The Open Web Collective and Entrepreneurship in Crypto: What Does The Future Hold?
4NTS Guild sat down with Mimi Idada, Head of the Open Web Collective to discuss its past, present and future. In the context of rapidly developing crypto-markets and products, and surging interest from entrepreneurs and students alike the Open Web Collective is a crucial component of the NEAR Ecosystem.
The discussion specifically focused on the existing focus of the OWC, lessons learned from the past, and most importantly, how the Open Web Collective plans to embrace a decentralized and permissionless world of crypto innovation into the future.
“OWC is growing. Most people think of OWC as an accelerator, but what you will soon see is it is bigger than that. I love my role at NEAR — and just as space continues to grow, the Open Web Collective will continue to grow and evolve as well. There are lots to go with that: Opportunities to deploy capital to founders — or opportunities to give people conversations and content to mull over. Conferences to larger playbooks, and even podcasts.”
- Mildred Idada, Head of the Open Web Collective
What is the Open Web Collective? Early Days for a New Type of Accelerator
The Open Web Collective was originally imagined by Mimi in the early days of NEAR, as a tool for helping founders bring new ideas to the crypto-verse. As she explains, the Open Web Collective was created in direct response to the fragmentation and complexity of the crypto space: Two characteristics that have made it difficult for entrepreneurs to become familiar with it.
“We were looking at the overall landscape and saw how everything was so fragmented. There is was not a space that allowed builders to focus on their idea first — then decide on the L1 — a space for them to truly explore.”
This exploratory space was imagined as a protocol agnostic home for ideas and conversations. A place where two different people, building on different chains could still work together in sharing ideas on different products and apps. In this sense, the Open Web Collective was conceived in direct opposition to the crypto-tribes of L1 maximalists where only one protocol was ‘correct’ or ‘valuable’.
The key values underlying the original design of the Collective include inclusion, dialogue, collaboration, and long-term network building. As Mimi explained:
“That is when we came up with the OWC. Early days involved a lot of trial and error — running fast and breaking things. In fact, I think our first iteration was a slack group of over 200 builders. We responded to all of their questions and meeting with them 1:1. It was the most unscalable way of doing anything. But we wanted to explore how we could help, but fast realized it wasn’t super sustainable.”
How has the Open Web Collective Evolved Over Time? Lessons Learned
From its early days of Trial and Error, the Open Web Collective has grown into a sleek, intimate, and highly effective incubator and accelerator for new projects looking to build the Open Web. Looking at the results from the first groups, Mimi and the NEAR Team re-designed the OWC to focus on small cohorts that emphasized relationships and small group intimacy. Not only did this model prove immensely useful in bringing cohorts of founders together, but it also created a safe space in crypto for open questions, exploration, and engagement on real problems facing entrepreneurs in the space.
“We realized we wanted to make OWC a place that puts relationships first. Thus we had to start with a cohort model, a small group of builder and give them the opportunity to get to know each other really well…There something special in having intimate small groups — safe spaces where people can double down in authentic relationships to fast track their growth and earnings.”
Since that time, the Open Web Collective has successfully processed two cohorts of new projects. Projects entering the OWC are provided guidance into the area of their business idea, feedback on different aspects of their design, mentorship from someone already inside of the industry, and connections to leading industry VCs.
Especially notable is the focus of the Open Web Collective: Building the Open Web is all about a future where identity, privacy, money, and data can be managed by users-first. In this sense, not only is the Open Web Collective a fast-track for founders to learn about the emerging crypto-verse, but it is also a home for building projects that provide serious social, personal, and cultural value at the crossroads of innovation, decentralization, and ownership.
MISSION: NEAR exists to accelerate the world’s transition to open technologies by growing and enabling a community of developers and creators.
VISION: The NEAR Foundation’s vision is to empower a world where people have control over their money, data, and power of governance.
In essence, the OWC is building out the Open Web, launching the Creator Economy, and pioneering new models of ownership and privacy hitherto unknown to most of the world.
The Future of the OWC: Preparing for a Decentralized World
Today, the Open Web Collective has just successfully launched its second cohort of projects. From Open Finance, to Privacy, to next-generation dApps, the second cohort embodies the vision and mission of both the OWC and NEAR. Looking to the future however, the OWC intends to evolve so as to better accommodate the needs of founders and creators entering the space:
“OWC will decentralize how we help with programs and partnering with others. OWC is really a collective, we want to create synergies with other programs, tools, and communities building the open web.”
In short, the Open Web Collective is going to be expanding in exciting and useful ways. For starters it will expand the network that accepted projects will have access to — beyond VC’s, to other accelerators, incubators, mentors, and networks of experts.
Beyond such tools, Mimi emphasized the importance in keeping the OWC open to change, as the entire crypto-verse continues to rapidly evolve. This frenetic and exponential pace of development quickly changes conditions for founders: From deal structures, to fundraising, to token-economic design, launching a project in crypto can radically change in a matter of months based upon new technologies and trends. The OWC is prepared to accommodate that tempo:
“There is a ton to still learn about how to make a DApp or crypto community successfully. Fundraising will likely change with new DAO infrastructure being built. We need to stay open to these changes and make sure we continue to equip founders with the information and guidance they need to be successful.”
In itself, the Open Web Collective continues to grow. While most people think of it only as an accelerator, Mimi is keen to point out that it has a lot of new features and plans in store for the future.
“OWC is growing. Most people think of OWC as an accelerator, but what you will soon see is it is bigger than that. I love my role at NEAR — and just as space continues to grow, the Open Web Collective will continue to grow and evolve as well. There are lots to go with that: Opportunities to deploy capital to founders — or opportunities to give people conversations and content to mull over. Conferences to larger playbooks, and even podcasts.”
