sure many of you know accelerators are fixed term cohort based programs that ultimately help turn your idea into a business they'll give you education mentorship resources often financing and so much more and they are intense and they are immersive they often compress years of education and insights into usually a number of weeks they they focus uh best for projects that are early products but tend to also be pre-revenue and they culminate a demo day where you get to Showcase your Amazing Project including all of the insights that you've gathered from the program to a wide variety of investors accelerated programs can really help you get the traction that you need or your idea as ruber mentioned uh a number of graduates from our programs started exactly where you are now with hackers incredible teams like power01 secured finance and many more they sat where you are now as a hacker and a hackathons we obviously are encouraging all and any ideas and then they took that idea through an accelerator program that really cataract catalyzed the validation of the idea um for folks who haven't seen uh Juan gives a fantastic overview of how to build a web 3 startup all the way from when that is a your idea is a very very nascent concept through to finding very strong product market for your project at scaling and growing your business and obviously as John Lennon famously said about hackathons and hackers you may say I'm a hacker but I'm not the only one you are among peers in your journey so what is unique about um our approach of protocol labs to accelerators well you've seen this visual um just before from Ruben we want to help take you from your hackathon stage at your journey working on your project or idea down the funnel towards acceleration and send you some Builder into a fully fledged entrepreneur ready to hit escape velocity while our accelerator programs give you three things they give you the knowledge the networks and the capital to help you succeed we have two sorts of programs at protocol apps we don't run our own program in-house but we partner with the best tech Partners across the world to co-deliver amazing programs our co-branded programs with Incredible companies like techstars like the long hatch light outlier Ventures and graph paper capital and you'll hear from Gabriel from graph paper Capital straight after me we partner with them as protocol Labs or filecoin or one of our other brands and co-deliver the programs together investing in every single team and taking a really Hands-On approach what's unique about these programs is all of the companies are building on our technology so you are among friends when you are trying to work out how to solve some of the frictions that you're facing we also have strategic Partnerships with Incredible Partners like a16c crypto CV Labs Alliance style and many more these programs are the flagship programs that these Partners run and we title with them to provide the pl specific parts of the curriculum and also offer the suite of um of support services that Reuben outlined including access to our community our network of mentors our investors and so much more so these are not necessarily exclusive to teams building on our Technologies but you usually have a few other folks who are building on Falcon ipfs sem and more to talk shop with we take our partnership selection extremely careful seriously and our programs are really carefully designed and around how to enable you to succeed so we look for the most experienced uh programs with extremely strong program management so the MDS of the programs have you know are often multi-time Founders at several companies are the best people to help you on your journey we take seriously the partners from an investment perspective so ideally all of our partners have their own investment vehicles to give you capital or they have extensive Partnerships or networks with investors around the world they also tend to have extremely deep benches of mentors and experts and so we cross fertilize our mentorship and and extensive investor network with Theirs to make sure we get you in front of every single person that could possibly help you and ultimately there's an ethos piece here our partners all believe in web3 and they are committed to building decentralized Networks one thing I want to touch on in particular is the importance of cohort based programs we intentionally ran all of our programs as cohorts because we know instrumentally in the power of peer-to-peer connection with your peers on these programs you don't just connect you build you grow and as y combinator as many of you I'm sure will be aware um espouse better than anybody else your peers often become your first partners and your customers on your entrepreneurial Journeys we've been doing this for quite a while now um and so we've we've got a very good idea of what it takes to succeed in this very difficult um uh building of a project or a business that scales through product Market fit and Beyond and so we've been able to repeatedly catalyze the founders almost 300 of them um across our Network and Beyond we've run over 36 cohorts with the best Partners in web 3 and Beyond and those companies have raised hundreds and hundreds of millions in external Capital so you know trust us to empower and best support you to catalyze your building so what is exciting about becoming a protocol Labs founder and why should you do it well all of you here today take a step back let's look at what a cohort in the life of PL father one might might include day one you shot your program you meet some of your peers you Bondo the legal implications of dsns and smooth jazz Kenny G all the rest of it by week three you're Blown Away on a workshop about ZK Roll-Ups and you stay all night up to research and potentially integrate that into your product week seven you have a convict coffee with a mentor that you've requested to connect with who subsequently advises you to do something different you pivot a fortnight later you three extra users and by week 12 you've got your first deal sheet from a pitch with an introduction to a top tier VC and you pop the bubbling on an alcoholic beverage of choice hopefully that gives you a nice flavor of what accelerator experience might be like but don't worry if that's not your jam we have a number of different programs each of them bespoke so there's something for every single founder some of our programs are focused on technical Founders and turning you into fully fledged entrepreneurs some of our programs are for business Founders and they're helping you find your technical co-founders or technical CTL and support functions and there are other programs that have very very unique approaches to acceleration Ally Adventures for example focuses on identifying your biggest friction and Promises to resolve it by the end of the program tachyon likes the color code Founders and then subject to how you react to both anticipated and unexpected consequences tailors your go-to-market from your color alliances program for a much much more mature team so you might have been on an earlier stage accelerator even a pre-accelerator I think or I've done an accelerator program I don't need to do another one don't worry we've got some that are focused on series 8 teams and Beyond the best way to think about our accelerator programs is as a gateway to a number of benefits from across the entire PL Network Reuben briefly touched upon some of these and but I want to double click on a few in detail that are specific for accelerator programs so the first thing is we have devised and built out with all of our partners of programs a really resilient curriculum that covers everything you need to know building successful startups in web3 that's it includes amazing programming workshops and privileged Technical and Engineering support to give you a sense of who are some of the people that you'll hear from on your curriculums talk all about everything from web3 business models to tokenomics to how you tell the story of your product or brand to how you fundraise build communities and more you'll hear from some of the most leading Minds across web3 who've been also exactly where you are now including our own founder Juan who is on the Y combinator program in 2014 and we are here today as PL because he sees the opportunity of an accelerator program at the time secondly I think Ruben mentioned so I won't double click on too many of these in detail but you have funding you have access to early stage Capital as well as all of our support to help you fund rates again Rupa mentioned this but I want to double click on the importance of networks not just of mentors and and you can have different mentors that support your course you can have ex or current Founders that teach you about how to become a better founder you can have invest their mentors the really teach you about how to fundraising close deals once you've got your foot in the door you can have Executives who can give a very different perspective of how you might grow and scale your company or you have experts that can help you solve really technical or other issues that your business is trying to result these are really really important the network don't just extend to mentors investors or other they extend to your peers it's really crucial to build those strategic relationships and Partnerships with those on your cohort and across the community as you're fortunate enough to be part of because they will help you succeed I promise you that obviously the support that has been outlined earlier from The Amazing Giga brains at protocol labs and this extends across the entire network so whether or not you will have you want support on and one of our core protocols you want support on cryptography or zks you want ad support from our our talent function to help you find colleagues that you need to help build your company or as was outlined by Reuben earlier through the plnn the Messiah cervix service and provider Marketplace is amazing you want discounts on Legal Services on design you know whatever you can think of there is a service and a provider for you and always at a very strong discount for you as a PL founder visibility is really important in succeeding for your business especially as you get to the end of your program we give you the platforms we give you the events we feature you in newsletters we invite you to every opportunity and that we offer to enable you to to Showcase and demonstrate what you're building and the community there is a lot spoken about when it comes to community and web3 and I think it's one of the things that Alliance brings us all to even closer we are all part of the same Global Community we are all part of the same web 3 community and we like to think of our Founders Community as a microcosm of that it really will enable me it's only 300 other families and the rest of the network that is there ready to support you so a little bit about our expectations as I close out today firstly how do you maximize getting onto your pro onto one of our programs what is our expectation of the teams that are accelerator ready well think about it as three buckets plus community the first is around feasibility can what you're building actually be doing not just as a as a prototype but as a fully fledged business can it become a scalable product and service that finds product Market fit and attracts investment and are you the right people to build it the best startup stories are the people that have lived friction and then and then come up with a solution to solve it and bring other people on that Journey secondly the desirability does what you're building solve a real world problem or friction will people actually use it as you're building it and when you think you've built it although building never stops and then finally on viability come what you're building find that all important future growth and attract value all-important investment and then wrapped around this there's no point building any of this in Asylum you have to gather support from others who believe in what you're building and can support your course I think the community aspect isn't often overlooked but a really important part of any application onto our accelerator programs how do you maximize once you're on a program what are expectations of you well ultimately you craft your path active engagement will lead to active reward if you are engaged if you are active if you keep us updated tell us about your investor updates your frictions your challenges and you use us how can we help solve them how can we make connections introductions help connect you with the right person to solve a small friction that might lead to a big improvement with your product you have to lean into us to reap those benefits and we really really encourage you to do so not just us the entire Founders ecosystem that is there ready to support you so I assume you are now flopping at the mouth ready to apply to one of our accelerator programs and don't worry it is super super easy to have it in the back of your mind as you're building heat the words of the John Legend on hackers so all you need to do is scan the QR code on the left side of the screen that says scan me that will take you to our protocol apps accelerator program homepage on notion on this document you will also find more information not just about how to apply and enroll but also more about what is in it for you as a Founder some of the requirements we have of our applications and then plenty of more information and that will answer all of your questions you will scroll down to onto this page you will click apply here now and then there are two options here for you in applying for a program option number one is you join our wait list for all of our accelerator programs that are looking for teams on for their accelerators so you join a sourcing pool of all the teams to which all of our partners can look through your application and then actively reach out to you to say we are interested in your product or build we'd love to have a conversation and invite you to potentially apply or Join one of our programs or if you know what you want you've had a conversation with somebody and you think you might be best fit for a specific accelerator you can choose option two where you can apply to the programs directly and all of our programs including those that are sourcing are listed by the second link good news there are two amazing accelerators that we've worked extremely closely with the leadership team for many many years currently sourcing the teams specifically fem teams and they are graph paper capital and you'll hear from the amazing Gabriel very shortly and long hash mentions so do check out those requirements and apply either throughout or following your hack really do use us I cannot stress this enough we are here for you we are all really really passionate about supporting Builders and the next generation of web3 projects and startups so whether it's myself or Reuben the incredible Nikki Yaya Julia Dawn Carlin or anybody else in the pl Network you can also redirect you towards us find us use us we're on Twitter we're on telegram we're in the Falcon slack where there are many different verticals from which to attack and to use those so please do and I will leave this QR code on the screen so those of you who are interested in our programs can click it one more time if you didn't get a chance and we really really hope to see you on one of our programs soon and thank you very much indeed for listening awesome thank you so much James and thank you Reuben before him I think if anything you take away from this they are here for you and that they've spent a lot of time thinking about how they can support Builders uh and people like you who are starting in the funnel or further down the funnel or really any part of their Journey so um yeah thank you both again and and thank you James for for jumping through that