😩 Biggest Challenges of A Round
Let’s be honest: managing your own quadratic funding round can be overwhelming. You have to handle advertising, onboarding sponsors, verifying projects and donors through nada.bot, managing payouts, and engaging with participants after the round concludes. You’re navigating the on-chain process while also communicating directly with teams in the support channel. Fortunately, we are here to help facilitate this process!
Here is a list of the most difficult parts of managing a quadratic funding round/pot:
Getting your committed sponsors to do an on chain donation directly to the round
Your sponsors might have verbally committed money to your matching pool, but getting them to actually transfer the funds on-chain maybe surprisingly difficult.
Many sponsors are used to traditional banking transfers but aren't familiar with cryptocurrency
The process requires multiple technical steps:
Creating a NEAR wallet (which means understanding seed phrases and wallet security)
Converting their traditional currency to NEAR tokens (requiring use of crypto exchanges)
Setting up a NEAR Social profile (an additional step beyond just having a wallet)
Understanding how to make an on-chain donation (which feels risky to those new to crypto)
Marketing the Round
Successfully launching a funding round involves much more than just making an announcement. To attract quality projects, you'll need to actively seek out initiatives that align with your round's objectives, clearly communicate the benefits of participating, and provide guidance throughout the application process.
Building a strong donor base is equally important - this means expanding beyond your current network to reach new potential contributors. You'll need to effectively articulate why participating in your round can create more impact than direct donations, while making technical concepts like quadratic funding accessible and easy to understand.
Throughout this process, maintaining brand consistency is crucial. This involves ensuring all your communications align with POTLOCK's established brand identity, crafting compelling content that clearly explains your round, and maintaining accuracy in describing the technical aspects of the funding process. Working in close coordination with POTLOCK's existing brand guidelines will help create a cohesive and trustworthy presence that resonates with both projects and donors.
Keeping Applicants Up to Date: Letting applicants know if they got rejected or accepted. We currently do not have an email service as approval and rejections for applications are on chain. One way to get relatively helpful notification is through LEARN NEAR WATCH bot or a mobile HERE wallet to get notifications about any on chain changes. So this will require direct communication with applicants for updates in their status. Get people to be on registry.
It wont show to donate until the matching round is live, and they will only show on registry
Getting People to verify humanity through nada.bot: Nada.bot can be tricky as it requires users to go on nada.bot, go to third party app and verify a credential, come back to add and reverify on the nadabot contract to get enough “points” to be a human. Then after they are human only then are they eligible to donate. This process is difficult currently in terms of UX, requires NEAR transaction fees, requires connecting to different apps, and isn’t permissionless. (This is to prevent people from matching rounds). If all else fails they can just donate to the overall matching amount (but they are donations don't get amplified, they would be displayed as sponsor who amplifies other donation)
They might donate directly to project and not in round, if they go to page and click donate
If nada.bot gets botted or clear signs of collusion: The nada.bot team may change what it means to be human and different requirements, and this may be seen as unfair. It also may hinder people that were previously considered human to no longer be before donations. It may also lead to. This is a new uncharted territory but be in the nada.bot/support team and set up communications with them so they can keep you informed of any changes. This will also make it more difficult for people to verify. The other way may be true, as being a human is too high a barrier of entry and weights may be changed and requirements may be lowered.
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