Hello and thanks for your feedback. Want to first clarify something
To clarify, my response above was to Paulo and what he raised; i quoted your application since he mentioned and it wasn’t an answer to your team specifically.
As i said I was not aware of your post and I wanted to reach to you on this, I guess we could do it here.
Let’s go step by step here as well.
Reading the application, i see that after your submission there was a detailed back and forth between you and the DA before the review. This convo also extended after the review itself.
I can understand the disappointment about a rejection after you answered the questions from Castle. Don’t get me wrong: a team that is able to get on the line right away, and answer in detail, is always a positive factor. But is not necessarily enough, specifically the content of the answer provided was, likely, in this case not enough to move the needle.
Would like to go a bit in the details here. This was the question about the topic from Castle
And this was your answer
I will be extremely honest here: this didn’t properly address the question. The question was about how to get the application from being used by 10 users to being used by 100 users to being used by 10000 users, regardless of the open source and non profit nature. It was not necessarily about finding further funds (although, this for us is always a concern: public good and open source doesn’t mean unfortunately that you don’t have to pay the bills, and this is why further grants were mentioned for example).
The question had a deeper meaning, specifically as stated about the growth of the product.
We have plenty of working products in Arbitrum, completed, functional, that are neither interconnected to each other nor used by a meaningful amount of users. Your answer was about completing the product and, after that, you would start scaling. But you didn’t provide a strategy, detail, a plan, and a business model. The goal is to have projects that are framed inside a vision that can leverage all components in a way that the total value is higher than the sum of the single part.
The fact that one topic is mentioned doesn’t mean that is currently cardinal or the focus of the ecosystem.
Can we accept governance tooling proposals? Of course
Is the “new protocol and ideas” currently focused mostly on governance tooling? No.
In previous season we had several projects related to this vertical (proposal.app, the dashboard and reporting from curia to just name a couple). Compared to last year, the governance approach has changed and shifted in the last quarter with the vision posted by the Foundation just to name one. This doesn’t mean that we don’t need good governance tooling, just, that they are not a high priority. Even just with a first analysis of the SOS proposals, is clear that the submission of the DAO are focused on other verticals:
- Onboarding institutions
- Distribution / User Acquisition Channels
- Verticals, workstreams, and operational efficiency
- DeFi as the core pillar
- Supporting builders
- Giving premium to ARB
- AI & Social
- DePIN
Note that I am not providing an evaluation here of what is important, but merely reporting the main topics of discussion and how governance tooling is, indeed, not part of this very broad and horizontal discussion currently in our DAO.
Again, this doesn’t mean that the domain can’t accept proposals that are outside the scope of what I just mentioned, but obviously they could be deemed, in some cases, less important.
The scoring is a sum of 11/25, divided in a total 5 categories. I can understand how it can be frustrating not scoring high enough; at the same time a rationale was provided for each category:
- Team competence: Strong technical team, with clear experience. That said, the full picture is a bit dev-heavy, without clarity on product or growth.
- Innovation and novelty: Interesting governance mechanics, but overall it feels like an iteration on existing tools rather than a clear leap forward. The unique angle still needs sharpening.
- Ecosystem Alignment: DAO tooling aligns with Arbitrum’s direction, but the lack of a unique contribution or integration plan makes it feel less compelling as of now.
- Feasibility and Implementation: The tech plan looks doable, but without insight into progress made post-grant, it’s tough to gauge momentum. Missing well-defined growth strategy and adoption plan creates doubts long-term.
- Measurable Impact: KPIs are mostly dev-focused. Little around usage, traction, or how Arbitrum governance behavior would shift in practice
Reading this feedback I sincerely can see there is enough, for your team, to reflect on what didn’t work from our point of view in the application. I don’t think the rejection was just superficial or dismissive of your work, considering that this was just the 300 character mini review of each point of the rubric, and not the overall general review in the comment that is way more long and articulated.
You did, indeed, provide meaningful feedbacks and clarification even after the rejection. And Castle as well kept the line open, engaging in the convo, providing more insight into their decision process and further questions. These are surely valuable conversation and I thank you for being this committed because it also helps us better understanding builders, how they approach the program, and what we can generally improve over time. For this reason, I want to thank you for taking the time not only to answer in the Questbook comments after the rejection, but also to post here in the forum about your experience.