Episode 8: Ben Jacobs | Seed Club - Building and investing in tokenized communities
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Title: Ep. 8: Seed Club, An Accelerator For Web3 Communities
A discussion and Q&A session with Ben Jacobs, core contributor at Seed Club. Recorded on August 24, 2021.
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Description: "Seed Club is a DAO that builds, supports and invests in tokenized communities."
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Key Moments
0:00 Welcome and Introduction (add 45s to timestamps post publication)
0:00 Who are you and how did you get into crypto?
0:53 Born in NY. Graduated in 2015 from Nashville. Initially worked in strategy consulting.
1:50 Met mentor, a former hedge fund manager, as their tutor while studying for GMAT. Got introduced to Bitcoin and blockchain.
4:41 Quit job Aug. 20, 2020 with goal of finding a full-time gig in crypto
Created a fund called Scenius Capital, "We ... invest in best of breed asset managers who are pursuing liquid [token] strategies." - Raised >$5M from ~30 LPs.
6:40 Started Forming Seed Club in Late 2020-January 2021
Helped coordinate Seed Club Summit, Seed Club Accelerator Program, Seed Club Studio Offering, Raised $2M to treasury from crypto VCs and Angels
Voted into DAO as one of the first 3 core contributors. Now acting as facilitator, something analogous to COO helping to keep day to day operations aligned with long term goals.
9:50 What was your path coming from traditional finance?
"By the time anything is perfectly clear, the opportunity is missed."
13:54 Accountability of personal ownership as a barrier to entry for DeFi
"It forces you to be deliberate. To be thoughtful. To spend the time."
"How many people have learned about finance as a result of of seeing the opportunity in Defi and then wanting to capitalize on that?"
"The level of financial literacy has gone up significantly as a result of people needing to figure this out on their own. Then seeing how their being exploited by the traditional finance system."
"The meritocratic nature, anonymity, the high barrier to entry are what makes crypto scary to some, but freeing to others... Once you get over that hump you have autonomy that's not available via traditional means."
17:55 Why tokenized communities?
19:16 How does Seed Club work and what's the long term vision of Seed Club's core contributors?
23:01 What are the main activities of seed club?
Accelerator (currently in 3rd cohort) - 81 submissions, will accept 10-12 projects
In exchange for advisory, network, hands on support. Seed Club asks for 3% of treasuries' tokens in a swap for Seed Club native tokens.
Seed Club Studio
25:39 How have current accelerator cohorts gone so far?
27:25 What is Seed Club Studio?
Far more hands-on approach than the accelerator. Generally for more established teams.
28:56 Who are the members, core contributors and collaborators involved with Seed Club?
29:56 How are they supporting the DAO and incubator projects?
33:02 Shoutout to Bankless DAO for supporting, organizing and empowering their community.
33:55 Did most contributors join Seed Club after the fundraise or before?
34:26 What's expected of contributors?
35:37 What does the process look like after joining an accelerator cohort?
39:47 Impact of Seed Club in it's first 8 months
Helped incubate 17 social token projects
42:30 Sneak peak at the newest cohort
45:10 Future goals for Seed Club
Full Transcript (from Descript)
[00:00:00] So as we do, usually we like to have a conversation about you and get to know you a little bit in terms of your journey to where you are today. So why don't you walk us through and give us an introduction to who you are and how you got into crypto? Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you bank Listowel for having me.
[00:00:20] I'm really excited to be here, have absorbed every piece of content that bank list LLC has put out and then. Um, after some conversations with Lucas to see the progress within the Dow and, um, as Jess and I are working on seed club, um, thought through a, of other dab partnerships there's there was, you guys were at the top of the list of, uh, the dads we wanted to align ourselves and partner with.
[00:00:46] So thank you very much. And I, and I'm honored to be here, uh, I guess just to back up and share a little bit about myself. So I'm from New York originally. I went to school down south in Nashville, Tennessee. And after graduating in 2015, I, you know what, the more traditional path I was working in strategy consulting.
[00:01:07] And I wanted to take the GMAT because back. 7 6, 7 years ago, I actually considered going to business school and I always scored well on the verbal portion of standardized tests, but my math scores would lag a little bit behind. And so with two weeks leading up to the test, I figured why not work with a tutor to try and get my math scores up to.
[00:01:34] And so I went online and I said, I saw this one guy whose rate was like triple what everyone else was in New York city. And, but he hadn't only five-star reviews. So I figured like, why not? I'll do one session with the sky could be worth, it could elevate my score. So had my first meeting with this tutor, uh, at a Starbucks and it was in the middle of the winter.
[00:01:56] I'll never forget. He, he rolled up. Uh, Birkenstock sandals and a Hawaiian shirt, and it was like 30 degrees outside. And this guy was a retired hedge fund manager who had done, uh, directed all of his efforts after retiring and making enough money for multiple lifetimes to just tutoring kids on GMM math.
[00:02:17] And we had our entire first session. It was like, it was like almost militaristic and how intense it was. And at the end of the first session he smiled and said, would you like to pay full price in cash? Or you could pay 50% off in Bitcoin. And at that point, like I just really heard about Bitcoin as like on the dark web and via the silk road.
[00:02:40] And so I was like really impressed when this guy who's clearly so intelligent and spent so much money in asset management. Was interested in taking Bitcoin as currency. And so from that moment on, we developed like a mentor mentee relationship where all we talked about was Bitcoin Ethereum, light coin at that point, and then blockchain technology.
[00:03:03] And I became obsessed with the space, started researching devouring, every piece of content I could find, uh, and basically became an evangelist within my own network, as I'm sure many other people, uh, on this call have within their own network of trying to onboard, trying to educate and trying to get as many people involved, just because for some reason, the light bulb went off for me and I almost felt compelled to.
[00:03:28] To make the light bulb go off for others. So I started investing, uh, pretty aggressively back in 2015 and, uh, and, and have been riding the way for quite some time now and have been, you know, involved in this space, but, but mainly from a sideline perspective and it was around April may, uh, last year in 2020 when I was cooped up at home and I really started to.
[00:03:57] You know, mess around, uh, online and see what was going on in defy. And I was really impressed by all the innovation there between maker synthetics, unit swap, and then the fork to sushi swap. And it, it was just mindblowing and it made me realize that there is real product markets. For crypto beyond just like the store value thesis of Bitcoin, and then a theory of being a highly promising technology.
[00:04:28] These were the first applications built on top of Ethereum that were gaining real traction. So then I got like deep into the weeds of yield farming and staking, and just trying to learn and absorb all that. And. Towards the latter part of the summer, I was working a tech startup job, uh, as I have ever since I left strategy consulting and I was like, I need to go full-time in this.
[00:04:53] I don't know what I need to do, but I know I will figure something out. So I left, quit my job on August 20th, 20, 20, and basically tasked myself with figuring out something to do in crypto. And through that process. Uh, I was able to accomplish a few goals. Uh, first was I wanted to invest my, my own personal capital, uh, in a method that I thought, um, made the most sense.
[00:05:21] And to me that was, uh, creating a portfolio of hedge funds to invest in. So I, uh, created a fund called seniors capital, where we are a crypto hedge fund to funds where we invest. Uh, best of breed asset managers who are pursuing liquid strategies. So investing in tokens or, uh, via SAFT agreements to get early stage tokens.
[00:05:47] Um, so I launched that on may. First. I partnered with, uh, my brother and a best buddy of mine. And we've subsequently been able to raise over 5 million bucks, um, and have about 30 LPs. So I'm super proud of that and, and really excited to be, um, pursuing, uh, an investment medium that I think, uh, allows investors who aren't as crypto native to gain exposure to the space beyond jazz, BTC and ease.
[00:06:16] Um, In addition to that last fall, I became obsessed with NFTs and social tokens and Dows, and, and I was writing a sub stack at the time. And initially it was like, oh, maybe I'll launch a social token to help bootstrap the adoption of my newsletter. And through that process, I got connected to some leaders in the social token space.
[00:06:39] And ultimately I got introduced to Jess and Jess was like, don't launch a personal social tip. He was like, you need to focus on creating a broader mission, like a community. What is the community's mission going to be? And I don't know to be Frank, I didn't really have like, I, to me, it was just purely experimental.
[00:06:59] I didn't really have thoughts of like a community I wanted to develop. And so instead I just asked Jess, I was like, Hey, I want to learn, like, how can I participate? And so this was in January, 2021 and I just. As, just for nonstop things to do. And I was just trying to figure out where seed club's still relatively early stage at that point needed help.
[00:07:26] And I think a fallacy that many people who don't, who aren't involved in Dows think is that you need to be a coder or a developer, or you need to have significant crypto exposure. And the reality was, is like, I just kind of been like an investor slash trader. I, I'm definitely not a dev. And I hadn't really been involved on the operator side of, of crypto at that point.
[00:07:50] And so I helped put on the seed club summit. I'd never put on a conference before I helped push forward our accelerator program. I helped launch, uh, our new studio offering and these were just random things. And helped with our fundraise. And so ultimately once we closed our round of funding, Um, where we raised $2 million into treasury from a mix of crypto, VCs and angels.
[00:08:19] I got officially voted into the Dow as one of the first three core contributors where I now act as facilitator, which is effectively a CLO of the. Um, and basically help push forward all our various initiatives and, uh, try and try and streamline our processes and, and figure out org structure and, um, make sure that everything is pushing forward and that, you know, awesome, cool, talented people are entering seed club and, you know, exploring partnerships.
[00:08:53] And that's kind of how this whole, uh, Bankless media node partnership came to be was just, how can we partner with the best. And spoke with Lucas and we started evaluating all opportunities and, uh, the Bankless media node, uh, opportunity came up and, and we were eager to pursue it. So all of that, uh, so I'd say after a year of going all in on crypto was able to get a fund off the ground and was able to, uh, get involved in a Dow that I think is really pushing forward the web three initiative.
[00:09:28] So it's one of the best decisions of my life. Um, just going all in and yeah. Um, I'm super excited and super grateful for all the people who have helped me get to this point. And there's still a long way to go. And so a lot of. Thanks. I think that was a beautiful, uh, story of your journey. I think comprehensive, probably one of the best we've ever had.
[00:09:53] Um, so I think through that, you bring up a lot of points that I'd like to touch on. And I think that also touch on some of what we want to discuss about sea club itself. What coming in from this traditional finance, what were some of the things that really spoke to you about. That, you know, kind of, is that a hot moment for you?
[00:10:14] Like, you know what, I need to drop everything. Like you said, I need to find a way to get more involved in this. What were some of those things that for you felt like what you were working with, but really was a clear next level. Yeah, I, I I'd be lying if I didn't say like the APY, uh, return potential is, is eye-catching right.
[00:10:39] And, you know, that's, that's kind of like the top of the funnel. And then you realize that there's a lot of risk involved and there's a lot of effort and a lot of knowledge you need to obtain in order to maximize those opportunities. Um, for me, what really impressed me was the caliber of the talent and the caliber of the discourse.
[00:11:03] Like if you look on crypto Twitter and then work your way over, like, I didn't even have discord downloaded until, until I started reading about defy. And then you go into these discords and you see these brilliant people who. You have no idea what their background is. And they are spending a lot of time and Q and a channels, uh, trying to develop, FAQ's trying to work through any issues and trying to educate.
[00:11:34] And I was like, wow, this is such a, such a community. And it's like, versus like going to the bank where it's like, I feel like I'm torturing them to just try to send like out, send a wire there. Something about being able to have open communication with the team, that's building things and having input on those suggestions and then reading through governance proposals and thinking through of like the value of airdropping tokens to your users.
[00:12:05] And it just resonated with me as just making sense. And obviously, you know, then I would start to talk to the people in my network who are far more sophisticated than me. And there's always push back and saying like, you know, how, how is this possible? Like, how can you generate 8% yield on your USB-C? Or like, how can you trust some random code?
[00:12:38] Um, with like really no stakeholders that, you know, to, to turn to. And how is KYC and AML done and what are the tax consequences? Like I think you kind of, as, as all of us know in gripped out. There's often a lot of unanswered questions, but by the time anything is perfectly clear, the opportunities missing 100%.
[00:13:02] Well, I think you, you touch on two things there. Um, and one of them that I picked up, uh, was that openness and transparency, which is, uh, attractive, uh, in this space, isn't just limited to the, uh, technology to, to, to the smart contracts. Right. But it's also in terms of the. Like you were saying, there's that, uh, openness where you can go and join a discord and.
[00:13:28] You know, have access to these people who are developing these protocols or that are building these communities and help form that through your participation, right through your contributions. And so I think that that is, uh, something that is worthy of. You know, recognizing is the fact that this space is built on that, uh, community built on that.
[00:13:50] Um, openness, if you will. Uh, and the other one, you know, in terms of these, uh, mechanisms that are decentralized. I think one of the things that is is, is hard to figure out, especially early on, uh, is the fact that there is a lot of personal accountability that is, uh, kind of put on our shoulders. Whereas when you're working with these treadmill, Technology is like your, your banks and your, uh, you know, credit systems and, you know, other investment platforms, it's all centralized.
[00:14:23] So the accountability falls on, you know, these institutions, however, you don't have any control over any of the, any of your assets or any of the mechanisms on the backend. Whereas, you know, when you're. Um, when you're working on defy, you have this accountability, but this accountability is, is almost like a privilege of sorts to be able to, to have that accountability is because you have full control of everything.
[00:14:53] Totally. And like, I think that's why I personally, like, I, I, I understand the high barriers to entry. And into participating in crypto in that it takes a lot of time to learn how to do this. It's scary. It's nerve wracking when you're first getting started. I know everyone knows the feeling of when, you know, they've, they've sent funds and, and to a different wallet and they're waiting and waiting and waiting for it to arrive.
[00:15:25] And, you know, you're basically having a heart attack. Um, but I think I value that because. It forces you to be deleted and to be thoughtful and to spend the time. And it's like how many people have learned about finance as a result of seeing the opportunity in defy and then wanting them to capitalize on that.
[00:15:50] And I think, um, financial literacy has gone up significantly as a result of people needing to figure this out on their own and then seeing where they're being exploited. The banks and had traditional financial services means even, even like, look at our credit score system and, you know, biases that are, that are rampant in terms of like lending and borrowing.
[00:16:19] And so I think, uh, the merit, the meritocratic nature, uh, anonymity like that, the high barriers to entry are. What makes crypto scary for some but freeing for others? Because once you kind of get over that hump, um, you're, you're kind of in a position where you have. Autonomy. That's just not available via traditional means.
[00:16:46] Yeah. And you know, I think you touch on something else that is, like I said, aligned to what I do in my daily life, which is, you know, working with decentralized identity and reputation in terms of these credit systems, um, you know, where there are these biases, but also this obscurity where you really don't know, you know, what it comprises and how you can make changes easily, uh, or as.
[00:17:08] You know, crypto and with decentralized identity and, uh, self-sovereign reputation. You have these systems that are open, transparent, and empower the person to be able to make these changes and have full control over that. And then use. To create these more rewarding experiences right in this space. And so all of that is a part of accountability.
[00:17:28] All of that is a part of, um, you know, education and learning and falling deep down that rabbit hole as you did. And as many people who, um, are here today likely have gone through and becoming these active contributors and. Create these, this technology that helps everyone. It is, it is, um, more of a positive sun versus a zero-sum, uh, technology.
[00:17:55] So one of the things that you also touched on, which I think helps lead us into the. Uh, you know, a step of our conversation here, and that is about seed club is in terms of contributors. You know, once you fall deep down, down that rabbit hole and you learn and you become this active, uh, you know, participant in the space, your yield farming, or your, uh, just kind of listening to these community events, but you actually want to take the next step and become a contributor.
[00:18:22] You know, these, these discord communities, um, these dowels are now facilitating that in a very simple way, in a way that is. Is really seeking and almost demanding that contribution of individuals and through tokenization of these, of these communities, you have ways to also incentivize them so that they can, um, you know, take the, do the work, but, you know, be fairly compensated for that work as well.
[00:18:53] And so that really is kind of the focus of seat club. Isn't it, it, it, as least as I understand it, it is. To both invest, but also into help build these tokenized communities. So why don't you give us an introduction to seek club? You know, what is that Genesis story where it came from when it started and what is its long-term vision?
[00:19:17] So seed club was born out of the great beard of just loss, um, that tall guy on Twitter. Uh, so basically the thought was. No tokens and web three tools give communities NA and Dows, um, superpowers and enables them to unlock value for its members and to create value for the world. Um, that was previously unmatched as Cooper Turley says, it's like a Facebook group with a bank account that's empowered by mission and seed club's mission.
[00:20:03] If you were to look at the web to traditional tech world, which now seems, you know, obsolete and dated, um, like the easiest example is Y Combinator. So seed club had. It's core contributors, just myself and Nicole WC. Um, but then we also have a network of collaborators and these are sophisticated web three thought leaders, builders, developers.
[00:20:36] Who've been active in all, all facets of web three, and they have either helped build seat club from early days. Or they have invested in seed club. And so this network of core contributors and collaborators basically are tasked with trying to figure out how we can help these communities build and scale their community in a web three fashion.
[00:21:10] And I think. We are seeing crypto native communities pursue this route. And now we're really starting to see an inflow of web to communities, brands, uh, creators who want to unlock the functionalities of web three and who seek seed club out as the thought leaders in the space who have seen. Uh, a lot of what's going on and are familiar with a lot of the tech being built and have some best practices.
[00:21:46] Now we're far from being, you know, the, the, the panacea, the cure, all like there's so much complexity and this is totally unchartered waters and there is no perfect precedent. Even now, there are a lot of Dow's figuring things out and, you know, I don't have to tell you guys. And there are a lot of communities that are trying to figure out onboarding and how to incentivize contribution and how to work through compensation.
[00:22:18] And what's fair to early supporters versus how much do you want to keep, uh, in your treasury? How do you want to think through governance? How do you want to spin up new initiatives? Each community has its own personality and there's no template. That can suit every single personality. And so you, you really have to approach every project and community, um, with, uh, you know, fresh eyes in that, you know, all the tools and there are new tools being developed every day, but how can we come up with creative solutions?
[00:22:58] To support this community's specific needs. So the way seed club does that is seed club, uh, has two main lines of business. The first of which is kind of like the flagship product, which is our accelerator. So we currently closed applications for our third accelerator where we test. Uh, roughly 10 to 12, uh, application.
[00:23:30] So we had 81 submissions for this third cohort. This is our third cohort. And we evaluate them in terms of who we think would make the best fit as the best part of our community, who we want to, to grow with and help scale. And each of these projects is very unique in its own nature. And. They joined an accelerator where there's programming designed to help them work through the challenges of building and scaling a token as community.
[00:24:04] So in exchange for our advisory consultation, looping in our network, hands-on support, mentorship, et cetera. We take 3% of their treasuries token. And then we also to further align incentives, provide their treasury some of our native token club. Okay. So this is a way for us to be totally aligned and to want to grow together because seed clubs, treasury is only as valuable as the projects that we helped launch.
[00:24:42] And so thus far, some of the projects that have come through. Steve Calabar forefront and, um, song camp and Afro future and jump and others. And, and, uh, AMOLED and these are some, a bunch of those are part of our second cohort that, you know, it takes months and months and months to work through how to build and scale community and really figure out what, what is the mission and how you want to accomplish.
[00:25:15] And that'll generate real value and what I found so, so beautiful about Steve glove was, you know, these, the members of the COVID. Really to support and try and help each other grow and scale. I did want to touch on a little bit in terms of now that you've introduced, you know, these cohorts and you know, the C clubs.
[00:25:35] Uh, I think you're, you're up to number three now where you w was seat club, I should say, um, kind of facilitating these cohorts prior to the fundraiser, or did the fundraising help, uh, push these initiatives forward? Um, so now we've been running. The cohorts without any funding. Okay. Um, we closed funding, I think in June.
[00:26:00] And we had already completed our second cohort at that time. So this may just help accelerate that into the future. This is to help onboard core contributors, such as myself, um, and, and other members of the team. This is to enable us to empower those projects and communities that, that we have, that we have high conviction in with additional capital to help seed them.
[00:26:30] Um, and then for us to figure out other means by which we want to allocate it, or we have a very low burden. And we have this capital as a way for us to accelerate the growth of web three and how we plan to deploy, um, is only through initiatives, whether it be investing or giving grants. Um, these are all or bringing on additional core contributors, such that we can build products that further push, uh, what three agenda.
[00:27:05] Like these are all things. We, we have dry powder now. And so we feel confident in our ability to, to really hit our stride and scale as quickly as possible. And so, and in turn also help these communities who are coming through our accelerator and our studio offering. And just to quickly touch on studio studio is basically, um, the same thing as the accelerator, but we take a far more hands-on approach.
[00:27:34] Okay. So we're in the weeds. With these, these communities, and really trying to build an exchange, we take a slightly larger percentage, right? So it's almost as if the accelerator helps these communities that maybe have. Found some traction or, uh, have built up a community, maybe have a product, uh, definitely have, um, it sounds like they, they may have a stronger team that can support the development of that vision.
[00:28:01] Whereas those that go into the studio, uh, needs a little bit more help because while it's a fantastic concept, they may not have either the team to support that or a community behind them as large as some of the others. And sometimes the studio. Uh, is comprised of like web two communities that are really trying to transition.
[00:28:24] If you think about, if you have a hundred thousand members of your community and your web, too many of those community members are not crypto native. There's a lot of thought in maintaining the same values and ethos of your web to community and transitioning it over to web three. Cause you have to educate those community members.
[00:28:43] You don't want them to feel alienated. You want to empower. And you don't want to lose the brand and lose the essence of the community in the transition over to what three. Right? So actually I think it's, I wanted to touch on the fact that you have quite a large membership or at least in terms of how I read it, uh, on some of your documents in terms of, um, you know, the membership that support.
[00:29:11] The Dow and I guess maybe even the accelerator and the studio, uh, it looks like there are leading NFT, collectors, creators, and builders. And I'm just going to name a few here in no particular order. Jacob Horn from Zuora. You got G money, Twitter, punk. You also have social token pros. You have Cooper Turley.
[00:29:31] I think one of the more popular names, at least in crypto Twitter, that I'm familiar with that Peter pan from Metta cartel, web three builders, Chris's stone balancer. I think she's a rockstar angel. And forward-thinking funds like ideal co-lab what role do these, um, you know, either groups or individuals play in the Dow and how are they both supporting the Dow it's community and even some of these incubator projects.
[00:29:59] Yeah, I think you kind of just touched on it. So we, we have a fantastic network of what we call collaborators, which is a combination of. Um, like investors and angels and funds who kind of canvas the entire crypto space. We have Stan Dennis and Patrick from mirror, uh, nascent with Daniel and answer, and then IDEO.
[00:30:28] And I think the valid Patty McCormick, the value of having such a broad. Um, community of collaborators who have skin in the game is Dow's or complex. Think of like, if you were to look at a company, you know, companies have a legal department, they have a PR department, they have comms, they have ops and growth and marketing.
[00:30:56] And so it was important for us to create a support system of collaborators. Who could not only help our Dao think through a lot of these challenges, which are challenging for anyone, for anyone trying to innovate, but also how can we develop frameworks and templates such that we can then pass those on to our studio and accelerator projects?
[00:31:22] And so we have frequent conversations with our collaborator network where. We effectively run our core team is coming up with ideas and pushing things forward. And then we don't want to just be the ones making the decision. We want to make sure that our collaborators are providing input and involved, um, and, and helping, you know, shape these concepts and take into account factors that, you know, the bigger.
[00:31:52] The more people involved, the larger that the hive mind. And so we're able to think through nuance that, you know, the more people you have canvassing, all the different nooks and crannies of crypto, you're able to accomplish your goals at a, at a more accelerated rate. And then we in turn as a core team work with our studio and accelerator projects, um, and then loop in our collaborator now, On an ad hoc basis, based on what we see as this community has particular needs.
[00:32:26] So if they have some legal questions, like I won't lie and say that like, I'm a securities law expert. I know enough, but we have members of our collaborator network who are truly experts and who have skin in the game and who wants you to club to succeed and who want to participate because they learned.
[00:32:46] And so they, they learn about all these cool projects and what's being built. And so they would, you know, provide guidance and advisory to these projects and help them think through. The current blockers or bottlenecks are experiencing. Yeah. I mean, I'll give a quick shout out to bank list out because I think in terms of organization, um, I think they're doing a fantastic job.
[00:33:09] There are guilds for a lot of the different quote-unquote departments, as you noted earlier. Which I think helps alleviate some of that complexity because there could be individuals who may be, uh, skilled in certain areas that then can contribute, uh, through their focus and contributions in that space to move the project forward.
[00:33:31] But certainly not an easy task. Uh, and it's, you know, something that, like you said, it's, it's all very new. It's, it's, it's a lot of experimentation going on right now, but it's. Fantastic to see that development and that focus and that, um, you know, uh, the number of people that are, that are coming in and interested in participating in, contributing their time to moving that those initiatives forward.
[00:33:55] Um, so I guess just to, just to touch one more thing on that, that a lot of these, um, contributors come post fundraise, or were they all actively contributing prior to that? I'd say many of them were contributing prior to that. Um, and then afterwards, you know, it was, it was more so like there, there was an overabundance of investors who wanted to participate or angels who wanted to participate.
[00:34:20] So they'll use as, as is the case with most owls. It's like those who not only talk the talk, but walk the walk by demonstrating value beyond just like trying to throw money. Now they attended meetings, they were providing guidance. You know, hop on calls to try and support these projects or would take one off calls.
[00:34:44] And that that's kind of the measure that we hold our collaborator network and our community towards it's like, you gotta, you gotta show up and engage and your engagement will be rewarded. And I think that's the case from community members to large investors. No, there's a lot. There's a lot of capital and crypto.
[00:35:08] So you want to work with those who are in the weeds, helping and who are able to provide value. I mean, I guess it's easy to be an. Um, you know, obviously there's risk to them as well, but it's, there's, there's more difficulty and probably more valuable if you are a contributor, a regular contributor, because that way that you can, you know, help with, with the success and with the growth of that.
[00:35:33] Versus just putting money in just walking away. So, so maybe we can touch on now a little bit more in terms of the accelerator and how that works. Give us an example of, you know, once that application goes through and you're approved and you're part of, you know, season C club season three, if that's the right term.
[00:35:55] Sorry. If it's not, um, what happens after that? Yeah, so we're trying to be. Thinking through that, the acceptance of these, these wonderful applicants is a challenge in and of itself, right? Because there's a wide spectrum of projects with different degrees of sophistication, uh, in terms of web three crypto literacy.
[00:36:26] But for us, we're trying to think through it's like, okay, we shouldn't just. You know, these web three hyper crypto focused communities, because a lot of what we want to do is also help bridge web two to web three. And so we're trying to be, um, diverse in our selection and trying to make sure that it's not just a small group making those selection decisions.
[00:36:52] Right. But rather putting it out to a broader network. So that's one thing. Once they, um, they onboard our programming is basically breaking down token token communities into its various parts. So thinking through community growth, thinking through fundraising, thinking through governance, thinking through token distribution and token economics, each of those requires substantial.
[00:37:26] So right now, as we're developing the program for this next, um, for this next cohort, we're really thinking through how, how given what's going on in, in crypto. Can we, you know, structure it such that it's providing as much value as possible. So we may, you know, have a, have a session fully dedicated to. Um, and the tools that mirror provides it's projects or it's creating.
[00:38:00] And we're trying to, to think of like, what are the biggest, what are the biggest pain points? If you were to launch a Dao from scratch, uh, with, with some particular mission that you had, where would the bottlenecks be? And. I think that's how we're trying to think through. So it's like you'll have multiple meetings a week where you'll be meeting with, uh, the seed club team, but we'll also be looping in members of our collaborator network to talk on specific topics or basically they're presenting, but then there's open Q S.
[00:38:33] And then there's also a mentorship program that we're developing for those communities who have successfully launched a token and, uh, who have either gone through CIF clubs, cohorts previously, or who are established players in the space who want to provide advisory to these new projects that are coming down the pipeline.
[00:38:52] Um, and then what we found is there's significant bonding among cohort members. Because they're all trying to figure out this big, complex, hairy thing of tokenizing a community, and they're, they're doing it through the lens of their own project, but many of the problems and challenges are the same. And so they have this built in.
[00:39:16] Network where you're effectively trying to, to work through these problems together. So we've seen these cohorts form their own independent workshops where they work with one another and almost like a, like almost if you look at like an on deck, it's like, if you're part of like a on debt cohort, it's like you're networking and trying to work together with other members of your cohort to support you.
[00:39:43] Right. That's pretty in-depth. Um, so one of the things that I think is, uh, very interesting here, it's a, a stat or a metric that I've found in terms of the growth. And I guess the more importantly, the impact, um, that seed club had in its first eight months, am I reading this right? It's it looks like a C club contributed or helped incubate 17 different social tokens.
[00:40:10] That's that's impressive. Yeah, I'd say, um, we've been involved in some projects that, you know, the, the leaders of those communities are fantastic. Um, and they have high agency and are able to work through many of the challenges, um, you know, squiggled out, uh, global coin research. So on camp, like these are all projects that some of which came through the accelerator, others, like we've just been actively involved and, uh, have some, some tokens as a result of it.
[00:40:48] And, uh, you know, I get just amazing to see the concepts and communities that are being built and seed club, you know, provide. A lot of value to these communities as they're working through a lot of their initial problems, um, and get gaps and as they're trying to work through it, um, I think they kind of look to see clubs as like, uh, an advisor.
[00:41:14] And so, yeah, we're, we're excited this next cohort, the applications are mindless. Right. And I think it demonstrates that the depth of talent. Entering the space and the missions that are being built because now the tooling and talent is being unlocked. There's new things you could do. The capital is there and the talent is there.
[00:41:44] Develop products, bilbies communities, et cetera. Yeah. I mean the tools by which you can incentivize people to contribute. I think, um, haven't been there at least that they haven't been as, uh, as simple to, to create and develop in, in, in the, in the past. So certainly I think. What we're what we're seeing now with the kind of the introduction of Dows and the tokenization of communities, you know, it's definitely facilitated that.
[00:42:14] Right. And so we're probably seeing, we're going to be seeing a lot of really interesting projects come up. Um, I guess I am curious to hear what some of these, and, you know, you don't have to say specifically who they are or give out, you know, all of the IP, but what are some of these interesting or innovative, innovative ideas that you've seen, that, that are being applied applying for this next season of COVID?
[00:42:37] Yeah, well, I think, uh, we'll have some cool announcements coming in the next few weeks. So, so definitely hop in seat clubs, discord, and, you know, hang out there. You'll definitely see some cool things come as well as follow us on Twitter. Uh, but I'd say without getting into the specifics of the actual projects, but some of the missions, um, I can environmentally focused.
[00:43:06] Um, really struck out to me and how they're planning on supporting that mission, um, you know, different Dows with, within different niches of the creator economy and how they plan to service those communities and niches. Um, Um, there's one that, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm sure many of you can can guess, but, um, they are trying to, uh, purchase, uh, a large asset of, you know, of entertainment value.
[00:43:44] There's one that's focused on Hollywood. Um, and, and like bringing in scores of, of actors and actresses and different members of. The Hollywood community and aggregating them together under one umbrella. So there's, there's many and, and I don't want to leak anything prematurely, but yeah, you don't stay tunes.
[00:44:10] Um, and what's cool about it. Is anyone on this call or anyone in general can help support these projects and get involved early because if they're coming through seed clubs, accelerator program, you will know about them. That we'll have discords and Twitter accounts. And they are very, very early. Like I was fortunate enough to, to get involved in seek cover Ali, and that's worked out for me and that it turned into a full-time role, but there are going to be these other communities that are doing amazing things that are looking for.
[00:44:49] And so everyone here is involved in a bank list out sure is involved in other different segments of, uh, the crypto space. And there's plenty of opportunity to get involved in something very early on. So stay tuned. I should have updates in a few weeks. Fantastic. Well, I mean, I think you've given us a fantastic overview.
[00:45:14] Can you give us, um, a bit of a preview of what's to come in terms of like, uh, how, you know, these cohorts or the seasons will change or, or, or evolve moving forward, and any other initiatives that may be coming down the pipeline that you're able to talk about? Yeah, absolutely. Like some something we're thinking about is like, how can we provide value to communities and Aus at different stages?
[00:45:44] Right cause to, to loop everyone in, um, under the same umbrella, as like, as a space starts to mature and some Dows are now very established and may already have a token out in the world or, and others who are just starting to think through, um, you know, how to approach web three, having just one accelerator offering is, is great.
[00:46:09] But. There may be ways in which we have different tiers of that accelerator, where, you know, we make we record and document some contents such as those who are just getting started out out already have resources at their fingertips that, that they can plug into. Um, so like, that's just like how we're starting to initially think of evolving the accelerator program.
[00:46:37] Uh, and I think as seed clubs starts to scale, uh, I think we'll have a lot of opportunities to also build alongside these projects, um, and how that, how we loop in our seed club community and plug into our seed club. Accelerator studio projects is an initiative of, of mine and the rest of the team that we're really excited.
[00:47:05] Um, and so yeah, getting the talented group of community members into these projects that we're helping grow and scale is something that I couldn't be more excited about it. And I think like you just kind of see that, um, with the green shoots of that with M club Mira club, which was spun up from Sierra club with the purpose of giving grants to.
[00:47:34] Creators leveraging there. Um, and for us, the, the effort and the intention and that the work being done out of M club is indicative of the caliber of work that can be accomplished via these doubts. And these doubts can be spun up in a matter of weeks. And so I would look no further hop into seat clubs, discord, scroll down to, or, uh, yeah, scroll back to the M club channels.
[00:48:08] Um, if you're an M club member, uh, otherwise you may not have access yet, but you may be able to down the road. Um, it's, it's really impressive.