---
# System prepended metadata

title: Smart Grants Design Sprint
tags: [SmartGrants]

---

# Design Sprint

## Scope

We should fork and tweak wherever possible, no need to start fully from scratch. Get everyone moving in the same direction. Have something concrete at the end of the sprint to move forward on in future sprints.

Develop basic understanding and documents to start marketing the idea to potential customers. Come up with some ideas for guerilla marketing. Come up with short list of potential customers.

The main point is to get a start on all the different elements of the product, so that it can be built on. These can be rough versions in order to get them done quick.

## Schedule

October 27, 2023 1:00 PM (CDT)
October 30, 2023 1:00 PM (CDT)
November 2, 2023 2:00 PM (CDT)

## Deliverables

* Solid team ready to go
* Shared understanding (product)
    * FAQ for protocol
    * Rough Wireframes
    * Set of user stories
* Shared understanding (customer)
    * Ethos (messaging)
    * Minimal pitchdeck
    * Short list
* Landing page (to announce coming soon)
* Rough documentation (starting point)

## Sessions

### Session 1

- https://retrotool.io/bF7gooGeei9z1Jh6aiWw5

#### Team Vision
What is it that you'd like to build? Be as brief as possible.
* Youthful Alligator: A useful tool! I hope we make something that solves a real problem for real people. (+3)
* plor: Accountability tool for Grant givers. (+3)
* plor: A clearinghouse for different grant patterns (+3)
* Proud Xerus: smart grants w/ no onboarding (+2)
* Proud Xerus: smart grants w/ milestones for dummies (+2)
* Proud Xerus: smart grants w/ many ways to pay and get paid, like chains/tokens/fiat (+2)
* Youthful Alligator: A tool for managing milestone payouts (and disputes); UVP: arbitration or other mechanism for "conflict resolution" (+2)
* plor: A place where people can vet grant givers through transparency (+2)
* plor: Escrow tool for better grant accounting (+2)
* Sophisticated Ferret: an application that is honest, lives on multiple chains, and connects grant givers to grantees (+2)
* Proud Xerus: smart grants w/ custom arbitration (+1)
* sayonara: A Simple, Self-Service Grant Program Deployer!; Create with HSG; Dispense the funds later to eligible parties in accountable powered by SI
* Sophisticated Ferret: an application that has Web2 onboarding
* Sophisticated Ferret: introduces new arbitration
* plor: Should we help with reputation tracking?

#### Skills
What skills do you plan on bringing to bear? What skills do we lack?
* Glamorous Otter: partnerships  (+2)
* Glamorous Otter: user research (+2)
* Glamorous Otter: market research (+2)
* Youthful Alligator: Community building: engagement, events (+1)
* sayonara: Some Graphic Design, maybe (+1)
* plor: Lack: Sales (+1)
* sayonara: wanna do: solidity(not good) (+1)
* sayonara: Frontend
* sayonara: Backend/DB
* sayonara: UI/Design
* Proud Xerus: I can do copy
* Proud Xerus: do we have pretty design?
* Proud Xerus: i can do chones
* Youthful Alligator: Frontend (bad)
* Youthful Alligator: Research interviews
* Youthful Alligator: Project management
* Youthful Alligator: Content marketing
* Glamorous Otter: building user journeys
* Glamorous Otter: integrating credentialling
* Glamorous Otter: pitch deck creation
* Glamorous Otter: content marketing
* Glamorous Otter: public speaking engagements
* Glamorous Otter: project management
* Glamorous Otter: business modelling
* plor: Software Architecture
* plor: Project Management
* plor: Demo / presentation
* plor: Integration / Meeting collaborators
* plor: Lack: Strong solidity
* plor: Lack: devops

#### Ethos
What is our vibe? How do we sell ourselves to potential customers?
* plor: Fun and playful (+2)
* sayonara: Code is Law! (+1)
* sayonara: Align Strangers to co-op! (+1)
* plor: Community driven (+1)
* plor: Sustainable funding, not trying to get rich (+1)
* plor: Supportive of grant givers, we just want to help (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Coordination tool: make it easier to get shit done at your organization (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Trust-minimization: incentivize new contributors to dive in (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Beginner-friendly: get your first crypto dollar (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Simple: focus on what matters (+1)
* plor: Easier to trust strangers (+1)
* plor: Trust-maximization through risk-minimization (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Build trust, one milestone at a time (+1)
* plor: Reliable / dependable (+1)
* sayonara: Crytonerds!
* sayonara: We'll take your money and put in Smart Contract! ;)
* sayonara: Cyberpunk!
* sayonara: Not A16Z
* plor: Probably a bit solar punk
* plor: Privacy is not our focus, differentiates from other payment services
* plor: Neutral in terms of QF and others
* plor: Not BMW
* plor: Transparency as a key value 
* Youthful Alligator: Trust is the foundation

#### Pitchdeck Fodder
What would you like to get included in a pitchdeck? (This will be used to rough out the pitchdeck)
* Sophisticated Ferret: team section (+5)
* plor: Build trust in your community (+3)
* plor: Don't build your own grant platform (+3)
* Proud Xerus: fewer steps for more trust compared to lotsa friction without trust (+2)
* Sophisticated Ferret: use case section with partners (+2)
* Sophisticated Ferret: a proper brand identity (+1)
* Sophisticated Ferret: starting on a clean slate (+1)
* sayonara: Maximise return on Ecosystem Grant Money with accountability (+1)
* plor: Hold grantees to their deliverables (+1)
* plor: Easy earmarking of grant funds (+1)
* plor: Release funds one milestone at a time (+1)
* plor: Why pay for grants that don't produce value for your community? (+1)
* sayonara: Case-study; How others have done it (+1)
* sayonara: Expense vs Protocol Value (+1)
* Proud Xerus: time saved with pretty graph things, like look at how little fetching and herding is required
* Sophisticated Ferret: a mock up
* Youthful Alligator: Attract more devs to your ecosystem (by using smart grants to reduce risk)
* Youthful Alligator: Never get burned again - only pay out when quality work is done
* sayonara: Grow your ecosystem! One milestone at a time
* sayonara: Data based Case-study; Total Ecosystem Expense vs New Apps live; Study diff orgs/ecosystems
* Proud Xerus: relevant use cases
* Youthful Alligator: Live your values.; Money where your mouth is.; Actions speak louder than words.
* plor: Do away with spreadsheets
* sayonara: Get Shit Deployed!
* sayonara: Get result for your money!
* Youthful Alligator: Integrate with GitHub actions? easy workflow to approve milestone after PR

#### Short List
Can you think of grant givers or similar groups who would be good to reach out to as possible customers?
* Proud Xerus: client: Safe (+4)
* Proud Xerus: client: Optimism (+2)
* plor: Nouns (+2)
* Sophisticated Ferret: Hypercerts (+2)
* Sophisticated Ferret: Golem Foundation (+2)
* sayonara: MakerDAO? (+2)
* plor: BanklessDAO (+2)
* sayonara: Celo (+1)
* sayonara: Optimism (+1)
* sayonara: Solana Foundation (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: DFINITY (+1)
* Proud Xerus: integrate with Charmverse (+1)
* Proud Xerus: integrate with PropHouse (+1)
* Proud Xerus: client: all the Nouns DAOs (+1)
* plor: Public Nouns (+1)
* plor: Raid Guild (+1)
* plor: PublicHaus? (+1)
* sayonara: Coinbase/BuildonBase (+1)
* Proud Xerus: Uniswap DAO (+1)
* sayonara: Compound
* sayonara: AAVE
* sayonara: Polygon
* sayonara: Mina Protocol
* Youthful Alligator: Does Ethereum Foundation (EF) have grants?
* Youthful Alligator: Mina
* Youthful Alligator: Algorand
* Proud Xerus: integrate with Tally
* Proud Xerus: Smart Grants DAOhaus shaman
* Proud Xerus: integrate with Hats
* plor: Optimism
* plor: Mantle
* plor: Consensys
* Youthful Alligator: Stellar Community Fund
* plor: Green Pill Network?
* Proud Xerus: Rari Foundation
* Proud Xerus: Mantle
* Youthful Alligator: Moonbeam
* sayonara: Flow Blockchain?

#### Action points
* Validate whether grant givers care about accountability (is there already a way to validate?); 
* Validate whether grant givers desire discoverability (is there already tools for discoverabliity?); 
* Look into integrating Magic or Keyp for web2 crowd; 
* Find grants and validate before building too much; 
* shift bureaucracies; 
* lean on RaidGuild reputation; 
* push on smart invoice (protocol) to get audits; 
* push on smart invoice (protocol) to sort out arbitration; 
* test assumption that grant givers are hoping to attract more (non-web3) devs; 
* test assumption that grant givers want KYC/KYB (e.g. recipient not in US); 

### Session 2

#### Elevator Pitch
* Youthful Alligator: SmartGrants is your one stop shop for your accountable, transparent, and compliant grant giving. (+2)
* plor: We add accountability to the grant giving process. Each grant awarded will put funds in escrow to release upon completion of the milestones. (+1)
* plor: We earmark awarded grants so the grantee is ensured payment is there and the grantor is confident milestones will be achieved. (+1)
* sayonara: We help you disburse grant funds to right people and make sure they deliver (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Putting funds in a smart grant help the giver and receiver have confidence that quality work will get paid.  (+1)
* Youthful Alligator: Keep grant funds safu. No more rugpulls from disappearing devs or scope-creeping orgs. (+1)
* sayonara: We help you grow your eco-system in an accountable manner
* sayonara: Framing-; `Sell dream/endgoal, not method/means`
* sayonara: Help eco-systems grow and get run for their money
* Youthful Alligator: Hold grant recipients accountable by releasing allocated funds when they deliver each milestone.

#### Personas and User Stories

- https://hackmd.io/dD0BBCh1TPazAwygDawLzw

#### Additional action items

* test assumption that grant givers want compliant accounting for tax reasons.; 
* test the trojan horse model of gaining traction (pitch to grant applicants); 

### Session 3

- https://smartgrants.xyz/

We spent the session building a landing page so we can start gathering information on whether people are interested in the product. When we have more info here we can start building.

Also, we are going to request $4500 to pay retroactively for the design sprint and have a bit to build out other things. We also want to spread out some shares so smart grants has more say in the protocol going forward.