B Labs - S7 Grants Request

Grants/Funding
1

Bildschirm­foto 2023-03-06 um 11.23.10 PM
Bildschirm­foto 2023-03-06 um 11.23.10 PM1920×1079 57.7 KB

Project Champion & Project Manager: senad.eth :black_flag:#8782 & Bananachain :black_flag:(Nanner) #6171
Squad: Shaun/dancingpenguin.eth#2590, Jasu#9801, Hangout#2698, Abidemi#2953, cryptodad :black_flag:#5814, raybankless.eth :black_flag:#7390, McEal#0001
Purpose: for-profit
Affiliation: Project Management, Writers, Research
Authors; Editors: senad.eth :black_flag:#8782, Bananachain :black_flag:(Nanner) #6171
Date created: Oct 17th, 2022
Date posted: Mar 6th, 2023
Funds requested: 522.000 BANK
Project wallet(s): 0x2Ec31d709ECE9449EB57039BE05B023559bF3CB6
 Own subDAO/Discord server: n/a

PROJECT TEASER

B Labs is a decentralised, for-profit project providing research, analysis and advisory services on crypto native and related topics for clients native to or interested in entering and engaging with Web3.

SUMMARY

Project Description

We are a web3-native project offering data-driven and evidence-based research to customers active or interested in the space. Our goal is to provide research insights for informed decision making by drafting research reports, as well as providing advisory services and data analysis.

Past/preparatory activities

Enclosed the summary of our S6 activities:

…governance & operations:

…finance:

  • supervised the creation of global and project accounting and reporting templates
  • created a project payment flow chart
  • established and updated budget
  • established a economic grant health calculator
  • developed and maintains project budget and transaction ledger
  • organised project wide Coordinape rounds for S5 & S6
  • supervised payments from parcel

…marketing/branding/development/UI:UX

…product/research/grants

RETROSPECTIVE

Findings:

Spreading responsibilities and salaries:

  • S6: 4 roles = 460,000 BANK
  • S7: 9 roles = 372,000 BANK

→ We reduce expenses, increase efficiency and increase ownership → more delegation & decentralisation.

Increased our offering:

  • S6: Research reports & journals
  • S7: Research reports & journals, advisory services & data analysis

→ We increased our offerings → more opportunities to offer research services to clients native to or interested in entering and engaging with web3.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

Project Breakdown

B Labs team members, consisting of project champion, project manager, workstream leads & contributors shall be compensated as per Working Agreement. Project champion (1) and project manager (1) will each receive 20k BANK/month as role holder salary. Workstream leads’ activities (7) will be compensated based on 12k BANK/month to be distributed via Coordinape. Project champion and project manager can also take up team lead responsibilities and will be compensated accordingly for this role. Contributors will be compensated by a designated Coordinape. Bounties are available to any B Labs member and external contributor. Team members will be compensated using incentive structures and/or Coordinape as a default option where applicable. Role holder salaries, as well as Coordinape rounds, will be paid/conducted on a monthly basis.

Compensation Breakdown

Details TOTAL S7 (BANK)
Project Champion 60,000
Project Manager 60,000
Workstream Leads Coordinape 252,000
Contributor Coordinape/Bounties 150,000
TOTAL S7 (BANK) 522,000

Legacy budget obligations S6:

Details TOTAL (BANK)
Current BANK wallet balance 431.666
Earmarked during S6 into S7:
Roleholder (last payment) 120,000
Content - CC Working Group 130,500
Customer - CPR Working Group 120,000
TOTAL upcoming 370,500
Sub-total 61,166
Also: misc. outstanding bounties (hours tbd) ~10,000 - 20,000

SEASONAL KPI

Factor KPI Success Metric
Grants # of grants received #≥1
Clients # of pitches performed #≥4

COMMITMENTS

B Labs is committed to adding utility to BanklessDAO. To this effect B Labs wants to explore a partnership with Bankless Academy to create courses (Training Programs w/certificates) for developing & vetting research talent for B Labs and the broader community.

BRANDING

Similar to other projects we may decide to use the BanklessDAO name and logo as a submark identifier where deemed appropriate, however not as our only or primary brand identity.

FURTHER PROJECT CHANNELS

How do we feel about approving this grant?

  • No objections to proposal
  • I object to proposal
  • I have questions before I can vote

0 voters

5 Likes
2

@senad.eth Thanks for putting this proposal up. I will start with just a couple of questions - I see this is titles Season 7 funding. This proposal would be going in front of GC for Funding, not season 7 funding, correct?
Also, what you have written for Retrospective does not include what is listed on the template that you have created:
RETROSPECTIVE

(For projects which have received funding: Have you conducted a retrospective of the previous season? Findings could be e.g. proof of concept, securing any clients or grants, any products produced and/or sold, project infrastructure built, a project market fit, a proof of concept, a competitor analysis)

3

Hi sprinkles, please follow the retrospective link under “governance and operations”, go to S6 retrospective, press open, then open the doc link.

4

I do not have access to this notion page. Perhaps a good spot for the retrospective link would be in the section titled Retrospective (said with :heart:) Any response in regards to my question, as it looks as though this proposal is for season 7 funding.

1 Like
6

Just checked - you should have access to the Notion page now.

The rational is, that the title is used for the entity whereas the link is used for the team. But agreed, the title would have probably been more fitting. But the retrospective is there.

7

Can you describe what makes your organization decentralized? and can you describe how you have increased ownership? what is there to own in Blabs?

I was mainly looking to find information on the amount of grant funding that you have brought in each season but don’t see it?

1 Like
8

Thanks @Bananachain. I will take a look. The Projects template also includes the section: mission and values alignment. Am I missing that here?

9

That is interesting because I cannot find this in the project template, can you point it out to me please: Project Funding Template

10

What have you found your biggest obstacle in acquiring grants have been? Since the service is quite clear wondering why there aren’t any further funded work to show? How much is the research grant from Quadrants for? As per the email, it looks like a partnership rather than a grant because the amount wasn’t included.
Considering your service is straightforward it seems like a lot of the funding has gone more to building the project/bureaucracy than research. Have you a funnel to attract and gain more qualified researchers? How has that engagement been going? How many do you have?

And as you always ask what is your path to financial sustainability?

3 Likes
11

Hi ernest, we aim to delegate as much responsibility as possible to any member able and willing to take up. There is ownership in the common goal of forming a viable entity. We have received grant funding from bDAO, but have not secured third party funding so far, though have started generating promissing leads.

1 Like
12

I guess it must have been removed. It was previously there. I guess it just remains on the Department template now. I guess we will have to make sure that it gets in the template, as it is the mandate of GC to fund projects that align with the mission and values of BanklessDAO.

2 Likes
13

Hi feems, long time no see, hope your project is going well! Quadrans is a grant that is currently being reviewed by its board which has not reached a decision yet other than that they expressed interest. On the surface things may look simple, but identifying and defining the details is the challenge. Bit by bit we are working our way down the list and are actually very happy with the progress we have made. We are very lucky to have excellent talent in our midst so we are not concerned. Once we scale, we know how to retain further talent. Nice you bring up the question of financial sustainability which is probably the most simple to answer: once we gain traction. Feedback has been surprisingly positive for what we are striving to offer. But, as with any other project that I have seen here on bDAO, before we can attain this traction we require funding to cover our runway to be able to pay our highly committed and motivated team of bDAO members, some of which only joined recently thanks to onboarding with B Labs.

3 Likes
14

Maybe a KPI can also be info sessions (like speaking engagements as blab rep) or Twitter spaces? Just so that you’re maximizing your awareness using network channels and social media. Might help

2 Likes
15

Thanks for the Proposalđź’Ż

On commitment - Your commitment lacks commitment🤔?
For a project that is profit oriented, I would have thought your commitment would have more weight to it. e.g, affecting treasury directly whether that’s through claw back or buy-back in some form. I fail to see how partnering with Bankless Academy is a commitment to adding utility to the DAO when the Research Guild has educational resources to train anyone into a web3 researcher. in addition to that, they have developed process and systems for talent development.

So why is a “for profit” project deciding to dedicate it’s bandwidth towards developing courses and using that as the major selling point of adding value to the DAO? if Academy needs Research courses, shoudn’t they go to the Research Guild?

On Product/Research/Grants

  • What’s B labs overall Strategy especially when it comes to output/product?
    Most web3 research entities actually produce research pieces and build rapport( enough proof of work).
  • Beyond shipping Grants proposal(which is not a product), do you intend to ship anything else which is more product centric?
  • Or you intend to only produce when you get client requests?
3 Likes
16

@Bananachain - While it is not a heading anymore, this should be captured under the Brand section

image
image1284Ă—379 109 KB

1 Like
17

Thank you sprinkles. As you note correctly, it relates to the branding. We are currently not using the bankless branding.

18

Hey @thinkDecade :slight_smile: Thanks for your questions!

We value honesty and transparency at B Labs, hence why we are committed to making promises we can deliver. Some projects perform a claw back, some not. One can argue whether it is in general healthy for a young project to work with less revenue or not, but that’s a different issue. To my knowledge, the GC has asked projects to either kick-back 10% of their revenue or add utility to BANK. We are committed to the latter by exploring collaborations with value-aligned projects.

Furthermore, the research guild is a public good, we’re a for-profit - we have different focuses. What’s important to us is to ensure we are capable of vetting talent based on specific standards. Therefore, we want to work with Bankless Academy to ensure we have the talent we need for the work that needs to be done.

Our goal is to provide research insights for informed decision making for projects. We believe that’s possible by creating tailored research reports, providing advisory services and data analysis. The output is therefore based on deals we secure. One of the central pillars for our inbound strategy is content creation. To this end we want to utilise our past and upcoming research work and convert it into insights. Their goal is to generate timely and more complex content and to diversify our content formats.

I hope this helps, thank you!
Senad

1 Like
19

For a project that provides research and analysis, you have not done a lot of research and analysis this season. The 3 reports in your proof of concept were written in summer 2022.

Might I suggest that you direct your efforts into producing unpaid research and analysis that you can share on social sites? This would both bolster your production capacity and provide outreach to find potential clients.

2 Likes
20

This is almost on queue! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to highlight this!

Our product and research lead @dancingpenguin.eth has just published his B Labs article “Here comes AI” in collaboration with https://www.captur.fi/research

Please take a look and tell us what you think! Feel free to follow us for further regular updates!
https://twitter.com/blabsresearch/status/1631630465047183360/photo/1

All our social media sites can conveniently be accessed here: https://linktr.ee/blabsresearch

2 Likes
21

The article @dancingpenguin.eth was great!! I just shared it! I understand that research is done for writing pieces, however, it would seem that for the last season and a half and about 1 million BANK the output should be more than 1 published article. @Bananachain i am still failing to see where any of this ties demonstrates mission and values alignment with the Bankless BRAND

1 Like