Will, a core contributor to Alliance DAO, shared his experience in Web3 startup acceleration

Alliance DAO is a leading Web3 accelerator and founder community founded in 2020. Through a 10-week program, they help outstanding Web3 founders start and grow their companies. At present, 14 accelerator camps have been held, with a total market value of US$11 billion.

This article interviews Will Robinson, a core contributor to Alliance DAO, who shares his experience in the Web3 space and how to screen projects and founders.

Personal experience

Will began his career as an academic researcher, researching the history and culture of video games, board games, and sports. At the beginning of 2017, he moved into crypto, first in the audit business, and later joined Alliance as the first employee to build the accelerator program.

During his time at Alliance, Will has tried a variety of roles, including fundraising, mentoring, marketing, and research. He especially enjoys helping teams prepare for Demo Day and teaching them how to tell their own entrepreneurial stories.

Will says his academic background has helped him learn how to deal with ambiguity and face questions that don't have ready-made answers. These abilities are very useful in the field of entrepreneurship.

Alliance DAO's decision-making process

The Alliance DAO evaluates the project from two main aspects: whether the team is good and whether the idea is excellent. Will believes that the quality of the team is more important than the idea.

Good founders tend to be extremely driven. Through in-depth questions, Will guides founders through self-reflection on why they started the company.

Applicants usually need to go through two rounds of interviews, the first round is 15-20 minutes and the second round is 30-45 minutes. The interviewer will look for the so-called "heat", which is the traits and potential in the founder.

Alliance DAO interviews 20% of applicants, then interviews 20% of them, and finally admits 20% of them.

Accelerator's business model

Compared with incubating VCs on their own, Alliance DAO has the advantage of being able to devote itself to accelerator projects. Running a full accelerator requires a lot of effort and resources, and most VCs struggle to do that.

More than half of the applicants to the Alliance DAO were referred by previous founders or alumni. This word-of-mouth communication is very important to attract good founders.

Alliance DAO does not invest in subsequent rounds of accelerated projects to avoid favoritism. However, it will invest in other projects that have not been accelerated.

Founders vs. team judges

When evaluating founders, Alliance DAO focuses on the following:

• Whether there is a strong working relationship between the founders
• Whether you have a strong desire to succeed
• Whether the team is the right size ( favoring small team )

According to Will, if you want to find product-market fit, a small team is more advantageous. They can make mistakes and transform quickly.

Current interesting projects

Will believes that the most interesting project at the moment is Pump.Fun because it has changed people's perception of meme coins. Another amazing project is Glow, which incentivizes solar farm production in an innovative way.

Will shared Pump.Fun's entrepreneurial journey. The project progressed slowly at first, but suddenly exploded. It is currently facing a number of challenges, such as how to deal with potential criminal acts.

Will believes that one of the keys to starting a business is to create the conditions for yourself to be lucky. You need to work in the right direction to solve user problems, but also keep an open mind and take advantage of unexpected opportunities.