FounderHub is a one-stop shop for Founders building with the near ecosystem. It houses tools and resources that Founders need in order to accelerate their technical product development, start and scale their company, find and participate in relevant community groups, identify resources to build their team, and find funding opportunities.
(list the OKRs and KPIs which this epic should affect)
Productize and scale founder support
How ?
We need to consolidate a set of resources, supports and products into one location.
Product Offerings
HZN - Equity-Free Accelerator
An intensive program designed to propel early-stage startups forward without taking equity. The program provides mentorship, learning sessions and templates, networking opportunities, connections to backers, and holds founders accountable to progress.
The cohort experience takes place over zoom and in person; the core value propositions (marketing + recruitment copy) and the application will be available on FounderHub - https://www.hzn.xyz/hzn/signup
Note - this signup page will need to be maintained / updated as new cohorts come online
Support Marketplace (currently branded as Horizon - https://www.hzn.xyz/ )
A platform that connects founders with other startups, potential partners, skilled freelancers and support organizations.
There are a number of enhancements that could be made to Horizon to improve the user experience
RoadmapBacklogConceptual architecture diagram
Content Repository
A repository housing templates, guides and resources essential for a founder’s journey.
Able to be easily updated by non-technical people to update / edit / remove content.
Design Sprint miro board
Ideas Board
A collection of product ideas needed by the NEAR ecosystem.
Ideas are easily consumable by both technical and non-technical founders
Ideas, once built, are able to be compensated by retroactive public goods funding
Inspiration - Superteam Build
Founder Co-Pilot
AI-driven tool that assists founders in product development and company building. It provides both technical and non-technical support.
Need to roll this into Web3 AI-Copilot (Edge Intelligence)
Ecosystem Discoverability Search “Agent”
Allow founders to easily discover ecosystem teams and infra that has been built related to their use case with the goal of those teams collaborating to reduce time to market and increase users with value (cross-app users) across the ecosystem
3) Explore Funding Opportunities
OnboardDAO - Microgrants & support for projects that fall under specific areas
NDC - Decentralised community treasury & support
DevHub - Decentralised funding & support for developers
NEAR Gaming DAO - Microgrants & support for gaming projects building on NEAR
Mintbase Grants Program - focused on funding software development and research efforts related to NEAR protocol NFT infrastructure, Mintbase, MintbaseJS and their GraphQL Indexer APINFT DAO - Microgrants for NFT projects building on NEAR
Suggested Release Milestones
MVP: Build the container "FounderHub" page and add resources and routing info that is live (HZN Accelerator application; Horizon support marketplace, notion content repository, link to founder co-pilot, info about founder communities + token launches a+ funding opportunities)
V2: Build additional products to increase the level of scaled founder support (e.g. Ideas board, productized content repository)
Note: Current products in market will need to be maintained and have their own roadmaps (e.g. Horizon support marketplace)
What ?
FounderHub is a one-stop shop for Founders building with the near ecosystem. It houses tools and resources that Founders need in order to accelerate their technical product development, start and scale their company, find and participate in relevant community groups, identify resources to build their team, and find funding opportunities.
Why ?
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TSbvvHyw1ANQSfgVDsRmrmPmO2LBy5JUvqcgzLgR9ZU/edit)
Move the Needle:
(list the OKRs and KPIs which this epic should affect)
How ?
We need to consolidate a set of resources, supports and products into one location.
Product Offerings HZN - Equity-Free Accelerator An intensive program designed to propel early-stage startups forward without taking equity. The program provides mentorship, learning sessions and templates, networking opportunities, connections to backers, and holds founders accountable to progress. The cohort experience takes place over zoom and in person; the core value propositions (marketing + recruitment copy) and the application will be available on FounderHub - https://www.hzn.xyz/hzn/signup Note - this signup page will need to be maintained / updated as new cohorts come online
Support Marketplace (currently branded as Horizon - https://www.hzn.xyz/ ) A platform that connects founders with other startups, potential partners, skilled freelancers and support organizations. There are a number of enhancements that could be made to Horizon to improve the user experience Roadmap Backlog Conceptual architecture diagram
Content Repository A repository housing templates, guides and resources essential for a founder’s journey. Able to be easily updated by non-technical people to update / edit / remove content. Design Sprint miro board
Ideas Board A collection of product ideas needed by the NEAR ecosystem. Ideas are easily consumable by both technical and non-technical founders Ideas, once built, are able to be compensated by retroactive public goods funding Inspiration - Superteam Build
Founder Co-Pilot AI-driven tool that assists founders in product development and company building. It provides both technical and non-technical support. Need to roll this into Web3 AI-Copilot (Edge Intelligence)
Ecosystem Discoverability Search “Agent” Allow founders to easily discover ecosystem teams and infra that has been built related to their use case with the goal of those teams collaborating to reduce time to market and increase users with value (cross-app users) across the ecosystem
Current community hub for HZN cohort
Links To Ecosystem Resources
Links to Founder Communities Join the NEAR community & get involved: NEAR Discord | Telegram | Reddit Near Social NEAR Forum Twitter : Official @NEARProtocol & @NEARFoundation Ecosystem news, insights, data : @NEARWEEK, @NEAR_Insider, @BuiltOnNEAR, etc. Follow the growing list of NEAR news twitter accounts here! Join relevant NEAR Builder Groups as well as NEAR Communities to make valuable connections and meet others building on NEAR
How to launch a token Explore launching a token on NEAR with the token wizard: https://near.org/contractwizard.near/widget/ContractWizardUI
3) Explore Funding Opportunities OnboardDAO - Microgrants & support for projects that fall under specific areas NDC - Decentralised community treasury & support DevHub - Decentralised funding & support for developers NEAR Gaming DAO - Microgrants & support for gaming projects building on NEAR Mintbase Grants Program - focused on funding software development and research efforts related to NEAR protocol NFT infrastructure, Mintbase, MintbaseJS and their GraphQL Indexer API NFT DAO - Microgrants for NFT projects building on NEAR
Suggested Release Milestones
MVP: Build the container "FounderHub" page and add resources and routing info that is live (HZN Accelerator application; Horizon support marketplace, notion content repository, link to founder co-pilot, info about founder communities + token launches a+ funding opportunities)
V2: Build additional products to increase the level of scaled founder support (e.g. Ideas board, productized content repository)
Note: Current products in market will need to be maintained and have their own roadmaps (e.g. Horizon support marketplace)