How We Do
When we started the WBA, then called the TBA (Terra Builders Alliance), we did so in response to the waning quality of developers entering what was at the time, a burgeoning ecosystem. Many of our early supporters and advisors were successful Terra project founders who were losing time, money, and productivity due to the talent shortage.
The idea was to bring best practices in adult education and professional development to Web 3.
Despite the crash of Terra, the bear-market, and various other challenges, we have not only survived, but are thriving as the elite, bottom of funnel developer training institute. Further, our graduates are a diverse cadre of successful builders, technical founders, and developers. Just this week we matched two of our first graduates with new, more senior roles with top projects. Once part of the WBA, always part of us.
One thing that many are curious is how we do what we do, and have found success- first on Cosmos, now on Solana (submitted 27 of the top 150 projects to the last hackathon), and next on Sui.
First and foremost, we are small by design, quality focused, and people centric. We also have stayed true to our values, knowing that we are not for everyone, but for those for whom we are a fit, we are able to support tremendous growth towards desired success.
We do have an application, and a prerequisite task set for make sure everyone we welcome into a cohort has base level proficiencies. This doesn’t always mean robust programming backgrounds. We are very clear that showing up everyday, and working hard are more important qualities than extensive experience. While experienced builders have great success with us, too- it is only those who also bring the latter two qualities to the course.
Ultimately, we find that we are attracting technical founders, CTO types, and solution designers more than employable programmers. Leadership and innovation are integral to our process.
Our cohorts meet 3 times a week for 90 minutes in live courses. While these are recorded for later reference, the course cannot be take asynchronously as a video course. That doesn’t achieve all we strive towards. The small cohort size, with a 5:1 student: teacher ration, in conjunction with 24/7 discord support, additional meeting times, off hours workshops, and private discord chats for every project we build round out a 360 degree supported growth experience for every builder.
Within those cohort sessions, we get to know our people- and they get to know us and each other. It’s a space where people can challenge themselves, current thinking and design, and each other in a productive climate. Further, we are able to breakout into small groups by ability, readiness for a concept, and interests. The latter part allowing every builder to be in a space that is meaningful and appropriately accessible to them, while also challenging them to grow.
As a project and shipping focused program, we start the process of shipping on chain from the pre-requisite stage. Each week, custom contracts are modeled, designed, iterated on, and shipped by our cadets. Further additional course work to round the experience has research, analysis and content creation components.
Finally, every successful graduate has shipped to devnet- some are on mainnet with their capstone projects. We know of no other program in the whole space where this happens. We ship — it’s hard, but it’s also the most important milestone for any builder in this space to be able to reach that milestone. We help them get there.
We are able to do so with a tremendous amount of mutual trust, respect, and effort. Often in Web 3 education is videos, bootcamps, docs- that while successful in their own right, leave most builders lacking the finishing school experience that we provide.
If you are serious about being a professional in this space, have a sense of responsible stewardship of the blockchain, believe in the power of this technology to change the world, and are ready to work hard with a cohort of your peers, we encourage you to apply today and #ComeBuidlwithUs.
web3builders.dev/apply
@comebuidlwithus on twitter
jeff@web3buiders.dev
