3 weeks ago, I became a father to what I think is the cutest creature on this planet. And, because I was tied up in parenthood duties over the course of the last couple months, I had somewhat checked out of things at FBI.
During that period- we went live with FBI’s Africa chapter, rebranded to Farcaster Builders International, planned events across geographies including a kickass Farcaster Friday with Ted in Bangalore, did a 2 week hackathon with Moxie, completed Based Games with top tier Farcaster partners, planned a hackathon with Base, hired a community manager for FBI Africa, and so much more.
A big reason for accomplishing so much in such a little time frame, despite my absence in driving things, was self motivated people just pushing the collective forward.
The core team- Akhil and Pratzy. Africa chief- Yele. Forever love - Rahul.
And FBI rookies- Sage, Ahaan, Sumedha, Shruti, FBI intern, Shubham, Aditya, Piyush, Samuel, Gayatri, Vaishak, Avinash, Satvik, Utkarsh and so many others.
This time and space has allowed me to think deeply about our work at FBI so far and the direction I think we should take going forward.
Before I dive into what’s next, let me share some quick context on how FBI has operated so far-
FBI is run by a core team comprising Akhil, Pratzy, and yours truly. We have 3 key tenets- programs, community, and FBI labs.
(i). Programs- Avenues for builders to build cool shit onchain, build global credibility and reputation, and opportunities to win prizes.
(ii). Community- Chill URL and IRL spaces for builders to feel connected and find a deeper sense of meaning
(ii). Labs- Incubate products and provide development services to clients
All three tenets worked beautifully from an org viewpoint, programs helped us build credibility for FBI, community spaces ensured we’d builder capital and ecosystem mindshare that led to FBI labs getting business. Money we made, we pumped back into programs and community.
Here’s the tricky part though. After a certain scale, you have to take a call on what your focus is. Are you an ecosystem play or are you a services business disguised as an ecosystem play?
For us that answer was a no-brainer. We didn’t start FBI with a large vision. It just was a simple let’s build cool shit and have fun in the process. Programs, community, labs etc all that structure came much later.
While services have allowed us independence from a fund pov and the ability to do whatever we feel like, it has come at a cost.
There’s inherent conflict at play with being a community of developers and also running a side development vertical where the core idea is to maximize profit.
So, here’s what we’re doing to becoming a pure ecosystem play-
Involve the community: Create more spaces and avenues for folks to contribute to our work and get rewarded for it.
Go global: Take the FBI playbook and what has worked in India from a culture and value standpoint and build based communities across the globe.
Move away from services: Clients we’re working with, developers will take those projects and conversations forward.
The new roadmap of Farcaster Builders International, would be to continue growing the Farcaster and Base ecosystems by creating spaces and avenues for builders globally to contribute to and learn from.
So it’s lighter on our finances, we will step away from a full-time FBI scene to being core contributors at FBI.
If you’re a builder and want to work closely with FBI, reach out to our sherpa Akhil and find ways to work together.
There’s a lot to be done, and it is still day 203.
