Accelerate Filecoin's African Builders

[karakrysthal-code]

Open Grant Proposal: Grow3dge Builder Growth Incubator

Accelerate Filecoin's African Builders

Proposal Category: Other.

Individual or Entity Name: Solar Intelligence, Inc. (SI<3>)

Proposer: https://github.com/karakrysthal-code

Project Repo(s) N/A

(Optional) Filecoin ecosystem affiliations: Filecoin Foundation (Nigerian Ambassador Faith Roberts)

Do you agree to open source all work you do on behalf of this RFP under the MIT/Apache-2 dual-license?: N/A

Project Summary

Grow3dge Incubator: https://si3.space/invite/grow3dge-incubator

Incubator applied learning curriculum: https://si3.fibery.io/default/Grow3dge-Builder-Growth-Incubator-Program-Outline-487?sharing-key=227bb290-4651-4383-88d2-f98c0046f657

Grow3dge Members Club (currently in Season 2): https://si3.space/invite/grow3dge

SI<3> (https://si3.space/) is a values-driven emerging tech ecosystem focused on fostering on-chain education, decentralization, and collaboration. Within SI<3>, we offer our Grow3dge Members Club which supports organizations in driving growth, sales and partnerships. We are currently in Season 2 with rolling onboarding, and have over 30 blockchains, protocols, DAO’s, dApps, and venture groups participating.

Within Season 2, we are now initiating our Grow3dge Builder Growth Incubator program for protocols and their builder teams. This is a 6-month program focused on bringing promising projects from build to growth phase. We have developed this incubator as we see the opportunity to support ecosystems in establishing long-term, meaningful growth with their builders, whom are often highly technical but lack marketing and sales experience to bring their projects into real-world adoption.

This proposal includes the participation of 10 promising African builder teams to join us in our incubator, with 6-months of applied learning and action steps. As marketers ourselves, we understand that projects need more than 1-2 month accelerators and time and strategic support to drive meaningful, sustainable growth. The proposal also includes access for all 10 builder teams (2-3 people each) to join our Grow3dge program.

Impact

These are the core pain points we see within ecosystems and their builders:

1. Builders struggle to grow their projects after initial MVP as they lack marketing experience

2. Blockchains and protocols are struggling to see ROI on their grant funding due to lack of project adoption

3. Small DevRel teams have limited bandwith and resources to support their builders in their growth at the level they require

4. Builders experience a lack in connectivity with other builders and are often creating in silos

Our Incubator offers the following solutions:

1. structured 6-month framework and launchpad with growth-related education and activities, expert mentorship, and hands-on support

2. DevRels and their builders participate in a collaborative learning environment in Ro.am to bolster ongoing education, collaborative learning, and receive strategic marketing support throughout the program

3. Throughout the incubator, ecosystem and their DevRels receive strong insights into which builders are dedicated and performing, which provides a deeper understanding into which projects may be a fit for future grants and resource allocation

4. Builder teams are able to connect with other teams and protocols for improved collaborative growth opportunities

Outcomes

These are the qualitative and quantitative metrics that we aim to reach with each participating blockchain or protocol and their builder teams. The Grow3dge team will provide each ecosystem a summary report post-incubator and a survey summary from the builders regarding their learnings:

• 80% builder team completion rate, which entails builder teams actively participating and submitting 80% of the action steps outlined in the programming

• 70-80% of teams doubling their user growth or more from the incubator

• Ecosystem and Devrel teams have 2-3x greater understanding of their high-potential builders and their products and growth rates throughout and post-incubator

• Improved ecosystem cohesion and collaboration between builders seen through partnerships and integrations with the ecosystem builders, as well as cross-org collaborations

• Loyalty and referrals increased within the protocol builder network due to the support offered to them in this Grow3dge incubator, acknowledging that their ecosystem supports the growth of their projects beyond just technical building

Adoption, Reach, and Growth Strategies

Our target audience is high-potential Filecoin African builders who have built an MVP and are positioning for the next stage of growth.

Development Roadmap

Milestone 1: Grow3dge Builder Growth Incubator Foundations
Timeline: Months 1-3

Objective: Identify and onboard ten promising Filecoin projects into our incubator. Projects participate in our ‘Marketing Foundations’ and ‘Know Your Customer’ modules.

Key Participant Activities & Deliverables:
SI<3> manages the 10 builder teams in delivering these tasks with weekly strategic reviews, and co-working and advisory availability within our Roam virtual coworking space

• Watch our ‘Marketing Foundations’ video to prepare analytics, KPI’s, channels and marketing funnels.
• Set up and/or review your marketing analytics dashboard (custom dashboard template is provided with instructions - requires some technical knowledge) and start tracking your metrics weekly.
• Select 2-3 channels & KPI’s to focus on (email, social, user growth) and focus on executing channel growth throughout the program, and exploratory growth strategies.
• Map your growth marketing funnel and track your metrics at each stage.
• Watch our ‘Know Your Customers’ video to establish clarity over your customers, their pain points, and early community-market fit assessment
• Receive SI<3>'s Persona Mapping Canva template and map your customer personas
• Hold 3-4 existing and/or new potential customer interviews, receiving insights to help shape your product and market fit. Summarize your users’ pain points and opportunities from your metrics analysis and customer interviews, and develop the problem and solution statement that your organization is solving.
• Assess early community-market fit stages (receive our C/M/F template in Fibery)

Milestone 2: Go-to-Market & Grow
Timeline: Months 3-6

Objective: Support builder teams in their marketing & communications strategies and activities, and foster collaboration and partnerships between the ten participating builder teams and our other Grow3dge program participants.

Key Participant Activities & Deliverables:
SI<3> manages the 10 builder teams in delivering these tasks with weekly strategic reviews, and co-working and advisory availability within our Roam virtual coworking space

• Watch our ‘Go-to-Market’ video to start taking action towards your marketing, business development & content activities
• Develop your marketing campaign outline and content development needs, and map your campaign launch timeline (receive our campaign launch template in Fibery), including the opportunity to launch your content within SI<3>'s free and open Explorers tier in our social learning platform.
• Initiate marketing content development
• Continue development of your marketing campaign, business development partners, and content
• Watch our ‘Community Growth’ video to learn how develop, manage and incentivize your communities
• Develop your community, content and incentivization strategy
• Begin to execute your community strategy and track your metrics
• Launch your marketing campaign through your community channels! (and track your metrics) and track C/M/F (Community Market Fit)
• Watch our ‘PR & Partnerships’ video to learn how to develop relationships with journalists and communities for paid and organic PR, and how to develop meaningful partnerships and negotation skills
• Map out 2-3 partnership & referral opportunities and begin to take action towards those, with partnership agreements
• Follow and engage with journalists and develop your press kit (receive our CRM template in Fibery) and develop your PR announcement
• Announce your product with your partners and potential journalists
• Watch our ‘Fund Your Growth’ video to learn how to prepare your project and pitch to share with investors and ecosystems for funding
• Review the performance (with Grow3dge team) of your go-to-market activities and rate your channel growth by highest performing to least performing. Select 1-2 channels that are not activated that you would like to test. Set up and test one new growth channel, and build a roadmap for continued testing. Also outline a marketing roadmap (recommend testing one new strategy per month). Forecast how this channel could perform with the potential for paid incentives
• Prepare your pitch deck and practice pitching
• Prepare your financial model and practice speaking to your financial metrics

SI<3> will provide Filecoin a summary of learnings and reporting post-incubator with these metrics, and a survey summary from builders and their experiences.

Financial Milestones:

1. Grow3dge Incubator kickoff (Month 1): $5k
2. Incubator Month 3 completion with 10 Filecoin projects mid-Incubator summary update (Month 3): $5k
3. Incubator completion with final summary report of 10 Filecoin projects and OKR’s acheived (Month 6): $5k

Total Budget Requested

$15k USD

Team

Kara Howard - SI<3> Co-Founder & Ecosystem Growth Lead

Kara is a full-stack Web3 growth, partnerships & community leader. For the last twelve years, she has been leading womxn-in-tech communities and developing community-driven growth programs and platforms for emerging technologies. Earlier in her career, Kara worked in equity research and investment banking and holds an MBA from NYU. Kara is a strong decentralization advocate and enjoys working at a systems level to architect scalable networks and programs that drive real-world Web3 adoption.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/decentralizing/

Jelena Gjorgev - SI<3> Co-Founder & CTO
Jelena Gjorgjev is a full-stack developer, blockchain strategist, and technical educator who operates at the intersection of technology, education, and real life. With a background spanning Web3, AI, data, and software engineering—and years of hands-on building, teaching, and leading—she is known for turning complex systems into practical, human-centered solutions.

Mayeli is a commercial business leader with nearly 20 years experience spanning strategic partnerships, sales, and expanding ecosystem collaborations. Within SI<3>, she supports early-stage builders through our Grow3dge Builder Growth Incubator and helps projects grow from MVP to scalable Web3 solutions.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayeliaguilar/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/1nf3rn0/

Faith M. Roberts is a Web3 Ecosystem Operator and founder of Fitech, a community of 700+ African developers. For the last three years, she has led and managed the Filecoin community in Kaduna State to ensure the technology's growth and acceptance within Nigeria, organising workshops and meetups in various states. She specializes in strategic growth and partnership architecture, with a focus on onboarding talent to AI-agent frameworks and on-chain commerce. Faith works at a systems level to bridge the gap between global protocols and regional real-world utility.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/faytey7

Team Website

https://si3.space/

Relevant Experience

SI<3> has been the recipient of nine grants from Web3 organizations including Arbitrum, Livepeer, Unlock Protocol, Push Protocol, Rari Foundation, Aeternity Foundation, Public Nouns, MoonDAO, and Rari DAO. We are also funding our organization through our training programs, including Grow3dge.

Here is a sampling of our testimonials:

“The Granting Access event was well-attended and successfully executed, with clear evidence of deliverables. The focus on onboarding under-represented groups is seen as a positive step that could drive significant impact for Arbitrum.” - ArbitrumDAO

“Push x SI<3> Ecosystem’s partnership has been impressive, driving awareness and hundreds of new adopters to the protocol.” - Push DAO

“SI<3> did a great job bringing people together in their Grow3dge program. I’ve been able to make meaningful connections with other Grow3dge members across DAO’s, Web3 companies, and local communities. I’ve already started applying some of the frameworks shared in the sessions to refine our existing programs, and I’m excited to keep learning and meeting more amazing people!” SzuTung Chen, DevRel Marketer at StarkNet Foundation

“I have experienced real value within the Grow3dge program, with significant partnership opportunities that have been made from integrations to event partners. I’ve also very much enjoyed the educational programming and learning from other industry experts. This is a program rich with value, and I’m excited to continue on the Grow3dge journey.” - Sohobit, Rari DAO

"Kara & SI<3> did an incredible job curating, producing and hosting an engaging, high-profile LinkedIn Live event for MoonDAO. The results speak for themselves: 500+ space professionals RSVP’d, and afterwards over a dozen business leaders reached out for partnerships and business opportunities.” - Pablo Moncada-Larrotiz, Founder & Executive Director of MoonDAO

Additional Information

Faith Roberts kara@si3.space