Intro

METIP#: 16

Title: Season 4 Pod & Budget Proposal

Author(s): sunslinger.eth and mar1na(catscatscode)#3578, with budget inputs from PCWCFA#0438 and feedback from many others

Type: Social

Dependencies: n/a

Replaces/Amends: n/a

TL;DR

MetricsDAO seeks to build on the incredible growth of Season 3 and to kick off Season 4 on April 3, 2023, following a week-long offseason to conduct retros and brainstorm on seasonal goals. This proposal for Season 4, developed in collaboration with Pod Leaders, builds upon our ongoing commitment to permissionless technology, progressive decentralization, and transparency in operations.

Summary: From Trickle to Flood

Since the start of the year, MetricsDAO has increased its capacity to empower analysts and forge data partnerships. Season 3 saw explosive growth in our KPIs:

• Analytics Challenges: +327%
• Monthly Revenue: +620%
• xMETRIC Holders: +107%
• Data Partners: Artemis, Bitquery, Dapplooker, Dune Wizards, Flipside, Footprint Analytics, GeniiData, Playgrounds, Slice Analytics, Sentio, Transpose

Our third season culminated in the launch of the Metrics App, which will dramatically increase the DAO’s ability to review work at high volumes and to rapidly reward Metrics Minds for their contributions. The Bounty Operations pod will leverage the App to design Marketplaces that align analyst incentives (uplevel and obtain higher pay, gain an audience and exposure to more opportunities) with MetricsDAO’s incentives (stronger analytics output and more exposure). Great quality outputs are important to deliver on contracts for current MetricsDAO partners.

As well, our Education courses continue to be incredibly popular and “sell out” within short periods of opening to the public. The more we help our analysts maximize their potential and their reach, the stronger is MetricsDAO’s portfolio of data content & its public presence, and the more attractive is MetricsDAO’s marketplace for future partners, helping grow our pToken revenue. Additionally, exposing our community members to training opportunities for data partners is a critical component to building an open and powerful network of Web3 data organizations.

For Season 4, we propose building upon the existing Community Crew to form a dedicated Community Pod. The Community Pod will foster the analyst community and translate their success into DAO success. Going forward, we anticipate the Community Pod - like Bounty Ops and Education - to establish its own set of priorities and performance indicators, and to self-organize throughout the Seasonal Cycle: from goal-setting to execution to measuring performance.

Going into Season 4, MetricsDAO remains committed to continued decentralization: enabling contributors and contributor Pods to design and execute against their own goals and KPIs. We propose continuing with existing Pod leaders, who have proven their ability to execute and grow the DAO. As well, we hope to continue relying on Naan as a key governance contributor who will advance our ability to further mature DAO governance.

Season 4 Specification

This Season 4 proposal is the direct result of input from each contributor pod. It provides resources to scale our Bounty Operations pod and App guides to handle skyrocketing demand for analytics challenges. It formalizes the Community pod and outlines this pod’s key role as a facilitator of DAO culture, ideals, values and success. It acknowledges the pivotal role of Education in enabling aspiring analysts to become professional-grade contributors and data experts.

Last but not least, it acknowledges the key role of independent contributors (ICs) and provides a space for ICs to submit proposals directly to the DAO for ratification. We anticipate and invite that ICs will propose new opportunities & avenues to contribute, and look forward to the DAO community discussing and voting on these proposals.

Budget Proposal & Term

We are grateful for all who have contributed to a wildly successful Season 3. Our Season 4 pod-level budget proposal includes slight increases slated for the Bounty Operations and Education pods in order to accommodate enhanced workload.

The proposed monthly total allocates a total of $47,375 per month: $37,375 for the three main operational pods and an additional $10,000/month in the event of successful passage of METIP-15, the current Marketing Lead Contractor proposal. This number is broken out below at the level of individual pods. It does not list any spend on “self-funded” bounties that the DAO runs for marketing purposes, which are at the discretion of the Bounty Ops pod.

The proposed budget is as follows and covers a three-month time period.

• Marketplace Ops Pod: $15,400 per month, including the following resources:
  • One Core contributor to continue overseeing all processes, at a monthly “Core Contributor” compensation of $4,250
  • One contributor (Naan) at the $1,200 level to focus specifically on Governance and governance operations & empower the DAO on its progressive decentralization journey
  • An additional contributor at the level of $1,200 per month to support the disbursement of analyst and Contributor payments
  • Four additional Marketplace Guides, each at the level of $2,125. These guides are expected to continue facilitating Marketplace and Challenge Creation & review
• Education Pod: $11,275 per month, including the following resources:
  • One Education Lead core contributor ($4,250/month)
  • One Project Manager core contributor to ensure cross-functional execution across pods ($4,250/month)
  • One Event Manager at the level of $2,125 per month to oversee the end-to-end execution of events, including cohort-based education and webinars for data partners
  • $650/month for overhead, e.g. Teachable, Typeform, Mailchimp, and Ghost
• Community Pod: $10,700 per month, including the following resources:
  • One Core contributor, at a monthly compensation level of $5,000 plus an incentive-based target of $400 per month, payable at the end of the season if pod KPIs are exceeded and returned to the DAO treasury if they are not
    • This compensation level reflects a workload of 160-184 hours per month
  • One brand and graphic designer at a monthly compensation of $1,200
  • One Community Support Moderation Lead, who will work closely to oversee community moderation and support the other pods, at a compensation of $2,400 per month
  • Two part-time Content Contributors, who will work alongside marketing resources to develop and facilitate community-oriented content, at $600/month, and may switch to deliverable/project basis based on future discussion by pod and DAO early in Season 4
  • A flat $500 to cover overhead & subscriptions associated with running community programming

Team Summary

Please view the thread on the forum to see this image

Budget Implementation

Voting on this proposal will follow the standard process, with an extra day added to the discussion period. Following commentary on Discourse, the temperature check for Contributors will open on Monday, March 27, with a ratification vote by governors to open on Wednesday, March 29. Upon a successful ratification, the amount of funds outlined above will be distributed from the treasury to a general seasonal multi-sig or individual multi-sigs controlled by the pods.

As part of the new season, each Pod will establish goals and KPIs and socialize them with other Pods to ensure unified efforts toward our common goals. Additionally, we will discuss and propose revisions to Contributor compensation tiers in order to account for 1) incentive-based compensation and 2) individual Contributors, who can formulate and propose scopes of work for the DAO to consider and vote on.

The existing Marketing Contractor proposal provides an example of how this can work in practice, with the goal of ensuring that contributors are empowered to go directly to governance and that the DAO gains increased oversight & voting ability on value-additive functions.

Conclusion

MetricsDAO has witnessed tremendous growth over the past few months. We anticipate the Metrics App will unlock new levels of possibility for the DAO, our partners, and the contributors and community members who are the beating heart of MDAO. Ongoing feedback is crucial to our commitment towards transparency, and we welcome questions and commentary as we move towards a prospective Season 4 and beyond.