TLDR:
As was recognized in the multi delegator brief, the creation of the multi-delegator tool has opened up a new opportunity for PoolTogether to grow deposits by the 100’s of millions of dollars- DAOs and NFT projects. There are thousands of DAOs with treasuries in the tens of millions of dollars sitting idle that are all seeking to build utility for their members.
PoolTogether is THE ONLY place these DAOs and NFT projects should be holding their treasury deposits. Not only is it safe, liquid and yield bearing, but it also provides these projects with the opportunity to provide utility to their community by delegating their chances to win to them.
We have heard the excitement from the community to get this project kicked off, but to bring it to life there are many things that need to be discussed:
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Team accountabilities and support from across the DAO
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Team compensation
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Team leadership and composition
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Timelines to launch
This document will break down all four of these points with recommendations on how to move forward. We hope to engage the community in a lively discussion on how to improve all four aspects of building this team.
THIS POST IS MADE FOR COMMENTARY, THERE ARE VOTES AFTER EACH SECTION. PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO PROVIDE YOUR FEEDBACK SO IT CAN BE IMPLIMENTED INTO THIS PROPOSAL AND VOTE IN EACH OF THE VOTES AFTER EVERY SECTION.
**Part 1- Team Accountabilities**
We believe there are generally four steps to closing a deal:
- Lead identification- Identifying high value targets, key contacts and best ways of communication with those contacts
- Lead nurturing- Building relationships with key contacts at high value targets, holding meetings and pitches, demonstrating the product value and generating interest
- Deal Closing- Finalizing the deal and having the money physically deposited into the protocol
- Deal support- Maintaining relationships with the ‘account’, building excitement about their participation and convincing them to stay deposited in the protocol but also, to continually deposit more of their treasury.
It will be the ultimate accountability of the business development team to lead all four of these areas. However, different groups and members of the DAO will need to be involved in helping this team achieve their objectives:
The Marketing Working Group can and will support the lead identification and nurturing efforts by creating campaigns to generate interest and foster relationships with business development leads. Things like:
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Events- like we have done at Permissionless and plan to to at NFTNYC, but globally and more targeted to our target audience.
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Media- Specifically targeted at key influencers at target DAOs/NFT projects
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Content- Videos, Decks and creative materials for our business development leads to use.
The PT community can support in two ways:
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Lead identification- by making introductions to protocols and projects that they are involved with, or even better, join the business development team and work on closing deposits to the protocol.
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Early on, we will need to support sales efforts with manual work to compensate for things like the current inability for the multi-delegator to scale to hundreds of wallets. The community can help support these manual efforts and make the entire environment turnkey.
PT Inc. and the bounties team can support the deal closing and deal support phase by maintaining a roadmap of product improvements based on real world sales conversations and an understanding of what will help us close sooner.
- Yes
- No- please provide comments so we can improve
0 voters
Part 2- Team Compensation
Closing these deals and holding ultimate accountability for their success and longevity is hard work. It is very important that the people who are involved in selling and maintaining these ‘accounts’ earn enough compensation to stay motivated and hit our objective of $100 million incremental TVL and beyond. At the same time, paying out large commissions on sales upfront creates a potential for the protocol to be ‘gamed’ and to lose significant dollars. Working with the treasury working group, and specifically @bravenewdefi and @underthesea, we have built two different potential models. The treasury working group is working on a revised model, an “option 3” and we will add it to this document once complete, but the ultimate choice of model selection is of course, up to the community.
Model plusses and minuses:
The first model presents significantly more risk to the protocol as payments to successful business development members are higher. However, these higher payments give us the opportunity to attract and better motivate talent from both within the community and encourage others outside the community to join it.
The second model is more modest. It still allows for significant compensation for engaged community members who are able to successfully sell under certain conditions, but, because upfront payments are much smaller, it significantly limits the risk to Pool Together.
Key model considerations:
- These models do not separate lead creation from closing/maintenance.
It puts the accountability of lead creation, lead nurturing, account closing and account maintenance exclusively on one individual ‘per account’. This is primarily because we are much too early in this process and we don’t know what we don’t know, but also because lead generation will also be helped by the initiatives of the Marketing Working Group and the community at large. The ‘account lead’ always has the ability to give a portion of the compensation they receive to another community member who helps with lead generation, but while we get started, we wanted to keep the compensation structure as simple as possible.
- It’s easy to add compensation in the future, it’s much harder to take it away.
Both compensation models make the assumption of an AAVE yield of 1.25%. If AAVE yield decreases below that, it takes away potential revenue to the protocol. If AAVE yield increases above that, it creates more revenue to the protocol. So, it is usually a better practice to start with a more conservative model that will motivate a critical mass of community members and then increase compensation, once yields start increasing or we get a better sense of how much revenue we are driving for the DAO. But if someone starts selling with an expectation of compensation, it is unfair to them to pay less because of circumstances beyond their control.
- Deposit length is important.
If we get a DAO to deposit say $10 million USDC, but only for a month. We only get 1/12 of the APY. So it is important to make sure that compensation accounts for the length of time the money is deposited into the protocol.
The Models
Both of these models have two components:
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An initial commission paid to the business development agent that is released once the first deposit is made
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A trailing commission that is paid monthly, at the end of the month, as long as the deposit is maintained.
Model 1- The more aggressive model
This model pays the business development agent an upfront commission equal to three times the total yield generated from the initial deposit. Then after the first three months of the deposit staying in the protocol, it pays the sales agent 10% of the total monthly yield generated each subsequent month the deposit is maintained and never stops until the deposit is removed.
All payments are in USDC
Model 2- The more conservative model
This model creates a new version of UGMI (bdUGMI) that converts after 1 year at a multiple dependant on the total value locked in the multi-delegator at year end.
The upfront commission payment for this model is .15% of the total deposit which is roughly equivalent to the yield we are currently getting for one month of the deposit. Every subsequent month that the deposit is maintained, the sales agent is paid bdUGMI equivalent to 2.5% of the monthly yield generated from that deposit. bdUGMI payments are made at the end of every month the money remains deposited and never stops until the deposit is removed.
At the end of each year, bdUGMI can be converted into POOL or USDC depending on what the community decides. The bdUGMI converts in the following way.
| Total TVL in the multi delegator (in USDC) | BDUGMI converts at |
|---|---|
| <$24,999,999 | 1:1 |
| $25,000,000-$49,999,999 | 2:1 |
| $50,000,000-$74,999,999 | 4:1 |
| $75,000,000-$99,999,999 | 8:1 |
| $100,000,000-$149,999,999 | 9:1 |
| >$150,000,000 | 10:1 |
You can view each model broken down to see what the business development team member will receive in commission and the net impact to PoolTogether on these two models here. NOTE: THERE ARE TWO TABS, TAB 1 IS MODEL 1, TAB 2 IS MODEL 2.
- Model 1- All payments in USDC
- Model 2- Initial commission in USDC, bdUGMI converts to USDC
- Model 2- Initial commission in USDC, bdUGMI converts to POOL
- I have issues with both models- please provide feedback below
0 voters
Part 3- Team leadership and composition
If we just release this model on the community without any organization or structure, we risk multiple different people reaching out to the same protocols and potentially using sales tactics or messaging that is not endorsed by, and could be detrimental to the community. That is why we believe that this team needs to be organized in a similar fashion to the highly successful grants team, treasury working group and executive team.
We propose that the team be organized with both a lead, a deputy lead and business development advocates. The accountabilities of the lead and the deputy are:
- Becoming evangelists for the business development team within the PoolTogether community
- Recruiting, approving, managing and most importantly supporting business development team members
- Building lists of target groups/DAOs and working with/assigning them to BD team members so that they have the appropriate amount of ‘accounts’ that they can manage successfully without being overwhelmed.
- Making requests and managing all sales and support materials
- Continually consolidating and sharing relevant feedback from sales conversations to help build the proper roadmap for improvements to the multi-delegator tool
- Managing payments, commissions and the overall operations of the group
- Continually interface with the Marketing Working Group, Treasury Working Group and PT inc to ensure the sales commission model is always up to date and working best for the community.
- Act as business development agents, if they choose to.
Both the lead and the deputy will be elected by the community and hold their positions for a term of three months. Similar to grants and treasury, leaders will be asked to make their case as to why they should lead this group on governance and then we will hold a community vote to elect the leader and deputy.
Additionally, those who wish to join the business development team will apply via a grants post and the lead and deputy will interview and select successful candidates. Because consistency is important with business development ‘advocates’ and their ‘accounts’. Once selected, business development advocates will not need to re-apply every three months. However they can choose to resign their position if they no longer have time to service their accounts, or they can be removed from their accounts if there is unanimous agreement between the lead and the deputy. Every three months, the business development team will open up applications for new members as long as there are enough opportunities for new members to service.
The amount of effort involved in leading this team scales as the total deposits in the multi-delegator grow. So compensation for the leadership positions should also scale in turn. As a result, compensation for the lead and the deputy will need to be reevaluated every 3 months and approved by the community. However, in the models above, 10% of the gross revenue generated from PoolTogether is put towards marketing, lead generation and operational expenses. Compensation for the lead and deputy will be taken out of that amount so PoolTogether will be able to operate this team as one that will continually grow its treasury.
For the initial ‘season’, compensation for the business development lead and deputy will be $100/hr to a maximum of 10 hours per week. Additionally, since the business development team is starting from ‘zero’, we ask that the community agree to fund the first $17,200 USDC to the business team to cover compensation, CRM software, marketing and other additional expenses.
We propose that release of these funds be managed by either the grants or executive team multi-sig until we can figure out a process for the business development team to manage their own funds safely and with consensus.
Future funding for this team will be directly calculated from the yield this business team is able to generate.
- Yes
- No- please provide comments below
0 voters
- Yes
- I am comfortable with compensation but not the seed funding
- No I am not comfortable with compensation nor the seed funding
0 voters
Part 4- Timelines to launch
June 13-20- Community discussion on this proposal. Refinement of compensation model, operating structure and team accountabilities.
June 20-24- Community approval of the formation of the Business Development Group
June 25-July 1- Open applications for Business Development leadership and deputy
June 25-July 8- Open applications for Business Development team members
July 4-8- Election of Business Development leadership and deputy
July 8-16- Selectionof Business Development team members
July 17- Business Development team begins operations
