Closed joshpitzalis closed 5 years ago
kwikiel
commented
5 years ago I love the idea = it's sane way alternative to "utility tokens" - just start small projects using this technique and transform projects into security tokens once project matures and it's bringing predictable revenue
joshpitzalis
commented
5 years ago Exactly :)
mariapao
commented
5 years ago Hi @joshpitzalis thank you for submitting your proposal!
First things first: apologies for the slow review of this proposal. The program has been going through some changes like having a limited budget for 2019 ratified by the token holders and this means we need even more strategic when deciding what projects to fund.
Taking into account the above, we have reviewed the proposal and although we think it is an interesting experiment we feel like we have funded projects that even though are not aiming to build this exact tool are working on tools that will foster better team cooperation, productivity, and funding: TPS and Apiary. Therefore, we have decided not to approve this proposal for the moment.
If in the future you are working on something else that may be interesting for the program, please do not hesitate to apply again!
joshpitzalis
commented
5 years ago Thank you for letting me know @mariapao All the best with Aragon in 2019.
Abstract
Our proposed application helps teams calculate a perfectly fair equity split based on each person’s contributions towards a project.
A lack of clarity or agreement on how people are going to be compensated for their ideas, time and resources can be a serious impediment to momentum in an early-stage startup.
Wasting time discussing who owns what, and how things will be divided, means squandering the valuable time and energy a team has when they start out.
At the same time, misunderstandings or simply not discussing how equity is going to split can be detrimental to a project’s survival.
The Gruntfunder is based on Mike Moyer’s dynamic equity model. It offers a way to distribute equity according to what each founder contributes to a project. Some founders might have a lot money to offer but little time, others may only have time and skill to offer, while others just have great ideas but no skill or money to implement them.
Using the Gruntfunder to track contributions and split equity means that everyone in a team understands and agrees on how equity is going to be divided. This kind of agreement means the people can stop worrying about who owns what and focus on the actual work that needs to be done instead.
How Does It Work?
An individual’s contributions are categorised into:
The model provides a theoretical calculation for the relative value of each of these kinds of contributions. We offer sensible defaults, but each team can tweak specific variables as needed.
Equity is then calculated in real time as contributions are added to a project. Our app dashboard is where a team agrees on what needs to be done and can log updates on what has been completed. Based on these inputs the dashboards calculates and displays how much equity each member owns.
This approach is based on the dynamic equity model proposed in Mike Moyer’s book Slicing Pie. We have built on the idea by integrating the model with the blockchain to provide a trustless and transparent backup of a projects equity distribution. Implementing the dynamic equity on the blockchain means that an equity contract can manage team equity as well govern all project finances.
Rather than storing company finances in a bank account, all investments can be converted to Ether, or a stable coin like DAI, and then stored on the equity management contract itself. All project finances belong to a smart contract, and the relative equity distribution of the team governs how much money each team member can access.
Starting a project using the Gruntfunder removes the need for a complicated discussion about how equity is going to be divided. It removes the need for employment contracts since all team contributions will be stored on the blockchain and fairly compensated in real time. It removes the need for setting up a bank account since all company finances can be stored and managed on the blockchain. Most importantly, the process is clear and simple to understand, which means a team with a good idea can hit the ground running without having to worry about the bureaucratic overhead of equity distribution.
We intend to integrate with a team’s preferred project management application. Ideally, this would interoperate with the projects Planning Tab application that is being built via the nest program. We will need to provide some basic way of listing, assigning and completing tasks as we don’t want our app to be unusable without a 3rd party integration. However, the focus is on calculating equity, not on project management. We want to build alongside the best productivity tools out there, not compete with them.
How does this help the Ethereum ecosystem?
Disagreements over who owns what can tear a project apart before it begins.
Given the vast amounts of money that have been invested into ICOs, the volatility of cryptocurrency prices, and the startup culture inherent to a large proportion of blockchain projects, we believe there is a gap in the emerging Ethereum stack for simple and effective equity management tools.
No matter how good a team is, the more successful a project becomes the more disruptive misunderstandings around money be. Effectively managing project equity is fundamental to the sustained growth of a project.
By providing a clear foundational equity agreement, with sensible defaults, we aim to minimize the number of ethereum projects that fail because of money disagreements. We believe that clarity and transparency around important issues like equity distribution will help foster greater team cooperation and productivity. It allows people to focus on what needs to be done, knowing that they will be fairly rewarded for their contribution.
The app also fits in well with current Aragon apps that are being built like the finance app, the payroll app, the project planning app. All of these have synergistic effects if an early stage startup if used together. We believe an equity management tool for Aragon would add to this synergy and help Aragon become all-in-one startup management application.
Proof of Concept
As a side project, we built a proof of concept for the idea back in February 2018. We used the system to track contributions to an app for a Local Food market idea.
The app is rudimentary, you will need Metamask set on Rinkeby for anything to show up https://gruntfunder.com/project/0x98c92E6bD45e95032c7fd8b254a96D20839EfA50
This is a very basic contract that only accepts 2 hour tasks. Once the DAO votes to verify a task is complete the person who completed it gets 2 hours worth of equity.
The page only lists completed tasks. All the project management was handled in a simple productivity app called workflowy. The goal of the project dashboard was simply to display how equity is divided at any given day.
We understand that voting on each task in unsustainable. We know that tasks cannot be limited to 2-hour blocks. Each person should also have a different hourly rate based on their expertise. There are a whole host of features in the original dynamic equity model that need to be implemented. We weren’t aiming for a high fidelity prototype, we just wanted the simplest version of the idea up so we could play with it.
The side project sat on the back-burner for most of the year, until we decide to pick the project up during EthSingapore. We ended up winning the Aragon prize, Griff Green from Giveth and the DAC team thought that the next step should be to pursue this forward by raising a proposal on the Next fund. We love how responsive the Aragon team was on riot chat, and want to work with a team that has a clear vision for making DAO’s more accessible to everyone.
Grant size
Funding: Up to $50k in ETH, split into 2 $20,000 milestones (Frontend Client and Smart Contract development) and 1 $10,000 milestone (Beta testing Complete application). Success reward: Up to $20,000 in ANT, given out when all deliverables are ready.
Deliverables
Bonus (if time permits)
Team
Legal Structure
Our understanding is that the application needs to be open source if we are applying for this Grant. In terms of how we will manage the grant, we intend to use a Gruntfund since our app is specifically designed to solve this exact problem. We can manage the initial finances and contributions on our proof of concept application and switch to a more robust application as soon as it is developed.
Timeline
Estimated 3-month timeline for project completion:
Frontend development (Onboarding steps, Dashboard)
Unit test and integration test coverage
Documentation
FAQ Website
Beta testing
Bug Bounty
Beta testing
Bug Bounty