API3 DAO Team Proposal
Team: Platform / dapp focused BD team
Operations cycle: #4
Period: 1st August 2021 - 31st October 2021
Amount: 39,700 USDC
Destination: 0xbf399b10c6ceb2cb0706db7d72f1185ef8773a89
Scope
The platform/dapps BD team has the main responsibilities below. The secondary items are examples and do not cover the entire scope. The size of this team is expected to increase as the dAPIs approach production. The overarching aim is to improve the options for developers looking to use API3 data by deploying on as many platforms as possible, and reach out to the projects being developed on these to find consumers for our dAPIs and Airnode-enabled APIs (when developed).
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Coordinate with the marketing subteam to raise the profile of API3 among projects in the ecosystem
- DAO2DAO efforts
- General networking
- Attend conferences, discuss API3 directly with projects
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R&D
- Tech side feasibility of integrations
- Business side feasibility assessment
-
Outreach (dapps)
- Communicate with projects identified through r&d
- Identify areas for collaboration
- Propose a deliverable and mutually beneficial solution
-
Outreach (platforms)
- Communicate with suitable platforms identified through r&d
- Establish integration potential and discuss marketing to developers
-
Communicate with development team and integration team for integrations
- Smart contract platforms
- dApps
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Communicate with Marketing subteam to raise awareness among the general community
- Co-author blogposts
- Ensure technical content of posts correct
- Schedule announcements, verify content and timing with partners
- Discuss and align publicity requirements with prospective partners and marketing
Cycle 3 Cost Breakdown
For cycle 3, the only expenses incurred were grants, broken down as follows:
| Team member | Grant/month (USDC) | Number of months | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dave | 7,500 | 3 | 22,500 |
| Total: | 22,500 |
This leaves the BD platform/dapp team with 18,000 USDC to carry over to the next cycle. This will be subtracted from the amount requested. This can be verified by checking the destination wallet 0xbf399b10c6ceb2cb0706db7d72f1185ef8773a89
Cycle 4 Budget
Breakdown of requested amount:
| Amount (USDC) | |
|---|---|
| Grants | 41,700 |
| Expenses | 16,000 |
| Balance carried over (-) | 18,000 |
| Total requested | 39,700 |
Team and Grants
The team is composed of a lead business developer, and an integration engineer currently. The expectation was to onboard new business developers during the previous cycle. Instead, it was felt that building out the integration process prior to onboarding new business development personnel would lead to a better long term outcome, as the DAO launch being delayed also impacted the likely ChainAPI timescale from what had previously been expected. This necessitated a short term change of focus to manual integrations to allow us to deliver a product pre ChainAPI.
Requested compensation levels are as per the API3 DAO Compensation Guidelines
| Core BD platform/dapp team | Role | FT/PT | Monthly Compensation (USDC) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dave* | BD Lead | FT | 7,500.00 |
| Jacob | Integration Engineer | FT | 6,400.00 |
- The destination wallet will be managed by Dave.
Expenses
The team will be recruiting new members. These will result in the following expenses:
- New members will need to be paid for the rest of the cycle. The compensation guidelines here give a range between $3200/month to 5000/month from intermediate up to a senior level, full time, business developer to work on outreach. This will be the initial priority. The expenses reflect 3 person months of senior business developer compensation, and any remaining funds will be rolled over at the end of the cycle. It is not expected that a hire will be made straight away, and more likely that there will be multiple hires towards the end of the cycle, to reflect the anticipated increase in interest as Airnode-enabled APIs near production with an audited beta version of Airnode.
- Additional expenses such as job postings
In addition to the recruitment expenses, the team will potentially need access to tools to help streamline the BD pipeline. Some specific examples (not an exhaustive list) are:
- Hubspot
- Docsend
- LinkedIN Premium
When jobs are posted, and tools or features are chosen, receipts will be kept for production at the end of the cycle. Any remaining expenses will be rolled over to the next cycle.
The final category of expenses is for on-chain transactions, such as creating proposals in other DAOs. Transaction IDs will be retained for these and produced at the end of the cycle.
Deliverables
The team aims to create partnerships with platforms and dapps that will be of mutual benefit. Details of these will be published through the API3 Twitter, Medium and other agreed upon channels.
Dave is designated as an authorized signatory on behalf of the API3 Foundation for such
agreements reasonably related to accomplishing the objectives and deliverables set forth in this
proposal, until revoked by subsequent DAO Resolution.
Deliverables from cycle 3:
Partnerships:
Union Finance
Asteria
Hedge Against Inflation
Credmark
Shield Finance
Moonbeam
Kadena
Sovryn
BlockBank
DefiCliq
Details of these partnerships can be verified by checking the API3 Twitter account
Conferences/Events
API3 attended EthCC in Paris, and spoke to many other projects in the space. There are not yet any public deliverables resulting from the conference due to the short timespan since.
API3 sponsored Sovrython on RSK, and deployed the first two Airnode-enabled APIs (Finage and Heimdall) for this. At the time of this proposal, judging is still ongoing.
Integrations
Airnode integration has been completed for Celo and RSK, and all previous integrations made on testnets only were converted to mainnet integrations. Work is also ongoing on the first couple of production use cases, although usage is likely to be limited awaiting an audited Beta version of Airnode in the near future.
Hiring
There were no hires made as part of this cycle, and Jacob’s compensation is now directly paid by the platform/dapp subteam, instead of by the API BD subteam he was previously under. The expenses requested for cycle 4 are intended to be used to hire additional personnel