Proposed criteria for evaluating funding proposals

Our goal is to advance dApp development and adoption on Ethereum. We’re not seeking a financial return but we all have a vested interest in seeing Ethereum succeed which requires useful applications to be built on top. We have limited resources and we want to maximize our impact by funding projects wisely and leveraging our expertise and existing networks to help build successful products and drive their adoption.

I’d like to propose a set of criteria that we can use to evaluate funding proposals. Not all of these criteria would need to be met for a project to receive funding but in my view focusing on projects that have these attributes will help us maximize our impact:

  • Applications not infrastructure
  • The app should support behaviors that are repeated with some frequency
  • It’s okay if the app is only used by a small number of people so long as it provides ongoing utility to those people.
  • At this stage it’s preferable if the target users are members of the crypto community. People that care about crypto are more likely to put up with scaling and UX issues. This would also allow us to leverage our professional networks to drive adoption. Once we’ve funded a few apps that are successfully adopted by the crypto community and the UX has gotten good enough for mainstream usage we could loosen this up.
  • The app can continue to be used and provide value without ongoing development, devops, maintenance, or marketing efforts
  • The app should be simple and not require a large set of features in order to be useful
  • The app is not something that can easily be funded by other approaches including equity, token sales, or ecosystem grants
  • There aren’t other credible full-time teams working on similar apps
  • The developed software is open source
  • The app runs on Ethereum and other decentralized protocols
  • The app produces or validates code, design patterns, mechanisms, data, or tooling that can be used to more easily build future dApps

This list is only meant as a starting point for discussion. Some points may be controversial and disagreement is encouraged. Are there any criteria that you would add? Any that we should remove?

Discuss!

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I think this is a good start. One other thought:

  • The app team must be open and willing to share application use data with the DAO.

Bonus point:

  • Compliments / augments existing apps (experiments) being funded

I also think its important to think about the proposal lifecycle (different cohorts? categories? open-ended?), but that is probably best left for another thread.

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IMO…

Strong criteria needs

  • Attempting to pioneer new usecases on the application layer to provide value to the greater Web 3.0 ecosystem

Factors that will influence decision making…

We should be helping projects connect with the right funding & capital allocators in the space.

Nice to haves…

Not ideal if it’s not open sourced but projects will eventually need to have users trust their project. I think this usually takes care of itself and even if not - we should be looking at the merits of the project vs. open source or not. A nice to have tbh.

I think we have to scrutinize the project’s decision to use various tech stacks. Eg. building on Tezos is going to be a complete pain vs. building on Ethereum with the mass available amount of infrastructure that is readily available.


Comments

Tbh, I would be okay if we funded a project had a unique nuanced hypothesis and direction. Many things in this ecosystem are subtle in difference but often tackling different challenges etc. Would definite, avoid duplicate work when possible though.

  • At this stage it’s preferable if the target users are members of the crypto community. People that care about crypto are more likely to put up with scaling and UX issues. This would also allow us to leverage our professional networks to drive adoption. Once we’ve funded a few apps that are successfully adopted by the crypto community and the UX has gotten good enough for mainstream usage we could loosen this up.
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Projects that are funded should NOT be…

  • Deep R&D or infrastructure projects that ships no immediate value to end users of any kind

Projects I want to generally avoid…

  • One off projects that will stop providing value to the ecosystem after the grant funding period of work. We want to fund projects that have a chance of continuously add value to end users or the rest of the ecosystem etc.

  • Projects that depend on long term viability or significant business traction to exist. Eg. funding businesses. We should be funding projects that can 1. Gain significant traction very quickly 2. Experiments that can yield insights quickly

Projects I want to see funded…

  • Projects that can find and establish significant product traction very quickly and within a month of launching.

  • Crazy and seemingly stupid ideas that would be hard to find funding elsewhere. Happy to take chances on pot shots that are thinking outside the box.

Why do proposals get passed and why do they get rejected? Can you explain and go through why we decided to forgo some. Etc.