XFounders Boot Camp. High school for Web3 Startups

by 0xca748eda8f9258faefb944dd3acfb1b1520c2af4

Should the following $39,000 grant in the Sponsorship category be approved?

Abstract

XFounders Bootcamp: Lasting 31 days, designed for up to 50 pre-seed and seed-stage startups.

The educational program integrates at least 3 topics about the Decentraland ecosystem. The schedule is available here.

An Online Knowledge Base will contain all educational program content, including materials about the Decentraland ecosystem.

3 interviews with Decentraland experts will be published on XFounders' YouTube channel.

Each video is accompanied by an article on: XFounders Medium and a post on: XFounders LinkedIn.

Grant size

39,000 USD in DAI

Project duration

3 months

Beneficiary address

0xca748eda8F9258FaEfB944Dd3AcfB1B1520c2af4

Email address

info.xfounders@gmail.com

Description

XFounders Project Genesis

I will briefly tell the story of how and why the XFounders project was born. My partner and I were founders and launched projects in the web2 market. In 2021, in one of our projects - SuperPower (formerly known as workoutme) - we decided to test an MVP of a web3 product. Retention metrics increased significantly, and the transactional business model attracted us. We decided to pivot, despite having no experience in web3, despite our extensive experience in web2 (70m user acquisition in various products and over 20m revenue in fintech products).

After spending more than 8 months trying to figure out web3, we encountered a lot of problems:

• Lack of available expertise and knowledge, competent specialists are scarce (questions like how to do marketing? how to do tokenomics? how much does token listing cost, and on which exchange is it worth doing? how much does marketing cost? where to open a company and how many are needed? how to choose a blockchain? and so on) - these questions formed the basis of the XFounders educational program.
• Poor onboarding to blockchains and weak support.
• Accelerator programs take an unjustifiably large % of the company (on average, 6% equity + 6% total token supply). Funds invest in only 0.3% of the entire pipeline. Most startups do not receive feedback and support.
• Projects come to accelerators and funds unprepared.

All of this slows down mass adoption. We want to fix this and make it so that projects test hypotheses faster and launch more stable products.

Value for Decentraland

We want to help 2 projects in the Decentraland ecosystem close gaps in marketing, tokenomics, business development, product, legal, in order to increase their chances of survival and help attract investments for accelerated growth. 2 Startups will have a participation grant for XFounders Boot Camp from Decentraland. This will give them a founders-friendly status within the Decentraland ecosystem.

XFounders Funnel Target

From the XFounders funnel, the target is to have 5 new startups launch MVPs in the Decentraland ecosystem.

Duration: 1 September - 1 December

Contingency: If, for some reason, after the Offline Boot Camp certain startups fail to commit to their launch, new cohorts will be launched from the current funnel until the KPI is met.

Benefit to Decentraland Startups: 10 Decentraland startups will have free access to the XFounders Online Knowledge Base.

XFounders Achievements and Goals

5M Audience Reach: We aim to achieve a substantial audience reach by securing coverage from 15 media outlets and 10 Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs). Our strategy involves collaborating with various media platforms and influential individuals to amplify our presence.

Media and KOL Coverage: Throughout the BootCamp event, we will partner with approximately 25 different media outlets, bloggers, and influencers. These partners will actively create and share content, including daily updates, articles, interviews, and live streams, engaging their respective audiences.

Onboarding 25 Startups to Decentraland: XFounders operates as an ecosystem, introducing the next generation of founders to web3. Our unique approach involves activating dormant startup pipelines from accelerators, incubators, funds, and consulting agencies. We transform these startups into valuable contributors to the Decentraland ecosystem, successfully onboarding around 25 new projects within the next year.

Roadmap and milestones

Milestone 1 - Offline Program Creation

• Preparation of topics about the Decentraland ecosystem using XFounders' methods and insights from Decentraland experts.
• Development of free educational content about the Decentraland ecosystem for the benefit of the Decentraland community (available on platforms like YouTube, Medium, and Telegram).
• Identifying potential projects to onboard onto the Decentraland ecosystem.

Milestone 2 - Offline Event Provision

• Execution of an offline educational program featuring 3 topics related to the Decentraland ecosystem.
• Recording the educational program for the purpose of creating an online knowledge base.
• Conducting a Demo Day to showcase the progress and outcomes of the participants' endeavors.

A closed, paid live stream of the entire Bootcamp will be conducted. Decentrolend grant recipients and key community members will be granted free access to the live stream. A total of 30 spots have been allocated for this purpose.

Milestone 3 - Educational Platform Creation + Online Knowledge Base Launch

• Development of an online platform to house the online knowledge base, featuring all materials related to the Decentraland ecosystem from the Bootcamp.
• Post-production work on the online program to enhance its quality and presentation.
• Creation of additional free educational materials, tailored for the Decentraland community, available in 15 languages.

This proposal is summarized due to technical limitations. To view it complete and vote on it, visit the DCL DAO Governance dApp