We are now officially opening the applications for our Cofound.it community evaluator beta program that will reward good project evaluations in CFI tokens. To apply, head over to our new page for community evaluators and submit your first project evaluations through the project evaluation forms that you can now find on the Priority Pass™ page if you’re an active member.

To help you get started with your application evaluations, we’d also like to share some of our experiences, hints and tips for evaluating blockchain projects.

What makes a good candidate?

Evaluating an early stage crypto project is tricky. You cannot use the same criteria you’d apply to a project starting an ICO — the project is not quite there yet. Your job is closer to evaluating a Seed stage startup — you’re primarily looking for potential and doing your best to identify any red flags.

How does our team separate the wheat from the chaff? It all boils down to two things: project maturity and business potential. A project needs both to be successful.

With project maturity, we look at how far the project has come. After evaluating hundreds of projects, we believe the projects can be divided into three groups:

Infancy phase: they have a vision and a dream, but nothing more.

Developing projects: the largest and most diverse group, could be a Seed candidate.

Ready for prime time: the project is ready for a full crowdsale. Rare.

Evaluating project maturity is the faster and easier part. As the project business strategy can evolve quickly, we focus on maturity for initial evaluation. For mature projects, we proceed to an in-depth evaluation of business potential.

With business potential, it’s all about understanding the target segment a project wants to disrupt. Understanding of how the business would work is mandatory, with an in-depth understanding of the specific industry very helpful.

Evaluating maturity

You’re looking for information on the following:

Product maturity : in what stage of development is the proposed product?

: in what stage of development is the proposed product? Blockchain’s role in concept : is there actual value in using blockchain for the product?

: is there actual value in using blockchain for the product? Team : does the team’s background indicate their ability to execute?

: does the team’s background indicate their ability to execute? Advisors : does the team have any trusted advisors that bring value to the business?

: does the team have any trusted advisors that bring value to the business? Target segment and market potential : who are the potential customers and how big is the addressed market?

: who are the potential customers and how big is the addressed market? Position vs. competition : who are the competitors and how is the proposed product better?

: who are the competitors and how is the proposed product better? Token model : is the token model clearly defined, and does the proposed token offer real utility or is it a security?

: is the token model clearly defined, and does the proposed token offer real utility or is it a security? Community engagement: is the project visible in the crypto community, does it have an engaged community of supporters?

Where to find the evaluation materials?

Do what our evaluators do: begin by reading all the material about the project. Website first, then their blog. Whitepaper comes next — if the project has one, early stage candidates usually don’t.

If there’s a community space (like Telegram or Slack), look at the conversation history. Interactive channels are also used to ask the team about missing information. Please be civil and respectful when doing this. Remember, in this situation, the project is YOUR FUTURE CUSTOMER (it’s not like when you’re a possible investor, the tables are turned here!). We’ll be watching your performance in this part carefully.

IMPORTANT: when you’re answering a particular question in the project evaluation form, getting the Yes/No part right is less important than using sound reasoning to come to the answer. Explain your reasoning in the text field next to each question. This part will actually be the most relevant when we’ll be rating the quality of evaluations.

Find out more and apply

If you’re ready to become one of our first 50 beta community evaluators, visit the page for community evaluations for further instructions on how to apply. In case of questions, join the #evaluators channel on our Priority Pass Slack.