Hello fellow Arbinauts!
I am here to apply as domain allocator for the “New Protocol Ideas”.
- Name : Apoorv Anand
- Your forum username: apoorv9
- Twitter: @Apoorvanand99
What is your experience in the interested domain? Please share links and supporting information. Do you have experience running in any other grant programs?
Experience in interested domain :
-
DeFi experience : Currently, I am part of the Stella Strategy and BD team. Stella is a leveraged strategy protocol with 0% cost to borrow on Arbitrum. Stella was previously Alpha Homora, the first leveraged yield farming protocol with all time high TVL of $1.9B. My experience at Stella gives me good background in DeFi protocols, especially in the space of yield protocols, money markets, leverage staking, LPing etc.
-
Grant experience (Venture Capital) : I have previously worked in the grants/venture business, with Flipkart’s corporate venture capital arm. Was responsible for Flipkart Leap - where we disbursed 200k in grants across 8 startups in the ecommerce space. Set up and launched the program from scratch.
-
NFT experience : I was part of the Flipkart Labs team, which is the web3 arm of Flipkart - the biggest Indian ecommerce brand with 100M+ annual users. As part of the team, I was involved in launching Firedrops, the NFT marketplace for Flipkart with utility tied to loyalty programs and whitelisting for limited edition products. We managed to work around a lot of regulation and onboard 500k+ KYC’ed users onto our wallet (and platform). Left it to get out of the CeDeFi system and get into proper DeFi.
-
Infrastructure experience : I have previously worked in growth for Leap Wallet, the wallet for Cosmos ecosystem.
What would you like to see built on Arbitrum in your domain and what a good grant proposal looks like for you.
First part of the question - What do you want to see on Arbitrum
My thesis is that Arbitrum is going to face a lot of competition by well capitalized L2s in the coming months, with both Mantle and Base building their core competencies within DeFi.
Would personally want to see innovative protocols around the following themes to make Arbitrum stand out :
- LSDfi protocols capitalizing on LSD influx onto L2s.
- RWA protocols : Innovative protocols to attract the RWA on-chain with trust minimized mechanisms.
- Derivative protocols : Building upon the perp DEX success of Arbitrum into options protocols.
- LeverageFi protocols : Building capital efficient and risk adjusted Leverage layers for DeFi.
Second part of the question - What does a good grant proposal looks like for you.
A compelling grant proposal should articulate several key points. I’m not only interested in understanding the target audience for the product but also the implementation strategy, liquidity sourcing methods, current technical and design challenges, and the team’s approach to resolving them. Furthermore, the rationale behind choosing one model over another is crucial. A team that lives and breaths a product has to be able to justify every decision made, from brainstorming, design, to implementation.
I see a compelling grant proposal from two lenses :
-
How solid is the product and the strategy. This would cover :
a. What are the protocol mechanisms and how is it unique?
b. What is the GTM strategy? Liquidity Sourcing? Tailwinds expected?
c. Expected challenges and tactics to overcome them. -
How well is the proposal articulated. This would cover :
a. Does the proposal have a detailed timeline with reasonable milestones?
b. Plans to keep the community updated about the progress of the project.
c. Plans in case the team decides to halt protocol development due to any unforeseen issues.
Time commitment - You need to commit at least 15 hours of your time per week as a domain allocator, and what is the expected Turn Around Time (TAT) that the builders can expect from you?
I can commit to at least 15 hours per week as a domain allocator, and am flexible to offer more if needed. Since I am perpetually online, the TAT that builders can expect from me is a maximum of 24 hours.
Declaration of Conflict of Interest : I am part of the Strategy and BD team at Stella - a native Arbitrum DeFi protocol. I however declare to not partake in any grant related discussions for Stella through this grant allocator program. Stella is already backed by top VCs like Binance Labs, Multicoin capital, Delphi ventures, Spartan Labs etc, and thus does not seek any grants through this grant program set by Questbook.