Thank you @TempeTechie for starting this thread.
My 2cents trying to answer some of the questions you raised as well as sharing some observations.
What I miss in most submissions
a) What are we solving for?
Evidently the DAO runs a business and is solving for Revenue (R) - Costs (C) > 0 in the long run. Hence minimizing C (all efficiency goals) is a no brainer. On the R side (which is a function of price and quantity) we can increase price (not an option in our case), increase quantity (yes), or add new revenue streams (also yes).
Having this very simplistic framework in mind would make some submissions stronger imo.
b) Being data driven
While not everyone is a Dune Wizard, I suggest looking through previous work done by the ARDC to back up some SOS submissions. E.g., Nethermind looked at the sustainability of the Sequencer Revenue and their recommendation wasfor Arbitrum to position itself as the DeFi liquidity hub
Additionally a remark on being very builder focused (I have been pondering a while whether this is a correct comparison or too simplistic, hence feel free to push back):
The way I see it Arbitrum One resembles slightly a marketplace in Web2. Builders build on one side, users consume what builders build and a fee is generated when the two interact. When you build and nurture these marketplaces (I set one up from scratch in Web2) you constantly have to balance the two and make sure you curate both of them at the same time. Because good builders bring users (if they figure out their customer acquisition strategy) but good users also attract builders.
Hence I believe if we go a “builder first” route we should also go a “user first” route trying to
- own and improve their UX
- onboard new crypto users directly onto Arbitrum (relating to point a) above about increasing the total Q → sidenote: by making the pie bigger for everyone and not just attracting yield seekers for a short period of time)