Proposing a Business Development Working Group

hey @BigSky7, thanks everyone for putting this together.

some concerns on my end in regards to the budget and the structure of compensation.

  1. Proposed compensation structure differs from all the other WGs, where the lead (maybe co-lead as well) have fixed compensation in $ terms, not INDEX, with the remaining contributors being compensated from the Treasury. I would prefer that we maintain consistency across WGs. Whether we adjust compensation for all other WGs to bring them in line with this proposal or the other way around is up to the community.

  2. The overall budget is pretty vague. You budget $120k for tier 1 exchange listing. Is that realistic? What are the fees for FTX, CoinBase, Gemini, Binance, and Huobi? Shouldn’t we know that? Do we need $30k for conferences? Do we have any data that institutions are ready to buy on-chain products? I feel like other WG proposals had a more comprehensive plan for their initiatives and associated costs. Basically, I think you are asking too little to move the dial and too much for things that won’t do so.

Voted no for the above reasons. I absolutely support the formation of the BDWG but the financials need more work in my opinion.

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Awesome proposal - I voted Yes and am strongly in favour of creating this group as I think it can really move the dial for Index Coop. Great level of thought and detail has gone into this post.

Fantastic budget, @BigSky7 the first WG lead to integrate this template without being asked! We just levelled up and now the bar is set :fire:

I would like to make a few little comments. Can we get a bit more detail around the list of exchanges we are targeting, respective budget for each one and then similar for the other listed items. Maybe the costs don’t lend themselves very well this way, so maybe one-off costs are listed by name. Also, I am going to assume once an exchange listing are in the mix, then like KuCoin those larger one-off costs are not listed here. But will emerge in time ?

Don’t hesitate to list out the details for what you know and then add a miscellaneous item for things not yet flushed out enough to have a budget but you have a feel will come. (Travel/Conference may fall into this category)

I do agree with this from AG. I think we will need to revisit this next funding round and look at changing the format. For now, let’s keep everything USD and then pay contributors in INDEX like other groups. Just so every group is the same for this cycle. Nothing against the idea, just the timing in the implementation is all.

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Been a long time (in DeFi at least) coming, glad to see this spin out as a working group. I have a couple of specific points to raise:

  1. As identified by Verto and Matthew above the exchanges listings budget is a little vague, but for me the question is how does it fit with the $100k going to GWG for the same thing. Have you and Lemonade put your heads together to flesh out exactly what needs funding and who is responsible/how it’s split between the groups? As with the original $100k for Regan to pursue listings, I’m fully in support of this but think we can tighten up the execution a little. This sort of leads me on to…

  2. I heard you say on a call the other day that really we just need one tier 1 exchange, i.e Coinbase and that focused partnerships are much more impactful. Are you able at this point to nail down what the roadmap is for BD for the next 3 months, or is the nature of the work naturally quite scattergun?

I guess what I’m saying is can you lay out a plan that says 'attend Consensys 2021, target DPI on Coinbase, hold conference in Decentraland etc etc. Be specific rather than having the team just see what sticks. Perhaps this isn’t the best approach for BD work I don’t know, but keen to hear your thoughts.

  1. With the $6k flat salary do we lose the ability to reward the most impactful work? Is that intentional?
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This was raised by @verto0912 and echoed by @Matthew_Graham. The idea was to lock in an Index price and allow leaders to participate in value accrual to Index for their efforts and was something with precedent in the Coop (See GWGI). I think that’s well understood and both of you are coming from a place of wanting consistency for each cluster of Working Groups. From that perspective, totally understood and we’re ok to revert to USD for Leaders.

However, we’d like to propose that’s how we compensate Leaders going forward. It makes sense for them to participate in upside/downside of price variation if they’re driving initiatives that will affect that. The Treasury is currently perfectly hedged to handle that because it’s denominated in INDEX (and that will still largely be the case, even after the OTC sale to partially diversify).

These points are well taken. We were trying to strike a balance between a) requesting a large amount now that would likely generate sticker shock and hold us up on leaner short-term operations and b) reducing the frequency with which we come back requesting funds. Two categories you both discuss above are Exchange Listings and Conferences/Webinars/Hosted Events.

  1. Exchange Listings

This has generated some concern lately from the community so I will lay out what makes it complicated to budget, our current thinking as a group, and why we landed on our (admittedly imperfect) number.

Budgeting Difficulty

These partnerships produce some ballooning and variable costs that are tough to estimate. I’m pulling a few bullets directly from an older post by @reganbozman that help illustrate that point.

  • Legal fees for non-security letters (ranges from ~$5K for Singapore to ~$80K for US)
  • Payments to market makers to provide liquidity for DPI (~$10-$20K per month)
  • Listing fees (~$20K-$400K)
  • Marketing budgets for marketing promotions associated with a listing (~$5K-$10K)

Based on Regan’s estimates, a given listing can vary from ~$40k to ~$500k. A greater complication is that these costs can be incurred at different stages along a months-long process.

Current Status and Strategy

As everyone knows, we’re currently deep into the KuCoin listing process. We started there because of the relative ease and cost of a Singapore letter and it’s a significant signal to the market. The next step is to tier up and out (geographically). Our options will be made much clearer by the results of the first week or two of liquidity. This is because many exchanges won’t give a token a look unless/until it has consistent trailing liquidity of $6MM/day, based on our discussion last week with Kairon Labs. Our DEX volume alone is fairly close to that, but the thinking is that DEX volume + anything other than a disastrous KuCoin launch will put us in a much better spot to be prioritized for listing elsewhere. We will approach or continue conversations with all of the names listed, but which one emerges as the top priority remains TBD.

Basis for Estimate

Legal ($10k-$80k) - We intend to begin legal work on the “next” jurisdictions (Europe and the US) to open up more business. Speaking only for myself, I think it’s worth going full bore on a US security letter but generally accept the pushback that that isn’t worth doing unless we have more clarity on a US exchange listing that requires that.

Market making costs ($10k per month) - We’ve set this aside in case this group’s funds need to support this for Kucoin and also prospectively for the next listing, but would agree with the feedback that firmer coordination with GWGII to clarify would be helpful.

Listing Fee ($40k) - Realistically, we know if we have a meaningful listing fee to pay, that the community would fund it, but wanted some room to cover the lower end without a separate ask.

Marketing Fees ($10k) - Similar thinking to listing fees.

Verto and Fire, I think this was the right call-out and appreciate your demand for a little more here. It’s a challenge to strike a balance for something that is 1) so needed for our products 2) so difficult to budget for and 3) will require some level of opacity because there are negotiations with an entity involved. I can say that I’m getting much more involved in this personally and so in some respects am getting up to speed but will commit to conversations, iteration, and improvement for communication around the project.

  1. Events/Conferences/Webinars/Coop-Hosted Events

To @Matthew_Graham ’s point about listing what we know.

Bitcoin Miami - We think we should have representation here. Custodians and investors have asked if we will have a presence and it will be the first major crypto conference after many are coming off of lockdown. Travel/lodging/tickets for up to three will run ~ $5-$7k

Coop-Hosted Events - We’re already working on an NYC-based speaker series and hoping to squeeze two in during the WG period. Given we have boots on the ground in Singapore we’re also discussing doing something there. ~$10k

The remaining $15k is to allow for geographic expansion of hosted events, hosting/creation/sponsorship costs for webinars, and allow for the possibility of attending another conference.

Can you provide more detail here? We reviewed all other working group proposals. In many ways, GWGII is the only comparable one. Analytics, Treasury, and Design all request for contributor rewards, leader stipends, and either licenses or gas costs but no specific project requests. GWGI used the “experiment” format that was ultimately abandoned by the GWG leaders for GWGII. In GWGII, there’s a line item of $100k for Exchange Listings with little other explanation. I agree that the bar should be raised, but don’t see what you’re suggesting about greater detail from other working group proposals.

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This is a great point and good feedback. The idea is for BD to assume Exchange Listings going forward from GWG. We can circle up with Lemonade to more precisely disaggregate what’s already been granted and what we’re requesting.

I’ll refer you to my reply to @Matthew_Graham and @verto0912. I gave more specifics, but with Exchange Listings especially there is more strategy to hash out and it is optimal to approach several at once. We’re definitely open to sharing more of the roadmap (though I actually don’t want to publicly post Exchange Listing strategies by name), but also were matching the format and detail of previous WG posts. Also…adding “host a conference in Decentraland” to that roadmap =)

We were largely matching the format of other WG proposals. One thing that is under consideration is scaling compensation, but that does broach some regulatory concerns. In my view, the compensation for leaders is intended to cover leading efforts and building infrastructure. One output could be a structure for that kind of compensation but a lot of what we’re going to be doing is building out the capacity and process as we go. Curious for @BigSky7’s thoughts on this.

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This is a really good line of questioning and something we need to talk about. Here are my thoughts about working groups and the role of core contributors -

  1. Each working group in the Coop should have one clear leader and 2-3 core contributors. This keeps the groups small, focused, and efficient. Too often we see big working groups lose focus and accountability. We want small groups that come together and aggressively drive things forward for 3-4 months.

  2. Working groups should be led by established members of the Coop with a long track record and a history of meaningful contributions. If someone doesn’t have time to make weekly meetings, organize and execute on projects, or is spread thin across multiple roles, they should not be in charge of working groups.

  3. The 2-3 core contributors should be established community members. The core contributors within working groups should be clearly identified and known to the community. If you are a core contributor in a working group the expectation is that you are visible to the community and driving outcomes. I consider this is one of the most important leadership positions within the Coop.

  4. The DAO is open to all and community members are encouraged to help out with different working groups. However, the WG Leader and the core contributors will always be the ones directly responsible to the community.

With that laid out - here is how I think about compensation

  1. WG are expected to be either full-time contributors or Golden Owls. Ideally they will have done a cycle as a Core Contributor for an existing WG (In much the same way that I spent a WG cycle working in Growth Working Group under @reganbozman and @LemonadeAlpha ). $8k a month or the full-time compensation package is a good place to start when thinking about this.

  2. Core Contributors should be established community members who are a known quantity to the Coop. Ideally they will have contributed for several months and know the structure of the Coop. These community members are the key drivers for the success or failure of each working groups. They are leaders within the community and have demonstrated a high level of ownership.

  1. $5000 - $7000 paid in Index a month is the appropriate range for this level of commitment - they should be paid in Index at a locked in price at the start of the working group. These community members are directly accountable for the performance of the working groups. We want to design a maximally efficient incentive structure that empowers this level of contributor to drive results.

As we designed this working group - the word accountability came up over and over again. DAO’s succeed when community members are accountable to themselves and the community. The most important part of accountability is ownership - taking charge of a problem an committing to solving it.

Small, highly accountable working groups work best. I chose @Mringz @Metfanmike and @fallow8 to be the core contributors for this group because I have worked closely with them over the past several months and I trust them. Working group Core Contributor are some of the best within our community. This is a position of real responsibility in the Coop - their compensation should be in line with the level of performance expected by the community. If we want top performance - we need to ensure core contributors are exposed to the upside of their hard work.

We are all more or less aligned on this. We do need to spend some time as a community hashing out the perfect model for WG compensation - what we have laid out above for compensation is a very good iteration. This conversation will need to continue to evolve as we continue to attract world class talent.

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Voted FOR, makes sense to separate the functions.

I’m just reading the “webinars and conferences” bit as miscellaneous…

I am happy to rep the treasury on the multi sig if needed.

The INDEX/$ debate is something that has come up before. Maybe upon the imminent diversification of the treasury we can re-visit the reward destribution methods sooner than envisaged.

Finally, congrats to those nominated. Fully deserved. Fully send it! :wink:

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Just noticing I was listed as a “reviewer” on this post – thus far, I reviewed an earlier version of this proposal that was in Google Doc form.

I have not reviewed this actual proposal yet.

I will do so and provide feedback as usual before voting on the forum poll.

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Supportive of this group. One point I’ll caution is that in GWG I we focused too much on metrics too broadly and outside of our direct control (such as these).

I would focus on more narrow and directly attributable goals such as:

  • One(+) Tier 1 Extrinsic Productivity Integration (Aave, Compound, Maker)
  • One(+) Tier 1 CEX (Coinbase, Binance, etc)
  • $6m in institutitional sales ($1m month 1, $2m month 2, $3m month 3)
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Distibution is key! Let’s get it!

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This is awesome – I’ve been impressed by the BD crew during my brief time working with the product WG and am excited to see it evolve.

My two cents from restructures in the corporate world: It can often be helpful to also define what a group is not doing, in addition to what they are doing/current purview. Since BD has been traditionally part of the Growth WG, this might be a helpful exercise for the two WGs to collab on.

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I am completely in support of this working group being initiated. With the vast experience of these Owls forming this working group, there is no doubt that this is going to be a successful one. I have worked directly and indirectly with @Mringz @BigSky7 @Metfanmike and @fallow8 and they definitely know what they are doing, i mean take a look at what @Metfanmike contributed to the Coop in just a few weeks of joining, not going to talk much about Simon and Mike, they are beast Owls, rhetorically speaking! :joy:

I vote Yes!

One thing I am a bit disturbed about though and a small feedback is @BigSky7 i know BD has a lot of confidential stuff flying around and yes, as a DAO, almost everything is made transparent for all to see, but based on my experience, wouldn’t it hurt the chances of getting listed on Kucoin by mentioning that in an open channel like this? It is known that when a project gets to let the community know about a possible major CEX listing, exchanges frown at it for good reasons like allowing whales dump on the market if it gets listed eventually. I may be wrong anyway, but just curious.

In all guys, great work so far you all have been doing and I am excited to be working with you, will be more excited to see this WG come to fruition in the long run which I have absolutely no doubt about.

Cheers!

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Adding some notes & questions

Core Problem: Seems to make sense to split GWG & BD apart. Clearly focused on different parts of the funnel.

Key Performance Indicators: Echoing @LemonadeAlpha, It seems like there are some easier metrics here, that basically boil down to “# of deals closed” or however else you’d describe the most proximate output(s)- whether that is # of Tier 1 exchange listings, # of high-value defi partnerships, # of whale holders (for investor relations)

Request for funding:

  • What is “contributor rewards / bounties”? Is that for the core contributors or other community members?
  • What does $10K for “webinars and conferences” get the Coop? Why do we believe an in-person event strategy is the right one for this 3 month period? What’s the hypothesis here? I wonder if there is a smaller way to test out this tactic before allocating $30K to it.

Flagging this as a note to self

Flagging that this ^ is not in the original Working Group vision as described
here: Laying the Rails.

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These folks have been cranking - excited to see what they keep delivering for Coop.

In favor

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Great post and feedback. I’m also strongly in favor of this proposal. Some fair points in the comments were made regarding consistency of rewards and budget details. I suppose this will be addressed.

Something that comes to mind regarding DeFi partnerships: These partnerships develop through “inbound” and "outbound"activities. Either we approach others with a proposal for partnerships or we are approached (e.g. UMA). This is a different setting than exchange listing, or investor relations, where it’s mostly us reaching out.
Is the focus of this group mostly on outbound, or also the first address for incoming partnership requests?
No need to answer rn, this is mostly an input to consider when enhancing these capabilities.

Hey Lavi. It is definitely a bit of both, I have had inbound enquires from exchanges and angel investors that we need to manage but we are also still being proactive with our outbound activities. We need to be proficient in handling both however the main driver of our success will definitely be from outbound activities.

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That’s exclusive of core contributors.

This is implied and there’s some inconsistency even within the post, but that $30k is intended to cover three things:

  1. Attendance by BD team members of Crypto/DeFi in-person events that will have a large number of industry participants that the Coop should build or strengthen relationships with. Bitcoin Miami is the specific event in mind for the timeframe that we think will run $5k-$7k.

  2. Hosting panel discussions or events on behalf of the Coop. @Metfanmike and I have a specific vision for up to two events in NYC during the WG period (and expect success and continuance). That would run around $10k But we also want to budget for other financial centers where we have boots on the ground (Singapore and London coming to mind specifically).

  3. Running Webinars (digitally at first but also could re-use the content for live settings). This is perhaps the most tacked-on and initial investment will be contributor rewards for helping us set these up (@Pepperoni_Joe giving some early help here based on his experience) though there may be costs for licenses, etc.

Speaking only for myself, the reason to do a concerted in-person push now is two-fold:

  • I’m looking for people who are Crypto-comfortable but not yet aware of DeFi, DeFi-curious, or have friends who are one of those two and would drag them to an event. I’m looking for differentiated impressions that @LemonadeAlpha could never reach because they’re low-usage Web 2.0 folks but they’d still go through the same discovery process that I did just a few months ago. And people who come from TradFi will understand DeFi before they would commit funds to an individual protocol or trade. And I want as many of them as possible to know that DPI is the way to get sector exposure.

  • DeFi summer happened during a global pandemic. There haven’t been nearly as many conferences or meetups on the topic as there otherwise would have been. That rubber band is stretched and primed for release. And I want people to see the Index Coop logo when they feel the snap.

So to bring that home:

Why in-person? It’s going to put our community and product in front of different people than existing strategies.

Why financial centers? TradFi evangelists are a route to institutional capital (also more likely early adopters for retail investment).

Why now? We’re coming back from a pandemic and DeFi is still emerging in public consciousness.

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Oh one little thing - Treasury Committee handles this topic
TWG is like all other projects, requests funding from Treasury Committee

With respect to recent market events, is this model of fixed INDEX per month allocation the best way to manage how we reward people ?

For me, if I had a lot of liabilities (bills, mortgage etc…) to pay, having such a volatile income is not a good thing. INDEX is down 25% since the 30th April when this post was made.

If the post was made one week later, early May, then the rewards would have lost more than 50% in USD value.

I personally don’t want to see the scenario where contributors risk loosing out like this, but I respect those who Opt into this style of deal.

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Thanks, @Matthew_Graham. I was pushing strongly for this compensation construct for working group leaders so would love to share my thinking.

At the outset, I’ll note the ultimate solution here is very simple: give working group leads a choice. Those that want to take the market risk from fixing the token amount can opt to do so. Those that are relying on a set monthly USD value when they sign up as a working group lead can alternatively opt for that construct. Problem solved.

With that said, here’s more context:

  • Full-time contributors have their compensation fixed because they’ve committed to working for the Coop full-time for two years. This makes sense, as they should have equity ownership and upside if their hard work infuses value into the Cooperative over the course of the two years. They are fully incentivized.
  • By comparison, part-time contributors can’t similarly have their compensation fixed because the time and value of the contributions is highly variable and only known after the work is done.

But Working Group leaders fall somewhere in the middle of that continuum. Arguably, to me, they look much more like full-time contributors - just with a shorter commitment window (and therefore less compensation).

In the case of this proposal, we all decided we were comfortable taking the market risk, and I personally don’t regret it. You are (rightly) pointing out that INDEX has lost a lot of value in the last couple of weeks (but coming back already). That’s the downside risk of fixing compensation. However, for me, the far bigger risk is upside risk. I believe so much in the project and in the value that our efforts will have on the project that I’d perversely be downright dejected by the price of INDEX going up because it means our efforts ultimately result in fewer INDEX tokens at the end of the working group timeline. You would never commit to joining a startup employee without upside, which is in fixed shares. The same logic applies here, imo.

By fixing the monthly token amount, the incentives are more aligned. This construct also serves as a hedge in some ways. If INDEX plummets, I’m ok with that. I’ll probably just buy more INDEX. If it goes up, fantastic. I’m happy either way.

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I agree and support the opt in approach. I do wonder, if we are limiting this style renumeration to those who can afford the downside scenario and therefore limiting eligibility by individual’s personal financial situations. We can all be bullish, expect price risk to the upside, but not everyone has the ability to express this view via this arrangement. My thinking is how can we make this as inclusive as possible.

My post over the weekend was to highlight the downside risk and also to trigger the discussion around the opt in approach being made as inclusive as it can be. I mentioned this topic to a broader audience before and the idea of having a minimum USD floor value was raised. This gives people who opt in, the unlimited upside exposure whilst somewhat limiting the downside exposure. This gives people the confidence knowing they have a minimum value coming in each month (USD value) which can be used to fund living expenses.

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