Receiver Entity: Celo Governance
Status: Draft
Author: @Karakrysthal
Type of request: Funding
Funding category: Partnerships, Comms, Marketing, Events, Programs
Funding request: $5,000 USD
Website: https://www.si3.space/
Grow3dge Accelerator Deck: http://bit.ly/grow3dge
SUMMARY
This proposal is submitted to support Celo and its six regional DAOs, the Foundation and Ecosystem Growth Leaders in aligning their KPI’s and growth strategies as an ecosystem, and as a result drive more market awareness, adoption, and revenue. It requests $5,000 in funding for these regional DAO leads participation in SI<3>’s Grow3dge Accelerator and a detailed ecosystem alignment survey and report.
Grow3dge is a 10-week growth-focused program running from August 7 – October 9, designed to help projects hone their growth strategies and deepen their impact across their parent ecosystems.
Grow3dge offers each participant structured pathways to learn, collaborate, and grow alongside 22 (womxn) educators and operators from organizations like Uniswap, Zerion, Adobe, Stellar, Ledger, Serotonin, Dune analytics, and many more. SI<3> is also offering a ‘Celo Live’ LinkedIn Live showcase event with Celo’s Grow3dge participants, sharing their projects with new adopters and potential investors.
Key Benefits:
- Capacity building: Grow3dge participants will receive frameworks, playbooks, and connections that directly support their long-term adoption goals.
- Ecosystem Alignment: This proposal is in alignment with Celo’s TVL and transaction growth goals, with its strong growth, marketing, and education development focus. This includes a workshop with Serotonin’s Senior Growth Analytics Lead on how to align ecosystems on their KPI’s, growth strategies and reporting.
- Partnership and co-marketing potential amongst the cohort of educators and participants
- Driving awareness for new Celo adopters and expanding to new markets
MOTIVATION
Our motivation for creating this accelerator program stems from our experiences in understanding how ecosystems and the projects within them can face challenges in aligning on growth strategies and KPIs. Small, lean teams often manage Web3 ecosystems, and this accelerator is a low-cost and focused alternative to hiring growth agencies and paying for expensive marketing campaigns. This program offers the opportunity to upskill leaders on their marketing, BD, and community-building skills in a focused format, with the opportunity to learn with our peers and network throughout.
Our organization has held multiple training programs and workshops in the past with leading protocols, with strong results. Here is a sample of testimonials from our partners:
- Thank ARB Arbitrum Firestarter Grant Recipient: Arbitrum in our ‘Granting Access’ LinkedIn Livestream with 320 attendees.
This is the testimonial from our grant with Thank ARB:
“The Granting Access event was well-attended and successfully executed, with clear evidence of deliverables. The focus on onboarding under-represented groups is seen as a positive step that could drive significant impact for Arbitrum.”
- Push Protocol Partnership with community onboarding event and Push chat channel integration (Over 200 new adopters of the protocol):
“Push x SI<3> Ecosystem’s partnership has been impressive, driving awareness and hundreds of new adopters to the protocol.”
- Unlock Protocol partnership with two community workshops hosted onboarding 35 womxn in Web3 community leaders and their communities into Unlock Protocol:
“Unlock Protocol DAO and SI<3> have transformed workshops into a joyful celebration of kindness and enthusiasm, fostering a vibrant and dedicated community that embraces blockchain-based events and membership creation.”
SPECIFICATIONS
Grow3dge Curriculum Details:
- ‘Preparing Your Metrics for Success’ with Web3 Marketing Lead at Dune Analytics, and Senior Growth Analytics Manager at Serotonin. Prepare your on-chain and off-chain metrics dashboard and KPI targets for your metrics framework throughout the accelerator and beyond.
- ‘Designing & Developing Accessibly’ with Design Lead and CTO from SI<3>. Learn insights and strategies on how to design and develop your products and programs, keeping accessibility top of mind.
- ‘Incentivizing Learning with Certifications and Rewards’ with Lead DAO Steward from Unlock Protocol and Product Manager at Huddle01. Discover how to incorporate education, incentives and rewards within your product as tools for driving adoption and retention, including how to use Unlock NFT’s integrated with Celo for events, memberships and educational certifications.
- ‘Global Education 3.0’ with Founders of Women Biz LATAM, BitQueens Africa and Women of Web3. Learn from Web3 leaders from the U.S, Africa and LATAM on how to create products and programs that are accessible across global languages and cultures.
- ‘Adoption For All’ – with Ecosystem Lead at Moonbeam and Director of Growth and Engagement at Adobe Express. Represent the ecosystem you are a part of (Celo) with an understanding of how your ecosystem can grow together. Hear from experienced ecosystem leaders in both Web2 and Web3 how to develop growth targets that unite projects through shared visions and aligned strategies.
- ‘Preparing for Scale’ with Head of Marketing from Uniswap and Business Development Lead at Zerion. This session is all about scaling! Learn how to prepare for significant growth and discover strategies that are currently working in Web3, and how these can be replicated within your projects.
- ‘Creating Lasting Partnerships’ with Head of Partnerships at Ledger and Co-Founder of BD in Web3. Business Development and Partnerships are core to Web3 growth. Learn from experts in their fields how to create meaningful partnerships that will support in creating lasting value for your organization.
- ‘Immersive & AI-Supported Education’ with Director of Research and Education at Blockchain Research Institute, Founder of Friends with Holograms, and Co-Founder of Reliabl AI. Studies show that immersive learning environments inspire learners to retain information by 5-8x. Discover tools and resources for creating more engaging learning sessions for your new and retained users.
- ‘Bringing Web3 Into Real-World Impact’ with Ecosystem Lead at Stellar and Project Manager at Metagov. Learn how organizations like Stellar are creating major, real-world impact with partnerships from PayPal and others.
- ‘Know Your Cybersecurity & Privacy’ with Founder of Peace Keepers and CEO at Hacken. Receive introductory education on important security and privacy topics for your personal, team, and corporate cybersecurity.
Each participating ecosystem in the accelerator receives:
- Access to all ten modules of training, with replays available in our SI U learning platform
- Access to our private Telegram accelerator channel with all educators and participants, fostering networking throughout the 10 weeks
- Access to our learning and match-making AI agent
- Growth and Education 3.0 Playbook
- Certification for participation
METRICS & KPI’S
Our target metrics and KPI’s are the following:
- 6 regional DAOs (2 leader invites each region) attending the accelerator. Post-accelerator, we will share a survey with participants collecting these results, and are aiming for a 90% success rate, with success shown through more cohesive KPI and tracking alignment, new user growth, increased product adoption and revenue, and new partnerships.
CURRENT STATUS
Currently, we are connecting with the Celo regional DAO leads to confirm their interest in attending this accelerator and providing feedback.
TIMELINE & MILESTONES
Milestone #1: $4K
- Confirm Participant List and onboard DAO Leaders into Grow3dge Accelerator
- Participate in Live Sessions & Collaborative Learning
Timeline: August 7 – October 9
Milestone #2: $1K (November 2025)
*Comprehensive qualitative and quantitative report on the experience and performance of the accelerator with the DAO leaders participating, summarizing feedback and learnings from the DAO leads and their projects. This report will be useful in sharing with Celo on what the regional DAO’s have learned and are implementing around growth strategies.
DETAILED BUDGET
- $4k USD: program fee is for 2 DAO leads in the each participating DAO region
- $1K USD: Detailed survey and report from SI<3>, gathering learnings and feedback from the Celo Regional DAO leads on their growth strategies and aligned KPI dashboard, learnings and next steps.
PAYMENT TERMS
We are requesting payment for our two milestones, with the first up-front as the accelerator onboarding fee, and second milestone upon completion of the detailed ecosystem growth report.
TEAM
SI<3> is an ecosystem of communities, professionals, and protocols focused on fostering education and collaborative growth in the emerging on-chain economy.
Kara Howard, Co-Founder & Ecosystem Growth Lead:
Kara has been a womxn-in-emerging tech community builder and growth marketer for over twelve years. Her first role in women in tech leadership was as the LA Chapter Lead of the Vinetta Project, focused on connecting women founders with women investors. Kara previously worked on Wall Street in Equity Research and as a financial analyst, and holds an MBA from NYU. Kara is now bringing her career experience in emerging technology, finance, womxn-in-tech community building, partnerships and marketing together as she leads SI<3>, an education-driven ecosystem of emerging tech organizations and communities.
Jelena Gjorgev, Co-Founder & CTO
Jelena is a seasoned full-stack developer and educator deeply involved in blockchain and Web3 technologies. With extensive experience in software development, she actively participates in academia as a university lecturer and mentor. Jelena’s work emphasizes the integration of cutting-edge technologies with practical applications, aiming to foster inclusive and equitable digital solutions. Her role as a technical advisor highlights her expertise and commitment to advancing the field through both educational endeavors and strategic development.
###ADDITIONAL SUPPORT/RESOURCES
We request support from the Celo Regional DAO leads in providing us a list of potential Celo projects to participate in the accelerator, and we will manage the outreach, invitations and onboarding.
(missing) Receiver Entity: Celo Governance
Status: [FINAL]/[DRAFT]