This is an idea paper. Use github to participate.

Ecosystem TAVOs

Research Center

Opportunity discovery

Opportunity validation

What is an idea maze?

Use:

Lecture 5 | Startup Engineering by Balaji S. Srinivasan
  • Read the excerpt instead
    One answer is that a good founder doesn’t just have an idea, s/he has a bird’s eye view of the idea maze. Most of the time, end-users only see the solid path through the maze taken by one company. They don’t see the paths not taken by that company, and certainly don’t think much about all the dead companies that fell into various pits before reaching the customer.
    A good founder is thus capable of anticipating which turns lead to treasure and which lead to certain death. A bad founder is just running to the entrance of (say) the “movies/music/filesharing/P2P” maze or the “photosharing” maze without any sense for the history of the industry, the players in the maze, the casualties of the past, and the technologies that are likely to move walls and change assumptions (Figure 1).
    In other words: a good idea map means a bird’s eye view of the idea maze, understanding all the permutations of the idea and the branching of the decision tree, gaming things out to the end of each scenario. Anyone can point out the entrance to the maze, but few can think through all the branches.
    This is where the historical perspective and market research is key; a strong new plan for navigating the idea maze usually requires an obsession with the market, a unique insight from deep thought that others did not see, a hidden door.

Research center researches idea maze(s) and produces idea maps; to later base successful businesses on. This is truth-seeking applied outwards on the market, to considerably lowers business risk.

Each Idea maze answers the following questions:

  1. What is the value of the market opportunity?

    That is, what is the value of the prize if you succeed? It is super easy to get sucked into stupid games. Stupid games, get you stupid prizes.

  2. Is there atleast one profitable strategy to victory?

    Most ideas will suceed in due course. Only some will succeed today. Read: Crossing the Chasm

  3. What is the tactical advantage that is available?

    Hunt for a first principles advantage. Without it, it's like playing the game on hard mode.

Relevant read:

Part 4: The only thing that matters by pmarca
Judgment is the Decisive Skill by naval

Guild

TAVO value accelerator

12-month structured journey for entrepreneurs to accelerate their TAVO.

TAVOs are the ‘companies/startups’ of the future.

Program is divided into 2 phases:

Phase 1: Idea maze to Market-product fit

(not product-market fit)
  1. Idea maze to Idea map
  2. In other words: a good idea map means a bird’s eye view of the idea maze, understanding all the permutations of the idea and the branching of the decision tree, gaming things out to the end of each scenario. Anyone can point out the entrance to the maze, but few can think through all the branches.

    Idea map is the highest probable solution to the maze.

    Map is not the territory. Yet, map is the most probable territory.

    It does so by truth-seeking executed through (first-principle) analysis, observations (from travellers before) and experimentation (of critical hypotheses); before committing to long-term execution.

  3. Inviting grants
  4. Each TAVO is initialized by seed capital from the partners + invited grants from other DAOs/communities.

    As long as what you are building is valuable, there is infinite grant capital available in the web3 space.

    Read more: Economics of a TAVO

  5. Prototyping to a market-product fit
  6. When the market accepts a product, it shows. It will take multiple tries to get it right. Identifying strong tactics in step 1 will create a disproportionate advantage here.

Phase 2: Market-product fit to $10 million+ marketcap

  1. Token Design
  2. Getting the token design right, can be the only growth engine you'll ever need. Think bitcoin.

  3. Mechanism Design
  4. Initialize the org on-chain with its mechanism design defined in its charter and playbook. This helps scale execution bandwidth

    Mechanism design is a field in economics and game theory that takes an objectives-first approach to designing economic mechanisms or incentives, toward desired objectives, in strategic settings, where players act rationally. Because it starts at the end of the game, then goes backwards, it is also called reverse game theory
    Mechanism Design 101 | Sam Williams
  5. Growth engine(s) design
  6. Purpose of a TAVO is to grow its value. Most often this growth will come from building growth loops.

Learning methodology

  1. Guided Observation
  2. A loose linear learning path that helps maintain anchor and alignment. Why loose?

    To afford learning, and prevent teaching. It uses the concept of Shravana-Manana-Nididhyasana to build the ability of outward truth-seeking

    Interventions are done only when they aid progress and at the process (i.e. mental model) level instead of output level.

  3. Collaborative Enquiry
  4. Executed through frequent problem solving sprints with the ecosystem fund partners.

    It leverages the 'learning through imitation' idea and helps build the teams independent problem solving skill over time.

Ecosystem Fund

Creates shared incentives to collaborate

Focuses on improving the network design

The fund is responsible for creating network value. It consists of partners + network TAVOs as backers.

It invests in:

  1. Ecosystem TAVOs: TAVOs create valuable second-order value, but are not otherwise directly monetizable.
  2. Startup TAVOs: Each TAVO that gets accepted in Guild receives $30k investment through a token swap.
  3. Network value: Whatever endeavor increases network value. It may or may not be a seperate TAVO.

Investment Token Swap

Fund uses an innovative token swap to invest in TAVOs that get accepted into the guild.

20% of partner's capital (upto $30k) of BUIDL tokens are transferred to the startup TAVO in exchange for 20% of its tokens. Guild serves as a Backer. Both tokens are locked for a 12 month period.

BUIDL tokens can be used as collateral to borrow against. They can also be used to vote in the fund's decision-making.

Purpose of the fund is to grow the value of its treasury by contributing to its constituent tokens' value.

Bounty Ground

Fosters a developer Ecosystem

Serves as an easy recruiting funnel

Gamified learning and skilling up platform for the kind of problems being worked on within the network.

Specially relevant for individuals looking to join network teams, and not freelancers.

Helps create a fully paid space similar to Lambda fellows

Hacker Space

Resilience testing

Game Theory. Blockchain architecture. Human Psychology.

A collective of white-hat ers contributing to network and its TAVOs security.