In September, 99 blockchain projects were seeking the support of Cofound.it on their path to a successful crowdsale. We, the tryouts coaches, are the first sieve of Cofound.it. Our job is to dissect the applications and figure out which projects have the most potential, what the team is like, whether there are any legal issues with the token model, and much more.

Finding the needle in a haystack

The typical Cofound.it applicant has the core kernel of a great team, an amazing vision, and some working code. The biggest challenge of the tryout process is to figure out the development phase applicants are currently in. After the initial tryouts, we separate the projects into two groups:

Under development — projects, which have explored their market, made steps in developing their product, or have started to create a community. They still have to cross the scoring line at least once before they are ready for primetime. Cofound.it works with projects from this group in two ways:

Infancy phase : Projects that have just an idea and a dream. No team, no code, no community. We point them in the right direction with additional advice on how to train to be ready for the next season of tryouts.

: Projects that have just an idea and a dream. No team, no code, no community. Cofound.it Seed: We established a special program called Cofound.it Seed that is tailored for early-stage blockchain startups. The main goal of Cofound.it Seed is to raise from $200k to $1M for a short runway to quickly validate the idea with the help of our Cofound.it Priority Pass™ community. We and our community work closely with the teams to help them reach primetime as soon as possible.

Ready for Primetime — projects that stand out in comparison with the Under development group because:

they have a validated business idea,

the team has a track record in the sector they are trying to disrupt and in the crypto world,

they have created an initial engaged community of supporters,

they have an MVP, prototype or some working code.

No is not always the end

The majority of submissions we receive are not at the right stage of their entrepreneurial path. A few projects will never be accepted by Cofound.it, because:

the team is uncoachable,

the idea has a valid business opportunity, but it is not crowd-saleable,

the values of team members are not compatible with ours.

In practice, these are the main reasons the applicants are not yet training for the crowdsale with us: