#1 Monthly Newsletter, September — “Le Début”

Originally published on September 4th, 2022.

An overview of the expected changes coming for September.

In our opinion, infrastructure needs to be built before branding & IP can grow. Our focus for the coming months is refining core architecture that will be used for future years.

Explaining the Newsletter Format

Here’s an overview of the future comms between the core team and community:

• Fortnightly newsletters/updates
• These will be pretty basic/timid newsletters that showcase the BTS of some of the products we’ve been working on & short-term next steps.
• Monthly Reviews/Retros
• These will be more extensive documents that cover a broad base of things. Timelines, future expectations, KPIs, important launch dates — basically a list of everything we’ve done, why we’ve done them, and what we want to do in the future.
• Each problem/change will start with a problem statement, an overview of our changes and a timeline.
• For future newsletters, we’ll also re-cap on products we’ve worked on in the prior months, but for this one, we’ll skip it for obvious reasons.
• Timeline
• This will be effective immediately.

Action 1: Letter to treasury management

Problem

• A considerable holding of ETH and tying everything to ETH is not safe, especially in a bear market.

Solution

• Converting 1/3 of all income earned into stables, done monthly.
• All income will be converted at the start of each month. As for September, we’ll convert 40,000 USD worth of ETH to USDC within 48 hours of this being posted.

Timeline

• Effective immediately.

Action 2: Smooth-lining the funding process

Problem

• Right now, there is no formal process to apply for funding, and Ethlizards lacks value add if we ever want to consider investing outside of Gamefi.

Solution

• We will build a platform to handle applications effectively, allowing projects to approach us directly in a streamlined manner.
• This will include an application form, where submitted project applications will be available in a forum for council members to discuss.
• We will look to expand this forum to all DAO members in the future.
• This is the first step at expanding Ethlizard’s value add as a DAO and is an essential infrastructure for when we look at stepping into incubating projects (a lot of additional upsides here).

Timeline

• James & Kmao is already on this, planning/designing right now.
• Beta version within 6–8 weeks.

Action 3: Website Re-Amp

Problem

• The current website is good but does not sit on the same level as S-tier projects. It’s currently too generic, lacks cohesion, and doesn’t contribute to brand identity.

Solution

• A website overhaul and redesign of ethlizards.io will be more unique and have a distinctive identity.

Timeline

• 2–3 weeks from commencement.

Action 4: Lizard Deal allocations

Problem

• We need more deals! And bigger ones.

Solution

• We are currently in the progress of securing two large-scale 50K+ allocations with Kieran this week.
• In addition, we’ll have our first run of individual lizard investments: Allowing holders to directly invest in the project alongside the LizardDAO.

Timeline

• By the end of the week, we will be presenting the deals to the investment council.

Action 5: Lizards holders obtaining direct deal flow

Problem

• We are getting more significant allocations with investors and want to encourage more angel investing within the lizard community. Additional value ads for projects and, more significant, direct allocations.

Solution

• We are working with Aelin to set up custom pools for lizards and investments.
• Also looking at our customized integration with Aelin for future deals.

Timeline

• Being worked on immediately, the first example will be live with our next significant investment.

Action 6: Council Re-work

Problem

• We should allow more people inside the council and also split responsibilities. Investment councils should be hyper-focused on DAO investments, whilst we need members to take care of infrastructure and lead product discussions with the team.

Solution

• We would like to optimise the current council system. Currently, the investment council is tasked with too many items; instead, they should focus purely on investments. This, of course, would have to be discussed and voted on before any work is done. However, we want to highlight we are looking to optimise the current governance architecture with Kieran’s assistance.
• We are exploring the creation of a second council, referred to as the governance council. This council would handle matters outside of investments. Current investment council members will be retained.
• We are not adding additional members to the investment council or changing anything. Instead, we are just adding a council for DAO governance.
• Council changes will be discussed with the community, and a LIP will be passed before finalising anything. Additional documentation will be released before the LIP regarding clarified task allocation, control & other essential details.

Timeline

• A thread will be opened in governance talk, allowing further discussion. If the community outlook is positive and a LIP is passed, we will release the new council according to a timeline outlined in the LIP.

Action 7: Marketing & Branding Efforts

Problem

• Ethlizards marketing & branding is disjointed and isn’t ready to propel the brand mainstream.

Solution

• Full branding + marketing review with Sohan.
• Interviewing and looking into additional hires: Potential part-time UI/UX to lead branding efforts.

Timeline

• Being worked on, effective immediately.

Action 8: Staking WIP

Problem

• Staking architecture is imperfect, and we haven’t reached a practical solution with happy stakeholders.

Solution

• Reviewing potential architecture with Kieran for staking
• Researching other structures and blockers such as legalities, technical difficulties, and high user costs.

Timeline

• TBD.

Action 9: Merch

Problem

• There is no lizard drip.

Solution

• Hoodies are a must.
• Other items also being explored include other clothing items, keycaps, mugs, statues/bobbleheads, and stickers.
• Reaching out to potential partnerships regarding real-world attire, drafting designs for said products, and researching costs.

Timeline

• Being worked on immediately, no firm completion date as of yet.

Additional Content

• Public GitHub will be posted < within a week so the team can help look at code with us; any help is welcome.
• I understand there was discussion regarding staking/lizcoin/etc. in the chat, but after a further internal review, I (Kmao) realised it is not adequately fleshed out. Instead, we will release a document detailing it soon and have a lot of discussion regarding it. We hear your concerns and would not like to make drastic changes without heavy input from the community and advisors.

An Afterword

We thank you for the overwhelming support on LIP-10. We appreciate the previous team’s willingness to help make this a smooth transition, and we now have everything in place to complete our mission and Kieran’s original vision. We are excited to show you hyper progress and eventually start moving away from relying on Kieran to develop ideas. As you can see, we are eager & passionate and with Kieran’s guidance believe we can start implementing them, leading to new revenue streams & partnerships, increased exposure and the ability to tap into the vast network that the lizards have already set up.

The team is fully committed to delivering. Please make no mistake; we will work night and day to get the lizards where they belong and keep you all informed along the way. Transparency is critical in a DAO, something we believe wholeheartedly, and Kieran has been adamant about it in our discussions.

Thanks once again,
Ethlizards