API3 DAO BD-API Team Proposal
Team: Business Development API Team
Operations cycle: #4
Period: 1 August 2021–31 October 2021 (3 months)
Amount: $111,363.67
Destination: 0xCB943E4Fb0bCf7eC3C2E6D263c275b27F07701c6
Scope
The Business Development - API team has the responsibilities listed below. The secondary items are examples and do not cover the entire scope. The scope of the project will expand and/or contract depending upon the current goals and needs of the organization, and this list represents the current state.
Responsibilities
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Sales process
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Outreach and follow-up
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Continuous improvement of outreach processes
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Continuous improvement of pitch delivery and value proposition
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CRM structure
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CRM Tool integrations
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Customer Relationship Management and growth
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API Industry specific marketing collaboration with marketing team
- Various digital marketing strategies (i.e. email, social, SEO, etc.)
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Reporting
- Accounting documentation
- Iterative CRM dashboards and reporting mechanisms
- Sales performance and KPI setting and recording
Requested Funds
| Amount (USDC) | |
|---|---|
| Grants | 76,500.00 |
| Grants (previous cycle) | 10,000.00 |
| Expenses and bonuses | 63,000.00 |
| Cycle #3 Remaining Balance | (38,136.33) |
| Total | 111,363.67 |
Team and Grant Amounts
The following table reflects current payments for commissions retroactively and this could change should more be earned before the end of the month.
- The destination for this proposed budget is a wallet address managed by Jacob.
The team is composed of Business Developers and Account Management Coordinators. Grant Amounts (Salaries) are estimates based on business development outcome goals, and will vary between employees and months. Quota will be determined based on the performance of this cycle as we expect a shift in BD functions.
Depending on a variety of technical developments, business developer roles can evolve into account management coordination if the need and demand arises. Should this occur and require team members to be moved to other verticals, the event will be documented including transfer of budget allocations to the relevant Business Development team acquiring these resources.
Based on current projections one full time Account Management Coordinator role will be filled by Rachel. Rachel and Will both will be trained for this role, and Will will serve as a back up or hybrid of the role of Business Developer and Account Management Coordinator. As business development of API provider onboarding decreases, the need for more account managers will inevitably increase. This structure is meant to suffice as the next cycle unfolds and informs additional maneuvering.
In addition, numerous resources will be moving to other teams. Camron is heading an API Integration team and is bringing Brandon with him as an Account Management Coordinator. Jacob G. is moving to the Business Development Platforms and dApps team. Gio is moving to the Business Development Enterprise team, and Ben and Ugur will be moving to the Marketing team.
Expenses
The team members will be offered tools and team-specific marketing support for lead generation purposes. This will result in the following expenses mapped out in the “administrative expenses” section of the table above and is subject to change should it make more sense to move these expenses to the operations team budget, which will be documented if a change like this occurs during the cycle:
- Hunter.io subscription
- Linked In Premium Sales Navigator Memberships
- An annual expense to Crunchbase
Additionally, there is a heavy commission and performance-based bonus structure that is difficult to estimate in advance. Any unspent amounts in the aforementioned expenses will roll over to the next cycle. Additional proposals will be made if needed should higher than expected growth be achieved. Currently all team members outside of management will make a guaranteed base salary of $3,000, with commission and other incentives added that match the current team objectives of securing new business while maintaining relationships with our current partners.
Deliverables
For the fourth cycle, the API-facing business development team’s goal is to continue building autonomous, efficient and effective processes for onboarding API providers to the Airnode solution, and to continue further development of the team to execute on this mission. The business development in question will be executed using a strategic approach that considers the general go-to-market strategy of the API3 project, and results will be published in cooperation with the marketing team, and in alignment with the overall marketing plan. Additionally, efforts will be made to continue to incorporate attendance at conferences, and marketing efforts for inbound lead generation will be executed at the beginning of this cycle.
Cycle #3 Achievements & Completed Deliverables
All business development results have been conveyed to major stakeholders and will be made public during operations cycle #4. Inferences can be derived on the team results and their acceptability from the votes of the primary stakeholders in the DAO with knowledge as to these outcomes.
- Shadowed BD processes and made improvements to streamline efforts
- Generated key performance indicators and metrics to hold team accountable and develop quotas
- Made additional improvements to onboarding processes
- Drafted updated outreach templates to better capture interest from API Providers
- Continued research on viability of 3rd party lead generation tools after performing trend analysis
- Built lead recycling process to increase effectiveness of conversions
- Gio moved to Enterprise vertical
- Ugur moved to Marketing
- Camron moved to Integrations
- Mason, Emily, and Greg moved to Operations
- Jacob Rowland to take over full BD - API Lead responsibility
- Presented at API Days to generate inbound interest
- Attended the Bitcoin Miami Conference to network and generate additional business development opportunities
- Created a new Account Management Coordinator roll and began defining processes and procedures
- Collaborated heavily with the Director of Marketing to aid in digital marketing efforts for lead generation
- Created an email marketing and tracking system with third party tools to track effectiveness of outreach communications
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