Bankless Consultancy

Grants/Funding Season 2 Proposals
1

Project: Bankless DAO Consulting

Champion: RunTheJewelz

Date: Nov 9, 2021

Multisig - To be created (RunTheJewelz, Homeless, IcedCool, +2)

Previous Forum post - DAO to business consultancy service (41 votes, 95% approval)

Summary

Bankless Consulting will be a mechanism for project delivery for entities other than the Bankless DAO Grants Committee or Bankless DAO Guilds. Consulting takes many forms, but the primary mission of Bankless Consulting will focus on DAO-to-DAO (D2D), DAO-to-Business (D2B), and Product Incubation.

  • Bits and pieces of similar efforts are happening in the DAO within guilds or projects (such as a D2D design guild effort), and business development efforts with other DAO’s are happening in DAOlationships, Client Services (Writer’s Guild spin-out).
    • Bankless Consulting will try to normalize and deploy a mechanism for this external facing work to reduce redundancy
  • Bankless Consulting will formalize the people and processes behind a DAO Consultancy to present a professional outward brand and reputation to deliver on projects.
    • Crowdsource the rest of the DAO via Bounty Board
    • Level 1 or higher
  • Create strong Operations, Finance, Marketing/BD, Project Delivery, and Legal capabilities to form as a baseline and structure to the Consultancy
  • Focus (qualified and opted-in) talent from the DAO towards projects that match skill-set and desires in return for remuneration
  • Create structures to bring revenue into the DAO Treasury and Bankless Consulting Multi-sig through project inflows
  • Create processes to pay individual project contributors for work performed as well as Consulting infrastructure (operations, legal, etc.) for work to support the endeavor.
  • Create interaction methods between Bankless Consulting and traditional business world
  • Create a differentiation between Bankless Consulting and traditional consulting’s Blockchain practices (EY, Deloitte, etc.) by focusing on inherent advantages of DAO mechanics and absence of encumbrance of being a traditional company (Shareholders, certain accounting regulations, etc.)
  • Be acutely aware of potential liability for project implementation risk, and proactively work on ways to avoid it

Season 2 Plans

The focus of Bankless DAO Consulting in Season 2 will be on milestones to remove big rocks from the road to deliver client services in Season 3.

Legal Entity Solution

The majority of the effort in Season 2 will be working with the Legal Guild to determine how we will be able to enter into services agreement with external customers moving forward.

Omen from the Legal Guild will be assisting us to set up the Consultancy in a compliant manner to be able to do business with the three types of Consulting we intend to perform (D2D, D2B, Incubation)

Omen is currently working with the Legal Guild to ensure that the consulting arm should be structured to interact with Brick & Mortar / Web2 type businesses. There are 25 legal professionals in the Legal Guild who are starting on the task of defining this structure, which may potentially include entities domiciled in Switzerland, Caymans, Wyoming, Canada, etc.

The consultancy will need to be able to perform some combination of the following activities:

  1. Enter into contracts
    1. With clients
    2. With consultants and support staff
  2. Receiving funds (ideally both on-chain and off-chain)
  3. Disbursing funds to cover expenses (primarily to pay consulting talent for effort)
  4. Develop and own intellectual property

Marketing and Branding

Procuring website(s), ENS addresses, emails, creating branded deliverable templates, and devising a marketing plan for 2022 will be the focus of S2 for the Bankless Consulting marketing effort.

Operations

Running an effective consultancy requires a laser focus on Operations, and significant up front time and effort will be spent here in order to get off the ground. Operations are essential in balancing supply and demand (i.e., Projects vs. People), ensuring that projects and people are in positions to be successful, and ensuring that the right project teams are fully functional with an avenue to address any roadblocks.

A sampling of the areas that will be addressed in this season will be

  • Talent Coordination
    • Making sure the right DAO members are on the right projects
      1. Level 1 minimum for paid external project work
      2. Minimum L2 sponsorship on each project
    • What process to align project estimates with people/time
    • Working with guild talent coordinators to plan project onboarding
  • Offerings / Collateral
  • Talent onboarding and learning
    • How to onboard and train people to be consultants on customer facing engagements?
    • DAO culture w/ customer facing culture
  • Market Research
    • Critical function for understanding where our sweet spot should be and staying ahead of others
  • Process / Methodology
    • Project Lifecycle Management
  • Service Lines and Offerings
    • Clearly defining our offerings and verticals

Financial

Revenue Model

Plan revenue models for for-profit projects in S3. All projects will be done for the sole purpose of bringing revenue into the Bankless DAO.

Once client work comes in, project should be self-funding, and the proceeds from projects will remunerate:

  • Each Consulting Project - (remuneration to delivery team members) (70%)
  • The Consulting Practice - (Supporting back office operations and expenses) (20%)
  • The DAO Treasury (10%)

Funding Request

675,000 BANK + 1 ETH

Initial funding to set up the structures and functions related to consulting (along with some general start-up costs such as Website, Email, Branding, etc.) will be requested from the Bankless DAO Grants Committee in Season 2.

We do not expect to come back to the Grants Committee after Season 2 for additional funding, as the success of the Project will provide liquidity for future efforts.

The costs will roughly break down as follows, but will be specified by the working group as more details around legal structure and cost is known:

  • Legal Guild Bounties - 75K BANK

  • Operations - 200K BANK

  • Branding/Marketing/Design work - 150K BANK

  • Project Process Formation - 100K BANK

  • Governance - 50K BANK

  • Legal Team - 100K BANK

  • Off Chain Operations Expenses (ENS, Multisig, Websites, Emails, Off Chain Legal) ~1 ETH

Season 2 Milestones and KPIs

  1. Completion of Legal requirements for on chain execution of a consultancy
  2. Formation of core group of the consultancy
  3. Procurement of websites, emails, ENS, and multisig
  4. Preparation for Project 1 via establishment of contractual and accounting processes

Squad Background

@homeless is an owner of several meet space businesses which are crypto curious to crypto adverse. He works with multiple business partners that are crypto curious and interested in crypto onboarding. Homeless specializes in crypto payments.

@RunTheJewelz has 20 years of management and technology consulting experience, focusing in Data and Analytics. RTJ has been involved in business development, strategy assessments, project implementations, client service, etc. Since rabbit holing into Crypto and DAOs, RTJ is interested in bringing successful projects to fruition that

@omen goes by the moniker “The Decentralawyer” on social media and has an MBA and practices law in the Cryptosphere. Omen will help the consultancy with questions around legal entity setup, liability questions, and general business operations.

@IcedCool is a Dev Guild coordinator and has run several consulting and dev shops previously. IcedCool has deep knowledge on Web3 development and Tokenomics. IcedCool is interested in the Consultancy model helping to bring more revenue to Devs and allowing them to work full time in the DAO space and leave the corporate 9-5 world behind.

@Etti is an Operations Research consultant who specializes in process optimization and has a keen interest in a Web3 Consultancy model.

@ManuelMaccou is interested in going full Bankless, and has a client services mindset. He is interested in working on the DeFi workshop project.

@Prad is a developer with knowledge in the technologies that make Web3 work, including JavaScript and Solidity

@SaulThorin is a senior Data Scientist with previous Big 4 consulting experience. Saul is able to create intricate solutions on the Web3 stack to help clients with data gathering and analysis.

0xmiah has run small businesses and wants to be involved in helping these types of entities improve operations through the use of Web3 and blockchain technologies.

Wealthunters.eth is looking to be involved in the go to market strategies of a Web3 consultancy.

BenWest - Monkey Flower has an operations focus and has been involved in government consulting, including bringing solutions around online decision making.

FreedomFighter is an entrepreneur from the UK who has experience with setting up new businesses

  • I support the Bankless Consultancy Proposal
  • I do not support the Bankless Consultancy Proposal

0 voters

3 Likes
2

Thanks for remixing this project into a more actionable plan with a reasonable ask.

Will be a wonderful service from the Bankless DAO.

3 Likes
3

Voted yes.

From my understanding, it’s mentioned in your proposal, but I would really like to see the #1 task being standardizing the cross-guild client services work.

Basically taking something like what writers guild is doing, but apply that model other guilds and have some packaging + meta level coordination.

4 Likes
4

Looking forward to getting this initiative off the ground!

5

A quick note on how this project jives with the mission and values of BanklessDAO…

In the quest to help the world go bankless, I can think of few longer levers than helping business go bankless. The ripple effects from small and medium sized companies integrating crypto into their business operations are substantial. Yes, it gives business’s a leg up, but employees, customers, stakeholders all gain crypto exposure. Helping individuals is awesome and something we should all be doing on the daily, but building a consultancy service that delivers solid crypto deliverables to companies is central to our mission and brand. :muscle:

2 Likes
6

I’m all for the consultancy and voted yes. I would like to see more details on what types of projects would fall under the consultancy and what projects would not. If the idea is for every single outside proposal, partnership, grant, etc require a level 1 tag to work on, then I’m not a fan of that. The reason is because working on these external projects is a great way to get experience and level up your skills and competencies. Ideally there would be a threshold based on grant size, level of risk, or something else. If the size/risk is large enough, consultants with level one tags manage and work on it. If the project is small enough, guest passes are invited to work on it to gain experience and get involved.

1 Like
7

you should definitely get an unstoppable .dao domain vs an ENS domain you can’t own, imo

1 Like
8

I need to get one @ernest_of_gaia that’s :fire:

9

This is very well-thought-out. I especially respect the emphasis on operations at the outset, as building good infrastructure will be critical to managing the Bankless Consultancy talent and the project inflows.

I am curious as to what this squad thinks is the Bankless Consultancy’s Unique Value Proposition? In terms of thinking about the competitive edge (fwiw from my noobie vantage point) Bankless has an excellent web3 media brand and the writer’s guild does a great job collaborating as a team to produce coherent, valuable content about defi.

10

I largely agree. While I understand that the Bankless Consultancy must operate efficiently (limit contributor turnover, give impt work to ppl who are vetted contributors already), I would also like to be able to contribute to Bankless consulting with my 10+ years of strategy consulting experience. It’s not clear to me how I can become an L1 without 35,000 BANK, which my budget won’t allow at the moment. Am hoping to find a meritocratic pathway to L1 membership based on my contributions!

11

I have a related thought that may help the “type of project” question (listed in chronological order):

  1. I would imagine the talent pool of consultants would be gathered and then their experience would be documented
  2. From that information we start to create marketing materials (e.g., we have 20 people with accumulated 100 years of experience in the banking sector; we could create marketing materials that say “With over 100 years of accumulated experience in banking…”)
  3. From that, teams would be created based on market verticals (i.e., banking team, security team, telecom team, healthcare team, etc.)
  4. The teams start to source consulting projects and put them into a shared pipeline view. They then recruit the necessary people. Everyone would be able to see who is “busy” and who may be “free” to recruit to a project (e.g., the banking team sources a consulting project from a bank that wants to enter LATAM w/an emphasis on crypto capabilities. The banking team recruits 10 people from the banking team. Those people are marked “busy”. They then recruit 5 people from the marketing team.)
1 Like
12

My POV may be limited so I am VERY curious what your POV on “competitive edge creation” would be, with your 10+ yrs in strategy consulting.

I would think in a consulting firm your competitive edge is based on: 1) the expertise of your talent pool, 2) your research, 3) aaaaaand…(thinking)…i think that would be it.

13

Ya, I think the ingredients you listed are the most impt ones.

1 Like
14

We’re also talking about how we can be a web3-native consulting practice - how to be decentralized on the talent side and on the client side - which would give us a competitive edge in this space. Many ppl here have top-rate consulting experience and so we have experience with models that we know can work, but what would it look like to be a decentralized consultancy operating within a DAO?

1 Like
15

Is consultancy to other DAOs in line with the mission of the Bankless DAO?

If your answer is yes, why do you believe this to be so?

16

Thank you for this prompt, definitely thought provoking. How to mimic participation in DAO’s, while being client facing :face_with_monocle:? I can wrap my head around the talent side, the decentralized client side…I can’t start to wrap my head around.

17

I think so.

Bankless DAO mission:
“We will help the world go Bankless by creating user-friendly onramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media, and culture.”

Consultancy to other DAOs is a part of the “creation” of “user-friendly onramps”. If part of our services enables others to onramp themselves into a DAO (i.e., make their own DAO) then I think that fulfills the Bankless DAO mission.

In all honesty @williaml (i promise this has no ire in it), do you see a hole in my thought process? I am genuinely curious because I think we’re all at the forefront of this movement and want to make sure we get it as “right” as possible.

18

I was first attracted to Bankless by the vision of RSA and David Hoffmann - to help bring a billion people to open finance over the next two decades..

The bDAO is the entity that now needs to bring this to life. The basics are around providing people with everything we can to change mindsets, develop habits and build the knowledge required for people to make this transition over time.

Our bDAO is very young and not yet operating at a level that we can take the learning and intellectual capital and externalise it. I believe we need to focus on the mission and build/deliver the roadmap that delivers the vision.

Having said that, I am searching thru the bDAO and finding it difficult to sequence my habit development, mindset adjustment and knowledge growth - the roadmap. Anything you can do to help me would be great. I have a lot of start-up operational experience and hope to contribute to the bDAO in a more tangible way in 2022.

In summary, we have a lot to do within bDAO, before we can offer a consultancy service - that is my opinion. Thanks for taking the interest to ask.

20

I didn’t even know that Bankless Counseling would be a project delivery mechanism for organizations other than the DAO Bankless Grants Committee. I’ve always consulted with live people about my finances. Thank you for sharing information about bankless counseling. It will be helpful to me when I finally decide on an application to do my company’s accounting strategies and found a post comparing apps at Personal Capital vs Mint vs Quicken vs Money dance vs Countabout. However, I will have to consult with my chief accountant and finance person about this.

21

I love this idea and would love to support in any way I can. I have 20 years of experience in management consulting related to Identity and Compliance. I think Identity on the blockchain is the future especially now that Microsoft has embraced it.