Alliance DAO core contributor Will will share experience in screening Web3 projects

Alliance DAO is a Web3 accelerator and founder community established in 2020, helping top Web3 founders to start their businesses through a 10-week intensive program. To date, 14 accelerator sessions have been held, incubating companies with a total market value of $11 billion. In this conversation, Alliance DAO core contributor Will Robinson shares his experiences in the Web3 field and insights on selecting projects and founders.

Personal Experience

Will was initially an academic researcher focused on game mechanics design. In early 2017, influenced by his cousin Dan(, the current Head of Research at Paradigm), he decided to transition into the blockchain field. Will first worked in cryptocurrency auditing, providing audit services for foundations, exchanges, and more, gradually becoming an expert in the field. He then joined Alliance as the first employee, responsible for establishing the accelerator program.

In nearly 4 years of working at Alliance, Will has tried multiple roles, including fundraising, mentoring, marketing, and research. He particularly enjoys helping the team prepare for Demo Day, teaching them how to tell the startup's story and attract investors.

Will indicates that the most important gain from his doctoral studies is learning how to handle ambiguity, and how to think independently and innovate when faced with questions that have no ready-made answers. These skills are very useful in the entrepreneurship field.

Decision-making process of Alliance DAO

When filtering projects, Alliance evaluates from two aspects: the team and the idea, where the importance of team quality is 2-3 times that of the idea. Will believes that outstanding founders often have a strong drive, and he will understand the true motivations of the founders through in-depth questioning.

Applicants typically need to go through two rounds of interviews, the first round lasting 15-20 minutes and the second round lasting 30-45 minutes. Interviewers will look for the "heat" in the founders, meaning whether they can leave a lasting impression.

During the screening process, Alliance has also missed some excellent projects. For example, the Force Prime team was accepted after five applications, while the Monad project was rejected due to concerns about its valuation and community building capabilities at that time.

Business Model of the Accelerator

Compared to traditional VC self-built incubators, Alliance's advantage lies in its ability to fully devote itself to accelerator operations. Will believes that most VCs find it difficult to bear the annual accelerator operational cost of about $5 million, nor can they invest as much manpower as Alliance.

More than half of the applicants for Alliance come from alumni recommendations. Will stated that top founders are usually cautious about accelerators and need to build trust through word of mouth. Alliance attracts outstanding founders by providing substantial assistance, a large alumni network, and brand influence.

Unlike ordinary accelerators, Alliance does not provide basic entrepreneurial guidance, but focuses on helping founders find product-market fit. Most of Alliance's mentors have worked in the crypto field for 8-15 years, providing founders with truly valuable advice.

Alliance will not invest in subsequent rounds of accelerated projects to avoid any suspicion of favoritism. However, it will consider investing in non-accelerated projects, such as Arbitrum and Axie Infinity.

Evaluation of Founders and Team

When evaluating founders, Alliance focuses on the following points:

1. Is there a strong cooperative relationship among the founders?
2. Do you have a strong desire for success?
3. Is the team size appropriate? ( prefers small teams )
4. Does it have the ability to transform and resilience?

Will emphasizes that small teams are more adaptable. They often recommend that new teams downsize in order to focus on finding the right problems and solutions.

In the gaming industry, Will is more optimistic about small teams developing multiple game prototypes, rather than large teams focusing on a single high-quality game. He believes this approach is more conducive to finding the market-product fit.

Current Hot Projects

Will thinks the most interesting projects right now are Pump.Fun and Glow. Pump.Fun has changed people's perception of meme coins, while Glow incentivizes solar farms to produce in an innovative way.

The success of Pump.Fun did not come easily. In the first few months, there were almost no users, but after a sudden explosion, it has continued to grow. Will believes that the future development direction of the project is worth paying attention to, while also facing challenges such as content review.

The Pump.Fun team initially developed an NFT trading platform called Caviar. During the project's transformation, the team experienced a split but ultimately found a new direction. They drew inspiration from Friend.tech and developed a method for launching tokens at a very low cost, which became a significant milestone in driving the project's development.

Will summarized that the key to entrepreneurship is to create lucky conditions for oneself. It is necessary to work towards solving problems in the right direction while maintaining an open mindset to accept unexpected opportunities. Continuous learning and focusing on a specific field ultimately help in discovering truly valuable innovations.