Introduction

This article is made for founders, developers, and early-stage startups considering applying to the Chainlink BUILD Program. In this article, I’ll share our experience as a startup and advice for getting the most out of it.

A quick word about Concero, our startup in BUILD:

Concero is a decentralised cross-chain interoperability platform, providing web3 builders with an easy way to integrate a fast and secure cross-chain infrastructure into their apps. Powered by the security of CCIP, we’re facilitating transactions across EVM chains in under a minute. You can read more about the program Here.

What is Chainlink BUILD?

Chainlink BUILD is a program developed to accelerate the growth of startups building with industry-standard Chainlink services. By offering support in such crucial areas as positioning, technology, marketing, and networking, Chainlink BUILD brings invaluable benefits to projects who are building on the frontier of web3.

Tech support

For me, as a techie, the most immediate benefit of joining is the tech support. This was crucial for us as we were only familiarising ourselves with the Chainlink services we were planning to use in our infrastructure.

Solution Architecture

We had almost a dozen prototypes for our cross-chain solution architecture and a bunch of questions due to the novelty of the solution itself. We found answers to most of them in Chainlink docs, others on the web, but for some, we had lengthy discussions and even workshop sessions with Chainlink Labs team members to come up with the most optimal solution.

It’s hard to estimate how much time their team saved us by giving the help we were actively seeking. Given how vital it is for a startup like ours to get up and running in the shortest timeframe possible and move on to the next goal on the roadmap, this support was of tremendous value to us.

CLF Support

As of now, Chainlink Functions remains one of the two key products we use to facilitate cross-chain transactions in under a minute.

We were able to chat with a senior developer at Chainlink Labs, who is directly responsible for building features in Chainlink Functions. He shared many suggestions and best practices that we should stick to.

Positioning & Fundraise

Pitch Deck and VC Approach Positioning

In a short timeframe of a year, we had our fair share of positioning pivots. Starting as a B2C company, it took us half a year of work and research to shift towards building on-chain B2B infrastructure suitable for our B2C solution and other builders.

Not only did we pivot from B2C to B2B, but we also had to change our fundraising strategy. Originally, we were reaching out to tier-1 and tier-2 VCs, going against the grain with an equity raise instead of the industry-beloved token raise, which didn’t prove successful at this stage. Several months ago, we decided to lower the amount we aimed to raise, opting for an angel round instead.

We were presented with an impressively long list of VCs of any tier, focus, or investment size, any of which we could get an introduction to. We signal our interest to speak to VCs A, B, and C, and within a week, we get an opportunity to talk. Even though we had some network available before joining BUILD, it paled in comparison to the number of introduction opportunities we were given here. It’s hard to overstate how essential this access is for both first-time and second-time startups.

The cherry on top is that with every positioning change, we were able to get direct feedback from Chainlink Labs’ BD team and advice on whether the approaches we were pursuing would resonate with potential VCs or angels. With that, we tailored our deck and supporting materials to the right audience and requirements.

Networking & Partnerships

One of the obvious benefits of joining the BUILD family is, well, the BUILD family itself. It’s easy to get in touch with any of the 100+ projects to collaborate on a feature, do a co-marketing campaign, or ask experienced devs for advice on what you’re building. As a bonus, we were given access to a list of discounts and offers from multiple BUILD projects, including some industry giants.

One advantage of getting into a program like BUILD, which is less obvious yet incredibly useful for early-stage startups, is the reputation boost for your project. Without BUILD, we would have had a much harder time getting grants, investment offers, or project collaborations and partnerships. That initial social proof checkmark has had a major impact on our success with receiving grants from Aave, Uniswap, and Arbitrum.

Exposure & Social Media Support

The publicity that Chainlink offers to BUILD members can be accessed through different mediums. Chainlink is always happy to share an opportunity to participate in an event as a speaker, host Twitter spaces together, or simply support your major product releases with their social media accounts.

An example from personal experience is when we were given the opportunity to host a live workshop at Chainlink BlockMagic Hackathon. Along with sharing our experience to help builders fix the problems they were working on, we also had a chance to talk about Concero and recruit some talent on board.

Exclusive Access & Perks

On top of all that I’ve covered above, there’s still more that you can get as a BUILD member:

Early Access

Amongst other things, BUILD members can expect to get early access to features and products that are yet to be released to the wider audience. The benefits of this are obvious. A) You get to roll out a feature for your product much earlier than anyone else. B) You get the invaluable time to implement and test the feature, which means you release a well-tested and reliable feature in sync with Chainlink’s public release.

Service customisation & limit increases

A great benefit for BUILD members is that Chainlink allows for reasonable room for customising and adjusting their services, to better fit the needs of BUILD projects. Here’s an example from our personal experience. As a project trying to build cutting-edge solutions, we can’t always work within the limits set for the Chainlink services we’re building with. Within a reasonable range, BUILD members can request limit increases to achieve greater functionality for their on-chain solutions. Having Chainlink Functions as one of our core services, we soon hit the 5-second execution and the 10 HTTP requests limit within our infrastructure. A week’s time after our request to increase the limits, they were increased so significantly that it allowed not only to scale our solution further, but to implement functionality we weren’t planning to use Chainlink Functions for in the first place, helping lift some weight off our on-chain computation and reduce transaction costs for our users.

How to Get the Most out of Build

Every project that wants to join Chainlink BUILD has to give a percentage of its total token supply. The tokens will then be distributed amongst the Chainlink community along with service providers and stakers. The benefit here is obvious – it supports the adoption your project gets.

For anyone determined to take the most out of the program, I have two main pieces of advice:

1. Be active. I wouldn’t be mistaken if I guessed that we’re in the top 10 most demanding projects in BUILD. Perhaps, in the top 10 most annoying ones as well. (Apologies to the Chainlink team if that’s the case!)

   • Ask questions in the clearest manner possible, help the team help you
   • Offer your support to the Chainlink Labs team, which there will be plenty of opportunities for.
   • Accept the offers you’re given – host a workshop, fill out a questionnaire, hop on a call with a different team.
   • Be proactive – report bugs, find documentation mistakes, collaborate, run co-marketing campaigns, share your progress!

2. Importantly, prioritise human relationships. The people you’re working with might end up as your future colleagues, co-founders, angels, or vice versa. After all, it’s more comfortable to communicate with someone you had a coffee (or a pint) with. Of all the Chainlink BUILD team members that we’re working with, a greater half we met in person. In the world of humans this plays a vital role in how smooth your processes are run both within the BUILD program, and anywhere else, really.

Good luck!

Thanks for reaching the end of this article! I hope it helped you to make a more informed decision on whether BUILD is a good fit for your startup. In case you have further questions, feel free to reach out:

Telegram: @olegkron Twitter: @olegkron

Follow Concero on Twitter: @concero_io