[DRAFT][GF: Phase 1] CharmVerse

1

Basic Details

Project name:
CharmVerse

Author name and forum name (please provide a reliable point of contact for the project):
Alex Poon (alexpoon_hk)

L2 recipient address:
0xD3581888a0890Fb3270F8349588F3f4Cc25Fb2c9

Which Voting Cycle are you applying for?:
11

I confirm that I have read the landing pages for the Builders and Growth Experiments Sub-Committees and that I have determined my proposal is best suited to be reviewed by the Builders Sub-Committee: [Yes/No]:
Yes

Project Details
The solution for token communities to build relationships, work together and vote. Manage members, coordinate tasks, facilitate structured discussions & decisions, and hold each other accountable.

What are you going to build?:
With thousands of users already using CharmVerse, we want to extend our support to the Optimism ecosystem.

Access control
We manage permissions to access capabilities and content via role-based access control. Roles are assigned automatically based on the crypto assets in a user’s wallet. We will ensure that tokens/NFTs on Optimism will be supported.

Member Directory
Our Member Profiles automatically display each member’s community contributions, such as bounty completion, proposal creation, and votes. Members choose to show off NFTs in their wallets and can optionally pick an NFT as their profile picture. We propose to support similar capabilities on Optimism.

Project and task payments
Bounties can be used to promote and engage the community. They can also be used to facilitate project funding. The CharmVerse platform supports payments via wallet payments and Gnosis Safe multisig payments. Bounties can be paid in USDC and ETH. We will add support for the native Optimism tokens and custom tokens on Optimism.

Why is what you are going to build going to succeed?:
CharmVerse is a live platform used by communities like BitDAO, PleasrDAO, OrangeDAO, Raid Guilds, and others. We are excited to support more users in the Optimism ecosystem.

Is your project likely to bring new builders to the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:

Yes. CharmVerse helps communities onboard and engage both crypto-native and crypto-curious users. As we enable more users to build communities in Optimism, more builders will be excited to build here. Furthermore, CharmVerse has a track record of integrating with other web3 platforms/tools. Our success in the Optimism ecosystem will benefit other community tool builders.

Is your project likely to improve the quality of developers in the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:

CharmVerse has a set of developer-friendly APIs, which we are excited to share with Optimism developers to help them build the next generation of community tools with us. Areas like membership management, credentials, reputation, and payments immediately come to mind.

Is your project likely to improve the commitment of developers in the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:

Since CharmVerse has demonstrated success partnering with developers in other chains in supporting DAOs and other token communities. Bringing CharmVerse to Optimism will encourage community tool developers to build with both CharmVerse and Optimism, without needing to choose one or the other.

Provide us with links to any of the following for the project:

Do you have any metrics on the project currently? (TVL, transactions, volume, unique addresses, etc. Optimism metrics preferred; please link to public sources such as Dune Analytics, etc.):

Who are your competitors?:
WonderVerse, Clarity, CommonWealth, DAOLens

What differentiates you from your competitors?:
Our singular focus on bringing the best user experience to our users while integrating with many great web3 projects. Our users have consistently shared this feedback with us, who have extensively evaluated and sometimes switched from the competitors above. We were voted #3 on Product Hunt and #1 on Smoothie.

Will your project be composable with other projects on Optimism? If so, please explain:
Yes. Our role-based access control will support tokens and NFTs on Optimism. This will also be true for our Member Directory. For deeper integrations, we will provide API support for read/write operations to various aspect of the CharmVerse use case.

Team

Who are your founders?:
Alex Poon (Co-founder, CEO)
Alex is responsible for growth, product and BD at CharmVerse. He is a 3X founder. Prior to CharmVerse, he co-founded x.ai, an AI-powered personal assistant (raised $45M, exit), and Visual Revenue, a real-time predictive analytics platform for editorial teams (exit). He holds a patent on a content placement algorithm. Earlier in his career, as an engineer at Lockheed Martin, he built software for unmanned aerial vehicles.

Matt Casey (Co-founder, CTO)
Matt is responsible for tech and product at CharmVerse. He co-founded x.ai with Alex and has been working with Alex since 2012, across 3 companies. As the CTO of x.ai, he architected and built the initial product and scaled it to the company’s exit. Prior to CharmVerse, he taught himself solidity, wrote a smart contract, minted, and sold a set of NFTs.

What makes your founders well-positioned to accomplish your goals with this project (1-2 sentences on each)?:
We are experienced founders who have a track record in shipping production-grade projects.

Tell us about the rest of your team (if there are more teammates):
We are a team of 11 builders and growth marketers. Besides the founders, our head of product is the founder of PurpleDAO, a DAO that supports the Farcaster ecosystem, and a Noun delegate.

Is this your first Web3 project?:
Yes though we have been around for 1.5 yrs.

If not, what else have you built? (Share links, Github repository, or any other useful information.):

I understand that Builders grants are subject to a 1 year lock-up, as explained further in this post : [Yes/No]:
Yes

Is your project funded? If so, provide an estimate of how many months of funding runway your project has:
Yes, we have about 2+ years of runway

Grant Request

What is the size of the grant request? (50k OP max):
50k OP

How do you justify the size of the grant?
CharmVerse is a complex project with many code paths that support various use cases. To properly integrate Optimism, we need to apply significant design, engineering, and QA resources.

Roadmap

Describe in discrete steps your plan for accomplishing your project:
For each feature, we will

  1. Create low fidelity mockup/prototype
  2. Conduct user interviews/research
  3. Create high fidelity design
  4. Code
  5. Deploy feature in our staging environment with testnet
  6. QA
  7. Deploy feature in our staging environment with mainnet
  8. QA

Please provide any additional information that will facilitate accountability:(smart contracts addresses relevant to the proposal, relevant organizational wallet addresses, etc.)
N/A

Does your plan depend on the receipt of OP tokens?:
Yes. We are a big fan of the Optimism ecosystem and are eager to be part of it. Though the partnership should be a two-way street. A grant from Optimism is the first step toward an impactful, long-term relationship.

What is your plan for the use of the OP token after the 1 year lock-up?:
We will use it to pay for continued product development and maintenance

Please provide benchmark milestones for this project. These milestones should guide the Optimism community on the progress of your project during the 1-year lock-up period.

  1. Access control - Users have the ability to earn/lose role(s) based on OP token/NFT holdings in their wallets
  2. Member Directory - CharmVerse Member Profile will include OP token/NFT holdings. Users will also be able to select their OP NFT as PFP
  3. Project and task payments - User can pay bounties/grants with OP tokens & custom tokens on the OP chain.

Please define critical milestones for this project. Critical milestones are meant to show good-faith efforts to accomplish the project. Non-completion of these milestones could lead to revocation of remaining grant rewards.

  1. Access control - Users have the ability to earn/lose role(s) based on OP token/NFT holdings in their wallets
  2. Member Directory - CharmVerse Member Profile will include OP token/NFT holdings. Users will also be able to select their OP NFT as PFP
  3. Project and task payments - User can pay bounties/grants with OP tokens & custom tokens on the OP chain.

Optimism Relationship

Does your project solve a problem for the Optimism ecosystem?:
Optimism communities are currently stucked with disconnected web2 tools like Discord and Discourse combined with fragmented web3 protocols. It is difficult for communities to onboard and engage users who have limited attention span and expect amazing UX.

How does your proposal offer a value proposition solving the above problem?:
The CharmVerse platform provides a seamless experience for OP users to build relationships, collaborate, and vote. It does this while giving users access to the superpower of web3.

Why will this solution be a source of growth for the Optimism ecosystem?:
CharmVerse enables both crypto-native and crypto-curious users to onboard and engage communities. As we enable more users to build communities in Optimism, more builders will be excited to build here. Furthermore, CharmVerse has a track record of integrating with other web3 platforms/tools. Our success in the Optimism ecosystem will benefit other community tool builders.

How committed are you (and your team) to building on Optimism?:
We are very committed to the Optimism ecosystem and see this integration as a first step of a long and fruitful relationship.

Is your project Optimism Native?:
Yes

Confirmations

I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Optimism Foundation to receive this grant: [Yes/No]:
Yes

I understand that I will be expected to following the public grant reporting requirements outlined here: [Yes/No]:
Yes

1 Like
2

@lavande Can you please transfer the ownership of this post to my name?

1 Like