180 Applicants. 60 shortlisted. 12 teams finally selected. 6-8 will receive pre-seed funding of up to €60,000 by summer 2022. Welcome to the first cohort of the BFG Superstars by Blockchain Founders Group that launched in February 2022. It’s been an exciting journey so far and we want to tell you about what we have accomplished and the next steps in developing the token economy with our blockchain startups.
But first, let us rewind and give a brief overview of the program. BFG Superstars is a start-up incubator program launched by the Blockchain Founders Group - a venture capital and company builder firm with a strong footprint in Central Europe. The BFG Superstars’ investment thesis is to invest in blockchain talents and high-potential crypto ideas as we believe it is the most important technology for the next decade. Since BFG’s inception, we’ve made over 25 direct investments and have founded 5+ companies in-house. After initial success in both investing and company building, we decided it was time to share our expertise with a larger community. Thus, we launched our very own blockchain startup incubator program in order to support, build, fund, and grow the most promising blockchain startups.
In a nutshell, a startup incubator is an initiative designed specifically to help founders succeed in their startup journey and help them grow their business. We started the program because we strongly feel that there is an abundance of business opportunities and unmet needs when it comes to areas such as DeFi, NFTs, Metaverse, IoT, CO2 compensation, distributed data economies, DAOs and blockchain development in general. However, we wanted to do things differently, and separate our program from ordinary VCs and incubators. Thus, instead of inviting applicants who already had an idea or founded a company with some sort of MVP, we decided to level the playing field by removing such requirements and only focusing on the individual/team's competency and drive. Our ethos was simple: look for the most talented people and then help them build from scratch. By foregoing the necessity of requiring applicants to already have some sort of startup to showcase, we attracted a greater pool of talent.
“While many talented and smart people capable of running a startup exist, oftentimes they lack experience, a proper network, proper advisory, best practice know-how and close mentorship, or the courage to apply with an idea already at hand.”
(Max Zheng, Head of BFG Superstars)
That's why we ultimately decided to not make the existence of an idea a requirement for applicants.. The blockchain and crypto space, still unbeknownst to many, has the potential to transform various areas of society, from finance and money, to data ownership and storage, to art and hierachical structures. In order for these movements to ignite and gain further traction, we need the respective people pioneering the space, with new inventions at the core of novice business models. In our case, this somewhat meant taking a leap in the dark, and believing in passionate, ambitious individuals, even though they did not yet have an idea to showcase. So here we are now, 12 weeks into the process, with 12 teams creating some life-changing blockchain solutions.
There are several key pillars the Superstars incubator is based on, each coining a unique phase during the program. Firstly, it goes without saying, we needed to attract talent. We were looking for people combining entrepreneurial and technical blockchain knowledge with determination and ambition. Through asking the right questions in an online form, we were able to filter out those candidates we believed to be a good fit. That way, we narrowed down the first batch to 60 individuals (from a total of 180 applications), i.e. one of every three applicatns was given the chance to save themselves a spot in the first batch of Superstars.
Subsequently, after the participants got acquainted with BFG and one another, we matched to teams consisting of 2 (CEO & CTO) and gave them time to pitch in front of a jury multiple times, without expecting perfect performances, just to get a closer hunch on how much they actually wanted to succeed, and whether they could deliver on what they stated in the online form. For us, those participants that could both handle criticism well and were willing to pivot based on feedback and suggestions stood out. The startup niche is such a dynamic one that unwillingness to adapt, and in particular listen, can quickly become lethal. The process of coming up with a specific start-up idea, from a high-level perspective, essentially contained these steps: Firstly, the to-be co-founders were supposed to pick an area of interest, and based on that come up with some assumptions (e.g. what is this market still missing, what products would its users love to get their hands on?), which, in the next step, had to be validated - is there sufficient demand, what pain points is the idea attempting to tackle, and how feasible is it from a technical perspective?
Receiving as much feedback as possible is key here. That means talking to seasoned entrepreneurs, potential users/customers, advisors, and possibly even competitors.
Figure 1: Starting up is an ongoing feedback loop full of pivots and readjustments
Another ingredient for startup success, we believe, is learning from those who achieved what you as a founder want to achieve as well. Thus, on a weekly basis, accomplished entrepreneurs and venture capital developers shared their stories, struggles, and major learnings, equipping the Superstars with real-world guidance on how to succeed as startup founder, and simultaneously equipping them with advice on what not to do, which probably is as important. The BFG network encompasses a wide range of experts, who are firmly convinced of the importance of continuous exchange and learning, and will therefore continue to lecture the cohort about the aforementioned topics with regards to all the To-Do’s along the way. If you wish, take a look at our community on Discord to stay up-to-date.
After the program had been in progress for 2 months, the time was ripe for the Superstars to go through a trial pitch in front of BFG’s Senior partners and some external advisors to get a sense of how the pre-seed pitch a few weeks later would look and feel like. Needless to say, when one is only given 5 minutes to capture the audience, explain the business use-case in an appealing way, and answer questions, everything has to go smoothly. This requires a lot of practice, feedback, and pivoting. Along with a neat presentation, the participants had to showcase the work they put in throughout the past weeks - finalizing the Corporate Identity and design, building a Website, figuring out a good team composition, and ideally having already developed a MVP.
The Superstars teams have recently been going through “Shark Tank” Week, i.e. they pitched their ideas in front of BFG’s Board of Directors and external investors seeking to receive their first pre-seed funding round. If successful, the teams will have made an invaluable step in securing their startups financial basis, gathering the means to form a larger team, build the actual product, increase their advertising expenditures and further scrutinize the product-market fit.
The teams who will make it through the funding round perfectly illustrate the importance a clear venture building strategy, with weekly goals, advisory and exchange, and tracking metrics has - it even allows you to build a start-up worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in less than 90 days!
BFG Blockchain Founders Group is a company builder and early-stage venture capital investor. Our team comprises academic and regulatory drivers of the blockchain economy, serial entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. We love to work with outstanding entrepreneurial talents and bring to bear the full support of our network to make them succeed. Follow us on LinkedIn, Medium, or Twitter.
Contact: Max Zheng, Head of Corporate Development & Superstars, max.zheng@blockchain-founders.io
