We are a small team with a diverse skillset including design, engineering, community growth, and operations. We serve as a product accelerator, facilitating solutions to real-world problems with advanced blockchain technology.

We actively seek opportunities to collaborate with market-validated, early-stage projects that align with our core values:

We envision an internet that is truly democratic, where control and decision-making power is distributed across a diverse and inclusive ecosystem of users. We work to dismantle the current hegemony of big corporations over the internet, and replace it with a decentralized system where people are the rightful custodians of their own digital lives.

We believe in the power of open source to foster innovation, collaboration, and transparency. Open source is not just a development model; it's a commitment to creating an ecosystem where ideas can be shared and improved upon, benefiting everyone involved. We work to build an inclusive and accessible world where everyone has the chance to contribute and thrive. Our aim is to demolish barriers to success, making technology a lever for equality.

Pollen Labs is committed to developing and promoting technologies that serve as public goods, prioritizing the wellbeing of society as a whole over the profits of a select few. By creating open-source tools and platforms that are freely accessible, we democratize access to advanced technologies and ensure that their benefits are shared equitably. We are committed to creating sustainable and responsible solutions that benefit the economy, society, and the environment. We are mindful of our impact and strive towards a more sustainable future.

Reflecting our deep respect for the individual, we prioritize privacy at every level of our work. We design our products and services to protect users' information, and their right to control their personal data. By advancing the adoption of cutting-edge cryptographic solutions, we aim to make privacy-by-default the new normal.

True innovation stems from collaboration. We believe in the power of communities and their ability to drive innovation, creativity, and collective action. However, technological advancements must be purposeful and aligned with the broader goal of improving people’s daily lives. We cultivate a culture of cooperation to promote innovations that have tangible and meaningful impact on the lives of individuals and communities around the world.

Pollen Labs accelerates the development and adoption of emergent public goods by making connections across the Ethereum ecosystem, facilitating cross-team collaborations, and providing the specific design / technical support that teams need to launch their projects.

Our mission is to:

• real-world problems ←→ cryptographic solutions
• subject matter experts ←→ essential blockchain tools and technical expertise

• encourage open contribution from diverse sources to drive innovation
• invite and integrate perspective from internal ecosystem and external specialists
• cultivate inclusivity to maximize collective impact

• provide tailored development support according to each project’s needs:
  • product design / architecture workshopping
  • FE / BE implementation
  • blockchain integrations
  • devOps
  • product awareness / community growth
• ensure that teams are empowered to continue independently after collaboration timeframe

The Pollen Labs core team is continuously engaged with multiple emerging projects at various stages of development. The following outlines our workflow for each collaboration:

We look for opportunities to parter with founders who are subject matter experts in their respective fields, able to demonstrate both a deep understanding of their target market’s unique cultural and geographic circumstances AND their project’s potential to benefit the public good. Founders may be introduced to us through the EF’s Next Billion Fellowship program, PSE grant program, or other ecosystem partners. Pollen Labs core team then invites select founders to present their projects and discuss potential collaboration. After this initial meeting, we conduct an internal evaluation process to assess the alignment of:

• project’s values ←→ Pollen Labs core values (as detailed above)
• project support requirements ←→ Pollen Labs current support bandwidth

Ideally-aligned projects are invited to further explore collaborative partnership.

We engage in an iterative process of architecture / design workshopping to refine the project’s goals and support needs. During this stage we reach out to ecosystem partners to explore the integration of supporting technologies. Calls are made to engage outside contributors, and all are encouraged to participate in subsequent workshops and weekly meetings. The scope of technical support, collaboration timeline, milestones, and overall expected outcome are determined by consensus of all parties, and is established before development proceeds.

Each step of our build process is taken with the intent to help founders achieve the initial launch of their product. Careful consideration is given to ensure that project teams have the tools and understanding needed to maintain their product independently when our collaboration timeline ends. Founders are actively engaged throughout the entire build process, participating in:

• continuous async communication via the Pollen Labs discord server
• weekly meetings to track progress and address emerging challenges
• ongoing documentation of relevant issues, task assignments, and progress
• periodic post-partnership check-ins to support project’s continued success

At the close of each partnership, we invite all contributors to participate in a retrospective workshopping session to gather insight into what worked well, what didn’t, and how we can improve. Case studies are produced from each project collaboration, documenting the challenges faced and the creative and technical efforts undertaken to propel the project to its successful launch.

We continuously integrate these learnings to refine our collaborative workflows and advance our mission to drive positive impact.

• Pollen Labs is a subgroup of Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE), an Ethereum Foundation supported research and development lab dedicated to testing use cases for cryptographic primitives.
• We are a team that helps others to succeed; we are not an “addition” but a subtraction.
• We function as low-key builders so others can focus on the partners instead of us.
• We are modest but bold and ready to take on challenges.
• We are open and know the power of collaboration & diversity.