[GIP-52] Continue Business Development Initiative

BD Q1 Recap/Q2 Proposal

Summary

This is a follow-up proposal to continue funding the BD initiative at Gearbox through engagement with Hedglin Consulting LLC and Jared Hedglin. This proposal would grant another three month initiative to continue growing Gearbox.

Quarterly Review

The primary objective of this first engagement period (Feb 1, ‘23 - Apr 31, ‘23) was to increase TVL. Before and during the engagement, myself and other Gearbox contributors discussed V2 with some funds and advisors, and we received feedback that the rates were not competitive enough to justify large deposits when the “risk free rate” was so close to what Gearbox yields offered.

Institutional and TVL Engagement

With this feedback in hand, I proceeded to pitch the Special LP Boost 1 discussion to 12 new (not previously engaged) venture funds, hedge funds, and family offices, however, only two institutional firms indicated interest in the opportunity. The main pushback around engagement was size required to participate, specifically in a macro environment where return of capital has been dominant over return on capital. As Gearbox has continued to show its safety and security, the “institutional comfort” has seemingly grown reputationally, but we have seen TVL decrease since the beginning of the period. I would attribute this trend to several factors including the uncertain global regulatory environment, the USDC depeg incident, and tangentially Nexus’ V2 launch, which has caused insurance rates to go up, making depositing into Gearbox less appealing. Despite TVL now hovering near $90m, the protocol’s resilience has been clear and that narrative is resonating with larger players in the space.

One highlight of the quarter was the Balancer Boosted Pools launching to deposit funds into Gearbox. I originally engaged with Balancer contributors in July 2022 to start discussing this integration. Fortunately, the Balancer team saw the opportunity and Gearbox’s traction, and so they built out the entire boosted pool system, which is now currently being used to deposit ~$5m into Gearbox pools. Although $5m is just a start, this situation demonstrates the time required to evolve conversations into working relationships and a realized product showing results.

Events

In addition to focusing specifically on raising TVL, I’ve leveraged additional events to grow the network and get in front of users that haven’t encountered Gearbox. I’ve added a bullet point summary below of the events that I’ve covered over the past three months;

ETH Denver

Gearbox/Liquity/Euler Sponsored Event at Happy Camper Pizza ~250 attendees Received feedback that it was the “best side event at ETH Denver” from multiple attendees Teams from Variant, DefiLlama, Balancer, Aura, Alchemix, Chainlink, Redstone, and more came to discuss the space. Special shoutout to the VIBES Subcommittee for funding Gearbox’s share of this co-hosted event and (also designing) the T-shirts that were printed. Met with RIA’s, Asset Managers, Liquid Funds, and protocols/infrastructure teams at ETH Denver. Attended four other VC networking events and networked at the conference NFT NTC side events

Did not pay for a ticket to NFT.NYC Met with some blue-chip NFT communities and discussed how they use defi (especially borrowing against their own NFT’s or lending them out for APY), and educated them on how to use Gearbox Consensus Austin

Next week, I’ve scheduled meetings with four wallet companies to continue the push to get Gearbox deposits represented in wallet native UI’s, three funds to discuss LP’ing, and two protocols to discuss potential collaboration Additional Activity

With the intention of starting to build out a more robust pipeline, I worked with Ilgiz to set up an AirTable CRM to start tracking conversations, as well as an inbound interest form that will live on multiple Gearbox sites so that potential users and collaborators can reach out directly to the business development email (bd@gearbox.foundation) in case they do not feel comfortable jumping into a discord.

I’ve also generated a new KOL revenue sharing link with a former sales colleague that operates out of the Asia/Pacific region, and I’ve started working with them on identifying new potential funds to meet regarding Gearbox. Finally, I’ve met with at least 12 external projects that have reached out to diligence if we can work together. This activity was discussed in the original forum post to see if it would fall under my “jurisdiction”, and although I’m not spending extra time looking forthese projects, I do feel that my knowledge of our system lends itself well to qualifying if an inbound lead would be worth pursuing and introducing across the DAO to members with specific areas of expertise.

Areas to improve and next steps

Increasing new TVL leads

Going to Consensus will be another step to meeting new firms and finding new opportunities. Leaning in to EMEA and APAC opportunities, as those regions seem to be embracing DeFi more Still entertaining buying access to a “funds list”, but working with the network to see the best route for this Working with VIBES subdao to send messages directly to whale wallets Gearing up for V3

Educating previously engaged funds around the new V3 improvements will continue to be vitalAs V3 launches (hopefully in this engagement window) then the “Make Your Own Leverage” pools will be vital in attracting larger LP’s that are more particular about the risk that they are exposed to. V3 will allow additional limits to be placed within the protocol, thus allowing launches to other chains. Being a point of contact, as well as starting to engage with these other platforms will be an important piece of my job, even if it is not my primary objective. Finding new teams to build on Gearbox, and exploring potential avenues to bootstrap liquidity across networks with partners. Events

Follow ups from Consensus Austin ETHGlobal Lisbon- Aiming to go to if approved Potentially one other conference to go to this quarter or potentially a trip to Europe to meet with funds Budget/Breakdown

I propose the same terms as the previous engagement below. For those interested, I’ve spent $3,500 of my expense budget so far, still with some Consensus expenses coming up. I’ve done my best to get free tickets to both ETH Denver and a developer ticket to Consensus, and if I had to pay full price, then I’d be over budget, but I feel comfortable covering expenses with a $5k budget for the quarter.

$50k USDC for the 3 month grant period. ($45k salary + $5k in expenses + unlocking tokens) The DAO does not currently use any streaming payments mechanism, so I propose delivering this in a one-time payment. 3 million (3,000,000) $GEAR to be locked for 3 months and then linearly vested over 9 months