doradao 1.0 · the og cohortGirls Who Yap — Fellowship 1.0
We thought it would be small. It wasn't.
A 4-week summer cohort for creators · designers · builders. Built from a laptop, a crazy idea and 40+ tabs open at 2 AM. What followed was a global creator community that taught us how culture really gets built — one unscalable step at a time.
What hosting Fellowship 1.0 actually shipped
Receipts > promises. Every number below came from real humans showing up, not from ad spend or bots.
Idea → live program in under 2 hrs of Canva
Community partners across 4 continents
LinkedIn impressions on launch day
WhatsApp messages in the first 3 hours
Live sessions + challenges completed
Avg concurrent live viewers · 800+ with replays
Hackathon projects · 100+ builders in teams of 3+
Public votes · 600 in 12 hours · 200 in first 2 hrs
Bounty pool distributed in week 4
Svastrix · ExitScript · LegalVault
Followers across LinkedIn · IG · X in 10 days
Redefining the Web3 on-ramp
The crypto world is a rapidly evolving frontier — often perceived as complex, gatekept and inaccessible, especially for women. Traditional "CT" narratives are overwhelming and speculation-heavy.
GWY Fellowship 1.0 was our answer — demystifying Web3 through its practical applications, real impact and the unparalleled career & entrepreneurial opportunities that come with it.
The gap we were filling
- ◆ Women make up <25% of the Web3 user base.
- ◆ Most onboarding is dev-heavy and gatekept.
- ◆ Consumer apps & GameFi hold the real adoption power.
- ◆ Too technical, too transactional, or too niche.
- ◆ A content gap for street-style, creator-led exploration.
Community + tools + vibe.
Building a program from scratch
No fancy team, no pre-set playbook — just messy Google Docs, late-night ideas and one big why.
Get the why, what & how right
Played with ChatGPT and Gemini to refine the idea. We didn't want to just launch — we wanted to design an experience. Summer vibes. A calm, fun, aesthetic gateway for Web2 → Web3.
Design the program
Sketched iterations until one stood out — a beachy, relaxed summer theme. Fun, expressive, light. Built for women, creators and community builders.
Build the website in Canva
Skipped Figma, Framer and no-code. Canva. Needed something good-looking in under 2 hours, not 2 days.
Set up socials, separately
For experimental programs, build distinct social accounts. Use your existing community to back it up later — don't mix early.
Application form + sponsorship deck
Luma / Google Form / Typeform. Drafted a first deck (it changed 20+ times). Don't chase perfection — get something solid enough to start conversations.
The TAG method for distribution
Tags: Girls · Women · Web3 · Creators · Influencers · Podcasters. Combined tags to find communities — SheFi, Women Who Code, Women in Web3. Result: 45+ partners across 4 continents.
A laptop, a crazy idea & 40+ tabs open
LinkedIn impressions spiked to 8k on day one. Selection mails rolled out in batches with shareable badges — the community spread the word for us.
Opened 10 days before selections — for everyone, fellow or not. 2k+ messages in the first 3 hours. Latest chat: 3 AM.
Day one was a technical mess. We pivoted to LinkedIn Live (30 min delay 😅), traded exclusivity for reach — and flipped it into FOMO.
Receipts from the cohort
Screens, sessions, side-quests. The fun parts you only see if you were inside.
27 projects · 100 builders · 822 votes
Build something real, then drive actual traction. We added a public voting round for the 3rd spot — almost 600 votes rolled in within 12 hours. Poll dropped at 10 PM IST; 200+ votes in the first 2 hours.
A living, breathing hub for safety, growth & sisterhood — SOS, community support, daily empowerment & a curated library for women and non-binary folks.
Team: Khushi · Anushka · Antra · Parineeta
AI-powered excuse generator, simulated calls and instant messaging — for leaving awkward or unsafe situations on your own terms.
Team: Anika · Azzah · Durdana · Anugya · Yashita · Kirti
Tackling centralised storage problems and verification of public legal documents — built around integrity, transparency & accessibility.
Team: Khushi · Eman · Nandani · Astha
The dip & the comeback
Two sessions in, viewership dipped to 50–60. Instead of guessing, we DM'd people directly. 50+ replied — honestly, openly. That one shift took peak viewership back to 150+ and wrapped all 9 sessions + 2 challenges with real momentum.
The bounty week
A $1,000 prize pool dropped to make the community thrilling to participate in — create, share, build, help. Every yap counted. The louder (and smarter) you yapped, the more you won.
Whatever you're building — people take it seriously, way more than you expect.
Cohort 2.0 is open
The OG cohort built the playbook. Now we're scaling the culture — apply to Fellowship 2.0 or bring it to your city.