API3 DAO BD Team Proposal
Business Development Team Proposal, August 2023 – October 2023 (Cycle 12)
Team: Business Development Team
Operations cycle: #12
Period: 1 August 2023 – 30 October 2023 (3-months)
Amount: 0,00 USDC
200k API3 tokens (from the hot wallet, to be sent to BD multisig once the conditions are met)
Destination: Gnosis Safe (Multi-sig wallet)
address 0xB6124cE91E7ba6650791Bf969F94E31e2631cE86
signers: 2/3 Multisig
Dave - dav3.eth
Gio - 0x3afB3530Da3CBa4d8B278Af63872FAA80F1fC87D
Kevin - 0x676f0341FC230dD28455A5B32b28651ACC377c88
Scope
The Business Development team (BD) drives holistic organizational-wide value within the DAO. API3’s vision is to be the first choice in DAO-governed decentralized data oracles, dAPIs [Decentralised APIs i.e. price feeds and OEV (Oracle Extractible Value] and QRNG (Quantum Random Number Generation) for Web3.
Our purpose is driven by on-chain verifiable truth, facilitated by our technology stack.
Our tasks extend to forging partnerships, seeking synergies, creating sales pipelines for the above described products. We have directly and indirectly grown value by $150,000 + since the launch of Phase 1, more explained below. We have taken intangible deliverables and translate this into ROI.
For the purpose of this proposal, BD’s general responsibilities encompasses these overarching responsibilities that relate to:
-
Sales process
- Outreach
- Continuous improvement of outreach processes
- Exploring decentralization strategies (on pause)
-
Recruitment & HR (In-line with product growth and dAPI scaling)
- Onboarding
- Training
- Best practice
- Ongoing support
-
Coordinate with the marketing and ecosystem sub teams
- Help with ecosystem outreach and activities (dApps, Providers and Chains)
- General networking and on-the-ground interactions
- Articles, blogs and content
- Liaising with other relevant API3 sub teams
- Attend conferences and workshops
-
R&D
- Technical-side feasibility of integrations
- Business-side feasibility assessment
- Customer and market sentiment analysis and feedback
-
Internal workshops and meetings
- Attend mandatory sub team and team meetings
- Knowledge dissemination and internal knowledge workshops or materials
Team Movements
- No team movements or additions.
- We have restarted passive recruiting.
1.BD - Provider Focus:
Gio will continue to develop partner and provider relationships, which are key for the development of dAPIs and OEV. In addition to these tasks and working alongside Dave and Kevin, Gio will assist in overall BD, allocating most of his time in growing out dApp usage and the Chains pipeline. In the next proposal, this section will merge with section 2 and 3.
Completed Deliverables (Cycle #11)
Gio spent half of his time over the last cycle liaising and growing the relationships with data providers and the other half of dApp/chain outreach. This has bolstered our ties with our data providers, as they work with us on a closer “partner” basis, than seeing us as general “customers’'. Mertcan (technical team) and Gio allowed for seamless Airnode integrations/upgrades, data set additions and aligning with data providers to avoid any service disruptions. This ensured high quality data input for the dAPI and Product team. This frees up time for the product team to focus on what they do best, productising and launching Phase I and Phase II of dAPIs and the marketplace.
Gio has proactively engaged 6 NFT data providers and has opened doors for API3 for when the product team is ready to offer a new price data category. During this period we signed and integrated two additional data providers Kaiko (Flagship Crypto data provider) and went live with NewChangeFX (FCA regulated Forex and Crypto data provider). We are truly privileged to work with these vanguards and look forward to working closer with them and our other data providers.
During the period, we had one in-testing provider avoid following through on the commercial discussions for unknown reasons.
Currently, we have two more multi-source data providers we are engaging with and are soon to start testing. The dAPI team will decide whether these two additions will be needed now or in future. This will conclude the initial 10 data provider-partners, sharing API3’s vision - providing DeFi with first-party data oracles while allowing data providers to reap most of the benefits. This is in stark contrast to the extractive third-party data oracle model which disempowers data providers.
The ecosystem team arranged a Twitter Spaces AMA - Straight From the Source, which shows the enthusiasm our partner-providers have in working with API3 and we look forward to hosting many more around key trends and topical discussions. For those interested to listen, here is the Twitter space hyperlink.
Following-through from the previous proposal update, all previous interactions have now been closed.The key, current focus for Cycle 12 is getting these last few providers over the line and driving dApp adoption and growth of TVS, QRNG integrations and exploring new ways for BD to support and grow interactions from Chain deals emanating from Ecosystem and BD interactions.
Deliverables (Cycle #12)
Gio’s goal is to close the last two data sources, and allocate most of his time in growing dApp outreach, QRNG sales and building chain conversations along with the ecosystem team. BD sees its role as complementary to ecosystem, in that, once chain deals are set by ecosystem, BD grows out the number of dApps on the chains to bolster TVS.
In addition, Gio and the BD team will engage and stir discussion on Twitter Spaces with providers and dApps around various themes and narratives, driving conversations about first-party data oracles benefits and defi-first agendas.
As per the previous two proposals, the approach to onboarding providers is the following: gauge a provider’s interest; get access to a test API to do compatibility and calibration testing. Once the technical team is happy with these stress-test results, discuss and sign commercials and lastly, self-integrate the provider (via ChainAPI). The commercial elements include a revenue-sharing model.
Provider goals:
- In Cycle 11, 6 providers underwent testing, deployment and are ready-to-use for dAPIs. These providers collectively cover crypto, forex, equities, commodities and indices tickers.
- In Cycle 11, 2 providers underwent testing, deployment and are ready-to-use for dAPIs. These providers collectively cover crypto, forex, equities, commodities and indices tickers bringing the total to 8 data sources.
- Discussions were had with 6 NFT data providers, with established channels for when we are ready to bring this to market.
- In Cycle 12, the goal is to onboard and deploy the last 2 data providers, in line with the dAPI team’s growth plans, bringing this total to 10 providers. The focus of which would be adding providers that cover multi-asset classes or even real-world assets, if possible.
BD Autonomy Exploration
- From the previous proposal, the BD team has paused the exploration of this topic about decentralizing BD for now, as the focus is on securing 12 dApps to bolster dAPI uptake and provide support activities to ecosystem sub teams.
- We would further need technical support to ideate and build out the BD autonomy model, which at this stage is directed at accomplishing the above purpose.
2.QRNG
The Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG) service has started gaining significant traction, as more and more dApps trust quantumly generated, true randomness as inputs into their NFT platform, gaming infrastructure and randomness needed for smart contract functionalities. Random number generators (i.e. VRF) are typically pseudo-random. They can be biased or repeat at some point. This can introduce a security hole that can potentially be exploited. We believe that this should be accessible to all dApps and hence, have made this a public good. BD’s role is to allow as many dApps and chains as possible to have access to this service.
Completed QRNG Deliverables (Cycle #11)
QRNG Deployments
The BD team are are in talks with some chains to offer QRNG to their ecosystems or dApp-chains once developer bandwidth is available. As this moves ahead, we will update the community of any progress. We also have a public dashboard to monitor QRNG usage which is available at monitor.api3.org.
No additional chain deployments were made over this cycle.
QRNG Usage
QRNG total usage over this cycle is over 250k requests.This real-time dashboard shows the breakdown of the requests across various blockchains.Over the last 30 days, usage was mainly on a combination of Moonbeam and Arbitrum Nova, with Polygon and ETH Mainnet the next two most common chains to serve requests to.
QRNG Users
The following projects have announced their usage of QRNG during this cycle. Note that it is likely more projects are using it, but we operate it as a public good so there is no need for projects to ask us to use it, or tell API3 that they are. The projects below are ones that have contacted us or tweeted about using QRNG.
Arcade Lotto - https://twitter.com/ArcadeLotto/status/1678792225218785280
Grants Received
Because of API3’s technical resources mainly being taken up by managed feed development and release, the BD team were unable to pursue any additional QRNG deployments to new chains. This program will be revisited after managed feeds are launched, and BD will assist the Ecosystem team here.
API3 also received a 75k ARB grant from Arbitrum, as part of the ARB token distribution, for being part of the Arbitrum ecosystem. This is subject to a proposal to be used to fund managed feeds for users on Arbitrum One, here https://api3.eth.limo/#/governance/secondary-77
Deliverables (Cycle #12)
Although QRNG is a public good, we still believe that it helps our BD and ecosystem teams, and is still important to support. We believe QRNG acts as an important tool for awareness of API3 generally, and familiarizing developers with the first party oracles concept, as well as the request-response protocol and the API3 ecosystem. For cycle 12 the BD team will be paying commission, included in this proposal budget, for BD work leading to successful QRNG dApp integrations, which will also be a deliverable for the next proposal. The main focus of cycle 11 and 12 will however be on dAPI usage, rather than QRNG.
The BD team believe that through expanding QRNG to more chains, developer awareness of API3 will increase, and plan to help the ecosystem team deploy to currently unsupported chains where possible. The benefit of supporting additional chains will be assessed on an ongoing basis, and extra deployments conducted where developer resources are available, and the benefits felt worth their allocation.
For cycle 12 the BD team will be paying commission, included in this proposal budget, for BD work leading to successful QRNG integrations. A flat $1k per integration is available on an ongoing basis.
This is intended for BD team members working on dApp outreach, but will also be available to other DAO members who can deliver integrations on a discretionary basis.
3. BD – OEV and dAPIs
Completed Deliverables from Last Cycle
Progress for BD has been strong over the last cycle and is expected to gain momentum in the next cycle, now that the groundwork has been laid.
-
In this cycle, TVL has grown from $0 to ~$12M, API3 gained 5 users across 2 chain’s, and the largest dApps to come are currently working through testnet integrations. https://defillama.com/oracles/API3 . Building a foundation is the most difficult part of starting a sales cycle and we expect momentum to increase as time carries forward.
-
Multiple dApps have been integrated into our OEV Alpha program which is allowing our dAPI team to perform necessary testing on how to best package and deliver full Oracle Extractable Value to our partners.
-
Inroads have been made with multiple new chains that we will be among the first oracle solutions to launch on. BD has supported Ecosystem in their role in managing these relationships by gathering dApp community support and using it to help create leverage for grants.
-
Team members attended ETH Austin, CryptoEconDay, and ETHCC in Paris where multiple in-person meetings were held and market knowledge was gained.
-
The Ecosystem team hosted a few twitter spaces and we were able to join and stir discussion turning these into BD interactions
Upcoming Phase: (August -)
Action Items:
-
The primary action for the next proposal is to keep driving dApps through our pipeline in terms of MOU sign-ups, moving current testnet dApps into production and growing TVS.
-
Assistance will be given to help manage Chain relationships and to support the transition from Self-Funded to Managed Feeds to ensure that feeds are sponsored in a sustainable manner.
-
Ensure that all appropriate dApps launching on new chains are targeted and that initial feeds are sponsored to ease their transition.
Business Development Budget
Figures that are (-) are surpluses while (+) are funds requested from the DAO Treasury.
#Last cycle, $50k was requested for testing dApps entering early production. $10k of this was used to test Oracle Extractable Value in a production environment on Fantom. Unfortunately the Multichain exploit occurring during this cycle resulted in a loss of approximately $8.5k in bridged USDC out of this $10k. 5.5k FTM were able to be recovered. The testing will continue on Goerli.
*The BD subteam would like to retain $41.5k of the loan to help fund dAPIs to assist in onboarding new dApps. This is intended to be for where other sources of dAPI funding would take longer than is necessary to gain the dApp as a user.
** See Team and Grants section below.
Team and Grants
The team is composed of Business Development personnel.
Commission Structure Cycle #12
BDs have moved away from a base grant due to the roll-out of Phase II with a commission only structure. In the previous grant cycle, the team had requested the DAO to allocate 200k API3 tokens to incentivise and drive deal flow and closure. The sales cycle is generally longer due to the technical nature of the product and the ‘value-risk’ of switching costs. We have grown the number of dApps utilizing API3 feeds from 0 to 5, with seven more to go in meeting the targeted requirements.
**The stated requirements or KPI is to sign 12 dApps or grow the total value secured to $100m from these signings collectively, as stated in the previous cycles proposal (cycle #11). The commissions will be assigned on a pooled, team basis for meeting this joint outcome aligning and driving teamwork while ensuring individual accountability. The 200k API3 token has been requested to be allocated for this cycle #12, while we move current interactions forward towards the achievement of the above KPI, which will be the foundation for the next set of KPIs, post these 12 dApps.
The reason for basing BD compensation on this metric is to ensure that BDs are incentivized to ‘hunt’ and close deals as a team, while adding direct benefits to product uptake and awareness.
Expenses
The team will kick-start passive recruitment of business developers on a contractor basis. Please apply, as we will be reviewing resumes on a rolling basis for Phase II and beyond.
Ad-hoc commissions being paid to external individuals for introductions resulting in a positive outcome for the DAO will also be factored into the commission budget (an example being valuable warm intros leading to dAPI usage).
The business development team will also be attending events as indicated as critical to drive new partnerships and ecosystem growth. Conferences and events that fall outside of large Marketing team sponsored events will be funded by the business development teams grant budget as per the Travel Reimbursement schedule.
Over the last quarter we have attended ETHCC in Paris , The Blockchain Oracle Summit and co-sponsored the CryptoEconDay event, which was a success. Other events on the BD team’s radar in the next cycle are Token2049, SmartCon, The Science of Blockchain Conference at Stanford, and ETH Barcelona.
In addition to the conference expenses, the team will potentially need access to tools to help streamline the BD pipeline. Some specific examples (not an exhaustive list) are:
- HubSpot & Linear
- Docsend
- LinkedIn Premium (Prospecting or Job Posting)
When 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 in disbursing grants payments and such as creating proposals in other DAOs. Transaction IDs will be retained for these and produced at the end of the cycle.
Any unspent amount will roll over to the next cycle.
Explanation of Proposal Parameters:
- Target contract address is the USDC token contract address, which is 0xa0b86991c6218b36c1d19d4a2e9eb0ce3606eb48
- Target contract signature: transfer (address, uint256). This is the function to call on the target contract, which triggers a transfer of USDC tokens.
- The parameters stated include the address these USDC are to be sent to, which should match the proposal address, followed by the number of USDC. USDC has 6 decimal places, and solidity is unable to deal with decimal places - hence we add 6 zeros after the proposed USDC number. The number of decimal places can be verified on the USDC contract page of Etherscan - $1.00 | USD Coin (USDC) Token Tracker | Etherscan