So, you've gone through the Flow Track, you found it very interesting, and you wish to build something cool in the Flow ecosystem.
No worries, you don't need to wait for a hackathon to happen to make that a reality!
Flow has one of the largest ecosystem funds - standing at $725 Million USD to support innovators and growth across the Flow ecosystem.
This level isn't really a lesson, but more so guidance on how you might be able to get one of these grants!
The Flow Ecosystem fund is roughly divided into three categories:
- Studio Fund
- Developer Grants
- Ecosystem Investments
The Studio Fund is a $10M fund to create never-before seen experiences and applications for web3 consumers in the gaming and social worlds.
The Developer Grants are general purpose grants for developers who contribute to the Flow ecosystem in one way or another. This is likely what you want.
The Ecosystem Investments fund is used for investing in the best teams who are already building on Flow, and help them get connected with top VC Firms and investors to 10x their potential.
Most likely, you are looking to apply for a developer grant. To do so, it all begins with ideation.
Think about what you want to build, spend some time researching the problem space, think of a potential solution, and have somewhat of an idea of how you will build out your solution. Remember, a clear thought process, a well defined solution, and a decent problem to solve makes for a great grant application!
The application for a developer grant looks something like this:
# <Project name>
# Grant category
Please select one or more of:
- [ ] Open source maintenance
- [ ] Developer tools / services
- [ ] Educational material
# Description
## Problem statement
- Target audience
- Evidence for the need
## Proposed solution
## Impact
- In what ways does this benefit the broader Flow developer ecosystem?
# Milestones and funding
> Note: You can leave the USD proposal empty / "TBD". Please consider adoption and/or maintenance milestones at the end of your project.
| Milestone | Deliverables | Timeline | Risks | USD proposal |
| --------- | -------------- | -------- | ----------------------- | -------------- |
| 1 - MVP | Smart Contract | 2 weeks | - | 1000 |
| X - Adoption | 5 team using this project | 4 weeks | - | 1000 |
| X - Maintenance | Resolving issuing and fixing bugs | 3 months | - | 1000 |
# Team
| Name | Role | Bio | Contact |
| ---- | ------------------- | --- | --------------- |
| Alex | Full-Stack Engineer | ... | alex@onflow.org |Think about the impact your idea can make. This could be an impact towards developer tooling, towards onboarding more users to Flow, towards helping grow the ecosystem through a game changing DeFi/NFT/DAO application, or anything else! Anything that helps the Flow ecosystem counts.
Now, think about how much funding you want, and how you can divide your application into milestones. Grants are typically not paid 100% upfront, but rather based on milestones.
So for example, if you propose a grant for $10,000 USD which has 4 milestones - you will likely receive 4 installments of $2,500 each as you complete those milestones. So think about what milestones you want to set for yourself, and estimate the timeline for it.
Lastly, describe your problem statement, proposed solution, and give some introduction about the team (yourself, or your group).
The application form exists in public - on a Github repository for Flow. The way to submit a grant application is to create a new Github issue, and the Flow team will review the application, provide comments and thoughts, and make a decision on your application.
Head over to the onflow/developer-grants repo, and create a new issue once you're ready.
We wish you all the best, and as always, feel free to ask for any help in the Discord server!
Cheers 🥂