Summary
This is a proposal to start the Gearbox Business Development (GBBD) SubDAO, which will lead efforts in attracting large users to the protocol. Due to budgeting and planning constraints, it will likely consist of a single member to start. I, Jared Hedglin, working through Hedglin Consulting, would like to propose myself for the role spanning an initial three month engagement.
Motivation
Gearbox has the potential to become a leading DeFi protocol financially empowering an entire new class of investors who may not have access to similar financial services due to geography or economic status. However, to establish the project as the dominant composable leverage protocol - a potentially enormous category - deeper liquidity on the protocol’s supply-side is necessary. As evidenced by high utilization, there is clear PMF expressed from the borrowing side of Gearbox; however, more effort is required for growing the total amount of liquidity provided to Gearbox.
Like many leading DeFi projects, Gearbox will need qualified contributors to actively build relationships with liquidity providers, borrowers, protocols, wallet platforms, service providers and more in order to attract liquidity and users to the ecosystem. While Gearbox’s current $100m TVL is extremely impressive for an early-stage project, the protocol’s competitive yields could easily support a large influx of liquidity.
Importantly, many whales, DeFi funds, power users, and institutions require some level of human interfacing with the DAO in order to to gain comfort with LPing. Therefore, it is my belief that a coordinated BD program, spearheaded by a specialized subDAO, would deliver outlier value to the Gearbox protocol.
Specification
The GBBD SubDAO would serve two high level goals: increasing Gearbox’s adoption and visibility among potential liquidity providers and DeFi power users. The funding for this subDAO will be used to unlock on-chain research to find whales, setting up calls with institutions to educate them on Gearbox, speaking to broad audiences on Twitter spaces and podcasts, as well as representing Gearbox at key industry events.
This section breaks those overarching goals down into specific tasks.
Goal #1: Increase Gearbox’s Adoption
- Develop a robust go-to-market strategy for a pipeline of LP’s and borrowers with DeFi power users, protocols, funds, companies, and institutional investors. Create and document processes like a CRM, feedback loop, continuity plan for growing this role and subdao
- Integrate best-in-class technologies, such as a CRM, to track and manage subDAO relationships.
Goal #2: Increase Gearbox’s Visibility
- Build relationships and partnerships to bring Gearbox to other user interfaces and applications (especially in a potential partnership/referral program)
- Establish a professional digital and physical presence for Gearbox at key industry events.
Duration
This proposal recommends a three month engagement, which can be extended by the DAO at the end of the term. Subsequent proposals will likely include additional 3-month extensions. This approach allows for the setting of high level KPIs to be set with sufficient time to achieve them, but also allows the DAO to periodically monitor and provide feedback on progress with regards to the overarching goals defined above.
Proposed Budget
I was previously working for Boxcode and Gearbox Protocol Limited, the companies that raised the seed round. My compensation and expenses were the following:
- Total salary: $280K/year (included insurance expenses, travel, conference, and business expenses)
- Token vesting: 5 million $GEAR to be locked for 3 months and then linearly vested over 9 months (as per the current contributor vesting schedules)
I would like to propose a “quarterly salary plus expenses” of 45k USDC, which is equivalent to a $180k per year salary. This represents a 36% pay cut, while still maintaining the additional legal/insurance/conference expenses.
With this budget, I will be able to put forth my full time and efforts for serving the goals of this subDAO and supporting the Gearbox protocol.
Compensation Benchmarking
- According to data from Pave, the median salary for a VP of Business Development is around $185k and a total annual cash compensation of $200k. I will be taking on more responsibilities than just a VP of BD, but added this comparison for context.
- It’s worth noting that these numbers do not include benefits such as health insurance, which I will have to pay for out of pocket. Additionally, there is no bonus associated with this position, so the total cash compensation is equal to the base salary. In comparison to the market, this proposed salary is competitive but slightly below average for the DAO. These numbers also do not consider any additional liability or risks.
Breakdown
- $50k USDC for the 3 month grant period. ($45k salary + $5k in expenses + unlocking tokens) The DAO does not currently use any streaming payments mechanism, so I propose delivering this in a one-time payment.
- 5 million (5,000,000) $GEAR to be locked for 3 months and then linearly vested over 9 months, in line with the same vesting schedule for other contributors. At today’s fair market value, this approximately $75k, but represents both future upside as well as uncertainty in risk in both the market and future regulations. If I were to stay for a full year, then 20m GEAR tokens would represent 0.2% of the token float, which is a comparable number often offered to early contributors that take the risk of leaving “comfortable and stable” positions.
- I will cover expenses out of this distribution to attend additional conferences :
- ETH Denver (definitely, already booked)
- 2-3 other conferences which will be selected shortly based on the quality of attendees.
Team
I, Jared Hedglin, would lead the GBBD SubDAO.
I am excited to announce my candidacy for leading the GBBD SubDAO. As a dedicated contributor to Gearbox since March, I am eager to continue my efforts in growing the protocol. With my strong background in institutional crypto, boasting 4+ years of experience, I have played a key role in high-impact projects such as DAO fundraising round pitches, strategy development for V2 launch, and promoting crypto conferences and meetups. I have also been featured on 2 podcasts and 4+ Twitter spaces, and have been available to help with Ninja Mode whitelists. Furthermore, I have successfully led efforts to get Gearbox covered by top industry publications such as Nexus, Token Terminal, Exponential, Cer Live, and others, while working to expand our presence in more DeFi front ends.
I believe I’m the right candidate to lead this effort for Gearbox as I have more than 4 years of experience bringing crypto products to market for leading companies. Prior to Gearbox, I was an Executive Director at BitGo, where I was responsible for selling wallet and custody infrastructure and led the charge to integrate BitGo’s wallets with Metamask. Prior to BitGo, I worked on the Institutional Sales and Trading Desk at Coinbase. Prior to Coinabse, I sold the market leading white-label exchange technology at Alpha Point and led the international Account Management team.
Although I may not be degen enough to mint a DegenScore Beacon, I feel that it’s important that I can even reference that in a proposal. The community, including degens, chads, and whales have been incredibly supportive and impressive getting the protocol to its current TVL in a deep bear market and in a year with multiple black swans, however, in order to get to a top 10 protocol, then there needs to be someone (and eventually a team) actively working to grow these metrics.
Special thanks to Ivan, along with Derek and Spencer from Variant, and Joe from RW3 for providing feedback on this post.