Wada Web3 Education DAO Valuation

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Templating a valuation method for Wada's Web3 Education DAO will ensure that we maximize impact funding & investment, plus create tooling for other community orgs in the Cardano ecosystem to utilize

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Wada is a Cardano-based network of 100+ professionals focused on connecting the world to Africa using blockchain and AI, and with a consistent project delivery record. Edify's expertise spans every aspect of business from commercial and financial through to culture and strategy.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Summary

WadaOrg currently consists of a core international oversight and local groups working to use blockchain to build inclusive systems in Africa and diaspora. This helps increase market share for the blockchain platforms and communities we work with. To date the Cardano community has been our main collaborator and sponsor and has helped us reach over 10,000+ people through our hybrid education and awareness events, targeted Catalyst onboarding programs, projects and social media channels. In return, we have helped to significantly grow the Cardano community in West and Central Africa. To better organize and maintain this growth, this proposal aims to help build and incorporate known and emerging tools, standards and processes into a distributed governance or DAO model. The many components and complexities to building a truly decentralized governance model necessitates that this proposal focuses primarily on one of Wada’s key pillars; Education, which is our foundational community building and expansion tool.

The challenge we face is one of recognition of the full value created by organizations such as Wada, whether or not they’re in the Cardano ecosystem. Traditional accounting methods of valuing a business do not recognize the full commercial or cultural value that has created. In fact up to 80% of the value of a business is not accounted for. For organizations such as WADA This is further compounded as they are not primarily valued in terms of revenue or profit.

Additionally, at an operational level if we can't measure the full potential of the commercial and cultural value of an organization, then how can you manage it to its full potential.

Wada needs to raise funds to grow the reach of Cardano in Africa. This proposal therefore seeks to create a high-impact fundraising and community investment prototype by working with Edify CoLab to evaluate and package Wada's Web3 Education DAO for monetization. Not only will this be a potentially attractive community investment opportunity, but it will also provide a methodology for other impact enterprises in the Cardano ecosystem to capture value for investment launchpads like Cardashift

Reasons for our approach

Our solution is to template or prototype a full value framework for the valuation of an educational technology organization such as Wada and our Web3 Education DAO in particular.

The full value method Edify will template has been successfully used in the off-chain business world with institutions such as the education services department of Imperial College London

Value add

Our solution will add value not only for Wada - as we will gain the best possible financing options for our work and that of potential investors, but allow similar organizations as ours to benefit from the same approach for their own valuations.

Sustainability

Our view of sustainability is using resources better to grow long-term asset value, which is the intent of WADA with this proposal – not just the assets of WADA but of many other organizations.

Business sustainability

We will deliver the long-term business survivability of Wada by having the right resources in the right place at the right time to be able to make a long-term sustainable impact.

Environmental sustainability and impact

This will provide a clear understanding of purpose and impact, and by working with environmental sustainability goals will deliver commercial and cultural impact.

Stakeholders

Our project will have multiple stakeholders:

1. Wada’s Web3 education DAO as the enterprise on which the full value framework is developed and tested
2. Edify CoLab who will provide the full value framework and develop the scope of work for templating
3. Cardashift and other ecosystem launchpads will have an expanded list of projects for community investors
4. Impact entities dependent on Catalyst funding will develop a pathway to sustainability

Project Implementation

• The project will be implemented in phases.
• Phase 1 will be the development of the scope of work for templating the valuation framework.
• Phase 2 Comprehensive data gathering and valuation components outline 
• Phase 3 will be the development against the scope of work.
• Phase 4 will be testing the framework with focus groups 
• Phase 5 will show how the completed valuation can be packaged for investors

Project Outputs

What

We will produce and template a valuation framework that is used to:

1. Generate a full valuation of Wada’s Web3 Education DAO for use in its funding applications
2. Guide the coaching, mentoring and scale-up of Wada’s Web3 Education DAO and other Wada products.

Use case

• As a result of this project, the full value of WADA, and the businesses that underpin the Cardano ecosystem, will be recognized

Value to Cardano Community

• The Edify CoLab full value framework is the result of decades worth of experience in the off-chain business world. Translating it into a framework template will increase the value of the companies that are operating in the Cardano ecosystem that will reflect in the overall value of the ecosystem itself.

Beneficiaries

1. Wada, Catalyst & Cardano – will be the initial direct beneficiaries of the project as a proper valuation will enable Wada to continue to expand the Cardano Community in Africa but in a self-sustaining way with eventually less dependence on Catalyst funding
2. Cardashift - Greater variety of organizations with tangible investable properties will benefit and validate Cardashift’s business model.
3. Other Cardano on and off-chain businesses – will experience a full valuation of their businesses, and will be able to more effectively use their assets for business growth 
4. Edify CoLab – will gain reputational benefit as our systems underpin the growth in value of the ecosystem.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Number of POC trials that can be run with impact-oriented projects

• Developing this valuation framework will give Wada and similar impact organizations a clear and easy path to developing PoC trials to monetize their projects .

Time required to validate the impact value ?

• This template will enable a quick and easy methodology that will significantly lower the time and effort to demonstrate the full value, and enable monetization for investment.

How much financial value can be derived from impact-oriented projects ?

• Because this framework goes beyond using traditional accounting methods of valuing a business, the full commercial or cultural value that Wada has acquired can be captured for monetization.  

Longer term

• Over the long term, it is anticipated that that the number of token issuers and transactions on the Cardashift platform will increase as more non-traditional businesses utilize the framework to enable monetization

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

• Businesses are too busy working in the business not on it. This is common in all growth businesses. Wada is no exception

The mitigation is to carefully select participants that they are ready to manage the balance between ‘maker time’ and ‘manager time’.

• Risk – Failing to describe the solution that delivers the outcomes required by the business use case in terms that will lead to a coherent scope of work for the development phase of the project in the future

We will spend time upfront to understand needs and collect appropriate information to enable deliver the solution, and to escribe it in a scope of work

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Timeline, plan and key milestones

Week 1 Preparatory Events

• Edify Project Setup        
• Edify Audit tool build

Weeks 2-6 Information Gathering

• Wada Research and data-gathering for valuation 

Weeks 7-12 Audits and Workshops

• Edify Valuation Audits 
• Complete internal audit
• Complete purpose audit
• Complete market audit
• Complete external valuation audit
• Edify Workshops Facilitation 
• Internal audit workshop
• Purpose audit workshop
• Market audit workshop
• External valuation workshop

Month 4 Testing

• Wada Focus group testing events x3

Month 5-6 Investment & Monetization Packaging

• Edify Investment Packaging   
• Vision and strategy
• Development of business plan
• Scenario planning exercise
• Creation of investor deck
• Investment plan

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Budget $30,000 

• Edify Project Setup     $800 (4 work-hours @200/hr)
• Edify Audit tool build   $800 (4 work-hours @200/hr)
• Wada Research and data-gathering for valuation $5000 (100 work-hours @50/hr)
• Edify Valuation Audits $ 4800 (24 work-hours @200/hr)
• Complete internal audit
• Complete purpose audit
• Complete market audit
• Complete external valuation audit
• Edify Workshops Facilitation  $ 4800 (24 work-hours @200/hr)
• Internal audit workshop
• Purpose audit workshop
• Market audit workshop
• External valuation workshop
• Wada Focus group testing events $4800 (3 events @1600/event)
• Edify Investment Packaging   $4000 (24 work-hours @200/hr)
• Vision and strategy
• Development of business plan
• Scenario planning exercise
• Creation of investor deck
• Investment plan
• Overall Project Management & Coordination $5000 (Dedicated project manager will be sourced @ 50/hr for predicted 100 hours of work)

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Mercy

Coordination Lead @ Wada. Is the Funded Proposer's Rep on Catalyst Circle v3 and is keenly interested in governance, inclusion and community building. She has a combined 25+ years' experience in Project Management and Engagement (West Africa, Canada) Healthcare (UK, Canada) and brings a wealth of experience and passion to this project. Mercy is responsible for Wada coordination, and building partnerships.

Harry Hellyer

NED, and chairman, executive and business coach specialicing in full value-based impact innovation programmes for enterprises and organisations.

Founding partner of 50th Generation – one of the UK's first Social Business Generational Accelerators – 2014-2018

Credited for supporting the development of the NHS's first Sustainable Development Vision and Strategy programme.

Coached Fellows on the Cambridge University, Programme for Sustainable Development,

Coached Fellows and Lectured for the Cambridge University, Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning - Social Enterprise

VP and director of strategy, marketing strategy and business development for several global IT, media and telecoms companies.

Alan Casey

Alan is a specialist in technology – business process integration. He will lead the investigation into the needs of the use cases, their interpretation in technical scopes of work and the drafting of the resultant whitepaper.

Manager of a sovereign national grid control centre during a period of technological and cultural change.

Founder and consultant in an organisational effectiveness measurement system deployed into a global advertising and marketing communications network.

Founder of a conversational AI company creating systems that evaluate and improve competence in key organisational skills.

Member of the Edify Community.

Fellow of the RSA.

Jude Ugwuegbulam

Jude help’s Coaches & Consultants digitise their customer journey and turn strategic ideas into business assets. Resulting in more leads, more sales and automated support. Helps Professional Practices (HR, Legal and Dental) struggling to implement and manage their data protection/GDPR compliance to gain clarity, control and, accountability.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

No

This is a one time valuation and framework development project. Once completed, the methodology can be reapplied to other impact ventures in the Catalyst community.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

The following will be the tracking metrics for this project

• Project milestones achieved within budget and on-time (Project management and monitoring tool)
• Project is well scoped, with identified team members and clear roles (completed Project setup)
• Gaps well-defined in the exploration stage. (Quality of audit documents assessment)
• Standardized easy to use tool developed for data collection (Experiential questionnaire)
• Focus group events and workshops is well attended and engaging (number of consistent attendees)
• Quality and ease of use of valuation framework methodology (clarity of vision and strategy statements, business and investment plans)

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

• Success for this project, in the first instance, is a framework template for Wada and Wada’s Web3 Education DAO which we can use to not only value our businesses, but to have a clear growth and funding path.
• Ultimately, success will be the existence of appropriately valued impact enterprises in the Cardano ecosystem that attracts investment for sustainability.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is an entirely new Wada proposal although it builds on some of our previous successes.

This proposal is however linked to: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/419058