A proposed structure for SP delegations, using the Innovation Norway approach (decentralize it)

Ever since I first saw a project on Steem get a delegation from either @steemitblog or @ned , I've hoped that maybe one day @deegramofficial would be eligible. When we saw that @steempress-io got their big delegation, we were so thrilled as me and @sflovik have been fans of the project ever since we met @fredrikaa and he took "the newbies/minnows" under his wing and was our buddy.

I later came to a sort of conclusion that to be able to get a delegation (to thereby be able to curate more content, onboard more users and even upvote some of their content to make them really realize the value Steem brings), you already need to have brought a lot of value. This begs for the question: Are we in a "chicken and egg" situation here? It makes me realize how much more effort we should have put into community interaction along the way whilst developing Deegram. But at the same time, there is only so much focus we can have as full-time students/startup/developer/consultant.

Although, we have now been able to both expand our team a bit (more on that in a later post) and now have capacity to do more community interaction, so this is one of several steps we're taking to bond closer with the Steem community. We don't expect to just sail in and get a delegation, we always like to work hard and put in the effort to prove ourselves. So we will.

Based on this intro, and also the fact that @andrarchy mentioned the need for feedback on how an application program with guidelines should be structured, I have the following recommendations/thoughts:

Grant system based on application and milestones / reporting like Innovation Norway
In Norway, we have various grants one can apply for as a startup. With Innovation Norway (our most renowned national program), you start with applying for a small amount (everything is relative) of 100K NOK (Approx 11,5K USD, NOK are divisible by 8 to find the dollar) for validating your idea and seeing if there is a market. These fund can for instance go to developing a prototype, but is mainly focused on market validation: testing the solution in some way before building it large-scale. To get the grant, you would need to provide a solution that innovates in one way or another.

For instance, when we got this grant, we had to fight hard. Mobile apps are not something that gets funded too often by Innovation Norway, because of the amount of funding they have given to app ideas that didn't turn out. (I'll come back to why this all is relevant in a bit, but bear with me). And we used the money on things like developers conferences, blockchain conferences (not Steemfest2 though, probably could have, but we got the money in December of 2017 and you can't use the grant to cover expenses that happened before the grant), graphical design, trademark for the name Deegram (which is now disputed by Instagram LLC, so we'll see how that goes in a couple of months when the Norwegian Patent Office decides on whether they want to let us keep it or take it away), professional user-testing of the concept (as "friends, fools and family" doesn't cut it for Innovation Norway when you want to prove that people like your idea), as well as some external developer help (consultants basically) to aid us in concurrency and server issues we had at the time.

The money was distributed to us in two phases: 50% up front, and the last 50% had to be documented and then refunded.

When the project specified was completed (the market validation project) we had to submit a report outlining our key takeaways and how the solution was accepted from the market. This is valuable both for Innovation Norway to keep track, but also for ourselves. In addition, we had to provide full accounting for the money approved by an accountant.

So to translate this in practical terms to how it could apply to Steem delegations:

Apply for a grant
Following information is needed:

• Name of project
• Name of project members (with Steem usernames)
• Role of project members (with Steem usernames)
• Short pitch of the project (500 characters)
• Longer explanation of the project (2000 characters)
• How big of a delegation are you applying for? (e.g. 10 000 SP, 100 000 SP, I would recommend that you set some standards here so that things doesn't get out of hands, but at the same time: different projects have different needs)
• How do you differentiate yourself from other projects? (e.g. unlike Steepshot and Appics, I want to focus on sustainability and have different media types)
• What do you need the delegation for? (e.g. I mainly want to create accounts, but also upvote the users who use my project)
• How do you plan to "spend" the delegation? / budget (e.g. 50% account creation, 30% upvotes, 20% curation bots)
• Which milestones do you have? (e.g. 3000 packs sold by June)
• When and how are you going to reach these milestones? (e.g. by traveling around the world and promoting my project)

There could be fewer criteria, there could be more. Would love input on the criteria from the community!

The process of evaluating these applications should also be according to certain guidelines. One could for instance score them numerically from 1-10 based on for instance:

• Degree of innovation
• Teams ability to complete project / achievable plan
• Effort made so far
• Probability to bring attention/value/users to Steem

As with the following list, would love input on the criteria here as well.

This should also be evaluated in a group consisting of different people, it shouldn't be so that if I'm well liked by one person, then I can get my will. Decentralize it (great pun if I may say so myself, both on blockchain but also on our Norwegian company name).

Let me know if you would need any help with structuring this program, clean processes and structures within business are something I enjoy working with!

And as stated a couple of times, would love feedback and your thoughts people!