Title: Content Gateway Season 3 Extended Budget Request
Authors: 0xNSHuman
Squad: addamsson, 0xNSHuman, ManuelMaccou, Theo, BorisSchickedanz.eth
Date Created: January 16, 2022
Date Posted: January 19, 2022
SUMMARY
After spending a good part of January on various organizational activities, such as:
- Creating a dedicated Discord server for our team and future community;
- Onboarding 3 new team members;
- Working on project collaboration and communication framework;
- Discussing our product strategy and early monetization options;
- Restructuring our budget and compensation structure;
we are now prepared to extend our budget request to pursue the goals stated in our Season 3 proposal.
BACKGROUND
In the beginning of the season we had our main proposal approved.
Back then we’ve clearly identified the challenges we’re facing in terms of project scalability, the need to have a proper contributor collaboration and communication framework, the need for market strategy discussion and a plan for sustainability to avoid the project being overly dependent on the founding team and on the larger DAO in the future.
We believe that we’ve made the first steps necessary to proceed with the extended funding and start working as a reformed group.
MISSION & VALUES ALIGNMENT
We continue serving the core mission of the DAO — onboarding 1,000,000,000 people to crypto — by enabling easy access to diverse yet organized content through a single gateway platform.
We are also correcting our mid-term priorities to meet the growing demand for project self-sustainability, to try and shift from being a cost center to productizing our products and services.
SPECIFICATION
Dedicated Discord Server
We have branched off to our own Discord server and developed our own infrastructure for daily communication and synchronization.
All-New Contributor Collaboration Framework
We spent weeks on the discussion around the best practices for project management, remote collaboration, collective ownership, workplace psychology and project sustainability. As a result, we’ve developed a methodology, toolset and procedures to begin experimenting with.
Our setup relies on a mix of Notion pages, Discord threads and bots, GitHub and various plain text documents — all wired together and governed by simplified Agile practices and decentralized ownership.
Contributor Handbook
With the primary goal of making the project resistant to the risks of the permissionless environment, such as the possibility of any contributor to leave of reduce their commitment indefinitely, we started documenting some of the practices and procedures we agree on into a Handbook, so that we can plug new contributors in faster in the future. We believe this is a foundational part of any group that considers becoming a subDAO in the future.
Contributor Incentives & Vesting
As an extension of our effort to manage risks that come with the permissionless nature of collaboration in the DAO, we are proposing the following escrow conditions and schedule.
The purpose of this schedule is to incentivize contributors to invest their time in the product for the entire season period.
The funding release will be split into 4 stages in the following way:
- There are three (3) milestones with equal reward, plus the final season completion date;
- Upon reaching every milestone the team is distributed 60% of this milestone’s reward;
- The remaining 40% of every milestone’s reward is staying in escrow until the end of the season;
- Upon reaching the end of the season the team is distributed all the remaining funds.
This way, 20% of the total budget is spent on every milestone, and 40% of the rewards is postponed until the end of the season.
Here’s the example of what this formula results in when applied to our total Season 3 funding.
| Stage | Budget, % | Immediate Distribution | Deferred Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milestone 1 | 20% | 192,000 BANK | 128,000 BANK |
| Milestone 2 | 20% | 192,000 BANK | 128,000 BANK |
| Milestone 3 | 20% | 192,000 BANK | 128,000 BANK |
| Season Completion | 40% | 384,000 BANK | 0 BANK |
To prevent any roadmap manipulation and uncertainty for contributors, it is proposed not to bind escrow release to any KPIs or metrics other than whether the contributor has kept working in the project until the end of the season.
Thus, approximate Milestone definitions are limited to dates as follows:
Milestone 1 — January 31
Milestone 2 — February 28
Milestone 3 — March 31
Season Completion — April 8
Example of a Milestone Funding Release
Let’s say you’re an engineer holding two roles:
- Software Engineer (Platform & Tools)
- Software Engineer (Integration)
If you commit to spending 10 hours / week for each role, your total projected season earnings should be:
10 HOURS x 2 ROLES x 12 WEEKS x 1,000 BANK = 240,000 BANK
In this case, here’s how your funding release schedule will look like.
| Stage | Immediate Distribution | Deferred Distribution |
|---|---|---|
| Milestone 1 | 48,000 BANK | 31,200 BANK |
| Milestone 2 | 96,000 BANK | 62,400 BANK |
| Milestone 3 | 144,000 BANK | 93,600 BANK |
| Season Completion | 240,000 BANK | 0 BANK |
Funds Governance & Responsibility
We will modify our multisig wallet to require 3 out of 5 signatures made by the team members in order to execute every transaction. This will ensure fair execution and incentivise team bonding to achieve common goals.
In the event when a contributor needs to leave the project or reduce commitment substantially for a good reason and in good faith, the team can release the escrowed part of the contributor’s earnings, approving such transaction by voting.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Role Funding
We are scaling our team up from 2 to 5 contributors. Some of the roles are shared among several contributors, while other are assigned exclusively.
The following role distribution is proposed.
Assumed season length is 12 weeks.
Assumed compensation rate is 1,000 BANK per hour.
| Role | Hours / Week / Role Holder | Target Count of Role Holders | Funding | Avg Funding Per Role Holder |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform Growth Dude | 4 | 1 | 48,000 BANK | 48,000 BANK |
| Project Manager | 4 | 1 | 48,000 BANK | 48,000 BANK |
| Integration Coordinator | 4 | 1 | 48,000 BANK | 48,000 BANK |
| Team Lead | 4 | 1 | 48,000 BANK | 48,000 BANK |
| Software Architect | 4 | 1 | 48,000 BANK | 48,000 BANK |
| Software Engineer (Platform & Tools) | 10 | 3 | 360,000 BANK | 120,000 BANK |
| Software Engineer (Integration) | 10 | 3 | 360,000 BANK | 120,000 BANK |
Infrastructure Maintenance Funding
We are currently hosting the system ourselves and working on solutions to reduce its maintenance cost.
This season, we need about 20,000 BANK to cover the estimated maintenance expenses.
Total Funding Request
Subtotal: 980,000 BANK.
Current project funds to subtract — 405,420 BANK:
- Season 3 Grants Committee Funding
- 336,000 BANK
- Carried Over from Season 2
- 69,420 BANK
Total additional funding requested: 574,580 BANK.
BRAND USAGE
We are planning to outreach 3rd-party organizations as a BanklessDAO product.
SUCCESS METRICS OR KPIS
The metrics we track since the original proposal:
-
Content producers integrated.
- Number of independent projects plugged-in and having their data passed through the gateway.
-
Content consumers connected.
- Number of products using the aggregated content API.
- Amount of data consumed via the API per a reporting period.
The new internal metrics that we connect to our project sustainability goals:
- Number of organizations relying on Content Gateway outside Bankless DAO
- Number of products relying on Content Gateway outside Bankless Mobile App
NEXT STEPS
Continue executing on the development roadmap and market strategy priorities.
SQUAD BACKGROUND
-
addamsson and NSHuman are active Bankless DAO contributors since Season 2. Their biggest footprints are Content Gateway and Mobile App projects.
-
ManuelMaccou has been active in BanklessDAO since the start of Season 2. He’s heavily active in the Education Guild where he is champion of the Education Workgroup. He will be contributing to Content Gateway’s platform growth and integration.
-
Theo is a new contributor with previous backend experience. They will be working as a software engineer on integrating new data and building out the existing plaform/tools.
-
BorisSchickedanz.eth has >20 years experience in Software Development and Software Architecture, and 8 years in Personal & Business Coaching. He joined the DAO in October '21 working on re-establishing the mental health channel. He will be working as a Software Engineer for Content Gateway for season 3+.
POLL
Do you support the budget extension for Content Gateway to fund the restructured team, reformed project collaboration framework and new market strategy execution?
- SUPPORT
- DO NOT SUPPORT
