It's been a pivotal few months since the fellowship began, and A LOT has changed. In this post, I'll touch upon the method I followed to get into the fellowship and my takeaways from the whole experience.

Learn2Earn

My crypto luck turned around in the fateful summer of 2022. I had a game plan called Learn2Earn.

It was based on the idea that if one wants to spend all their time learning and building in crypto, they might as well get paid for it. In fact, whoever is paying you will expect you to be structured and deliver by a deadline. So basically, you get paid full-time to learn what you're passionate about in an organized way. Sounds like a win-win. I went about it in the following ways:

  • I entered a bunch of hackathons. They're a great way to build projects, gain experience and earn good money for your hard work. I believe it's a numbers game. Participate in enough hackathons, and you'll understand what kind of projects win. Winning products usually solve current problems in the crypto space, so it's always good to be aware of them. I'd suggest targeting niche sponsors to better your chances of winning a prize.
  • Fellowships are harder because they have limited slots, but hey, you usually get paid well for your time. Having projects recognized by hackathon prizes will surely improve your chances of getting into one.
  • If you have a neat idea, you should definitely apply for grants and get funded to work on it full-time. Boatloads of grants programs are out there on every chain.

I had previously won a sponsor prize from dydx at HackMoney 2022 and that bolstered my chances of getting into the following fellowship/grant. It's a virtuous cycle that cascades into bigger and better things!

I still remember editing the Polygon Fellowship application submission every night with my girlfriend. We were expected to submit comprehensive idea proposals and I'd spend a few hours every day refining them. I was ecstatic when I got the acceptance email for the Polygon fellowship Builder track. It was a much-needed W, and I was relieved. My girlfriend already saw it coming though.

Interestingly enough, Devfolio organized the Polygon fellowship under their own 'Learn2Earn' initiative which is conceptually the same idea! It was a serendipitous match. Huge shoutout to them for empowering developers ❤

Hacker House

An exciting feature of the fellowship was the Polygon Hacker House. All the fellows got together at the Paul John hotel in Bangalore. This part of the fellowship had the highest value add in my opinion. The importance of meeting like-minded people who are passionate about the same ideas as you cannot be overstated. Everyone had a unique angle to add and it was interesting to hear different perspectives.

Crypto founders flew in from all over India to give their nuggets of knowledge. We saw talks from folks hailing from PolynomialFi, Frontier and so many more protocols. It was a fantastic opportunity to gain real-world insight from people making it in the space.

Demo Day

For demo day, we were required to pitch our idea to a group of VCs and the rest of the fellows. When you pitch to VCs, you have to think about scale. How potentially valuable is your idea 5 years down the line? How big of a market does it cater to?

My biggest learning here was that sometimes projects might remain as side projects. It's okay to be tempted to think of them as scalable products and I'd highly suggest that you evaluate your ideas, but don't force it. Take your time with building out an MVP, give it out to people, take feedback, let your ideas mature. Maybe they are meant to be fully scalable products, maybe they don't have product market fit. Don't jump the gun by pitching to VCs too early and don't fret about it. You can always pitch later when it feels rights. Learn to say no.

I knew my fellowship project wasn't ready and after a lot of conflicted thinking, I decided to not pitch for funding but rather to present and get feedback.

End of a chapter

The crypto community is a gift that keeps on giving and I'm proud to be part of it. Big shoutout to the Polygon Dev team and Devfolio for making the fellowship happen. You guys rock!

While the fellowship has come to an end, it has opened up new opportunities for me. I'll be starting my first web3 job at openPool soon! With crypto ETFs, we intend to disrupt the retail and institutional investor markets.

It's now my turn to give back. Stay tuned 😉