Evolute for a LEAN, pragmatism driven Catalyst

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Kiriakos Krastillis

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

f10-catalyst-ops@evolute.software

Additional applicants

The CatOps team

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

12

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

Yes

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

Technically we would depend on a good and tight collaboration with the current Catalyst Operator IOHK as well as the blessing and support of the Cardano Foundation (which the treasury actually belongs to).

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

No

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

evolute.software is an open source company. But as significant portions of the catalyst infrastructure are proprietary and it is unclear how much of that we will be able to redefine/opensource/etc it cannot be said that the whole project will be open source.

evolute.software and Kiriakos Krastillis both are committed to open source and will try to maximize the amount of transparency and actual open source that can be introduced to the operation.

[METADATA] Category of proposal

Other

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Evolute Software, lead by Kiriakos Krastillis, sets up an operations team for Catalyst that can deal with day to day ops but also provides dedicated competence in tech and fund management.

This will be a full time team comprised of senior professionals from the Finance, Tech, Blockchain and Startup industries.

Our core principles will be lean and effective operations. This task contains a big array of responsibilities. As time progresses priorities will change but our commitment to providing meritocratic funding for the Cardano community will remain our north star.

To keep moving in the right direction we will also endeavor to variate the established quality assurance processes that Catalyst already has. Ensuring that Catalyst remains equitable while also fostering the creation of high value investments into the Cardano ecosystem.

As a decentralized collective, Cardano is on a path of growth right now. We need to focus on establishing the right environment so that Catalyst can truly be a catalyst to this growth, fostering it and finding new pathways for it.

In order to achieve this we will implement a typical dual workstream system where one stream focuses on stable operations and the other one on evolution of the system from a holistic perspective.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Catalyst Day to Day operations:

We will start with what IOG already has running and their own feedback on what they think works and does not. We will further build up channels and incentive mechanisms for the Cardano community to ensure Catalyst's operations and administrative functions run lean and are effective. The motivation is to set up the parameters and mechanisms to allow the community to democratically keep the system running well.

Further we will set up feedback and consultation channels with the Cardano Foundation and with organizations commited to Cardano.

In the long term we can see how formal groups will emerge out of Voltaire and we will want to include their feedback as well.

Innovation Funding Requests:

A fund is nothing without valid applicants. IOHK has already done a commendable job in setting up a system that remains as equitable as possible while allowing for innovation of varying degrees of ambitiousness. On a technical level we think we can build on that and we think the best way to do this is, alongside to the IOHK move towards more open Catalyst infrastructure, to move Catalyst more towards community operated solutions (LidoNation for example) as well.

But tools do not necessarily improve the amount or quality of innovation proposals. To cultivate those we will take concepts of the startup investment world like accelerators, bootstraping processes, etc and add them in a controlled way to the catalyst proposal process. These "advanced" methodologies will not be necessary for the individual or group that has a concrete proposal and means to do it. They will be there as options, running next to institutions like town hall events and enriching the way inspired community members can reach the proposal stage.

Funding Innovation that provides a long term benefit to Cardano as a whole is Catalysts main product. This is important to keep getting right!

Accountability measures:

We again mean to start with the setup of IOHK and start evolving it. VCs will often put a lot of work in selecting the entities they fund. In Catalyst the consensus seems to be that we need to be a bit more permissive to ensure fairness. We will keep an eye on this thesis or other insights that might emerge.

Coupled with the existing tooling and the further investment into community led initiatives for feedback on Catalyst and Catalyst funded projects we will embark on an improvement journey to find out how we can change the Catalyst accountability setup in order to improve it or remove deficiencies.

Program Outputs:

We fully intend to continue the outreach and output processes that IOHK has established. There has been some chatter in the community that the spreadsheets are getting cumbersome so we will keep an eye on whether some of the selected tools can be replaced by purpose made open source solutions.

Implementing Tech Requirements:

Based on the challenge setting the requirements of implementing technology are not clearly spelled out. What everybody will agree on, is that this task requires significant expertise in running complex IT systems. Our team contains multiple senior tech experts with documented track records of creating and operating complex systems in production, as well as long experience with collaborations with contractors and allies. We are confident that we will be capable of addressing the technical side.

Experience in Fund management:

I, Kiriakos Krastillis have built and been responsible of larger IT organizations at PwC for many years. Amongst the responsibilities to create and operate these teams I also had responsibilities along the lines of financial accounting and compliance. Not only this but our operation was set in an environment of abundant ideas. Setting up the interfaces with the company and stakeholders in a way that the ideas with most merit where worked on (and defining what merit meant at any given point) where also part of the job. I also intend to bring on one person from a prestigious startup accelerator program to bring a bit more Startup DNA into the existing team.

We think our team concept and approach to this serious challenge provide a mature and well balanced solution to the problem. We think we exceede the requirements and by following our principled approach we ensure smooth operation continuity while at the same time enabling solid avenues for even better Catalyst operations and more impressive Catalyst results in the future.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

The success of our stewardship will be measured using a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics that reflect the project's effect on the Cardano ecosystem.

Quantitatives:

In a lot of cases some upfront work will need to be done to establish KPIs. Often there are readily availble metrics but there are nuances to their meaning which cannot remain unaddressed for the numbers to make sense. We will be specifically interested in defining KPIs and their meaning for

• Community Participation (thesis: only a well participated Catalyst is a good one)
• Proposal Quality
• Funded Proposal Implementation (by what a degree did a specific proposal reach its implementation)
• Funded Proposal Impact (by what a degree did a specific proposal reach its envisioned impact)
• Side effecting impact (in the long or short term, we will fund proposals that produce unintended results or interfere with one another, we should be keeping an eye on this)

Qualitatives:

Qualitative measuring is HARD. But while data driven quantitative analysis might be a buzzword somewhere, if your goal is to make a whole ecosystem successful in the long term, you won't get around qualitatives.

We believe that qualitatives need to be formalized somehow and then collected and evaluated as sentiment style metrics. But we also understand that a lot of things that might appear qualitative might as well contain some objective quantitative measurements in them. There already has been some work done in this area by Catalyst proposals and IOHK itself. We will pick up where this prior work ended and integrate the insights into our decision making, evaluation of operations and funded projects as well as formal papers about them.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

This is a big and complex operation so the various results will be published through the channels they are most fit for.

In general we intend to increase the written documentation of what is happening. Videos are great but less toolable than text.

This does in no way mean that we will stop live sessions and broadcasts. Video and especially live interactive reporting is important. It only means that there will be more textual reporting to scrutinize by the community.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Kiriakos Krastillis has the required experience in creating teams and establishing operations in environments like catalyst. His two decades in the IT industry and multiple years of experience with Cardano allow him to comfortably steer such a multifaceted operation.

evolute software (a registered company in Germany established solely for Catalyst and Cardano business) will be the commercial entity executing the work.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

• We already have experience with how successful innovation organizations work.
• We are experienced with Catalyst.
• Our approach is principled and iterative.

As per the Catalyst moniker: "things may break or change"

But with our approach we think things "won't lack documentation".

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

1. Start handover wit IOHK
2. Set up communications channels with the Cardano Foundation and important Cardano community entities
3. Finalize and announce team (while I already have spoken with most of my intended team the team members themselves wish to remain anonymous due to complications with current employers)
4. Complete IOHK handover
5. Establish the advanced innovation intake manifolds (discussed prior)
6. Start planing of the next fund
7. Execute next fund
8. Evaluate insights and understanding together with stakeholders and community
9. Launch improvement initiatives
10. GOTO 6.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

1. Handover documentation and formalization about some of the scope aspects that aren't defined clearly
2. Communications channels with the Cardano Foundation and important Cardano community entities
3. The Evolute CatOps Team
4. Completed IOHK handover
5. Something like a startup accelerator process, only more Catalyst native
6. Fund outline for next fund
7. Fund documentation and accountability artifacts
8. Publications and broadcasts regarding insights, workshops on refining insights and plot actionable items
9. Documented improvement initiatives with their own Catalyst like accountability framing

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

As this is a permanent team setup with multiple workstreams executing in parallel it doesn't lend itself to a milestone driven approach.

Nonetheless one can qualify the milestones in to distinct phases

Setup: (30% of budget to get everything running and ensure payroll for 4-6 Months)

M1-M3 and M5

Handover (10% of budget)

M4

Execution (rest of budget issued in tranches)

M6-M9

Especially M9 will introduce varying expenditure. We might try and just make it a part of catalyst in the long term but it will be helpful to initially have a small funding pot (roughly 30% of total funding) to directly fund the development of certain small tools.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

We think our team concept and approach to this serious challenge provide a mature and well balanced solution to the problem. We think we exceede the requirements and by following our principled approach we ensure smooth operation continuity while at the same time enabling solid avenues for even better Catalyst operations and more impressive Catalyst results in the future.

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept