[RFC] AlphaGrowth - Growing Uniswap through Incentives, Distribution, and Co-Marketing

[alphagrowth]

RFC - Growing Uniswap through Incentives, Distribution, and Co-Marketing

Introduction

Purpose

In recent months, we’ve actively engaged dozens of Uniswap stakeholders, gathering diverse perspectives from across the ecosystem. This process helped us pinpoint key areas for improvement, specifically in securing and distributing grants/incentives, and co-marketing them with chains and ecosystem partners. The purpose of this forum post is to address these areas for improvement and initiate a qualitative discussion around a high-level plan of action.

Authors

AlphaGrowth and our sister company ReservoirDAO are DAO service providers primarily working in the realm of DeFi growth through securing grants, growth-marketing, and DeFi Operations. Our marquee partner is Compound.Finance, where we run all things growth, business development and marketing for the DAO.

(Co-authors for Uniswap Ecosystem Incentives Initiative section)

@PGov is a long time community member and delegate who has worked across various committees and grant programs in Uniswap and across Defi.

@AranaDigital members have been involved in Uniswap DAO for the past 2.5 years, having participated as active delegates and contributors through multiple working groups.

How we got here

Over the last few cycles, we cut our teeth in the world of grants, go-to-market, tokenomics, and ecosystem growth. We’ve helped dozens of projects go multichain. Throughout this process, members of Compound DAO encouraged us to design and implement a comprehensive growth program to address stagnation in the protocol. As of today, we lead growth for Compound.Finance. Some wins at Compound include securing nearly $4M in incentives for Compound users, the launch of 7 new markets and 30+ new collateral assets, and a TVL growth of over $400M. Here is the most recent quarterly report of our Growth program at Compound. For a comprehensive view of AlphaGrowth-led Compound Growth Program, check out this Dune Dashboard.

Why we’re here

Both decentralization and regulatory uncertainty have hindered growth in all corners of DeFi. We, like many members of the community, see Uniswap as a pioneer with great power. Without an organized forward trajectory of pioneers like Uniswap and Compound, we risk seeing the industry spin its wheels.

Uniswap has done a tremendous job setting the gold standard for how we trade assets on-chain. The Uniswap product, brand, and community are some of the strongest in DeFi.

We are here because we believe that Uniswap will be the liquidity layer of the internet; and we want to help get it and keep it there.

Co-contributors

This post was guided by the opinions of numerous Uniswap delegates, each bringing their own perspectives and expertise. A special thanks to the following delegates* for taking the time to help guide and narrow down the scope of this program:

Cole, 404DAO | Cam, Consensys | Gab, She.256 | Alex, FranklinDAO

Derrick and Tommy, CalBlockchain | Darren, Blockworks Research

Mineso and Mateo, Michigan Blockchain | Renzo and Hugo, ChicagoDAO

Kevin, BlockchainCU | Jordan, Index Coop | Erick, Blockchain Education Network

Ross, a16z | Getty, Oku & GFX Labs | Tnorm and Matt, Gauntlet | Dennison, Tally

Callen, Wintermute | Raffaelo, Arrakis | Doo, StableLab | Krzysztof, L2BEAT

Coltron, Karpatkey | Thanos, Keyrock |

*Disclaimer: The perspectives and expertise shared by the delegates listed above are their own, and their participation in guiding this initial post does not indicate endorsement or support for its content.

What’s the problem?

We’re leaving incentives on the table.

Tons of grants and incentives have been left on the table. Without a team dedicated to securing and effectively distributing these funds, valuable opportunities for growth and user acquisition are being missed out on. Here are some concrete examples:

• Optimism Grants Council: Potential to secure ~$1 million each year in incentives for Uniswap users
• Scroll: Recently closed applications to a grants program awarding six figures to ecosystem projects
• Other chains like Taiko, Mantle, Rootstock, Boba, and Linea offer incentives that Uniswap is eligible for but not is taking full advantage of.
• Projects including Circle (USDC) have spoken to us about ways to incentivize usership, but channels for doing so are currently unclear to them.

*These potential incentive partners are listed here based on previous incentive issuance

Opportunities are lacking coverage; growth is beginning to stagnate

Uniswap, despite its status as a leading DeFi protocol, risks falling into complacency by relying too heavily on its reputation and existing user base. The assumption that Uniswap will continue to dominate without active outreach and promotion is dangerous. Recent data show a relative downturn in the number of new users interacting with Uniswap:

Source: https://dune.com/queries/2466255/4056861

Neglecting ecosystem partners and their offerings

Partners and builders within the Uniswap ecosystem are facing challenges in engaging and sharing opportunities with the Uniswap community. Teams like Oku are often marketing new deployments, opportunities, and feature updates on their own—efforts that could be amplified by the Uniswap ecosystem if a mechanism were in place. At present, the lack of a standardized process for co-marketing initiatives is causing missed opportunities for organic growth. If Bunni, a layer on top of Uniswap, wants to offer $1M of incentives to specific Uniswap pools, what’s the best way for them to share this with the Uniswap community? Uniswap is missing a place for ecosystem partners to engage, cross-pollinate, and share opportunities with users.

Additionally, the Onboarding Package referred to here offers network partners tremendous value. However, many chains are unaware that this opportunity exists. Currently, no outbound team is promoting the Onboarding Package and inviting chains to apply. The latest UAC report mentioned that the current impact of programs like the URGP can also be increased if the DAO were to establish a marketing team:

@AbdullahUmar

It may be worth considering a marketing group for the DAO to more reliably and freely communicate campaigns, events, and proposals to the broader DeFi community. The Uniswap Labs and Uniswap Foundation social accounts don’t tend to advertise many of these programs. Bypassing such approval may prove valuable.

Why do these problems matter?

Why secure incentives?

Econ 101: People respond to incentives. If we don’t secure these incentives for Uniswap users, other more growth-oriented DEXes will. Without this additional firepower, it will be increasingly difficult to retain and grow the Uniswap protocol and user base. Many DEX teams on L2s collaborate directly with core ecosystem teams to secure these incentives. If we don’t run this race, we will continue losing market share.

Why market opportunities?

Simply put, DeFi users must be aware of opportunities if they are to capitalize on them. If Uniswap launches on a new chain, there needs to be a greater marketing push so that the incentives are effectively utilized. Additionally, without distribution, only power users and insiders will have visibility into these opportunities. Finally, ecosystems will be much more willing to offer us incentives if we plan on shouting the opportunities from the rooftops.

Beyond marketing these opportunities to users, marketing opportunities (like the Onboarding Package) to chains will make them far more likely to offer Uniswap users reciprocal incentivization.

Why highlight and co-market with ecosystem partners?

When we co-market, we not only increase visibility for our initiatives but also strengthen the loyalty of key partners. By highlighting partner contributions and opportunities, we create a virtuous cycle where partners are incentivized to do and offer even more to the ecosystem. Co-marketing is another way of showing appreciation to the Uniswap Ecosystem’s talented contributors. Many of these partners have opportunities and incentives for Uniswap users to capitalize on. In addition to Oku, projects built on top of Uniswap, such as hook builders, are seeking a clear co-marketing channel. By neglecting our ecosystem partners, we’re missing out on opportunities that drive value, contribution, loyalty, and organic growth around V4 and beyond.

What solutions do we propose?

Uniswap Ecosystem Incentives Initiative (UEII)

Let’s dive deeper into the program teased by @PGov and @AbdullahUmar from the Metagovernance team earlier this week. (Forum Post) To distribute the most value to Uniswap users, when it comes to sourcing incentives, we propose leveraging our dedicated team to help the Metagov team. This outbound initiative will include members of the AlphaGrowth, PGov, and Arana teams, focusing on securing grants and incentives for the DAO and Uniswap users.

The initial focus will be on chains where Uniswap is currently deployed, capitalizing on the lower-hanging fruit. Depending on the goals of the issuing partners, these grants and incentives can be distributed in several ways: allocated to liquidity providers on specific chains / liquidity pools (e.g., stablecoins, LSTs, LRTs), used to subsidize transaction costs and trading fees, or directed toward other creative initiatives.

When reaching out to prospective chains, we’ll leverage our experience, the existing DAO programs like the Onboarding Package, and we’ll collaborate with the Metagov team (currently the UADP) to strengthen our pitch.

Oftentimes these grants require KYC/KYB, which we’ll handle through ReservoirDAO, AlphaGrowth’s sister company DAO LLC in the Marshall Islands. This is how we’ve successfully claimed and distributed incentives for Compound. We’re fully doxed and ready to facilitate the process. We’ll provide the infrastructure to make it even easier to secure incentives.

A dedicated team to market incentives and opportunities

To ensure these opportunities and incentives are shared far and wide, we propose leveraging our growth-marketing team. As we secure these grants and incentives, our mission is to strategically promote and distribute this alpha across the DeFi space, increasing TVL, volume, and activity on Uniswap.

Based on the success we’ve had running campaigns around the distribution of millions in incentives to Compound users, the primary marketing channel we recommend is Twitter. Promoting engaging content will help mitigate the cold-start problem. Additionally, ensuring visibility on industry-leading platforms such as CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko will keep Uniswap top-of-mind for ideal audiences. If there are other channels that the DAO would like to see activated, we are more than happy to entertain these options.

Our team will work closely with the Accountability Committee, Oku and others to identify the best opportunities to prioritize the roadmap of future Uniswap deployments. Over the past year, for instance, the DAO has approved the deployment of Uni V3 on over a dozen EVMs, but there has never been a DAO-led push to ensure that individuals outside of the DAO are aware of these deployments. We will act as that bridge between the DAO and the broader DeFi community.

A dedicated program to vet and highlight ecosystem partners

In order to offer reciprocity to partners and opportunities to users, we’re proposing the creation of a program dedicated to highlighting the most exciting and valuable opportunities within the Uniswap ecosystem, especially with Uni V4 hooks. Partners can apply to this program for co-marketing / promotion, and our team will review, qualify, and KYB each opportunity (to prevent any bad actors from being promoted). If the partner’s application meets the requirements of the review committee (and the team passes KYB), the opportunity will be greenlit for our marketing team to promote.

The review committee will consist of several members who will first establish the criteria for what qualifies as worthy of co-marketing. Once the criteria are set, the team will meet weekly to vote on co-marketing opportunities from various partner applications. The goal is to highlight opportunities in the Uniswap ecosystem, particularly with the launch of V4 hooks and teams offering user incentives. While AlphaGrowth will handle the admin work, KYB, promotion, and distribution, having a diverse group of quality voices on the review committee is optimal. If an application has a majority vote and quorum, it will be advanced to the marketing team for promotion.

Here are some DAO members who have verbally committed interest in being a part of this proposed co-marketing review committee:

@Juanbug | Governance, PGov
@AbdullahUmar | Governance, Arana Digital
@Cole_404 | Governance, 404 DAO
@Pennblockchain | Governance, FranklinDAO
@Zeebradoom | Governance, CalBlockchain
@Hugob | Governance, ChicagoDAO
@Michiganblockchain | Governance, Michigan

We are also more than happy to hold an election to decentralize the creation of this review team.

Reporting

To maximize transparency, efficacy and attribution of these programs, we will regularly analyze and report campaign success metrics. Some of these metrics include engagement rates, TVL growth, trading volume, daily/monthly active users, and new wallets created.

We will post quarterly progress reports on the forum to ensure the Uniswap community is in the loop and that our efforts are public.

What’s the rationale for these solutions?

We know that people respond to incentives

We’ve done it several times now. Our team has secured around $4M in grants and incentives for Compound.Finance users alone. In addition to Compound, we’ve helped numerous DeFi projects secure grants from a variety of ecosystems. We’ve been on both side of the equation; over the past few years, we also helped deploy millions in grants and incentives on behalf of the Aurora and Kava ecosystems. These incentives onboarded dozens of DeFi protocols and several hundred million in TVL. We learned what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t.

The primary rationale behind this strategy is based on our success at Compound, where our approach to grants and co-marketing has driven significant growth. At Compound, we’ve secured and deployed nearly $4M in incentives and expanded into seven new markets. This resulted in significant TVL growth across multiple chains, including a jump from $51M to $200M million on Arbitrum alone. Based on our tried and true methods at Compound and elsewhere, we’re confident that Uniswap users will benefit greatly from this same playbook.

If we don’t talk about it, it won’t be heard

As we (and other partners) create valuable opportunities, it’s important that we make DeFi aware of them. Without awareness, there’s little chance of action. It’s crucial to run campaigns that spread the word. Another successful example of this playbook was focused on users transitioning from bridged USDC.e to native USDC. We secured the incentives, incentivized an action, marketed the opportunity, and saw active wallets jump 4.5x over the course of a few months.

Ecosystem partners deserve a chance in the spotlight

When speaking with several partners throughout the Uniswap Ecosystem, we learned that there is no easy way for them to cross-pollinate their communities and offerings with Uniswap users. These contributors are actively seeking more channels to reach the Uniswap community. Highlighting partners will give them even more reason to build, engage, and incentivize on Uniswap.

What are the high level steps for implementation?

1. Securing incentives (UEII)

1. Identifying existing opportunities. We’ve been aggregating grants programs for several years. We’ve been on both sides of the equation, and we now know what is looked for in each applicant. Since we already have our finger on the pulse of these grants programs, identifying these opportunities for Uniswap will be a simple activation. We will submit applications for Uniswap early and often. Additionally, we will engage all of Uniswap’s existing blockchain ecosystem partners to explore their appetite for a one-off incentive program. We have already received positive feedback from several of these chains looking to play ball and incentivize liquidity.
2. Creating new opportunities. In many cases, blockchain ecosystems have funds specifically set aside to incentivize user engagement, but these opportunities might not always be publicly announced through formal grants programs. To unlock these opportunities, we will leverage our relationships with various ecosystems. We’ll find mutually beneficial ways to incentivize activity on their chains via Uniswap.
3. KYC/KYB. Many of these grants require KYC/KYB, which will be done through ReservoirDAO, our DAO LLC in the Marshall Islands. This DAO LLC is how we have claimed and distributed incentives for Compound. We are fully doxed and happy to facilitate this process.
4. Incentive Distribution. Distribution is currently done by the UAC and as we secure these grants, we will work with them to optimize distribution.

2. Marketing incentives

1. Create socials. Establish Twitter account (@GrowUniswap already secured)
2. Ad approval. Whitelist account for promotion
3. Collaboration and content creation. Work with incentives team / issuing ecosystem to create content, graphics, and narratives
4. Push campaigns. Run ads to share incentive opportunities with the community
5. Reporting and attribution. Analyze and report efficacy of each campaign

3. Co-marketing partners program

1. Landing page. Creation of a landing page that hosts the application process and qualification criteria for the co-marketing program
2. Application. Together with the oversight committee, we’ll determine the criteria for an eligible ecosystem partner
3. KYB. We will leverage Provenance for all necessary KYB
4. Review process. The committee will review each application and qualify each applicant based on the predetermined criteria
5. Promote to the marketing team. Once approved, the partner will be highlighted by the dedicated marketing team. In addition to the regular marketing of incentive opportunities, we will aim for at least one qualified co-marketing event per week.

What’s next?

The intention of this forum post is to simply kick off the conversation around some tried and true solutions that will prevent stagnation. As the conversation with the community progresses, we will nail down more of the quantitative pieces such as KPIs and budget requests.

We strongly believe that these initiatives will significantly benefit the Uniswap DAO, brand and user experience. We look forward to the community’s feedback and support for this growth program.

[Dakotah]

Having worked closely with the AlphaGrowth team during our interactions with the Compound ecosystem, I can vouch for their dedication and professionalism. Although no formal agreements are currently in place, their active and constructive participation in our public Bunni Growth Unit calls demonstrates their commitment to building genuine partnerships in the DeFi space.

Our engagement with the Uniswap Foundation (UF) has also been consistently positive. We make it a priority to stay updated on UF’s developments and Uniswap X feeds, which we directly integrate into our team’s communication channels. The reach and influence that Uniswap commands has and will significantly amplify our co-marketing efforts, driving greater awareness of Bunni’s contributions to the ecosystem.

From my experience, a proactive approach to securing and deploying incentives can be a game-changer. I recall a situation where a native DEX wielded its incentive strategies so effectively that our discussions focused not just on features but on what we could offer as incentives. At the very least, it makes for a tough sale. They weren’t the type of partnerships we should be focused on, but hopefully, this example adds some value.

Uniswap and the UF teams have undeniably set a high standard and contributed substantial value to the ecosystem. With additional support, we have the potential to achieve even more together. The idea of not just maintaining but actively enhancing our ecosystem through strategic incentives and co-marketing with partners like AlphaGrowth seems beneficial for continued growth and success.

I fully support initiatives that encourage such proactive growth and collaboration throughout the entire ecosystem. Related to eco wide collabs have been poked by two other builders recently with a warm embrace; it feels very good. I’m excited to see everyone’s thoughts.

[Doo_StableLab]

@alphagrowth

Doo, StableLab

Since the name is here. I believe it’s important to be transparent and share my thoughts. The Uniswap community should be cautious and ensure that the budget and scope are aligned. For example, it would be misleading to believe that spending on marketing = growth.

Also, i want to note that in large picture, it’s difficult to say that Alpha Growth had a significant impact on Compound Finance’s growth. TVL for Compound has been basically the same as last year while for AAVE , their TVL has grown 3-4x compared to last year.

Therefore, I suggest whatever budget will be, to be based on KPIs and targets rather than simple transfers

But I agree with the sentiment that Uniswap community can be more assertive in claiming potential grants from other protocols (in fact, many partners didn’t keep their promise of liquidity or incentive to Uniswap and maybe having counterparty like alpha growth can mitigate such issue)

[Zeebradoom]

I am a voter at Blockchain at Berkeley. My thoughts do not represent the organization’s as a whole.

I believe that the purpose of the DAO’s treasury is to invest to grow the protocol. This means experimentation, learning from mistakes, and continuing to try. Aave has grown considerably from unsustainable incentives/subsidies and interesting changes to debt at risk. There are pros and cons of any program, but for new ideas, like growth, the upside is unclear and the risks very clear. I think this proposal’s goal of bringing in DAO community members to direct the initiative is a great way to stay accountable and get work done. KPI’s are only as good as the data it is meant to measure. Uniswap is already the most dominant swap protocol, so some metrics are difficult to nudge. I believe this RFC would be a great place to start growing Uniswap in new ways.

Excited to see how the community thinks about this RFC.

[kfx]

I’m neutral on the proposal and could be swayed either way depending on the details and the execution.

Positives:

• It’s does feel bad to see how under-advertised and little known the DAOs current liquidity incentive programs are. We need to make an effort to change this in the future.
• Achieving better alignment with chains certainly makes sense and could help to make sure we’re not outcompeted by native DEXes.
• It would be good to gather the ideas and get technical help from the chains to implement more innovative forms of incentivization, not just liquidity mining. And even for LM, working with chains may help tp design better campaigns.
• If incentives and KPIs promised by the chains hasn’t been always happening, we need to spend some effort to control this in the future.

Doubts:

• Let’s say the program manages to attract a similar amount of $ as for Compound. $4M is not that large compared to e.g. Uniswap Foundations yearly budget or even to the funding the DAO provides to the DeFi Education Fund. As a result, securing the grants is not critical to the growth of the Uniswap; if an idea is good, it’s not that hard to just fund it from the treasury.
• In contrast, going where the money rather than where the value is risks losing focus. For instance, it would be of much greater importance to restore Uniswap as the #1 DEX on Base rather than extensively incentivize it on a number of smaller chains without much TVL or active users.
• Uniswap Labs is actively working on business development on its own. A separate initiative from the DAO risks duplication of efforts or strategic misalignment with them .

Steven Goldfeder from Offchain Labs recently posted an extremely relevant take. To quote him:

So when considering where to build and whom to partner with, think about the full picture. And ask yourself the key question: which choice will maximize your chances of succeeding long term.

[alphagrowth]

Hey @Doo_StableLab, thank you for the candid feedback. Our impact at Compound can be viewed through several lenses. Beyond the new chains, markets, and collateral asset deployments, we’ve boosted lending and subsidized borrowing costs for thousands of users through securing incentives from partners.

If we are to compare our impact apples to apples with Aave, it’s important to note a few things. First, the Aave team has several times the budget and team size working on growth initiatives. Additionally, they are far less decentralized and conservative with their growth tactics.

A significant portion of their TVL growth has come from wstETH, WBTC and weETH. The supply rates indicate little utility for these assets; some supply rates as low as 0.01%.

Image: Aave Markets

Do to the conservative nature of Compound, and limited demand for borrowing, these three assets were initially rejected from being listed. Only very recently with the advent of the Symbiotic and Babylon narratives did the Compound community permit us to add wstETH and WBTC as supply side assets. Within our conservative operating mandate, we are doing everything that we can do bring value to the Compound DAO and users.

Additionally, Compound recently saw a black swan governance attack (prop 289). Although the crisis was averted, the initial PR shock led to nearly half a billion in capital outflows. It should go without saying that this event was out of our control.

All things considered, we completely agree that it’s essential for the Uniswap community to be cautious and align the budget with clear goals, especially in terms of marketing not equating to guaranteed growth. Attribution will play a key role here; on-chain reporting will speak to the efficacy of each campaign.

As we move these programs forward, we will nail down concrete KPIs along with a clear path for the UAC to ensure that what gets done is what needs to get done.

Without a fee switch turned on, we have to get creative in finding ways to bring real value to users. Our playbook is one proven way to do so.

Thanks again for the feedback; as we progress, we will make sure to prioritize transparency and results-driven action.

[blockchainedu]

Uniswap has always stood out to me in how willing it is to deploy on new chains and offer such support. But I agree most people don’t even know Uniswap is like this.

I see chains supporting Uni forks and I don’t think they realize they have the opportunity to work with Uniswap itself.

There are the grants programs AlphaGrowth mentioned on existing deployment chains, but theres also plenty more opportunities for big incentive programs on new and emerging chains.

No way around it except having a good BD team messaging chains and negotiating good co-incentives and growth programs. More bullish on this side than the content marketing side tbh.

• Erick

[kenji]

I run BD for Boba Network, and having known Alpha Growth’s team over this past year, I can vouch for their ability to execute an offer strong support on deployments. Their BD engine is really what differentiates them to really impact Uniswap with their work. It really takes a BD village to help properly distribute grants where the most value would be created. I believe the AlphaGrowth team has correctly identified the current bottleneck in the industry grants pipeline and offer a sound solution.

[justErik]

Thanks for this @alphagrowth, as well as @PGov and @AranaDigital - Personally I’d be in favour of adding structure to Uniswap’s incentive efforts in line with your arguments. Makes sense to have a dedicated team overseeing these efforts to ensure valuable opportunities are secured and effectively distributed.

I think the people you’ve listed as potential committee members are probably all well-suited for this, though I would still prefer an election in the spirit of decentralisation (as should be standard practice for the DAO imo), and in general not so keen on having people occupy seats across multiple DAO committees.

Some questions to consider:

1. How will you measure and report the success of these incentive efforts to the community?
2. Have you thought about putting any checks in place to ensure transparency and prevent conflicts of interest?
3. How are you thinking about the structure and criteria around the partnership vetting process?

Thanks!

[TimeRows]

A few thoughts on this:

1. One of the most important components of this proposal is achieving a high level of outreach to inform the crypto Twitter community about incentive opportunities. Aave and Aerodrome have experienced significant success by energizing their crypto Twitter audiences, and this growth is reflected in their results. From a quick glance at @alphagrowth’s Twitter, it appears that it may not have the outreach or community size needed to spread the message beyond its current, limited audience. As it stands, incentive outreach risks remaining in a small echo chamber.

2. It is already challenging to keep track of the various committees, their activities, and what the wind-down of these committees might look like in the future. When it becomes difficult to monitor these aspects and understand where the money is flowing, it can create risks related to trust and overall attention.

3. We need more emphasis on mechanism design rather than on committees. With V4 on the horizon, it is crucial to find ways to align value between applications and the teams building on top. For example, mechanism design could involve using UNI tokens to cover user fees for front-ends built around certain hooks. These hooks would then provide incentives back to Uniswap through liquidity incentives, which could be promoted by the teams or applications. If a successful application emerges, its marketing would be handled organically without relying on a centralized third-party committee.

4. Uniswap should avoid emulating Compound’s strategy. Aave’s success stems from a well-informed marketing strategy and creating virality around applications built on its platform. Uniswap can achieve similar success by focusing on bootstrapping hooks that have the potential to go viral. This bootstrapping could involve governance voting on a group of hook applications, introducing some unresolved mechanism, or leveraging a trusted team with knowledge of hook teams/applications, such as the Uniswap Foundation.

[justErik]

You’re raising some great points!

@TimeRows

It is already challenging to keep track of the various committees, their activities, and what the wind-down of these committees might look like in the future. When it becomes difficult to monitor these aspects and understand where the money is flowing, it can create risks related to trust and overall attention.

Isn’t it about time someone built a dashboard where all the various committees and so on are on display? Would make things a lot easier to keep track of the organisational structure of DAOs

[PGov]

Hey Erik, thanks for the message, jumping into your three questions; since the metagovernance group is only looking to cover the grant hunting aspect of this, we’ll answer with respect to that and @alphagrowth can answer with respect to marketing and their other proposed initiatives.

1: Forum posts detailing outcomes is likely the way forward. For Arb this time, we have a dashboard that the Gauntlet team helped set up as they decided on incentive allocation.
2: In terms of system for transparency and conflict of interest, nothing comes to mind with respect to conflicts or interest, however if they arise, we would post transparently on the forums
3: Partnership vetting process for the start in our opinion makes sense to just be the chains that Uni is deployed on. If other groups want to airdrop tokens to the DAO for involvement and/or allocate grants, it might make sense to get involved there as well.

I’d take a look at this earlier post by the metagovernance team too: here.

[GFXlabs]

Firstly, we would like to thank AlphaGrowth for their thoughtful and ambitious proposal, which addresses several issues with the Uniswap ecosystem and provides solutions for the community to consider. We need to see more of these proposals if we want the DAO to succeed.

With our unique position as a delegate and service provider to the DAO with Oku, we’ve seen where the DAO’s shortfalls are and have already begun to think of remedies.

Today’s top issue is how fragmented our marketing and branding are. Whether it’s related to letting chains know that Uniswap offers onboarding packages, working to support Uniswap deployments, amplifying the many projects that are building protocols/tools/interfaces on top of Uniswap, or competing against Uniswap forks, the DAO should be doing more to grow its presence.

We believe there would be a substantial benefit (relative to the cost) if the Uniswap ecosystem had a group that could coordinate the ecosystem’s marketing/media/branding. As proposed here, the organization should be overseen by delegates to ensure everything occurs in accordance with the DAO’s objectives.

As it currently stands, Oku has been organizing and executing virtually all its marketing efforts independently. While we would like to say we have done a great job managing our resources and time, we’re confident that more is being left on the table.

In addition, through our years of participation within the ecosystem, we’ve spoken with several projects that built LP interfaces, ALM protocols, bridging systems, and much more on top of Uniswap and get disappointed when the existing channels do not support them or, if they are lucky, receive minor support. In most cases, we’ve seen projects initially focused on Uniswap expand to support Uniswap competitors who can offer them the support they seek.

Moving forward, it would help to understand from the AlphaGrowth team what a 3-month pilot program would cost and what we could expect to occur during that startup period. Then, if that pilot period is successful, the DAO could enter into a 6 or 12-month agreement.

[bryancolligan]

This is great feedback @TimeRows.

All for mechanism design to drive to incentives. An issue we have noticed in crypto is that attention is thin. Without communicating the incentives and mechanism designs the alpha of the incentives are internalized to those who know.

Most effective campaigns still need to communicate to KOLs and Liquidity Providers the opportunities available and find consistent channels in which to drive distribution. The comment about our socials is true as we found it better to drive distribution thru partners with existing distribution networks. Selfishly we could spend on our own brand presence however there are much more effective ways to incentivize existing partners with existing distribution.

high level we have seen success

• Aggregate all existing incentives campaigns.
• Identify channels to communicate campaigns.
• test the channels
• learn from data
• make new campaigns
• repeat

[SEEDGov]

@alphagrowth

What’s next?

The intention of this forum post is to simply kick off the conversation around some tried and true solutions that will prevent stagnation. As the conversation with the community progresses, we will nail down more of the quantitative pieces such as KPIs and budget requests.

Before formalizing the final proposal, we suggest some questions to consider when defining the KPIs:

• In some cases, the effort is not tied to the result; for example, campaigns like Optimism Superfest or LTIP or STIP of Arbitrum give a very high result and the effort is lower by focusing on a single chain; on the contrary, working on 5 smaller alternatives may attract less traction overall but still benefit the protocol. If KPIs are measured in size/volume, it may discourage smaller but overall beneficial efforts and focus only on high impact, low effort programs.
• Conversely, if KPIs are measured in percentage increase in activity; for example, 100k usd of volume or additional LTV in a new, not very relevant chain may mean a very high percentage increase, and conversely it is a very small percentage increase for Arbitrum, but both are 100k usd for Uniswap. Measuring KPIs in percentages could discourage efforts in large networks and focus on small networks where the percentage impact is large even if the real impact is not relevant for Uniswap.

We therefore encouraged being very prudent and creative in establishing KPIs that promote activities that benefit and generate real impact on Uniswap.

@Doo_StableLab

Therefore, I suggest whatever budget will be, to be based on KPIs and targets rather than simple transfers

We agree with this vision.

[alphagrowth]

hey @SEEDGov thanks for the feedback here. Completely aligned that these programs should be results oriented. Your point is valid that depending on the KPIs, the net impact on Uniswap may be affected. Do you have any suggestions on the KPIs you’d like to see?

[WintermuteGovernance]

We have worked with the AlphaGrowth team as a Compound Delegate and they’ve done a good job in growth and promotional efforts for the protocol in a time when it felt like Compound was almost forgotten about.

We are pretty receptive to this proposal and we agree that Uniswap has certainly missed out on various grants across different ecosystems. Even if these ecosystems are extremely inactive in comparison to major chains, this is a missed opportunity with little to no cost for the DAO (assuming no co-incentives). Furthermore, we can very much see the need for additional marketing + creating awareness for various incentives across chains and share similar thoughts to @GFXlabs.

One concern we did have is that driving attention, liquidity, and volume to AMMs is very different to money markets and arguably a lot harder. It’s also a lot easier to waste incentives.

We agree that a 3-month pilot would be a good start and how that would look in terms of costs, objectives, and goals.

[Gauntlet]

It’s great to see @alphagrowth hop in here after we’ve observed their work for some time at Compound. Gauntlet agrees with some of the points made by other delegates. The proposal addresses two important themes.

1. External Governance Grants: The proposal identified a lack of process and missed opportunity in the DAOs historic efforts to apply for externally funded grant programs. Uniswap certainly could use a more ambitious group to actively source, apply to, and receive incentive grants from third-party chains that Uniswap supports.
2. Marketing: The proposal addresses a lack of marketing of established campaigns. While the effectiveness of social media in driving DeFi adoption is not clear, the brand presence highlighting Uniswap partnerships and ensuring that wins are broadcasted is a benefit.

To ensure the DAO receives the highest value-added, the proposal should be more specific about the program’s structure. As others mentioned, it would be helpful to include the goals of the incentives it aims to oversee, the specific tactics it plans to implement, and the KPIs measured to track success. It is difficult to properly vet and support any proposal without details on the actions, budget, and success criteria listed. As @gfxlabs and others mentioned above, a better path is a three-month trial with specific KPIs to apply to and secure third-party incentive grants. This would allow AlphaGrowth to showcase its BD contributions while allowing the DAO to observe how it can procure and eventually deploy third-party incentives.

[404DAO]

We would like to thank the @alphagrowth team for writing this RFC, and acknowledge the level of effort and due diligence that went into shaping it.

We agree that there is a need in the DAO for concerted marketing efforts to (1) showcase existing incentive programs funded by the DAO; and (2) identify new incentive programs and grant opportunities that could be beneficial to the DAO.

We believe that this RFC presents a timely opportunity for the DAO to start discussions around marketing. Without dedicated grant and marketing support, the DAO risks missing out on incentives, partner dissatisfaction, and suboptimal user acquisition. Furthermore, with the upcoming launch of Uni v4 we encourage a focus on co-marketing with hooks builders and the Uniswap Foundation.

To conclude, we have several questions for the Alphagrowth team:

• We came across the GrowCompound & Compound Intern accounts on X. Have you been measuring the success of those accounts with quantifiable KPIs? And will the GrowUniswap account look and feel similar?
• For your work in Compound, did you issue regular updates and reports on the status of the marketing and growth efforts? If yes, please link to them. If no, would you accept a reporting requirement?

Thanks again Alphagrowth for starting the discussion on marketing in the DAO.

[BlockworksResearch]

Adding on here, the AlphaGrowth team workshopped some of this idea with us and received our feedback for this RFC, so we would like to acknowledge the level of coordination and diligence this proposal took – props to the team. There is certainly a need for additional marketing and programs for the DAO, and we do believe that this RFC could allow the DAO to start additional discussions long term.

As we are very active in the Arbitrum community, we have seen a clear push for marketing co-opted by the foundation and DAO contributors, which today has been somewhat successful.

Our sole question at this point in time is if there could be more color provided on the marketing for ecosystem partners, under what criteria will they be evaluated, and what qualifications would make a partner qualified. This is pretty far down the line, but we are curious to understand how you will approach this.