HackFS Summit 🚀 Overview of PLN + Builders Funnel - Ruben Amen

foreign [Music] cool well thanks everybody I hope someone's been going so well so far uh I'm pretty excited for this next part of the summit a bit of a transition uh you kind of started with uh kind of learning about the hackathon and what's happening this week our next couple weeks then you kind of learned from from Sarah and Matt and Addie about you know how fem Works what's going on um you just had Nikki and crew kind of chat about what it's like to build on the fvm and now we're kind of moving into uh what's after so I think one of the coolest things about hack FS is you get access to the amazing protocol Labs Network that exists to kind of help take your project that you build over the next couple weeks from here to really anywhere um that that you can dream of so I wanted to kind of have these next three talks chat about what other availability uh what other options there are for you after the event and and just kind of give you an overview of that ecosystem so without further Ado uh Ruben join us and Reuben's going to kind of do an intro to the protocol Labs Network and what it's like to be a builder in that Network so I'll leave it over to Reuben take away foreign thank you Jacob always great on being here always great meeting the um amazing hackers at hackerfs um yeah so as Jacob said I'm going to be talking about what's next what's after hackerfest and how can you scale and your idea with um the protocol Labs Founders program so uh we have been organizing these hackathons for quite a while now and you know some some we eat Global and some with other partners and over the years we we have learned a little bit about you we have learned a little bit about you um the hackers that attend those programs and um one thing we have learned is that there are some in this audience today some of you that just want to play around with the technology you want to you know and test the boundaries of what's possible this is maybe weekend or a couple of weeks heck for you um to you know create an interesting project and learn more about maybe certain technology and then you might want to to step away but we have also learned that that there are some in this audience that are really keen on really shipping products they're really keen on on on building something that that lasts and that many thousands or millions of users use and find um useful and in their daily lives and what I'm presenting today as many delivered at that second group the um you know the Builders out there that want to um bring real product um to Market so what we understand about you is that you know you want to ship a product to to millions of users you want to disrupt a 300 billion dollar data economy so you're really tackling a massive market right for a disruption and you do imagine a world where data and liquidity move freely that's um while you're at hackaths and um in the upcoming weeks you know the fvm team and many other of the great people I'm in the protocol labs and each Global and ecosystem will support you but afterwards what's next right um and and we have um thought about this quite a lot and at protocol labs and we stood up a program specifically are targeted at you that we call the founders program or the founders program by protocol Labs where we want to support builders that push Humanity forward now um structurally how do we do that right there there are three elements to this program there is um a big piece that is obviously the capital so and if you want to build something you know you have to not just invest time but you and have to invest Capital to you know bring it to to version and we have expert programming and we're going to speak about this um quite a bit and then there's a really strong and really important um Community aspect um to this as well um in the upcoming couple of minutes and also in the talks that are going to come after me and we are going to go into all of this and how we execute this and how you apply Etc in quite some detail however for now I just want to like take a step back and you know relate myself to you um a little bit and kind of give you an idea of of who I am and where we as a team um are coming from um so first of all I feel you right like creating a startup is hard I I've been there myself I've um you know been creating startups since since 2013 I was dealside the PC I'm investing in delivery hero and you know went through this deal joined the the global management team and took that to IPO two of us also IPO and this year and I was part of the farming team and uh of proof which was acquired by two room for about 100 million dollars and then um most recently um I was part of the founding team of pumpkin which which surpassed 100 million of any recurring Revenue um in 2021 however this is this is what it looks like right but this is not what it actually feels like um as an entrepreneur you go through do you go through some apps but you have to cross a really you have to cross really really deep valleys so if you look um you know these are pictures that actually um my longtime partner provided me of of her perspective of kind of like how how she sees me as an entrepreneur you know like big bags under my my eyes um you know just napping on the couch fast food while you know I'm I'm developing product um and so on and so forth right so I I really emphasize with you and the founders story is is an extremely tough story particularly now that we have you know and entered a pretty deep kind of trip the winter and you know the regulatory environment is Shifting around us so as a team we we thought really hard about how can we be best of help to you how can we best support you and the structure that we came up with in late 2020 is that of um the builders funnel and the builders funnel hopefully by the end of all of the presentations that are going to be given to you today is going to be intimately familiar to you and you will have a really good idea of how to interact with it and how to um apply for you know the individual pieces within this program so naturally the funnel kind of flows from left to right it features education and for those of you you know who are who are early and just discovering this the stack it features hackathons I mean we're all here to hack right so you probably know that for for many many years we have been organizing these hacks and this is kind of the the top of the funnel where we meet you right where you develop your early ideas but some of you you know as I explored earlier might want to progress you don't want to you know and kill the idea you don't want to drop the idea post hackathon but maybe you have you know built a strong relationship with and your teammates maybe you've won a prize or maybe you've just fallen in love with the idea and the friction that you're solving and now you want to proceed and there are a couple of of ways that you can do that one you know kind of like the first step is Grants they are not just micrograms micrograms are in the in the range of like three thousand to five thousand dollars but there are also death grants and these are targeted at you know let's say you participate in the hackathon and you you feel that there's something in our stack that's missing has a clear friction that you are addressing and you and your team want to tackle this as um as kind of like an um an open source contribution to the overall pln stack please feel free to reach out to us we would love to and Aid you with a grant and help you you know Enbridge that that Financial need and so you can focus on delivering against it next is accelerators my um team member James is going to take quite a bit of time and following on this talk to speak about why the how and the when of accelerators and also um to how you best apply to it um after James is speaking Gabriel actually one of our amazing Partners we have been partnering with Gabriel for many many years graph paper capital and tachyon and it's going to speak and you can kind of get a Hands-On feel of what an accelerator feels like and then there's obviously the big big part which is um you know investment as protocol Labs we have a number of investment funds so let's say you graduate from an accelerator or you know coming out of a grant your idea is is Crystal Clear there are a number of boxes that you tick and you now feel that um you're ready to take your and product to Market you have maybe um you know initial product Market fit then we stand ready you know to and invest into your C drone pre-seed round even and or support your series A so this is the Builder's fund now how are we doing how um is the Builder's fund has the builders fund progressed since its exception in 2020 um the farmer has created billions uh in dollars of value um as you can see kind of progressing from from left to right we have been steadily growing the ecosystem and if you look at these individual bars kind of logically you will see that many of the startups that have started like you today in the audience as you know hacks maybe even weekend hacks you know have progressed to Serious a series even series D and Beyond right and and what I'm you know particularly I guess excited about is that a number of the bounties that are announced today for this particular hackathon come from startups that and you have gone through the entire Builders funnel end-to-end and have once been just like you um you know hackers at a hackathon a number of you know examples that jump out are like you know the monarchs the Glitters and huddle01 and and others now while we understand that the builders funnel is is extremely critical and we need to really meet you where you are in your entrepreneurial journey and you know whatever step you take we need to kind of have an answer and the support system to support you we also understood over time that it's not enough right so there are other things that we have layered and augmented the builders funnel with to kind of supercharge your entrepreneurial journey and number one is funding right so um we have a number of funds um that cater to yours particular situation you know and if you are more kind of um you know ecosystem Network growth SP focused you know there's a different team that can support you and can assess your um individual needs best and we do follow-on Investments of course so it's not just you know a one-time deal with us we want to you know follow on in your entire entrepreneurial journey and then there's also fundraising support as a first time founder especially when you come from you know a technical background ever been to a business class the strategy and tactics on how to approach a fundrise to begin with is actually not very intuitive right and has to be taught and and we can help you with that a second piece is community right um when you are a Founder the most um dangerous thing you can be alone and what you want is you want to have an amazing Network an amazing kind of augmentation of advisors and people that have similar uh challenges or even a little bit ahead in um in their journey and around you so you can consult them you can share um your frictions with them you can um you know consult them basically in your darkest hours because they will come and and you will benefit greatly from their input and and the access that we provide you to the amazing Founders in our ecosystem the main ways we do that is we have an invite only um telegram group and a couple of other forearms we have a Founders Day a couple times and the week which is truly in that only and they create like an intimate space where you can ask questions that you know you you might wouldn't want to ask a VC or a senior executive but they're easy to ask appear the third bucket is expertise talent and services we have the amazing team over at pln Andrew Denise Etc that um have put together a large bucket of of services they call it Mosaic and they call it pln Services marketing Council and that can help you supercharge your business but there are also you know um there's also legal advice recruiting help right we help you recruit at highly highly reduced fees for your initial hires and we have a superstar team that can help you you know think about and hiring thesis Etc which is obviously a very very key piece of and how to scale a startup um in fourth bucket and we have visibility in marketing the protocol Labs brand um goes quite far so we have been around in the space and obviously over time naturally we have built legitimacy and Trust in the space um and this can be very very helpful for Founders and we want to be a platform for you to celebrate your wins with you right so what we do with Founders in the ecosystem and as part of the founders program is we listen and we track you and we have conversations with you and as you as an example you know announce a new product launch or um you know announce an um successful fundraise we want to amplify it right on our marketing channels on our twitters we might even release a press release and and so on and the last piece I want to stress and for this one I'm you know going to double click a little bit in one specific event that we host and is is the networks that we curate all right so there are two networks that we have um you know specific attention to as part of the founders team one is um you know the the the network of um of top Executives and Founders that we want to bring in to help consult you right to assist you in your go to market to maybe become advisors in your startups um Etc right the um one of the most um the most dangerous things you can do is fly blind right you want to especially in crypto where a lot of things but the level of uncertainty is already very high right you want to de-risk your um go to market your fundraise you the timing how you roll out product the sequence how you you know engage with your roadmap and you want to de-risk this as much as possible and the top Executives in our networks um can help you do this quite a bit because they have been there and then secondly we have an extensive investor Network um we have thousands of investors that you know frequently interact and and track our portfolio and um you know becoming part of that Founders ecosystem can really really help you you know get legitimacy for your fundraise but also you know get started and get a foot in the door with one of the some of the biggest names in the space um this connects very well with the next piece I want to talk about which um is Phil VC and philbc is a very particular event it's a investor focused invite-only event where we invite the best investors globally sometimes for an in-person event like in Singapore last year and sometimes for an online event to hear pictures from the best startups in web3 and this is truly this is truly a huge lift um in in Singapore long we had more than three trillion of assets under management in the audience you can imagine what that means um for for your fundraise and how it can you know supercharge um your um your race and decapitalization and chances of success for your business here on the left you see a couple of names of you know the people that attended I-16 crypto polychain y combinator blue yet Etc they were all um present and and in the audience a number of names that you know successfully raised from philbc we have the table lands The Flicks and and the transcripts all of them you know kicked off their rounds um actual VC and generally you know the feedback that we get from teams that participate and are selected it's only about 20 to 25 teams every time um they they love the experience and kind of the white glove approach um we provide them and giving them the big stage I think one way to think about Phil PC as someone who has rest before is concentrating two to three months that you would normally have to spend at Silicon Valley Singapore maybe London and to you know a couple of minutes on a very big stage that um that that really count all right so um you've heard kind of the overview of the founders program from me um but this is obviously not Justin is a huge team that's kind of I'm lifting this um you know please feel free to reach out um to us reach out to James Nikki Yaya Julia Dawn and Ange Carlin and yeah we'll be happy to route your requests and and help you as as best possible thank you awesome thank you so much for that intro to the funnel Reuben and and what that's like uh from a builder's Journey um I guess end to end almost and and then beyond so um really awesome at as Reuben mentioned I think it makes sense just to jump right into the next talk