Today, you'll discover an intro to our brand new series with GoodDollar, where we explore how a project that started with universal basic income is growing into a thriving ecosystem, how Good Builders in Flow State are pioneering streaming-based funding, where money flows to builders continuously instead of in one-off grants, the outcomes and standout stories from Good Builders Season 3, a real-world case study of this model, and how any ecosystem or community could run their own streaming funding rounds with GD. Welcome to CryptoUltrupts, where we explore the intersections of Web3 and Social Good to the stories of impact-driven builders and offer actionable insights to empower your journey into the world of blockchain for good. I'm your host, Drew Simon. Now, before we dive in, please remember that this is not financial or legal advice, and always do your own research on any of the projects or investment opportunities that we discuss. Welcome back to the Crypto Ultraist Podcast, and I am so excited today. Not only did we kick off our participation in Octan Epoch 12, which we're very excited for, but today also marks the first episode of a brand new series called Building for Good, where we will explore the people, projects, and communities powering the Good Dollar ecosystem. It's gonna be a lot of fun, and we're thankful to our friends at GoodDollar for partnering on this series. And in the coming episodes, we're gonna take you deep inside one of the most interesting ecosystems in the Web3 for Good Space, exploring everything from universal basic income to public goods funding models and the builders and communities creating real value on the ground. So let me start with a quick introduction for anyone who's new to GoodDollar. Good Dollar is a protocol delivering digital universal basic income to people all over the world. Since launching, it's distributed its G Dollar token to about 1 million people across the globe, many of them in underserved and emerging markets, simply for being part of the network. The vision has always been about using crypto to redistribute opportunity and give people access to the financial system. But here's what makes this series timely. Good Dollar is in the middle of an exciting evolution. What started purely as a UBI project five years ago is growing into something bigger, a full ecosystem where G Dollar doesn't just get distributed, it circulates. It flows through builders, communities, and public goods, creating value and opportunity along the way. It's a game-changing shift from simply giving people a token to building an entire economy around it. And at the heart of this shift is a program called Good Builders, which funds the builders expanding the GoodDollar ecosystem. And what's particularly fascinating and especially relevant for our audience is how GoodBuilders is funded. Rather than the traditional grant model where you apply, wait, and hope for a one-time check, GoodBuilders uses streaming funding through a platform called Flowstate, where money flows to builders continuously over time. So without further ado, let's kick off the series. And I'm super excited to be joined by Marie Fernandez Sancho and Real Colonzo of GoodDollar and Graven Press to FlowState to introduce the partnership, walk through the outcomes of Good Builder season three, highlight some of the most exciting projects in the ecosystem, and explore why this streaming funding model can be a blueprint that other ecosystems and communities adopt for themselves. So let's dive in. Today I'm so excited to kick off episode one of our series with our friends from GoodDollar. And today we're going to be welcoming also a guest from FlowState to talk about the partnership and how they've been working together to put together a really cool model for how communities can uh allocate funds to projects. And um, so I'm really excited to have with me Graven from Flow State and Marie and Rael from Good Dollar. So thank you so much for being here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having us. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's gonna be a fascinating conversation. Um, but maybe to kick things off, let's just start with a quick intro. If we could just go around who you are and how you found your way to working with Good Dollar or Flow State.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I I think I can get started. Honestly, like this question is always one of my favorite ones. Like how people got to work into Web3, right? Like it's usually like very fascinating. Uh I'm gonna keep it short. So, like my background is in politics. I studied in Barcelona, and what I like about my degree is that it kind of trained me to look at society from like very different angles, like governance, economics, history, philosophy, and essentially like kind of like question yourself how systems work, how they serve, or how they could be improved. Um, I think like afterwards I work in growth and marketing, especially in public administrations, entrepreneurs, and growing different projects and companies. So I always been really close to the practical side of communicating ideas, bringing them to life, and helping them growth. I was also really interested in technology, a little bit of a nerd here, video games and all that kind of stuff stuff, right? Uh and I think like like many, many people, I first heard about Bitcoin around 2016. But at that time it felt like, oh, this is another speculative asset. I'm not interested in it. So yeah, I didn't buy it. Mistakes, right? But uh for me, everything, everything changed after the pandemic when one of my best friends started to work on a blockchain project that was using like this technology to find a better solution for electronic voting and real-world elections. And I was like, wait, hold on a second. This is really cool. What do you mean that we can use this technology to tackle problems like that? It was kind of like wow. So from that, I think like we all know how it goes, right? I went down like the rabbit hole, Ethereum, DeFi, Dallos, got involved in the different communities, and eventually I discovered like crypto UBI through like proof of humanity. And I think like overall, I truly believe that this technology can really tackle like important issues. I think that's what brought me into Good Dollar and started working in Tugway 3. Because for me, it connected like a lot of the things that I care about it. Uh I've been in Good Dollar now for like four years. Uh, my official title is growth lead, right? Uh, four years, like a lifetime in crypto. But I think like what it keeps me like excited is like the same thing that brought me in uh using this technology to build a more inclusive system and tackle real world problems.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's awesome. Really cool. Uh well, thanks for taking the time to introduce it. You're right, it is a long time in crypto to be somewhere for four years. Congrats on uh sticking with it and seeing it through and seeing it grow into something really powerful, which we're gonna talk about today. Riel, do you want to give a quick intro? You've been on the podcast before, obviously, so listeners may be familiar with you, but maybe you can just give a quick uh little recap of who you are and how you found your way to Good Dollar, and then I'm excited to introduce uh Graven and Flow State as well.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Um, I mean, thank you. I know you've had this story many times, so hopefully it's not very boring for you. But my path has been quite natural and comes to Web3. I mean, I did information systems, um, uh that led into also a master's in cybersecurity, um, and all this kind of like, you know, came together when I worked with different organizations that were dealing in Web3, studying with Polygon and Harmony, uh, which led me to work with Tools for Humanity, um, which actually led me to work with uh Godella today. Um, and similar to Mary, I think for me, um, I mean, of course, the it feels like a lifetime being here for like being in the in the space for like more than five years, right? It feels like a lifetime. Everything is changing all the time. It's pretty exciting. So um I think it's a space that keeps evolving um and things keep changing, especially even now with like the you know, agent take AI, everything just merging together uh with UBI, with uh blockchain. I think this is a very interesting space, which makes it feel like a lifetime. Um and yeah, so my work with Goodolla, um similar to also Mary, um I think I'm very um passionate about like impact projects, right? Um and Good Dollar happens to be one of them. And just uh even being from Africa, uh from Kenya and working on a project that promotes inclusivity, financial inclusion, uh, and basically supporting people, you know, with no bounds. Um, I think that is very special to me and uh speaks to the work that I'm doing at Good Dollar today. My official title is Dev Community Lead, um, which is super exciting. And we're gonna dive deeper into it um later during the podcast.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, awesome, cool. Well, well, thank you so much for introducing yourself. Uh yeah, you have a really cool job. Um, and uh seeing you kind of uh, you know, the role you played in Good Builders, uh it was pretty exciting and getting to see all those incredible, you know, projects building on the ground as well. So we'll dive into all that, of course. But you know, I'd love to introduce Graven now. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh appreciate you having me and hanging out with these awesome people. Um so I'm Graven, I'm one of the co-founders at Flow State. My journey to Web3 parallels a lot of uh what Mary and Rael said um in kind of the motivations and the evolution and going down the rabbit hole. My career's always been kind of I've I've worked in technology, I'm not a uh a developer by training, but I have always kind of been at the intersection between the developers and the business sort of stuff, and worked in some enterprise organizations and then some startups and was aware of crypto and Ethereum kind of going back. But really in 2019, when a different startup I was at working at was winding down, um, I had met a lot of really interesting people or like had talked about what is possible systemically uh to build within specifically Ethereum. And so in 2019, I started, I kind of committed full time. I was like, this is what I want to do, um, and just started exploring. And I feel really lucky or around that time. I'm I mean, the pandemic happened and all that sort of stuff, like definitely changed the trajectory. But during that time, um, everyone's online. Obviously, there was speculation, but I found a little niche in public goods, and part of that happened because hey, I wanted to do this radical open source thing and found Gitcoin and got in one of the early quadratic funding rounds and got enough money to get motivated and to build something. And I felt so lucky to do that. It's like, how how is this happening? Like, usually, like, I don't know, you have to write huge grants and all this sort of stuff. And here I am feeling maybe like an imposter. Like, hey, I'm just joining this space, got some crazy ideas, and people are willing to support. And so, really, that's set the trajectory for me and the things that I've worked on since then is trying to pay that forward and try to create other opportunities. Um, there's obviously like uh like good ideas are not concentrated in any zip code or country, and we need to spread the opportunities far and wide. And so public goods funding has always been at the core of that. Um, worked on some projects. I'm kind of a mechanism nerd, radical exchange, harburger taxes, quadratic funding, quadratic voting, all those sorts of things have kind of played a role in the things that that I've built and focused on and kind of been um inspired by. And uh one piece of that that uh through that idea maze that I came across and discovered Superfluid, and this idea of programmable money streams. And so FlowState was really our uh myself, my co-founder, and a couple other builders um combining those ideas and trying to create um better grant funding. Um, I talked about how amazing it was to get that early funding, but you know, there's ups and downs, and uh it gets crowded and there's less funding. So we wanted to build more efficient ways um to get grant funding, more impactful ways to get support out from both sides of the equation. And so that's really what Flow State's been about from the beginning. Um, and really excited to talk about some of the mechanisms and good dollars usage of those and uh where we can go next.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's awesome. Well, well, thank you for saying uh for sharing that. And that was a helpful kind of intro to to Flow State and the um the mindset you're coming at for approaching, you know, this problem of public goods funding. And um, it's really cool what you've built. And I'm excited to dive into kind of how it's worked together. Um, but to do that, I think it'd be helpful to maybe lay a bit of context here. Uh, we've had GoodDollar on the podcast a couple times in the past, but uh it's been a while since the last time you're on. So there might be folks who aren't as familiar with Good Dollar and the Good Builders program. So let's start with like a very high-level overview. What is GoodDollar and how does Good Builders fit in? And then I'm excited to kind of dive into uh how FlowSnate fits into this as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think like at the very high level, Good Dollar is a nonprofit protocol that's focused on financial inclusion, right? It started with a very simple mission to distribute money to people who need it and give it and give them a way to grow economically. Uh so a little bit of context, good dollar was launched in 2020, and it has been known as a crypto universal basic income project. If you ask Iran, that's where people are gonna tell you. Uh the way most people first discover good dollar is through daily UVI. Oh, like I can verify I'm a unique human, I can claim good dollars every day. And since launch, uh, I think like close to one million people have gone through that flow, who it's quite successful, I would say. Um so that first phase was really important because it proved that we could distribute digital money at scale and give people a simple way to um access and participate in Web3. But for good dollar to work long term, right? Good dollar cannot be only something that oh, people go and claim. It has to be part of like an economy. Like people need real places where they can use it, they need real products, services, communities, and opportunities to earn and spend this token. Uh, and I think that is exactly where the good builders fits in. And I know like you have like a long conversation on the podcast with Rail, and she could be able to add more. But for us, like good builders are an ecosystem program for builders and entrepreneurs to create these use cases for good dollars. So we support teams building products, services, business, and community tools that can use good dollar and give people more users to participate in this ecosystem. So for me, I do see good builders as part of this next phase for good dollar, moving from providing only distribution to building an economy around good dollar, uh, where one where good dollar circulates, becomes useful, and creates more value over time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's super helpful. And we're gonna dive in a bit more to Good Builders Season Three as well and kind of some of the lessons learned and the highlights. Um, I want to kind of touch now on how Flow State fits in here, because Flow State has really kind of become the infrastructure powering Good Builders. And I had the privilege of seeing it in action uh for Good Builders Season Three as a mentor. Um, but do you mind just giving a quick little intro exactly how this all fits in and the role that Flow State you know has played as a part of this funding model?
SPEAKER_02For sure. Yeah, like I mentioned, FlowState, this has kind of been our focus of combining streaming and public goods funding mechanisms, really. And so we've been on that. We started with maybe the most advanced, maybe nerd snipe version. We did a we built a streaming version of quadratic funding and ran some rounds around that. And that's still really cool. And you know, nerdsnipe some some people, but as we we uh brought that to market, we started engaging more with communities and getting feedback of what they actually need and like what maybe on the stepping stones to quadratic funding. Mentioned kind of the ups and downs of of uh public goods funding and continually asking people to donate their own money to participate in some sort of community allocation ceremony, um, started to get a little heavy or started to wear on people. So we we built this allocation mechanism super fluid um with some other uh contributors in the super fluid ecosystem, and it's called Flow Councils, and it's a participatory um allocation mechanism uh for continuous bundling. And so basically uh we built out this infrastructure on-chain um tool for people to be able to vote on streams, basically a big split of streams um across. And it was kind of just this we had an interface and some tooling around it um that allowed you to be able to run that allocation mechanism. And um, good dollar actually in season two um used that. And um, we were very grateful for their feedback and worked through that. And as we went into season three, the good dollar team really reached out and said that hey, this is something that we're committed to and want to see more of. Um, and and as we'll get into, we want to see other people get to use this. And so, really going into season three, like this was a a leap of faith and a sh uh support from the good dollar team to expand that functionality to make it more of a end-to-end platform for someone that maybe doesn't have a technical team, doesn't have a developer, to be able to run one of these funding rounds and manage everything from applications to round communications to the the the funding uh and everything in between. And so uh as as good as Good Builder Season Three has developed, we added a bunch of functionality for milestone tracking and a whole bunch of things. And um really just looking forward to uh continuing that partnership and making this something that people, as Mary talked about, as good dollar becomes seen as something more than just UBI, something that their community creates an economy around. This can be one of those tools that people can use to fund things in their community, create feedback loops, and um uh see the value compound.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. You know, and season three of Good Builders was a great kind of look into this and case study. And we're gonna dive into that a bit too and the highlights from that. But I wanted to talk quickly about streaming funds first and how it kind of really flips the script here because, you know, my background, my listeners will probably know, and they're probably sick of me saying this, is you know, in the fundraising nonprofit sector, a lot of like grant funding, you know, typical traditional fundraising avenues, and it was such a pain in the ass. Like, you know, operating on one-off grants, they were unpredictable, and you know, nobody was really motivated. A lot of times things were just getting rushed at the end, and people were rushing to put together reports based on weird kind of metrics that you're provided that you don't really have a say in. It's just a lot. Um, streaming funds really kind of changes that, especially when you add that dynamic, you know, ability of being able to kind of change up the votes as it goes and thus change the allocations of the funds too. So, you know, I'm curious, what have you seen is different in this approach about how builders like really show up and and deliver when the funds are flowing more constantly and dynamically rather than one-off kind of grants or donations?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think maybe I can take this question as someone who was leading that, and then Raven could take it from the perspective of a mentor and also the person who built the platform. Um I think for me, what I saw with streaming of funds, because this this was also uh amongst the first times that, you know, I was seeing builders in real time receive funding over time. Um, I think what I would say was there was a lot more accountability. Uh, because, you know, after builders have come for the demo day, they've presented what they worked on, they would garner more support from mentors during the week, you know, all their metrics, what they've been doing, um, all the things that were coming together to measure the metrics or how their projects are doing through the system that we had created, because there was a 50-25-25 split between the community mentors and the metrics. Uh, 50% uh of the voting weight being mentors, um, and then 25% being community, and 25% being metrics, meaning what has what what activity can be tracked uh depending on the projects and like what they've been doing. So I think what really came out close, uh what came up um loudly was that teams were more motivated to continue building because they could see, you know, the more support they keep getting, the more activity. Um, and basically the more they speak to their community and build publicly, the more support they gunner. Um, and then again, um, you you spoke about you know unpredictability of one-off grants. Um, this also created an opportunity for them to get funding over time. So if I wanted to invest in AI credits, I could do that. I don't have to wait for a long time. And this was a big, huge uh motivator for these teams to continue building. And I think this is one of the biggest things that I can say was a big win in terms of streaming. And yeah, um I think this is what kept builders continuing to build and continuing to be motivated to grow, um, even as their round was continuing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. And you made a good point there too, around like, you know, on the other end, uh, you know, I was talking about just like the one-off grants and the reporting, but also like, you know, having to like wait to get funding till you meet certain kind of like, you know, criteria can be really difficult too, because sometimes organizations will have to put forward a lot of you know funds that they maybe don't have, right? Um, so that's another kind of great point there. Um, Graven, uh Marie, anything you wanted to add around kind of what you've seen about how this model changes how builders show up?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the the tagline, and we have a long ways to go still, and like we're working through this, it's experimental. The tagline that we like that has hit hardest for me and that we're trying to spread is this idea of moving from like a transactional mindset to something that's relational. Um, and transactional, when you describe someone as transactional, that's like a pejorative term, right? Like this idea that you only do thing if like that you get the reward. And um, I think as like periodic funding rounds, um, these grant funding rounds, at least in the web three space, totally different than web two. Um, but it became very like mercenary, and like you would do the thing and then or like the grant round would come about, it's two weeks, it's chaos, it's a popularity contest, you get the funding and then like disappear. And the there's no continuity um on multiple levels. And so this relational funding model, what we're trying to, it's not retroactive, it's not uh it's not funding up front, it's it's real time current. And the the stream is almost a contract, it is a contract between you and the funder, and so there's an expectation that one, you're going to continue to get funds so that you can do your thing. But then as like the return on that is that you have a responsibility and that it it's not guaranteed, but you know, there's a level of trust that's balanced between the two. And it's a healthy tension for the expectations on both sides of the equation to work together to to reach the goals that that you want. It's not that we're trying to create these static systems that don't have any um that I don't know. It's it's it's not a fellowship where you get like one year of funding or a couple years of funding and there's no strings attached. It's something more in between um with like milestone expectations and all that. So definitely exploring that idea maze more and trying to uh find the right tools around that. One of the things that good good builders is we can talk about this stuff theoretically, but um, these are all still people that have different needs. We need to make the tech fit with the the people and the ideas. And so um iterating through that, through these first two seasons and and beyond will be really exciting for us.
SPEAKER_03Totally. Yeah, uh amazing. Uh, Mary, any final uh thoughts on this?
SPEAKER_00I think I can add a little bit from like the good dollar side that, right? What made like Flow State interesting? Who it builds on what Graben and Raya have been saying. So I think the first of all was the funding model, right? Because when we first started to think of like we want a program for builders, there was kind of like two, like I know there's a lot of options, but essentially the two options that we were thinking about it is either like we fund at the beginning. So it's like we risk on the ecosystem, we put the funds and then we expect people to show up later, right? Or the other aspect was like, oh, we do it like retroactive. We expect like people to build and then we we compensate them. But that didn't any of those, like any of those like mechanisms of funding felt like fair for any of the two sides. Uh and especially for builders, as like Rael has pointed out, it's like early builders especially, they need the support where they're building. Like so streaming like give us like that opportunity in between, right? Or like you get like we are distributing money at the same time that people are showing up. Uh, and for the second part, um, with the platform that uh Graven has been talking about it, that was the other part, like the first seasons that we ran with good builders, uh, especially the second season that we already use, like the funding mechanism with Flow State. We had to use like three different other platforms to like tackle milestone, tackle like dashboard, tackle like a lot of it. And like what Flowstate is actually like uh allowing us is like, oh, now we can have like one platform and everything is more manageable uh there as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well said. Yeah, that was a great kind of overview of the benefits there. And I'm excited to you know dive into an example now, which of course is uh Good Builder season three. Uh excellent case study, really showing kind of this flow state and good dollar uh integration and model here. And so season three is in the books. Uh it was really fun to personally be a part of it, obviously, like I said. Um I'd love to learn about how it went. So, you know, let's talk high level. How was it? Any kind of key takeaways that really stood out?
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah. Um, so I mean, I think just to echo what Mary said at the beginning, um, the real mission, uh, or when you think about UBI, um, when it comes to good dollar, just that that's just the starting point. Um, the real mission is just to get like people receiving G using it. Um, and this can come in many ways, uh, distribution and apps, services of real communities. Um, and we have like a community of 1 million uh verified users uh with like 15 daily active users. So we needed a way to find a way to increase this community uh and also increase a way uh in which apps can be built to create utility and usage for the GTOKEN, uh, which is what which is then when we can create the impact that we want to do, uh, which is financial uh inclusivity and equality across the world. So um Good Builder comes in. Uh and uh season three, I think, was particularly different because we ran it a bit differently, we ran it entirely through Flow State, uh, and then we created a different uh structure to basically test this. Um, and uh what we did was we focused on one teams who are actively growing uh in the ecosystem and teams who are actively focusing on growth. Um, and this is because we wanted to test um again the utility NG. Uh so we we didn't want any ideas, we just came, we we just wanted founders who've already experimented uh also to experiment with us so that we can actually uh you know learn more about like how this system could work in general. Uh what we saw was around um 11 teams being accepted out of um 39 teams that applied in general. Um, and out of this nine, out of this 11, we ended up finishing with nine strong teams. And all these teams, um, some of them started from zero, some of them uh started from some number of users, uh, but all of them ended up having almost 12x growth. Um, or like uh some of them started with zero, ended up with like 800 users. Um, there's a team that got up to like 1800 new users, um, and this was pretty exciting to see. So when it comes to the experimentation and how we ran it, we used to have like lots of one-on-ones. Uh I think the main thing was we did lots of public building, which is I think what the essence of Web3 is, to build publicly and let people support you and let people believe in your idea, which is something that we ran with. Um, and of course, because we focused on growth, we had to have lots of touch points with Graven helping us with flow state and improvements, uh, with mentors. You are part of the mentor uh mentor group, and you know that we were matching one-on-one mentors with um with the different grantees, and also the internal team was quite uh supportive in talking with the teams daily, weekly, sometimes to basically unblock some things. Um, and what this brought about was again, um I'd say it again, uh accountability. And also this support made builders feel like they could do it, you know. Um, I remember there's a team, um, and we're going to speak slowly uh later on about it, like the Lulu, they had to pivot so many times, yet, you know, um, you know, they were focusing on growth, but they had to pivot many times. And because of the support they were receiving from the mentor, from the one-on-ones, from uh the different materials we were presenting, um, it ended up, you know, helping them to get to the point where they are, where they're focusing on also like mini-paylisting right now, um, and many other wins around the team. So basically, what I can say was the win uh or what we learned that worked was building publicly, uh brought about a lot of lots of accountability. Uh, we learned that when you support teams, work with them and not, you know, basically command them just because you know they're getting funding, you get a lot more honesty and also teams feeling that they're driven within themselves to continue. Um, and also streaming. Streaming was a big part of it because this also enabled them to work on the product, invest in certain things that, you know, help them in growth. And I think this was a big win. So this is one of the things that we learned. Um, also, um, I think one of the things it wasn't perfect, obviously. Uh, so we also learned, you know, that we needed to maybe create um mentorship uh to structure mentorship in a different way. So bubbling up to season four, which we're going to speak about shortly, um, I think we will be working on a different model uh for mentorship and workshops. Uh, but I think the experimentation showed that it could work. Um, just to mention the metrics, I think we got, uh, not I think, uh we got over um four, over 4.4k users using the build-up, um, the builder apps, which is actually quite a win when you consider this is a three-month growth. Um, and also how hard it is to get people using uh uh Web3 applications. And out of this, you know, we got like almost 2K, you know, good dollar users, and good dollar users here are people who've been face verified. Um and I don't know, I I think we haven't spoken about this, but we have a face verification that helps to prove that somebody is um a unique human being while they are claiming because we don't want, you know, in the spirit of equality, we don't want many people to claim at the same time. So I think that was uh the biggest win. Uh of course, the 50k uh in G distribution, which was allocated to benefit the builders, uh, you know, was fully exhausted. Um and we had around, I think, 31 million G in circulation uh in volume during this period, uh, which was something that was also great. Um and I think even moving to season four, we take these lessons. Uh, we, with the metrics that we got, you know, it informs us on what to um look forward to or like what to set as goals as we move on to the next seasons. I know I've said a lot, uh, but I hope I've answered the question. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Those are some incredible outcomes. The new users, the 12x growth, just seeing that like participation and inspiration as we go is is really incredible. So uh kudos uh to you on a successful round. Um, Graven, Mary, anything you wanted to add from your observations that really stood out?
SPEAKER_00It's really exciting that because you idealized like kind of like, oh, I think these will give these outputs, right? So it was really like uh awesome to see like Dwell taking it from here and actually create the outputs and the infrastructure that was necessary for this mechanism, this platform to succeed as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, totally, totally, absolutely. Well, why don't we move on then? Because there's so much more still to discuss, you know, around this. You know, before we do move on, I'd I'm wondering if there was any kind of like uh we talked about some of the projects that took part in it. Were there any like real stories of impact or uh really powerful moments from any of the projects that participated in season three that uh you wanted to highlight before we uh kind of talk bigger picture and next steps?
SPEAKER_01Yes, um, absolutely. Um so first of all, I'd say that all the nine teams did wonderfully. Um even the ones that I'm going to mention is just that they stood out in terms of like what we saw them begin as um within us within within the project and what they ended up as. Um so I think um also like uh we did focus on like funding the commons, if that makes sense, uh, which means you know, uh giving an opportunity to builders who are often overlooked, uh, an opportunity to see growth. Uh, and this worked out um, I think great. Uh I think I have three projects that I would like to highlight, um, and I'm going to mention why. So we have two projects, FocusPet and the Lulu. Um, and these were projects that were built by natively Web 2 developers, uh, and then they moved to Web3 and they were looking into a way. So the Lulu is a manifestation platform uh that basically helps you to achieve your goals and they and they they gamify their whole experience. And then we have FocusPet, which is a productivity app that helps you to focus. Uh and the more you focus, the more you uh the more you get some points. And these points, you know, you can redeem them for several things uh for for G, basically, within their platforms. Um, so these were they all of these projects, so the Lulu grew from zero to 800 users, uh, and then Focus Pet grew to like zero to 600 users, which again, when you look at it in the grand scheme of things, this is a huge growth uh for you know for the teams because you know, building moving from an infrastructure they were used, they were used to to blockchain, you know, um this was this was this was quite big. Um and also like the founders themselves were immaculate also in like pushing this this growth, um, which I think brought out the, you know, which makes them stand out. Um on top of that, I'd say we had a team that we had a project that was called SovAds. And Sov Ads discovered uh that you could change the, they created a leaderboard, and in this leaderboard, you know, the more you view ads, uh, the more points you get. And they discovered that actually you can turn SOVP points or the points that you get in their leaderboard to G tokens, which is a mechanism that all the other builders are trying to, you know, implement in their platform because he open sourced the code. And I think this is uh a big win for G when you look at it in the grand scheme of things, because if you have a leaderboard and you want to learn how to transform these points into G or any other token, you know, you can easily do that uh using his open source code. Uh so I think this was one of the standout pro the three projects I've mentioned uh were one of the standout projects that I discovered or like that I noted from the builder's season. Um, but then all the others were also outstanding.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you can of course see them if you I can link to the to the flow state, uh, I guess uh round or the round page that has all the projects, the updates, the milestones, those sorts of things, uh, which is great. And so many incredible uh projects focusing on really different areas, different kinds of um initial like skill level knowledge coming in, and then seeing them grow throughout has been really cool. And so uh really wanted to highlight Good Builders season three because it's really a great case study, like I mentioned, on this new you know, model of you know, with Good Dollar and Flow State partnering together and leads to the kind of the next piece here that it's a really exciting opportunity for ecosystems, funders, communities interested in you know running their own streaming-based funding rounds on Flow State. So talk me through this. What is the process of this and and what kind of communities would be a good fit for this type of model?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can jump in. I I kind of mentioned this earlier, but uh via the partnership with with GoodDollar, we've been able to invest and build out this kind of no-code uh end-to-end round management uh UI and uh platform. And so uh that is going to continue to develop. It's available and permissionless to use, which is awesome. So at if you go to Flowstate.network and then to the Flow Consuls tab, um, there's a launcher there that you can kind of click through that it's available on a test net if you just want to try some stuff out. You can uh kind of envision what uh what it would look like to run your own good builders type program for your community. And um, yeah, the the gold standard really is uh good dollar and their commitment and what they're trying to see and what they're trying to spur in the world and how that could be maybe fractal and fit into these other communities with streaming, with all the attributes we've talked about, the idea of uh whether it's critical infrastructure or builders just getting started. If if you can identify a need in your community that needs not just like a one-time injection of funds, needs it to be ongoing, but you're there's some uncertainty, there's going to be changes, or you want to create incentives that create the opportunity for um uh healthy growth and like that that push to keep going. So it's it's about identifying those opportunities within your community and um then designing the round to fit those needs. You can decide who the voters are or what the voters are, as we talked about with good builders. It's not just humans, humans voting. We had metrics, and then we had different groups of voters. Um, there's mentors that had maybe extra context and were working weekly or daily, even with these voters. And then there's the community and that opportunity for um these projects that were focused on growth for themselves, but then also say, hey, kind of it's it's like a market signal. If you can drive users to your app, then also drive them to vote for you and you'll get more funding. And so um all of that can be defined and it's intended to be very flexible, and we're excited and always open to feedback. But there's this platform that's permissionless that people can get started with. Um, I think we we can talk a little bit more about like so we don't want permissionless is great. Um, but as we have learned these lessons, uh hard-earned lessons from running these programs, it's not just tech, um, Royale and the mentors, and there's so much work that goes into running one of these well behind the scenes, and that's just never going to go away. And I don't think we would ever want it to, right? Like we want humans in the loop. Um, and so the good dollar team, the flow state team are going to be there to help mentor even these round operators and these communities that are adopting these things um to try to improve. And that'll improve our like I'll speak just from Flow State, the feedback like that we got from the grantees, like in real time, hey, these milestones, UX sucks. Hey, great, like we'll we gotta go fix it. Yeah, like and so um we we definitely are are looking forward to to doing that and being active participants, and then there's some things that we will also hopefully be able to do with support on the the financial side and trying to get more um more economic activity, positive feedback loops in in the communities that we we we all support.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I love I love what you say, Graven. I think it's like we're building in public while other people are also building in public. So it's like a whole like flow of like people building and like helping us build a platform, and it just it's really cool. I don't think this can happen anywhere else in in web 3.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Yeah, couldn't happen anywhere else in web 3. Uh well put, well put. Um, you know, and there's so many opportunities right now for uh builders, funders, ecosystems that want to do this sort of this this kind of round. And I also know that there's a really cool incentive uh that's been uh added on from the folks uh from GoodDollar with G Dollar for those interested in running around um with G Dollar instead of like a stablecoin or something like that. So um, what would be your pitch for folks on um why they should uh take this approach to funding their ecosystems and maybe you can introduce this incentive uh as well for folks that are considering whether they want to do this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think on the goods dollar side, I think there's a difference that you're not only choosing like a payout token, right? So with another token or stablecoin, you can find your run and distribute money to your community, to your project, and that's useful, right? You get money distributed. Uh but the value mostly it's limited to the payout. Uh with good dollar, you can your run um can still support your own initiatives, but it also helps strengthen like the good dollar economy. So just to spend this like a little bit, like good dollar is a reserve bad token. And as Rael mentioned and we mentioned before, either way has like a life community behind it. And it's designed to be used and transact with it. But it's also already connected with like universal basic income recipients, builders, public goods, and communities. So the magic here is like when a community runs a run with good dollar, more funding flows through the good dollar ecosystem, more people interact with it, and more activity happens around the same currency. That matters because the stronger the good dollar economy becomes, the more it can support like future incentives like this one, uh, public goods, community participation, builder, UBI. Uh and then there's also like a very concrete reason to try it right now. Uh as like you say, like we are often like eligible runs using good dollar can receive a 10% matching uh from good dollar, which means like also more funding is available for the projects in the run. But I think like the whole idea that I also want people to learn here, uh to make it like super simple. So like if you found your run with USDC, for example, that's fine. You find your run. But if you found your run with good dollar, your run is also helping strengthen like an economy around like UBI, public goods, builders, and communities. So it's kind of like trying to create like this win-win loop and an economy that works better for all of us.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well put, well put. Uh Rail, uh Graven, did you have anything you want to add around you know why folks should consider doing this type of round?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll give a shout out and kind of weave in a couple of things here. Kind of our third partner, silent, but not really silent, has been it really the the reason that we connected, like going back to my first introduction to Hadar, is the Superfluid ecosystem. Um, and this idea of how we're doing this streaming. ERC20s don't stream by themselves. Like that's not a that's there's not an open flow uh uh function. Uh so superfluid is is one of the protocols, and uh good dollar is a super token. So it has those latent capabilities to be streamed, and it has, and that's how we got introduced in the first place. Um, but they have been active um participants in uh spreading like thankfully our work and public goods, and they have a program that they have their own token, the SOP token or SUP uh uh for Superfluid. Um, and they have an incentive program for people to use the protocol. And so both Good Dollar and Flow State have been participants in previous streaming programmable rewards, SPR campaigns, and we have more SOP rewards going um into uh the next season that we are excited to use to help uh fund growth, um, engagement and things in these community rounds. So not only can you get some uh good dollar token, but you can get some supervoted tokens and reward people uh for participating in in in various ways. So really excited to uh help pay that forward and and really create these economic engines uh that have feedback loops and uh create positive sums for a lot of different people in a lot of different ecosystems, different protocols and um yeah, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03Shout out to Superfluid, yeah. They're an awesome team, um and awesome uh product and platform they built for sure. Um, you know, and so exciting. Um I'll share links, of course, for anyone that is interested in learning more about how they can run this sort of round. And um, but that being said, where can folks go to learn more? Um, what's the best place for them to get started?
SPEAKER_02On the Flow State side, uh Flostate.network slash flow dash. Councils. That's the launcher to launch a flow council. There's also an explorer page where you can start to see other rounds that are already running, past and present, and get a feel for these things. I think in the show notes, including also the Good Builder season three, that round is now inactive, but you can still see the projects there, how much was funded, the final vote tallies, all that sort of stuff. And then just start digging through and uh get in touch with us. Like we said, we're we're excited to support other other people experimenting, different feedback. Um so there's hands-on, you can launch something on a test net, or uh when you're ready, uh launch it on cell with with with good dollar.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure, for sure. Awesome. Uh Marie uh Rael, anything you wanted to add from the Good Dollar point of view where folks can go to learn more, engage with the community, and any other calls to actions you might have?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think from the Good Dollar side, is like uh uh Graven has mentioned like the good builders, like season three, it's available on the Flow State interface. We're also putting together like an extensive retro on like a case study on season three that we're gonna be publishing soon. Uh, and we also put together a little bit about this opportunity between Flow State uh and Graben. So we'll make sure that you have all the links so that you can people can plug in.
SPEAKER_03Sweet. Awesome. Rayelle, anything you want to add?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, I mean, for me, it's just to um uh to you know shout out the good builders. Uh we are opening a new season uh next week. Uh we're actually doing something in between. We're doing a build-a-thon to have people start thinking about what to build ahead of the season. So next week, uh on the 9th, uh, we open up the season. We will be opening up um, you know, the portal for applications for anybody who wants to build. Um we'll be focusing on growth or projects that are in their growth stage, which means that projects that are ready to start accepting users because this is where we are at. Uh, but besides that, you know, we will also have other programs that feed into the Good Builder Season Four. Um, but we will share all those links. Um, just to say that, you know, that is what we are looking forward to next week. And everybody who has a very cool project that can integrate with G is welcome.
SPEAKER_03Season four coming up soon. This is so exciting. Anything else you want to share about season four? You shared a little bit about the types of projects there. Uh, anything else that folks should look out for or things to be excited for as we enter season four?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think what is to be excited about is that we still have the funding. It's still be done uh through streaming, through closed it. Uh so all this predictability will be there. And we'll also be having cool mentors who are building with us uh from all over the ecosystem. So that is pretty exciting. Um and yeah, we're looking forward to working together and building together. We know it's not easy and we're here to support.
SPEAKER_03100%. Yeah. Um, this has been such an exciting conversation. We've covered so much. Uh, the higher level, the Good Builder Season 3 recap, the lessons there, and and more importantly, how folks can run their own round like that. Um, so I'll make sure to include all the links to explain that. Um, and as we wrap up episode one of this series, are there any final words you wanted to say before we close things off for today?
SPEAKER_02Public goods are good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, public goods are good.
SPEAKER_03Yes, well said. Good note to end on. Uh, thank you so much uh for being here, all of you. It's been a pleasure. Um, and I can't wait to keep the conversation going and see how Good Builders season four goes. So thank you for your time.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for having us, Drew.
SPEAKER_03Cheers. Thanks, Drew.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. See ya.
SPEAKER_03Wow, what a great way to kick off this series. And I'm so thankful to Marie, Rayel, and Graven for joining me and being a part of this first episode and setting the stage for everything we're going to explore in the episodes ahead. Good Builders is an excellent case study in the need to shift how we think about funding. The traditional grant model obviously has real limitations. Streaming funding flips that on its head. When money flows continuously, builders show up differently. They stay engaged to deliver, and the relationship between funders and builders becomes an ongoing partnership rather than a one-time transaction. I saw this personally in Good Builders Season 3, which show what that looks like in practice. And the streaming funding model they've built with Flowstate is something other ecosystems, DAOs, and communities can experiment with themselves. If you're an ecosystem operator, a grant program manager, or community organizer who's tired of the limitations of traditional funding, this is a model definitely worth exploring. And with the added incentive of running around using GD, there's a real opportunity to be a part of the growing ecosystem. So for anyone who wants to learn more about GoodDollar, Good Builders, or running your own streaming funding route on Flowstate, we've included all the relevant links in the show notes. And for the builders out there are already dreaming up ideas for season 4, we've got you covered too. A huge thank you to our three incredible guests for joining us today in helping launch this series. And that wraps it today's episode of CryptoUltrics. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. If you're inspired to explore more stories at the intersection of Web3 and Social Impact, be sure to visit us at CryptoAltris.com for articles, resources, and more. And if you love what you heard, it would mean the world if you could rate review and subscribe to the podcast. Your support is huge in helping us reach more listeners like you and keeping the platform going strong. Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to having you back for the next episode. Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.