“One of the important things about Alliance is that we don’t actually pick the companies, we pick the founders.”
Interview Guest: William Robinson, Alliance Director & Accelerator Mentor
Moderator: Laser (co-founder of Starpower)
Starpower is honored to invite William Robinson, director of Alliance and senior crypto mentor, to share his valuable experience in the crypto and energy fields. This episode discusses the challenges and opportunities of Starpower's upcoming mainnet and DePIN project. Will also talked about several successful cases he mentored in the accelerator, including how strict requirements for the team and high standards set up drove the project to achieve explosive growth, and why he valued and chose Starpower. Through this interview, we will explore how DePIN can build a bridge between Web3 and energy management to promote the construction of a smarter and more efficient energy network.
The audio transcript and translation are generated by GPT, so there may be some errors, please listen to the full podcast.
Backstory
Laser: Hi Will, it's a great honor to have you as our third guest on the DePIN Power podcast today. Before we officially start, I would like to give you a background story on why we have this podcast today. Starpower just graduated from the 13th batch of Alliance accelerator. And you, I believe you are one of the best mentors in Alliance, and most importantly, you are also the most popular mentor in our batch. So because we plan to launch the mainnet in the next few months, we would like to invite you to have an in-depth discussion. Today's topic will be more about Alliance, DePIN, and your insights after seeing so many projects as a mentor. What advice do you have for founders? So, let's start with you briefly introducing yourself, your background, and what drove you to join Alliance.
Will: Okay, so let me introduce myself now. My name is William Robinson, I'm the director of Alliance and I'm also a mentor in the Alliance accelerator. I've been at Alliance for three and a half years, and I've been through ten accelerators now, and I've mentored about 200 teams. My background is a little bit unusual. I was a crypto auditor at Grant Thornton for three and a half years, helping audit companies that held crypto assets on their balance sheets and communicate with regulators. For example, if you're a foundation or a fund in the Cayman Islands, and you have crypto assets on your balance sheet, you need to report to SEMA. And SEMA needs an auditor to sign off on your assets. If you're the Ethereum Foundation, which is located in Switzerland, you also have reporting requirements for your crypto asset holdings. The same is true for exchanges around the world, so I've been deep in these companies for about three and a half years, making sure they hold crypto assets correctly and let Grant Thornton understand the risks. Basically, mastering enterprise-level government-recognized compliance controls. This is also why Alliance hired me in the first place, is to bring a new perspective based on enterprise-level government-recognized compliance controls. Most people, when they build protocols as engineers, usually are like: just do it. We just wrote code and managed security ourselves, and over time, as the project got bigger, there were more and more requirements, and if they wanted to IPO, those requirements would inflate. Before that, I had a PhD in game design and taught game design for about seven years. My background was mainly in mechanism design, which is why I got into crypto in the first place. I was basically looking at how to modify game design in the video game field so that players' behavior changed. Then my cousin Dan, who was a researcher at Paradigm and got into crypto before I did, said to me, "You should leave the game field and do mechanism design for crypto, which will be more interesting and more impactful." He was right on both points. Making games is completely different from playing games. Making games is much more boring. So I'm very happy that I made this choice. Yes, I will help the team do a lot of things at Alliance, including helping the team raise funds, preparing for Demo Day, considering compliance issues, thinking about gamification solutions, helping our community grow, etc.As Community Lead, my job, in addition to all my other responsibilities, is to be the friendly, welcoming face of Alliance and make people want to be a part of the community.
Laser: Yes, you also help everyone graduate from the accelerator and achieve high-quality project results.
Will: Yes, setting high quality standards is a skill that takes time to master. When I first joined Alliance, I didn’t have the confidence or even the social skills to tell founders that they were doing a bad job and needed to work harder and smarter. But after so many times, it’s now very easy to clearly tell founders where they went wrong on the road to Demo Day and how I can help them get better.
Laser: Yeah, I have to be honest, I improved myself a lot through this experience. I think there were probably over 30 emails back and forth about how to improve my presentation and Demo Day video. Yeah, so.
Will: That’s not a lot, some teams get up to 95 emails, so you can always go higher.
Advice for founders
Laser: Haha yeah I know. So I really appreciate your insistence on high standards, which I think has enabled all of our programs to graduate with high quality and has also made Alliance successful, especially this year. You mentioned that you have mentored about 200 programs. Do you have any special insights or what are the main characteristics of some programs that have been successful after mentoring for so long?
Will: Oh, yeah. It depends on the direction of the project and the type of problem they are trying to solve. In the consumer space, successful teams are those that can iterate quickly. This space is a hit-driven business. This means that you basically need to try multiple times and develop many products. For example, Pump.fun developed three products during Alliance, and only the third one was really successful. The previous products were not very successful. For many game projects, their biggest regret is not making enough prototypes in the early stage and not exploring enough possibilities. So I value teams that are flexible and can change their minds, which also means that they must be able to deliver quickly and have very strong technical capabilities. I think this is also part of the philosophy of selecting teams that we inherited from Y Combinator, that you need to find teams that have a lot of engineering talent in the founding team so that they can quickly launch a minimum viable product (MVP).
Thinking about team size
Laser: This year, many people asked me why Alliance has incubated so many successful projects. From your perspective, what factors contributed to the success of Alliance? I don't want to emphasize this year in particular, but the past few years, this year, and the future team.
Will: So, I mean, we've had some great startups in the program in the past, like Stepn and Pendle. I think certainly this year Pump.fun has gotten a lot of attention, and we've had a lot of success in the consumer space recently. When your success comes from consumer-facing applications, more of the public knows about you. Because more of the public uses those applications. The difference with, say, Stepn is that it targeted a lot of regular users who weren't on crypto Twitter, whereas Pump.fun targeted all of crypto Twitter, so everyone ended up hearing about us and our success became widely known. But Stepn was at one point worth $22 billion, which is an extremely successful company.
So yes, we have achieved some success, and I think we actually have a very small share of the success of the Alliance teams. The vast majority of the work is always done by the founders. The success of these teams is 90% determined before they come to Alliance. We are very good at attracting teams to apply. And then we work very hard for these teams so that they can tell others to apply in the future. For example, Pump.fun was recommended to us by another team. In fact, about 60% of the teams are recommended to us by alumni. This is a snowball movement that we have been driving for a long time. In the early days of Alliance, we even had to work for free. We had to help teams that had no exposure because no one knew who we were and no one trusted us. But if we are willing to work for them without any reward, why not? We prove our value, and then they tell other people in the market, "You should apply to Alliance, they can really help you." This is how we attract talented teams.
The only thing we really do after a team joins our program is to keep them focused. Focused on product-market fit. We don't tell them to issue a token, we don't teach them token economics, and we don't help them hire. In fact, we help them fire people more. I think teams get smaller, not bigger, when they join Alliance because we know how important it is to keep a lean and agile team to achieve product-market fit.
Laser: Yeah. So I guess the best teams attract the best teams. And I remember when we first met online a few months ago, you mentioned that the overall IQ of the team decreases as the team gets larger. So I remember that topic, and I applied that as well. So we're probably a third smaller than we were back then, yeah, compared to that time.
Will: Wow, it really works. Yeah, this is something David Vorik taught me. He's the founder of GLOW, another DePIN program in the energy space. He went through Alliance's accelerator three years ago, and he learned this and taught me this from his experience with Sia. Every time you double the size of your team, its IQ drops by about 5 points, yeah, from 1 to 2 people, from 2 to 4 people, from 4 to 8 people, every time. And every time you double the size of your audience, its IQ drops by 5 points as well. So your first 10 users are really smart, but the next 10 users know a little less about crypto. And when you have a million users or a million people who know your product, you have to design the simplest thing in the world. I think that's a really great insight.
Laser: Yes, I think not only will the intelligence of the team decrease, but the efficiency of the team will also decrease as the size of the team increases.
Will: Yes, absolutely. The efficiency of a team really decreases as it grows in size. Because you have to invest more time and energy in management and coordination instead of focusing on task execution. This is why many fast-growing companies eventually go through a bottleneck period. When the team gets larger, communication costs increase, the decision-making process becomes slower, and the flow of information is affected. We ourselves have experienced similar situations in the process of team development. We learned a lot, especially in deciding when to expand the team and how to keep the team flexible and efficient. An efficient small team can respond quickly in a short period of time, which is very important for product iteration and market adaptation.
OK, here is your content, I tweaked it to fit your requirements and merged the duplicate paragraphs:
Choose the right founder
Laser: Yes. Another question I wanted to ask is more general. You are also looking at a new accelerator this year, I think it's the 14th. So what are the trends you see, what are the hot topics?
Will: The biggest trend in crypto right now, from our perspective and from the founders applying, is the intersection of AI agents and memecoins. There’s a lot of AI culture tokenization happening. A lot of great founders are applying with these ideas. We’re still seeing the classic ideas from the last four years that are getting better over time.
Will: An important point about Alliance is that we don't actually pick specific directions, but we pick founders. So if the best founders are working on games, even though the game market is very small, we will still work with those good founders. We are not only focused on founders with strong execution, but also on founders who can join our community. We hope that they can think critically and find the right ideas. Most importantly, they can adjust the direction and finally find the right path.
Laser: Yeah, so you guys focus more on the people rather than the teams that are the hot topics or the hot narratives.
Will: We can't afford to invest in projects that are hot topics. For example, if you developed an L2 on Bitcoin a year ago and had a team of 20 people, your valuation might be 50 million, while our valuation is only 5 million. So when the topic is hot, we can't invest. This forces us to think in reverse and think about the market direction six months in advance. Sometimes, we invest in these hot topics through side funds as potential strategic investments, but this is not part of our accelerator program. Our accelerator program accounts for the vast majority of our investments.
Laser: Yes, the best people usually take the path less traveled. So you are more focused on the future, the next season or what will be the next step. Your approach provides leading signals for the industry, especially this year, and I believe this will become a trend in the coming year.
Laser: This is somewhat similar to our past. For example, when we started creating Starpower two years ago, the word DePIN didn't even exist. Now, DePIN has become a hot narrative, but we have been building it for two years. Like the Alliance you mentioned earlier, you also guided DePIN projects such as Glow. What do you think of DePIN projects? Are these projects more difficult in terms of user acquisition? Can they become a bridge between Web 2 and Web 3?
Will: DePIN projects really need to think smarter about user acquisition. Take Glow, for example, they have had great success in raising funds recently. Although they have a great protocol and product, solar farms have a lot of hesitation in switching from Web 2 to Web 3. They took a very unique approach: buying these solar farms directly, forcing the farms to join the Web 3 ecosystem by acquiring and improving their profitability. This approach is crazy, but also extremely effective. For these successful protocols, you need to think from the fundamental principles, and this is what David Vorik is very good at. As a founder, he can focus on solving the most important problems instead of being distracted by small things.
Will: Currently most DePIN projects are attracting users through token airdrops. But I think token airdrops are only effective when your protocol can provide users with something valuable immediately. If you just come for the tokens, it will be very difficult to manage. For example, I like Starpower's Starplug because it can regulate energy use and save users money and provide some useful indicators. Even without the token airdrop, it is a good product. With the addition of tokens, it will be more attractive and can expand the network faster, and eventually form a real energy market.
Energy DePIN
Laser: I've met with about 60 people in the past three weeks, all of whom were introduced to your projects after Demo Day. A lot of people asked about tokens, especially about how to acquire users. For projects like ours, the real-world demand is there. Whether it's solar panels, sockets, or batteries, people in Web 2 will buy these devices. What we do is actually add token incentives to these infrastructures, which helps to expand the network more quickly. If we reach a sufficient number of users, the income threshold on the supply side will be lowered, forming a new income layer. This is why the DePIN project can be a bridge between Web 2 and Web 3.
Laser: I want to explore this further, especially since you mentioned that both Glow and Starpower are energy DePIN projects, and we have also recently received funding from top VCs. You mentioned that the energy company in Montreal, Canada, was doing virtual power plant business a year ago. How do you think DePIN can help the energy industry solve climate change?
Will: Let me start by providing some context. In my region, the emergence of virtual power plant projects began about two years ago. The Quebec government has a monopoly on energy production and controls most of the energy supply. Although they produce a lot of cheap hydroelectric power, they have difficulty regulating the grid during peak hours. Therefore, the Quebec government launched the Hilo project, which aims to relieve the pressure on the grid by changing the way residents consume energy. The project encourages people to preheat their houses before peak hours or turn off their water heaters in the middle of the night. In this way, the government is able to regulate the grid more efficiently and avoid wasting resources.
Will: I think this is a great idea that can make the grid smarter, and virtual power plants are an important way to achieve this goal. When you applied to join the Alliance, I was one of your biggest supporters because I have witnessed the huge potential of this technology. I believe that through virtual power plants, we can more effectively solve energy consumption problems and thus address climate change.
Will: Any solution that can regulate energy is good for climate change, which is one of the biggest challenges our generation must solve. Crypto can play a key role here, helping to coordinate people on a global scale. Starpower and other similar DePIN projects are a great example of how they can positively impact the grid and promote the adoption of sustainable energy by coordinating different individuals and resources.
Laser: I want to respond to why we are doing this project. As a practitioner who has been in Web 3 for nearly seven years, I personally hope that Web 3 can have a meaningful impact on the real world. In the past ten years, Web 3 is still like gambling, but I believe it will become a huge industry. Just like the Internet was 20 or 30 years ago. The reason for promoting Starpower is precisely because we hope to promote things that are beneficial to the public through Web 3, blockchain, and token economics.
Laser: In addition, I would like to respond to the concept of "coordination" you mentioned. The last word of DePIN is "networks". Through the token economics of blockchain and Web 3, we can coordinate people globally and at low cost to achieve goals that were previously unattainable. This is exactly what makes DePIN unique.
Advice for Alliance Applicants
Laser: Last question, if there are founders who want to apply for Alliance, or are interested in the Web 3 industry, what advice do you have? What should we build?
Will: For founders who want to apply to join Alliance, I have some advice. If you want to join our community of more than 300 founders and get the support you need most, it is very important to tell us who you are and why you must do this. What makes you unique? Some founders may have an Ivy League degree, or work as IC 12 at Google, or have won an Olympic gold medal. But what we value more is the unique motivation and drive behind the founder. Entrepreneurship is painful and requires very special motivations to support it.
Will: If you have a very strong motivation, even if it is embarrassing or ridiculous, don't hide it. The process of starting a business is full of challenges, and you must have a very strong emotional drive to succeed. This is my advice to applicants.
Laser: Thank you for your suggestion. Indeed, we are often the ones who want to do meaningful things for the world and discuss and share ideas together.
Will: It’s a pleasure to be a part of this, and I wish you all the best.
Laser: Thank you, that's all for today, thank you very much for your time, Will.
Will: Thank you and good luck.
Disclaimer: This interview is for information exchange only. All content only represents the personal views of the guest and does not constitute any form of investment advice. Starpower and its guests do not make any investment commitment or guarantee for any content, views or opinions in the interview.