I was very interested in the topic of the small ENS talent pool, which was raised in the discussion about the amendments to the Working Group Rules. Therefore, I decided to analyze what methods the working groups are currently using to develop this pool. By methods here, I mean funding - no matter what anyone says, receiving funds is the main motivator for contribution.
I counted how many unique individuals/organizations received money from ENS in different quarters since the working groups existed and which of them were newcomers when they received it. I did not include salaries, compensation for travel to events, hackathons, and service providers.
As you can see, in 2024 there was a significant decline in unique organizations working with ENS. In addition, the number of new grant recipients decreased from a total of 98 in 2023 to a total of 37 in 2024.
Why is this happening?
I believe it is because people and organizations do not see opportunities to safely build a business or career within ENS from scratch.
I have not done a deep analysis, but using the Ledger, you can see that working groups have become less likely to allocate funds for small incentivizations, and the number of grant categories under which you could receive funds has decreased.
The Small Grants program, which allowed contributors to democratically receive funds from the DAO for project development, has been closed.
The Builders subgroup has been eliminated, along with the Builders Grants program, which rewarded contributors for improving the ENS code.
The Fellowship and Scholarship programs have been closed. Through this tool, Solo contributors could receive funds and build a larger project within ENS in the future.
The Community/Support subgroups have been closed. Previously, Discord moderators and active community members could receive rewards for helping the community grow. Now, only 1 person receives funds under this payment item.
The Translators subgroup was dissolved. One could say that this category does not replenish the talent pool, but in fact, @letfrz came to ENS in this way, and now writes review articles on grant recipients. My first contribution to ENS was also translating the application into Russian. If we talk about the PG focus of this category, Fabio Anaya, who translated the application into Spanish, founded the web3 company Bucks Pay this year. Let me remind you that the current version of the ENS application has been translated into only 6 languages, and French, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese are not among them.
It is worth noting that Ecosystem WG allocates so-called Mini grants - 3 ETH every six months. A great initiative to support small contributions. PG had similar Growth Grants, but they closed for some reason.
Why is this important?
This discussion comes amid the steward debate, but there will also be an SP election coming up soon. I found that the current stewards and SP founders either worked with ENS before the working groups were formed, or started small initiatives that helped them build their seed money and reputation.
Service Providers:
Wildcard Labs was founded by @stevegachau.eth (Ledger), who received regular and small grants.
Namespace was founded by @cap (Ledger), who received small and Builders grants.
Unruggable was founded by @Premm.eth (Ledger), who received small and Builders grants, and was also a Fellow.
Blockful was founded by @alextnetto.eth (Ledger), who received small grants.
Namehash Labs (Ledger) was founded by @lightwalker.eth, then received small and regular grants.
ETHLimo was a grant recipient for several years before becoming a provider. Unicorn, Resolverworks, and EFP were founded by people who worked with ENS before the WGs were founded.
Stewards:
Marcus (Ledger) did a bunch of communications projects, was a DAO SMM manager, and wrote a newsletter before becoming a steward. To me, this is a golden example of how you can develop talent by financially rewarding their small and medium-sized projects.
184 (Ledger) was a Discord moderator and an active community member. I donât know if he got paid for this, but itâs safe to say that the âfrom Discord to stewardsâ path worked before.
Eduardo (Ledger) received financial onboarding. This is actually a great practice, and itâs unclear why itâs not used more widely.
Correct me if Iâm wrong, but Coltron, Slobo, Limes, 5pence, and Simona joined ENS either before the WGs were formed or shortly after.
To become a service provider, you certainly need to prove your usefulness to ENS first. And to do this, you need to hire employees, build infrastructure, and implement several small projects. This obviously requires money, so you either need to already have funds, or find an investor, or receive grants from ENS through fewer channels than before, which do not include such boosting features as Small and Builders grants.
To become a steward, you certainly need to prove your usefulness to ENS first. You donât need any seed money for this, but you need money to exist at least. Who knows, it may take more than one year to get the position, and working for free for a person without savings sounds like gambling. And such a concept as savings, I will not hesitate to remind you, exists only in developed countries. Previously, you could get a boost through working with the community or scholarship programs.
Questions for Steward Candidates
The elections start tomorrow. I am not a delegate, but a relatively active participant and would be glad to see the answers to the questions below. They probably concerns Metagov stewards less, since this group is focused on working with existing and developed structures.
Do you see a problem here? What ways do you see to correct the situation in which an organization with a billion-dollar treasury has a âsmall pool of talentâ? Maybe revive old practices or come up with new ones?