Dec 23, 2020
After 3 years of building blockchain products in our portfolio, we’re bringing our experience to a wider audience in an effort to encourage more innovation in the blockchain industry.
We’re excited to announce that we are launching MouseBelt Startup School — a free, virtual, startup school on January 21st! Applications are currently open and the program will be limited to the top 100 applicants. With this initiative, we aim to provide founders of very early stage projects with the knowledge and skills necessary to prepare for investment or placement in accelerator programs at MouseBelt Accelerator and beyond. Founders will have the opportunity to receive mentorship from our team as well as build their network from our pool of founders and partners.
The MouseBelt Startup School is an online educational program, run entirely virtually and completely free for participants. We will not be taking equity from the startups, but the top companies will have the opportunity to pitch to the MouseBelt team to apply to our official full-service accelerator. The program includes 2 self-guided courses in blockchain development and business of blockchain. In addition to the courses, startups will get access to our “Standard Operating Procedures” to use as guidelines for their own companies. Benefits of the program include access to a network of startup founders and business connections, exclusive forums for feedback from MouseBelt mentors and other founders, as well as open office hours to assist with anything product, design, tech and business related.
Over the last 3 years we have successfully built a portfolio of projects that are building real-world use cases and have received massive growth and follow up investments. MouseBelt Startup School is designed for active, early-stage founders who are working on building their companies as well as entrepreneurs looking to get started on a new project. Course lectures focus on cryptocurrencies as well as broader startup 101 lessons such as go-to-market strategy, fundraising, and pitching. The program is looking for 100 teams, which should represent approximately 400 participants. Participants can expect hours of lectures, workshops, mentorship and networking opportunities per week. At the end of the program, participants will have the opportunity to showcase a project idea or a prototype to the MouseBelt investment team.
MouseBelt has been one of the most vocal advocates for blockchain and entrepreneur education within the blockchain space and our participants will benefit from the extensive network of universities and partners. Our University Program has supported education in blockchain development, business, and leadership at over 100+ universities in 24 countries and students are encouraged to apply. Participants can expect to receive mentorship and educational materials from top companies in the blockchain space through our Blockchain Education Alliance — a network of industry leaders committed to driving blockchain innovation by supporting education, research, and entrepreneurship at universities and beyond. Members include ING Bank, AB-InBev, Stellar Development Foundation, Hedera Hashgraph, Binance X, Ripple’s Xpring, and ICON and 20+ other top blockchain and enterprise companies.
The decision to launch a virtual startup school comes after our years of experience offering remote acceleration, educational, and event services. In May, when Covid-19 saw students all over the world sent home from school and stuck at home, we launched the wildly successful REIMAGINE 2020 virtual conference series to continue bringing education to the crypto community. Top interviewees include top industry leaders such as Erik Voorhees, Brock Pierce, Andreas Antonopoulos, Justin Sun, Charles Hoskinson, Roger Ver, Craig Wright, Mark Yusko, Dan Held,Michael Saylor and many others. Our Startup School aims to combine all the insights gained from these projects and experts and make them available for founders all over the world.
As with any emerging industry, blockchain has faced many challenges in growth and adoption due to a lack of knowledge and experience in what it takes to build a successful blockchain product and company.
We’ve been actively building blockchain products through our development shop for over 3 years and with the success we’ve seen from our investments in startups and student developers, we believe we can accelerate existing projects and inspire more entrepreneurs to join the space by sharing what we’ve learned.” — Patrick McLain, founder of MouseBelt.
About MouseBelt
MouseBelt is an ecosystem promoting blockchain innovation by supporting hands-on development of the emerging projects and leaders in the industry. The leaders they support are:
Startups — MouseBelt Accelerator supports early-stage companies with capital and in-kind investments;
Builders — MouseBelt Engineering supports developers and projects with open-source tools and a development shop; and
Community — its REIMAGINE 2020 virtual conference and University Program encourage newcomers to get involved with blockchain.
