✨ Welcome Cohort 13 Who’s got a good feeling about 2023? We’re thrilled about all the exciting news we’ve got planned this year! 🎉 Ready to amplify our Ripple community by continuing to support the best founders & aspiring VCs all striving for greatness. The new year brings on new goals - but there’s some traditions we’ll never let go. We’re excited to introduce our newest Winter cohort! These students from across North-America are leading the charge toward building innovative companies and becoming the next generation of VCs. Learn about them more here and don’t be shy to say hello! Keep up with the No Cap Newsletter! 📍Bring RippleX Near You Calling all RippleX alumni, are you interested to host a community event at your city/ university?! Help us amplify RippleX across North America and empower students that are diving into entrepreneurship and building new cool projects. With support from RBCx, we’re excited to be sponsoring more ecosystem events such as dinners and happy hours across US and Canada. If you would like to request sponsorship for an event, drop your requests in the link here and we’ll reach out to hammer the details! 🚀 Kickstart the new year with RBCx  RBCx is a full-service, market-leading platform to accelerate the entrepreneurial journey at every stage of growth – providing access to a complete suite of capital solutions, innovative products and services, and operational expertise to help technology companies scale.  Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Katie at katie@rippleventures.com or Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Thanks for reading The No Cap Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

✨ Fellowship Recap Fellowship Event Sponsorship: Calling all RippleX alumni, host a community event at your city/ university! With support from RBCx, we’re excited to be sponsoring more ecosystem events such as dinners and happy hours across US and Canada. Drop your events requests in the link here and we’ll figure out the next steps together. Here’s a dinner gathering I hosted a few weeks ago. Which other fellows do you recognize? Fireside Chat with Madison Rifkin: Madi is the CEO/ Founder of Mount next Monday, December 5 at 2 PM ET! Mark your calendars for this intimate session where we dive deeper into her entrepreneurial journey and what’s next for her. 🤩 Product of the Week: Clay In venture, a large part is about who you know. Fostering genuine human connection is a challenge of its own, but maintaining these relationships comes with its own difficulties too.  After using Clay for a month, I’m excited to share my thoughts about it with you. Clay helps you organize and deepen relationships with everyone you know – aggregating your contacts across LinkedIn, Facebook, email, calendar, and more. I’ve been exploring their features such as setting cadences to catch up, keeping informed of status updates, and reviewing past relationships I have built. and it has prompted me to reconnect with people from my past and become more intentional with my time and energy.  The way Clay puts user experience at the forefront is also incredibly thoughtful. The most subtle interactions and design give it a magical touch! Try out Clay here (not sponsored)! 📚 Interesting Reads… Venture Capital Red Flag by Above the Crowd | Bill Gurley talks about his learnings from the FTX fiasco. Learning from his mistakes and reflection, he shortlisted 10 things VCs should look out for. Scaling GTM from $25 to $50 million ARR by Bessemer Venture Partners | This article was an incredible read containing a step-by-step guideline for how startups should approach their GTM strategy.  🧳 Job Opportunities Full-time Product Analyst @ RBCx Ventures (Smart Reno), Toronto Junior Product Owner @ RBCx Ventures (MoveSnap), Toronto Investment Reporting Associate @ 777 Partners, Buffalo NY Venture Capital Analyst @ Investment Management Partners, New York Internships Investor Relations & Financial Reporting Co-op @ iGan Partners: Email jason@iganpartners.com or Wendi@iganpartners.com to learn more! Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Katie at katie@rippleventures.com. Authored by Katie Ko (Cohort #11).

✨ What’s the Ripple X Fellowship? The RippleX Fellowship is a remote 16-week extracurricular program created for aspiring founders and VCs. Students are taught the intricacies of startup building and venture capital, from customer validation, and term sheets, to fundraising tips. Best part imo, is the incredible community of founders and VCs you’re welcomed into! Our past fellows range from diverse backgrounds– whether you’re a technical builder 💻 interested in developing your business acumen, or an aspiring founder curious about entrepreneurship 💡, we’re excited to meet you! Learn more about the program here . Apply to the fellowship here .  Applications are due Nov 25th, 2022  at 11:59PM EST. 💬 What past fellows have to say… “ If you are paying 30K a year for business school tuition, please get Dom a $3 coffee ☕️ because you can get much more learning, growth, and connections at RippleX.” - Shawn Peng , Co-founder of matterverse "RippleX was a great learning experience. As a founder who raised venture capital (VC) for the first time, I was able to accelerate my understanding of core concepts without being in the VC industry. Since being in the program, I was able to go through Y Combinator and raise seed 💰 in less than 6 weeks. Beyond learning valuable fundraising skills, one of the most difficult experiences as a founder is going on the journey alone. I was fortunate to have met lifelong friends through the program 💗 and continue to pay it forward by being an active mentor/friend to fellow founders." - Lyn Chen , Co-founder of webapp.io RippleX is an amazing program that taught me how VC's work and what they think about when investing. This was incredibly helpful as I'm a founder and currently in the middle of our seed raise. This program set me up perfectly to anticipate what to expect during this funding process 🚀. On top of that Dom, the program manager is always available for questions and to strategize even after the program ends. This program helped me feel prepared to move forward in the founder/funding space. - Madi Rifkin , Founder of Mount For more testimonials, check out our Wall of Love here . 💌 🌱 Fostering the Leaders of Tomorrow Our past fellows have gone on to raise over $50M in venture funding backed by world-class investors. We’re starting to see the “Ripple Effect” 🌊 in motion, and this is only the beginning! That’s all from us now! Should you have any questions about the fellowship programme, reach out to katie@rippleventures.com!

📣 Ripple X Fellowship Applications are Open! For today’s edition, we’re keeping it short and sweet.  The RippleX Fellowship program is now recruiting for the Winter 2023 cohort. Join our community of fellow founders and aspiring venture capitalists, and learn about the intricacies of company building and venture capital through hands-on workshops and discussions. Learn more about the program here . Apply to the fellowship here .  Check out our testimonials here . Applications are due Nov 25th, 2022 at 11:59PM EST. Thanks for reading The No Cap Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

✨ Aaand we’re back! Meet Cohort 12. It’s the season of PSL (pumpkin spice lattes), and at Ripple Ventures, it’s the time of year we introduce you to our latest fall cohort. These PSL (promising student leaders) come from a diverse mix of backgrounds, all with a common desire to change the world through combining their passions with technology. Check out their profiles here , PSL (please send love) and say hello! 🚀 Shoot for the Moon with RBCx  RBCx is a full-service, market-leading platform to accelerate the entrepreneurial journey at every stage of growth – providing access to a complete suite of capital solutions, innovative products and services, and operational expertise to help technology companies scale.  📰 Headlines Today… Fellow Fund Announcement by Business Wire | As an extension of our commitment to fostering innovation at the university level, we’re launching our own fellow fund, featuring $25-50k cheques to support student founders and first-time entrepreneurs. RBCx Sponsors the Ripple X Fellowship by Yahoo News | We’re excited to be partnering with RBCx to bring our fellowship to the next level. We’re talking: more resources, opportunities, and happy hours 🥂. Our next cohort recruitment is fast-approaching, stay tuned! Two-year low in Venture Funding in Toronto by Betakit | Curious how the current macro-environment shapes the VC landscape? Retrace Toronto’s VC historical performance, and discover the implications of how it dictates our future. Ventures Firms are Getting Niche by TechCrunch | Should VC funds diversify or become more specialized? Discover the merits of both in this article. 💡Fellow Spotlight  Bianca Gonalez - Co-founder and CEO of AMPAWorks The pandemic exposed the fragility of our current healthcare system . Medical supply shortages, outdated inventory systems, and crews of overworked frontline workers. Operating at the intersection of medicine, supply chain management, and artificial intelligence, AMPAworks leverages computer vision to assist clinics in managing medical supplies.  The face behind the magic is former nurse practitioner, ex-Wharton MBA, and current MS in Computer Science student at Georgia Tech, Bianca Gonalez from Cohort #12. She is spearheading a team with the mission to modernize hospitals to become more efficient and resilient. By automating the inventory tracking and re-ordering process, AMPAworks aims to alleviate the healthcare system by overcoming their operational challenges with technology. Physicians are empowered to dedicate more time to patient care, which alleviates pressure of the healthcare system thus providing a higher quality of service. AMPAworks’ award-winning technology has been recognized by HIMSS Healthcare, the American Nurses Association, the Los Angeles Business Journal, and The University of Pennsylvania. Last week, Bianca and her team pitched at 43North, and received $1M in funding. Big kudos to Bianca and her team, they’re just getting started! Here’s what Bianca has to say about the RippleX Fellowship. "The fellowship helped me as a founder to understand how investment decisions are made and took the mystery out of venture capital." 🧳 Job Opportunities Full-time Analyst @ 2048 VC Business Operations Analyst @ ETW Advisors Community & Operations Coordinator @ Alate Internships RTR Exchange Intern @ Interac, Toronto Finance Intern @ Unilever, Toronto Financial Analyst @ RBC Operations Advisory, Toronto Analyst @ 186 Ventures, Boston Programs Hyper - An early-stage accelerator offering world-class mentorship from founders of Mercury and Loom.  RBC Future Launch – A $1,500 scholarship dedicated to curious-minded young people (aged 15-29) that want to learn something new. Sponsored by RBCx . Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Katie at katie@rippleventures.com. Authored by Katie Ko (Cohort #11).

🚨 RIPPLEX FELLOWSHIP FALL 2022 RECRUITMENT 🚨 The RippleX Fellowship program is now recruiting for the Fall 2022 cohort. Join our community of fellow founders and aspiring venture capitalists, learning about the intricacies of company building and venture capital through hands-on workshops and discussions. Also, you might notice something new on our website. Big news incoming and we'll share more soon. 😉 Learn more about the program here:  https://bit.ly/3FizHNE Apply here:  https://bit.ly/3oimo9z Check out our testimonials here:  https://bit.ly/3qOdnas Applications are due August 15th at 5 PM EST. 🛠 Opportunities in Web3 Development Environments Despite the current market conditions, our point of view is that infrastructure and developer tooling in Web3 will be one of the most important areas for investment as they will unlock applications/protocols to applications/protocols to create in order for the success of their projects. We’ve seen the recent applications around NFTs, DeFi, and more start to break the infrastructure in Web3 (gas fees, security, latency) as adoption increased. Tooling will be the constant foundation for innovating scale for applications as we reach each new inflection point in the market. At the core of building any product, the integrated development environment (IDE) is the one constant tool for every engineer. We are excited about IDEs because they are involved in building every product throughout its entire life cycle. This can be divided into four types of environments consisting of development, testing, staging, and production. Each type serves its own purpose in designing, programming, and testing products for production. Across the value chain of Web3 development, we are excited to explore vertical tools that help engineers compile, deploy, test and debug blockchain software. This includes the management and automation of processes to build smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). Why We’re Excited: Development environments are core to building every software product. We’ve seen that integration, compatibility, and ease of use have enabled developers to build with better efficiency, but this is lacking in Web3 development today. Building in Web3 requires developers to interact with a totally new set of tools including smart contract development, decentralized storage systems, and security protocols. Winning solutions will be modular systems that provide flexibility in implementation and integration. As the ecosystem of L1 and L2s continues to mature, the uncertainty around which applications should be built on which infrastructure exists today. This creates the need for development tools to be chain-agnostic to allow developers the flexibility for building on top of different technologies and compartmentalizing their stack with the best options. Where We’re Cautious: Web3 developer tools become less prominent if existing Web2 platforms and technologies (i.e. extensions, SDK, etc.) are able to fill in the missing gaps or integrate better with Web3 tools. This means that the existing tools are able to provide effective support without requiring additional steps from the developers. Companies building for developers in this category will need to fill the large shoes of the functionality breadth they are used to in Web2 IDEs while satisfying the integration and infrastructure needs in Web3. This means that the value proposition must be 10X and have a short learning curve. Interested to dive deeper into our thematic research covering the industry drivers, market dynamics and more? Keep reading: Full Article ❓ The Tough Questions When it comes to building out a company, it should always come down to an iterative process where you’re actively questioning the steps you take. This process of evaluating your startup consists of asking a few tough questions that revolve around the market, product and team. So let’s dive right in! Market Considerations Who are you going after as customers? (i.e. who’s the buyer?) What are those customers spending on solutions to their problems today? How many customers are there that can use your product? What is the spending power/budget capacity they have for new tools? Which markets are your initial targets, where are they, and what are future ones? Who are the other competitors, and is this solution materially better? Is this a market opportunity that’s over $1B? If not, can it get there? Product Considerations Does this product provide a 10X solution to the problem compared to the status quo? What are the drivers and drags for adoption? Is the product you’re building mission critical to your users’ ability to meet their goals? How long does it take for users to get value out of the product? How does the product integrate or augment existing workflows? How much time will users spend time in the platform, and how can this grow? What do engagement, retention, usage, and growth of the product look like? Team Considerations Has the team had any prior experience working together before? Does the team have any experience working in the industry they’re trying to sell to? Is the team balanced with founders that can build and sell? How fast does the team move on the product, fundraising, sales, etc.? Would you want to work for the founders of this company? How does the team make decisions together? Is the team passionate about what they’re building? The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone: RippleX Fellowship 💡 Fellow Spotlight Naman Singh - Founder & CEO at MassApply As a job-seeker, the application process is a daunting task combined with immense uncertainty of the outcome. Back at the start of the pandemic, we witnessed a scarce amount of jobs and internships as COVID-19 took a toll on numerous companies. Unfortunately, a similar situation is taking place in the current job market with college students and new grads relentlessly seeking out opportunities. If you’re in this boat, MassApply could help you out! Introducing Naman Singh, Founder and CEO at MassApply from cohort #10 who is actively building a platform to empower job-seekers. MassApply is a platform tailored for job-seekers to propel themselves in the recruitment process by easily applying to companies, reaching out or cold-emailing recruiters, and of course, tracking the progress from start to finish. With over 12,000 users, MassApply has proven to be a very useful tool with numerous students landing offers amidst COVID-19 cancellations. One of the best things to note is that MassApply started off as a hackathon project that developed into a platform that continues to impact so many individuals! Interested to learn more? Check out this great article on Interseller . See what Naman had to say about his experience with the fellowship program 👇 “As a founder, I felt I didn't have a good understanding of the VC-side. RippleX filled these gaps in my knowledge and introduced me to really smart people!” Sponsored by Jeeves . Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9). Thanks for reading The No Cap Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

💍 Big Rings How does that one song go? I got a really big team, they need some really big rings. The RippleX fellowship brings in founders and aspiring VCs to develop their skills in building startups and understanding the foundation of Venture Capital. The outstanding students that join each cohort come with a goal in mind and it’s absolutely amazing to see so many students go above and beyond to achieve them. Whether it’s to break into VC or raise capital for their company, it’s the sheer determination that continues to amaze us. We’re proud to have so many amazing fellows and continue to support so many more going forward. Here are a few superstars we wanted to highlight: Kaito Cunningham - $23 Million Series A Raise w/Utopia Labs Vaneezeh Siddiqui - Investor @ Thomson Reuters Ventures Maria Smith - Analyst @ Yaletown Partners Godwin Chan - Analyst @ VU Venture Partners Alexa Grabelle - Investor @ Bessemer Venture Partners Jasmeen Raghubans - Analyst @ Framework Venture Partners Kriti Baweja - Analyst @ BDC Women in Technolgy Venture Fund Please note that these are just a few of many students that we could highlight in this edition and we’re excited to continue sharing more stories! 🛠 Opportunities in Data Versioning If you didn’t already know, Ripple Ventures is an early-stage venture fund focused on enterprise software, developer tools, and web3 infrastructure & tooling. Within each vertical focus, our team conducts in-depth research on areas of interest to find the best companies to partner with. We’ve started a new blog series to share our internal research on categories that we’re actively investing in. To kick it off, here is our overview of Data Versioning . The data tooling ecosystem has been a large focus across every company building software in the past years. As companies grow, they run into challenges with maintaining and scaling their databases as their existing infrastructure isn’t supporting their increased volume. We believe that successful tools in space will be targeted point solutions rather than generalized software for a variety of use cases that can scale with companies. Why We’re Excited: Data versioning will become an embedded component in data storage systems which will log details related to how data is being used and how it is being changed. Applications begin to be written to scale around the data that they are built upon, rather than building applications and fitting data into the schema dictated for the application to work. Where We’re Cautious: Data versioning may simply become a commodity of other end-user applications. It may become a prerequisite, built-in step of many data systems with minimal value-added overall as a standalone offering. Data versioning becomes unimportant as most ML-powered applications will be derived from a handful of large pre-trained generalized models that are applied to several different domains effectively. Our Market Observations: MLOps: This is the services-based approach to managing machine learning developer systems. This can (but does not have to) include data versioning as a step within this process but it does require integrations with the databases systems and the CI/CD systems in real production settings. Databases: These are the core central data repositories and storage mechanisms for data used in ML applications as well as other end-use cases. They are the backbone where data largely lives separate from core application logic/code. CI/CD: The continuous integration and delivery tooling, along with the core code base versioning, are the primary mechanism that organizations can create standardization and scale for their development efforts. Interested to dive deeper into our thematic research covering the industry drivers, market dynamics and more? Keep reading: Full Article Startup Evaluation Frameworks When it comes to assessing startups at the early stage, there are specific metrics that should be looked at starting off with the market, product and team. These three factors combine to be the trifecta of evaluation frameworks for gauging the key value of the startup. Each one plays a strong factor as it will be able to clearly showcase both sides of the story that help to understand the startup’s ability to shine in the future. Market Matters Here, we want to see strong market dynamics. People must feel the pain today, it must hurt really damn bad, and ideally, they’re looking for something to take away that pain. They also must be able to pay for the painkiller. Having strong market dynamics plays into being successful no matter how large it is. We like to see either large fragmented markets or smaller markets that have the exponential growth potential to become large. Product Matters In our eyes, the product is very important. We want to know that the team is able to build a solution to a problem that people love to use. Here, we dive deep into understanding how much the product solves, what’s defensible and sticky about it, and how it can evolve over time to serve even a larger user base. The trick here is to be user-obsessed, building products that users are obsessed with. Team matters Founders must be the people who understand the problem the deepest in the industry, are passionate enough to want to solve them for the next decade and are open to doing whatever it takes for this to succeed. We look for teams that can build great products, are obsessed with users, and come from a unique background relevant to the industry they’re working in. Putting it all together... When all three come together strong, it becomes a very compelling case to invest in. When there is an apparent gap in any of these three pillars, it becomes hard to swallow the inherent risks that exist within the company. We stick to our thesis on investing in the above. The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone: RippleX Fellowship 💡 Fellow Spotlight Calix Huang - Head of Labs at Fiveable Navigating high school, extracurriculars and your passions/interests can be difficult enough - but there are always a few that completely surprise us. Before entering college, imagine if had the opportunity to build a startup that gets acquired, let alone two. Or perhaps work on innovative projects across various industries & teams? Well, let us introduce you to Calix Huang, Head of Labs at Fiveable from cohort #9. With past experiences ranging from numerous startups (UiGrowth, Hack+, etc.) and accelerators/venture funds (On Deck, GenZScouts, Spero Ventures, etc.) - Calix has proven to be an asset to any team. His previous startup, Hours was created to empower students to be more productive with visual tooling and a strong community. This led to an acquisition by Fiveable where you’ll currently find him leading the development of new products for their platform. The story of this 17-year-old is definitely one you should check out. You can learn more about Calix in this interview where he shares his journey and learnings over the years. As well as this Techcrunch article diving into Fiveable’s acquisition of Hours. We’re excited for his next milestone in his entrepreneurial journey and wish him the very best! Sponsored by Jeeves . Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).

🎉 Welcome Cohort 11 Crazy how fast time flies! We’re beyond excited to introduce our 11th cohort joining us this Summer. Discover more about these amazing students and our alumni all available here ! 🛠 Top Tech Tools Your Startup Should Know The startup ecosystem is ever-evolving and it’s changing fast. Every day new tools are being created, others are becoming obsolete, and even more, are being adopted by startups at an exponential rate. To stay competitive and keep pace, startups need to understand the latest trends and best practices in order to succeed. We’ve curated a list of simple and powerful startup tech tools you should know about. We’ll provide an overview of each tool, share its pros and cons, and suggest when and how you can start using them today. Hosting: Firebase or Supabase Authentication: Auth0 (or hosting/micro) Microservices & Backends: Buildable Web (& Mobile) Frameworks: Vue.js (or React) Design: Figma + Tailwind CSS (or Material/Bootstrap Library) Marketing & CRM: Mailchimp and HubSpot Analytics: Google Analytics or Mixpanel Project Management: ZenHub Customer Onboarding: Onboard.io As the startup ecosystem evolves, so does the technology that drives it. This is by no means an exhaustive list. New tools are being created, others are becoming obsolete, and even more, are being adopted by startups at an exponential rate. If you’re building a tool to support startup development, we would love to hear from you. Get in touch with us here . Interested to learn about specific insights of each of the tools listed above? Keep reading here . 📄 Term Sheets When it comes to a VC investment, you may have heard about the necessity of a term sheet. But why is there so much importance placed on this document? It is simply a contract that outlines the key terms of a deal between the startup and a VC and does not represent a legal promise to invest. The “Five Documents” that follow a term sheet – stock purchase agreement, investors rights agreement, certificate of incorporation, ROFR, and voting agreement. Terms Valuation - What is the value of the business today? ESOP - Usually, 7-15% of the option pool is created in aggregate before new money comes in Board Seats - Formal addition of investor(s) and independent board members Vesting - Allocates a % of the founders’ shares back to the company, and gives them back over time No-Shop - Cannot bring deal terms to other investors to drive up valuation / get more favourable terms General Terms Liquidation Preference - Upon liquidation, returns money to preferred shareholders before common shareholders (usually 1x) Participation - Upon liquidation, investors get liquidation preference returned and the remaining distributions as well, based on ownership Pro-Rata Rights - Allows investors to participate in the future financing rounds to maintain their current position in the company ROFR - The right to enter into a transaction with a person or company before anyone else can (i.e. sale of shares/entire company) Drag Along - Enables a majority shareholder to force a minority shareholder to join in the deal (i.e. get acquired by a larger company) The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone: RippleX Fellowship 💡 Fellow Spotlight Maggie Thai - Co-founder and CMO of JAMH Navigating sustainability and climate change can be a difficult task, let alone making impactful decisions that adhere to the Environmental Social Governance (ESG) criteria. Introducing Maggie Thai, Co-founder and CMO of JAMH from cohort #9 who is developing a suite of information management tools for Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and Carbon Markets information that empower decision-makers to build an informed and sustainable world. By simply democratizing the availability of valid and accurate information, their team has been able to impact Fortune 500 companies such as TC Energy, Brookfield Renewable and Enbridge while simultaneously increasing their budget to nearly $100,000 within the first year and a half of their operation. Their most recent and very interesting product, Carbonlytics, is an international carbon policy database, hoping to use it as a stepping stone to creating a fully automated carbon project developer. Their achievements span across Canada with participation and awards in multiple ecosystems including Platform Calgary’s Summer Incubator Program, Toronto Metropolitan University’s DMZ Basecamp, League of Innovators LABS Program and The Accelerator. JAMH has also received pre-acceptance into the Fuel Accelatorer, an Arkansas-based innovation program later this Summer. You can learn more about Maggie on the Calgary Citizen where she was recognized as a Top 10 Entrepreneur and Innovator under 30 to keep your eye on. Sponsored by Jeeves . Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).

🎉 Welcome Jeeves We are beyond excited to announce that Jeeves will be joining the RippleX family as our newsletter sponsor! Jeeves is a leader in financial infrastructure supporting businesses globally. It offers a truly all-in-one expense management corporate card program for international startups including a global switching layer across countries and the ability to run all your company spend on their platform. The fellowship aims to empower students toward entrepreneurship and we couldn’t have asked for a better partner to join us in this journey! 🌎 RippleX Takes On Toronto What an exciting way to end the week! We held our latest social in Toronto last Thursday with amazing fellows, alumni, and our friends at RBCx finally together in one place. An eventful night with good laughs shared over food and drinks. With Summer right around the corner, we are excited to keep the ball rolling with more events to come. Interested to host an event in your local city? Please feel free to reach out to the RippleX team , and let’s make it happen! 🤝 Founder - Partner Fit When there is money everywhere, who you partner with becomes much more important. There has been an influx of capital in the venture world lately, and while this always sounds promising we need to remember that capital alone is not enough to make companies successful. With the power shifting back into the founder’s hands entrepreneurs need to look beyond capital and focus more on ‘fit’. While raising capital is an important aspect of building a startup, given the length of time venture investments last, sometimes upwards of a decade, the relationship between the founder and investor is arguably much more important than the size of the investment made. The three to six months of meeting with hundreds of investors may be exhausting, it pales in comparison to the seven to twelve years founders spend working with the investors that they end up choosing. What does a strong founder/partner fit look like? For Ripple and our founders, it means building a relationship where the founder feels supported through both the good and bad times and feels comfortable in sharing both successes and struggles with the partner. Tough decisions are inevitable when building a startup and it is imperative that both the founder and partner feel that they can freely express themselves while knowing that they are being supported by a partner who is ultimately a teammate. Interested to learn about specific tips for a successful founder-partner relationship from Matt Cohen? Keep reading. 💰 Venture Capital 101 If you google ‘Venture Capital’, you’ll find the following definition: capital invested in a project in which there is a substantial element of risk , typically a new or expanding business. This is a term that you’ll see thrown around a ton in the tech scene, but you may be wondering why it even matters? Or perhaps, what value does it provide startups? Well, startups only have certain options when raising funding which consists of bootstrapping, angel investing, family & friends, grants/loans, and finally, venture capital. VC in the simplest terms is investing in startups . It’s been commercialized in Silicon Valley with household names such as Apple, Cisco, and many more by investors such as A16Z, Sequoia, etc. The investments will result in minority ownership positions (>25% typically) per round ranging across early to late-stage companies and without a doubt, these are very risky investments . Let’s look into two example startups: You could be a Tesla (which is totally fine) Nice business, family-style, consistent cash flows May get turned down on market size or lack of IP from VCs most likely Small market, good product, okay team Or, you could be a Rocket Ship Venture scale business, potential to become a huge company Huge market + perfect market timing + customers willing to spend A solid must-have product, growth through network effects, huge following Amazing team, and can execute well Here is a breakdown of the Stage of Venture Captial: It’s a relationship business. More important than what you know, it’s who you know. Building relationships with founders before you invest in them is crucial. Venture investments are like a marriage – you’re in it for the long run so you better know who you’re getting involved with! Try to provide value to others before you ever expect anything in return. The most important pieces of advice: be nice to everyone, and be open-minded . The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone: RippleX Fellowship 💡 Fellow Spotlight Arielle Lok - Co-founder of Peko Produce Let’s go over some facts. According to the World Resource Insitute, approximately one-quarter of all food produced for human consumption is wasted every year and this equates to roughly $1600 of food thrown out by the average U.S. resident per year. Within Canada alone, $3.1 billion of produce is rejected every year due to cosmetic reasons alone. This is where Peko Produce comes in to fill this divide. Introducing Arielle Lok, co-founder of Peko Produce from cohort #8 who has developed an amazing solution to tackle this issue. Peko Produce aims to fight food waste and promote access to affordable, healthy food by delivering “imperfect” or surplus fruits and vegetables to consumers at up to 40% off grocery prices. This startup has won numerous competitions across various institutions (McGill Dobson Cup, Queen's Entrepreneurship Competition, etc.) and companies (TELUS Innovation Challenge, RBC Get Seeded, etc.) with no sign of slowing down. Arielle’s story doesn’t end here. When she’s not actively engaged in building her startup, you’ll find Arielle at Shopify working at the intersection of VC, M&A, and Strategy. She’s previously worked in numerous ventures and of course, is a previous Ripple Ventures alum. Oh did we forget to mention that Arielle was also named as one of DMZ’s 2022 Women of the Year ! See what Arielle had to say about her experience with the fellowship program 👇 “Ripple was unlike any other venture fellowship. They emphasized hands-on learning more than anything else, and every lesson was so practical in a real world setting. I was able to gain 10 amazing friends from across the continent, and I finally made the leap from funder to founder with the support of Ripple and my peer cohort!” Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).

🚀 Gen Z Doesn’t Need Investor Networks. They Make Their Own The RippleX Fellowship program has held 10 cohorts of university students across North America immersed in various startup ecosystems building and investing. With over 200 students that have engaged with the program, everyone continues to be well equipped to start companies or become solid investors. Our very own, Matt Cohen, Founder and Managing Partner at Ripple Ventures shares his insights into the development of Gen Z founders and investors in a piece shared on Crunchbase . Data now shows that Gen Z is the first generation that feels more themselves online than offline, and the ramifications are enormous. As true digital natives, their networks are broad and deep, spanning a far more diverse set of people than they’d meet in person. In fact, our fellows hardly have any need for the established networks that VCs have touted as value-adds for so long. They’re already plugged into online communities on places like Twitter , Reddit , Discord , and Telegram where some of the most exciting innovation is occurring. The biggest thing they need is the capital that older generations have accumulated, but even that’s not stopping them from developing workarounds to bring ideas to life. 💰 Budget Forecasting No matter the objective, size, or stage of the startup - there is one common goal that they all share among each other and that is to not run out of money. Though these words may be as clear as the sky is blue - there are layers to financial modeling and business budgeting that require much more attention than one may think. But not to worry, we’ve got you covered with a series of fundamental steps consisting of tips and questions that walk through how you should approach budget forecasting for your startup: It is extremely important and the same as a plan for the business It is meant to be iterative as you learn more about the business It should help you sell to investors why you need $X capital, and how long it’ll last you It should be made to track what the business looks like month by month (12-18 months) What revenue/user targets are you expecting? How are you getting there? What’s it going to cost you to get there? Core Components — A breakdown of how you can plan out how much time you have left for the amount of capital to support you. Costs - salaries for the most part in the early days, and office space Cash - how much do you have, how much do you need to fundraise to meet your goals Revenue- if any, but on a monthly projection level Start with a goal — Understanding your main objective from a bird’s eye view. Is it to finish your product? Is it to get your first 10,000 users by the end of month 12? Is it to generate $500K in total sales by month 12? Then work backward — Creating a plan of execution for each step of the process with the big picture in mind. Is it to finish your product? How many engineers do you need to hire? What does this cost? Is it to get your first 10,000 users by the end of month 12? What features do you need to attract over 10,000 users? What marketing/growth people do you need to get this in people’s hands? If so, when and how do you monetize? Is it to generate $500K in total sales by month 12? How many salespeople do you need to hire? What do they cost? How much of the target can one salesperson achieve? And connect the dots — Based on the goals you’ve established and how much it’s going to cost to get there... How much cash do you need to hit your goal? How much cash do you have in the bank today? Where are you going to find the difference? (Angel, VC, Grant, etc.) Are you even ready to fundraise, or do you have enough to show? What’s your timeline to fundraise (when do you run out of money)? The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone: RippleX Fellowship 🎵 Spotify vs. Audius The value of certain elements in Web 3 is difficult to grasp fully right away. We believe that by comparing new Web 3 technology and features to ones in Web 2, we can draw better comparisons, and in turn understand the value proposition of the features people are building in the Web 3 space. We’ll explore music streaming platforms across Web 2 and Web 3, more specifically Spotify vs Audius. Our new “Web 2 vs Web 3” series is where the team at Ripple breaks down the similarities, differences, and impact of similar technologies across Web 2 and Web 3. What’s Spotify? Spotify has undoubtedly become a household name serving 79 countries , 180 million subscribers , 406 million monthly active users , and is available across 184 markets . Its traction came from the ease and unlimited access, variety of music, SaaS subscription model, and support by multiple platforms (i.e. Windows, Apple, etc.). For listeners, Spotify has become one of the best platforms for its variety of offerings. However, there are always two sides to any story. From the perspective of the artists behind the music, there are significant issues that the company fails to acknowledge. In the past, artists would be paid a fixed amount for the album or song based on the price. However, Spotify’s approach is to pay the artist based on their market share and distribution contract, indicating the number of streams associated with the song. What’s Audius? Introducing a decentralized music protocol designed to be artist-controlled and community-owned. This alternative music platform gives everyone involved a piece of the pie including the listeners, artists, and node operators. With notable investors such as Katy Perry, Nas, Steve Aoki, and many more, it's logical to question how this platform differentiates from what we have today. By acknowledging the issues in the music industry, Audius takes a unique approach to entirely remove the middlemen and let artists drive their own profits. By connecting directly to the fans, Audius empowers artists to earn 90% of the sales revenue and decide how they seek to monetize their music. Whether they prefer to offer their content at a one-time fee for unlimited access or sell songs as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). By leveraging a peer-to-peer network and being supported by decentralized node operators, artists can continue to have full ownership of their content. Comparing the two Though both these music platforms enable users to access a wide collection of music and artists to publish music and curate an audience, there are root differences between the two. Starting with Spotify being a leading centralized music streaming platform and Audis a decentralized music streaming protocol. Spotify favors the listeners with unlimited access to a large catalog of music tailored to the user and limits artists to be paid based on the number of streams. With Audius, the artists are favored allowing them to choose how they want to monetize their content. However, Audius fails to provide copyright support due to its missing central authority. Interested to learn more about Web 2 vs. Web 3 companies? Take a look through our articles . 💡 Fellow Spotlight Trustin Yoon - Co-founder of Elysian House Interested to learn about a co-living and community-driven house that has elevated to become one of the most exciting places for builders and enthusiasts in Web3? Or perhaps learn about someone driving the growth at Coda ? Introducing Trustin Yoon, Co-founder of the Elysian House from cohort #7. Trustin’s passion for entrepreneurship, product, and growth has led to various experiences, all of which have continued to provide immense impact in numerous spaces. By recognizing the difficulty of housing and community in a high-tech-driven city, the Elysian House was founded to solve these exact issues. A house that consists of the dopest Gen Z builders in Web3 hosting and collaborating exciting events for individuals of all backgrounds. You’ll also find Trustin heavily active in building, investing, and learning. He’s previously the Founding Partner and current Advisor at the Crescent Fund . Southern California’s 1st student-run Venture Capital fund on a mission to support the most thoughtful, creative, interdisciplinary, diverse, and compassionate student-entrepreneurs. He has also founded web3startupjobs.com , a Web3 hiring platform that was recently acquired. See what Trustin had to say about his experience with the fellowship program 👇 “The RippleX fellowship is the most in-depth education you will get from any founder/VC fellowship!” Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).

🚨 RIPPLEX FELLOWSHIP SPRING 2022 RECRUITMENT 🚨 The RippleX Fellowship program is now recruiting for the Spring 2022 cohort and there are only 7 days left to apply ! Join our community of fellow founders and aspiring venture capitalists, learning about the intricacies of company building and venture capital through hands-on workshops and discussions. Learn more about the program here:  https://bit.ly/3FizHNE Apply here:  https://bit.ly/367uyfp Check out our testimonials here:  https://bit.ly/3qOdnas Applications are due April 8th EST. 🖼 Looking at the Big Picture The golden question you’ll most likely get asked when pitching to an investor - how can you get to $100M ARR? This is because investors are looking to find billion-dollar outcomes. The market has to be large enough in either # of customers, or revenue per customer to get to this scale. It’s what people mean when they say “venture-backable company”. They’re referring to venture-scale market size. This is where you can use these two following strategies to better analyze your market and the potential of your own company. Starting off with the bottoms-up analysis: What is a bottoms-up analysis? It’s showcasing the current or potential demand for a product like yours. Looking at the number of potential end-users as an anchor, usage or purchase rates, and pricing as variables to the equation. How do you calculate bottoms-up market sizes? Start with the number of end-users that will want your product. Figure out how often they will want your product (monthly SaaS fee or they will buy something from you two times a week). Take your pricing structure and find the product of all the variables above. Another approach is to analyze the mega-trend taking place in your market: What is a mega-trend in a market? Being in lock-step with a broad mega-trend is another way that investors get over a seemingly small market. This means that the investor (consciously or not) believes that the mega-trend will either: Drive massive market growth. Drive the new company to have an unusually high market share. The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone and everyone: RippleX Fellowship 📝 Medium vs. Mirror The value of certain elements in Web 3 is difficult to grasp fully right away. We believe that by comparing new Web 3 technology and features to ones in Web 2, we can draw better comparisons, and in turn understand the value proposition of the features people are building in the Web 3 space. We’ll explore content creation platforms across Web 2 and Web 3, more specifically Medium vs Mirror.xyz. Our new “Web 2 vs Web 3” series is where the team at Ripple breaks down the similarities, differences, and impact of similar technologies across Web 2 and Web 3. Ever wondered how you can earn $$$ from the content you post immediately? Let’s talk about it. What’s Medium? When it comes to the gold standard of blogging and writing on the internet, Medium may just be sitting on the throne. The platform enables amateur and professional content creators to broadcast their stories and ideas to the world without any limitation to the content. Medium sits at the top of content creation (blogging/publishing) accounting for 54 million users and well over 100 million visitors per month. Medium currently sits at a $600 million valuation including its last raise of $30 million in November 2021. Its growth had continued to incline over the years with seven notable acquisitions and a global online presence — climbing to monthly traffic of 182 million users between March to August 2021. What’s Mirror.xyz? Let’s pivot to web 3 and introduce Mirror.xyz . This decentralized platform can be considered as a spin-off of Medium, as it provides users with the tool kit to share stories or ideas with their audience. The interesting twist is that it places the creators at the center ensuring that they are the ones profiting from generating content. This nontraditional business model starts off with the users joining the platform with a crypto wallet and opening the doors to: Launch a crowdfund Create NFTs and embed them into popular marketplaces Split up proceeds with collaborators Distribute tokens to their community Comparing the two At the core, it’s clear to recognize that the similarity between the two is their content creation platforms which both enable users to creatively write and share blogging content. However, this would be the limit to any further similarity. Though both platforms provide the user with the ability to create content and build a community, there is a distinction between the two as Mirror.xyz has created several tools to allow users to launch their brand or ideas beyond the content alone. Interested to learn more and possibly creating your own ENS? This was only a taste of the full article and it’s available here . 💡 Fellow Spotlight Mylene Tu - Founder of Trailblaze Tribe What is it like to build an Edtech company? Or perhaps a social enterprise that leverages Web3 and NFTs? Let us introduce you to someone that has taken on both challenges and continues to excel. We are thrilled to introduce Mylene Tu, Founder of Trailblaze Tribe from cohort #8. Trailblaze Tribe is a social enterprise that aims to empower women and girls in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) by supporting their education driven by NFTs. This innovative company seeks to provide holders with scholarship opportunities, research grants, and bootcamp programs while committing to educate and onboard women into Web3. An added bonus is that a portion of all proceeds is donated to organizations leading STEAM education or women's empowerment. Previously, you may have also seen Mylene as the CEO & Co-founder at Lukami Labs. An Edtech startup that built end-to-end internship solutions for companies to bridge into early talent. This includes future-proof talent pipelines from recruitment to onboarding and of course, virtual internship management. This was undoubtedly recognized for various awards and programs, including a feature on FoundersBeta’s 20 Tech Companies to Watch for in 2021 . There’s much more left to Mylene’s story, but don’t worry - we’ve got you covered! Take a peek into her interview on Humans of RippleX to learn about her experiences building Lukami Labs or her various blogs where she takes you through her learnings. See what Mylene said about her experience with the fellowship program 👇 “The RippleX fellowship is unlike any program I've participated in before! As a student founder, it gave me insight into venture capital that other programs often only cover at a high level. I'm thankful for my time in the fellowship as well as the amazing connections I've made.” Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).

🚨 RIPPLEX FELLOWSHIP SPRING 2022 RECRUITMENT 🚨 The RippleX Fellowship program is now recruiting for the Spring 2022 cohort. Join our community of fellow founders and aspiring venture capitalists, learning about the intricacies of company building and venture capital through hands-on workshops and discussions. Learn more about the program here:  https://bit.ly/3FizHNE Apply here:  https://bit.ly/367uyfp Check out our testimonials here:  https://bit.ly/3qOdnas Applications are due April 8th EST. ↕️ Top-Down Analysis When it comes to conducting market research, there are various techniques that can be used and all of which consider various factors to arrive at a similar end result. So which technique should you use to better understand your market? Better yet, let’s dive into a common approach that starts off with the big picture. What is a top-down analysis? A high-level view on how large a market is, or could be. You’ve probably seen this type of analysis in IBIS Reports: “the marketing software industry is $XB” Investors typically look for billion-dollar markets to invest in (or else it’s too hard to get significant traction) How do you calculate top-down market sizes? You can find reports of a “total market spend” in a certain industry, but it’s often vague on how they calculate it and where they get their data from. Then, you dissect that large number into what’s relevant to your company. Other considerations: Geographic expansion: what other geographies can you sell to? Pricing/upsell potential: how can you expand these budgets, tap into others, or increase your price? Market growth: is the customer base you’re going after growing? Expansion to other verticals: what other industries could you sell this into? other departments? Let’s say you’re building a tomato delivery business in the United States. The average household spends $751 on fruits and vegetables every year, for a total of $94.4B spend every year in the US. About 30% of the population (according to the CES) lives in large cities so we’ll assume only 30% of those sales can be served. That reduces our estimate to $28.3B. Also, not all of the fruits and vegetables that are purchased are tomatoes! According to the USDA, only 5% are tomatoes. That reduces our estimate to $1.4B . Of course, not everyone will order their tomatoes on demand! Supermarkets will always have some market share, so we will assume that 20% of households would order their tomatoes on demand if offered. This brings us to $140M . Finally, our business model assumes consumers will buy more tomatoes when they are delivered straight to your door! Our expectation is to grow tomato consumption by 10%. This increases our estimate to $154M . The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone and everyone: RippleX Fellowship 🆔 ENS vs. DNS The value of certain elements in Web 3 is difficult to grasp fully right away. We believe that by comparing new Web 3 technology and features to ones in Web 2, we can draw better comparisons, and in turn understand the value proposition of the features people are building in the Web 3 space. We’ll explore naming systems across Web 2 and Web 3, more specifically ENS and DNS. This new Web 2 vs Web 3 series breaks down the similarities, differences, and impact of similar technologies across Web 2 and Web 3. Ever wondered why everyone on Twitter has a .eth username? Let’s talk about it. What’s DNS? The current domain naming system we use for everyday websites like Facebook or Google is called DNS. Whether you know it or not, everything on the internet has an IP address, from your laptop to the server that hosts information for your favorite website. For example, the IP address of your laptop could be 75.64.23.79 and the IP address of Netflix’s servers might be 216.59.217.165. Your laptop and Netflix’s servers need to know each other’s IP addresses to communicate and share/send information, which is how you’re able to enjoy thousands of shows and movies from your laptop! What’s ENS? Crypto has a very similar problem and solution that’s aiming to improve the experience of being an early crypto user, much like what DNS did for Web 2. In the world of crypto, everyone has a wallet address. Addresses can belong to individual wallets of users like you and me, or they can belong to a company. Addresses look like this “e32fre43f584bnf2784b3”, which is quite hard to type into your laptop or phone, let alone remember. That’s where ENS comes in, the Web3 version of DNS. ENS stands for Ethereum Naming Service, and it helps make crypto addresses on the Ethereum Blockchain a lot easier to remember and type. Instead of remembering that your crypto address is “fn438fb4873bf”, you can instead buy the ENS domain “john.eth” and type that in instead. Why this matters Comparing DNS and ENS is important as it lets us see how important naming services are when it comes to adopting new technology. No one wants to remember an IP address or an alphanumerical crypto wallet address. Interested to learn more and possibly creating your own ENS? This was only a taste of the full article and it’s available here . 💡 Fellow Spotlight Eve Staszczyszyn - Co-Founder at Compass As a student, you may relate to the struggles of feeling overwhelmed, stressed and unclear about the pathways to support available as you navigate your post-secondary education. The tough reality is that this trend is very common among students and campuses all across the world. However, imagine if a solution existed with their sole mission to create a more self-aware, resilient, and connected campus. We’re excited to introduce Eve Staszczyszyn, Co-founder of Compass from cohort #5. Sitting at the intersection of education and wellness technology, this platform serves as a holistic student life solution supporting post-secondary students with access to resources, services, and events driven by personalized recommendations. This is followed by actionable insights directed to post-secondary institutions that aim to optimize their existing systems. Backed by NEXT36 , Queens Centre for Advanced Computing , League of Innovators , and the uOttawa Entrepreneurship Hub , this platform has reached thousands of students and branched across various universities in Canada. Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).

🌎 RippleX Takes On SF Earlier this week, we had an amazing meetup with even more amazing people in SF led by RippleX alumni Naz and Mathu ! We are absolutely thrilled to finally bring together so many great minds in one place and looking forward to hosting even more events in the near future! Interested to host an event in your local city? Please feel free to reach out to Dom or Naz and let’s make it happen! 🌪 Market Dynamics When evaluating a company no matter the spectacular product that you may be building, it’s important to ask the tough questions. Rather than search for them, let us help you navigate these hurdles from the start. Let’s look into the factors that paint a picture of whether or not you’re in a perfect storm. What is so compelling about the market? Why is now the right time to start a business in this market, and what edge do you have in it? Breaking these questions further, here are exactly what you’ll need to consider in market dynamics: Who are the buyers and users? What is the status quo for the end-user today, and how much do they currently spend on that? How much is this problem costing businesses? What does the budget look like for your buyers? Is this going to change at all? Are they looking for a change? Is this a painkiller or vitamin problem? Push vs Pull? Buyers vs. Users Buyers are the ones who you’re selling to – they hold the budget and have the signing authority. Users are the people who will be using the product after the purchase. Sometimes, buyers can be also users (especially if you’re a consumer or bottoms-up SaaS tool). Status Quo What tools are they using today in their day-to-day workflow? Are they happy with them? How much do these tools cost? If you’re looking to replace a tool, how sticky are they (i.e. how hard would it be to leave them?) Cost to Businesses What is your clearly defined problem in the industry, and how much is this costing companies today? Your goal is to figure out an additional data point on “how large is this problem”, which is directly tied to how large your market opportunity is. Budget You can start with general market data, and search for average budgets within the department of your target customer. After getting a good baseline, you should go ask your target customers during interviews how much their team gets allocated to spend on software, what drives that budget, and how it’s changed over the years. Push vs Pull Push Markets: You have to educate the customers on the problem, and why they should care about it. This is a poor market dynamic in most cases because it proves that the problem isn’t that big, to begin with. Pull Markets: You don’t need to educate the customers at all; they know about the problem, they know how much it’s costing their business, and they’re in the market for a solution. The lesson doesn’t stop here, there’s much more to cover! Take a peek into our course accessible to anyone and everyone: RippleX Fellowship 📑 Web 3 Dictionary Let’s be honest, the web 3 space can get very confusing with so many new and different terms to keep up with. Whether you’re just starting off or a vet in the ecosystem, there’s no doubt that you’ll always be learning a new term or concept. Well to get you off your feet or give you a refresher, here is a collection of terminologies that you’ll come across in this space: The Basics Twitter Dictionary The Not So Basics The Basics Blockchain : A shared, immutable ledger that records transactions and tracks digital assets. It’s shared because multiple computers verify transactions instead of just one company. It’s immutable because once a transaction or asset is moved, the record can’t be reversed. Decentralization : An action (i.e. decision making) or an asset (i.e. data) being dispersed across multiple different stakeholders instead of being centered around one group or person. Ledger : A ledger is a record of transactions that you keep track of. Cryptography : The process used to make blockchain transactions secure and private. Twitter Dictionary NFT : Non-fungible token. DAO : Decentralized autonomous organization. Dapp : Decentralized Application ERC: Ethereum request for comment, a standard used for creating and issuing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. Gas Fees : A denomination of crypto that you pay as a transaction fee to miners to verify transactions. The Not So Basics Consensus Mechanisms (PoW, PoS, PoH) : Ways to verify the transactions on blockchain networks. Proof of Work (PoW) = solve problems to verify, Proof o Stake (PoS) = “stake” or put up cryptocurrency coins, Proof of History (PoH) = string together transactions to each other. Hash Rate : Computing power or guesses within a blockchain network. 51% Attacks : Attempting to control 51% of a blockchain network for malicious behavior. Fork — Hard/Soft : A fork is when a blockchain’s code changes. Hard is when nodes can’t agree so 2 blockchains are created, soft is when the code changes from the old to new. Interested to dive into the full list? This was only a taste of the full article and it’s available here . 💡 Fellow Spotlight Jonathan Hsu - Operations at Valence Discovery & Director of Investments at Front Row Ventures Ever imagined that while studying Biochemistry at university that you’d fall in love with startups and venture capital? Perhaps you’ll get a chance to join an incredible student-led team focused on VC investments in Canada’s most promising university founders? Or maybe work at a company building the world's most powerful chemistry engine? We’re delighted to introduce Jonathon Hsu from cohort #7. Currently, you’ll find Jonathan at Valence Discovery supporting Operations and Front Row Ventures as Director of Investments leading a team of 17 associates through various opportunities. Despite having discovered the world of venture without prior experience and limited knowledge, Jonathon’s passion for supporting a community of students, entrepreneurs, and startups is unparalleled. With prior experience working at BMO, CIBC, and EY, Jonathon brings forth a variety of different skills that have allowed him to approach his path with a wide lens. In these past three years with Front Row Ventures, Jonathon has supported various startups to raise funding which you can read, here . At Valence Discovery, he supports the company towards unlocking and empowering drug discovery with AI-enabled drug design. Of course, there’s more to add. You can also learn more about Jonathan on his podcast 'Broaden Your Perspective with Jonny Hsu ’ where he takes you through meaningful conversations with a wide range of interesting leaders in their field. Interested in being featured? Looking to share exciting news? Please reach out to Turja at turja@rippleventures.com. Authored by Turja Chowdhury (Cohort #9).