Hey @kevin, Bryan Colligan founder of AlphaGrowth here. I have been thinking about how to respond for a couple days now. You are a core community member. Without your support and feedback what we are proposing will likely not pass. So, thank you for responding and voicing concerns.
I will try to distill your perspective as best I can. It seems your perspective is Compound should not pay for expansion to new markets. New markets should pay to have Compound expand to them. Also there are concerns in the value to adding new markets at all. Above all the perceived value of new markets is tiny. I think I am understanding your viewpoint, correctly.
In having conversations with Delegates over the last 3 months what we found was that there is a desire for more. More markets, attention and activity. The common narrative among delegates said Compound community was apathetic, lacking momentum and losing market share. From those conversations we had, we put together the best post possible.
We unfortunately have never had a conversation to understand what you would like to see. And would gladly do so to figure out a path forward. But let’s try discovery in public.
There are 4 main objections in your response.
- Compound as a bluechip protocol should not need to chase Chains and Assets.
- Chains and Assets should provide their own resources to integrate via BD, Dev and growth.
- Estimated value of new markets is low.
- Price of Services is too high.
Compound is valuable, I know 8 chains that would want compound tomorrow. The main issue is that they do not know how to purchase compound. I do mean purchase because what a chain is purchasing is a brand and distribution. A brand known for code that works, fine tuned risk management and security. The reason why I say they are purchasing a brand is that the code is open sourced and there are now over 100 forks. From the new market perspective the brand associated with Compound is a symbol of trust. Having Compound will motivate more capital and TVL to the new market. Having a new markets listed on Compound is validating. The brand association should have an associated premium, but what is the premium?
On the distribution side having a new markets listed on Compound creates awareness. While there were only ~120 active users in the last 30 days these users have a large amount of capital. Access to these users is very valuable for new markets.
We know Compound has value, new markets are will to pay and deploy resources for said value. They just don’t know how. The process is dense. Purchasers at new markets are told to go to the forums and start a conversation. That is simply not how heads of ecosystem and BD people operate. The way Compound is packaged makes it too difficult to work with. The TAM(total addressable market) of this complexity can quantified. With a napkin calculation of 1.1 Billion of TVL in compound forks and 2.7% in generated fees per year there is $29 Million more fees that can be generated each year for compound users.(point #3)
What we are suggesting is that Compound needs help normalizing and merchandising Compound. The current selection process of new markets feels a bit arbitrary. We believe it is important evaluation of new markets from a quantifiable approach. What parameters matter for integrating new markets and what is the acceptance criteria. We are not looking to opening the flood gates for any and every chain integration with Compound, which seems to be a trigger point for the community. With community feedback we will create a Go-to-Market(GTM) strategy and package Compound in a way which new markets can be evaluated and eventually integrate compound. Currently chains and assets have resources but do not know how to start the process and where to begin. (point #2) The persona acquiring Compound dApp is usually not a developer. They negotiate over calls and after the negotiation they want to know where to send the check to get the job done.
As for our price.
- We can slow down the process new market expansion make a research project to work with you and community on the GTM strategy. Map requirements and customers journey on how new markets can effectively deploy resources to integrate Compound. Reduce the BD team to 1 resource.
- Separate out Liquidity and Bootstrap Loans after the GTM strategy is approved by the community
- Add clarity to the Marketing section on spend vs operation expenses
- Lean in and Focus on increasing Compound usage and where to embed the protocol with existing markets.
Is there something else we are missing? If this sounds acceptable we can adjust our ask to this plan.