Good luck on finding other chains to fund your project 
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I see nothing wrong with funding DAOs that can provide a compelling roadmap to become self-sustainable. However, the majority of DAO funding requests do not provide this. It is not because someone is “anti-DAO” but simply a realistic view of seeing most proposals being a drain on Harmony rather than providing a value-added mechanism for long-term viability. I say this as someone who would love to see virtually everything in society become converted into DAOs, including governments. However, that does not mean that most DAO proposals are fiscally sound and sustainable, because it is clear they are not. In those cases, a DAO becomes worse than the centralized structures they are envisioned to replace.
Prospective DAO governors need to understand basic finance and economics principles and how to stay solvent. Otherwise, they become vampiric and negatively affect larger ecosystems they are looking to get initial funding from.
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Not trying to be rude BUT I am going to be very blunt. If an NFT project gets so fed up with people asking legitimate questions about sustainability, I have a very hard time believing that their project will be successful. Hard questions challenge us to be better and improve upon the ideas that we have made. As an educator, you should know these principles.
These were not personal attacks on your project. These are things that any investor would ask to businesses requesting funding. It’s unreasonable to think that you can just request money and have it given to you immediately without any questions asked.
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Sorry, it did not pan out. Best of luck.
I’m sorry to hear that, Paula. It’s clear you and the team have spent a good deal of time and energy on this, so I imagine this was a pretty frustrating/disappointing response from the community (though seems like you aren’t terribly surprised). It’s our loss, though.
A well-executed version of what I understood your vision to be would be a tremendous asset to the community. It seems unwise that we should run you off instead of working with you in good faith to understand what you’re proposing and suggest improvements if there are elements you hadn’t considered. I’d say this bodes poorly over the long-term for Harmony if we can’t get this part right and be more inviting to novel thinkers.
Good luck to you and the team; it’s hard to blaze trails.
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To be honest I think this is a well written proposal that puts into consideration of all things involved, it unfortunately came at a time when anti-DAO sentiment is high.
Concerning salary, people need to be fairly compensated for their time. I do not know what is the market rate with regards to the people being paid, I believe people who are familiar with that would be in a better position to remark about the rates that you are suggesting.
About financial sustainability why not charge the students for the course? Based on your calculations in your earlier proposal, it costs about USD1200 to teach one student, don’t you think it is actually fair to charge them for the amount of time and effort put in to educate them for 18 weeks?
With regards to giving out 200 ONEs upon completion as incentive. I have mixed feelings about this actually. From a purely education point of view learning should be intrinsically motivated and not be reliant on extrinsic rewards. But from a marketing perspective, giving 200 ONEs for people who spent 18 weeks to learn about blockchain and Harmony seems like a good idea. Besides 200 ONEs for attending 18 weeks of a course is not that much of a reward.
This also proves the point that giving away stuff for free is not necessary a good idea. If you are charging them for the courses, they would be more committed to complete the track as it’s their own money paying for the course.
All evidence shows if you don’t pay anything for your education, you rarely put as much effort into your education as you would have had. I am referring, of course, to post-secondary adult education. I think this project has a lot of issues that it may not solve the problem it is proposing needs to be solved. Does an 18 week course mean that there will be developers at the tail-end of it? How do we know how well they did? Tests?
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I was thinking about this dynamic as well, and it’s definitely established well beyond the team’s experience that people who don’t pay for things don’t value them. I wonder if something like a deposit structure would work where students put up some amount at the beginning and then some percentage (maybe 100%) is returned to them upon successful completion of the course or perhaps progressively along the way.
It’s also reasonable to adopt the stance that they’re getting value so why not just make them pay for it? However, I think there are at least two reasons to underwrite these students:
- if the education is as sticky to our ecosystem as intended, then this is an investment in the community/chain and thus long-term selfishly wise to kickstart them here, and
- one of crypto’s best features is the possibility for inclusiveness of people who aren’t just already rich Americans etc; if we can widen the net of prosperity that’s available, I hope we’d think of that as a win in itself even aside from the increased development and consumption activity in our ecosystem—and if that’s too touchy feely for you (not you @Nicholas_Yap, the dear reader), think of it as an untapped market that we are getting to first.
If we are running a DAO, you are right, we need to also apply elsewhere for funding. I have updated the proposal.
I have updated the proposal to include more about the course and other activities. Yes, there are measurables in the course such as the number of new wallets, the number of these wallets that try a defi product, the number of students that buy/mint or sell an NFT, and so forth. There are also NFT progress certificates minted for each section of the course.
I have also updated the proposal to include the possibility of charging students a refundable deposit.
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Explain the refundable deposits?
It astounds me people in crypto and WEB3 don’t get the bit that we are explorers and there is no ROI in exploration and building the future, just potential. We are building the roads and people ask “so which road should we take”!!
Being vigilant and trying to stop a rug is one thing, demotivating and dragging enthusiastic people, “roll-up sleeve and do it” attitude type of people with these attacks is another.
What I read here is like questions from non-crypto people. “So what is the ROI of X crypto”, “crypto is a Ponzi rug prove me otherwise” “crypto is fresh air with no value” and so on….
That is what sounds like here ……
If this mindless attack on genuine people who wish to explore and build will not stop it will destroy Harmony! I guarantee you that!!
I have seen it before and all are in the Maths of how Ecosystems get out of balance. ROI and target hunting alone will not make, grow or save Harmony. I say this with such confidence because I have seen it, study it and experienced it many times on many levels including tech, financial and public-funded projects.
I believe there is a massive lack of cultural, social, economic and ecosystem knowledge. You don’t need to go to fancy unis to learn about those things all are publicly and freely available.
Regards to @PaulaG : I admit she sounded “strange” when she first talked to me and read her very first proposal (Sorry Paula). But that is how people sometimes sound when they are enthusiastic, passionate and want to explore and want things to happen.
She replies to your question. She is in her 3rd attempt (wow she found 2 ways that did not work!!). She is still here trying, if she was a scammer why would she bother to waste her time for so long.
Don’t forget people like her are working for free to make things happen. They think and recalibrate and learn, then propose new things.
If people are not compensated they will leave eventually and NO ONE will actually bother to offer quality work to Harmony.
Maybe she fails maybe she wins. Let’s make the odds to her favour and eventually help Harmony in an indirect way by having an education System on Harmony for WEB3 development.
Forget business investor type operations/ questions. If this demand for “regulations” and heavy-handed reporting continues we will only reinvent “The Government” and will drag Harmony down.
Harmony and the Community requires emotional intelligence, not just blind ROI and rulemaking!
There are solutions and fyi I am working on some of them For free atm.
If people only just want ONE “to pump” you are in the wrong place.
@lij @giv @Mattyontap @frwrdslosh I want to tag you to this reply as I am seriously worried about the future of Harmony if people are not let to explore and grow their potential and soon people will be scared to even write proposals. There is a need for balance here.
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"I believe there is a massive lack of cultural, social, economic and ecosystem knowledge. You don’t need to go to fancy unis to learn about those things all are publicly and freely available."
I don’t know you bud but I have read a tremendous amount of your posts. They are all about lack of cultural, social knowledge. You are pro ANY and ALL DAO proposals which tells me you aren’t in it for the ecosystem.
You have said numerous times on here that you take your ‘business cap’ off when judging these proposals.
People need to get with reality. We are not in web3 yet. No one knows if web3 will even happen/how it will happen.
Harmony needs to refocus on what got people in love in the first place.
You stated that you have a business degree and have started multiple businesses that didn’t pan out.
Well that’s because you didn’t have your business hat on.
Majority of these DAO proposals are not even DAOs by definition!
It’s time for people to quit bringing up race, gender, etc. as a reason to qualify for a DAO grant.
When I audit multiple billion dollar companies I don’t sit there and count how many men, women, black, asian, white, etc. are sitting in the cubicals or who has a nice office. I am looking at the financials to REALISTICALLY determine if they are staying afloat and headed in the right direction.
@giv @Mattyontap @frwrdslosh This isn’t a pissing contest. This is all about SUSTAINABILITY.
Thank you all for your time.
Cheers!
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Thanks for reading my posts much appreciated.
Apologies I don’t understand this sentence :
Regards to money accounts, budgeting etc I don’t miss a bit. I know exactly what goes to where and always have a contingency. All my projects always run on engineering precision and are always on budget. I can write you the best business plan and do all the simulations and think of the worst-case scenarios.
However, running complex businesses (it sounds you are an expert, I mean it seriously) and even more evident on a community project and furthermore building a WEB3 ecosystem there is always the human factor.
Any well-planned project is no match when dealing with different people and can through any plan to the trash.
I am currently constructing a massive house extension for a client. Everything has been calculated. All budgets are within the contingency if not less. Even though there was a massive mistake of 200mm floor lever that effect all upstairs windows and roof but all is dealt with on the fly. Here is the thing, me and the contractor manager have to deal with one bricklayer. He is insisting on only working 3 days a week and is dragging the project 3 weeks behind. Yes, he is replaceable but that will make the project 10 to 20 weeks longer.
What I’m saying dealing with people any plan can go out of the window. Then regulations are introduced to “force” people to do things and that makes things even more complex and even slower. Anyway, this is a big convo.
Want is happening right now in Harmony I have full exact personal experience on local scale
The exact type of conversations the same arguments etc. It feels like Deja Vu to a project I set up and run for 10ys. I don’t have all the answers but I know what will not work so I somehow try to pass that knowledge so we go over this faster and focus on tech, projects, R&D and creative stuff without limitations of subject or topic -Those X factors managed correctly will grow Harmony in the end.
As I wrote many times when I heard about DAOs and community let’s hug and work together I thought oh not that $$%^ again. So yes those “woke” projects bother me a lot.
Also though, someone like Paula who is trying to find her way and work to make things happen to be told off like that bothers a lot me as well.
And that is why I say we need ecosystem and social-economic knowledge and emotional intelligence.
What tech are we actually building and for what?
Once Multi shard comms is cracked it will be a BIG ONE and very possibly some clever Tech billionaire will take it run Harmony to the ground and build the next big banking network while we will be looking at our $ONE at 0.0000000000001 value.
But if Harmony builds a value-added ecosystem Mr Alon Masky can have a go at taking the tech but we will have worldwide utility and people onboard.
Those people and utility will be on Gamefi, Defi, dAps, commercial businesses, banking transfers, rave events, arts and design, architecture, law contracts, construction industry, retail, you name it we can have it all running on or via Harmony networks.
These things have to happen in parallel and at a balance.
That is the message I am trying to pass.
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I hope the DAO ops team prints this and places it on top of their monitors.
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Hello, @PaulaG and thank you for responding to our communities questions.
Your proposal is under review
I would also like to provide a brief update from Harmony
All approvals and proposals for DAO Bootstrap Funding are still paused. This is a temporary measure. Please do not let this dissuade you and your team from building. Stay tuned for another update regarding DAO Bootstrap Funding 
note: this comment is not an approval of this proposal.
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Hello, @PaulaG
The funding request for a DAO bootstrap grant is out-of-scope. The Harmony DAO Ops team has decided to decline this proposal.
We have found over the past year of DAO operations that the organizations that don’t start with a large, dedicated community and a goal to fund themselves tend to have very low success rates. They tend to have a hard time recruiting additional community support and tend to bring limited value to the overall Harmony ecosystem.
The bar to receive a DAO bootstrap grant is now higher than it has been historically. In order to receive a bootstrap grant going forward, DAOs will need to evidence a high level of transparent reporting, robust community involvement and a business plan that reflects a commitment to self-funding. Further guidelines are being finalized and should be released in the coming week.
I apologize that this process has been lengthy and drawn-out and I appreciate yours and the DAO’s patience. Harmony and the DAO Ops team wanted to exhaust every option before responding with a declination.
Do not let this dissuade you or your DAOs passion to build on Harmony. Harmony is integrating new tools to help build a robust DAO ecosystem. I’m looking forward to your success.
This thread will be closed.
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thank you for the update.
I actually came in to remove this application due to tax regulations on Governing members. I guess now I don’t really have to.
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