I was talking to a top SF-based VC about a Web3 incubation program.

He said: but the conversion ratio is very low.

What he meant is the conversion from hacker numbers to founder numbers.

Although I’m writing this from a chain perspective, this applies largely to any web3 project trying to drive adoption, and major overlap with early stage VC mindset needed.

Hacker and Founder (2023)

Hacker numbers are typically what a Layer 1 would track:

This requires a lot of developers building various layers, which is education and dev support. Even hackathons.

I can see a hacker is an engineer with a laptop. Highly intelligent and knows how to build software.

But the VCs who invest in these Dapps or downstream protocols are looking for their growth possibilities.

Their metrics are: