Rafael Brochado Grant Reviews
Proposal 1: Shimmer - Hackathon Proposal 3 (underfunded Version Budget 55.000 instead of 90.000 USD)
Proposal summary:
- EasyA is a free learning app with 13 user reviews on the Apple App Store
- Requesting $55,000 to host a 2-day-long Shimmer hackathon for students in London
- Tier 3 proposal, requiring a score minimum of 15
for approval
Missing nice-to-haves:
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Letters of support or testimonials from partners/venues -
Paying customers
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Engaged community
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Links backing up claims
Personal recommendation: Rejection (eligible for re-submission after 30 days)
I have not seen evidence that this team is capable of exceptional execution.
Reasoning:
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No examples of previous success stories. The website proudly displays $597K given away, but doesn’t make an effort to show what actually emerged out of all those hackathons that the team has allegedly put together. E.g. How many of the past hackathon projects went on to become products? -
Claims can’t be verified. EasyA claims to have been featured on “Apple App of the Day”, WSJ, and more, but none of that could be verified on their website and they didn’t bother submitting links.
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No moat, no USPs. -
It’s a one-off, in-person 2-day event in London, i.e. barely impactful in the grand scheme of things. There are better ways to drive impact with $55K.
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EasyA has no traction on the iOS store, no presence on the Google Play Store, no traffic on Youtube videos, i.e. no engaged community.
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Pitch starts off with “EasyA has one of the UK’s most popular student communities, with a vibrant and highly-engaged student base of over 500,000 students”, but then the app has 13 user reviews and no active users.
Note: The bullet list above is ordered randomly, not with respect to importance.
Total score: 6
Score breakdown (see rubric):
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Relevance to the Shimmer/IOTA Ecosystem → The project treats Shimmer as one of many chains and doesn’t seem loyal to the Shimmer/IOTA network.
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Plan and Funding Model → The team has a semblance of expectations for their milestones, but they are unrealistic.
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Execution → Initial steps taken are poorly executed or sloppy. If there are socials (Twitter, Discord, etc.), their following looks inorganic (fake).
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Verifiability and Quality of the Team → The team is somewhat doxxed, but it may be difficult to verify background information.
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Overall Quality & Originality of the Idea → The project would have little impact on our ecosystem or the Web3/crypto ecosystem as a whole.
Proposal 2: Crypto APIs Shimmer Spending Proposal 2 (Overpriced priced Version 90.000 USD instead of 60.000 USD)
Proposal summary:
- Crypto APIs is seeking to integrate Shimmer in their B2B blockchain development suite
- Requesting $90,000 to develop and deploy 3 specific software solutions:
- An open-source, blockchain-agnostic private key management SDK
- A pool of shared public Shimmer nodes
- A block explorer
- Tier 3 proposal, requiring a score minimum of 15 for approval
Missing nice-to-haves:
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Letters of support from devs/businesses interested in using this service for Shimmer
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ROI projections - how much growth can we expect from this $90K investment?
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A clear value proposition
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Links backing up claims
Personal recommendation: Rejection (eligible for re-submission after 30 days)
I am not convinced that the proposed solutions would lead to a significant influx of new Shimmer developers, nor does it seem like existing developers would need this service right now.
Reasoning:
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We already have an open-source, blockchain-agnostic solution for secret management – Stronghold. It’s unclear how the proposed SDK would differ from this. -
More public nodes is a nice-to-have, not a strategic priority for the community right now. We already have access to existing public nodes which are sufficient for dev purposes today.
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We already have an explorer, which we’d rather improve, as opposed to funding a brand new solution.
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Claims can’t be verified. Pitch includes “Among our customers are PayPal, (…). On an institutional level, we have been trusted by the University of Cambridge, UCLA, NYU, and Stanford University” but none of that could be verified on their website and they didn’t bother submitting links.
Note: The bullet list above is ordered randomly, not with respect to importance.
Total score: 7
Score breakdown (see rubric):
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Relevance to the Shimmer/IOTA Ecosystem → The project treats Shimmer as one of many chains and doesn’t seem loyal to the Shimmer/IOTA network.
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Plan and Funding Model → The team has a semblance of expectations for their milestones, but they are unrealistic.
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Execution → Initial critical steps have been taken (interesting website, socials, etc.), and it seems like a decent project, but extremely early.
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Verifiability and Quality of the Team → The team is somewhat doxxed, but it may be difficult to verify background information.
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Overall Quality & Originality of the Idea → The project would have little impact on our ecosystem or the Web3/crypto ecosystem as a whole.