Incubation program at LongHash, a story of our journey
A few weeks ago we succesfully graduated from LongHash incubation program together with BUTTON Wallet, Bright Tree, Soundario and Mintable.app
LongHash is a global blockchain-focused incubator, supported by Singaporean government and some of top VCs in the blockchain field, such as Fenbushi Capital and HashKey Digital Asset Group.
We were part of the third batch (#ZilHive)hosted by LongHash together with Zilliqa blockchain.
In this article I want to share our impression and experience which, I believe, can be useful for other entrepreneurs and start-ups who are at the very beginning of their business and fundraising.
Structure of the Incubation program
ZilHive program has been designed as 10-week program starting from quite intense Launch week, followed by several weeks full of events, mentorship sessions and check-in meetings helping to refine your story, and, finally ending with Pitching madness week and Demo Days in Singapore and Shanghai.
Launch week in Singapore
First week at LongHash is one of a few weeks during the program when teams are required to be in person full-time.
It was started with a challenging game where teams have been given a small amount of capital and should multiply it as much as possible in real time conditions.
Then we had several very intense days full of classes focused on building business models, pitch decks and powerful presentations. It was pretty much as going back to business school and I have been quite surprised with very good quality of trainings, kind of what you may get in the top schools.
Building on Zilliqa
As a part of our programme we started to build on Zilliqa. It is the first blockchain which could implement sharding and achieve high throughput without sacrificing decentralization quality.
We have build a set of smart contracts which enable to issue tokenized bonds on Zilliqa blockchain.
Zilliqa uses its own smart-contract language Scilla which enables to write smart contracts in a safe way and avoid most of the dangerous pitfalls a smart-contract developer may make.
Of course, using a new programming language with its own unique logic required some study from our developers. But once they mastered the main concepts, the process became quite smooth and straightforward.
Our progress writing on Scilla was also supported by comprehensive technical advice from Zilliqa community and development team, which made our first steps much easier
Creating your story again and again: that is what takes most of the time
When we entered incubation program, of course, we already had our pitch deck and well-developed story. And we believed it was already good enough.
During the program you start receiving a lot of feedback, from program managers, mentors, even VCs if you have a chance to talk to them in informal environment. Your story is challenged a lot, even when people who give this feedback don’t try to challenge it, but just ask questions about your idea or product.
Our pitch has fully changed during the program, not a single slide survived. And we did that several times while we better understood what was really important in our story, what not, what could really make a difference, and what was irrelevant.
Pitching madness
The culmination of incubation program is Demo Day, where all teams must pitch their stories in front of 100+ people audience, and, of course, teams should be well prepared for it.
A week before Demo Day we had over 15 pitching sessions with mentors, receiving comprehensive feedback. This really prepares you to pitch in front of large audience, as you know you story so well, that you don’t need to worry about anything when you are on stage.
Demodays Singapore and Shanghai
After 10 weeks of refining our stories and multiple rounds of changes in pitch decks we were thrilled to present our projects on December 11th in Singapore and December 13th in Shanghai.
Program results and takeaways
The main question, of course, what do you get in the end and what are main results of the program.
Obviously, even the best incubator doesn’t guarantee your start-up with funding and success to your business idea. But, I would say, it can shorten this way and increase you chance to succeed.
What was really helpful for me — First, you get 360 degree feedback on your business idea and how you do it, and what you do probably wrong (if you do a start-up, it is very likely that you do something wrong). In the real life, it is very hard to get such feedback as VCs or investors rarely share with you their impressions and don’t explain you why they won’t invest in your project. Same with most of your potential customers and business partners.
Second, you get access to pitching opportunities and contacts, which you could hardly get otherwise. Of course, again, it doesn’t guarantee you anything, but improves your chance.
So, I believe, that joining LongHash was an important milestone for Depos and it will positively effect our progress in the nearest future.
Totally recommend to other early-stage blockchain projects apply to LongHash and become a member of succeful and growing community!
