Reference Guide

This page lists all information that is either required or desired when submitting a proposal.

The Required fields have to be answered in order to be eligible for a grant. 
The Optional fields are recommended, to make your proposal stand out positively among the competition. 

Project/Company – Optional 
Only if you represent a company. Individual developers or informal teams are also very welcome.

website(if any) – Optional 
If your team or your project has a dedicated website you can add it here. If the scope of the site is larger than the scope of the proposal, explain how the Deef Funding proposal relates to the topic of the website.

Summary – Required
Describe the idea in less than xx words.

Problem description – Optional  
Is there a specific problem your project is going to solve?

Solution description – Optional  
How will your project solve this problem

Founder/Team video pitch – Optional 
(YouTube or other link describing the idea/proposal in detail)
While not required, having a short 3-5 minute introduction video will greatly help us get your proposal across in our Youtube channel. You can define your own format, but a personal touch, seeing one of the team members present, will enhance the attractiveness and credibility of the proposal 

Links to external documentation – Optional 
This could be a pitch deck, or a youtube video, or an infographic. Realistically, an 80-page long specification document will not have a good chance of getting read by the general public. 

How will this project benefit the SNET AI platform? – Required
This can refer to Attractive services, API calls, Ethics, and in some cases even to Marketing reach or Brand awareness. 

Long description – Optional 
Describe the project in sufficient detail

Competitive landscape – Optional 
Is there a good market fit? Are there competing services out there? What makes your service better? 

Marketing Plan – Optional 
Showing that you have not only thought about building a solution but also on how to roll it out and drive adoption will be a great feature of your proposal!

Team Information – Required
This is a crucial part of any project. Describe what your team looks like, what each person’s role is and what knowledge and experience they have. A good proposal is not only based on a good idea but also on your ability to execute that idea. Of course, some proposals can be developed and delivered by a single person and that’s fine too! 

What do you need besides funding? – Optional 
If you are still missing certain expertise in your team this is a good time to reach out to community members that may want to help you! Once you find a good addition to your team, you can just update your proposal with that information, before the voting begins. 

Open source? (Y | N | n/a) – Required
Our community is open source minded, so publishing your code as open-source may give you an edge. But this is certainly not a requirement. 

Funding required incl Breakdown – Required
State the amount of funding needed in Dollars and give a convincing breakdown of the costs and your argumentation where relevant. 
Important: include the 25% that is allocated to API calls or hosting costs as part of your breakdown, or explain why it is not relevant.

Development plan and Product roadmap with milestones to be tracked – Required 
This is important! Each project needs to define a number of milestones. 
Each milestone should come with 

  • A demonstrable deliverable (if possible)
  • The part of the total funding amount that should be disbursed upon delivery. 

We will allow the projects some freedom to define reasonable increments. But the more clarity the project is able to offer the better it will be received by the community. Very small projects may just have a single milestone for the end deliverable. But the larger the project is, the more important it is for us to have good governance. As a rule, disbursements for individual milestones should not exceed 20K, unless a clear argumentation is given. For smaller projects, smaller increments are a better fit.

Any conflicts/legal constraints – Required
If there are any known legal restrictions related to the usage or commercial utility of your product, let us know. Not doing so may impact the continuity of your funding. If there are no known conflicts or constraints you can just mention that.