2023: Turning doubt into success

2023: Turning Doubt into Success

At the SheFi holiday potluck in Brooklyn, I asked our community to reflect on their year. SheFier Sophie Kornick gave me a line that’s stuck with my ever since:

“2023 felt like being thrown around in a washing machine with rocks. But at least I came out shiny.”

The beginning of 2023 was filled with uncertainty for me.

SheFi Summit was just a concept, my cloud computing venture W3BCLOUD was unraveling, and the crypto market was deep in a prolonged bear market.

I had doubts about SheFi’s future, especially amidst the prevailing negative sentiment around crypto. When I mentioned SheFi to strangers, their typical response was, “Crypto is still around?”

Questions like whether our seasons would attract sign-ups or if our SheFi Summits would draw crowds loomed in the back of my mind throughout the year. Yet, my deep belief in SheFi's mission and our vibrant community kept me motivated and moving forward.

A particularly challenging moment came just before our inaugural SheFi Summit in Paris. About a month prior, I started to worry that no one would show up. Sleepless nights and stressful days ensued as I obsessively monitored ticket sales and did everything in my power to spread the word.

I was nagged by doubt.

“What was I thinking? A conference in Europe during a bear market? How will my sponsors react if no one comes? Will I get speakers I admire?” Meanwhile, the situation with W3BCLOUD was deteriorating.

On the morning of the Summit, I was too nervous to watch the attendees arrive to the event. I sat backstage, rehearsing my speech and calming myself down. I’ll never forget the moment I stepped onto the stage to a room full of enthusiastic women.

I felt an overwhelming mix of relief, joy, and a triumphant “f*ck yeah!” I was elated and immensely grateful to everyone who contributed to the event's massive success.

This honest reflection on the past year is a reminder to you and me that nothing is certain, and life often surprises us. Take it from my experience with W3BCLOUD, a company I co-founded five years ago, dedicated immense effort to, and was on the brink of going public.

W3BCLOUD shut down on my birthday this August. It failed. Yet, in the same week, PayPal stepped in to sponsor SheFi. A win.

If you're harboring doubts about crypto, questioning the longevity of this industry, or your place in it, know that you're not alone. I can't promise what the future holds, but I can assure you that perseverance and investing in your beliefs can lead to remarkable outcomes. Often, things turn out not just okay, but incredibly, unimaginably well.

Despite the challenges of a bear market, we've had incredible growth, achieved significant milestones, and embraced bold experiments. This year has been nothing short of exceptional, and I am grateful to all of our sponsors, community members, and supporters for your unwavering belief, generous support, and active participation in our journey. Below are some highlights from this year:

Expanding Our Reach

• Our membership soared to 2,200 members from over 50 countries

• Over 1,000 female and non-binary individuals enrolled in SheFi courses

Educational Initiatives

• Successfully conducted SheFi Seasons 8 & 9

• Taught a corporate course at Fidelity Center For Applied Technology

• Awarded 667 scholarships

Strategic Partnerships

• Collaborated with sponsors Polygon, PayPal, ENS DAO, Obol, and Tally for content creation and scholarships

Curriculum Enhancements

• Launched new courses "I Wanna DAO With Somebody" (Governance), "AI Will Survive" (Artificial Intelligence), and “Socially Devoted To You” (Decentralized Social)

• Introduced new content across various courses, including “What’s Dai Got To Do With It featuring PayPal’s PYUSD” (Stablecoins) "Squad Staking with DVT" (Staking) and "Ethereum’s Glow Ups with Polygon’s PoS Chain” (Scaling)

• Hosted a hands-on workshop with Obol, where we staked through Distributed Validator Technology 

Global Events and Community Engagement

Hosted two SheFi Summits 

• 🇫🇷 SheFi Summit Paris with 300+ attendees

  • Sponsors: Lens, Layer Zero, ALEO, MetaMask, NEAR, 0x, Vega Protocol, Zerion, Chainsafe, Akash, XMTP, TokenProof and ensō.

• 🇹🇷 SheFi Summit Istanbul with 200+ attendees

  • Sponsors: PayPal, Lens Protocol, Tachyon, Zerion Wallet, WalletConnect, RARI Foundation, Token Proof and ensō.

Hosted an additional three SheFi events at major conferences: 

• ETHDenver: sponsored by Chainlink, Alongside, thirdweb, Delta Fund, ChainSafe

• Consensus: sponsored by Cega, Akash, Shardeum, Umoja

• Web3Lagos in partnership with Optimism

Launched two community funding initiatives on the Gitcoin Grants stack:

• Round 1 in partnership with Gitcoin: 22 projects received funding from a 5 ETH Matching Pool

• Round 2 in partnership with Octant: Applications open and funding launches in January, learn more here (deadline is 12/27 not 12/17)

Created our Chapter Lead Program to empower our community:

• 26 Chapter Leads across the globe hosted events for the SheFi community in London, Paris, NYC, Los Angeles, Denver, Washington DC, Austin, UAE, Lagos, Mexico City, Lisbon, Chicago

Started Technical and Investment Clubs to deep dives on interest areas:

• Technical Club hosted 18 sessions - led by Aya

• Investment Club hosted 11 sessions - led by Radar and Ncheta

Hosted 14 virtual guest speakers on a range of critical topics, including:

• Industry leaders like Gloria Kimbwala of Gitcoin, Rebecca Rettig of Polygon, and Gabriel Anderson of Tachyon

Launched two NFT collections for our members

• Membership NFTS

• RoboNova NFTs

While I can't predict what 2024 has in store, I'm excited to take more risks and explore new horizons for SheFi. We are eager to expand our Summit Series globally and launch an engagement platform to reward our community's active participation. Additionally, we're exploring an ambassadors program to deepen connections and spread our core values, and we're innovating ways to enhance peer-to-peer learning in our virtual spaces. This forward momentum reflects our commitment to growth and adaptability in the ever-evolving landscape of frontier industries.

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