Arbitrum Growth Circles Event Proposal

Proposals
1

This is an Events Budget Proposal

approval on Snapshot will result in direct funding without requiring a Tally vote

Live Snapshot: https://snapshot.box/#/s:arbitrumfoundation.eth/proposal/0xab1a7ff1a294882315f3beaa77fa0d4b2ec68633792046b941714108209ce737


Event Description

The Arbitrum Growth Circle is a three-month, eight-event series designed to empower the community as a self-sustaining support system for early-stage and high growth (pre-token) protocols. Running bi-weekly, each two-hour session creates a focused environment where protocols, developers, and ecosystem participants can gain insights, share experiences, and build lasting connections. The sessions surface hidden expertise within the community and provide a structured space for peer-led support.

This series is a direct response to findings from the AVI Pilot’s ecosystem investment thesis, which emphasizes the importance of empowering skilled builders to become leaders within the ecosystem. By creating a scalable peer support network, we can create an environment that’s less dependent on direct engagement with any one expert group.

Sessions include breakout discussions, expert clinics, and guided workshops, ensuring participants receive actionable guidance while expanding Arbitrum’s network of skilled builders. By surfacing and rewarding community expertise, the Growth Circle creates a self-sustaining support system that drives long-term ecosystem growth.

Some examples of session topics include:

  • Orbit Chains: Is it the right fit and when to deploy
  • Go To Market Clinic
  • Strategic Relationship Development with Institutional Stakeholders

Event Organizer

Farstar, the group behind the Arbitrum Ventures Initiative, has successfully executed similar programs at large-scales across 10+ countries, managing parallel teams and an annual events budget in excess of $1.5M+. We’ve been recognised for our work in startup communities like the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK and alongside the likes of Oxford University and Imperial College.

As the direct event organizer, our team will handle all aspects of:

  • Participant curation and engagement
  • Event design and execution
  • Session facilitation
  • Insight tracking and documentation
  • Post-event analysis and reporting

Benefits of the Event to Arbitrum

The Arbitrum Growth Circle creates a scalable solution for the growing demand for direct support within the ecosystem. This aligns closely with AVI’s goals of empowering entrepreneurs to act as leaders within the ecosystem and serves as a natural continuation of the flywheel effect started by the AVI Pilot.

  • Scalable Support: Streamlines expertise sharing, lowers bottleneck effects, while empowering community-driven problem-solving and knowledge sharing within the ecosystem.

  • Ecosystem Growth: Accelerates onboarding, expands access to market makers and liquidity providers by helping protocols to understand how to engage them and drives adoption of Arbitrum.

  • Market Connections: Bridges gaps between loosely connected community members and establishes direct support-related feedback loops.

  • Empowering Community: Elevates emerging experts, fosters peer-led problem-solving, and builds a sustainable mentor network.

Proposed Budget

Total Budget: $67.2k USD

Budget Breakdown

  • Growth Circle Clinics: $15k
    • 7 clinics with 3 facilitators each
    • $3k or the initial one + 2k for the next 6
      • 3 facilitators running topic preparation, developing guess expert briefs in collaboration with the guests, providing pre and post session feedback, participant engagement to curate topics (incl. reading decks, materials, data rooms, form responses, feedback processing, retros, improvement planning for next sessions)
      • Management of the group chat platform to collect asks, organise P2P support, share useful insights about certain participants to tigger connectivity and deepen the relationships etc.
  • Marketing and Participant Recruitment: 12k
    • Onboarding prep and execution
      • Including in-person participation on events and recruitment of participants
      • 1:1 engagements from the AVI market consultations
      • Further research of the 500+ long list of projects from the AVI Pilot and reach out from working with other relevant groups
      • Asking engaged participants to offer introductions and collaborating with other Arbitrum relevant groups. Minor online engagement activities.
      • Doing qualification of potential participants before including them in the circle.’
    • Graphic design
    • Execution of the Marketing Plan (described below)
  • 1:1 Support: 7k
    • Over 60 one-on-one support sessions
    • Including additional to the related to the facilitation of the clinics - pre-session prep and post followup, introductions etc
    • To be executed both online and offline during other events we attend
  • Program Design and Development: 10k
    • Conceptual development of the program
    • Participant journey design
    • Creation of templates and session formats
    • All relevant stakeholder engagement to include inputs from the DAO and other Arbitrum relevant groups
  • Reporting and DAO Engagement: 9.6k
    • Bi-weekly updates
    • Post-event impact report
    • Developing impact stories in a format that can be used for promotional purposes (eg by AF on Twitter)
    • Developing impact stories in a format that can be used for promotional purposes (eg by AF on Twitter)
    • Delegate engagement from pre-conceptual state to final report
  • Unconference: 13.6k
    • Event preparation
    • Pre-curation of sessions
    • Recruiting & Engaging session hosts
    • Facilitation
    • Followup and creating a plan EthCC
    • Post EthCC catchup session (optional attendance)

Budget Tracking

We have extensive experience running similar events and have established budget tracking processes to ensure funds are used effectively to maximize impact while maintaining financial integrity.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPI Target Tracking Method
Net Promoter Score Target +50 Post-session surveys of all participants
Qualitative At least 5 specific impact stories published in the report. *Usually time needs to allow for these to materialize. Meaning might be expanded within 3 months after final event. Qualifying anecdotes from surveys and conversations clearly demonstrating both impact and attribution to our intervention in alignment to the logic model
Consistent Attendance and Participation Maintain a core cohort of at least 20 ‘activated’ participants, who attend at least 1/3 of the events Have the program manager track registered people, attendees during the sessions and engagement with surveys.
Network development 50%+ % of ‘activated’ participants report that they have met their original relationship development target, because of the event series as measured by entry and exit surveys (Eg with investors, market makers, partners, employees. Activated means they have participated in over ⅓ of the available sessions).

All of these metrics are meant to align with a Theory of Change and Logic Model ultimately demonstrating how we are driving Primary Outcomes such as Orbit and Stylus adoption, more protocols launching on Arbitrum, more token launches, more high quality sticky liquidity on Arbitrum One and Orbits.

Event Logistics

This will be a virtual-first event with in-person participation at major conferences our team is attending (eg. ETH Denver, EthCC). The Farstar team will handle all online logistics, including Zoom webinars, Miro boards, worksheets, and Gathertown coordination.

Format & Timeline

Hybrid Model:

1. ETH Denver: On-ground curation to identify & onboard protocols

2. Seven Virtual Clinics across 2–3 months. Each session ~2 hours, featuring expert presentation + interactive “live coaching.” An example of a virtual clinic is “Building Effective Market Maker Relationships” which includes:

  • 30min Expert Panel: Leading market makers share their best practices and common pitfalls
  • 60min Interactive Workshop: Participants break into small groups (2-3 teams) with experienced mentors to workshop their specific liquidity challenges
  • 30min Community Solutions: Teams present their refined strategies, getting real-time feedback from peers and experts
  • Post-Session: Teams implement learnings → Track measurable outcomes → Share success stories in follow-up sessions → Successful teams become future mentors

3. Unconference: Invite only for select protocols becoming part of the Arbitrum Growth Circle

  • Breakout in pre-curated streams: Full day event with 3 to 5 tracks, 4 to 7 35-min sessions each, with 2 planning sessions, optimised so a participant can join for the full or half of the event.
  • Participation of key experts
  • Focus on pre-seeded ‘community heroes’: with them lead the knowledge sharing and Arbitrum expert guests being positioned as equal knowledge peers playing a supporting role
  • Focus on relationship building: Specifically introducing builders with industry peers, rather than promising them direct collaboration with any one expert group.

Service Providers Required

No external service providers needed.

Support Required

The Arbitrum Growth Circles naturally align with the community engagement efforts from AVI Phase 1, allowing us to seed participation through referrals even without formal support from the DAO or ADPC. However, reaching a broader audience—including DAO contributors who can share their expertise—will further strengthen the initiative. To achieve this, we will request marketing support from ADPC, amplification from AF through retweets and promotion in relevant Arbitrum Telegram groups.

Timeline

Provide a detailed execution timeline and key milestones assuming the proposal is approved.

Pre-launch Phase (Weeks 1-2)

  • IRL Engagement & Onboarding
    The Farstar team will use ETH Denver as a key touchpoint to connect, onboard, and mobilize relevant participants. Many meetings with relevant participants have already been scheduled through AVI. And the Farstar team is running office hours on the 1st of March on the Arbitrum booth in the main venues.

    Furthermore we will rally participants for an Arbitrum builder gathering around any event where there might be an overlap of attendance and our team is present (e.g. ETH Bucharest).

    Most importantly, we will conclude in EthCC in Cannes where we expect a large presence. This is an opportunity to aid Arbitrum Growth Circle participants in mobilizing each other toward achieving shared goals.

  • Session Development & Participant Curation
    While AVI has provided a strong foundation through prior discussions with dozens of participants, additional outreach and effort will be required to engage new stakeholders and refine session topics to align with emerging interests.

  • Speaker & Mentor Coordination
    We will collaborate closely with speakers/mentors to align on session formats, securing speakers, and optimizing knowledge-sharing opportunities.

Launch Phase (Week 3)
  • Twitter Space Kickoff: We’ll hold a Twitter space announcing the series and showcasing the purpose of the initiative, demonstrating empathy with the community and commitment on the side of Arbitrum to offer support and respond to emerging needs.
Clinic Series (Weeks 4-12)
  • Conduct Series: The series will run bi-weekly, culminating in a final evaluation session to assess impact, gather feedback, and discuss next steps.
Post-Event Phase (Weeks 13-14)
  • Post-Event Documentation & Impact Report: All remaining materials will be compiled and shared publicly on the Arbitrum Forum, alongside a detailed Impact Report summarizing key outcomes and insights.

Communication Plan

Pre-Event Communication
  • Announcements: Posts on the Arbitrum Forum, Discord, and Telegram to build awareness.
  • Participant Outreach: Direct engagement with protocol teams, developers, and key ecosystem members.
  • Speaker Coordination: Private channels for logistics, pre-event briefings, and shared event materials.
During the Series
  • Forum Updates (1-2 per mo): Session highlights, key takeaways, and upcoming topics.
  • Session Summaries: Recaps posted on the forum and shared in Discord/Telegram.
  • Engagement Tracking: Monitor participation, adjust formats, and encourage re-engagement as needed.
Post-Event Communication
  • Impact Report: Participation data, key insights, and recommendations for future iterations.
  • Community Feedback: Open to discuss and evaluate the response to the event.
  • Resource Compilation: Public archive of session recordings, key takeaways, and additional learning materials.

Marketing Plan

Target Audience Outreach

Our primary focus is high-potential protocols that are relatively new to building in the Arbitrum ecosystem or are currently underserved. To reach them, we will:

  • Targeted Outreach – Leverage a subset of the 60+ protocols and 25+ fund managers from the AVI market consultations, prioritizing those most relevant.
  • Direct Engagement – Engage directly with protocols we have strong rapport with, ensuring they understand the event’s benefits and alignment with their goals.
  • Referral Network – Ask each participant to refer 2-3 others who could benefit, expanding reach organically and identifying existing communities to empower ambassadors.
  • Participant Database – Utilize our 500+ participant longlist from AVI, including metadata on DAO and AF grant recipients, to identify relevant participants and seek introductions.
  • Channel Activation – Tap into available channels from ADPC, AF, and DAO, along with possible engagement from X (Twitter), Arbitrum Discord, and community forums, without relying on them as primary outreach.

Content Strategy

Regular promotional content and participant success stories to maintain visibility and drive engagement. Updates will be shared via the Arbitrum Forum (structured updates), Twitter/X (broader reach), Discord (direct interaction), and additional relevant channels.

Alignment with Arbitrum’s Mission, Vision, and Purpose

The Arbitrum Growth Circle directly advances Arbitrum’s mission by:

  1. Ecosystem Development
    • Accelerates builders transitioning onchain through peer learning
    • Empowers builders to advance scalable applications
    • Supports the growth of Orbit chains
  2. Product Excellence
    • Promotes best practices in development
    • Accelerates adoption of Stylus
    • Improves technical knowledge sharing
  3. Community Strength
    • Builds a more robust and connected ecosystem
    • Develops community leadership
    • Fosters collaboration among builders, prioritizing action over promotion.

Post-Event Impact Report

Our report will include:

  1. Executive Summary
  2. Detailed Metrics
    • Attendance data
    • KPIs
  3. Impact
    • Interpretation of the KPIs and correlation with a Theory of Change / Logic Model
  4. Financial Analysis
    • Value analysis
  5. Recommendations
    • Future improvements
    • Scaling opportunities
    • Community feedback
2 Likes
2

I believe that the proposal goes in the right direction of reaching the people in the know and showing the benefits of belonging to the Arbitrum environment.

Many times teams are searching for the right chain to build upon, and this kind of initiative helps them decide, showing that there is a vibrant community of developers/architects available to help them in each step.

I’m not familiar with the current logistics of these events, so I cannot in good faith criticize the cost of this proposal. I do believe the amount is a little steep and would call for a more granular description of the specific prices of the proposal’s activities for the consideration of other delegates with more experience on this. I’m inclined to vote yes on this due to the direct contact that it will promote between makers and the community as such, strengthening the integration between these and demonstrating that Arbitrum is a live ecosystem.

3 Likes
3

Thank you for posting the proposal. It is well structured.

My concern is that this proposal is a “nice-to-have,” but in real life, it is not really needed. I don’t see any indication from you that there is a demand for this type of event/workshop. What made you start thinking about this concept? Was there a request from the founders/teams (early-stage and high-growth)? Which ones?

2 Likes
4

Thank you this is a great question and suggestion. The genesis of this initiative is in the AVI Phase 1. As part of it we’ve so far done interviews and meetings with over 60 protocols and 25 fund managers, market makers or potential LPs. What we did with some of the initial findings is that we went to stress test them with various stakeholders including OCL. As part of these conversation we saw validation from their POV on some of the problem statements as well as demand for the DAO to contribute, where they’re falling short of capacity, or the DAO is better positioned to act in the first place. Thus we are confident in the demand.

Everything you are seeing in this proposal is the direct result of that collaboration and that is why a number of ppl there have volunteered time to engage with the work. That being said it is important to note that the whole point of the exercise is to alleviate load from the OCL team, while creating a more scalable and value adding solution for specific segments of the target audience. We are still workshopping the details of how the intervention should work with the intention to put for a vote next Thursday, so if supported by the DAO we can make good use of ETH Denver where our team will be present anyway.

@Linzerd, to your point yes you’re right to ask for details and planned work and value for money. We are working out the details ourselves and will put this info ahead of the SS vote.

In the mean time getting the sentiment of the DAO and mapping out peoples other concerns is really helpful for us to scope appropriately.

2 Likes
5

I would appreciate a bit more detailed cost break down for the proposed budget.

Kudos for well-structured and easy-to-read proposal :raised_hands:

2 Likes
6

Hi Farstar and Co,

The last few Arbitrum events (like Devcon) have had a relatively heavy expert presence. We can see the need for a more consistent presence for development resources, but we ask why this needs to be a 3 month effort of virtual meetings, why is this any better suited than possibly promoting development-oriented education content on the OCL Youtube?

Wurthermore, we would need more guarantees on the virtual component of this event structure. There’s also the matter of a more detailed cost-structure breakdown.

If this proposal is to move forward we would like to see a clearly defined agenda coupled with better defined KPIs for the virtual session. The KPIs listed can be diluted and are not necessarily clear metrics, thus we ask if there is a way to include more objective KPIs. Also the core goal of this proposal is to increase builder engagement with Offchain Labs, and as such has there been any component of this greenlit with them? If we are to see an agenda for the virtual component, will there be OCL attendees or OCL-created content to help advise development?

2 Likes
7

Thanks for the proposal! We think that it’s a great idea - helping early-stage projects grow in the Arbitrum ecosystem. The idea of creating a strong support network and reducing dependence on Offchain Labs is very useful. We believe that this is a good marketing ploy to attract attention to the Arbitrum ecosystem.

We would like to know how exactly will the $50,000 be spent?
Also, how will the success of the program be measured beyond surveys and participation numbers? It would be helpful to see a plan for keeping the Growth Circles active after the three-month period.

The proposal does not indicate clear criteria for selecting the best participants for the final event in the “unconference” format. What metrics will be used? Who will make the decision?
What percentage of participants will be able to make it to the final event?

It would also be nice to know what are the criteria for getting into “Unconference”.

1 Like
9

Interesting proposal but I’ve got mixed feelings on this one.

Budget “TBD” is a red flag and KPIs are too soft. Where’s the actual builder outcomes? Need to track:

  • Projects that actually deploy post-sessions
  • TVL growth from participants
  • Real market maker relationships formed

The scaling OCL expertise part makes sense but let’s cut the fluff. $50k should have clear allocation upfront and focus on measurable results, not just feel-good workshops.

Btw love @blockworksresearch suggestion about promoting development-oriented education content on the OCL Youtube - could tie in well with this initiative.

I’d back this with harder metrics and a transparent budget.

3 Likes
10

Thanks for your proposal!

Can you clarify one point?

In this section, it seems this proposal is a way to build a structure around OCL to facilitate their engagement with the ecosystem.

But in the following ones, it seems the proposal is relying on other “experts”.

Can you clarify this (I assume it is an evolution, helping the program to scale)? A follow-up question is:

Besides seeing the Arbitrum ecosystem thriving, what are incentives for the experts to engage in such a program? Can you share the plans to secure participation? It would be interesting to have this locked before approving the proposal.

Thanks in advance!

1 Like
11

personally feels rushed to put this to a vote when a budget is not yet available and there are no KPIs…

Also, why wouldn’t this be a questbook proposal?

2 Likes
12

I agree with the general aim of helping early-stage projects navigate the Arbitrum ecosystem, learn from experts, and build a strong support network. That’s valuable.

As the ambition is for this workshop series to “address the growing demand for Offchain Labs (OCL) engagement by creating a scalable format where their highly skilled team can efficiently share knowledge with a multitude of stakeholders.”

Is there a plan to record these five virtual clinics on video, to maximise the number of people who can benefit from them? Make sure they’re available publically in an effective, condensed format for interested builders in the years to come…? That seems to me to be an obvious way to truly share OCL’s expertise as widely and efficiently as possible.

1 Like
13

Thanks for the proposal, it’s quite detailed, but I have some questions about it:

  1. Do you want to get funding from the Arbitrum events program, the budget of which was adopted for this year?
  2. I would like to understand how much is spent on which phase, i.e. a more detailed breakdown.
  3. I’m not sure that online conferences have any tangible benefit, as opposed to attending ETH Denver. So I support the part of the proposal that is aimed at an offline workshop, but against online.
  4. What is the demand for participation in Offchain Labs and what does this mean? What should be the specific result?
14

We recognise the potential of the Arbitrum Growth Circles proposal to foster collaboration and engagement within the ecosystem. The initiative presents an interesting approach, but several areas require refinement to ensure sustained value beyond the events themselves.

One key concern is the absence of detailed metrics to assess long-term impact. While the proposal highlights community building, it does not outline how success will be measured beyond attendance. Metrics such as protocol retention, on-chain activity, or the number of successful integrations and collaborations formed post-event would provide a clearer picture of effectiveness. We recommend tying specific success indicators to funding milestones to ensure accountability and measurable outcomes.

Additionally, expanding accessibility is crucial to ensure that knowledge and resources benefit a broader range of protocols, rather than being concentrated among a limited group of participants.

Finally, considering the total budget request of $50,000, we believe this initiative would be better suited for the Arbitrum D.A.O. program, under the Education track, which is structured to support community-driven educational initiatives. This alignment would provide a more suitable framework for funding and oversight.

15

The general idea behind this proposal is interesting, and there’s definitely value in fostering peer-led collaboration within the ecosystem. But, the positioning feels somewhat off. As it stands, the initiative seems to provide too little in terms of structured support for early-stage projects (as an incubator/accelerator would) while focusing more on study group-style discussions.

A more effective approach might be something akin to Uniswap’s Hook Incubator—offering structured mentorship, technical guidance, and direct ecosystem integrations for emerging projects. Of course, such a program would require a larger budget, but it could yield more impactful outcomes for the Arbitrum ecosystem.

That said, if the goal is to maintain the proposal in its current form, it might be a better fit for the Arbitrum D.A.O. Grants program rather than a DAO-approved initiative.

16

The idea sounds good, but who exactly has a good track record in these topics that will be available to participants? Who would be the instructors for each area, and who is making sure they are qualified to give more than general advice?

We just want to make sure this isn’t paying money and taking time for builders to be given advice by people who haven’t actually don’t things like gone to market. And it’s not as if there’s a wealth of Orbit chain teams available who themselves would be able to give proven advice.

17

@BlockworksResearch Thank you for jumping on a call yesterday and offering suggestions on how to approach the KPIs. We tried to apply them within the constraints we discussed. Writing up here for visibility:

  • Yes, we will likely record the sessions and would be happy if the content is used for the OCL YouTube or any other educational avenues. The core value proposition of these sessions is different and while we are keen to produce engaging useful content, at least at this phase this is a secondary objective. AGC is also more about hands-on, P2P support and learning which tend to be high context, cross-topic conversations that seldom make sense as youtube soundbites to a broad audience.

Our market research findings show that founders in the Arbitrum ecosystem, especially the more early stage, want a shared space where they’re encouraged to work with others around a shared purpose with a community of like-minded builders. Thinking holistically about the builder’s journey and how each piece of the story fits together, we find that a 3-month sprint of virtual events is an effective way to plant a flag and seed a supportive peer community for founders. This also supports AVI’s ecosystem investment thesis which prioritizes empowering founders as the true leaders of new initiatives by providing the resources they need to succeed.

Effective P2P learning programs thrive on prioritizing Agency, Responsiveness, and Hyperconnectivity. Keeping things too rigid—especially when agendas are set by administrators instead of participants—can get in the way of these principles and make the experience less effective. That being said, in the last couple of days we did begin the process of making the program flow more rich and clear, as well as well integrated with IRL touch points for the group, while maintaining responsiveness to emerging topics and needs design.

KPIs

We’ve put together a post that dives into the logic model driving our KPIs. Beyond our core metrics, listed above, we’ll be proactively tracking a variety of additional indicators.

That is not the core goal of the proposal, although we see how it came across this way. It does however stem from such a problem statement. Since these comments we’ve clarified the purpose by moving even further from this framing. Even though it’s designed to make it easy for them to plug in and get/create value, the main goal is to create a P2P learning and support flywheel. If anything we want to decrease the dependence of builder engagement with any one expert group.

We decided to pivot away from this as a core idea, while at the same time have made an effort to align it with our understanding of the core challenges we believe around them and make it easy for them and AF to plug in and drive value.

We covered how we believe we drive these suggested outcomes in this write up

The first 2 we’d consider Primary Outcomes, requiring rigorous tracking, ideally by an independent evaluator. Properly tracking and attributing outcomes to specific activities—without reducing them to vanity metrics or incentivizing the team to claim easy wins—is complex. Measuring meaningful impact is challenging and should typically be done on an annual basis, rather than rushing to report on it immediately after the first activities. For now, any measured impact will be captured through qualitative anecdotes, for critical thinking discussions with high context stakeholders, rather than premature data reporting.

For the 3rd, about relationships, this is a better metric for this phase, because the attribution case can be much more clear. We’d consider it a Secondary Outcome. Defining a ‘formed relationship’ can be tricky, but again that can be aided by qualifying anecdotes and surveying the participants (eg. before and after the series of activities and then surveying them again 6, 12 months later). We made this a formal KPI in the published proposal.

That’s a great question! Generally speaking we use the word ‘expert’ as a shortcut to make the proposal more understandable, but a core approach of the methodology is to strip people’s ‘expert status’ and put everyone on the same plane. Answering the question on incentives succinctly enough for a comment is a little tricky, but in a nutshell founders would participate in the early stages of this community because they have skin in the game in the ecosystem and supporting earlier stage teams is a big part of growing vibrant ecosystems.

TL;DR, founders need and find value in peer support networks. In our market consultations from the AVI pilot some of the most requested help was centered around relationship building.

Usually when you’re building a community like this you need a good mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators ideally leading with the former. On that it’s a very human founder behavior to get in the ditches with other founders and talk war stories, which for some reason we all enjoy. This is especially true when you get a chance to have your pain be converted into an immediate pain relief for someone else adding more meaning to ones journey. In the many years in which we’ve supported such interactions, one of the things we have often gotten as feedback from in some cases very capable senior people, is that we create spaces which are filtered for high integrity and intellectual honesty and naturally excommunicate people driven primarily by self promotion. Often this is driven by pushing back on being transactional around driving funder objectives and focusing on catering to the participants as the ultimate clients rather than the other way around. This of course over a longer period of time benefits the funders substantially more when it works.

Looking at this more extrinsically, careful orchestration of these experiences across a carefully developed venn diagram of participants, who can unlock value for each, but are not yet meeting and talking effectively is very value generating. Especially for forward looking people who can recognise that getting involved in these communities ‘before it’s cool’ is the highest leverage moment to build deeper relationships and learn. While not strictly limited to that as motivation, this is the ideal persona we are looking for.

Yes, we want it to be a part of the events program. We now have the KPIs and budget breakdown listed above.

To clarify, there is no demand for their participation. The goal is to create a flywheel of peer support to lessen the reliance on any one expert group. OCL was used as one example in the core problem statement of builders wanting more organic engagement and interaction with them and while being met where they are.

We absolutely agree with the focus on long term effects. We are using the term Primacy Outcomes rather than long term metrics in this writeup of a proposed Logic Model. In some cases hopefully we should be able to achieve them in the short term and retain the results.

That being said, we feel that at this stage it’s premature to try to put all the effort and patience into doing this well. Instead we can make a bet on the theory reflected in the logic model, that if we make builder life on Arbitrum better, this will very likely lead to some of these bigger benefits. Then ofc we need to separately challenge this critically and introduce the necessary metrics to be able to drive optimising a more scaled up version of this work, should such be funded.

So the metrics we are proposing are trying to measure if we are making builder life better via creating a community and P2P support flywheel. And we are keen to deepen the discussion around them. But ideally not at the expense of doing what we believe is fairly safe to try in a more timely manner and plant the flag. To our knowledge the education track is currently not live and this budget is the best fit.

We think what you’re saying makes complete sense. But step by step. It’s in the pipeline more on all the parts of the AVI portfolio construction being considered here: DocSend.

On the point of Arbitrum D.A.O. Grants program point, to our knowledge there is no such live program at the moment to consider and the events budget is the best fit.

We’ll say more during the office hours scheduled for Monday

2 Likes
18

Thank you for the proposal Farstar.

The target audience outreach makes sense and sounds promising to reach out to protocols building on Arbitrum that might benefit from the initiative. Is there a proposed outreach to secure Arbitrum experts for the virtual clinics and the unconference?

Analyzing the budget, it would be helpful to understand how you arrived to the proposed numbers. For example, is the 15K$ budget to cover for the facilitators or how is it spent? Same on 1:1 support and Unconference.

Is there a final report where we can see output from Phase 1 and results that can help us see the need for the program and proposed structure?

I would suggest including more metrics you would track on the proposal above if these apply or metrics beyond meeting their target relationship development, attending meeting and qualitative feedback that are tied to the primary outcomes. Let me know if i’m mixing writeups that don’t relate to the proposal, i’m finding it difficult to keep up with which AVI posts apply here.

Also, can you post the office hours recording here?

19

Entropy has voted against this proposal. While we recognize the importance and potential for creating builder support networks, the outlined virtual event series lacks necessary details to inspire confidence that this will be executed at a high level. Only a few examples of the session topics are presented with no clarity into what speakers/mentors will be brought in to share expertise. The DAO has no means to verify that the “experts” speaking to these early builders are qualified or will point the founders in the correct direction. The original wording of the proposal and comments from Farstar seem to imply that the point of this program is to alleviate the load on OCL, but without collaboration, we are not confident that the right people can be attracted to the program. The lack of clear next steps and alignment with Arbitrum’s other entities, increase the risk that the program will “die out” post ETH CC.

A secondary concern is the overall budget. Even with an in-person component, $67k for what is mostly a virtual call series is very high. Entropy will again point out that the DAO should hold proposals pulling from the DAO’s 2025 Event Budget to a high standard. Letting this budget slowly be chipped away $60-70K at a time reduces the possibility for a larger scale, more professionally organized Arbitrum event to be funded. Even though it’s mentioned in a comment, we also encourage the proposal author to make it explicitly clear, preferably at the top of the proposal, that funds are being requested from the 2025 Events Budget. This is to reduce that chance that delegates are misinformed and believe a Tally vote is required.

Lastly, as per the AVI’s latest update, the DAO is still waiting to receive all of the deliverables from the Pilot Program.

By funding this proposal, the DAO would be preemptively signaling support of their findings and extending the AVI’s mandate to interact with Arbitrum builders on behalf of the DAO. Before continuing to support the Farstar team and the AVI, Entropy would like to see all of the Pilot’s deliverables and make a judgement on whether this is worthwhile for the DAO to continue spending resources towards.

2 Likes
20

Nice to see some new people at the dao, some comments we had and are curious about:

  • The proposal addresses a nice need for scalable support mechanisms, as identified in the AVI Pilot’s ecosystem investment thesis. It gets skilled builders to become ecosystem leaders and aims to reduce dependency on a single expert group and promote decentralized growth.
  • Overall, while the proposal is well-conceived, it would benefit from concrete evidence demonstrating demand for such an initiative.
  • Maybe providing data or testimonials from early-stage and high-growth teams expressing the need for this support would strengthen the proposal’s foundation.
  • The total budget of $67.2k USD is very reasonable.

Overall, we like it, but have no strong opinions, and aren’t familiar with the team’s work. Maybe some more on this would be nice!

21

After reviewing the proposal and considering the discussions, I still have mixed feelings about this initiative, so I will vote ABSTAIN.

While I understand the importance of fostering community-driven events, I see no evidence that the community or the market needs this particular event in the current ecosystem. The proposal suggests a fairly high budget of $67k to activate just 20 participants.

In my opinion, what is needed are more ambitious proposals with innovative ideas that can create a greater impact. I want to see a community where people actively want to join and contribute, rather than one that relies solely on in this case ARBITRUM funding it. Empowering the potential participants to take ownership and lead these efforts would lead to a more sustainable and thriving ecosystem.