Hackathon Continuation Program

[danielo]

Arbitrum Hackathon Builder Continuation Program

Non-Constitutional

1. Introduction

2. Opportunity to continue the momentum created

3. Proposed Support Program

• Program Structure (Two Phases)

• RnDAO Program’s Value

4. Implementation Plan - Budget

5. Funds Management

6. Reporting

7. Investment Agreement and Arbitrum benefits

8. Long-Term Vision

9. Conclusion

10. FAQs

1. Introduction

A few months ago, Arbitrum funded the Arbitrum CollabTech Hackathon through Questbook. This month-long event has just come to an end, having gathered great talent and energy.

We’ve got

• 164 applications and 144 participants

• 20 projects submitted

• 15 finalist projects that are solving real problems with tech for governance, identity, reputation, and more. All are built on Arbitrum.

• 3 winners having built a narrowly focused PoC

• Contribo: matching talent to tasks is a foundational need in any collaboration. Contribo is tackling the right parts of this well, focusing on smooth UX and simplicity yet strong onchain components.

• Signals: A much-needed tool for DAOs to easily define priorities and transform chat-group noise into meaningful proposals. It also provides additional utility for native tokens.

• Separated Powers: A more flexible approach to role definition, well architected. Could advance automation in onchain organisations significantly and provide a system for reducing the overhead of checks and balances.

We’ve created a funnel for builders on Arbitrum and we want to sustain this momentum. However, without support, the teams will soon seek opportunities elsewhere. Questbook new protocols track is out of funding but, even if it had funding, the projects need not only capital but also network access and expertise.

RnDAO proposes to co-fund (roughly 50-50) a program in partnership with Arbitrum to invest in and support these teams.

This program is designed to take projects from a hackathon PoC to engage in systematic customer validation, iterate and develop an MVP, and get their first 100 users. As such, we’re leveraging the raw talent and expecting the projects to evolve significantly as they engage and validate with customers, achieving traction at the end of the program.

2. The Solution: Turn Hackathon Wins into Long-Term Success"

Early-stage projects often stall or fail within a few months because they lack a deep understanding of their target audience and its needs. Systematic customer validation can significantly increase the likelihood of projects thriving beyond this initial stage.

This initiative, co-funded by RnDAO and Arbitrum, aims to build an ecosystem of unique Arbitrum-based projects that will continue to grow and attract new projects.

We’ve designed a 6-month, two-phase program to capture the best of the hackathon talent and energy.

• Phase 1 focuses on validating ideas (customer development, lean startup, and design thinking methods) and understanding the competitive landscape.

• Phase 2 supports projects to move from PoC to the development of a market-viable MVP and securing the first 100 users.

Here’s how:

• We will select the 4 most promising hackathon teams to join the program (through due diligence by the RnDAO investment committee and signing of an investment contract).

• Each project will receive an initial stipend ($12k over 3 months) in Phase 1.

• Upon successful completion of user research, validation of interest, and presentation of a viable business case (solid pitch deck), the top 2 projects can move to Phase 2.

• Phase 2 projects are awarded an additional $38k and receive hands-on support (sales strategy, biz dev, marketing amplification, intros to funders, team formation, setting up ops processes and legal, setting up agile product development processes, etc.).

Goals:

• short-term (6 months): projects validate their concepts with customers (first 100 users) and generate traction to fundraise from investors or otherwise receive follow-on funding or generate revenue.

• long-term: create a group of unique ventures that collaborate and integrate (business cluster), drawing in new projects like a magnet with less direct involvement from our team.

3. Proposed Support Program

Program Structure (Two Phases)

By breaking funding and mentorship into two distinct phases, we derisk capital allocation. Only projects that successfully validate customer demand and can showcase a market gap in the first phase will advance to the second phase, ensuring that resources are focused on ventures with proven potential.

Phase 1: Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiR) - Customer Validation (3 Months)

• Funding: Each project receives $2,000 per month per cofounder (max 2 cofounders receiving funding per project), totalling $12,000 per project for Phase 1.

• Goal: Support validation with real users to confirm demand and solidify the project’s foundation.

• Process: Most hackathon projects lack any customer validation and have a shallow understanding of the problem. As such, they fail to gain traction and die. In Phase 1 we focus on addressing these issues head-on by guiding projects through a structured customer validation process, with

• weekly strategy and customer development mentoring sessions

• shadowing user research calls and providing feedback

• multiple hours of hands-on support per week (up to 8 hours per week directly with each project and extra cohort work) to refine their outreach campaigns (tactical support on copy, messaging, refining target user groups, introductions, implementing automation tools, etc.) and support on making the competitive landscape.

Transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2:

• Assessment by RnDAO investment committee (we’ll invest significant labour in the next phase and so will only approve teams we deem viable).

• Assessment based on market viability (clearly understood customer problem, market gap, proposed solution based on customer insights, viable team).

Phase 2: Development and Scaling (3 Months)

• Funding: Projects that successfully complete Phase 1 will receive an additional grant of $38,000 each, amounting to a total of $50,000 per venture across both phases (enough to build and market test a basic MVP plus 3 months runway for market testing and securing the next bit of funding).

• Goal: This phase supports full product development, go-to-market strategy, and readiness for sustainable operation, whether through fundraising, revenue, or further grants.

• Process: After initial customer validation, the key challenge for founders is being spread too thin, while needing to set up an effective, agile product development process to quickly validate hypotheses and accelerate product-market-fit, ensure financial sustainability (pitch development and fundraising), set up a fully functioning team (talent recruitment), and operate the organisation (admin and ops). We’ll help teams with all of these challenges, operating as a fractional c-suite (down in the trenches with them, up to 10 hours per week with each project and extra cohort work) and fast-track their brand recognition and network with the support of our marketing team.

RnDAO Program’s Value and advantages over regular incubation programs

1. Swarm Collaboration: participants join an alliance of similar projects, encouraging integrations (good for project retention in Arbitrum), sharing best practices, co-marketing, cross-selling, and more. RnDAO facilitates this through a system of guilds, collaborative databases, cross-ownerhsip, and facilitating specific collaborations.

2. Not just advisory, hands-on operators: we get our hands dirty working directly in the projects, fast-tracking their development with world-class expertise, including Drea (led research for Google Suite, Asana, Aragon, etc. 50% time-commitment to the program), Gokhan (venture-building expert and 8x entrepreneur. Full-time commitment to the program), and Daniel (organisation designer, ex-Head of Gov Aragon, 4x founder, etc. full-time commitment to the program.). Additionally, we provide access to industry-leading mentors (e.g. mentors for the Hackathon included Kevin Owoki, Nader Dabit, Dennison Bertram, Reka Medvcz, David Phelps, etc.).

3. Network access:

• Support in establishing customer relationships by leveraging the RnDAO vertically-specialized network and peers’ networks.

• Assistance in securing additional funding and achieving self-sustainability.

• Talent network and talent attraction support via RnDAO community and comms channels.

4. Enhanced Visibility:

• Increased attention from investors and customers through the RnDAO brand umbrella and marketing initiatives.

Combined, these strategies enable us to provide high-quality and hands-on support, customer access, market insights, and talent access, resulting in faster time to market and reduced failure rate for projects.

More on Swarm methodology and data-backed comparison with other types of programs: https://www.rndao.io/blog/post/startups-from-solo-to-multiplayer-from-ad-hoc-to-systematic

Overview of support offered: ​​

https://docsend.com/view/jys5wqqg9vi8qknm

Program Outcome:

In six months, we aim for at least 2 of the projects to:

1. Get their first 100 users.

2. generate revenue (early validation), and/or

3. secure additional grants or successfully fundraise to continue growing.

4. Implementation Plan - Budget

The budget is divided in 4 categories:

• Capital Investment into the projects: direct capital allocation to the teams.

• Venture Support: hands-on support and mentorship given to the projects.

• Program Ops: creation of monthly program reports to the DAO & delegates stakeholder management, program branding and promotion of Arbitrum as a great home for builders (including coordination with Arbitrum Foundation marketing team), program management and overhead (team mamangement and contracting)

• Grants: an incentive for user interview participants in Phase 1.

Total Program Cost:

• Difference with previous budget:
• CollabBerry grant has been eliminated as per the Snapshot vote.
• Based on feedback, we also added an extra cost ($2,000) for post program reporting (3 months after completion).
• The cost attribution has been reviewed for increased granularity between Ops and Ventures Support.

@danielo

As a nounance (we’ll clarify this before going onchain), the Comms costs are added within Ops but technically we can break these down with more sophisticated accounting into:

• program reporting

• amplifying projects through RnDAO channels and coordinating with Arbitrum Foundaton and others to amplify

• coaching projects on comms/growth

So perhaps anoher 10-15k can be attributed to Venture Support.

• Given our internal model of a small team that has to complete multiple tasks, the cost attribution can be broken down in multiple ways. Previously we opted for a simple rule of thumb to reduce confusion amongst delegates (unsuccesfully): Contributor A gets attributed 100% to Ops, Contributor B 100% to Venture Support. Now the system is more akin to Contributor A split between Ops and Venture Support as per their responsibilities, and same for Contributor B, etc. We can’t share this data publicly without revealing sensitive details of our operation including the total earnings of each contributor. If delegates consider an audit essential, we can only offer access after singing an NDA. We encourage the DAO to develop standard guidelines as the level of granularity demanded across suppliers vary greatly and a privacy-preserving mechanism would be ideal.

• How RnDAO cost are calculated: The RnDAO budget contribution is based on the provision of services valued at the cost of the staff contracted for this pilot (rates based on full-time equivalent, not on freelancer/consultant rates). The value is thus not calculated on the rate we could charge for these services but merely on our own internal cost. The fee structure means that RnDAO runs the program at a deficit (we invest significantly into the startups, generating a financial loss). The model is designed so RnDAO can recoup this loss over the long term IF the projects incubated become significantly valuable.

5. Funds Management & Payment Schedule

The funds provided by ArbitrumDAO will be transferred to the Arbitrum MSS.

The funds are then transferred from the MSS wallet in two phases and to two separate RnDAO controlled multisigs for easy auditing

• RnDAO multisig for Capital deployment into projects
• RnDAO multisig for Program (combined ops, venture support, and interviewees grant).

6. Reporting

Monthly reports for the duration of the program including

• overall program progress (timeline, budget usage, execution challenges if any)

• venture selected and rationale (at the start of phase 1 and phase 2)

• venture status updates (stage of development, traction and news)

• learnings (retrospective on last month and actions)

Report 3 months after project completion including

• venture status updates (stage of development, traction and news)

7. Investment Agreement and Arbitrum benefits

• We’ll provide the Arbitrum Foundation with a proposed template and agree on the exact format, clauses, and wording to be used.

• The baseline template we envision is a contract that covers 3 scenarios: equity fundraising (SAFE) + protocolisation and token launch (Token Warrant) + a side letter covering the scenario of the projects not fundraising nor issuing a token. TBC with the foundation.

• The contract shall stipulate the division of proceeds between RnDAO and the Foundation, which we envision to be 50-50 (pending confirmation from the foundation).

• The contract shall enable the Foundation to transfer the contract to an Arbiturm-affiliated entity of their choosing (e.g. CapCo).

• If no agreement with the foundation is reached on the contract, the program will be discontinued and the funds returned minus any spent legal fees (max $2,500).

8. Long-Term Vision

• we can run more hackathons and incubation programs, further growing the business cluster

• Successful execution will create a self-sustaining business cluster - a magnet that attracts more projects without our active contribution.

9. Conclusion

With the Arbitrum CollabTech Hackathon, we’ve successfully launched 15 projects in Arbitrum. Now we have the opportunity to keep fueling this momentum and pioneer investments in Arbitrum DAO.

We’re open to questions and ready to bring this to a vote to gather your feedback. Based on the feedback received we’ll refine the proposal before moving to an onchain vote.

10. FAQ

Why not fund projects through the Foundation grants program or Questbook?

The foundation grants are aimed at growth-stage projects or strategic partnerships. Currently, the foundation doesn’t have the operational setup to incubate and provide hands-on support to early-stage projects. Equally, Questbook is currently out of funds but even if it had funds, Quesbook grants lack the set-up to provide hands-on support for projects. Importantly, we’re not providing grants but making investments in the projects, which means that even if the projects migrate, Arbitrum can receive value from this program.

How does this relate to the incentive detox?

The incentive detox focused on incentive programs like STIP or LTIP, while we’re proposing an investment and incubation program. This is not just about naming convention but two different categories entirely. Incentives refers to user incentive programs for established projects to distribute Arbitrum tokens directly to users, while we’re proposing a pilot investment and incubation program for early-stage builders to develop unique MVPs on Arbitrum. Different maturity stages, different beneficiaries (tokens to end-users vs builder grants), and very different mechanisms.

Why $50k per project?

This amount is sufficient to build an MVP and explore the next stage (forcing a narrow scope but also allowing up to 3 months after to explore a fundraise and/or generate some revenue). Additionally, it’s important to have the funding lined up for projects as long as they do a good job. This allows founders to focus on validation and building instead of stressing over funding and thus submitting multiple grant applications across multiple chains. In our previous experience with the CoLab we lost 2 valuable projects to other chains (Optimism and Cardano) because we couldn’t provide funding soon enough.

Is this an accelerator program?

No. Accelerators offer hands-OFF mentorship with significantly larger cohorts. The result is that many projects fail to validate with customers effectively or otherwise get bogged down by the myriad of challenges present in startups. We get our hands dirty, providing tough love and hands-ON operational support. Additionally, accelerators tend to keep a generalist approach, including a high diversity of projects in each cohort. We focus on a narrow vertical to compound expertise and also incentives collaboration between projects to improve outcomes further.

More info here.

How are the projects assessed?

To enter phase 1, we focus mostly on the team. We’re looking for raw talent who are passionate about solving a meaningful problem, have skills and are willing to put in the work. We’ll assess teams in the order of the hackathon ranking until all slots are taken.

For Phase 2, the bar is significantly higher than regular grant programs. Teams need to demonstrate customer interest, a market gap, and a credible solution. Maximum two slots are provided meaning at least 50% of teams won’t make it. No team has a guaranteed slot. if less than 2 teams are selected for phase 2, any unused funds will be returned to the ArbitrumDAO.

What are the expected outcomes of this program?

We aim to generate viable ventures so the costs incurred in the program are at least recouped via the investment contract and any ecosystem development and onchain transactions come as a profit. Our target Internal Rate of Return is 30% after 2 years (unrealised) and long-term (4-6 years) 3x. A surplus can come from:

• Arbitrum doing follow-on investments in promising projects via an ecosystem fund (such as the one being scoped through AVI)

• Onchain transaction fees and ecosystem development value

How will the investments be managed?

The Arbitrum Foundation will act as a counterparty in the agreements. Additionally, a clause enabling the transfer of the agreements to an Arbitrum-affiliated entity will be included. This enables us to align the Hackathon Continuation program with the outputs of initiatives such as AVI / CapCo and if appropriate, transfer the contracts for management under the new structure.

RnDAO ran a previous program (the Arbitrum CoLab), what were the outcomes and how is the proposed program different?

Breakdown of venture outcomes of the CoLab, out of 6 fellowships:

• 2 are to our knowledge discontinued (we stopped monitoring them),
• 1 had founder health issues but is apparently building again
• 1 is doing now reputation in SingularityNET and Cardano (lost as other ecosystems gave them funding)
• 3 are in RnDAO and making progress (two coming out of the CoLab fellowship and one that joined because of the research produced during the CoLab).

We couldn’t provide the projects any funding to build an MVP and only very limited support because we were expected to get more funding from Plurality Labs milestone 2 which didn’t happen. And largely forced us to discontinue the program.

The 3 projects from the CoLab that are still building:

• CollabBerry.xyz got a Quesbook grant and is now close to an MVP but not live yet.
• Harmonica.chat they boostrapped an MVP (launched last week) and have started getting users,
• SimScore.xyz (extra project attracted) is in PoC phase and was the tool we were going to use for the ArbitrumDAO strategy process.

The CoLab also had 50k ARB for an external project (separate from those coming from the fellowship). We signed the agreement with a promising project but for 7 weeks they didn’t send us their wallet, then the team imploded (10-year cofounders falling apart). We were able to agree on a cancellation of the contract and had to start over. We have now confirmed an agreement with a new team 3 weeks ago (CommonGround). After the previous experience, we added a "trial period” when working with more mature ventures and CommonGround is effectively following this process after which we’ll announce more publicly. We’re excited for the partnership with CommonGround to solve DAO challenges in social and comms.

Program design:
We learned valuable lessons from the CoLab Program. The CoLab had the problem research done in a single phase by the entrepreneurs (3-month research fellowship). The problem to be researched was proposed by the Founders in the application.
Most applicants were discarded because not a lack of talent/skills but because the problem they proposed for research was deemed unviable in the current stage of maturity of the industry.
We also learnt the founders struggled with broad problem research (many already had tunnel vision on an idea) and didn’t have enough time left in the program for critical solution validation after the problem research.
From these learnings, we’ve refined the program.

Our ideal vision includes 4 modules:

1. talent attraction (e.g. via a Hackathon): check
2. a centralised research team identifying opportunities (initial problem research): not included in this iteration. Adding a research budget would improve outcomes in our opinion but was deemed too risky from a DAO acceptance perspective. As mitigation, we’re leveraging previous research and experience in the industry (combined 4 decades in CollabTech) and proposing separately a user research initiative.
3. Entrepreneur in Residence program (aka Phase 1 of current proposal): check
4. MVP program (aka Phase 2 of current proposal): check

As such, the current proposal is not the ultimate ideal but we believe it is a significant improvement upon the previous CoLab program and also an improvement upong regular grants (capital deployment only, no support) and incubator programs (only hands-off support). We also have the Phase 2 (MVP) included in the proposal so the Plurality Labs scenario of being forced to discontinue the program halway doesn’t happen again.

[Larva]

Thank you for this excellent proposal. Many great projects on Ethereum were born in hackathons. Supporting startup projects has always been something I’ve been involved in, and I believe it has long-term significance for the Arbitrum ecosystem.

In fact, I have an idea to take it a step further—besides providing grants, could the Arbitrum DAO potentially help these outstanding projects connect with some VCs?

Grant funding is always quite limited, and introducing VCs might enable these new projects in the Arbitrum ecosystem to grow faster and better, ultimately giving back to the ecosystem in the future.

Happy to discuss more!

[Larva]

My idea is like to establish a core group within the Arbitrum DAO to connect high-quality hackathon projects with VCs, helping them gain visibility in the investment community. I believe there are quite a few project founders and other influential individuals within the Arbitrum DAO who have extensive VC connections.

[Juanrah]

I think it’s important that the DAO backs new projects like this. This is a significant action in order to continue growth in the ecosystem. This program is key to keeping the hackathon teams going strong and staying within Arbitrum.

As a suggestion, it’d be great to have clear ROI metrics/milestones in place to make sure that the projects moving forward are really adding value to the ecosystem and not wasting any funds.

That being said, since I was a participant in this hackathon, I’ll be abstaining from voting and further commenting on this proposal.

Cheers to all.

[0xDonPepe]

I support this proposal as it addresses a critical need in the lifecycle of hackathon projects: consistent follow-up to ensure these innovative ideas become tangible, impactful ventures rather than fading out post-hackathon. Hackathons are fantastic for sparking ideas and gathering talent, but without structured support, these projects often struggle to sustain momentum, validate their concepts, and reach market viability.

I recommend considering a clause that requires program participants to commit to building and remaining in the Arbitrum ecosystem for a defined period, given the significant resources, mentorship, and funding they will receive. This commitment would help ensure that the projects contribute to Arbitrum’s growth and network effects over the long term, rather than moving to other ecosystems once they gain traction.

Additionally, @danielo has proven his expertise with RnDAO. His commitment to this space and track record of successful project support are further reasons I believe this program will thrive and help establish a self-sustaining ecosystem within Arbitrum.

Would it be beneficial to establish such a clause or perhaps include incentives that encourage participants to maintain their projects on Arbitrum beyond the program’s completion? This could help solidify Arbitrum as a thriving hub for these ventures.

[danielo]

@0xDonPepe

I recommend considering a clause that requires program participants to commit to building and remaining in the Arbitrum ecosystem for a defined period

I fully agree with the concerns about retention in the ecosystem - we hear too many stories of successful projects leaving the ecosystem that incubated them.
I’ve been thinking about how to approach this without making the best projects hesitant to apply (more carrots and fewer sticks, so the best talent applies).

Carrot one: Projects often migrate because they need extra capital to keep operating after they exhaust a grant in one ecosystem. With access to investor networks, we could help solve this. I’ll coordinate with Larva and others interested as I think we could propose something here to bring our current investor network, connect with others, and create some sort of periodic Arbiturm demo days for investors.

The second carrot is that the RnDAO model relies on facilitating and incentivising collaboration between the projects (cross-sales, integrations, sharing market research, etc.), this is what we call the Swarm approach. Any project that migrates to another ecosystem will lose some of the value of the collaborations in the Swarm, so this approach creates network effects for projects to stay in Arbitrum. The more projects we incubate together, the stronger the network effects.

The third carrot we got is the mechanism briefly described in “4. Anchoring in Abritrum through early onchain activity”. This is about helping projects set up their contributor payment operations and cap table onchain in Arbitrum, also reducing friction to collect and track early capital contributions. This solves operational problems for the projects and also helps solve point 1 about the need for capital, while increasing the friction for migrating.

None of these is a silver bullet (although combined it’s a good start) and I’d love to hear what other ideas people have to make this work in the best possible way.

Also, there’s clearly a path over the medium term to structure the grants as investments so if projects migrate Arbiturm still benefits. I’m hoping the Gamig Catalyst structure provides a template we can use here once ready. In the meantime, my thinking has been to propose this so we don’t let down projects already building here.

[danielo]

@Juanrah

it’d be great to have clear ROI metrics/milestones in place to make sure that the projects moving forward are really adding value to the ecosystem and not wasting any funds

Thanks for highlighting this. We have something in this direction already in place with two phases, where founders only get $2k per month (max $12k/project) in phase 1 and need to show traction to get phase 2 grants ($38k/project).

The projects are early stage and we don’t want to incentivise building the wrong thing over finding product-market fit, so we’re leaving room for case-by-case assessment by our venture support team for moving from one phase to the next. We’ll also work with the projects on a daily basis, and if funds are being misused, we’ll suspend payments.

[0xTALVO.ETH_MTY]

I think this proposal is a good answer to making sure that projects that do well in hackathons turn out to be useful things in Arbitrum. This setup of splitting the program into a validation phase and a development phase improves the success probability of each project. Only those projects that show real needs will receive further funding and capacity. The way they designed it helps fund use to be more efficient for long-term sustainability. Also, the partnership between RnDAO and Arbitrum helps in more cooperation as well as sustainability on the platform, which helps participants not just with money but with mentors, resources, and networks.

[jameskbh]

Thanks for your proposal!

I have a few questions:

@danielo

Funding: Projects that successfully complete Phase 1 will receive an additional grant of $38,000 each, amounting to a total of $50,000 per venture across both phases.

• What are the metrics to consider that a project was successful on Phase 1?

@danielo

Program Marketing: $21,800 for program branding, outreach, and reporting.

• Regarding Marketing, do you think is it possible to leverage the marketing initiative if it is approved?

@Sinkas

On September 17th, the 3-month incentives break period begins.

@Sinkas

There should be a commitment from delegates not to vote for any program that might be proposed before the 3-month period concludes so we can utilize the full extent of that time frame on iterations and improvements.

• From the Detox proposal, we are on a 3 months break to fund incentive/grants programs. Do you think that doesn’t apply to this proposal?

[Bob-Rossi]

@danielo

Program Outcome:

In six months, we aim for at least 3 out of 4 projects to:

1. generate revenue (early validation), and/or
2. secure additional grants or successfully fundraise to continue growing.

I’ve noted this in other proposals, but something I’d like to see more of is revenue sharing. My concern is long term the DAO keeps giving away funds to entice builders to the network, but eventually we have to get some type of income back to sustain the DAO.

If these projects are expected to produce revenue, I don’t think it’s unfair to ask for a percentage of returns. It’s also something I noted in a prior proposal ([RFC](Non-Constitutional) Proposal: Integrating zkTLS-Powered Oracle Solution (zkFetch) for Arbitrum - #17 by Bob-Rossi)… I’ll note here as it’s still relevant to the discussion.

As a delegate, I essentially have two concerns:

1. We are ultimately still within the grant detox period
2. I’m not sure why we as a DAO gave the Foundation another 250m ARB from the treasury if we have to continue to be asked to fund projects like this without the prospect of earning revenue on the backend to keep the treasury stable long term.

[cp0x]

Good suggestion, thanks.

1. I have a suggestion. To improve interaction with Arbitrum, maybe make a condition that all projects will be implemented on Stylus?

2. Due to the fact that this is a continuation of the Hackathon practice, I would like to see what the results were in the past: how many participants there were, how much they received, how many projects appeared and exist at the moment. In general, all the parameters that we need to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. And I understand that the results in this updated program may be better due to other working conditions and financing, but for comparison this is necessary.

3. Will ArbitrumDAO be the beneficiary of new projects, or will the projects not owe anything to Arbitrum after a successful launch?

[duokongcrypto]

@danielo

Phase 1: Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiR) - Customer Validation (3 Months)

• Funding: Each project receives $2,000 per month per cofounder (max 2 cofounders receiving funding per project), totalling $12,000 per project for Phase 1.
• Goal: Support validation with real users to confirm demand and solidify the project’s foundation.
• Process: Projects will work closely with mentors (see previous mentors of the Hackathon here) to refine their value propositions and validate market needs.

Regarding the success criteria for the validation phase: The proposal mentions validating the requirements before moving on to phase 2, but what are the specific validation metrics? For example, number of users, feedback ratings, or something else? The clearer this criterion is, the more efficient the resource placement will be.

@danielo

To incentivise retention of the projects in the Arbitrum ecosystem, generate early onchain activity, and provide opportunities for project contributors to gain ownership in the projects, the program will support projects in implementing an onchain system to track contributions with points (non-transferable ERC-20s).

Is it possible to consider some on-chain mechanism, such as issuing points or tokens, to further incentivize their future participation?
CollabBerry’s role is that it is interestingly positioned for on-chain points tracking, but could this portion of the budget ($30,000) be detailed, such as specific feature development or long-term support plans?

@danielo

The long-term goal is to create a group of ventures that collaborate and integrate (business cluster), drawing in new projects like a magnet with less direct involvement from our team.

It is mentioned that self-driven business clusters will be formed in the future, but does this require a clear target node, such as how many active projects or total users will be achieved in how long?

The proposal is quite good, and the overall direction is clear, that is, it is centered around the incubation and growth of projects after the hackathon, especially on Arbitrum to form a long-term stable developer ecology. If the energy of the hackathon is not caught in time, it is really easy to be sucked away by other ecosystems. Now this program cuts in from two stages, focusing on early validation as well as supporting subsequent development, with a clear logic.

Suggestion
1, increase the quarterly review mechanism, regularly update the project progress and feedback, so that community members can see the incubation effect in real time, to further enhance everyone’s confidence
2、Propose to provide monthly one-on-one guidance or regular workshops for the project team to ensure that they get enough support at the key points, which needs to be specifically detailed here.
3、It is recommended to publish a public summary report or project highlights promotion after each stage is completed, to accumulate materials and cases for the subsequent ecological activities, and also to enhance the influence of Arbitrum.
4、About the budget is too rough, need to have a more detailed report, for example, I see that the surveyed enterprises only have 50 dollars.

[duokongcrypto]

There’s also a question about monitoring implementation, because I’ve seen your proposal in the voter ecology of the zksync network as well.

[AbdullahUmar]

Below are the opinions of the UADP:

The need to follow-on with hackathon winners is key for taking something from a side project and making it into a viable business. This should honestly be a part of the initial proposals to construct grant programs generally. Even in the investing world, doubling down on promising entrepreneurs is a commonplace practice. Not doing so is often leaving money on the table.

The costs of this program seems quite reasonable, considering half of it will be matched by RnDAO. It would also be nice if RnDAO can take the promising projects and connect them with other investors. On that note, if a project does turn out to be successful and ends up launching a token, we’re assuming that a portion will go to RnDAO—would Arb DAO also be eligible for either a token share or rev share component? What if a project does not want to launch a token—would there be an equity component? The latter would be tougher for Arb DAO to partake in, so it may not be advisable from our perspective.

[danielo]

@jameskbh

What are the metrics to consider that a project was successful on Phase 1

It’s a committee assessment as in such an early stage quantitative metrics are widely unreliable and just not really useful in most cases. That being said, I added some details on the assessment criteria (above in the proposal section “transition from phase 1 to phase 2”)

@danielo

Transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2:

• Assessment by RnDAO investment committee (we’ll invest significant labour on the next phase and so will only approve teams we deem viable)
• Assessment based on market viability (clearly understood customer problem, favourable market positioning, credible solution based on customer insights, viable team).

@jameskbh

Regarding Marketing, do you think is it possible to leverage the marketing initiative if it is approved?

If the marketing initative is approved, it could offer additional support for the program and projects.

@jameskbh

From the Detox proposal, we are on a 3 months break to fund incentive/grants programs. Do you think that doesn’t apply to this proposal?

My understanding is that this was always aimed at incentives like LTIP/STIP, not aimed at early-stage support programs like the one we’re proposing.

[danielo]

@duokongcrypto

Regarding the success criteria for the validation phase: The proposal mentions validating the requirements before moving on to phase 2, but what are the specific validation metrics? For example, number of users, feedback ratings, or something else? The clearer this criterion is, the more efficient the resource placement will be.

It’s a committee assessment as in such an early stage quantitative metrics are widely unreliable and just not really useful in most cases. That being said, I added some details on the assessment criteria (above in the proposal section “transition from phase 1 to phase 2”)

@danielo

Transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2:

• Assessment by RnDAO investment committee (we’ll invest significant labour on the next phase and so will only approve teams we deem viable)
• Assessment based on market viability (clearly understood customer problem, favourable market positioning, credible solution based on customer insights, viable team).

@duokongcrypto

CollabBerry’s role is that it is interestingly positioned for on-chain points tracking, but could this portion of the budget ($30,000) be detailed, such as specific feature development or long-term support plans?

What the grant enables is to expand CollabBerry from ‘tracking points from core team contributors in a project’ to also enable other forms of contribution (tokens, ad-hoc tasks, intangible assets). And this would include a minimum of 9 months of maintenance (enough for the program plus 3 months after so projects are not left hanging).

@duokongcrypto

It is mentioned that self-driven business clusters will be formed in the future, but does this require a clear target node, such as how many active projects or total users will be achieved in how long?

growing the whole business cluster is outside the scope of this proposal so we’re not detailing any targets there. It could grow to include hundreds or even thousands of projects over time bu how many and how fast depends on first this pilot program going well and then the size of a next cycle.
From an earlier experiment, we got 2 additional projects attracted into the RnDAO and Arbitrum ecosystems after 1 got funding, so we have some early validation but it’s too early to tell what the ‘virality coefficient’ can be.

@duokongcrypto

1, increase the quarterly review mechanism, regularly update the project progress and feedback, so that community members can see the incubation effect in real time, to further enhance everyone’s confidence
2、Propose to provide monthly one-on-one guidance or regular workshops for the project team to ensure that they get enough support at the key points, which needs to be specifically detailed here.

Thanks, these suggestions are already included in the proposal as we’re working with the projects async on an almost daily basis, and live a minimum of twice per week. The quarterly assessment is more of an occasion to step back and reflect, but the projects will be receiving continuous support and feedback multiple times per week.

@duokongcrypto

3、It is recommended to publish a public summary report or project highlights promotion after each stage is completed, to accumulate materials and cases for the subsequent ecological activities, and also to enhance the influence of Arbitrum

great point, I’ll make that explicit in the proposal

@duokongcrypto

4、About the budget is too rough, need to have a more detailed report, for example, I see that the surveyed enterprises only have 50 dollars.

the budget here is for max $50/interview and up to 15 subsidised interviews per project, for a total of $750/per project, (total $3k as specified in the budget).

[danielo]

I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

The program’s funding will be managed by the MSS and is divided between two phases, requiring us to report to the DAO and offering the ability to clawback funding if the DAO so desires.

And indeed we’re discussing with multiple ecosystems but the proposal here is unique to Arbitrum (no other ecosystem has run a collabtech hackathon…)

[duokongcrypto]

Got it, thank you for your response.

[pedrob]

Hi! Thanks for your proposal. I think that a follow-up for hackathon winners makes sense. I support the idea.

I have some questions.

@danielo

Projects will work closely with mentors (see previous mentors of the Hackathon here) to refine their value propositions and validate market needs.

Does this mean the hackathon mentors have already committed to working closely with projects?

@danielo

To incentivise retention of the projects in the Arbitrum ecosystem, generate early onchain activity, and provide opportunities for project contributors to gain ownership in the projects, the program will support projects in implementing an onchain system to track contributions with points (non-transferable ERC-20s).

I think that if as a DAO we are going to invest directly in projects bootstraping, we need to require binding agreements to at least try to generate onchain activity. Not by tracking their contributions, but by making contributions mandatory.

@danielo

Legal: $2,500 for legal fees.

What are the legal fees cost for operations?

@danielo

Program Marketing: $21,800 for program branding, outreach, and reporting.

Why does this program require extra funds for marketing?

In my opinion, I’d be in favor of the DAO funding the 3 Months development and scaling and then when the projects have tested their product they can get funding through the DAO / Foundation grants programs.

Thank you!

[danielo]

@pedrob

Does this mean the hackathon mentors have already committed to working closely with projects?

No. We confirmed the Hackathon mentors only after the hackathon was approved and same here, we would confirm mentors only when relevant/needed. Equally, not all mentors might make sense so this depends on the needs of the projects as they mature. that being said, the approach we’re using is more hands-on support instead of mentorship as we’ve seen in the data that it gives better results, so we have a core team already confirmed to work on regular basis (multiple times a week) with the projects.

@pedrob

I think that if as a DAO we are going to invest directly in projects bootstraping, we need to require binding agreements to at least try to generate onchain activity. Not by tracking their contributions, but by making contributions mandatory.

The projects already had a requirement in the hackathon to use Arbitrum infrastructure in a significant way (e.g. login with wallet is not enough). Those selected will indeed be screened with this requirement to qualify.

@pedrob

What are the legal fees cost for operations?

legal wrapper yearly fees

@pedrob

Why does this program require extra funds for marketing?

it’s part of promoting Arbitrum as a home for builders and promoting the projects. The marketing team will do a bit of work to promote the program but the majority of the budget here is for work that is done with the projects themselves (including outreach to potential customers, storytelling coaching, amplification), and the other significant body of work is that of program reporting (which in our case is handled by the marketing team).

@pedrob

In my opinion, I’d be in favor of the DAO funding the 3 Months development and scaling and then when the projects have tested their product they can get funding through the DAO / Foundation grants programs.

The DAO has no active grant programs at the moment. And the foundation is only funding more mature projects (growth stage). We also had a previous experience with the fellowships we ran, and when plurality labs didn’t get their second milestone we didn’t have extra budget allocated to the program and as such had no budget for the projects coming out of validation phase. As a result we lost 2 of them to other ecosystems where they got funding, another closed down, and a final one eventually got a questbook grant (unavailable at the moment, but even if it was, it doesn’t cover the support part).
Also, in the first 3 months the projects won’t still have much of a product. Phase 2 is to help them get to an MVP. Before that they only have a PoC and there’s only so much that can be tested without a minimum viable product.
So in a way we’re already positioning the projects to potentially receive grants from the foundation or fundraise, but after 6 months, not 3.