Overview
This post is done in conjunction with the Q1 & Q2 2023 | DAO Teams Budget Request proposal. Below, members can find the information for each proposed team, their current priorities, and each team’s six-month budget breakdown. This information informs the DAO team funding proposal.
Proposed DAO Teams
As highlighted in the Q1 & Q2 2023 | DAO Teams Budget Request proposal, there are two newly proposed DAO teams (the Operations team and R&D team), one team that proposed splitting into separate teams (Community team and Marketing team), and one existing team (Investment team) that are requesting funding for the next six-month period.
Now that the previous six-month funding period is coming to an end, the DAO team leads have outlined their purpose, priorities, ongoing responsibilities, team, and budget funding request for the next six-month period, from 1 February until 30 July 2023.
We also review the existing teams’ past performance and the status of the Q3/Q4 priorities. You can review the previous budget proposal and priorities post from last quarter below:
Operations team
The Operations team will act as the liaison between the Foundation and DAO teams, which is necessary to ensure communication issues and other blockers are resolved in a timely manner. In the future, the Operations team will coordinate ongoing responsibilities, upcoming projects, and budget requests made by each team ahead of funding proposals.
Purpose
Operations will provide support to all other DAO teams, ensure there no blockers are preventing teams from delivering on their priorities, and manage projects that span across multiple teams (i.e., Dune analytics launch, tokenomics revamp, brand and website launch, v2 content creation, etc.).
In addition to manage projects between and providing support to other DAO teams, Operations will improve communication and efficiency, help coordinate online and in-person events, and improve internal operations within the DAO.
Priorities
In the next six months, the Operations team will prioritize the following projects:
- Create a DAO-facing dashboard for monitoring funds, governance proposals, and team projects. These dashboards will enable Operations to have greater oversight to ensure teams are aligned, on task, and meeting their goals in a timely fashion. In addition, these dashboards will help track spending and allow Operations to hold teams accountable by measuring impact vs. spending.
- Create, maintain a DAO community website. Provide members with a website designed to track DAO team priorities, goals, deliverables, and the status of those deliverables. Spending, past funding requests, and historical grants will all be included on this website, as well. This website should increase transparency around DAO team operations.
- Coordinate whole team on-site events to align, monitor goals and projects. Operations will plan, manage, and execute any team on-site events, in-person community events, etc. Team on-sites will be necessary to ensure all teams are aligned and can work together in person from time to time. When conferences happen, Operations will plan and coordinate in-person events, so we can engage with our members in real life and connect.
Ongoing responsibilities
- Bring DAO community ownership to coordination of funds, projects, and events
- Coordinate DAO teams projects, goals and strategy
- Will serve as project manager across R&D, Marketing, Community, and Investment priorities in Q1 & Q2 2023
- Plan, coordinate, and execute team external events and conferences
- Provide oversight, support for cross-team projects
- Ensure members receive timely updates on project status over the next six-month period
Team
-
Head of Operations (FT). Kayleigh
-
Description. Serves as project manager for cross-team projects and ensures teams consistently meet their goals and stay within budget. Monitors funds, governance, grants and multi-sig/financial structure and provides insight to members on what DAO teams and grant recipients are delivering to facilitate accountability. Work to deepen knowledge on DAO management best practices, so Nexus Mutual can set the standard.
- Bio. Kayleigh has been leading operations within the Foundation for Nexus Mutual before the protocol launched on mainnet. Since 2018, Kayleigh has provided community, communications, and marketing support for the mutual. In addition, she has coordinated numerous in-person and online events and ensured Foundation teams regularly communicated when working across projects.
- Salary. Payment will be $10,000 monthly for a 6-month total of $60,000.
-
Description. Serves as project manager for cross-team projects and ensures teams consistently meet their goals and stay within budget. Monitors funds, governance, grants and multi-sig/financial structure and provides insight to members on what DAO teams and grant recipients are delivering to facilitate accountability. Work to deepen knowledge on DAO management best practices, so Nexus Mutual can set the standard.
Budget request
| Resources | Requested funding for six-month period |
|---|---|
| Team lead salary, Kayleigh | $60 000 |
| Travel (conferences) | $3 000 |
| Total | $63 000 |
R&D team
Previously, funding for these initiatives came from the DAO Investment team (as part of the Tokenomics Working Group). However, many of the projects performed by this part of the DAO no longer fit under an ‘investment’ umbrella, so a separate team focusing on long-term improvements to the protocol in respect of product and analytics has been spun out.
Purpose
Decentralize the problem-solving function within the DAO, increase transparency, and attract skilled members who want to solve difficult problems while driving member engagement.
Priorities
In the next six months, the R&D team will prioritize the following projects:
- Tokenomics revamp. The focus will be on parameterizing and implementing the new structure that has been designed by the Tokenomics Working Group to date. This will involve community confirmation and fine-tuning of parameters, working with the engineering team on smart contract implementation and driving forward any associated governance proposals.
- Dune analytics launch. After the launch of the Nexus Mutual v2 contracts, nexustracker.io will no longer function. The R&D team has been working with the Marketing team and an SQL expert to create a series of Dune Dashboards that capture and improve upon the information in Nexus Tracker. The focus for Q1 will be to launch the dashboard and combine information from both v1 and v2 smart contracts as soon as possible after v2 launches. The v2-compatible dashboards will track detailed current and historic information, and KPIs of Nexus Mutual covers, claims, the capital pool, and ownership distribution, as well as information about staking.
- MCR refresh. The cover-driven MCR parameterisation needs to be more frequently updated for the newer products and distribution approach under v2. A new project will be launched by the R&D team to update the MCR methodology for the new set-up of Nexus Mutual while remaining in line with modern risk-based insurance solvency frameworks.
Ongoing responsibilities
- Lead project on tokenomics implementation. Communicate, refine, and generate consensus amongst the wider community, DAO team and the Foundation. Collaborate with the engineering team on implementation details.
- Lead project on Dune dashboard launch and maintain the dashboards on an ongoing basis
- Update the calculation of the Cover Amount/MCR parameter. Create an improved process for refreshing the cover-based MCR calculation parameter on a regular basis.
Team
-
Head of R&D (PT): Rei
-
Description. Responsible for leading projects, managing contributors, working with DAO members to increase engagement, participation in research and design.
- Bio. Began working on Nexus in May 2018 as the first full-time employee, covering economic design, legal set-up, actuarial modeling, documentation, and early business development. Advisory Board member since February 2020. Previously qualified as a UK actuary, held a variety of back-office and front-office corporate roles in reinsurance and brokerage.
-
Salary. Payment will be $5,000 monthly for a six-month total of $30,000.
-
Backpay. Request for $15,000.
- Rei’s funding from the previous proposal lasted until the beginning of November; hence, there is a request for back pay for a total of 3 months.
-
Backpay. Request for $15,000.
-
Description. Responsible for leading projects, managing contributors, working with DAO members to increase engagement, participation in research and design.
-
Dune Wizard (Contractor): Guy
-
Description. Responsible for writing SQL queries in Dune, capturing accurate current and historic information across the Nexus Mutual v1 and v2 contracts.
- Bio. Professional software engineer with +7 years of working in C++, Python and SQL, overall a keen technologist with personal interests in ML/AI and Blockchain development.
-
Payment.
- Pay for contributions until launch: $9,000
- Pay for maintaining the Dune dashboards: $3,000 (max)
- Paid $60/hr, with max budget as shown above.
-
Description. Responsible for writing SQL queries in Dune, capturing accurate current and historic information across the Nexus Mutual v1 and v2 contracts.
Budget request
| Resources | Requested funding for six-month period |
|---|---|
| Team lead salary, Rei | $30 000 |
| Team lead backpay (Nov-Jan) | $15 000 |
| SQL Contractor/Dune Wizard | $12 000 |
| Total | $57 000 |
Q3 & Q4 Performance
Tokenomics Revamp. Designed skeleton structure for buying/selling tokens directly from the mutual. Created Python model for simulation and parameter testing. Led workshops with Established tokenomics-revamp discord channel. Discussed structure, answered questions and incorporated the views of ~20 interested community members.
- Project Status: In progress
Dune Dashboards. Onboarded Dune Analytics SQL contributor who has written ~30 queries within Dune. Dashboard design complete for covers, claims, capital and membership, staking. V1-compatible queries complete for covers and claims; 75% done for capital and membership and staking dashboards. Process in place for updating queries and launching dashboards following v2 going live.
- Project Status: In progress
Marketing team
Previously, Marketing and Community (formerly, Communications) were consolidated into one team. In the last quarter, Claudio and BraveNewDeFi determined that Marketing should establish its own team, given marketing is separate from the function, purpose of the Community team. Claudio will serve as Head of the Marketing team and will continue to work with the Community team on joint projects.
Purpose
Expand Nexus Mutual’s brand awareness and engagement with target audiences and drive growth in new membership. Create and execute marketing campaigns; develop and distribute content; and manage Nexus Mutual’s marketing channels.
Priorities
In the next six months, the Marketing team will prioritize the following projects:
- Updated brand launch. Our refreshed brand identity will help to increase recognition and awareness among our target audiences. We have a new logo, colors, and typography. By working closely with the Community team, we will plan and execute the updated brand launch and share our brand guidelines with partners, distributors to maintain a consistent voice, which adheres to our values.
- New website launch. Our new website showcases Nexus Mutual v2 and our new brand. The entire site was updated to increase awareness, drive engagement, and educate new/existing audiences about Nexus Mutual v2. By working closely with the Community team, we will plan and execute the updated website launch, which will highlight the resources and information available on the new site.
- V2 marketing. The Marketing team is working to finalize a video that highlights the features, benefits included in v2. By leveraging this video and creating supporting content, the Marketing team will increase awareness and further adoption of the newest iteration of the Nexus Mutual protocol. Utilizing the blog on the new website will allow the Marketing, Community teams to increase site traffic and measure impact.
Ongoing responsibilities
- Create, maintain a content calendar; define content strategy across channels. Collaborate with the Community team on content creation.
- Develop, implement wider marketing strategy/tactics to increase brand exposure
- Increase content creation for each audience, channel
- Increase brand awareness and site traffic, one major KPI
- Maintaining and updating website contents
- Build, manage marketing impact dashboard for internal use to quantify reach and performance. Analyzing such metrics to inform ongoing marketing efforts.
- Supporting the creation, development and maintenance of Dune dashboards within the R&D team
- Supporting Operations on creating the DAO website
Team
-
Head of Marketing (FT). Claudio
-
Description. Develop, implement a comprehensive marketing strategy. Develop, execute marketing campaigns that drive brand awareness and membership growth. Utilize data and analytics to inform marketing decisions and measure the effectiveness of campaigns. Continuously monitor industry trends and competitor activity to identify new opportunities.
- Bio. Claudio joined Nexus Mutual in May 2022. He brings 10 years’ experience in digital marketing to the DAO, as a strategic marketer who blends, leverages digital media into effective marketing strategies. Data-driven, customer-centric, passionate about online branding and visibility with a specialized focus in online advertising. In previous roles, Claudio has driven demand for digital products and managed multi-million dollars in ad spend while working as a Senior Digital Consultant in marketing agencies.
- Salary. Payment will be $10,000 monthly for a 6-month total of $60,000.
-
Description. Develop, implement a comprehensive marketing strategy. Develop, execute marketing campaigns that drive brand awareness and membership growth. Utilize data and analytics to inform marketing decisions and measure the effectiveness of campaigns. Continuously monitor industry trends and competitor activity to identify new opportunities.
-
Designer (Contractor). Ashley
- Description. Ashley has been contracted to create visually appealing and user-friendly websites that align with Nexus Mutual’s new brand and goals. This role requires a strong understanding of web design principles and the ability to create designs that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Moreover, he has been producing animated content that will be used for the new brand announcement and release.
- Payment. Contractor paid $60/hr with a maximum budget of $4,000 for design work on the website and other content animations that will be used across social media channels.
Budget request
| Resources | Requested funding for six-month period |
|---|---|
| Team lead salary, Claudio | $60 000 |
| Designer (contractor), Ashley | $4 000 |
| Travel (conferences) | $3 000 |
| Tooling, content creation | $10 000 |
| Total | $77 000 |
This six-month request represents a 16.99% reduction compared to the marketing-related expenses included in the previous budget. Over the last six months, major products, and key marketing materials were created to reduce expenses for this funding period.
Q3, Q4 Performance
Channel analysis. Analytical review of current initiatives and channel marketing; proposal for strategy moving forward. We want our efforts to be data driven, so we can adapt and ensure we’re focused on initiatives that create the most value for members of the mutual.
- Status: complete
Branding refresh. Full branding project to produce visual ID, brand assets, templates and style guide as well as refreshing www.nexusmutual.io. We want our brand assets to reflect the vision, mission, and values of the mutual. An updated website that reflects the updates coming with Nexus Mutual v2 falls within the project.
- Status: complete
- Brand update launch: Q1 2023
Publishing platform. Create a thought leadership platform to showcase our industry experts–starting with a blog hosted on the new website deliverable from the branding project. Through this platform, we can share our risk expertise with others and create greater transparency through regular updates and content.
- Status: complete but pending launch
Community team (formerly communications team)
Purpose
Provide tools to and educational content for members, staking pool managers, DAOs and our wider community in order to expand coverage. Design communication channels to drive community engagement, growth.
Priorities
The team will be focused on preparing for and supporting the V2 rollout and launch. Once the newest iteration of the protocol has been launched, the Community team will work closely with the Marketing team to create content for each distribution channel and increase adoption, awareness of the risk marketplace.
-
V2 documentation. The team is readying the v2 documentation, which will move from GitBook to Docusaurus. After the new documentation is live, it will be maintained and updated based on members’ feedback. Over time, it will be expanded to include additional resources, guides, and transparent reporting tools. This documentation will be open source, so members can contribute to the documentation over time, as well.
-
V2 content. Once v2 is live, the Community team will work with the Marketing team to establish a content calendar for each channel and audience. Our aim is to create custom content for each channel/audience. This will include written, visual, and video media highlighting features, functionality in v2.
-
Discord notifications bot project. When v2 launches, we will work with a community member (underthesea)–who has built notification systems for Discord for other communities–to create a notification bot that members can use to receive notifications before their cover expires, when capacity for a product becomes available, to check prices, etc. With this system, we can increase renewal rates and help drive cover sales.
-
Claims guidelines, support. In February, there will be three separate claim events that will occur within a short period of time. We will provide clarity on the cover migration process, the claims filing process, and how to determine the loss amount for partial claims. The goal is to make the claims process in v2 as smooth as possible.
-
Governance forum overhaul, update. In conjunction with the v2 documentation, we will be introducing standard proposal formats for DAO and protocol proposals, as well as a defined governance structure (i.e., standard timeframes for review, comment, and transitioning to a vote).
Team
-
Head of Community (FT). Lee
- Description. Directs community operations, writes and distributes content for the mutual, writes and maintains the Nexus Mutual V2 docs, works with Community Manager to provide timely support to members across various channels, and manages multisig payments through Utopia.
- Salary. Payment will be $10,000 monthly for a 6-month total of $60,000.
-
Community Manager (PT). Sem
- Description. Responsible for community management, content coordination across the social channels, including content delivery in targeted channels. Conducts regular research on ways to improve member experience within Discord, governance forum, etc.
- Salary. Payment will be $3,000 monthly for a 6-month total of $18,000.
Ongoing responsibilities
- Writing, distributing the weekly newsletter
- Holding the bi-weekly community call
- Providing community support on Discord, Twitter
- Regular updates on governance discussions, development progress, DAO initiatives, etc.
- Improving UX in communications channels (e.g., Discord reorganization, etc.)
Budget request
| Resources | Requested funding for six-month period |
|---|---|
| Team lead salary, BraveNewDeFi | $60,000 |
| Community manager, Sem | $18,000 |
| Travel (conferences) | $10,000 |
| Discord notifications bot project | $2,000 |
| Total | $90 000 |
This six-month request represents a 25.05% reduction compared to the community-related expenses included in the previous budget. Expenses were streamlined and the team was downsized to reduce treasury spend, where possible.
Q3, Q4 Performance
Staking pool resources. Promote and provide tools to prospective staking pool managers by creating guides to launch a staking pool, staking pool management manual and route-to-market strategies. We want those that build on top of the Nexus Mutual protocol to be successful. These resources will give potential staking pool managers the tools they need to contribute to the on-chain risk marketplace.
-
Status: in-progress
- Expanded into the documentation project, which is on-going. Resources created for existing integration partners, distributors. Preliminary documentation has been provided to existing distributors; however, expanded resources are in development and will be included in the documentation post v2 launch.
Publishing platform. Create a thought leadership platform to showcase our industry experts–starting with a blog hosted on the new website deliverable from the branding project. Through this platform, we can share our risk expertise with others and create greater transparency through regular updates and content.
-
Status: complete but pending launch
- Supported the Marketing team on the website, branding project. Have coordinated with marketing to plan ongoing content to be posted on the Nexus Mutual blog once the new website is launched.
In addition, the Community team started engaging, distributing content on LinkedIn and began consolidating channels, reorganizing the Nexus Mutual Discord server.
We also provided support during our first major custody claim event for Hodlnaut. Our timely responses, support, and consistent communication resulted in many positive comments from cover holders who received payouts.
Investment team
Purpose
Invest Nexus Mutual’s assets in a way that maximizes the return without negatively impacting the mutual’s ability to pay claims on a timely basis.
Priorities
- Invest more of the Capital Pool in ETH staking solutions. We believe that ETH staking remains one of the most appropriate investments for the capital pool. The Investment team will strive to deploy more of the capital pool into ETH staking solutions.
- Rebalance assets and liabilities. As the mutual matures and the capital/cover ratio decreases, it becomes much more important to ensure we are able to pay all claims in their respective currency. Therefore, the Investment team will propose a new currency split for the mutual and put forward any opportunities for stablecoin investment.
- Invest the DAO treasury (formerly, Community Fund). The Investment team will also take on management of the DAO treasury to generate a return where the risk is appropriate.
- Manage the M11 / Maple recovery. Members voted to give the Investment team the ability to act on behalf of the members to divest as appropriate. Member votes will still be used for this whenever the timeline allows.
Ongoing responsibilities
- Conducting new research on investment opportunities and proposing these ideas to members
- Researching changes in existing investments
- Approve the DAO budget and conduct research for investment of the DAO treasury
- Conduct research on the impact of asset and liability ratio
Team
-
Head of Investment (FT). Dopeee
-
Description. Responsible for DAO investment operations and proposals, as well as the review of and approval of prospective team budgets before they are presented to the community. Dopeee will also be responsible for coordinating the investment strategy proposals for capital pool and DAO treasury funds. Head of Investment is a coordination role for the Investment team, which acts as a research team. It has no power to make decisions: any decision must be decided by the members via an on-chain vote.
- Bio. Worked as an analyst in private equity, before transitioning to corporate operations. I’m an active special situations investor, with a particular passion for internet companies and SaaS, which led me to crypto. I’ve been an active participant in the community and have since joined the core team. Going forward, I hope to identify further investment opportunities for the Mutual and to maintain an active collaboration and open communication with our members.
- Salary. Payment comes from the Foundation. No funding request from the DAO treasury.
-
Description. Responsible for DAO investment operations and proposals, as well as the review of and approval of prospective team budgets before they are presented to the community. Dopeee will also be responsible for coordinating the investment strategy proposals for capital pool and DAO treasury funds. Head of Investment is a coordination role for the Investment team, which acts as a research team. It has no power to make decisions: any decision must be decided by the members via an on-chain vote.
-
Investment Advisor (PT): Nico
- Bio. I am the Chief Investment Officer of Prosight Specialty, a property and casualty insurer providing tailored insurance solutions for businesses. I provide oversight and strategic direction of their multi-billion dollar investment portfolio consisting of core, core plus, and alternative assets.
- Payment. Determined by hours worked on a monthly basis.
-
Investment Advisor (PT): Aleks
- Bio. Partner at Blockchain Capital LLC—a VC focused on crypto investments. I bring a range of industry contacts and possess a breadth of knowledge across various crypto protocols and businesses.
- Payment. Determined by hours worked on a monthly basis.
-
Investment Advisor (PT): Gauthier
- Bio. Former M&A analyst, I have moved on to invest in Real Estate. However, during the first lockdown in 2020, I dived deep into the crypto rabbit-hole and have been investing with a strong focus on DeFi protocols ever since. I’m serving as a discord moderator in the Nexus Mutual community, and as a multisig signer for the DAO treasury. I have been a very vocal advocate for Nexus Mutual on Twitter, and also wrote a guide about Nexus Mutual’s tokenomics back in January. I have a strong vested interest in Nexus Mutual and going forward, I aim to identify what are the best investment opportunities for the mutual.
- Payment. Determined by hours worked on a monthly basis.
-
Investment Advisor (PT): Guillaume
- Bio. Business professional with more than 15 years’ experience, with a good analytical and structured approach to all types of problems. My skills in project management and risk management can be complementary to the profiles of the initial team. Also a retail investor in both DeFi and TradFi (a long-time investor in insurance stocks). I’d like to keep contributing to the Investment team around both set-up/structure as well as the process to surface and implement direct DeFi investments in line with the strategy.
- Payment. Determined by hours worked on a monthly basis.
Budget request
| Resources | Requested funding for six-month period |
|---|---|
| Hours funding | $37 500 |
| Total | $37 500 |
Contributors’ time is valuable—ensure that there is some minimum level of reward for providing time and input to the bi-weekly call. $100/hr for each contributor is suggested, to be paid out in wNXM based on book value at the time of distribution.
Note: if we feel that not much work has happened during the bi-weekly period, we acknowledge that and don’t pay out the full budget, instead returning funds to the community.
Q3 & Q4 Performance
Time was spent evaluating dozens of investment opportunities, while managing our existing Lido and Maple investments. Liquid staking derivatives continue to be our primary focus, with Rocket Pool and StakeWise being the most likely next options. Problems with both of these LSDs have been shared on Discord and the governance forum, which have dissuaded us from proposing an investment so far. After talking with these teams, we were expecting that solutions to these concerns would have been live by now. They are not, and likely will not be for a while.
We’ve realized that the next best step here is for the Investment team to be more transparent with the work that has been done and to discuss in public how we should handle the shortfallings. Can we invest in a protocol that does not have a Chainlink oracle? How do we feel about the tradeoffs between centralization and smart contract risk? All of these things are hard to quantify–and specific to each investment–and should be discussed more by members.
In Q4, the bulk of our time was spent handling the fallout from defaults on the M11 Maple pool. This has been discussed in the forum and Discord if you’re looking for additional details. We expect to have a better picture on this shortly. Once this situation is fully resolved, we’ll be more easily able to review the investment and what we should learn from it. Currently, we’re focused solely on recovery and will complete a review in the future. Ultimately, this investment, like all, was voted on by full member vote and hence no individual members have responsibility here. There are significant learnings here for the mutual in terms of monitoring existing investments, contagion, centralization and complexity. The industry realized a lot of these risks simultaneously and very few parties were immune. We’re fortunate to have sized the Maple investment appropriately, such that the mutual is not impacted materially by the suspected fraud and separate default.
Total DAO team funding requests
| Team | Requested funding for six-month period |
|---|---|
| Operations | $63 000 |
| R&D | $57 000 |
| Marketing | $77 000 |
| Community | $90 000 |
| Investment | $37 500 |
| Discretionary budget (shared by teams) | $20 000 |
| Total | $344 500 |
See the Q1 & Q2 2023 | DAO Teams Budget Request for the high level proposal.
Review period
The following two forum posts make up the DAO team funding requests for Q1 & Q2 2023.
- Q1 & Q2 2023 | DAO Teams Budget Request Proposal
-
Q1 & Q2 2023 | Proposed Teams, Priorities, and 6-month Budget Breakdown
- Review of DAO team purpose, priorities, ongoing responsibilities, team members, and budget request
- Existing teams also include Q3 & Q4 2022 performance reviews
These posts will be open for review and comment from 16–26 January.
If no substantial comments are received, this funding proposal will transition to a Snapshot vote, which will open on 27 January and will close on 3 February.
Proposal Status
Active Snapshot vote: Snapshot
Voting period: 2pm UTC on 27 January until 2pm UTC on 3 February.
Voting choices
- Option A: Approve proposed teams and aggregate funding request of $344,500
- Option B: Reject proposed teams and aggregate funding request of $344,500
- Option C: Abstain