The budget appears reasonable considering the insights/benefits it will provide. Understanding why developers prefer Arbitrum over competitors is key to strategic growth. Therefore, I’m voting ‘FOR’ this proposal (Arbitrum + 2 Others) on Snapshot.
Voted For: Arbitrum + 2 others (SOL+OP)
This is a great initiative and a well-thought-out proposal. Builders are the main driving force of any ecosystem. While we are all building on Ethereum, there are key differences that builders need to consider when deciding where to build. Additionally, narratives change quickly in Web3, so conducting user research periodically is essential. I hope this first iteration of the program will serve as an excellent pilot for ongoing research. The results will help us shape better initiatives and programs for the future.
I would like to highlight to the team that it is crucial to gather input from a wide range of builders (from early-stage startups to late-stage ones) to gain a comprehensive understanding. I am also well-connected with some builders and can help you make connections, especially with ARB and OP builders.
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Thanks for the comment.
No additional management structure has been proposed for this research. The Stakeholder council is simply those with an interest in directly consuming the research, as such they’re already beneficiaries and don’t need to be paid extra.
For clarity, the ARDC and the applicants largely come from a background on a type of research that’s focused on quant analysis, surveys, and technical comparisons. They’re well-equipped to handle that sort of research. Unfortunately, the ARDC design of selecting a single supplier means there’s a bottleneck both in terms of expertise (single supplier having to act as a jack of all trades) and capacity constrained to a single organisation too. The DAO has many research needs, and the Foundation has for example highlighted a list of priorities that are different from the focus provided in our proposal. And with the exception of Castle Capital, the ARDC candidates have proposed different research focuses.
As such, we see more value in running parallel and complimentary research initiatives with multiple specialised providers, instead of reducing all research to ARDC’s initial capacity for the first few months.
Ideally, we would soon have an updated design for the ARDC that allows multiple suppliers to be white-listed and hence have deeper specialisation and flexible capacity (expand with more suppliers as needed by the research needs at each moment and not constrained by design).
For a simple visualisation of how much capacity we’re lacking in User Researhc in Arbitrum:
I vote for Arbitrum + 2 others (SOL + OP)
Understanding users’ mental models is essential for the development of the entire ecosystem. This research direction is actually a weak or missing link in the construction of various chains. It is very necessary for Arbitrum to take the lead in making this attempt. I am looking forward to the results of the Know Your Users (KYU) research.
In my personal judgment, it will at least enable the following impact: “increased builder attraction and retention and improved communication strategy for Arbitrum.”
Hi, will you also be asking founders and developer that left the ecosystem?
I think this is even more important than to know why someone decided for Arbitrum.
Because if someone decided to to with Arbitrum its great, but if they decided against we need to know and then take action accordingly.
I like the idea overall and the costs are fine. But I would really love my idea to be added.
I will vote YES.
Thank you @danielo for bringing this proposal to the DAO and for your consistent communication and efforts.
The proposal to conduct independent user research on Arbitrum’s builder ecosystem as well as gain insights into builder considerations in other ecosystems is commendable in its intent and desired outcome. However, we have some concern with the claim that this approach does not duplicate efforts that could—and should—fall under the ARDC’s purview. The ARDC was established to address the DAO’s research and development needs, which should include understanding the builder ecosystem. As @SEEDGov has highlighted, ARDC applicants to the new term have shown considerable competence in the verticals described in this proposal. While we see the validity of the following arguments, we feel that the structure and transparency of the ARDC is best equipped for initial exploration of such research topics.
This research is important and bringing it forward to the DAO highlights the need for such efforts. We are open to further discussion and outlines for how this can be carried out by ARDCv2 or if its members find this to be truly out of scope or worth outsourcing. The DAO should ensure we consistently aim to reduce redundancy, fragmenting efforts, and diluting accountability. We feel it is crucial to set a precedent that if the ARDC is not equipped to handle such initiatives, then and only then should subcontractors and additional proposals be required from the DAO.
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While we are supportive of the general scope of the intended research and believe it is valuable with a reasonable budget, we are voting against the proposal in its current form due to the available voting options.
More specifically, we are in favour of assessing other chains alongside Arbitrum but we don’t think the combination of SOL and OP is the correct choice and instead would like to see SOL and Base assessed. Ultimately, Arbitrum is competing against other chains and it would make more sense to understand the perspective of builders from chains that are highly competitive/have a larger market share than Arbitrum in certain metrics. If we take a surface-level look via DeFiLlama & L2Beat, Base is highly competitive with Arbitrum and even beats Arbitrum in certain metrics when you look at things like:
- TVL Growth, User Operations Per Second, Number of Protocols, etc.
Thus, we should be learning from strong outliers in the competitive landscape.
Lastly, while this isn’t a deal breaker for us. We do agree that this type of research could certainly fall under ARDC and we’d expect whoever gets selected to deliver a great result.
If this proposal was resubmitted with the option to select SOL and Base as a part of the research group we’d be in favour!
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@WintermuteGovernance - This is great feedback and I love the thinking of “we should be learning from strong outliers in the competitive landscape.”
Actually a key reason why we have the “stakeholder group” is to help define and develop the “Research Specification” (which ecosystems to focus on, theories, etc.)
This stakeholder group exemplify the entities that would leverage and build on this research.
As this proposal moves forward we’d love your feedback on this research spec. =)
@SEEDGov, @JoJo @Manugotsuka - Could you chime in here?
A delegate proposed this could fall under the Education DDA as:
as the report will contain insights on why ppl build on arb > (points to highlight answer sell with further content, events, etc), pain points identified (that can be lack of knowledge about the tech, not enough documentation).
Education is not only focused outward. It would give a good insight into how we are perceived from the outside.
I’d love to go through questbook once it is setup, but my understanding is that Questbook education focuses instead on:
- Organization of Hackathons:
- Initiatives for Institutional Community Growth:
- Educational Materials and Workshops:
- IRL educational events:
What do you think?
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Hope you had a good holiday!
why wouldn’t Arbitrum just pay a professional organization that does this?
What sorts of “Professional organizations” do you have in mind?
Those from ARDC?
RnDAO is a professional organization with depth of experience in Voice of Consumer research (different than user studies) and has people have worked at Google, Meta, Upwork, and across a variety of products.
Personally, I worked with a leading product development (the originators of Jobs to be Done) and worked across leading companies in cloud computing, social, robotics, HBS, etc.
On the council, this is important specifically because they represent the entities that would leverage the research. Research by itself is not worth anything, instead we need to work with those that would implement it to understand their theories, questions and also make sure they can actually use the research.
This is part of the reason we included ARDC representative / entropy in this council to make sure we can facilitate all this. To be clear, no council member is paid - they are donating their time because they want to see this research done and to leverage it.
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I am voting in favor of the option “Arbitrum + 2 others.” As I mentioned previously, I believe this research has the potential to provide valuable insights, helping to guide future proposals and initiatives in the right direction. Regarding the option itself, I think a comparative approach is the best way to assess how we can improve relative to our competitors.
However, I’d like to point out a few considerations:
- Although it’s already planned, I want to emphasize the importance of clearly sharing the selection criteria for builders and the specific research questions once the initiative is underway. This will ensure transparency and foster ongoing feedback from the community.
- I agree with some delegates who have raised concerns that this research might risk not generating tangible value. However, I believe this issue is less about the research itself and more about how the outcomes and insights are communicated. Effective communication will be crucial once the research concludes (I align with @Juanrah on this point).
- I was surprised to see this proposal already on Snapshot, and I agree with some delegates who feel it could have stayed on the forum a bit longer. While I had the time to read and provide feedback, it seems that many others did not. Perhaps the proposal didn’t get enough visibility before moving to Snapshot, especially since it wasn’t presented during the BiWeekly Proposals Discussion Call. I understand the need to move quickly before the year-end break, but I believe that quality should always be a priority.
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The following reflects the views of L2BEAT’s governance team, composed of @krst and @Sinkas, and it’s based on the combined research, fact-checking, and ideation of the two.
We’re voting FOR the proposal and opting to contain the research within Arbitrum.
Overall, we’re unsure how valuable the research will be in terms of using the insights for something actionable and who it is being done for. It might be the case that we’re doing research for research’s sake.
However, we believe that just interviewing builders will be a net positive and will help us learn more about them, as right now, we don’t have anything. With that in mind, we think the proposal’s overhead is reasonable compared to the potential value we can get by learning more about builders on Arbitrum. We do want to note, however, that we do not understand why there’s a bonus included in the compensation, nor do we understand what the expectations are for the bonus to be given. By default, we assume that the bonus will not be delivered unless doing the research itself proves to be extraordinarily impactful (which we find rather unlikely). We suggest that this is further clarified before the onchain vote.
That being said, we do not yet see the point of expanding into other ecosystems, as comparative research can be tricky. We believe focusing on Arbitrum is far more reasonable, and we could revisit the possibility of research in other ecosystems if the research on Arbitrum yields some actionable, valuable insights.
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voting Arbitrum + 2 others (SOL + OP) on the current offchain proposal because I believe we should invest in User Research and do even more than what this proposal aims to do.
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gm @danielo, thank you for the proposal.
We think it’s valuable for the DAO to have its own research conducted in this area and to ensure we get the right kind of report.
On the proposal specifically we have the following feedback:
-
We are unsure whether the focus should be on builders who have already selected Arbitrum because the report will likely be skewed toward survivorship bias. It’s not as essential for us to understand why builders have selected Arbitrum because OCL or AF should be able to provide a summary based on their interactions with builders on Arbitrum.
-
We agree with @paulofonseca that the focus should be on builders who i) considered Arbitrum but decided on another chain and ii) builders who did not shortlist Arbitrum in the first place.
Concerning the recommended ecosystems above, we think the following should be considered instead.
- Optimism
- Optimism Superchain
- Solana
- Base
- Polygon
- Cosmos
- Berachain
- Monad
- Rollups-as-a-Service providers such as Nodekit
We prefer focusing on item 2 and less on 1 with this specific type of research. It would provide more actionable insights into how projects evaluate chains and the key factors of appeal outside Arbitrum.
Therefore, in its current form, we would like to see a new option that focuses a much larger proportion of the work outside of Arbitrum.
We believe that the work on Arbitrum should be a separate exercise with different questions and goals.
Overall we feel that the direction and goal of the proposal needs to be pitched more clearly as if responding to an RFQ. It needs to be better at selling the vision of the proposal to delegates. It might also help if examples of interviews and their positive impact on specific DAO stakeholders would also strengthen your proposal and its value.
In addition, we would also add, in agreement with @pedrob, that it felt premature to rush the proposal to snapshot and not give delegates sufficient time to respond. But thank you for taking the time to present a case for this, we appreciate it.
Due to the above reasons along with our running in the election for ARDC v2 Research member, we are voting to ABSTAIN.
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As in @web3citizenxyz representation, voting FOR + 2 ecosystems in this proposal and bellow is our rationale.
there is indeed a potential merit for this initiative to fall under a the education, community and event domain.
Is borderline, and the main fear would be a flock of subsequent requests related to research projects: for this reason, as it stands, a proposal like this would have to be tuned to be more in scope.
At the same time, also in other programs like UAGP, we have had in the past grants given specifically for research projects; what happens often times than not is that these researches are dropped into a grant program due to a lack of other means for financing them, and are “una tantum” type of things that mostly comes from the experience and trust of the team proposing the research + either an active request from stakeholder or in general a loud voiced interest on the topic.
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We vote for Arbitrum and two others.
We support the general direction of the initiative; it’s vital to understand what customers think about the product and ecosystem via user research. While the ARDC could cover this in an ideal world, we think it’s acceptable for another initiative like this to cover the important initiative. Eventually, the DAO should have its continuous system to work on efforts around this user research area.
Without compared ecosystems to research against, the research outcome will be less valuable, thus we choose the option including two others. They should not necessarily be Solana and OP Mainnet, but can be Solana and Base, or even Solana ecosystem and Superchain ecosystem, which would be more valuable.
Articulated criteria on how to choose builders for the research is critical to answer but can be further reported in the ongoing meetings (e.g. GRC)
Forming a “council” does make sense but we consider it more like a review group with different stakeholders, rather than “council” that has been more operating roles within the Arbitrum DAO, to our knowledge (e.g. LTIPP council)
On metagovernance topics like “why this proposal was rushed onto Snapshot?”, we should create a certain social rule on how long a proposal should be discussed before going into its Snapshot rather than arbitrarily pointing it out as it’s too short for the Snapshot phase, etc.
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gm, I voted FOR.
I think having data on our builders is extremely valuable, and this approach might not necessarily fit the skills for the new ARDC member.
I would like to understand better why builders didn’t choose Arbitrum, and what gaps exists today that can be removed.
Also share the sentiment that the bonus is confusing and probably not necessary.
Blockworks Advisory is voting AGAINST this proposal on Snapshot.
While we recognize the value of direct interviews for user research as a step forward, helping Arbitrum identify gaps from an ecosystem perspective, we share the concerns raised by @thedevanshmehta and others. The research report has potential but must include actionable insights and clear areas of focus for user research.
For instance, the Gnosis ecosystem successfully developed a suite of revenue-generating products for its DAO, but this required extensive research and strategic hiring to address gaps. To achieve a comparable level of understanding for Arbitrum, we need detailed reports and case studies on specific protocols and their user bases within the network. Additionally, the proposal appears unnecessarily bloated. The stakeholder council feels redundant when its responsibilities could be delegated to or audited by an existing committee.
Frankly, this proposal is not yet where it needs to be. While the idea holds value, it would have benefited from further iteration and discussion in the forum before moving to Snapshot.
As others have noted, clear KPIs are essential for evaluating the success of a project like this. Moreover, we agree with @WintermuteGovernance that Arbitrum’s main competitors are currently Base and Solana. Although Arbitrum is leading, Base is on track to surpass it in stablecoin market cap and is already outperforming in DEX volume. For Arbitrum to remain competitive, it must carve out a stronger position in these areas.
The Level K Delegation is voting FOR: Arbitrum + 2 others (SOL + OP).
We support qualitative research that adds depth and weight to conversations about Arbitrum’s place in the L2 landscape while identifying strengths and weaknesses.
We hear other delegates’ concerns about the lack of clear action that can be taken as a result of this research. We take the position that good research does not assume the results and as a result, you cannot predict specific outcomes of the research.
We hope there will be coordination within the council and with the ARDC Supervisory Council to identify potential areas of collaboration.
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