Radicle Cohort Programmes

[RuthD]

Hi @abbey - apologies for the delay in replying to you; we didn’t actually get any notifications of the comments on this post and so only noticed them yesterday! We really appreciate that you took the time to review and provide feedback on the proposal. Please see some responses below.

@abbey

What types of lectures & workshops are we envisioning here? Is it specifically related to Radicle, or is it more general Web3 topics? If it’s more general, what topics would be relevant for the Radicle vision?

Who will be conducting the lectures & workshops? How will they be sourced?

The workshops will focus on content aligned closely to Radicle, activities so far include:

• Workshop 1: Why we need Open Source Software & Introduction to Radicle
• Workshop 2: The Open Source Project How To (project management, revenue, ideation…)
• Two fireside chats that feature builders involved and passionate about OS software
• Project demos: Radicle to demo products and cohort members to share their projects

The outcome of the activities is to primarily onboard them to the Radicle ecosystem by educating them on Radicle’s mission.

A detailed overview of the Learn cohort can be found here.

A detailed overview of the Build cohort can be found here.

Presenters will be both internal and external speakers to be sourced through contributors’ and Radicles’ networks.

Maddy also runs Web3 VC cohorts so has an understanding of how to best find speakers.

@abbey

“A prototype of open source tooling projects” is really vague — what does it mean? Is it an open-source prototype of a solution to one of the problem areas outlined by the Radicle Grants Lead and Core Team?

The goal of the Build track is to get teams building solutions aligned with Radicle’s mission and then to get Radicle grant funding. In other words, we want to get products to a point where it makes sense for teams to apply for Radicle’s grants (we will be working closely with @bordumb to align this).

To determine the problems cohort members are solving throughout the Build cohort, we suggest working closely with @bordumb to come up with some first ideas, which we then present at a core team meeting and discuss and choose the problems as a collective.

@abbey

While this seems like a fun idea to explore, it seems too early to start building an accelerator program. Everything we do should be focused on adoption and development of the Radicle stack! Once there is more evidence of some product-market fit, I think it would make more sense to explore an accelerator program.

We definitely agree with you and are not developing the Venture track any further than as an idea for a future roadmap. Aside from what is in the draft proposal, we don’t intend to take it any further for at least another year or two.

@abbey

I think to move this proposal forward, we have to have a better idea of what “OSS and FOSS tooling projects that can add to the Radicle ecosystem” are. Without that, it’s hard for me to see the value of running our own cohort program — why wouldn’t we just lean into our hackathon strategy instead?

On that question, what is the value of running our own cohort program vs. just developing a more engaged hackathon strategy? Devs are in high demand and get a lot of opportunities, why not just increase our presence where they currently are?

We believe that the cohort programme will add value as an effective tool to onboard contributors into Radicle’s ecosystem and would augment the work in the hackathon strategy. With a bit more time and intention, individuals can deepen their understanding of and be onboarded to the ecosystem effectively and they are able to build a Radicle network which improves retention.

Some further reasons we believe the cohort programme offers value alongside the hackathons include:

• Another way to build awareness. The cohorts will also be regular and consistent and we have seen this pay off with something like Kernel.
• Targets a new crowd that potentially don’t go to hackathons.
• Works alongside the hackathon funnel to support more in-depth onboarding to Radicle. A potential track is that users first attend a hackathon and gain awareness on Radicle, and they can then complete the Learn cohort to gain a much more valuable insight into Radicle’s mission.
• Radicle has the opportunity to build a powerful alumni network that advocate for the ecosystem.

If there are any other questions or comments, please do let us know. Thank you!