Data Economy Index (DATA): Forward to DG2!

[Thomas_Hepner]

@Tradespot

Iteration is great but we shouldn’t skip the correct process on the IC side to work out all the implications of the streaming fee associated discussions that could set the precedent for future aspiring methodologists in your shoes.

I agree with you here. From a incentives/negotiation/compensation perspective, I think it’s very important for all parties to be aligned pre-launch.

@Tradespot

IMO the middle of the bell curve, planning/strategizing and market research to see if anyone would give a damn about DATA as an investment is exactly what we should do before launching a major product within the IC.

For context, the origin of DATA is that @Kiba and I started building it because we wanted to solve a problem we both had. We both wanted exposure to a sector that we felt was missing from our own portfolios.

We’ve already done quite a lot of market research since then, and will do even more ahead of the product launch. For a few data points, please see this comment from Corbin Page at ConsenSys Codefi and this comment from ChainLinkGod.

Ultimately, we believe the passing DG1 vote signals that the Community is in favor of launching the DATA index from a product perspective.

Responding to both @Tradespot 's comment and Kiba’s (rude) comment. @BigSky7 @verto0912

@Tradespot

I have nothing against DATA as a product at all, but the rush to market seems redundant considering the current bear market & a retail engagement

@Kiba

Also product team is shit at selecting products/methodologists, properly designing them for DeFi, and bringing to fruition (em.g. CGI, SMI, BED) so I can’t imagine BD team performing any worse than they have

While I view Kiba’s disparaging language towards the product team as inappropriate, I think he has a valid point. It is extremely difficult for anyone to know before a product is launched whether or not it will be successful, regardless of the strength of the idea. It is very risky for Methodologists and the Index Coop to spend time and resources on research and development of a product for 3+ months without testing it in the market.

One really cannot know if anyone will buy your product until after it’s available on the market. Launching a product is testing a hypothesis. Relaunching and making product changes are also hypothesis tests.

The long time to market for new products limits our ability to test new ideas (i.e. hypotheses) in the marketplace and discourages methodologists from bringing their ideas to the Index Cooperative. This is why I was such a strong proponent of the Index Labs idea. Creating a tokenset takes 10 minutes, but launching a product at Index Coop currently takes 3+ months. While I don’t think it ever will, or ever should, take only 10 minutes to launch a product at Index Coop, we need to find a way to reduce the time to market for our proposed products.

FWIW - My views on product philosophy (i.e. speed of hypothesis testing ) comes from my experiences working at a FinTech startup where I led a team of 5 data scientists that built and sold software & data products to some of the largest banks in the world.