Proposal: Jup.Eco & The Web Working Group (WWG)

Web Working Group: A Working Group to Build Out & Maintain Key Web Resources for the DAO

Original Proposal Below

Introduction :telescope:

In the fast-paced and complex ecosystem of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Jupiter aims to lead with innovation, inclusivity, and a strong sense of community empowerment. Jupiterā€™s ambition is to become the cornerstone of the Solana DeFi landscape, promoting a decentralized ethos that not only rewards contributions but ensures success and satisfaction for every user. The proposed Web Working Group is envisioned as a catalyst in this transformative journey, offering a suite of tools and a custom developed platform designed to enhance communication, enable co-creation, and ultimately, solidify Jupiterā€™s position as a trailblazer in the DeFi space.

Problem :rotating_light:

In todayā€™s rapidly growing crypto space, information overload is a common challenge experienced by users and protocols alike. This is particularly true for large DAOs like Jupiter, which continuously produces a vast array of content across multiple channels. The JUP DAO represents a dynamic, information-rich environment where members actively engage and contribute to various initiatives. Some of these channels include the Forums, multiple Twitter accounts, and the Jupiter Discord. However, the sheer volume and scattered nature of content dissemination on these platforms has led to significant issues, such as:

  1. Resource Fragmentation: Key information (product updates, DAO votes, etc) is often dispersed across different platforms, making it difficult for members to access and utilize. This fragmentation dilutes the impact of communication and challenges membersā€™ ability to stay informed and engaged.
  2. Sub-optimal Community Engagement: The current content delivery systems result in lagging and fleeting community engagement. Members struggle to keep up with the rapid flow of information, leading to potential community burnout and a diminished Catdet spirit.
  3. Redundant Work and Wasted Resources: Without a centralized platform, there is a significant overlap in efforts among community members and leadership. This redundancy wastes valuable resources and hampers the effectiveness of the DAO.

To address these challenges, several members of the JUP DAO have established Jup.Eco, a centralized platform designed to enhance the aggregation and dissemination of information. This hub prioritizes custom system development to support WG processes and the community, as defined by the DAO. It will facilitate collaborative opportunities and provide Work Groups with specialized tools tailored to their needs, thereby fostering efficiency and effectiveness throughout all DAO operations.

Launched as a basic informational website, Jup.Eco has been updated daily and has quickly become an indispensable tool for the community, substantially enhancing accessibility and engagement. However, the need for a more robust, scalable solution is evident; to cater to the growing demands of the community and to foster a more cohesive and responsive ecosystem.

The Web Working Group aims to serve as a dedicated group to maintain and ensure up-to-date integrity of key web resources, including the Jupiter Space Station and Jup.Eco.

Potential Core Features and Innovations :zap:

  • Work Group Directory: A work group profile system to facilitate the sharing of work in progress status updates, new feature releases, and transparency reports. On the work group profiles page, Work Groups will be able to highlight their HR needs. To verify concept provenance, you can review the original WG directory post from 3/15/2024.
  • Catdet Content Corner: Streamlining access to DAO communications by providing a single location to find all summaries, transcripts, and detailed community-driven analyses.
  • JUP Notifications & Calendar: A single DAO maintained calendar of events for all things JUP, paired with a DAO sponsored notification service. This system could be expensive to operate and by building it through a DAO sponsored WG, we can ensure its continued sponsorship.
  • Onboarding Guides & FAQs: A curated onboarding process for new & existing DAO members to get up to speed on all things JUP, fast.
  • JUP Socials & Blog Dashboard: A DAO managed communications outlet for all work groups and community members, fostering a unified community voice.

Future Development :crystal_ball:

  • JUP Grants Listings: Community accessible grant boards with all R&D related needs that may be beyond the scope of any specific work group. Including details for who to contact and best practices for applying.
  • JUP Ecosystem Legends: A ā€œhall of fameā€ to commemorate great contributors to the DAO. It is important that we not only give people the opportunity to succeed, but we remember and learn from those individuals as well.
  • JUP Talent: A new kind of talent placement service to bridge the divide between legacy recruiting services and web3 talent pools. By supporting catdets within the DAOs talent pool, we can ensure work being done for the DAO and WGs translates to real world experience. With this initiative, we will have a significant positive effect on the publics perception of web3 employment.
  • JUP University: Upskilling community members on DAO systems and other technologies providing the resources and support necessary to succeed within the DAO and beyond.

The Value of Jup.Eco to the DAO :gem:

Jup.Eco is not just a website. This is a platform to unify and empower the Jupiter community by organizing and cataloging all DAO communications, community developed resources, and building out several new purposefully designed systems. This initiative will focus on generating value in the form of:

Enhanced Accessibility & Engagement: Making it easier for new and existing members to navigate the DAO, thereby increasing participation and contribution.

Reduced Fragmentation of Resources: Jup.Eco will act as the official DAO communications catalog of the J.U.P. This not only creates a centralized and easy to access history of events, it reduces cannibalization of DAO resources. This saves the DAO money and lives up to the Jup4Jup philosophy.

Promoting Transparency: Offering an open community platform for access to all DAO created content, work group developments and transparency reports.

Driving Innovation throughout the Build Process: Iterating on CWG processes to help develop and document a standard operating procedure for work group formation moving forward. After going through the proposal process ourselves, we can confirm the DAO needs to develop this process further.

Team Structure and Roles :handshake:

The success of the Jup.Eco hinges on a dedicated group of multidisciplinary professionals. Our team structure is flat with equal responsibilities for all members. We cross train each other on all aspects of the platform to ensure fault tolerant team structure to manage all platform support and maintenance 24/7.

Core Contributors - Responsible for all aspects of the platform, feature development, and services across Jup.Eco:

  1. Antimatter - Explorer, technical thinker and entrepreneur

    • Crypto since 2014, Ex-Cofounder Goosefx - 2021-2023
    • Solana ecosystem involvement: hackathons, meetups, project collaborations with many entities including, Jupiter, Solana Foundation, Pyth, Metaplex
    • Project management office process analyst & system administrator for major global banks
  2. Sirnaynay - Builder and problem solver in Web2 and Web3

    • Multi-cycle crypto & NFT enthusiast
    • Experienced B2B2C e-comm & web marketing
    • Process & growth consultant in crypto industry

Part-time Role - Responsible for ensuring adequate coverage and notation of all DAO calls and meetings. Assist with other activities as deemed appropriate by the core contributors based on individuals skillset.

  1. Hanko - Content strategist & growth hacker
    • 10+ years experience growth hacking ecommerce & developing content strategies
    • Solana ecosystem involvement: Attendee of breakpoints, hacker houses, monkeDAO events
    • Solana validator operator since 2021

CWG Oversight - Jup.Eco will be one of the main tools involved in helping to aggregate and disseminate information for most of the CWG processes being built out. @kemosabe lending a major hand with design and initial front-end development. The CWG will also

Community Contributors - Standout community members involved with our content development processes. We have defined a trial group of community members to help us better define the specifics of this program. Our hope is to allow us to source talented community members and determine best fit for their skill sets within any current and future WG opportunities.

Contractors - Vetted and brought on for specific DAO approved feature development as needed.

Financials: Web Working Group Operational Budget :moneybag:

Work Group Funding:

Our plans for the Web Working Group are quite ambitious, encompassing heavy CMS development, web3 integrations, partnerships, and marketing; basically involving all the aspects of a traditional web3 start-up. This will require full-time commitment by our core team and we are requesting the following funding from the DAO to re-organize the Jupiter Space Station and build out Jup.Eco to the best of our ability.

These numbers are based on a 3 month provisional period requirement - taking into account work contributed in the pre-provisional month developing the V1 site.

Provisional Period Budget

Total Provisional Period Budget Request = $84,500

Salary budget: $56.5k

  1. Antimatter - full-time @ $7.5k per month = $22.5k
  2. Sirnaynay - full-time @ $7.5k per month = $22.5k
  3. Hanko - part-time @ $3.83k per month = $11.5k

Operational Budget: $13k

  • WG Contributors Pool - $10k
    • Develop custom content for blog & community engagement - Thought pieces, graphics, custom adverts for different audiences
    • Leftovers roll-over to annual budget
  • Infrastructure & Development - $3k
    • API needs, web flow accounts

Retro-active Compensation Request: $15k

  • 1 month retro-active compensation for scoping and development work performed in April
  • Antimatter & Sirnaynay @ $7.5k each = $15k

Conclusion: A Unified Vision for the Future :smiley_cat:

The Web Working Group represents a pivotal step forward in our mission to democratize DeFi and foster a united, empowered community under the Jupiter DAO. By voting ā€˜Yesā€™ for the Web Working Group, we commit to a future where every member has the tools, knowledge, and support to thrive in the DeFi ecosystem. Together, we can build a more inclusive, transparent, and successful DAO.

If you made it through this whole proposal, you are a real one and every contributor to this initiative thanks you from the bottom of their heart. Lets build something amazing. <3

Edit (05/01/2024):

Through communications with Meow and the CWG we have learned that the Jupiter Space Station is in need of some love and we have been tasked with taking on a reorganization of this essential DAO resource. The effort has become our primary focus for the start of our WG trial period.

What are the DAOā€™s Key Web Resources:

  • Jupiter Space Station (product oriented guides and docs)
  • Jup.Eco (A community focused resource)

Trial Scope:

  • Revitalize and restructure documentation on Jupiter Space Station
  • Investigating initial content and systems for Jup.Eco
  • Define ongoing community involvement for station and jup.eco

Success Criteria For Our Trial Period:

  • Successful establishment of 2 crucial resources for community
  • Minimize resource overlap between Jup.eco and Jupiter Station.
  • Collaboration with community and other WGs for consistent content creation

Budget Notes:

  • We wanted to include some details as to why we are asking for $15k backpay for April
  • Original WG directory concept was introduced on 3/15/2024 - planning and research began (this period is not included in the request because it was still informal self-planning and community collab)
  • Core Work Group x Jup.Eco chat was spun up on 03/29/2024
    image
  • Our first planning call with CWG was on 04/01/2024
    image
  • At the end of the 04/01 call, we had a clear plan of action for the Jup.Eco site, which was already in the Proof of Concept stage and live. We also began our development backlog for the V2 initiative.

We felt it was important to disclose why this request was included in the budget and hope that this sheds some light on the progress that was made through the month of April.

25 Likes

I like proposal, but the budget seems to be astronomically high for 3 months? $15k for retroactive compensation also doesnā€™t make much sense to me. Could you provide more details on what justifies the $15k expenditure thus far?

13 Likes

Its great to hear you like the vision for Jup.Eco.

Oh, if that wasnt clear, the retro-active amount of $15k is for 2 full-time salaries for the month of April. We have actually been working on this for around 6 weeks, but things really started falling into place at beginning of April.

Remember this is the emergent style of WG formation, so work is expected to start well before the trial period begins.

We dont want to spend a ton of time discussing the budget / salary amounts, as this is already super lean for what we are building. However, we can offer some insight as to why we feel qualified to do these types of financial projections.

While co-founded GooseFX, the project raised ~$5mm. Over a two year period we hired on 12+ designers, developers, and community manager. I was intimately involved in all interviews, hiring decisions, and salary negotiations. We executed on our vision of the platform and the business is still financially stable.

8 Likes

$15k for back pay is still a bit confusing. Looking at the website, it doesnā€™t seem like this was a full-time thing worked on by two people. Would you be able to go into detail on the full-time work done so far so I can make sense of it?

4 Likes

This is a difficult one to give feedback on, largely due to a need for some more information. I can see that Antimatter was involved with GooseFx up to 2021, but wondered why he is no longer involved with it? Or is he? Also, GooseFx seems to have Discord (with currently 4,138 members), as well as Telegram and Twitter, but the goosefx.io site doesnā€™t promote them (tiny afterthought image at very bottom on a long home web page). Perhaps they need Antimatter to tell them they are missing a trick (if he is no longer with them, thatā€™s their loss). Anyway, given that these mediums are used, is there a need for a separate website and will it gain traffic, or perhaps a channel within Jupiterā€™s Discord should be used instead? Just an open query, I donā€™t know the answer. As for the costings, again, this is difficult to comment on, with (including back pay, it amounts for approx 85% of the 3 month trial budget) and over a year, this would be quite a sum. However, perhaps more information on projected (or potential) value gained, expected user traffic etc might be beneficial? It could simply be that an updated proposal is needed, with more information? There is most likely some brilliant stuff going here that I am totally unaware of, so could you update the proposal with more of this, including how you envisage it to grow (given that GooseFx uses Discord) to say a 2 or 3 year outlook for the website (costs vs benefits) will it become self-funding etc? Websites can be powerful vehicles, perhaps this can be linked to the jup.ag site, that sort of level of detail etc.

5 Likes

I appreciate your thoughtful commentary.

Co-founder Goosefx - 2021-2023 - does indicate that I am no longer working on that project.

I will gladly answer any platform / feature related concerns you may have.

Also, we work in public in discord voice chat twice a week, which offers a great opportunity for the community to ask questions and see whats actively being worked on.

3 Likes

:wink: :wink:

3 Likes

For historical context, albeit limited, CWGā€™s trial budget was $100k for ~4 months.

This proposal is in line, even slightly below, industry norms:

4 Likes

I will say, perhaps to my own embarrassment, I didnā€™t know this website existed. I just went over the site and I do see value in a better layout of key information. I would support this initiative under two conditions.

  1. I donā€™t support the back pay. I see it as an investment of your time to show the community your value. I believe a working group should demonstrate their value and then ask for compensation. Just my opinion.
  2. Since the DAO is paying for the work you do, the DAO owns the site and content you create. This way if you ever leave the working group/project no one is fighting over ownership or more money to turn over access and the community would not have to start over.

With the exception of the back pay, I donā€™t have issue with the budget and think itā€™s a small price to pay to see what you and your team can do. I would like to see JUP colors on your site though and JUP artwork to make it feel more like the site is part of the community. Its current look doesnā€™t make it seem like itā€™s a sponsored site. I did just start following your twitter account. Iā€™m always up for easy to find info. Iā€™m all for giving your team a chance. I give it 2 :+1: :+1:

13 Likes

I like the proposal, you guys have put a lot of work into the website. I know that the site will be a powerful resource for the Jupiter DAO!

3 Likes

This gives off a weird vibe. Above the market pay grade, retro comp (?!). You are certainly doing the right thing with jup.eco, I love resource. But when I compare your budget to the budgets of other WGā€™s to be voted on next week (much more impactful in terms of growing the pie, truthfully) - I am lost a little. Iā€™ve been in web development for almost 15 years, and I canā€™t make sense of how this project needs 400 man-hours paid at above-the-market grade to keep it maintained. Once the replatforming/redesign is done, itā€™s barely a man-month job to maintain and actively develop it in terms of code and content. So what am I missing?

7 Likes

Hello @antimatter.

Thank you for the overview proposal.

Iā€™m excited to the rolling out of V2 for the jup.eco website. See you on the weekly session together with Kemosabe.

Thanks,
Opacks

2 Likes

Iā€™m asking for transparency about the back pay. This is a normal website, from what I can see. This isnā€™t web3 development at all, so the comparison youā€™re making is disingenuous.

So far, the only thing Iā€™ve seen regarding prior work is a simple web2 HTML website that isnā€™t impressive in any way. I hope they can prove their value and be transparent, but with the back pay, there is no justification for it.

Thereā€™s no way that website is a $15k job

9 Likes

Iā€™m trying to wrap my head around the budget. Is most of the $15k back pay for planning this proposal itself? I really dig the proposal, but the full-time work thing is a bit confusing, especially considering the codebase.

I checked out the github repo and the commit activity seems moderate, with some days without commits in between. Totally cool, but most of the commits seem pretty small. I think you should update the proposal with a proper explanation. Without a good justification on the back pay, Iā€™m probably going to vote no.

7 Likes

This is a web2 project though, and not a complex one in terms of technology at all.

2 Likes

A central resource/wiki for the DAO, especially if it is one that is managed by the Core Working Group is a great idea. @kemosabe has talked about this a few times and I fully agree that information management is a problem the J.U.P needs to solve in order to scale and grow.

Considering that the technology to be used here is Webflow, I wonder if the team has sourced for alternatives with regards to how this site could be built? Is there any reason why it must be maintained by an in-house team of developers? What about the alternative where we have 1-2 project/product managers in-house and then hire an agency to handle the site development?

From my understanding, the design of the V2 site is currently being done by @kemosabe and his team or contacts. Is it then not possible to for example source for an agency for the web-dev i.e. referring to the following The 4 Most Popular Webflow Agency Pricing Structures | Flowout it seems like a professional agency may costs around under 10k to develop a full site (especially since we are providing the designs) and then maintenance could be around 2k a month. This structure could then free up @sirnaynay and/or @antimatter to focus more on product/project management tasks, incentive management systems for content creation and so on, and from a value perspective could be creating more value for the DAO on the whole. Wondering if this option has been considered and if so, why was it rejected?

Thank you for the detailed proposal once again, and the Catdet WG look forward to working with the jup.eco team on all fronts!

9 Likes

Letā€™s keep working and do your utmost best not to fail jup DAO I Will support the initiative with my vote anytime because we believe we already have a seasoned CWG and will be counting on their support to the JUP .eco

3 Likes

I appreciate your thoughtful discourse here, however, the long term plan is a web3 enabled platform.

In order to get to that goal, Jupiter, the company would need to audit ANY site that had their branding / community using before we could implement a wallet connection. If you arenā€™t familiar with how long audits takeā€¦ thats probably 3 months of waiting, 1-2 months auditing and redevving, and it is quite expensive. I have participated in several smart contract and web2 audits in the past ā€“ its a painful experience.

Our proposal is scoped as lean as possible to hit the stated goals. The web3 stuff will be in the full proposal at the end of the trial period, and we should have a much clearer understanding of the workload & costs at that time.

The strategy we are currently employing is run it lean, deliver value now and iterate rapidly based on community feedback keeping the final vision in mind.

As far as your concern about time required to dev / maintain the site. Since you are in web dev. is it safe to assume you understand what Prod Support is? A 24/7 shift rotation. Thats the kind of SLA we want to provide for this resource. Self enforced because jup.eco has standards and respects this dao.

8 Likes

Understandable sir. The live jup.eco site is definitely still in Proof of Concept phase, but we wanted to make sure there was some obvious value being delivered even now. And this manual management of the site has helped us define some of the processes we needed to iron out for V2.

The screen grabs in the proposal are for V2 which is in development at present. So we are actually building 2 sites at the same time, scoping out heavy dev work, hiring, and dealing with this proposal process. :face_holding_back_tears:

Thank you so much for the kind words sir. Please friend me on discord also. I wanted to connect.

5 Likes

Thank you for the kind words my friend! And we look forward to working w the Catdets WG as well.

We have considered some alternative dev arrangements, but are being some what directed by the CWG and the trial budget process down this avenue.

The team believes there is merit behind the idea of upskilling and hiring from within the catdet / dao, so we have no strong objections with the path we are on.

As far as maintenance, that is specifically what Naynay, myself and hanko are going to be tasked with long term. We do not want to be project managers, we want to be intimately involved w this project at all levels. Architect, design, dev and maintenance, but not ruling out other options at this time.

3 Likes