NEAR Foundation Town Hall - June 14th, 2023 Horizon Excerpt

Captions as YouTube publishes them, usually machine-generated, so product and people names can be misheard.

1. 0:00

   foreign thank you David hey everyone um so I am here to provide some updates about Horizon and where we are so as you will remember Horizon is a startup support platform that connects web3 Founders and contributors and backers for growth and success um and if we go to the next slide our North Star goal for the year is to support a hundred projects in releasing two mainnet with a hundred or more monthly active accounts I also want to note that with the sunset of awesomenir

2. 0:34

   we are now directing all projects to create a profile on Horizon so it can be that complete repo repo of all the ecosystem projects so even if you are not looking directly for support please do still create a profile on Horizon is the big CTA here um if we go to the next side so where are we against that goal right so we launched Horizon on April 26th and as of June 9th we have 8 119 transactions we

3. 1:04

   have onboarded 129 projects we have 19 contributors and we have had seven contribution requests that have been made we have also been the number one staging boss component and number three in production so I think we're really excited about the traction that we have gotten so far um but of course are just sort of at the beginning if you go to the next slide we've also been forging Partnerships

4. 1:28

   with accelerator programs ecosystem partners and education Partners all with the goal of attracting and supporting new and current teams so if you go to the next slide basically in q1 and two of this year we have gone from zero to one right we were an idea in January we are now a product and a team um you know and and are really focused on finding and supporting our fabulous Founders um and so now we're cranking for traction so from a product perspective

5. 2:00

   if you go to the next slide in June in July we are focused on really improving the founder Journey we're leads are focused on Founders we will do this by redis redesigning the home page which actually is live as of yesterday and I'm going to show you a quick demo of we are also optimizing the onboarding flow we're improving searching and filtering we've created an admin dashboard so we can actually monitor platform activity better we are bringing also our partner

6. 2:31

   program applications directly into the platform so you can apply now through the platform and we have also been making some minor improvements to Mobile responsiveness in July we're going to be updating our landing page to make it more focused and clear productizing our credit application process so today this is happening off platform and then we're also going to be releasing new feature to allow Founders

7. 2:56

   to actually ask questions to the community and receive responses so having a little bit more sort of social little action that's happening within the platform and then also fully optimizing for mobile I want to just take a minute to say thank you so much for all of the feedback and engagement from the community in Horizon so far we have a crew of super users who have been giving US Weekly feedback we've been

8. 3:19

   hearing from you all via email via telegram all please keep it coming that's that's what's going to make this this product better and actually you know be able to to meet the needs of everyone so I wanted to quickly show you some updates um so if I'm able to share my screen David I'm not sure amazing thank you all um cool can you see amazing um cool so um very quickly show you some updates that have been already released in June so for those of you who are

9. 3:54

   familiar with Horizon you will notice a pretty big overhaul of the home page so we've made the calls to action a lot clearer um and have also made it possible to see projects and requests and contributors and Backer information without needing to kind of Click around and use so much time so that is a big um a big update uh we have also made it easier to um to search and filter for projects so um we got you know gotten some feedback

10. 4:24

    that it hasn't been incredibly easy to you know to be able to look through this project list and make sense of it so new filters across the board um and then it is also now possible to apply for our partner programs directly within the app so you'll see here that we have in code Club outlier Ventures and Major League hacking which is the first set of our partners that you can apply directly to from from within the platform and then finally we also have a

11. 4:55

    new FAQ that is addressing some of the questions that have come up during onboarding so um should should be able to sort of help help you all out a little bit more in getting and getting on board so that is my quick demo we can go back to the slide deck and I will stop sharing um uh and so I wanted to also give you a sense of our partnership roadmap so we have a very busy um Q3 and Q4 ahead of

12. 5:22

    us um So the plan is to launch our hackathon and fellowship programs with major league hacking and encode Club in June into July and then launch our accelerator program with outlier in July um in August and September we're going to be kicking off our ready to raise boot camp so this is something uh it's a program that it's really designed for early stage projects who are actively

13. 5:45

    raising in the Horizon Community um we've been hearing a lot from you know from all of you and and folks who are on are on the call um that they need some support in getting ready to actually pitch and raise um uh and then we are also going to be kicking off our mentorship program where we were going to pair Horizon founders with our expert Network um in October and November we're going to be hosting demo days for the culmination of outline fire and the major league hacking programs and then

14. 6:17

    in early December we're going to be launching an industry-specific incubator much more to come on that more design and r d needed and then in late December early January the plan is to also launch our talent Network which is essentially a database of vetted Talent who are ready to contribute to Horizon projects so much more to come on all of those things so if you go to the next slide for the founders out there join Horizon

15. 6:42

    today so you can validate your idea find help connect with other builders connect with capital if you go to the next slide for service providers on the call join so you can get access to the Horizon ecosystem you can get Scaled reach and basically BD and you can also build long-term relationships with like new startups that will hopefully convert into high quality you know and high

16. 7:07

    value clients as they grow and for the next slide if you're extend accelerator program an ecosystem team team who wants to make their product or service available or an education program the big call to action here is join Horizon as contributor so you can start to engage with projects and then finally on the next slide we wanted to just give you a sense of our upcoming on the

17. 7:30

    ground activities so we're going to be at Collision we're going to be at ECC near APAC near con of course um and then we're also partnering with outlier for a demo day um uh you know in in sort of October so please keep your eyes peeled for the invitations um for these pitch and networking events so a lot is in store for you when you join Horizon if you go to the next slide our our sort of summary call to actions our Founders please set up your project profile and also join us every Friday at

18. 8:03

    9 00 a.m excuse me Eastern and 3 P.M Central um European time for office hours where we're going to help Founders maximize the benefits of our platform and also gather feedback and then for all of our potential contributors out there please join as a contributor and start to engage with projects um and you can also email us at Horizon at near dot Foundation if you want to be a certified provider or if you just need help in getting set up so that's our

19. 8:34

    update thanks so much for all of your Partnerships so far um and keep keep the feedback coming we love it thanks