[READY TO VOTE] Layerwide new project support

Governance Fund Missions 🏹
1

Delegate Mission Request Summary

This mission is designed to attract developers at a key juncture in their path as builders—the idea stage—by bringing on a trusted partner to host a hackathon. This event would be a marquee recruitment event for new projects and emerging developers, acting as a major marketplace for ideas and talent across the Superchain.

S6 Intent

Intent 3: Grow application devs on the Superchain

Proposing Delegate

jackanorak

Grant Amount

50k OP total is requested for this program, which will be filled by one applicant

**Should this Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants:

One

How will this Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

The thesis here is that hackathons provide a crucial, fun marketplace to showcase Optimism’s strengths as a network and to attract developers looking for ideas, teams, or funding. An enduring focal point for developers, projects seeking products or talent, and funders could easily provide a currently lacking funnel for grassroots developer interest.

Although there have been several hackathons related to Optimism—both sponsored and not sponsored—there has as yet not been a major, central hackathon explicitly geared toward the Superchain. There is a forthcoming one in August, co-led by EthGlobal, but there are opportunities to have more, co-led by other players in the space.

Base recently announced a high-profile hackathon spotlighting some impressive sponsors, such as Stripe and Shopify, which has attracted considerable support from builders. We can do the same.

What is required to execute this Mission Request?

All of the following:

  • An applicant that is highly reputable and that has prior experience with hackathons
  • This hackathon may be in-person or virtual; however, priority is given to in-person programs, especially those that offer some means of administering in-person or travel arrangements.
  • A credible commitment to growing maximum awareness of the hackathon
  • Openness to all participating superchains

Proposals should outline the basic logistics of this hackathon: how developers are selected, roughly how long the hackathon will take, judging structure, how sponsorships are handled, etc. Proposers with previous experience with hackathons should share details on their experience and results.

How should governance participants measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

Milestones

  • Development of more detailed logistics plan
  • Communication of announcement and updates on pending hackathon
  • Signed up applicants
  • Signed up sponsors

Metrics:

  • Number of applicants

  • Number of participating projects

  • Amount of prize funds raised

  • Number of sponsors

  • Committed funding and funders

Impact

  • Number of projects live six months from hackathon
  • Number of active developers new to Superchain
  • Open-source tooling resulting from hackathon

Has anyone other than the proposer contributed to this Mission Request?

No

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2

Hi @jackanorak! This is an interesting Mission Request - Just to clarify, is the idea that service providers interested in providing services to select grant recipients would apply to this Mission Request? I believe that is the intention but it wasn’t completely clear when reading. Would be worth clarifying :slight_smile:

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3

Yes, that’s right. I’m imagining this more or less following how RFGs worked but for this specific scope. But the GC has to be okay with this, probably?

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I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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5

500k seems high tbh but depends on actual scope, projects. Pretty easy to get played here or used for free services with no real gain, like if certik were to offer audits would just be a money sink for garbage even though most think theyre reputable. Would be good to see some more info wrt scope, limits, who can get grants/use services/rates for services.

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Yeah this is one where we have to lean on the grant council to properly vet things

But the idea has to be to leave this open-ended enough to allow projects to come in specifically with asks that appeal to new projects – so what do new projects need?

RPCs
Audits
back-office support
legal guidance
bootstrapping / investment
ecosystem guidance
distribution
server hosting
productivity/office suites

and so on. the idea is that this would be all part of a somewhat coordinated effort so you can offer bundles to promising projects. basically what you could get from an accelerator

I wanted to shoot for this because this is foundationally the most impactful thing we can do as an ecosystem, let providers come and apply to be preferred providers. this is something where everyone wins, and it’d be a huge step forward for ecosystem funds in general

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Hey @jackanorak – just wanted to flag this as a proposal that still needs delegate approvals in order to move to a vote. If you are no longer interested in pursuing this proposal – please disregard this message. In order to see the delegates assigned to your proposal those can be found here. The deadline to provide feedback and approvals for Mission Requests is February 7th at 19:00

Cheers!

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8

I’m an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal should move to a vote.

We’ve seen several grant proposals in the past addressing selected issues from the set mentioned here, but just separately from others (so RPC provider offered RPC cost subsidy, some platform provider offered their platform cost subsidy, etc.). This request allows for mission proposals addressing umbrella offerings covering several separate aspects that could significantly help to kickstart early stage initiatives to a working MVP (in an accelerator-type of way). I like the overall idea and would love to see if there’s an interest from the potential proposers.

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9

Bringing the amount on this one down to 400k to trry to accommodate more missions. Please consider a look at this one - this would carry on the RFG work and keep us at the forefront of grants.

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10

Fully support this, developer support is essential.

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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11

flagging @Pr0 for final comments. Taking down to 300k in light of probability that many of these are going to be first-timers so can’t get that much. so also taking down to ember

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12

I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

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13

Looks like this has the necessary 4 approvals but just in case we’d like to also signal our support for this mission. Attracting high quality service providers to support projects would be a major boost to the ecosystem. We are an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power and believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.

1 Like
15

The Grants Council has opened early submissions as an Indication of Interest for this mission request here

For your application to be considered, the Mission request must pass the Token House vote on February 14th. Submissions will not be considered if a Mission Request is not approved on the 14th.

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The Council has collectively decided to reject all oustanding propsals under this Mission and invite them to resubmit with more attention paid to the spirit of the Mission. Because I sit at an unusual position as the author of this mission and a member of the Grant Council, I’m going to offer some guidance on what we are looking for.

The summary:

An even more succinct way of putting this is: imagine the kind of support a startup incubator provides to startups; startups need this support, and the incubator has the size and resources to offer it. We can offer this kind of model.

Imagine a highly promising project led by a handful of independent builders. They have some funds but not much—and, more importantly, they lack time and other resources to build out their project beyond what they are individually capable of managing.

There’s a lot they have to take care of or fund: audits, RPC costs, deployment costs, yes, but also business formation; legal preparation; payroll; fundraising. If they are deploying a token, there’s liquidity, treasury management, regulatory concerns, etc. The list goes on, but what unites these areas is that they are essential to new projects and often prohitively resource-consuming. Audits, for example, are essential and expensive enough that many projects turn to fundraising specifically to afford them.

There are also business concerns that could, under the right circumstances, be addressed as part of this Mission: new venture strategy; business development; hiring; marketing, etc. Our bar is especially high for service providers in this sphere; there are many who claim to offer these services, but few can at the level we’d hope to be able to offer, which is at the top of our industry. It is of course also very difficult for a DAO to oversee this kind of service.

All of this is to say that proposals should consider, in concrete terms: who is the builder we’re targeting with our offer? How would our in-kind support help this kind of builder? What about this service we are offering is important or helpful enough for this builder to come deploy on Optimism or consider Optimism the best place to build? Do we have evidence that many new projects need help with this service? And, finally: are we the demonstrably the best at what we do?

17

Hi Jack,

Thank you for the detailed clarification regarding the Mission.

I have a question regarding the scope of proposals, specifically about targeting builders within the superchain network. Would offering services aimed at supporting these builders align with the Mission’s objectives?

For example, I’m considering proposing web development services to assist superchain teams in launching their ecosystem pages. Would such a service be considered relevant and within the scope of this Mission?

Thank you!

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18

This is the answer provided by @jackanorak on discord

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@lavande can you share your opinion on this? This mission is part of Intent 2 and I find it a bit unclear whether proposing web development services to assist superchain teams in launching their ecosystem pages fits here or not.

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I think that could be considered under the second bullet point!

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20

This Mission Intent is great - making it as simple as possible for new projects to build on Optimism and access the services they need is crucial. A gap to fill would be around streamlining access to these service providers by helping projects understand which service providers are good, how to contact and contract with them, etc. I.e., a directory of service providers across the outlined areas.

We would love to contribute and build this out! @jackanorak, @lavande, let us know if this is of interest - happy to draft a first version and iterate with you and any other relevant parties involved.