If ever you had a chance to speak your mind and create a product, what do you think the process will look like? Who is your target market? What are its components? And what impact will it make? These are just some of the questions that the first cohort of Block Dojo Philippines must answer at the five-day bootcamp in Morong, Bataan in early January.
For the whole week, the Block Dojo Philippines team and the five founders of Cohort 1 explored the foundations of building a startup company, how they could use blockchain to power up their processes, and explore the science of innovation, before pitching in their ideas to possible investors at the latter part of the 12-week incubator program.
Block Dojo Philippines took the spotlight yesterday at the Bataan LGU office, engaging with the local tech startup scene.
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For us, we’re not just investing in your business model. We’re really investing in you. And we know when it’s investing in people, [what’s important is] not actually the money. It’s the learning experience.
– Kristoffer Briones, Managing Director of Block Dojo Philippines.
Introducing the Block Dojo Philippines’ startups
The opening day of the bootcamp focuses on the main highlight of the Block Dojo Philippines 12-week incubator program—the founders. On this day, Briones leads the startup founders by explaining who the Block Dojo is, what they do, and what their mission is.
Block Dojo Philippines is the regional arm of the Block Dojo startup incubator program, originating in the United Kingdom. They seek early-stage startups, accelerate their businesses with extensive training, and provide them access to investing funding rounds.
On Day 1, Block Dojo Philippines and the startup founders got to know each other in a “pecha kucha” way where they only had around 3 minutes and 30 seconds to introduce themselves.
The five founders also virtually meet up with Block Dojo U.K. 2023 alumni, Arsim Shillova, the CEO and founder of Libraro—an app that allows readers to access unpublished books and helps authors get published. To wrap up the afternoon events of the opening day, businessman, doctor, and founder of AC Tech Repair PH, Regil Martinez, shared how he balanced his life building a tech repair company with his medical practice.
“As long as you fix a problem that others can’t fix, your business will flourish. The point is, if you’re going to push through with entrepreneurship, it’s really a high-risk project since you really have to dedicate your life to it,” Martinez said.
Fundamentals of blockchain explained
The morning of Day 2 was reserved for team-building activities, speed dating with the Block Dojo Philippines team, and discussions about the science of innovation.
Right after lunch, the founders saw nChain’s Business Development Lead – Philippines, Stephanie Tower, and BSV Blockchain Association’s Social Media Manager, Crescenda Babiera, discuss the fundamentals of blockchain—specifically how their respective firms support startups and established companies by incorporating blockchain in their businesses.
“At nChain, we are trying to drive the business of digital transformation,” Tower said, kickstarting her 45-minute talk about nChain and how the company powers incubator projects like the Block Dojo Philippines.
“We empower and enable entrepreneurs, startup founders like you, to assist you in creating your businesses,” she noted.
Headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, and with offices in London, Slovenia, and the Philippines, nChain is a leading global provider of blockchain technology, IP licensing, and consulting services. They hold over 3,000 patents about blockchain and research and provide a huge range of new business opportunities in strategic and technical consultancy, software solutions, end-to-end development, and, most notably, incubation and investments.
Meanwhile, BSV Blockchain Association‘s Social Media Manager Crescenda Babiera talked about the efficiency of the BSV blockchain, comparing the enterprise public blockchain network to other more popular blockchains like BTC and Ethereum in terms of its immutability, cost, and scalability.
“Blockchain is not as complicated as [what] most people think. As it is simply an immutable timestamp technology,” Babiera explained. “[Using blockchain] means there are no intermediaries. It also provides privacy [and security] since any information [in the blockchain] cannot be tampered with.”
Practice before the D-DAY: Pitch exercises
On Day 3, the founders had different activities lined up, leading them to a night filled with pitch practices monitored by the Block Dojo Philippines team.
In the morning, the Dojo team hosted another team-building exercise to awaken the cohort’s minds before diving deep into the Design Thinking introduction with Marc Wernicke, the co-founder of Dailo-Wernicke Consulting, throughout the day.
“There are no bad ideas. There are just ideas,” Wernicke reminded everyone at the bootcamp.
“Empathy is the ability to put your shoes into someone else, and it’s critically underrated as a business skill…When I design, I make sure that it applies to the people using it,” he added.
Aside from Wernicke’s design and visioning exercises, Babiera had a 15-minute discussion about the revolutionizing power of BSV blockchain, while Tower answered the startup founders’ questions on Web3 and blockchain technology.
“Just a quick overview: Web1 is not a two-way relationship, you find information on the web, and that’s it. There’s no internet protocol at the time that allows us to freely share information,” Tower explained. “Then Web2 happened. This is the social media age. Now we can exchange information, but many individuals are involved, like Silicon Valley, who monetize our data, and that’s what Web3 will change.”
Garnering support from the Provincial Government of Bataan
On Day 4, the Block Dojo Philippines team and the founders went on an hour-long trip to Bataan’s capital, Balanga, for their first elevator pitch with the Bataan LGU and the province’s local tech startups.
Before delving into the founders’ first official pitch, Briones first brings up how Bataan has gained a reputation as being one of the most supportive provinces for startups and gives a few pieces of advice to aspiring startup founders.
“Great ideas are what makes people care because they solve the problems people care about,” Briones began his short presentation.
“The number one thing that founders need to do is first they need to care…Here’s a funny thing: I don’t think [building a startup] is just about the technology. In fact, the technology is just a tool. Why? Because it’s people who use the product. We always want to make sure that the technology is built for people,” Briones explained.
Following Briones’s presentation was a pitch from the five cohorts and the local startups Aerolink and KloudTech to nChain, Block Dojo Philippines, and Bataan capital’s officials. The day ended with the Las Casas Heritage tour in Bagac.
If you want to learn more about the Block Dojo Bootcamp opening day, see this post. To keep yourself updated on the latest news about the Block Dojo Philippines incubator program, make sure to subscribe to CoinGeek and follow us on social media.
Watch: Block Dojo Philippines aims to launch 30 ventures in 2024
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