Hi links!
We understand that as the project reviewer you need to ask us critical questions. We would like to run you through our calculations to provide more clarity and outline that our ask is not only in line with our plans and the current governing grants framework but also reasonable.
Like other bDAO projects, Bankless Research currently has 4 role holders. All four directors have long-term plans with Bankless Research and have proven on several occasions that they put the project’s interest first. Some Directors spent way more than 10hrs/week on the project since the S5 budget proposal was submitted, in particular with the increased workload after two role holders stepped down at the end of September. We want to be in a position to finally recognise such contributions in S6. 10hrs/week is most likely still underpaying our role holders and the actual work they will do, hence why we don’t think it makes sense to lower the ask for directors.
While it’s difficult to break down contributions into numbers, in particular as the support of mandates outside of their area is not accounted for, we acknowledge that most of us will spend at least 10 hrs/week following their mandates alone in S6, which you can find below.
With regards to a “client-facing” product, we have already disseminated two very successful studies in S4 with very happy clients. It was then that we saw the business model could be viable. Following this we concentrated in S5 on building out the structures to scale the project, such as a solid infrastructure, marketing capabilities and other back office work, to be able to deliver further products and services effectively. For S6 it is our intent to fill the product pipeline to enable us to not require further grants funding going forward.
We are asking for a higher S6 funding as we are striving to be cash flow positive towards the end of S6. It has been our understanding that the grants funding exists partially to bridge these periods of negative cash flow. The overall funding amount is in line with any other second funding asked for by projects we have seen and by no means exaggerated or unusual. We have two Directors less going forward from S5 to S6. As a consequence the current 4 Directors have taken on additional responsibilities which is all in line with our intention to maintain a lean structure. We believe that a certain degree of flexibility is required to enable us to adapt to changing circumstances on how resources are spent and allocated are at the discretion of the project to determine, as long as the calculations are reasonable and in line with underlying grant standards. We would also like to point out that while the role holder salaries have increased, the amount for project incentives has increased significantly more: five fold.
We have currently not received permission to share the respective final reports publicly until now.