Sometimes, it’s my fault

A lot of you have been asking about the Web3 bootcamp lately. 

Last Black Friday, we launched it and over 500 students went through that program. 

Creating it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done mentally. 

Solidity is technical, and the goal was to explain it in a way so that anyone could learn how to write their own smart contract, and eventually… their own application. 

I believe we achieved that - it was so amazing to see the dApps people built by week 8!

Buuuut…. Why am I sending this email?

Round 2

That brings us to the mysterious Cohort 2. 

Cohort 2 was supposed to go swimmingly. This time, I wasn’t going to be producing the videos, and we were going to reorganize the whole curriculum to include more topics and go more in-depth. I hired 2 community members from Cohort 1 who were really active in the community (commonly answering questions) to outline, record, and edit (just like I did).  

Very long story short, I paid them completely before the 60 video lessons were created, and I also didn’t communicate with them well. In my mind, I was like “I’ll just pay them, they’ll create it, and then I can open the doors again”. 

Well, I have almost a decade of experience producing content. I know how to efficiently edit videos, how to explain things well, and feel confident on “camera”. (Tbh, that felt very boasty writing…)

They did a great job, but what they created didn’t compare to my decade of experience for their first try. Along with that, I didn’t look at week 1 and give them feedback… I just said “Yeah, that’ll do” as I focused on other projects, and so they kept working. 

Where did I go wrong?

A good manager would've given them specific feedback on how to improve. These were supposed to be very high quality videos that we were selling for a premium - the customers should love them! It’s also worth noting that I don’t think that these videos were bad, they just weren’t AMAZING. You know what I mean?

After 6 weeks of content was produced, I knew what I had to do. I had to have a heart to heart, explain that it was my fault for not quality checking the content, for putting so much on their plate without expectations, and for not being more involved.

And that’s what I did. 

Well, shoot. Back to the drawing board. Cohort 1 is outdated now. Cohort 2 is half done and not as good as Cohort 1. People are actively emailing me that they still want to join. What do I do?

I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. 

Cohort 1 Revisited

Soon, I’m going to reopen the doors to the 12 weeks of content that I created for Cohort 1, however, there will be a BIG disclaimer. 

The disclaimer is: 

1. The content is 1 year old

2. There is no active support

It’ll probably be next week when the doors reopen, and then… depending on how many people rejoin, I’ll consider creating Cohort 3 myself in early 2024. Every new and previous member will get free access if I create Cohort 3. 

I’ll re-record the lessons I made with even more Solidity experience, updated content, and the feedback from the original cohort.

Plus, I’ll rehire the 2 community members as support (they were amazing at quickly answering questions). 

I learned a huge lesson here about being an entrepreneurial manager. I can’t just pay people and expect them to deliver what I want. I have to first set very clear expectations, check in early and often, and be honest about what’s best for the customer. For you. 

That’s why you haven’t heard much about Cohort 2, and it’s why the Web3 bootcamp has been unavailable for literally the last 365 days. 

Anyways, I thought you deserved an explanation and a notice for the short reopening soon.

Hope you’re doing well :)

- Theodore