來自新加坡、AW#18 的 Botbot.AI共同創辦人暨 CEO Chelsea 沈嘉敏則有另一番體悟。Botbot.AI 以 AI 技術，透過會話界面將工作流程自動化，提供企業各式提高員工生產力的解決方案。Chelsea 分享，女性創業者常在大眾不自覺狀態下，因性別刻板印象，遭受更多下意識的批判。
Airbnb 的創辦人兼執行長 Brian Chesky 曾經說過：「你應該讓 100 個人死心塌地瘋狂愛上你，而不是讓 100 萬人好像有點喜歡你。」(It’s better to have 100 people love you than a million people that
sort of like you.) 只要解決這群死心踏地用戶的問題，就算產品不是最完美、創業也已經跨出成功的一大步了。
2. 將程式放手給夥伴負責，專注在更長遠的策略性思考
身為創業者，與工程師最大的不同，就是永遠有比寫程式更重要的事。AW#8 校友、提供房地資訊的 Foundi 房地 創辦人 Andy 鄭依桓就分享，剛開始創業時，若開會一整天沒有寫程式，就讓他覺得自己今天沒有生產力，所以就算下班回家，也會想辦法再多寫幾個小時的程式。
但創業幾年後，他開始明白，身為公司 CEO，必須聚焦在那些只有 CEO 能做，而無法假手他人的重要工作。所以他現在很少在寫程式，把絕大多數的時間，花在思考公司的未來策略與方向、和利害關係人及團隊成員溝通，將目光放在未來的道路，而不再是眼前的程式。
厲害的軟體工程師成為 CEO 後，遇到的最大挑戰之一，就是無法不寫程式、也無法忍受寫得不好的程式。尤其是創業初期，難以用高薪找人才，通常會採用實務經驗比較少、但是有潛力的年輕人。
儘管大環境如此，AppWorks
School 過去三年多來，仍遇到不少申請者，很擔心自己沒有相關的學經歷、從我們的 16 週免費程式課程畢業後，無法跟本科系的人競爭，因此遲遲不敢踏上軟體工程師的新職涯。因此，我們想從實際的觀察中，分享我們看到轉職者具有的優勢，幫助更多人勇於做出選擇，早日成為心目中的軟體工程師：
以 AppWorks School Front-End Class #1 的學員
Peter 潘國育為例，政大企管系畢業後，有兩年分別在行銷與專案管理的相關經歷，在工作中需要大量與人溝通、協助策劃與執行，也隨之建立起核心技能。在
AppWorks School 中，我們就感受到他能良好地與同學、導師互動，充分表達自己的問題與人交流，也能夠自己規劃進度並確實達成。最終在結業之際，他第一時間就拿到了超過當年度校友平均的
Offer，也較市場上的本科新鮮人高出
10% 以上，最後選擇加入 OTT 影音串流科技公司 KKStream，擔任前端工程師。
最後，還有一種轉職者的優勢，是結合原有的專業知識，成為稀有的跨域新品種。以曾與
AppWorks School 合作招募軟體人才的新創企業為例，就不乏想招募具備財務會計背景，又具有軟體開發能力的人才，來協助內部建制財務系統；也有醫療領域新創，在招募工程師時，特別偏好具備生醫背景的成員。這些「混血兒」在軟體開發過程中，會更貼近使用者的需求與想法，並扮演用戶與工程師溝通的橋樑，使得產品開發更加順暢。
AppWorks School 第五屆的校友 SuSu 梁殊維，過去曾在會計師事務所磨練，隨後也曾在大型企業擔任過主辦會計，因為想投入自動化工作相關領域而決定轉換跑道。過去紮實的財會經驗，讓她在結業之際，受到當時快速成長，急需建置內部系統的旅遊體驗平台
KKday 力邀，希望由她來主導財務系統開發。
Dapper Labs, the company behind CryptoKitties and upcoming projects such as NBA Top Shot, today announced $11M in funding and the development of Flow, a new blockchain built to enable decentralized applications at scale in gaming, culture and entertainment.
The largest investor in the round was Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund, with participation from new investors Accomplice, Taiwan’s AppWorks, Autonomous Partners, and Warner Music Group, as well as existing investors Union Square Ventures, Venrock, Digital Currency Group, Animoca Brands, SV Angel, Version One, and CoinFund, among others. Angel investors who participated in this round included Don Mattrick, William Mougayar, James and Glenn Hutchins, Don Mattrick, and Nanon de Gaspe Beaubien-Mattrick.
“For consumers to embrace crypto, we need to stop approaching it as an emerging technology and instead give people products they can use every day,” said Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs. “After two years of research, we’re excited to unveil Flow, a new blockchain built to support entire ecosystems of apps and games without compromising the values of decentralization. Bitcoin and Ethereum show how crypto can make the world of finance more open and transparent; Flow will do the same for consumers of entertainment and culture.”
With this investment round, Dapper Labs joins forces with the largest accelerator in Asia to introduce important global blockchain technology to the region and engage in AppWorks’ extensive developer community in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
Flow is a global network designed to meet the needs of DApp’s massive expansion, so Asia’s market potential cannot be ignored, says Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou.
“Asia has many of the world’s leading consumer technology and game developers, and we want to ensure that Flow meets their needs. Choosing to work with AppWorks not only complies with our long-term vision, it also helps us participate in the huge startup and partner community that is part of Asia’s largest startup accelerator.”
Jessica Liu, the partner at AppWorks who led the team’s investment, pointed out that entertainment and gaming has nearly always brought early adopters to new technologies. The same principle applies to the current development of blockchain. Asia, she says, is the perfect market for a solid team like Dapper Labs to lead this transformation.
She says, “We believe that with their methodical approach to blockchain gaming and entertainment development, Dapper Labs will be the best team to push forward new applications for gaming and entertainment on blockchain. They have the best shot at being able to utilize decentralisation in this environment to lower the costs of generating scale and user acquisition in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.”
Some of the types of experiences Flow will support include: artists or bands using crypto tokens to give music lovers unprecedented new ways to show their fandom; games that reward players for adding value and enable interoperability with assets and identities that users can take across environments; or platforms for sports fans around the world to trade verified, authentic, limited-edition digital memorabilia in real-time. The company will begin its first partnerships with Ubisoft and Warner Music.
“Warner Music is always searching for new opportunities for our artists and has dedicated itself to exploring emerging technologies to enable these,” said Jeff Bronikowski, SVP, Global Digital Business Development and Head of Innovation and Emerging Technology at Warner Music Group. “When we met with Dapper Labs, they immediately understood our vision so we sought to solidify the partnership through this strategic investment. We are thrilled to be part of their next phase of innovation, and look forward to working alongside them to help identify and capitalize on ground-breaking technologies on our artists’ behalf.”
In addition to the new investment, Dapper Labs is announcing partnerships with leading entertainment publishers to ensure Flow is ready for enterprise-scale use-cases. Ubisoft, well known for developing games like Far Cry, Just Dance and Assassin’s Creed, is advising on Flow, providing valuable industry feedback.
Flow was designed by Dieter Shirley, CTO of Dapper Labs and the technical mind behind CryptoKitties and Ethereum’s ERC-721 standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). “The architecture for Flow was inspired by modern CPUs.” Shirley said. “Flow pipelines the work of running a blockchain across four different node types, instead of following the typical approach of requiring all nodes, or ‘miners’, to do everything. This lets us maintain the decentralization needed to make the network trustworthy while achieving the kind of scale needed to serve billions of users.”
“An internet governed by open, trustworthy services has only recently become possible, thanks to advances in blockchain and cryptocurrencies.” said Chris Dixon, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “With Flow, the Dapper Labs team has developed a solution to the problem of scalability without losing decentralization or sharding the network. This means a better environment for application developers and ultimately more network effects that benefit consumers.”
Flow will launch in 2020, in time to support many of the company’s large-scale, consumer-facing entertainment, music, and gaming projects in the works. For more information about Flow, please visit www.buildwithflow.com.
About Dapper Labs
Formed in February 2018, Dapper Labs mission is to make the world more open and trustworthy by introducing consumers to the value of blockchain technology through fun and games. Dapper Labs is the team behind CryptoKitties, one of the first and most successful blockchain applications outside of cryptocurrency, and Dapper, the world’s first publicly available smart wallet. Upcoming Dapper Labs projects include Cheeze Wizards, the world’s first blockchain-based battle royale, NBA Top Shot, a platform created in partnership with the NBA and NBPA, and Flow, a consumer-based blockchain for decentralized applications. With over $40M in financing, notable investors in Dapper Labs include Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Venrock, GV (formerly known as Google Ventures), and the founders of Dreamworks, Reddit, Coinbase, Zynga, and AngelList, among others. For more information on Dapper Labs, visit www.dapperlabs.com.
