Forward: Builders Grant - Cycle 11

Builders Proposal Form

Basic Details

Project name:
Forward

Author name and forum name (please provide a reliable point of contact for the project):
Karnika E. Yashwant
key@forwardprotocol.io

L2 recipient address:
0x182CebAB47af1302F39A3dE67dA8BA3945341690

Which Voting Cycle are you applying for?:
Cycle 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

What are you going to build?:
Forward Protocol is WordPress of Web3.0. Users with zero technical knowledge can build and deploy full-stack dApps in very little time and minimum cost involved with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop no-code interface. These dApps can be deployed directly to Optimism. Blockchains and subnets can also be deployed through Forward so the OP SuperChain would be a great addition when integrated in future updates. Forward has an open marketplace where developers can build or upload their templates and set their own fees and monetization structure.

Languages which we support are Solidity, with Rust and Move coming soon. Python, Go and Move are also on our roadmap.

Why is what you are going to build going to succeed?:
Building and deploying dApps takes time, money and technical expertise. With Forward’s no-code drag-and-drop interface anyone can start building a full-stack dApp and deploy it to Optimism instantly. The open Forward Marketplace allows developers to upload their own templates for non-technical users to use. This simplicity is what every project and chain is looking to have and it’s essential for Blockchain as a whole to succeed.

Forward is also able to build custom templates that can be used by your community to deploy dApps directly to Optimism. If Optimism has a specific area of focus to grow your ecosystem, we can build it. Or run a hackathon to the Optimism developer community to crowdsource templates.

Forward Tokenomics

$FORWARD Tokenomics 101. $FORWARD, the native cryptocurrency of… | by Forward Protocol | Medium

Utility once the token is live, which it is not currently:

  • pay for protocol fees and developer fees by the dApp deploying user,
  • pay for the validator fees by the blockchain or subnet deploying user,
  • pay for blockchain or Subnet annual fees for Forward Factory management (like Runcloud)
  • Non-reward staking to be part of the Developers’ DAO to earn from approving/declining developer submissions to earn rewards from developer’s income (sourced from the payment by the deploying user to developer),
  • Non-reward staking by a developer to commit and be able to deploy templates on Forward Factory. On non-compliance to the standards set, the stake may be used for penalizing (like a security deposit),
  • And other protocol-level utilities.

Is your project likely to bring new builders to the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:
Yes, because anyone can sign-up and join Forward to deploy a full-stack dApp and deploy directly to Optimism using the no-code interface, similar to WordPress, Wix and Canva. Users can also access the 12+ pre-built full-stack dApps for free, that are already in the Marketplace and supplied by Forward. It will bring in actual businesses and deploying users, not just builders.

Builders from other ecosystems can now use Forward to monetize their creations for users looking to deploy on Optimism. Real utility is being created here. All users attracted to Forward from all our other marketing efforts now have Optimism as an option to deploy for them.

Is your project likely to improve the quality of developers in the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:
With competition, yes. With more developers joining the Forward platform and uploading their templates, the quality of templates will improve due to competition as the focus is for non-technical users to use. So the developers will start making more customisable templates and those with more features for wider use cases. There will also be the ability to audit templates through the Forward ecosystem which will tackle security and safety concerns of the templates being uploaded.

Is your project likely to improve the commitment of developers in the Optimism ecosystem? If so, please describe how:
Yes, because developers can set their own fee structure and monetization of their uploaded templates. So the more deployments and usage of their templates will increase their revenue potential. There is a real business use case for uploading templates to be used. With increasing competition and revenue comes focus on quality, support and commitment.

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.):
No current metrics yet, as we were in Private Alpha and just launched our Public Alpha.

Who are your competitors?:
https://thirdweb.com/
https://moralis.io/
https://www.starton.io/
https://www.settlemint.com/
https://simbachain.com/
https://www.cookbook.dev/
https://enzyme.so/
https://www.quicknode.com/
https://www.lokicode.io/

What differentiates you from your competitors?:
We have done a very detailed competitor analysis.

Let’s discuss Moralis, Alchemy and similar platforms - they are developer assistant tools to help developers, they are not built for the end users with a zero code solution, so people could use Moralis and Alchemy to build applications, and put it in the Factory to scale to a non technical audience.

Forward is meant for the end user with a drag and drop no code application.

The dApp functionality is live, and in the next few months we will be going live with being able to deploy a complete blockchain, subnets and nodes. Then they can use the Forward validator marketplace to hire a validator.

There are a few projects that compete with Forward when it comes to node deployments. An example is Quicknode, but they allow projects to create nodes in a centralised fashion. Forward is completely decentralised where it’s not Forward who is adding packages/templates, but the developers with their own fee structure.

There could be 100’s of different developers competing and having their own customized images, versions of blockchains, different consensus, node setups and structures.

All of that is open, we are an open marketplace, where we’ll be transparently showing what is the number of deployment, reviews and ratings for users to make the best choice for themselves.

One of the other differences is that we use an EIP2535 at the heart of Forward Protocol. This allows a developer to update a specific function, they don’t have to update the whole contract, and they can push updates allowing a user to choose if they want to accept the update or not, just like WordPress where you get “update your plugin now”.

This can be used to update contracts facet by facet, function by function, unlike a traditional proxy with a micro update functionality that will not only work for dApps but will work for blockchains too, which essentially means blockchains don’t need to fork, they can run updates without forking because of this unique diamond implementation which has never be done before at a blockchain level.

Will your project be composable with other projects on Optimism? If so, please explain:
Yes, developers that upload their templates can add composability to their smart contracts and templates which can interact with other Optimism ecosystem projects.

Team

Who are your founders?:
Karnika E. Yashwant - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrkey/
Mitch Rankin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchrankin/

What makes your founders well-positioned to accomplish your goals with this project (1-2 sentences on each)?:
Karnika E. Yashwant (Mr. KEY) has been in the Blockchain space since 2013 and is the Founder of KEY Difference Media (Top 5 ICO Marketing Agencies of 2018), and CIO of Utopian Capital. He was a member of the prestigious Forbes Council and a contributor to articles on current Blockchain and marketing trends to various crypto media. He takes pleasure in 16 years of Content Marketing track record and 550m+ raised in ICOs for various clients. KEY has a hybrid of technical, business and marketing experience.

Mitch Rankin is an entrepreneur who has decades of successful international business and investors relations experience and he’s the CEO of EnglishForward.com, the internet’s largest English learning community.

Our Founders have a good balance between web2 and web3 to enable web2 users joining the web3 world successfully. KEY’s decade long experience in Blockchain industry working on projects has given him great connections in the space to make progress happen.

Tell us about the rest of your team (if there are more teammates):
Billy Weir, CTO
Billy Weir is Ex-Facebook and has expertise in Software Development and Engineering, Project Management, Fintech, Cryptocurrency, and experience in multiple niche sectors including Software development for Automation, AI, Adversarial networks, Data Science, Cryptography and many others.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/billy-weir-79b89a46

We have 15 other team members across development, marketing, management, etc.

Is this your first Web3 project?:
Yes

If not, what else have you built? (Share links, Github repository, or any other useful information.):
No

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, Forward is actively funded by our founders from their other business incomes. So we have an unlimited runway.

Grant Request

What is the size of the grant request? (50k OP max):
25k OP

How do you justify the size of the grant?
We are confident that we can facilitate more dApp deployments and users interacting with the Optimism ecosystem. As we have a considerable following, we can promote the usage of Optimism on Forward to a large audience. We currently have 38.1k Twitter followers, 10.8k Telegram members, 15k Facebook followers, 617 Medium followers, 1365 Discord members and 5.53k YouTube subscribers. We are also affiliated with different media outlets like Cryptopolitan which has 1.4m traffic and over 100k+ social audiences. KEY Difference Media is one of the oldest blockchain marketing agencies founded by Mr. KEY, our co-founder, who has 90+ LinkedIn recommendations and 25,000+ Top Tier Global Connections is also involved in pushing the user growth of the ecosystem.

Roadmap

Describe in discrete steps your plan for accomplishing your project:

  • Launch Public Alpha, with ticketing system. (Done)
  • Forward will start a marketing campaign on our social media channels spreading the word that anyone can join Forward for free and deploy full-stack dApps directly to Optimism.
  • Users joining Forward can utilize any of the 12+ pre-built full-stack templates which are already listed on the Marketplace for free and deploy it directly to Optimism.
  • On-board developers to expand the marketplace template library.
  • Users/ developers can also start building their own templates by uploading their smart contract and using the no-code drag-and-drop interface to build the front-end. They can then choose to list it to the Forward Marketplace and set their own fee and monetisation structure for the usage of their template or they can choose to keep it private.
  • Integrate affiliate system
  • Integrate EIP 2535 Diamond contract deployment
  • Increase the quality of templates by using hackathons.
  • Integrate Forward Network and the OP SuperChain stack to facilitate blockchain and subnet deployments through the no-code interface.

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?:
No, the plan progresses with Forward Factory regardless. But user rewards and user acquisition part of the proposal will depend on OP token receipt to be able to incentivize users for Optimism deployment.

What is your plan for the use of the OP token after the 1 year lock-up?:
Examples of OP token distribution:

  • Template developers will be eligible to receive OP tokens based on the amount of dApp deployments to Optimism. For example, if the same template is deployed 5 times to Optimism, the developer would receive OP tokens for it. The more deployments, the higher the reward tier, incentivizing the developers to promote their template for OP deployment.
  • Template developers will be eligible for OP tokens if their dApp is deployed to Optimism and reaches a certain amount of transactions or value. For example, if the usage metrics of a particular dApp has more than 20 transactions a week or $500 value a week, the developer will receive OP tokens based on tiers.
  • Template developers are eligible for OP tokens if they have a certain amount of unique templates which are being deployed to Optimism. For example: If the developer has uploaded at least 5 unique templates and each of those templates have been deployed to Optimism with usage, they will receive OP tokens. We are adding multiple layers of structures that motivates them to maximize their efforts within the OP ecosystem.
  • Every new developer signing-up through a specific link and releasing at least one template to the Marketplace will be eligible for OP tokens. For example, if a developer signs up through a specially created link and uploads a template to the Marketplace, they will receive some OP tokens for the on-boarding process.
  • Template developers could also have the option to be paid in OP tokens equivalent to the amount in USD they charge in fees for their template usage.
  • People using referral and affiliate links who bring developers to Forward, will also be eligible for an OP tokens.
  • Additional OP tokens can also be dropped if the developer has audited their contract with documentation to prove it. The more audits, the merrier.
  • We will run monthly goal-based rewards: For April, templates related to RWAs are given a bonus. These will enable us to grow the templates across various categories and not concentrate on just a few use cases.

In short, OP rewards are given for the below actions and the recipients can maximize the amount by checking more of these criteria:

  • Create more templates
  • Create templates within “target niches”
  • Get more deployments
  • Get more value transfers/usage
  • Get more developers to signup and deploy (share the love)
  • Get their templates audited

This increases varieties, choice for the users, free marketing from the developer’s side, more user exposure and buy-side pressure for OP from retail and users.

If the OP tokens have a hard lock of 1 year, the template developers will only be able to receive the OP tokens after it has been released. Metrics will be available. But if hard lock need not be enforced, developers will have instant gratification which is good to promote more progress faster.

Another option for the 1 year hard lock, is to reimburse Forward for all the fees waived (deployment and usage fees) during the 1 year lock up period. Metrics of these fees will be shown.

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.
dApp deployment on Optimism: 200+
dApp templates being used to deploy on Optimism: 50+
dApp usage metrics on Optimism: Based on business use-cases of the respective users
On-boarding Optimism users: Based on business use-cases of the respective users
On-boarding Optimism developers: 100+

This spreadsheet contains Forward’s projected metrics and OP token allocation for each of the benchmark milestones.
Data Metrics - Google Sheets

Spreadsheet explained:
OP token rewards will be given based on 4 gamification tiers which range from 1 to 200+ dApp deployments where 100 OP tokens are dropped on tier 1 and 400 for tier 4.

Projections are calculated by taking the average of the minimum and maximum value of B2B and B2C usage metrics on Optimism and on-boarding Optimism users.

These projections are used to calculate the amount of OP tokens to be dropped for each benchmark milestone per month for 6 months, from April to September.

We have also included estimates to show what the ‘dApp usage metrics on Optimism’ and ‘on-boarding of Optimism users’ would be if calculated for very conservative, conservative, normal and max.

As there are only a certain amount of OP tokens available per tier, developers would want to promote their template to get more users to deploy it so that they can access more OP tokens from that available pool before it dries up. So developers would focus on trying to get their templates deployed 200+ times to get the maximum reward available in that tier. It would be possible to fulfill the goal of 200+ deployments by one developer and get the maximum OP tokens from that pool. So all developers would aim to get 200+ deployments which would create healthy competition between developers to get as many deployments as possible. So this means that there would be much more deployments than we are anticipating.

The OP reward criteria would be based on active dApps being used on Optimism and not just about deployments. This will be monitored and manually approved as per the metrics. As this is actively monitored, Forward will optimize and improve on the criteria needed to unlock the available OP rewards.

Forward is also actively talking to various developer schools and organizations to onboard people that are beyond these projections and is not part of this campaign but something Forward will do anyways to on-board more developers.

If there is additional support of OP’s marketing team, these results can be 10x multiplied as a joint effort in onboarding developers and users with more joint activities.

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.

  • dApp deployments on Optimism.

Dates: This is an ongoing and updating metric. We have provided a 6 months month to month projection above. We will provide MONTHLY updates on the 1st of every month showing the current stats.

Source of truth: Verified on-chain, API will return list of dApp contract addresses on call, we provide monthly report of the same ourselves in addition.

  • dApp templates being used to deploy on Optimism:

Dates: This is an ongoing and updating metric. We have provided a 6 months month to month projection above. We will provide MONTHLY updates on the 1st of every month showing the current stats.
Source of truth: Verified by logging into the Forward Factory as a user/developer to see the templates in the Marketplace. API will be available to verify on-demand as well.

  • dApp usage metrics on Optimism:

Dates: This is an ongoing and updating metric. We will provide MONTHLY updates on the 1st of every month showing the current stats.
Source of truth: Verified on-chain on the respective dApp contract addresses. Can be verified using any 3rd party analytics tools on combined activities of the contracts deployed through the factory. Forward API can also on-demand confirm the data.

Optimism Relationship

Does your project solve a problem for the Optimism ecosystem?:
Yes, Forward by nature is designed to increase dApp deployments and dApp usage on Optimism which means ecosystem growth.

How does your proposal offer a value proposition solving the above problem?:
More dApps, more users, more exposure, more usage of Optimism

Why will this solution be a source of growth for the Optimism ecosystem?:
Anyone can start building dApps and deploy it directly to Optimism through Forward. Developers are also incentivized to stay on the platform and increase the quality of their templates to be used through the fee and monetization structure.

How committed are you (and your team) to building on Optimism?:
Extremely committed because Optimism is currently a leader when it comes to Layer2 technology and when the OP SuperChain stack is launched it can also be integrated into Forward for users to deploy their own blockchain and subnets.

Is your project Optimism Native?:
This project’s activity of drawing developers and users is Optimism-specific, but Forward can handle other chains as well from a technical standpoint.

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

2 Likes

Are there any integrations with NFTs on this platform?

Yes there are. Forward currently has 4 different free NFT templates in the Marketplace that can be customized and deployed.
The current 4 NFT contracts are:

  1. Basic NFT Smart Contract
  2. Exclusive Access NFT Contract
  3. NFT Creator with Permissions
  4. Ownership Based NFT Creator

We are also in the process of adding more templates.

1 Like

Very nice. Going on my list to dig in deeper to the app and I appreciate your answer. Have a great day!

1 Like

Hey @HicoFP, giving you a heads up that this will be the formal comms channel with the grant council builders subcommittee, which consists of @jackanorak @kaereste @danelund.eth, and myself. We’ll make sure we’re around to address any questions you have in this process.

On the critical milestones we need to be able to track your progress. Dates and source of truth would be nice.

2 Likes

Hi @gonna.eth, thanks for the intro and your feedback. Apologies for my delayed reply.

Regarding dates and a source of truth for critical milestones:

dApp deployments on Optimism:
Dates: This is an ongoing and updating metric. We will provide MONTHLY updates on the 1st of every month showing the current stats.

Source of truth: This can be verified on-chain, we can provide a list of dApp contract addresses for you to check. This can also be verified through our API directly for authorized users once our APIs are made public.

dApp templates being used to deploy on Optimism:
Dates: This is an ongoing and updating metric. We will provide MONTHLY updates on the 1st of every month showing the current stats.

Source of truth: This can be verified by logging into the Forward Factory as a user/developer to see the templates in the Marketplace. We will also see if any API can be provisioned towards this data.

dApp usage metrics on Optimism:
Dates: This is an ongoing and updating metric. We will provide MONTHLY updates on the 1st of every month showing the current stats.

Source of truth: This can be verified on-chain on the respective dApp contract addresses for you to check.

We will update our proposal with this info as well.

2 Likes

Thank you for your answers!

Do you think you can give an example of how OP tokens will be distributed?

I get OP tokens in 1 year if I deployed a dapp?

BTW could you possibly add the “create template” feature and promote developers to make their own and get OP if someone uses it?

2 Likes

I haven’t seen any mention of your own token on this proposal. Can you elaborate on what’s it going to be for?

image

2 Likes

Thanks for your response @gonna.eth.

Do you think you can give an example of how OP tokens will be distributed?
I get OP tokens in 1 year if I deployed a dapp?
BTW could you possibly add the “create template” feature and promote developers to make their own and get OP if someone uses it?

Regarding the OP tokens lock, is this a 1 year hard lock or can OP tokens be released as milestones are achieved with metrics to back it?

Examples of OP token distribution:

  • Template developers will be eligible to receive OP tokens based on the amount of dApp deployments to Optimism. For example, if the same template is deployed 5 times to Optimism, the developer would receive OP tokens for it. The more deployments, the higher the reward tier, incentivizing the developers to promote their template for OP deployment.
  • Template developers will be eligible for OP tokens if their dApp is deployed to Optimism and reaches a certain amount of transactions or value. For example, if the usage metrics of a particular dApp has more than 20 transactions a week or $500 value a week, the developer will receive OP tokens based on tiers.
  • Template developers are eligible for OP tokens if they have a certain amount of unique templates which are being deployed to Optimism. For example: If the developer has uploaded at least 5 unique templates and each of those templates have been deployed to Optimism with usage, they will receive OP tokens. We are adding multiple layers of structures that motivates them to maximize their efforts within the OP ecosystem.
  • Every new developer signing-up through a specific link and releasing at least one template to the Marketplace will be eligible for OP tokens. For example, if a developer signs up through a specially created link and uploads a template to the Marketplace, they will receive some OP tokens for the on-boarding process.
  • Template developers could also have the option to be paid in OP tokens equivalent to the amount in USD they charge in fees for their template usage.
  • People using referral and affiliate links who bring developers to Forward, will also be eligible for an OP tokens.
  • Additional OP tokens can also be dropped if the developer has audited their contract with documentation to prove it. The more audits, the merrier.
  • We will run monthly goal-based rewards: For April, templates related to RWAs are given a bonus. These will enable us to grow the templates across various categories and not concentrate on just a few use cases.

In short, OP rewards are given for the below actions and the recipients can maximize the amount by checking more of these criteria:

  • Create more templates
  • Create templates within “target niches”
  • Get more deployments
  • Get more value transfers/usage
  • Get more developers to signup and deploy (share the love)
  • Get their templates audited

This increases varieties, choice for the users, free marketing from the developer’s side, more user exposure and buy-side pressure for OP from retail and users.

If the OP tokens have a hard lock of 1 year, the template developers will only be able to receive the OP tokens after it has been released. Metrics will be available. But if hard lock need not be enforced, developers will have instant gratification which is good to promote more progress faster.

Another option for the 1 year hard lock, is to reimburse Forward for all the fees waived (deployment and usage fees) during the 1 year lock up period. Metrics of these fees will be shown.

The ‘create template’ feature is already live on the Forward platform, known as the ‘Factory’. Yes, it is possible to do as seen in above examples.

I haven’t seen any mention of your own token on this proposal. Can you elaborate on what’s it going to be for?

Forward Tokenomics

Utility once the token is live, which it is not currently:

  • pay for protocol fees and developer fees by the dApp deploying user,
  • pay for the validator fees by the blockchain or subnet deploying user,
  • pay for blockchain or Subnet annual fees for Forward Factory management (like Runcloud)
  • Non-reward staking to be part of the Developers’ DAO to earn from approving/declining developer submissions to earn rewards from developer’s income (sourced from the payment by the deploying user to developer),
  • Non-reward staking by a developer to commit and be able to deploy templates on Forward Factory. On non-compliance to the standards set, the stake may be used for penalizing (like a security deposit),
  • And other protocol-level utilities.
2 Likes

Hi, @HicoFP we are suggesting a few projects to consider lowering the requested OP grant size to improve the chances to finish on the top 10 of the final list.

Also please verify if your milestones are crystal clear, meaning they have: potential dates of completion, clear objectives to be accomplished, and an open source of truth to verify it was completed.

Milestones score higher if they are oriented to:

  • Draw more developers to Optimism ecosystem
  • Making the project composable with Optimism ecosystem

Be as clear as you can with the OP distribution.

Is this an optimism-specific project?

The sooner your edits, the greater the chance they will be considered in the final review. We are looking to wrap up on Monday. Please tag me if you make any changes.

3 Likes

Hello @Gonna.eth , thanks for the suggestions and giving us the opportunity to update our proposal.

We have lowered our requested OP grant size to 25k OP and updated our proposal with all the necessary OP distribution and milestone information requested which includes a spreadsheet and explanation of our projections, estimates and how we calculated it.

Regarding this question,

Is this an optimism-specific project?

This project’s activity of drawing developers and users is Optimism-specific, but Forward can handle other chains as well from a technical standpoint.

1 Like

Hi @Gonna.eth , hope you are doing well.

Would it be possible to get some feedback regarding our proposal and where we can improve?

Thanks
Hico