Founder Programs: Quarterly Planning

Hello everyone, my name is Jason Rodrigues. I head Founder Programs at the Celo Foundation. Sharing an update as we are planning the next quarter.

:sparkles: Mission of Founder Programs

We want to attract and nurture the highest quality founders and provide them with the best experience on Celo.

:rocket: ICYMI: Wins, Looking Backward

  • Read our last update to the community
  • Truly composable applications being built out across batches and domains.
  • Smoothest wrap-up operations, and payouts for the previous batch 5. Praise to all the folks in legal, grants, and compliance for all the help. Before you know it next cohorts kick-off.
  • Celo Camp Batch 6 is launched. This week we wrapped up applications at 350+ from over 60 countries. Big praise to all that amplified. Alon and Rachel are :fire:
  • Celo Camp Batch 7 pre-applications are open
  • We are on track to have Camp officially kick off at the end of September.
  • Ecosystem founders engaging in the telegram group. Let me know if you see someone that is building that needs to be added.
  • Contributions to HubSpot streamlining are gaining steam.
  • Ongoing conversations with leading partners
  • We launched Founder Office Hours to help founders navigate the Celo ecosystem, solution design and tokenomics and just chill.
  • Over 30 new leads were added to the pipeline from our presence at ETH CC Paris :fr: and ETH Berlin

:chart_with_upwards_trend: Opportunities: Looking Outward

  • Bear markets are a time to build - we’re looking for ways to accommodate all the interest we are getting
  • More funding opportunities for startups in the ecosystem - if you know folks that want to invest reach out here
  • Developing more resourcing and capability to support founder programs - we’re a small team and need all the help we can get.

:boom: Looking Forward: What’s next?

  • We are focused on shipping the highest quality founder programs till the end of the year. We measure this on the basis of:
    • Follow on interest in our startups β†’ Follow on funding
    • Overall satisfaction of founders β†’ High NPS
  • HubSpot clean-up is ongoing with our consultants β†’ Why does this matter? Very soon the org will have an end-to-end view of the ecosystem pipeline.
  • Building out a value add a platform for our founders, and revising our founder strategy.
  • Tensions β†’ We are a small team and need focus and need support to keep delivering.
  • Events that our alumni are going to be a part of:

:hugs: Shout Outs

Founder Programs are a collaborative effort with several people across the organization and ecosystem, a big shout out to each and every one of them.

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Jason thanks for sharing this update and stewarding our founders!

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