This was a pitch I made in January 2025. It started with this twitter thread Nov 2024 where I described the idea: https://x.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1859754827737333937
I need something in between the Russian troll farms benn jordan described, and like, a public research lab. An "open culture institute" that A/B tests people and publishes the result, for the general public
It got a lot of attention, then I got a DM from an investor asking "do you think you can pull this off if we funded you? Can you send us a short proposal to this email"
I didn't expect that, I kind of panicked. I said sure and then DMed everyone I knew who had touched this kind of money before to ask for advice. I had worked in big companies but I'd never "pitched" anything, and this was like a research grant, not a product. It was even weirder because it wasn't research in a well established field, it was trying to define a new category ("open, white hat, culture hacking"). Slime Mold Time Mold's advice was particularly helpful, because they had a background in academic/applying for grants, but also in this new world of "open citizen science on twitter".
This was the final proposal I made: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Zy8BAXlIdvgYaQaODngzQh2R0w1Lf1zi2s1ZwARFnV8/...
In retrospect I think what I did correctly there was:
- State the goal concisely & in plain language - I wanted to do "white hat culture hacking", I wanted to start a community/industry around it
- Explained why this was necessary & urgent (it affects our ability to find truth & make decisions as a society)
- Showed the work I've already done that built momentum / proved that this was possible, and what I am capable of doing
After they looked at my $70k ask, they asked me, "but for real though, how much do you actually need, what parts of this budget are critical/what parts are optional?", and I answered honestly:
My immediate bottleneck / priority is giving myself ~6 months of runway to focus full-time on this work. At my current living expenses this would be $24k ($4k a month)
Without this grant I would still be trying to pursue this research work, but I will be shifting more time to pursuing commercial work, trying to find ways to monetize my audience, youtube videos, etc.
Then they came back with the approved $50k (so I guess they decided to fund me for a year and see what happens).
POST MORTEM
So, it's a year later now. How did it go?
I'm still due for a report back to them, which I haven't yet done. I'm not sure yet whether they consider this a success or failure. I did do a lot of R&D work, in a lot of different directions. I wrote a lot, I made many prototypes. A big chunk of my work was contributing to Community Archive, attracting a community around that and using the tools to teach people how they work. I think something they were looking for, that I haven't yet delivered on is "next steps", there's a lot of big visions I write about, but how do we take this stuff from big vision to more successful, concrete, delivered projects? The outcome that I promised (a white hat culture hacking culture) hasn't quite cohered yet.
I think one thing that would have helped ME a lot is if I had a bit more oversight / a collaborator / a manager of some kind that I reported weekly/monthly to. This would have helped me focus & prioritize which prototypes were worth taking to completion. Or possibly I just needed to work on a team with others who complemented my skills.
This is why all my pitches from now on include a general "what resources do I need", not just money.