Launching Crypto Village Oxford (aka PaypalMafiaDAO) | A HomeDAO production
We’re excited to announce that we’re launching the HomeDAO Crypto Village Oxford and Crypto Village NYC, two separate physical communities where we are seeding curated living spaces for Web3 builders and entrepreneurs, which are linked by a social network and cross-community projects, unified by our native token $HOME.
HomeDAO is a 3–12 month residential accelerator for entrepreneurs and Web3 builders however we do not take equity by default in any of the projects to attract the very best and do not want to create any adverse selection pressure.
Building the team and the playbook
We see this as a unique time to be an entrepreneur or builder in Web3 as we are crossing the chasm as early adopters, which will unlock mass adoption and huge levels of value creation.
This is a time to form deep creative and commercial friendships that span time, projects & geographies. Our core community is composed of builders & entrepreneurs with the skills and intent to launch high-value Web3 projects within the next 3–18 months of joining HomeDAO or have already done so (be like Footium and Onisquad). We want to provide our members with a platform to turn their projects into category-defining rocketships and collectively define the playbook to build & scale repeatedly in Web3.
Who belongs in HomeDAO?
The movement was started by baby techno philosopher-king, Jack Chong who created the first RICH hacker house for Rebellious Intellectually Curious Hustlers which is the first hacker house for young founders in the United Kingdom and the first HomeDAO home.
In addition to being RICH, HomeDAO is looking for members who are public-key delusional, private key courageous (PKDPKC). Do you have a vision of what you want to build in the future that would seem delusional to the uninitiated, but courageous to others who are on the same journey?
For example, We want HomeDAO to evolve into a self-propagating physical ecosystem for entrepreneurship that grows organically around the world and provides a foundational layer for Balaji’s Network State, this would seem delusional to most but an exciting possibility to the few that see the world the same way as us.
We’re looking for builders and entrepreneurs.
Great things happen when people from different perspectives and skillsets come together. Our community is built on two profiles during our initial phase; developers and entrepreneurs.
HomeDAO Developers think deeply about software architecture and interoperability and want to make dApps that solve real problems. They ship and iterate often and feel compelled to push code often and regularly. They are convinced their tooling, scripts and workflows are best in class.
Entrepreneurs deeply empathize with their customers’ problems and can build products, assemble teams, and are willing to move mountains to deliver the best solutions for their users. They create complex strategies that weave together positive-sum game outcomes for their communities.
What is the perfect platform?
The early stage of building a tech product can be challenging, finding time to work around a day job or studies can be draining and it can be difficult to keep motivated & learn fast enough when building in isolation.
By providing fully-funded accommodation for builders in our community, members of our Crypto Villages will have the time to focus on their project, combined with support from others who can provide valuable insights and support during the early product creation phase.
In other words, HomeDAO is creating the living, social and community layer for building in Web3. HomeDAO is taking care of deficiency needs (fundamental) so our members can focus on growth.
These homes are supported by our sponsors who are some of the top investors, exchanges, and protocols in the Web3 space who you will form a direct working relationship with. This is an incredible platform to build your network and get a macro view by working closely with others embedded in the ecosystem.
What are some benefits of being in HomeDAO? (building perspective)
HomeDAO welcomes members to the community at all stages of the startup creation process, from pre-idea to scale.
Ideation — finding problem-solution fit.
- The ideation stage is having a clear idea of the problem you’re trying to solve, and a clear vision of how your business/product will solve that problem
- In Web3 this can be challenging as the market is evolving so quickly so having peers to discuss the market and explore ideas with is vital.
- There is so much scope to apply existing products to modify them in different chains and ecosystems
- At HomeDAO we maintain a network of Web3 users/subject experts who are able to communicate with us the challenges they are facing which helps generates build ideas and host regular ideation sessions
Building — creating an MVP
- Building in Web3 is challenging, many of the tutorials become out of date and if you are actively working on a project there’s a high chance you could be pushing the technical frontier.
- Being surrounded by other builders helps, whether it’s smart contract validation or auditing security gaps or cross-chain compatibility, HomeDAO allows builders to cross-validate and therefore enable more complex builds with higher functionality than what’s on the market.
- If you can’t find the answer online there are chances you can message someone in the HomeDAO community, or even better knock on their door for a chat and discuss challenges in depth
Validation — marketing and testing your MVP
- Testing your MVP means putting it in front of users and refining your product. Within the HomeDAO community is an initial set up of users & promoters that can test and promote your product which helps with the cold start problem.
- You have a community of people that can refer you to partners and users who have high potential interest in your product
Growth — product-market fit
- If it’s clear that your users would be upset if your product disappeared, then you have product-market fit.
- At this stage raising external capital for growth, hiring and investment in customer acquisition makes sense.
- Fundraising — HomeDAO maintains relationships with Web3 investors including Angels, Investment DAOs, VCs and IDO platforms, and have a dedicated team that can help with your whitepaper and pitch materials.
- Hiring — HomeDAO network can refer talent and we maintain relationships with specialist blockchain recruiters and other talent pipelines to help on this front.
- Customer acquisition — We maintain a network of crypto influencers and specialist growth agencies focused on Web3 marketing.
- Whether you’re the founder of a growth company, or in the community we think the mix of builders and entrepreneurs at different stages is powerful, people can learn from each other and offer insights about how to get from what stage to the other.
- Because the community is bonded by a token, one team’s success is everyone’s success.
A community, not just a platform
For builders and entrepreneurs in Web3, the knowledge you need is often hidden. More often than not, the information you need isn’t obtainable from a Google Search or a blog post. Being part of HomeDAO is like being part of a cutting-edge research group, we are living on the frontier of knowledge, where we feel the P2P learning model is most effective. We encourage members to share & publish their findings and create content to encourage our community to build and bring more people into Web3.
We encourage all our members to create projects with value but we support all our members to do whatever they can to add value to HomeDAO, other members and their projects and contribute to the wider Web3 ecosystem.
Once you are fully initiated as a HomeDAO member, a soulbound NFT will be awarded for life that acts as a passport to all the villages we plan to seed around the world.
Selection process & collective community
Sir Ernest Shackleton’s advert for the first expedition to the Antarctic
HomeDAO isn’t for the faint of heart. All our existing and future members are highly opinionated, obsessed with building in Web3 and truly dedicated to perfecting their craft. If you don’t enjoy long-heated debates about scaling solutions or tokenomics design then you’ll likely find the experience…disorientating. For a select few, this will feel like $HOME.
Fit is very important to us, after all we’ll be living and working together. Prospective members who are introduced to the existing community will be integrated into the community based on shared interests and skillset OR if the new member is bringing a new perspective or skill set that the community feels is highly valuable but is currently lacking.
A business team for life
We see this as a unique time to be an entrepreneur or building in Web3 and to form deep creative and commercial relationships. According to Willy Woo, in terms of user adoption, we’re pre-2000 compared to the internet. The Paypal Mafia was formed when Confinity was acquired by X.com in 1999, and after building and exiting Paypal, this group went on to set up multi-billion-dollar businesses worth more than $320 billion. When dealing with challenging terrain creative & commercial terrain, the team that solves hard problems together stays together.
If we want to form a community that shapes Web3 and ultimately the world, where do we start? We create an environment that will resonate with other builders and entrepreneurs with similar skillset, talent, and drive to get there.
Join us as a resident of Oxford Crypto Village and we can build a Web3 town together from first principles. From here, we can use this as a basecamp to change Web3.
This is an invitation to shape the future.
Welcome home.
Application form in the bio section of our twitter: https://twitter.com/HomeDAO_live
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Contributors to this blog post:
Josh — Investor, entrepreneur, and founder of a leading crypto student society
James — Founder of innovative P2E NFT game
Konrad — Creator of NFT events app
Pavan — Founder of NFT gaming app
Alex — Community builder & startup operator
Eduardo — Founder of fractionalized NFT app
Kristoff — VC, Angel investor and DeFi Incubator
Jack — Concept Engineer & Token Engineer
Sam — Serial entrepreneur in property, events and entertainment
Kyle — Machine learning and cryptographics expert
Keivan — DAO & community builder
Jan — DAO thought leader
Elena — Ecosystem connector
Alex — Building an enterprise-grade Layer 1
