Accelerator, Demo day, VC Capital

A virtual mentor/curriculum accelerator based on theories of stakeholder capitalism, providing a guided model for going from idea-to-Scale.

10 years operating award winning accelerator.  Founded 11 startups. Crypto investors since 2014. 2020 Baltimore impact person of the year.

The Conscious Venture Lab-FounderTrac (CVL/FT) team proposes a 12-week accelerator employing our proprietary and award-winning CVL accelerator curriculum and FounderTrac (FT) SaaS platform for the Catalyst community. In addition, our program is supported by the Conscious Venture Partners, our venture capital fund team and our new fund, Conscious Venture Fund II. As such we will provide the Catalyst community with a world-class and proven accelerator program with a 10-year record of success, and, the benefit of an experienced pre-seed/seed stage venture capital fund to help bring new financial resources to the community. 

Based on the work we have done with companies and investors from the US, UK, Asia and Africa, (One of our most successful companies to date is an Africa based blockchain enabled fintech company) we believe our proposal will help bring Cardano and the Catalyst community more squarely into the world-wide startup ecosystem and create a clear pathway to scale, venture capital and other forms of funding for Catalyst projects. 

This proposal directly brings a professional team of business builders, mentors, alumni of the Conscious Venture Lab and investors in the form of the Conscious Venture Fund II in order to directly amplify - and more importantly build a specific path to commercialization - for a significant number of Catalyst funded projects.  

During the initial program we will be looking to learn what works and to co-create a replicable and scalable acceleration process for the Catalyst community. Ultimately, what we will create is a program - utilizing our proven mentor and curriculum-driven process tied to a SaaS platform that provides succinct guidance, mentor matching and data capture - that will assist these would be entrepreneurs in understanding the process of building solid business organizations and operational foundations that will propel their disruptive innovations to commercial success by: 

1. Introducing them to the tenets of Stakeholder/Conscious Capitalism and mapping those to their own governance ideas,

2. Giving teams a defined path towards Product/Market Fit to achieve real customer validation and scale user acquisition and adoption,

3. Helping them understand the theories of financial management, team leadership, and articulating and executing on a business model that will create long-term sustainable competitive advantage. 

Depending on the application process - which we would co-create with the Catalyst team - the program could launch officially 1-3 months after approval of funding. 

Within 3 months we would expect the cohort to be in full production. The 6-month milestone would be a public "Catalyst Demo Day" where we would present the teams that have completed the program to a world-wide audience of investors and supporters. Within 12-months we would expect to see a significant number of projects achieve a minimum viable product (MVP) and product/market fit, meaning real customers, recurring revenue and a clear path to future funding. 

We will measure our success by the number of Catalyst projects that:

1: Receive funding outside of the Catalyst community. IE Become viable, venture-backable projects. 

2: Gain independent market traction, IE Users attracted to the project not because it is sponsored by Catalyst but due to the inherent utility and attractiveness of the business model. 

3: The degree to which the successful projects also result in adoption of ADA and attraction of developers to the Cardano platform. 

The program will include:

• CVL/FT 12-week curriculum (See outline below)

• Full-time operational support of the program and delivery of the curriculum by entire CVL staff and FT staff as needed

• Full use of the FounderTrac SaaS platform for 6-months

• Access to CVL/FT network of more than 100 mentors and the CVL alumni network of nearly 200 companies.

• Catalyst/Cardano White-labeled and Co-Branded Website and SaaS platform

• Enhancement of the FounderTrac platform to capture metrics on Catalyst-defined "Return on Impact" and "Return on Intention".

• Recommendations on how to integrate the program into the Cardano community to create buy-in and sustainability.

We believe there is a significant opportunity for CVL/FT and the Catalyst team to create something extraordinary that will impact the future, as adoption of blockchain technology facilitates fundamental institutional changes in business, finance and government. We strongly believe that this is fertile ground for CVL's theories of entrepreneurship and business, focused on creating value for all stakeholders in society and not simply having a myopic focus on shareholders. We are anxious to join the Cardano community early and to learn together so that we can co-create something never experienced. Creating a high-impact foundation for continuous improvement. Through our previous discussions with the Catalyst team and our research of your community, we have come to believe there are abundant opportunities to extend our relationship into other areas. 

Creating a Mutual Exchange of Value:

We have spent the last 7-years building a significant mentor and alumni network – and we bring that value to this project.  We also believe it will be critical that we attract a network of "Cardano evangelists" in addition to the general business subject matter experts of the CVL/FT community. As we grow, we would enthusiastically expect to bring in Cardano/blockchain specific Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, in addition to our own, thus making our program even more attractive and powerful.

As we learn and grow together, we would be excited to explore ideas about how to further partner with the community to co-create even greater paths to impact. Some of the ideas to which we have given preliminary consideration are:

Promoting ADA and the Cardano platform to current and future CVL/FT participants and CV Fund portfolios companies.

Explore how the Cardano/Catalyst relationship could be used to help support companies that come out of our traditional Conscious Venture Lab programs in the US and around the world. Specifically, we are currently working with several companies in Africa which we know is of particular interest to the Cardano/Catalyst mission.

Potential Conscious Venture Fund financing support for participating Project Catalyst Accelerator companies: Conscious Venture Partners would like the opportunity to invest in companies graduating from this program.

Finally, we'd be excited to explore ideas about how blockchain technologies and applications might be used to enhance our venture fund activities in the future.

Basic Curriculum Overview:

Week 1:

• Kickoff and orientation

• Johari Window personal leadership discovery

• Conscious Capitalism BootCamp

Week 2:

• Minute-to-win-it: perfecting your first minute description

• Problem Statement Canvas

• AMA (Ask me Anything) on Stakeholder theory and Conscious Capitalism

• FounderTrac platform overview

• Orientation office hours

Week 3:

• Begin Individual purpose work/why discovery

• Begin online course: New Models of Business in society (NMBS)

• AMA on Higher Purpose

• Problem Statement Canvas review

• Office hours

• AMA NMBS (Stakeholder Theory)

Week 4:

• Week two of NMBS

• Why discovery sessions

• FounderTrac Finance Seminar

• Problem Statement Canvas review

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

• AMA NMBS (Stakeholder Theory)

Week 5:

• Week three of NMBS

• Why discovery sessions

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

• AMA NMBS (Stakeholder Theory)

Week 6

• Week 4 of NMBS

• Why discovery sessions

• FounderTrac Product Seminar

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

• AMA NMBS (Stakeholder Theory)

Week 7:

• FounderTrac all-cohort progress review

• Intro to the CVL Pitch Deck

• Pitch Deck Design

• FounderTrac Marketing Seminar

• How to write an investor/community update e-mail

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

Week 8:

• Pitch Deck design session 2

• FounderTrac Leadership/Governance Seminar

• FounderTrac all-cohort progress review

• Investment Summaries Due

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

Week 9:

• Individual and joint pitch practice

• FounderTrac Progress review

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

Week 10:

• Individual and joint pitch practice

• FounderTrac Progress review

• FounderTrac full suite AMA (Leadership, Market, Product and Finance)

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

Week 11:

• Individual and joint pitch practice

• FounderTrac Progress review

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

Week 12:

• Individual and joint pitch practice

• FounderTrac Progress review

• Staff Office hours

• Lead mentor meetings

Budget Breakdown:
LABOR:
Program Director: $72,000
Investment Lead: $72,000
Program Manager: $42,000
Operations Manager: $50,000
TOTAL: $236,000

DIRECT PROGRAMMING EXPENSES:
Johari Window/Conscious Capitalism BootCamp: $7,000
Lean Startup Seminer: $8,000
Leadership Develop Program: $6,000
Culture and storytelling Programs: $10,000
Why Discovery: $8,000
Stakeholder Analysis and Human Centered Design: $10,000
EIRs: $6,000
Demo Day: $2,000
FT SaaS Fees: $50,000
TOTAL: $107,000

GENERAL OH EXPENSES:
Includes: Miscellaneous travel, technology expenses, program focused subscriptions 
TOTAL: $32,000

TOTAL: $375,000