📢 RnD Ventures Newsletter 2025/50
📊 Hackathon Continuation Program
As the year comes to a close, we’re sharing a highlight from one of our 2025 projects: the Arbitrum Hackathon Continuation Program.
Over six months, we guided hackathon teams through structured customer validation (Phase 1) and MVP development (Phase 2). The program began with four teams and advanced two ventures into Phase 2.
Explore our blog post to see the outcomes, learnings, and recommendations from this program.
📖 Learning Together
New week, new insights!
Here are some pieces shared recently by the community in our Discord channels:
- Category Keywords That Actually Convert: An exploration into high-intent SEO keywords, why most teams underuse them, and a practical framework to prioritize keywords that drive real revenue.
- The $0-$3M ARR blueprint: the CEO of Salesforge shared how they went from 0 to $3M ARR in under a year.
- How Great Founders Use Board Meetings: An investor’s perspective on the subtle behaviors that separate first-time founders from repeat scalers, and how to use board meetings to solve real problems.
🎥 The Networked Firm: Book Launch Conversation
In case you missed it, Daniel Ospina and Kevin Owocki explore The Networked Firm and how blockchain and AI are changing coordination and organizational design, in a conversation recorded at Schelling Point Buenos Aires during Devconnect.
The session touches on transaction costs, decentralized coordination, trust as a commodity, AI-driven onboarding, open-source ecosystems, and practical examples for organizations.
The full recording is available on YouTube.
💡 Updates from Our Ventures
Common Ground
Transition to a DAO
After successfully releasing all CG code under AGPLv3 on GitHub, the team is now transitioning Common Ground into a fully operational DAO. This transition is expected to be completed within the month, after which Common Ground will be governed exclusively through Snapshot. They are now in the final stages of the process.
FairAI
Last week marked FairAI’s first hands-on execution of door-to-door outreach. This direct engagement provided valuable exposure to potential customers and helped the team assess how this channel performs in practice.
Building on this initial experience, the team is working toward developing a more refined and effective approach, with the goal of maximizing results as they continue to evaluate and improve their in-person outreach efforts.
Suggestions for reaching potential customers are welcome; feel free to share them with FairAI.
👥 New Faces at RnD Ventures
This week, four new members joined, including:
- A marketing and business development leader with 10+ years of experience
- An early collaborator interested in an AI-powered facilitation tool that synthesizes 1:1 conversations to support teams and group decision-making
- A finance-background mentor and accelerator alum
- A computer science and design engineering practitioner building a matchmaking platform for creatives and entrepreneurs
Want to join our growing startup ecosystem? RnD Ventures is looking for:
- Business Developers | Grant Writers | Researchers | Developers | Marketers
Even if you don’t fit these roles but are passionate about CollabTech, we’d love to have you!
Join our Discord and introduce yourself today.
🗣 RnD Ventures Talks - Request for speakers!
Help us shine a light on the voices that matter to you! Please reply to this newsletter with your top speaker picks for our upcoming talks. Name your favorite speakers for our upcoming talks via this page.
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