The main advancement for May was the rollout of the Problem Library. We now have a taxonomy of 47 societal issues all categorized by SDG and cross-linked with upstream/downstream relationships:
It also shows which projects are attacking which problems and allows you to follow a problem so you’ll get updates as new projects are proposed for addressing it. Most importantly though, this is the cornerstone foundation for enabling the Benefactor Model. I had hoped to have v1 of Benefactor deployed in May but it (like everything) turned out to be about 5x harder than I imagined.
Other Wins
Valuation charting functionality for projects is now working. You can go to any project and see (assuming it has at least one trade with a real currency involved) it will show you the chart of it’s valuation over time:
I also quietly added the ability to load your account with USD or EUR via a new “Funding” tab in the “Admin Trades” page. This allows anyone to enable funding on his/her account and load in some actual money to back a project.
This too was a critical prerequisite to enable anyone to get money into the system. For now you can propose a trade to back a project but soon you’ll also be able to back a bounty on a problem.
Lastly, I added the “not in my city yet” prompt on the Events page that lays the groundwork for multi-city expansion outside of Lisbon and giving people options on how to get involved if it’s not in their city yet:
Challenges
TBH the biggest challenge is morale - this is a lonely road right now building all this solo. I’m hoping that going to Hatch at the end of June will be a nice boost and opp to hopefully make some connections and get other people invested in this effort.
Next Month’s Focus
Platform
I’m 1000% focused on getting at least a rudimentary version of the Benefactor Model deployed before Hatch so I can announce it there. That is the prime directive right now.
Project Success
I’ve been loosely working with the team that won the last event, Onesta (formerly “Lift me Up”). We’ve deployed their MVP and are now just refining it and getting user testing. They had a nice piece published on them this last week by NovaSBE, the business school here in Carcavelos. The best PR we can get for Problemattic at this point is by helping incubate and launch something which succeeds in having some real impact and Onesta seems to be the best bet for that right now.
Events
I’m not planning any more big events until we have the Benefactor Model live and working. We’ve been doing coworking sessions Thursdays in Lisbon as an attempt to bond the community between events but attendance has been slim at those.
Content
I dropped a great episode with Aaron Eden this past month. He’s an OG in the Lean Startup movement and it was a really great interview that should be super helpful for teams in the early stages.
The technical roadmap as always can be found here.