Starting a local business with G$

Governance Proposals
#1

Hi everyone! How are you?

i would like to propose an experiment - taking a portion of the G$ distribution and donating it to start a “mini-business.”

problem trying to solve

I believe today, and there’s not enough usage of G$ for real-life use-cases.

how will it work?

people would post on the forum what local business they wanted the money for
who they are
and why should we give it to them

After they take the money, the business they started should accept payment using G$.

What type of business

I think this should be a micro business like a solar panel in a village, a water point, a fridge, a maze meal, or something of that spirit that would serve a local community in an emerging market.

It should be a single experiment initially and I would cap it at 500-1000$ for a business.

What do you think? got feedback? please write it!

Do you have access to such a community that could use a 500$-1000$ investment in return for using G$ as the medium of payment? please answer with some information of who you are, the community you are coming from, your idea for a business, and how much would it cost…

love!

6 Likes
#2

Hi Tomer,
I think this proposal it’s a very great idea. That’s exactly what we expect to achieve here in Cameroon. We are working to make GoodDollar an economy, rather than just a claiming game.

I am Cyrille Frank TEUKAM, working and sales administration supervisor in a cement manufacturing company, and I am blockchain enthusiast. I believe in blockchain potential to foster development in my country. I am the country lead for GoodDollar and have a team of 04 people (Arold the developer, Florine the financial manager, Paule the public relations person and Samuel the trainer).

Here is something we started preparing for this month, and we expect to start implementation from the next month

  • we know students at university here in Cameroon, sometimes do not have enough means to afford printing their documents (nobody has a personal printer and university doesn’t provide printing, so they pay to print, scan or copy their documents), they do not have enough means to afford airtime and to afford internet access.
  • so we think of co-renting at space near university, buy a printer :printer: , buy a phone :iphone: and start the printing-airtime-internet business near university.
  • we think by inviting students association to have meeting in the place we will rent, we can then have the opportunity to teach them about crypto, we can have them participating in our different online communities and win bounties, we will have the opportunity to teach them how to claim and stake GoodDollar and how to use the G$ they earned to pay for printing, airtime and internet. Bertrand Juglas is already helping us to master the GoodDollar platforms usage in French, the most common language here.

That’s one strategy we expect to put in place to launch a kind of circular economy around universities and high schools. Starting with 01 prototype and scale it to all public or private universities and high schools, in Cameroon.

  • we hope to have the workshop on circular economy with Tomer or Gus. In order to test and improve our idea.
  • we expect GoodDollar to help us achieve this

Budget

  • Printer (which can print, copy and scan) : 300 000 XAF = $492 USD
  • cell phone : 30 000 XAF = $82 USD
  • Float MTN + airtime: 55 000 XAF minimum = $90 USD
  • Float Orange + airtime : 135 000 XAF minimum = $221 USD

Total 520 000 XAF = $851 USD

3 Likes
#3

The idea is not bad, I am not a business expert, I have been thinking about it for a long time and I cannot find the formula, in my case we have had a fruit and vegetable store for 4 years and the tax pressure is brutal, on the other hand Buying the raw material would not be a problem, the issue is how to replace it, since the central market only accepts cash payments with the local currency. Now, many people in my town are in the Project and claim every day, they hope to be able to use the G$ one day, they could start with this now, but I think that before we should give instructions personally or whatever so that they can understand the concept. :handshake::argentina:

1 Like
#4

I’m sorry if you can’t understand my writing, I only speak Spanish and I know the translator is not very friendly. :handshake::argentina:

#5

Hi @Tomerba @LeParrain @Erosmotri

I love this idea and DAO is working to set up a micro-entrepreneurship grants budget to do exactly this.

I think the key is to find the right type of items that balance up-front costs vs. running costs. I think good examples for this are stores where the DAO can help fund up-front costs and running costs / business activities take place in GoodDollars.

Examples would be what the members above suggested, like computer / printing / school set-up - but customers pay to use them in G$; Water Point / Fridge / Grind meal : customers pay to use in G$.

I think as a general ratio, the “entrepreneur” should plan to invest $200-500; and keep the balance for operating capital to help with G$ market making to kickstart the business.

What other ideas could be a good fit? I love seeing the community engage around this idea.

3 Likes
#6

I’m Christiane. In Brazil we have an NGO. Our idea would be at the bottom to open a gallery where entrepreneurs (4 stores) could sell their products and services in G$. It would be a clothing store, a hair salon, a small community restaurant and our bazaar with donated clothes. Investment of $1000usd in each little shop and $4,000usd in total.

1 Like
#7

This is amazing Tomer! This is actually something we are looking to cover with some grants! But integrating it in the protocol it’s an amazing way to keep it going and generate further impact (and probably automatization in the way) in the mid-long term.

My main doubt here is regarding the verification process, do you have any thoughts about how to get sure that money will be used for the productive activity in scope of the community, and feed that information back into the protocol for the continuity of the distribution of that money flow? How do we protect the protocol against possible free-riders that might want to trick the system?

Also, in your view, what would be the optimal governance mechanism for selecting the beneficiary business(es)? >50% approval of 1GOOD = 1Vote, or maybe other novel mechanism optimized for budget distribution like and eventual GOOD based conviction voting?

5 Likes
#8

Great idea, love it. Any way we can get G$ to circulate is a good thing!

Some of my thoughts:

  • On verification: We can’t attempt to verify local businesses or charities like this in a centralized manner. Validation will have to come from the local community. What we can do from a central perspective is give people the opportunity to for example give their upvotes to local businesses. So then philanthropists could choose to give the initial investment to businesses with lots of upvotes or other forms of positive local feedback.

  • On customers paying: A challenge that many local users will face is a lack of G$. Even if they have claimed every day for a year, they don’t have a lot. What we can do from a project side is to help find ways of on-ramping local users, so that they can load up their wallets with more G$ to spend. And from a local perspective, perhaps we should allow payments in other currencies as well, but maybe agree that at least a part of the payment should be in G$

  • On paying suppliers: A key benefit of this type of initiative is that the business owners will be encouraged to find suppliers that will accept G$ as payment. This is exactly how a circular economy is generated, when local people ask their suppliers to accept G$. I would think that it would be good if we somehow made it a criteria that the business owner NOT cash in their G$ for any other currency. I’m not saying that it has to be a hard stop, maybe more like a comittment , a word of honor.

  • On how to accept G$: Initially this might have to be a normal peer-to-peer transaction. But soon we should have a payment API / SDK available for those that want to create a payment QR code or a “Pay with G$” button for their website.

5 Likes
#9

I’m Christiane. In Brazil we have an NGO. Our idea would be at the bottom to open a gallery where entrepreneurs (4 stores) could sell their products and services in G$. It would be a clothing store, a hair salon, a small community restaurant and our bazaar with donated clothes. Investment of $1000usd in each little shop and $4,000usd in total.

2 Likes
#10

Well I don’t believe the DAO can handle neither the verification or the voting I believe there should be a buffer I would suggest the following

The dao votes (normal vote, 1 GOOD = 1 vote)

Ona wallet manage in a multisig of 3 people

These 3 people will be the full owners of the process

  1. Selecting the right people
  2. Verification as much as possible
  3. Reporting back to the DAO

I don’t believe the dao as a dao has the ability to handle such micro stuff

We should start small with a 2000$ experiment simply use mint function - doesn’t take any development

3 Likes
#11

Looking for the correct and safe ways to do this, we should trust above all, to people who make their microenterprise proposal with G$ and also who have been claiming and supporting the Project for more than 1 year, a filter is not bad, in addition to that, I think that to begin with, it could also be that other currencies are accepted in payment for the products, until a complete circle is made. In my case, for example, I have the appropriate place to set up a Mobile and Computer repair shop, where at least 2 people could work, adopt payment to all those who are in my place of residence and continue to bring people closer together. to GoodDollar. :handshake:

1 Like
#12

I would say that in the beginning we should start without any further development it could be done by simply voting on a “print” of x G$

I think the initial print should be with normal
Voting as exist today, but the money should be minted to a multisig of 3 people who would have a full control over the process, electing, verification and reporting back to the DAO.

I would say with like 2000$ and 3 business experiment I believe we will learn a lot in the process

2 Likes
Proposal In Making G$ A Means Of Payment For Haircut
#13

:fire: :fire: :fire:
we should target this kind of selection Criteria

@jessica let’s make the next community call about this.

1 Like
#14

Definitely! I’ll ask @Tomerba to join the call as well :slight_smile:

#15

Where do you guys propose we keep the repository of signups from local businesses? I imagine we could build something really quick on Notion for example as a starting place. A table would be a better place to keep signups than this Discourse forum.

It would then be great in the longer run if we could build a place where anyone can sign up and describe their business (similar to Giveth), where users can choose to donate, and where then the total donations are tallied up based on quadratic funding mechanisms. This way we wouldn’t need any voting functionality at all. Instead, when people individually choose to fund local initiatives, then we could use this as the ultimate indicator of trust and vote of confidence. Centrally minted G$ could be allocated as a quadratic match. We are uniquely positioned to handle quadratic funding, since we have a built-in personhood validation. Let’s leverage that!

How would this work:

  • We would let any local business sign up, and let anyone donate to them after doing their own research

  • Donations would be summed up and tallied based on the “square of the sum of the square roots of individual donations”.

  • Totals could be done for example based on a rolling 12 month average, so that old businesses with old donations but no new activity are eventually bumped down.

  • Users can filter for local businesess by country and can sort them by amount of donors that already trust them enogh to donate to them

  • The DAO can mint G$ and donate in proportion to the quadratic tally

What do you think? Is this something we should put out for a Bounty? Or develop ourselves?

2 Likes
#17

You have my full support in using Notion to organize and display this, and we welcome any contributors who would be interested in building that MVP!

#18

Hey @LeParrain this sounds great.
You specified the initial expenses, what about ongoing expenses?
Would you need to pay rent?

Thanks

#19

Hey @ProfChristianetm can you elaborate more?

#20

We would not rent. The space would be given by a partner social institution

#21

Yes @sirpy you are right. I forgot to mention it. But we will need to pay a rent for the space. It is 90$ per month. And that amount includes electricity bill. Thanks