Proposal: Analytics Working Group

Proposing an Analytics Working Group (AWG)

Situation

I am proposing the funding of the Analytics Working Group (AWG) for 3 months ending on June 30, 2021.

What is the core problem(s) you want to solve?

The Coop relies on data to make decisions on product methodology, KPIs, treasury management, growth opportunities, liquidity management, and more. As the Coop grows (both communities and products), we need more consistent analytics contribution to allow the DAO to operate from a place of objectivity.

Why is this worth addressing today?

The Coop has rapidly gone from launching and supporting just one product (DPI), to now 3 products (DPI, CGI, FLI) with multiple more in the process. The Coop is on pace to supporting 10+ index products by the end of 2021. The analytics capabilities within the Coop must scale in order to support the Coop through this rapid growth. The Coop prides itself on being data-driven. Data is one of the life-bloods of efficient collaboration and decision making within a DAO. The Coop must operate from a foundation of facts and truth, and the AWG will work to make sure that is always the case.

How will you address it?

  • Supporting work team analysis and product methodologists
  • Building Coop-level and product-level KPI dashboards
  • Performing ad-hoc user and market analysis to determine opportunities
  • Injecting objectivity into governance discussions and voting
  • Supporting growth (i.e. Content & Twitter, 1x week thread or blog post from AWG)
  • Facilitate communication regarding analytics needs across the Coop
  • Creating contribution processes to attract and retain analytics talent

What impact will this project have?

The AWG is here to support all other working groups and functions in pursuit of impact towards top-level KPIs. Specifically, the AWG will help keep all projects/efforts focused on the North Stars & Core KPIs.

One of the challenging parts of analytics using on-chain data is the shift from user-centered data (in traditional environments) to address-centered data (in crypto environments). By devoting resources to support time and effort to analytics, we can maintain focus on users, our North Star, even when it is not the most natural given the nature of the data. This is critical for the Coop whose mission is to build index products that resonate strongly with specific user segments.

Working Group Leader(s)

JD Cook (@jdcook)

  • First person to answer the initial call for analytics contributors back in late Nov / early Dec 2020 - have been contributing consistently since
  • Built/shared DPI retention analysis (working on building these into KPI dashboards currently)
  • Supported KPI development, Treasury reporting, MVI methodology, and more currently in the works
  • 5+ years of analytics and data science experience at growth-stage tech companies (Qualtrics, Thumbtack)

The next iteration of AWG will more than likely include a co-lead - hoping to onboard more direct analytics talent and contribution through this iteration of AWG.

Request for Funding

Proposed Budget

$70,000

Use of Funds

  • Leader Stipend - $10,000/month

  • Contributor Rewards - up to $30,000

    • estimate for 2-3 consistent part-time data/analytics contributors over 3 month period
  • Licences (Dune, Etherscan API, potentially Nansen, etc) - up to $10,000 over 3 month period

The $10k/mo for my contribution is set to cover all my contributions across the Coop for the next 3 months. I am quitting my full-time job to take on this working group full-time to ensure its success - I would not ask for contributor rewards anywhere outside this stipend.

$30k over 3 months is a best-case scenario for attracting and retaining consistent analytics talent to support the Coop at our current size (products, AUM). But this will only be fulfilled if we reach max capacity- it could end up being lower.

Organization

How will it work?
What will you be doing?
How will you interface with the community?

The AWG will be managed by the working group leader (myself), along with two council members (at least one from Set) that are not working directly on the AWG. The bulk of the work will be done by the working group leader, but the role of the other members of this council is to weigh in on prioritization decisions and contribution rewards - avoiding a single point of control.

The AWG will maintain a project board showing projects/requests completed, in-flight, or in backlog. Requests can be made by any community member, but will be weighed against other requests and prioritization decisions will be made to determine what is being worked on at any given time.

The AWG will be an asynchronous-first group. Meetings will be held between analysts and other contributors as necessary to understand needs/requirements and brainstorm solutions. Analysts will make it a point to attend weekly calls whenever possible and participate in all forum posts to ensure the working group is capturing all opportunities to provide support to the Coop.

Commitments

I am committed to Index Coop principles

I am committed to serving the entire Index Coop with my work.

I am committed to open, rapid communication: I know that clear, constant, public communication lifts up the entire Index Coop community. I am committed to this style of communication.

Shared learnings: I will share my progress, learnings with the entire community. I will ensure that anything I create is accessible beyond my own tenure for future generations of Indexers to access & build on.

Intellectual honesty: I am committed to growth and improvement. I am open to feedback and will use feedback to improve my work for the benefit of the entire Coop community.

I am committed to making Index Coop a welcoming, fun, and engaging community to work in!

Approve AWG
  • FOR
  • AGAINST

0 voters

7 Likes

For.

I think this is an obvious need as this data helps inform our strategy. The work JD, @richard and others have done so far has been foundational for us in understanding customer behavior and business health.

2 Likes

Gladly voted FOR

:handshake: @jdcook

strongly support @jdcook to take this on!

For! No explanation needed! :sunglasses:

Looks good JD, huge value add to the Coop making us the envy of other DAOs for sure!

Looking to understand here – how do you see $10K breaking down roughly?

I’m anchored to the following prices:

  • Nansen - $149per user/mo for standard
  • Dune - $390 per user/mo for pro

Great question. If we can bring on more consistent analytics contributors, then I would love to be able to get them set up with a Dune Pro account ($390/m per user).

I was planning on starting out with the Nansen Standard ($149/m per user), but potentially upgrading to one Nansen VIP ($1490/m per user) to get access to extra features, including csv downloads (have found that to be extremely valuable with Dune Pro).

So in the case all those were met we would be looking at roughly ~$3k per month, hence the $10k total number. The most likely scenario is lower than $10k for sure.

I should also note that their are other Pro APIs (Etherscan, Covalent, etc) that I am planning on looking into - part of this was to have some flexibility in figuring out what the right analytics toolkit is for the Coop moving forward.

All subject to review and iteration after the 3-month period.

4 Likes

Looks great, here are my notes :point_down:

Problem: The stated problem is indeed a problem :white_check_mark:

Why worth addressing: Agree; the analytics needs of the Coop exist today, and will only grow. I’d add that a strong analytics function is fundamental to Coop success in ways beyond decision making, as we see here and here, for example.

How impact: Help other WG’s towards hitting North Star/Core KPIs, maintain user focus despite address-centered paradigm.

Working Group Leader: I didn’t know you worked for Qualtrics & Thumbtack. Very cool & helpful to understand your background.

Organization: The experimentation with an “async-first” group makes sense given this specific WG, it’ll be fun to learn from this as a community.

I can see one of the first priorities right of the gate is prioritizing what gets worked on and in what order. There is a laundry list of needs, no doubt.

Ya, for sure. I am already in the process of tackling a lot of them, but there are some areas of prioritization that it would be great to talk through with the “council”.

Appreciate your notes!

Looks to be consensus around this working group. Let’s move forward with it! I’ll DM you @jdcook about funding the analytics wallet for expenses + stipend.

Edited note: we will work with jdcook so contributors to analytics group are either rewarded via monthly contributor rewards or the analytics working group headed by jd. (i.e. no double dipping)

Update here:

The Analytics Working Group wallet has been funded.

Wallet address:

Funding transaction:

The wallet’s been funded with 1,955 INDEX representing 70,000 USD using the April 4th, 2021, 20MA price of $35.81USD per INDEX.

It is currently a 1 of 1 multisig with @jdcook as signer.

1 Like