Note when reading this proposal: We are actively working on the time phased product strategy and plan to have alignment coming out of the DAO WOW. At that point, we will put the new roadmap for the next 6 months up for community voting.
Abstract
As a product-centric DAO, the Product & Creative Services Workstream is vital to our success. The Workstream is accountable for a number of activities which are critical to the DAO’s ability to acquire and retain users, grow the FOX ecosystem, and achieve its mission. This is a proposal to continue funding the Product & Creative Services Workstream’s anticipated budget from Dec 15-June 15 2023.
Motivation
Continuing to fund this workstream will ensure that the ShapeShift DAO can retain the talent that the Workstream has, as we move into the next strategy phase post migration.
Since the implementation of analytics on app.shapeshift.com, we’ve seen steady growth. As of the writing of this proposal we’re sitting at 20K monthly active users, with a continuing upward trend in users and monthly visitors (although we do expect some slowing around the holiday season). These numbers already demonstrate that even in this bear market we are showing great signs of product market fit. (We can also assume that a portion of our users who we don't have any insights into are using private.shapeshift.com).
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By supporting the Product Workstream, the DAO can continue building and rolling out new features, improving the user experience of our app, and move forward with the new proposed strategy; continuing to execute on features that drive user acquisition, retention and product evolution even in the bear market.
Specification
In our last proposal, we outlined a lot of specific goals, and we’ve included a breakdown of those goals and how we did here: https://docs.google.com/document/u/2/d/1CVTqM07NOo0gfdAx8uQDdtkwvJkX5ZbOgEXoP-KgAxQ/edit?usp=sharing
Now that we have sunset Beta, completed migration and have usable data and analytics to work with, we are laser focused on a refreshed strategy for the next 6 months. Previously, our workstream laid out a lot of goals that didn’t have many measurable KPIs, because, well, we didn’t have the tools in place to measure data. Now that we have those in place, this proposal has more high level measurable goals and KPI’s outlined.
Goals & KPIs
Introduce and get alignment on a time-phased short-term product strategy for the next 3 months, and then another for the following 3 months. (Phase 1 and Phase 2)
The new product strategy will include user acquisitions predictions, business cases, timelines and revenue assumptions. Product will monitor the results and update the forecasts regularly and share with the community. We plan to implement the first phase of the new strategy in a 3 month increment. This will allow us to ship and measure the results of each roll out quickly, and evaluate against our predictions. In an effort to remain lean and agile, we plan to keep the product strategy for Phase 2 (the following 3 months) relatively loose at this time. This will give us the flexibility to adjust the roadmap based on the results we’re seeing from the first phase.
We will also apply for grants for the DAO treasury on some of the features and chains we’re outlining in our product strategy that offer grant programs. We are also currently digging into new revenue streams that are not listed yet in the roadmap, but will report back to the community as we have more details. (one example: affiliate revs for the dapps in wallet connect 2).
Increase Monthly Active Users to 56,713 by end June 2023
March Minimum MAUs 22,500
June Minimum MAUs 27,000
March optimisitic MAUs 27,616
June optimistic MAUs: 56,713
With the strategy we’ve identified going forward, we aim to become a one-stop, easy-to-use decentralized platform that gives users a single place to view and manage their portfolio and defi positions across multiple chains.
Without rolling out any new marketable features since migration, we’ve established a baseline for our MAUs at 18,200 with a growth rate of ~2,500 users per month. To forecast monthly active users, the model projects this positive growth trend to continue and has been laid out in pessimistic, realistic, and optimistic scenarios. Further, the model projects the number of new users each feature in the proposed strategy will attract on a monthly basis once it goes live and is marketed. All of the projections were calculated using the best data we could gather to estimate the size of the addressable market and how much we could realistically capture. We plan to work hand-in-hand with marketing on each roll out to achieve the growth goals outlined in this model.
Increase our WAU/MAU stickiness metric to a minimum of 30%.
This will be very challenging. Across all industries, an average of 20% stickiness rate is considered good. It's considered exceptionally good if the rate is 25% or more. We're currently trending at 24%.
(Product stickiness is the tendency of users to keep returning to our product because it's engaging and valuable to them).
Our current WAU/ MAU ratio shows that our product is a weekly usage product. A small portion of our users use our product every day, but the reality shows us that our app is sticky, but most users are using it once or twice a week over the course of a month.
Our aim over time is to increase this ratio by working to improve our user engagement, getting users to interact with and use our app more regularly, and continuing to introduce features and benefits to keep them hooked. We plan to work very closely with marketing on this as well, and make sure we remain in lock-step as we move forward on the new strategy.
Triple the amount of average daily defi confirms by June 15
We've been doing an average of 21 defi "confirms" over the past 2 months, and we plan to improve that too at least 63 a day by the end of this proposal cycle. We are working to improve the user experience in the Defi earn section, and have been running surveys and soliciting feedback from our users around the type of opportunities that are important to them, and see where they align and deviate with our current product plans.
Currently in Phase 1 of the new strategy we will execute the following in collaboration with marketing to get more users into defi yield earning opportunities
Increase visibility about relevant opportunities to users based on assets in their wallets in the earn section on other parts of the app
Implement & market Savers Vaults which allow users to earn great yields on commonly held assets (also assets which they are requesting via our feedback funnels) without any lock up period.
Rework the DeFi earn section to include relevant opportunities, top opportunities and the ability to filter, sort and search
Market the Idle integration starting in January of 2023
Maintain an NPS score of 35 of higher
We plan to run NPS surveys every couple months with the goal of getting to this number. Once we establish where we’re at with our initial NPS survey we will identify strategies around how to improve and/or maintain it
NPS scores are important because it measures user loyalty; ie the likelihood of repeat users. And this helps us determine how valuable our product offering is, and how that value changes over time. This measure is useful for forecasting growth, revenue, and assessing the health of our brand as well as overall user satisfaction.
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User interviews, surveys and executing strategies to get qualitative feedback from our users
We have created a new user feedback channel, and continue to do usability testing. We’ve also started collecting user feedback directly from the app via Pendo by running surveys. Surveys are a powerful way to get the insights we need to continue to inform our strategy. Essentially, by running these surveys we are getting invaluable insights into what works, where we can improve and what our customers think about us. And, so far, this has already resulted in some very valuable insights which have helped inform and validate the current product strategy we are working on.
We are also planning to use the tool to ask users to sign up for user interviews and reward them in FOX for participating.
We also plan to continue to utilize and increase community feedback avenues. We have a great community, and leveraging this relationship will benefit the product and DAO as a whole.
Secure Grant funding from 5 protocols by June 2023
We have been actively working on the product strategy and in doing so have identified areas for possible grant funding with some of the features and chains we plan to roll out.
As of the writing of this proposal we are circulating grant proposals for: Optimism, Thorchain and Cowswap. We also plan to go after grants from BSC and Gnosis Chain, and possibly Osmosis for the next integration phase.
And as always:
Continue to provide feature specifications, designs, product management, and applicable front-end development for features prioritized.
Continue to represent the ShapeShift DAO’s product suite, roadmap, and act as a repository of knowledge.
Continue to monitor user flows and identify areas of improvement to increase conversions.
Continue to help ensure the delivery of prioritized features on time (being built by the core workstream and those being built by bounty hunters), on or under budget, and according to the acceptance criteria defined in each feature spec.
Continue to assist with one-off community projects as needed, and make sure all UX executed by the workstream and outside the workstream are on brand and pass usability.
Continue to help all ShapeShift DAO Workstreams communicate effectively by creating engaging content that is aligned with the brand of ShapeShift DAO.
Continue to communicate ideas, create materials to educate FOX holders, assist in the creative needs to help launch marketing campaigns and expand the effectiveness of the brand.
Improve the new user experience and decrease our bounce rate (currently at 17.69%)
Continue to update and maintain Shapeshift.com
Budget
There are only 2 changes to this proposal round in regards to the team. DecentralizedJ is no longer part of the team, as most of you already know, and over the past months Diggy has been evaluating our needs as a workstream. It became very clear that we need additional help, but in a new role that previously did not exist on the workstream. Therefore, this proposal removes the additional PM role, and replaces it with a Product Analyst & Partnership Coordinator. The role will be part time for now.
Furthermore, with the product strategy work that’s been occurring and the huge lift and assistance to product being provided by PTT, it seems a natural fit that his skills in forecasting, numbers and projections nicely aligned with the role that Diggy had outlined. Therefore, we are proposing to include PTT in the part-time role and he will be splitting his time with his role on Ops. Here is the JD for the new role: LINK
So where does that leave us? The Product & Creative Services workstream will consist of 5 members. 3 full-time and 2 part-time
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Our approved budget for the last round of 6 months was: $364,636 (with $294,053 of that in USDC).
Our new proposed budget for the next 6 months is $366,240.52 with only $268,092 being requested in USDC as all members of the workstream have agreed to continue taking portions of their salaries in FOX (ranging from 10%-25%). The monthly cost in USDC would be $44,681.92
Fun fact: In October 2022, the workstream gave $45,000 in USDC back to the DAO treasury.
Here is the breakdown of actual stables and FOX allocation for this round:
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*This covers salaries, software, bounties, test funds, etc.
View the detailed budget here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L-gfh-06dkKRP7B2MdgmlYblg61glRZ3wd1GccrufUg/edit?usp=sharing
If this proposal passes, most of this budget will be distributed in stable coins and FOX as outlined above. The equivalent amount of USDC & FOX will be transferred from the DAO’s treasury to the Product Workstream on Colony on a monthly basis. All unused funds will be returned to the DAO or rolled-over to the next budget cycle.
Benefits
If this proposal passes, the DAO will continue to receive the following services which are integral to its success:
• Proposed feature roadmap encompassing the following products the DAO: ShapeShift Mobile app, web app, shapeshift.com, and any other products the ShapeShift DAO launches
• Feature specs for prioritized features including goals, success metrics, and acceptance criteria
• UI/UX for each prioritized feature
• Front-end development
• Reporting on product KPIs and feature success metrics (Analytics!)
• Design-oriented and brand-focused creative support, guidelines, and guardrails to the myriad of projects the DAO will take on
Drawbacks
The main potential risk is whether the strategy product has outlined and cost/benefit of the product workstream will be worth it to the DAO’s bottom-line in the long term. To mitigate this risk, only 6 months of funding are being requested. The funds will be managed on Colony and can be revoked by the DAO in a worst-case-scenario.
Vote
FOR: You support funding the workstream and the anticipated budget for the next 6 months
AGAINST: You do not support continuing to fund the product workstream
