Proposal Summary
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Two Pebbles is proposing Polkadot for New Ventures acceleration program. This program will increase the number of mainstream startups adopting Polkadot as the foundation for compelling real-world applications beyond traditional crypto use cases, and create a virtuous cycle of success stories driving further Polkadot innovation and adoption.

Polkadot for New Ventures by Two Pebbles combines in-depth knowledge of Polkadot, marketing, and startup leadership to answer the question: “How can we increase Polkadot adoption by businesses?” We believe the answer lies in engaging new business ventures as they make their technology choices and helping them adopt and succeed with the Polkadot platform.

Polkadot for New Ventures will target startups in segments where the Polkadot platform can offer significant benefits, but who are unaware of Polkadot. First, the program will generate awareness and interest through targeted marketing efforts, based on high-value use cases. Then, the program will extend beyond marketing to provide business incubation and acceleration, driving success for qualified new ventures. Research* indicates that new ventures supported by business incubators experience a dramatic decline in failure rates—from the typical 60–80% down to just 10%.

Polkadot for New Ventures is a business accelerator with two programs designed to onboard mainstream startups (Web2 founders) onto Polkadot. The Incubator program is designed to have broad reach, engaging startups in a co-hort based workshop program for 12 - 16 weeks. Startups will graduate with a plan for their business to develop on Polkadot. The Accelerator program is a longer, more selective program that accepts qualified startups and provides a range of mentoring and support to grow their business. Together these accelerators will help promising startups design, build, and scale real-world applications that leverage decentralized ownership, built-in data security, and low-cost, fast transactions. The program will generate and convert interest in Polkadot into production-ready businesses through hands-on technical support, business mentorship, Polkadot grant assistance, and access to investor networks.

Polkadot for New Ventures will begin with a single cohort, learn from this cohort, and then expand the program globally through partnerships with existing business incubators and accelerators. Through this expanded network of accelerators and growing numbers of successful new ventures, we aim to create a virtuous cycle, where each success sparks increasing interest and adoption.

This proposal requests funding to design the Polkadot for New Ventures incubation program, plan marketing to attract prospective new ventures, establish target market segments based on Polkadot's fit, and produce a comprehensive proposal to implement the program globally. This proposal is linked to the proposal submitted to the Events and Marketing Bounties, Polkadot at Web Summit Lisbon 2025, which is targeted to secure startup leads for the first cohort of the pilot program for 2026.

• incubators can reduce the failure rate amongst new business start-ups to below 10 percent over a three year period, as compared with 60 to 80 per cent for small business generally (Adegbite, 2001) _

Background

In May 2025, José Rabassó attended Web Summit in Vancouver, where hundreds of global startups were present. During the event, he engaged with more than 15 startups across a range of industries, including health, retail, gaming, mineral collective ownership, and education.

As he explored opportunities for applying blockchain technology to their business models, he was struck by a consistent pattern. While many founders had limited knowledge of blockchain, there was overwhelming interest in its potential.

Startups were especially excited about three key value propositions, ranked by level of interest:

1. Decentralized Ownership: The concept of shared ownership—where both creators and users can influence product direction and share in its financial success—was highly compelling. This model fosters strong network effects, enabling startups to grow faster and more sustainably.
2. Built-in Data Security: Founders saw significant value in using a blockchain system that inherently provides data privacy and security. This reduces the need to build and maintain complex security infrastructure themselves, lowering operational and insurance costs.
3. Low-Cost, Seamless Transactions: Especially for high-volume retail startups, the ability to handle fast, simple, and affordable financial transactions stood out. Blockchain drastically reduces transaction fees compared to traditional systems, making it an attractive solution for scaling.

In summary, the startups were impressed by the possibilities and were keen to understand how they could leverage the technology to develop their solutions more quickly, with fewer resources, and at more affordable operating costs. This initiated focused dialogue with startup mentors, accelerator leaders, and ecosystem experts. A key insight emerged—startups building in blockchain face a significant gap in support as there is no clear path for a new venture to follow - from idea to building on Polkadot to commercialization. There isn’t infrastructure to help them both develop their applications, as well as build and grow sustainable businesses around them. This is what we propose to create with this proposal.

Proposal Highlights

Polkadot for New Ventures is a two-stage business accelerator program designed to onboard high-potential mainstream startups into the Polkadot ecosystem and support them through to business growth.

Why fund a Business Accelerator?
The most powerful driver for Polkadot adoption will be examples of successful mainstream businesses using Polkadot. A targeted business accelerator will achieve these successes and be the catalyst for broader adoption.

Why the Two Pebbles
Two Pebbles leadership has more than 120 years of combined experience in marketing, technology business leadership, successful startups, and Polkadot. They bring the knowledge, experience, and networks necessary to design and deliver a successful business accelerator program.

How will the program be developed and rolled out?
The proposal is presented in 3 phases. The first phase will create both a marketing plan to attract prospective startups and a plan for the incubator and accelerator programs. The second phase will pilot the incubabor program, and fine-tune the plan for the accelerator. The third stage will extend the reach of the incubator program, and introduce and establish the accelerator.

How much will it cost to get started on this proposal?
This proposal requests $108,000 for Phase 1 - Discovery and Design.

What are the deliverables for Discovery and Design?

• Design of the incubation program (program design, content, delivery, budget)
• Marketing Plan to attract startups to the program (including messaging, website design, wireframes, marketing strategy, and budget)
• Outreach plan for North American incubators (including target profile, priority lists of incubators, messaging and budget)

Polkadot for New Ventures Programs
This section highlights key aspects of the proposed incubator and scale-up programs for New Ventures.

New Venture Incubator Program (12–16 Weeks)

A cohort-based program focused on equipping early-stage startups with the tools, mentorship, and technical support needed to build and launch successfully on Polkadot. The program will include:

1- Business Fundamentals & Mentorship

• Go-to-market strategy, product-market fit, customer validation
• Legal and regulatory guidance for Web3 startups
• Access to experienced founders and industry-specific mentors
• Workshops on marketing, sales, and business development

2- Web3 & Polkadot Integration Support

• Deep-dive education on tokenomics, DAO governance, treasury management, and Web3-native business models
• Hands-on guidance from Polkadot solution architects and developers
• Support with Substrate, smart contracts, parachains, and Polkadot SDKs
• Access to ecosystem developer tools and infrastructure

3- Polkadot Grant Application Support

• Step-by-step grant application guidance
• Peer reviews and proposal iteration
• Office hours with successful grantees and ecosystem experts

4- Fundraising & Ecosystem Access

• Mentorship on financial planning and fundraising strategy
• Opportunities to pitch to Polkadot-aligned VCs and industry investors
• Introductions to relevant teams and collaborators across the Polkadot ecosystem

New Venture Acceleration Program
A selective, application-only growth acceleration program for startups with strong traction and validated use cases. Participants pay a nominal program fee and receive targeted support to scale their operations.

• Tailored mentorship from top-tier business and technical experts
• Support in specialized areas such as capital strategy, marketing playbooks, and sales execution
• Deeper engagement with the Polkadot ecosystem for partnership, investment, and technical expansion

This accelerator is designed to go beyond onboarding startups by helping a select group of high-potential ventures thrive long-term within the Polkadot ecosystem, becoming contributors to its growth and innovation, and examples for future mainstream users.

Program Development Roadmap
This initiative will be implemented in three phases: Design and Discovery, Incubation Pilot, and Incubation Expansion and Acceleration. This proposal pertains solely to the initial Design and Discovery phase. Subsequent phases will be proposed separately, following the completion of each preceding phase.

Phase 1
Discovery & Design
Covered by this proposal.

Design a scalable incubation program to introduce Polkadot to mainstream startups
Timing: October 2025 to January 2026

• Define the Target Startup Profile: Identify and describe the ideal startup segments that stand to benefit most from business acceleration on Polkadot, based on key, real-world use cases where Polkadot’s technology can offer meaningful advantages to startups today.
• Quantify the Value Proposition: Clearly articulate and measure the benefits of Polkadot adoption for mainstream startups—comparing software architectures & business models for cryptographic systems with a Web2 system, focusing on factors such as cost savings, speed to market, scalability, security, and differentiation.
• Support Ecosystem Growth: Share insights, learnings, and startup frameworks with the broader Polkadot community to strengthen and expand the ecosystem.
• Design and Propose Stage 1 Incubator Program: Prepare a comprehensive proposal for the Stage 1 cohort-based Incubator pilot, outlining goals, deliverables, success metrics, and ecosystem alignment.
• Validate value proposition to startups: This proposal underway for the Events & Marketing Bounty, Polkadot at Web Summit Lisbon 2025, builds on the strong engagement seen at Web Summit Vancouver. It aims to validate our hypothesis that Polkadot’s value proposition resonates with mainstream startups and to generate high-quality leads for the **first cohort of the Incubation Program in 2026.

Phase 2
Incubator Pilot
To be defined in phase 1.

Run a virtual cohort-based incubator pilot program
Timing: February - September 2026

• Deliver a marketing campaign to attract prospective new ventures.
• Establish criteria for accepting new ventures into the program to maximize success.
• Run Cohort of 10 to 20 companies through a virtual 12-16 week Polkadot for New Ventures incubation program covering a combination of blockchain-specific content and business essentials, including product/market fit, sales strategy, and market sizing.
• Validate effectiveness and success of the program to inform the next steps

Phase 3
Incubator Program Expansion & Acceleration
To be defined in phase 2.

Scale the incubator and run the accelerator program
Timing: October 2026 - December 2028

• Establish partnerships with accelerators, industry stakeholders, and Polkadot community members, focused on regional and industry-specific markets to support target-profile startups and drive innovative solutions, and make the incubator program accessible to new ventures worldwide.
• Leverage these partnerships for additional funding - for example, in Canada, typical provincial and federal innovation funds tend to look favorably on joint investments when considering funding accelerators. Additionally, large enterprises have demonstrated a willingness to fund accelerator programs to feed their innovation pipelines.
• Design a structured incubator program that partners can deliver to their new ventures.
• Design and deliver the Polkadot Scaleup Accelerator with dedicated mentors to guide the selected high-potential startups to the growth phase

Full Program Return on Investment
Measuring the return on investment (ROI) for an accelerator program is inherently challenging. Broadly, there are two primary accelerator models:

1. Mission-Driven (Sponsored) Accelerators
   These are typically funded by governments, foundations, or ecosystems to support innovation in targeted sectors—such as emerging technologies or economic priorities. Their goal is impact and ecosystem development, measured by companies and individuals supported, or community expansion, not direct financial return.

2. Equity-Based Accelerators
   These operate similarly to venture capital funds, taking equity in startups in exchange for support. Financial success for the Accelerator typically depends on a small percentage of the supported ventures achieving significant economic success. This type of accelerator requires substantial capital, fund management, and regulatory overhead.

We are proposing the mission-driven model, aligned with Polkadot’s ecosystem growth objectives. The value levers for the Polkadot network are:

• Startup Adoption of Polkadot
  → New real-world applications built on Polkadot by Web2 founders.
• Lowered Failure Rate of Ecosystem Projects
  → Structured incubation dramatically reduces early-stage startup failure (from ~60–80% to ~10%).
• Production-Ready MVPs
  → 2–3 startups per cohort launching real products using Polkadot's core features (e.g. data sovereignty, scalability, low fees).
• Increased DOT Utility
  → Applications drive staking, transaction volume, and parachain usage.
• Strategic Market Penetration
  → Research and outreach focused on verticals where Polkadot has a strong fit but low current awareness.

Key Performance Indicators:

1. Cohorts run and startups onboarded (Stage 2 target: 10–20).
2. Number of Polkadot grant applications submitted and funded.
3. Follow-on capital raised by alumni ($ raised).
4. Product launches and active users on Polkadot.
5. Partner accelerator engagements and regional expansion.

Two Pebbles Team
The Two Pebbles team is well qualified to deliver this proposal, as successful delivery requires a unique mix of skills and experience:

• Identifying and attracting prospective startups depends on targeted marketing campaigns.
• Designing incubator and accelerator programs requires experience in leading and scaling technology businesses and startups, as well as experience mentoring startup teams, and networks to attract experienced mentors and funders.
• Helping startups adopt Polkadot will require a deep understanding and extensive connections within the Polkadot ecosystem.

Two Pebbles principals bring more than 120 years of software and hardware executive, marketing, design, and startup high-growth experience:

José Rabassó – Co-founder of Two Pebbles Ventures and an early participant in Polkadot, dating back to its ICO. José is an active contributor to the Polkadot community and governance, with deep knowledge and a strong passion for the platform’s potential to shape the future of decentralized applications. Previous to Two Pebbles José owned a series of marketing, design and production companies servicing high-tech startup ventures in Vancouver and Calgary.

Virginia Balcom – A veteran technology marketer and experienced executive director of SFU VentureLabs, a large business accelerator in North America, Virginia has decades of experience launching high-tech companies and scaling them into industry leaders, including Abatis, sold to Redback Networks for (630M$), and OctigaBay, sold to Cray Inc (114M$). Virginia was instrumental in connecting Vancouver’s vibrant accelerator community together and was an active player in the North American community of incubators and accelerators. She brings deep expertise in strategic marketing, brand development, and community engagement.

Marni Rabassó – Co-founder of Two Pebbles Ventures, Marni has held executive leadership roles in numerous software startups and software giants, including Gemcom, which was sold to Dassault Systèmes for $380M. Marni focused on commercializing new technology through high growth to exit. She now focuses on mentoring startup CEOs and board work, helping early-stage companies realize their growth potential. She brings depth in corporate and product strategy, financing, and startup leadership.

Funding Requirements

Phase 1 - Discovery & Design
16 weeks from proposal approval

Program Design for Pilot - 192 hr
Customer Research - 32 hr
Business Case Development by industry - 96 hr
Program partnership development - 32 hr
Startup Outreach Marketing Plan - 96 hr
Website design and content - 64 hr

Total - 544 hr - $108,000*

*Unused funds will be returned to the treasury at phase 1 completion.

Phase 2 Incubation Pilot Run
Phase 3 Incubation cohort 2 and Acceleration Program introduction

Costs for Phase 2 and 3 will be developed in Phase 1, and submitted for approval with the Phase 1 & 2 proposal.

Conclusion
By creating a guided, resource-rich on-ramp for mainstream startup Web2 founders, Polkadot for New Ventures will fill a critical gap in the Polkadot ecosystem—focused on selling the benefits of Polkadot to current mainstream startups driving real-world applications. The goal is to make Polkadot the obvious choice as the business application platform in the decentralized world.