In-Depth Dialogue with Core Contributors of Alliance DAO: Unraveling the Secrets of Web3 Entrepreneurship Acceleration

Alliance DAO is a leading accelerator and founder community in the Web3 space, established in 2020. It helps outstanding Web3 founders launch and grow their companies through a 10-week program. The community of Alliance DAO includes founders, lawyers, auditors, liquidity providers, and market makers.

Currently, Alliance DAO has held 14 sessions of the startup accelerator, incubating companies with a total market value of 11 billion dollars. In this conversation, Will Robinson, an early employee of Alliance DAO, shared his personal experiences in the Web3 field, as well as insights on how to screen projects and founders.

Personal Experience

Will Robinson was initially an academic researcher focused on game studies. His cousin Dan, the head of research at Paradigm, introduced him to Bitcoin, prompting him to shift to the blockchain field in early 2017.

He initially worked at a cryptocurrency auditing firm, responsible for marketing and gradually becoming an auditing expert. He then joined Alliance as the first employee, responsible for establishing the accelerator program. During his nearly four years at Alliance, he tried multiple roles, including fundraising, mentorship, marketing, and research.

Will particularly enjoy helping the team prepare for Demo Day, teaching them how to tell their startup story to attract investors. This not only gives the team a compelling story to attract investors but also helps them gain a deeper understanding of themselves.

His academic background primarily helped him learn how to deal with ambiguity, create new things in the face of questions without ready answers.

Decision-making Process of Alliance DAO

Alliance evaluates projects mainly from two aspects: whether the team is excellent and whether the idea is outstanding. Will believes that an excellent team is two to three times more important than an outstanding idea.

Alliance is not focused on specific fields but rather on outstanding founders. They help teams adjust, collaborate, and even support transformations.

The characteristics of an excellent team include extreme drive. During the interview, Will guides the founders in self-reflection, delving into why they want to solve a specific problem.

Project screening usually requires two rounds of interviews. The first round lasts 15 to 20 minutes, and the second round lasts 30 to 45 minutes. The interviewer will look for what is called "heat", which refers to the founder's unique charisma and drive.

During the application process, about 20% of applicants will receive an interview opportunity, of which 20% will enter the second round of interviews, and finally, 20% will be admitted.

Business Model of Accelerators

Compared to self-incubating VC, Alliance's advantage lies in its ability to fully dedicate itself to accelerator operations. Running a complete accelerator goes beyond the scope of most VCs and is also not financially viable.

Alliance has an annual operating cost of about 5 million dollars and requires 15 full-time employees. They leverage an accelerated team by building a DAO and focus on creating unique things.

More than half of the applicant teams were recommended by previous founders or alumni. Alliance took a long time to accumulate a large group of founders to spread the word.

Alliance will not invest in the subsequent rounds of teams that have been accelerated to avoid favoritism. However, it will invest in teams that have not been accelerated, such as Arbitrum and Axie Infinity.

Evaluation of the Founders and Team

Alliance will focus on several aspects when evaluating the founder:

1. Is there a strong cooperative relationship among the founders?
2. Is there a strong desire for success?
3. Prefer small teams, as large teams find it difficult to transform.
4. Do the founders have strong motivation, solid partnerships, and few employees?

Will believes that it is best to develop games in the crypto space with small teams. He hopes to see teams releasing multiple games within a year, continuously trying to find the fit between the market and the product.

Currently, Alliance has received many AI-related project applications, especially ideas surrounding tokenized AI. Will is excited about this and believes that crypto technology could solve financial service issues for AI.

Will believes that the most interesting projects at the moment are Pump.Fun and Glow. Pump.Fun has changed people's perception of meme coins, while Glow incentivizes solar farms to produce in an interesting way.

A key lesson in entrepreneurship is the need to create lucky conditions for yourself. Work in the right direction, solve people's problems, and also be prepared for unexpected opportunities. Continuously focusing on a certain area and constantly shifting directions can help gain expertise in the field and ultimately discover something truly useful.