How to raise money for open source projects
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Lindinger, Elisa
Kloiber, Julia
Meredith, Dan
Encrypted communications, online participation, anonymous browsing – there are many open source tools that help to maintain our freedom online. But despite the importance and relevance of such tools it can be hard to fund their development, make them sustainable and grow communities around them. Next to this Discussion, there will also be a Meetup with the Panelists.
 Put together a list of suggestions that hopefully will help you to write a more engaging proposal and we crowd source this list because we've been reviewing 800 proposals in the last couple of months and yeah, we'll kick off with a quick introduction of ourselves. Is this, oh hello. I'm Dan with the Open Technology Fund known as Dan Bla or Dan Meredith is my parents name me. So really quickly Open Technology Fund is a technology centric fund that we essentially we write a grant to the US government that gives us money then we then re-grant that back out to other projects that are developing open source technologies in particular those that are supporting free expression and free speech. So a little bit more narrow compared to what they'll describe what they're doing but a lot of the same principles as far as the kinds of technologies in the nature of the technology. So I'll stop right there. We've been around for five years and we've got thousands of applications that we've reviewed as well. So yeah. Cool and we're Lisa and Julia from the prototype fund program from Germany focusing on civic tech data security data literacy and infrastructure. So in a nutshell we are supporting people in projects that work on tools software for the public good and we give we we grant sums up to 30,000 euros for six months and the prototype fund the money comes from the Ministry of Education and Research and we started the program because we were very frustrated how hard it is how much bureaucracy it takes to submit a proposal as an individual and they are not really any programs out there for individuals to access a public grant. So that's why we started the fund and yeah. So yeah we want you to get the funding and for this reason we'd like to share some of the insights on how you can tweak your project idea and how to make it better and maybe which traps to avoid. So we've put together our seven most favorite insights that we've gathered by reading through for you it was more than a thousand for as it was several hundreds of proposals and at least for me it was quite a change of perspective to not being the person to write a proposal but to be the person to read through a proposal and it really it really makes you understand the aspects of a good proposal better. So we want to share what we've learned in the process. So here's trap number one. This is a quote I know this is something you're not supposed to say but for this project it's true the user is simply everybody. I mean this is such a tempting trap and I know where it comes from of course I want the whole world to be my user and to use my solution but well unless maybe you're I don't know a plant that produces oxygen your solution will never fit everybody there is just no one size fits all if we are true to ourselves and especially not on tech tools. So tools that try to suit everybody tend not to work very well for anyone. So here's our first bit of advice. Know the user and put some effort into getting to know them and what exactly they need and the answer might actually surprise you. We encourage all projects to follow a human-centered approach and every step of their work so we really want people to start with a proper user research and go through user-centered design or human-centered design and end up with user experience design at least that is our experience. Yeah and you know just as a and you'll get the rhythm here is I'm going to provide an antidote every time there's one of these things that comes up from our experience and they'll provide some evidence from theirs. You know from the open technology fun standpoint we first and foremost stick to folks that are dealing with some sort of repression like freedom of expression or free speech and the most ideal project for us and we ask people this all the time is one that is being developed by those who are most affected by that situation but if you're talking about more of a civil society situation you know if you've got an idea to stop potholes make sure that you're like actually experiencing like the problem of potholes like you have a car it's really troubling your bicycle and you know it's like a really personal thing for you and that's the most ideal sort of applicant and your focus on just those specific people not everyone's going to care but the most affected will. Okay trap number two in politics nobody ever listens I want to change that and I know this feeling we all know this feeling but as a statement in a funding proposal it might be too much of a feeling and way too general unless it's your teaser to grab attention then it's great but we've experienced that in a lot of proposals people make assumptions and then never like conclude or like tell us how they came to this assumption so we all know like most ideas that are the scut feelings but it helps to give some evidence to prove your point and it also helps you to check your point right if you cannot like back it up with premises it's probably not as true as you might have thought and it's really not a rare case we have like assumptions like similar like this one in probably one out of three proposals I don't know. Same same yeah yeah I mean it's one of those situations where especially when you're dealing with technology and mostly technologists there's a sort of like a build it and they will come it's like I've got a really great idea it's great it's the best everyone needs to know about this idea can't tell you why but it's my good idea and it you know it's sort of related to the first one and a lot of the proposals in particular the ones that are very strong again come up with not necessarily like a large data even if it's just anecdotal as in you know this is true for a few people this is what it is and you can sort of document that that goes a long way to strengthening up what it is that you're proposing and if you're doing something where the people using the technology are other software developers who are then engaging with people and so it's removed from those end users that's fine just go and try to demonstrate and show how your code is being used by other developers that are engaging with people and just do a little bit of that and goes a long way. Yeah that's a good point I think we're going to chime in with that several times because it's such a such an important point so this is a statement there is no usable email client for Android open source. I think these slides are great by the way I haven't seen the edits I love all these little quotes. Thanks. Yeah well they're not from us so yeah so this is a trap number three I'm just getting it wrong. I understand also where this comes from so when I have an idea I want to get started immediately and I want to work through with it and I don't want to do research and what other people have done because you know I think I have this is my problem I know how to solve it right. So but it pays off to take some time and put some research into finding out what other people have done so far and I mean if you are open source of developers especially I don't need to tell you this but still this comes up very often. Open source is all about collaboration about forking and redeployment so please do the research and which similar tools are already out there and I'm sure your idea is valid but then tell us what makes your idea special and why it's better or different or more focused than the existing solutions that are out there and if you find that actually and honestly it would be enough or maybe even better to contribute to an existing project then you might consider doing it. Yeah just you know for our application process you're going to see in there there's a section that says you have to know something about what's complementary or competitive to the ecosystem that you're trying to get involved in. This idea that you're a special unicorn no sorry it's probably a good idea but it's definitely not so wholly unique that no one else has thought about it or that someone else hasn't done it and you strengthen yourself by talking about the ecosystem that you're in and how you're complementary or competitive to that and what your value at is but everyone's standing on the toes of giants here and someone's going to stand on your toes and you're standing on someone else's so just come into that knowing that that's true will strengthen your chances often. I will build a platform that will. That's an all-time classic. Sometimes it seems a bit like software development or the aspiration of software development is building platforms and build one and it will magically like make things better but yeah that's the trap number four because platforms by themselves do not solve problems right they do not magically bring people together they do not magically like bring solutions and problems together so if you build it there will not be a guarantee that anyone will come so a lot of times building the technology and I think that's true for a lot of projects building the technology is not the hard part the hard part is to engage with communities to figure out communication strategies and to not only focus on your tech solution but like what comes after the tech solution and before it and like how does it what's the context and how does it fit into that context. Yeah I'm sorry I'm just laughing at all of these because I'm guilty of every single one of them so far I've done and made all these statements at different points in my life making technology and I have a dog that does exactly that same thing so this is just I'm loving it. I mean this is we're going to obviously emphasize the human centeredness of this over and over and over again the ubiquity of like actual platforms that you're building technology on and how accessible they are to everyone can't be overstated so again like the novelty of what you think you're doing technologically versus how like the uniqueness of how it's helping people or like engaging people that's where the real sort of novelty is at least for us as folks who are literally seeing thousands of applications a year for technology they're not as you know unique as you might think and one of the things I think we're both committed to just to add a little side this is making that much more transparent and accountable so that you can see what it is that we see in a responsible way and no offense realize how where the special things are and where the special things are. Absolutely so this is trap number five which I like a lot I built something like Tinder bot for XYZ and you can replace Tinder with every other tech hype we've had in the past 500 years I guess so people have always been saying that right but I mean this is a no brainer but a mechanism that works in one context doesn't necessarily work in another and so this is one of our mantras you know all the saying that form follows function right so our mantra is method follows problem and it should be that way around and not the other so I know that sometimes you want to be playful yeah there's a gift for the beer I mean hey what else can you want so yeah I know that sometimes you just want to try you know how this works you want you to analyze it from a technical way but if you want to develop a helpful tool okay this is not a helpful gift I guess. This is a great gift. Then you should work the other way around you should analyze the problem first and then find a fitting solution and choose the method accordingly and not the other way around and this is really something that I would like to stress. I mean I think that again just and you can see on our website the projects that we've supported and when you go look at some of these projects in particular thinking of like some of the really big ones like Signal or Tor that we've supported you'll find in their community a lot of people that are thinking in like the challenge space and constantly themselves having to reconvince that the thing that they're working on is the thing that's solving the problems that they care most about as a sort of you know a cognitive dissidence they don't they don't want it they're always trying to reconvince themselves every time they come to apply or look for things like that so you know again these are some of these really good things that just keep you out of your own head assuming that like the thing that you're building is the best thing to build. Just don't trust yourself and always be looking to community to help you do that. And also sometimes it works out right like building like applying this method to something very unusual might work out it's not we're not saying that it's not working at all but like to think about it. Next a command-land tool checking SQL statements from the big geeky huh and it is but the geeky part is not necessarily the bad thing about this statement the problem is that it's really just for a tiny group of users I call tools or proposals like this like proposals for the one percent and by one percent I don't mean billionaires and I'm aware that this tools can be important but please help us understand why they're important what the like larger impact of these tools is because otherwise like our fund is money is basically tax money that we're handing out so it's difficult to fund like tools for the one percent we actually don't want to like yeah we're looking for stuff that really has impact. Yeah and I totally get this a little bit of a toss between the first one which is like focus on a narrow group but at the same time not so narrow and I think that that's again it's going to come back to know your know your your tools if you look at OTF I'll just call myself out for some really bad decisions we made in like five years ago some of the first tools we supported were definitely in this category and then we learned and realized how that's not good for people and end users and have since learned with colleagues like this how to ask better questions and make sure that you find that right balance so you know it's not gonna be perfect every time. So yeah that's the last piece of advice and I think it basically explains itself so my tool is the pebble that will start a landslide wow there that's a bold statement right and as bold statements go this is definitely not the only one that we've read so I mean sure it's it's good to be confident but well too much is too much and be realistic and come as you are your proposal doesn't have to impress us with with salesmanship with bold claims but with content and it's there we know this so focus on the content and not on the exaggeration we believe in your idea and there is no need to exaggerate that much and your proposal will be more convincing if there is a realistic assessment of its success and of its impact. And I also just want to recognize that for most of the folks that you're trying to get money from they really love a good pitch that sounds unrealistic and and even though they mostly know that that's not what they're looking for as well but I will tell you the projects that I've seen are the most successful whether it's a social a civic or an entrepreneurial based you know goal those projects that know exactly what it is that they want aren't afraid to convey that in a very honest and realistic terms and essentially at the cost of getting money the money that they do get from the funders that do fund them is much better money to have it's so much better money to have because you're not sitting there racing against some unrealistic thing that you said because you pitched someone an elevator and got them really excited you're working with someone who totally gets what it is that you're trying to do with realistic timelines and realistic constraints so I just can't can't overstate how important it is to know know yourself and make sure the people you're working with understand you as well and there's no unrealism about it. And here we are making a cut because after lecturing you on like how to make your proposals better and more perfect and like Dennis right like we're guilty of all of this too like we've written proposals that in the 4x platform it might be a helpful checklist if you write a proposal to run like through the slides and like figure out what is stuff that helps me to get my proposal better and yeah I'm saying cut because now we're going to talk about like stuff that did not work out or like stuff where we we've not that that has not worked out for us or like where we like have to like where we've made like big mistakes and the thing is that we're we're not interested in pointing out mistakes our main interest and one of the biggest challenges is it to create a culture in which it's allowed to make mistakes in which it's good to make mistakes and to talk about mistakes and to tell us like what the programs are not like doing good what they could do better so here are two fail stories and the first one is really great. There's so many fail stories about OTF I can't even like I wouldn't know where to begin and so I sort of I wanted to take like a decision that we made that wasn't good from a project standpoint but we there's a very well-known messaging app for example that you all are probably used or very familiar with or are using even right now at sending notifications to your phone. We had this opportunity it's not an open source project sadly and we don't only support open source but we've never supported a proprietary thing before we just haven't made a good no one's made a good case for it to us yet but back in like 2012-ish before it was really well known there was an opportunity for us to do something to introduce end-to-end encryption so that it had off the record messages before it's much more it wasn't as widespread as it is now we don't all have it in WhatsApp and what other other applications and you know they they they were like sort of excited about it but it wasn't really within their remit and so they said well it'll cost a you know a few hundred thousand dollars or a couple hundred thousand dollars a very small amount of money we're like oh man that's a proprietary project who's really going to use this application no one's using it now no one is going to why would someone use it's a replacement for email why like IRC what like who's going to use this application so we we we politely declined and said no we don't we don't see how it's going to be used of course like a year and a half two years later we're not only the only one we're using it everyone is using it everyone is all over it all the time we go back to my hey you think maybe we could come back to two you know a couple hundred thousand dollars you think we can get in didn't encrypt it they're like oh no no no no now now we're talking about like a you know seven figure high like number to do this are you still interested in like oh I don't have that much money so all is to say is despite all this rhetoric even in our experience of thinking like we've got good rubrics for knowing what's realistic what users are going to use we're going to mess up a whole bunch and at the end of the day you know your applications and the information you give us is how we learn when we're failing and how we can be better so I just wanted to make sure as much as I laugh we've made plenty of mistakes at least at OTSF absolutely um well we haven't had one of these um content fails I would like to call it like that because we're just too young so check again next year at Republica we have probably some stories to tell them um but um we have failed in technical ways already which are especially embarrassing for us um because we want to fund privacy tools and we claim that protecting your privacy is really really important and crucial in these days so here's the story of of my biggest embarrassment so far um I didn't realize that our SSL certificate used SHA-1 somewhere up the chain and it wasn't the third for our just plain info website but for the submission form where we ask you to submit all your personal data and private information so luckily for us in fact um at the time when we opened the submissions um most browsers um especially those that are not the Internet Explorer stopped displaying websites like ours and there was just a big warning sign there so this is not trustworthy don't go there and um we got some very immediate and direct feedback from people who wanted to um submit their ideas and um so yeah thanks to us sorry thanks to you really telling us that this doesn't work and this is not okay and we're not going to submit any content through a website that is not secure um just um gave us the possibility to improve and to check on that and uh yeah without you we wouldn't have been able to fix it so fast so yeah this is how we really also need you um and to work together and to improve together um I think this is where I'm supposed to talk more about that I can't tell you how at least I know this is true for both of our programs because we've both been very open that last point that you stressed is uh we're nothing without A the applications that you submit to us and we're different than like a traditional startup and then you know we have an open call it's very competitive and we're supporting open source technologies without actually seeking a return on any of the successes or money that you might make um that's the first step the second step is I can't tell you how much we change just on the conversations that we're going to hopefully have later and in the three o'clock meetup we're there just to answer any of the questions you have I'm going to bring my laptop I'm going to be logged into our website and if you point out something that's like wrong about that I'm going to make that change right there um I've done that probably five times since I've been at this conference in the last two days where someone is like you're saying a thing that doesn't make any sense to me and I'm like you're totally right when I say that out loud it doesn't make any sense to me either and then we change it and then it makes sense and so the the the community feedback the pointing out what we're not doing good enough for you uh and then being accountable and showing you how we've changed and then empowering you to keep doing that over and over and over and faster again is is the only way that we're relevant and useful here and we kind of we constantly want to know how we're how we can be better um so you know just supporting that culture we we're we're trying to make it true to our core um oh yeah right okay so here's the deal we ended a little bit we got two minutes um we're not going to do Q&A now and we don't like that we want to like ask your questions but we got this whole other meetup at 3 p.m. but what we're interested in doing right now is if you have questions um we would love for you just to make it I mean really really quickly say it so no no comments please now unless you've got a question but just so that you all can hear what everyone else is thinking and also for the live recording that's being being done here if you want to really quickly ask your question just for the record we will answer those questions at 3 p.m. and if you come we will we will we will be yours for as long as as you can stand to be around us okay so really quickly who's got questions that they want to okay we got one anybody else come on it's got to be more than one real quickie do you also support open hardware projects was it just software not yet not yet not yet we're like other questions but there's a long answer to that so come to the meetup really like okay okay since we've got another minute you can also make a comment as long as you make it really quickly no comments we love your person thank you that is all of them okay thank you all thank you very much yeah thanks they've just the place can you tell us where meetup red is I know we're meetup red is I think meetup red used to be in the relax zone and now it's somewhere close to stage 4 does anybody know so let's all find out together and meet there at meetup red at 3 o'clock right it's like a scavenger hunt someone knows the info punch yes the info punch I should not know it but thank you again thank you very much thank you
 Put together a list of suggestions that hopefully will help you to write a more engaging proposal  and we crowd source this list because we've been reviewing 800 proposals in the last couple  of months and yeah, we'll kick off with a quick introduction of ourselves.  Is this, oh hello.  I'm Dan with the Open Technology Fund known as Dan Bla or Dan Meredith is my parents name  me.  So really quickly Open Technology Fund is a technology centric fund that we essentially  we write a grant to the US government that gives us money then we then re-grant that  back out to other projects that are developing open source technologies in particular those  that are supporting free expression and free speech.  So a little bit more narrow compared to what they'll describe what they're doing but a  lot of the same principles as far as the kinds of technologies in the nature of the technology.  So I'll stop right there.  We've been around for five years and we've got thousands of applications that we've  reviewed as well.  So yeah.  Cool and we're Lisa and Julia from the prototype fund program from Germany focusing on civic  tech data security data literacy and infrastructure.  So in a nutshell we are supporting people in projects that work on tools software for the  public good and we give we we grant sums up to 30,000 euros for six months and the prototype  fund the money comes from the Ministry of Education and Research and we started the program because  we were very frustrated how hard it is how much bureaucracy it takes to submit a proposal  as an individual and they are not really any programs out there for individuals to access  a public grant.  So that's why we started the fund and yeah.  So yeah we want you to get the funding and for this reason we'd like to share some of  the insights on how you can tweak your project idea and how to make it better and maybe which  traps to avoid.  So we've put together our seven most favorite insights that we've gathered by reading through  for you it was more than a thousand for as it was several hundreds of proposals and at  least for me it was quite a change of perspective to not being the person to write a proposal  but to be the person to read through a proposal and it really it really makes you understand  the aspects of a good proposal better.  So we want to share what we've learned in the process.  So here's trap number one.  This is a quote I know this is something you're not supposed to say but for this project it's  true the user is simply everybody.  I mean this is such a tempting trap and I know where it comes from of course I want the whole  world to be my user and to use my solution but well unless maybe you're I don't know  a plant that produces oxygen your solution will never fit everybody there is just no  one size fits all if we are true to ourselves and especially not on tech tools.  So tools that try to suit everybody tend not to work very well for anyone.  So here's our first bit of advice.  Know the user and put some effort into getting to know them and what exactly they need and  the answer might actually surprise you.  We encourage all projects to follow a human-centered approach and every step of their work so we  really want people to start with a proper user research and go through user-centered  design or human-centered design and end up with user experience design at least that  is our experience.  Yeah and you know just as a and you'll get the rhythm here is I'm going to provide an  antidote every time there's one of these things that comes up from our experience and they'll  provide some evidence from theirs.  You know from the open technology fun standpoint we first and foremost stick to folks that are  dealing with some sort of repression like freedom of expression or free speech and the  most ideal project for us and we ask people this all the time is one that is being developed  by those who are most affected by that situation but if you're talking about more of a civil  society situation you know if you've got an idea to stop potholes make sure that you're  like actually experiencing like the problem of potholes like you have a car it's really  troubling your bicycle and you know it's like a really personal thing for you and that's  the most ideal sort of applicant and your focus on just those specific people not everyone's  going to care but the most affected will.  Okay trap number two in politics nobody ever listens I want to change that and I know this  feeling we all know this feeling but as a statement in a funding proposal it might be  too much of a feeling and way too general unless it's your teaser to grab attention then it's  great but we've experienced that in a lot of proposals people make assumptions and then  never like conclude or like tell us how they came to this assumption so we all know like  most ideas that are the scut feelings but it helps to give some evidence to prove your  point and it also helps you to check your point right if you cannot like back it up with premises  it's probably not as true as you might have thought and it's really not a rare case we  have like assumptions like similar like this one in probably one out of three proposals  I don't know.  Same same yeah yeah I mean it's one of those situations where especially when you're dealing  with technology and mostly technologists there's a sort of like a build it and they will come  it's like I've got a really great idea it's great it's the best everyone needs to know  about this idea can't tell you why but it's my good idea and it you know it's sort of  related to the first one and a lot of the proposals in particular the ones that are  very strong again come up with not necessarily like a large data even if it's just anecdotal  as in you know this is true for a few people this is what it is and you can sort of document  that that goes a long way to strengthening up what it is that you're proposing and if  you're doing something where the people using the technology are other software developers  who are then engaging with people and so it's removed from those end users that's fine just  go and try to demonstrate and show how your code is being used by other developers that  are engaging with people and just do a little bit of that and goes a long way.  Yeah that's a good point I think we're going to chime in with that several times because  it's such a such an important point so this is a statement there is no usable email client  for Android open source.  I think these slides are great by the way I haven't seen the edits I love all these little  quotes.  Thanks.  Yeah well they're not from us so yeah so this is a trap number three I'm just getting it  wrong.  I understand also where this comes from so when I have an idea I want to get started  immediately and I want to work through with it and I don't want to do research and what  other people have done because you know I think I have this is my problem I know how  to solve it right.  So but it pays off to take some time and put some research into finding out what other  people have done so far and I mean if you are open source of developers especially I don't  need to tell you this but still this comes up very often.  Open source is all about collaboration about forking and redeployment so please do the  research and which similar tools are already out there and I'm sure your idea is valid  but then tell us what makes your idea special and why it's better or different or more focused  than the existing solutions that are out there and if you find that actually and honestly  it would be enough or maybe even better to contribute to an existing project then you  might consider doing it.  Yeah just you know for our application process you're going to see in there there's a section  that says you have to know something about what's complementary or competitive to the  ecosystem that you're trying to get involved in.  This idea that you're a special unicorn no sorry it's probably a good idea but it's  definitely not so wholly unique that no one else has thought about it or that someone  else hasn't done it and you strengthen yourself by talking about the ecosystem that you're  in and how you're complementary or competitive to that and what your value at is but everyone's  standing on the toes of giants here and someone's going to stand on your toes and you're standing  on someone else's so just come into that knowing that that's true will strengthen your chances  often.  I will build a platform that will.  That's an all-time classic.  Sometimes it seems a bit like software development or the aspiration of software development  is building platforms and build one and it will magically like make things better but  yeah that's the trap number four because platforms by themselves do not solve problems right  they do not magically bring people together they do not magically like bring solutions  and problems together so if you build it there will not be a guarantee that anyone will come  so a lot of times building the technology and I think that's true for a lot of projects  building the technology is not the hard part the hard part is to engage with communities  to figure out communication strategies and to not only focus on your tech solution but  like what comes after the tech solution and before it and like how does it what's the  context and how does it fit into that context.  Yeah I'm sorry I'm just laughing at all of these because I'm guilty of every single one  of them so far I've done and made all these statements at different points in my life  making technology and I have a dog that does exactly that same thing so this is just I'm  loving it.  I mean this is we're going to obviously emphasize the human centeredness of this over and over  and over again the ubiquity of like actual platforms that you're building technology  on and how accessible they are to everyone can't be overstated so again like the novelty  of what you think you're doing technologically versus how like the uniqueness of how it's  helping people or like engaging people that's where the real sort of novelty is at least  for us as folks who are literally seeing thousands of applications a year for technology they're  not as you know unique as you might think and one of the things I think we're both committed  to just to add a little side this is making that much more transparent and accountable  so that you can see what it is that we see in a responsible way and no offense realize  how where the special things are and where the special things are.  Absolutely so this is trap number five which I like a lot I built something like Tinder  bot for XYZ and you can replace Tinder with every other tech hype we've had in the past  500 years I guess so people have always been saying that right but I mean this is a no  brainer but a mechanism that works in one context doesn't necessarily work in another  and so this is one of our mantras you know all the saying that form follows function  right so our mantra is method follows problem and it should be that way around and not the  other so I know that sometimes you want to be playful yeah there's a gift for the beer  I mean hey what else can you want so yeah I know that sometimes you just want to try  you know how this works you want you to analyze it from a technical way but if you want to  develop a helpful tool okay this is not a helpful gift I guess.  This is a great gift.  Then you should work the other way around you should analyze the problem first and then  find a fitting solution and choose the method accordingly and not the other way around and  this is really something that I would like to stress.  I mean I think that again just and you can see on our website the projects that we've  supported and when you go look at some of these projects in particular thinking of like  some of the really big ones like Signal or Tor that we've supported you'll find in their  community a lot of people that are thinking in like the challenge space and constantly  themselves having to reconvince that the thing that they're working on is the thing  that's solving the problems that they care most about as a sort of you know a cognitive  dissidence they don't they don't want it they're always trying to reconvince themselves every  time they come to apply or look for things like that so you know again these are some  of these really good things that just keep you out of your own head assuming that like  the thing that you're building is the best thing to build.  Just don't trust yourself and always be looking to community to help you do that.  And also sometimes it works out right like building like applying this method to something  very unusual might work out it's not we're not saying that it's not working at all but  like to think about it.  Next a command-land tool checking SQL statements from the big geeky huh and it is but the geeky  part is not necessarily the bad thing about this statement the problem is that it's really  just for a tiny group of users I call tools or proposals like this like proposals for  the one percent and by one percent I don't mean billionaires and I'm aware that this  tools can be important but please help us understand why they're important what the  like larger impact of these tools is because otherwise like our fund is money is basically  tax money that we're handing out so it's difficult to fund like tools for the one percent we  actually don't want to like yeah we're looking for stuff that really has impact.  Yeah and I totally get this a little bit of a toss between the first one which is like  focus on a narrow group but at the same time not so narrow and I think that that's again  it's going to come back to know your know your your tools if you look at OTF I'll just call  myself out for some really bad decisions we made in like five years ago some of the first  tools we supported were definitely in this category and then we learned and realized  how that's not good for people and end users and have since learned with colleagues like  this how to ask better questions and make sure that you find that right balance so you know  it's not gonna be perfect every time.  So yeah that's the last piece of advice and I think it basically explains itself so my  tool is the pebble that will start a landslide wow there that's a bold statement right and  as bold statements go this is definitely not the only one that we've read so I mean  sure it's it's good to be confident but well too much is too much and be realistic and  come as you are your proposal doesn't have to impress us with with salesmanship with  bold claims but with content and it's there we know this so focus on the content and not  on the exaggeration we believe in your idea and there is no need to exaggerate that much  and your proposal will be more convincing if there is a realistic assessment of its success  and of its impact.  And I also just want to recognize that for most of the folks that you're trying to get  money from they really love a good pitch that sounds unrealistic and and even though they  mostly know that that's not what they're looking for as well but I will tell you the projects  that I've seen are the most successful whether it's a social a civic or an entrepreneurial  based you know goal those projects that know exactly what it is that they want aren't afraid  to convey that in a very honest and realistic terms and essentially at the cost of getting  money the money that they do get from the funders that do fund them is much better money  to have it's so much better money to have because you're not sitting there racing against  some unrealistic thing that you said because you pitched someone an elevator and got them  really excited you're working with someone who totally gets what it is that you're trying  to do with realistic timelines and realistic constraints so I just can't can't overstate  how important it is to know know yourself and make sure the people you're working with  understand you as well and there's no unrealism about it.  And here we are making a cut because after lecturing you on like how to make your proposals  better and more perfect and like Dennis right like we're guilty of all of this too like  we've written proposals that in the 4x platform it might be a helpful checklist if you write  a proposal to run like through the slides and like figure out what is stuff that helps  me to get my proposal better and yeah I'm saying cut because now we're going to talk  about like stuff that did not work out or like stuff where we we've not that that has  not worked out for us or like where we like have to like where we've made like big mistakes  and the thing is that we're we're not interested in pointing out mistakes our main interest  and one of the biggest challenges is it to create a culture in which it's allowed to  make mistakes in which it's good to make mistakes and to talk about mistakes and to tell us  like what the programs are not like doing good what they could do better so here are  two fail stories and the first one is really great.  There's so many fail stories about OTF I can't even like I wouldn't know where to begin  and so I sort of I wanted to take like a decision that we made that wasn't good from a project  standpoint but we there's a very well-known messaging app for example that you all are  probably used or very familiar with or are using even right now at sending notifications  to your phone.  We had this opportunity it's not an open source project sadly and we don't only support open  source but we've never supported a proprietary thing before we just haven't made a good no  one's made a good case for it to us yet but back in like 2012-ish before it was really  well known there was an opportunity for us to do something to introduce end-to-end encryption  so that it had off the record messages before it's much more it wasn't as widespread as  it is now we don't all have it in WhatsApp and what other other applications and you  know they they they were like sort of excited about it but it wasn't really within their  remit and so they said well it'll cost a you know a few hundred thousand dollars or a  couple hundred thousand dollars a very small amount of money we're like oh man that's a  proprietary project who's really going to use this application no one's using it now  no one is going to why would someone use it's a replacement for email why like IRC what  like who's going to use this application so we we we politely declined and said no we  don't we don't see how it's going to be used of course like a year and a half two years  later we're not only the only one we're using it everyone is using it everyone is all over  it all the time we go back to my hey you think maybe we could come back to two you know a  couple hundred thousand dollars you think we can get in didn't encrypt it they're like  oh no no no no now now we're talking about like a you know seven figure high like number  to do this are you still interested in like oh I don't have that much money so all is  to say is despite all this rhetoric even in our experience of thinking like we've got good  rubrics for knowing what's realistic what users are going to use we're going to mess  up a whole bunch and at the end of the day you know your applications and the information  you give us is how we learn when we're failing and how we can be better so I just wanted  to make sure as much as I laugh we've made plenty of mistakes at least at OTSF absolutely  um well we haven't had one of these um content fails I would like to call it like that because  we're just too young so check again next year at Republica we have probably some stories  to tell them um but um we have failed in technical ways already which are especially embarrassing  for us um because we want to fund privacy tools and we claim that protecting your privacy  is really really important and crucial in these days so here's the story of of my biggest  embarrassment so far um I didn't realize that our SSL certificate used SHA-1 somewhere  up the chain and it wasn't the third for our just plain info website but for the submission  form where we ask you to submit all your personal data and private information so luckily for  us in fact um at the time when we opened the submissions um most browsers um especially  those that are not the Internet Explorer stopped displaying websites like ours and there was  just a big warning sign there so this is not trustworthy don't go there and um we got some  very immediate and direct feedback from people who wanted to um submit their ideas and um  so yeah thanks to us sorry thanks to you really telling us that this doesn't work and this  is not okay and we're not going to submit any content through a website that is not  secure um just um gave us the possibility to improve and to check on that and uh yeah  without you we wouldn't have been able to fix it so fast so yeah this is how we really  also need you um and to work together and to improve together um I think this is where  I'm supposed to talk more about that I can't tell you how at least I know this is true  for both of our programs because we've both been very open that last point that you stressed  is uh we're nothing without A the applications that you submit to us and we're different  than like a traditional startup and then you know we have an open call it's very competitive  and we're supporting open source technologies without actually seeking a return on any of  the successes or money that you might make um that's the first step the second step is  I can't tell you how much we change just on the conversations that we're going to hopefully  have later and in the three o'clock meetup we're there just to answer any of the questions  you have I'm going to bring my laptop I'm going to be logged into our website and if  you point out something that's like wrong about that I'm going to make that change right  there um I've done that probably five times since I've been at this conference in the  last two days where someone is like you're saying a thing that doesn't make any sense  to me and I'm like you're totally right when I say that out loud it doesn't make any sense  to me either and then we change it and then it makes sense and so the the the community  feedback the pointing out what we're not doing good enough for you uh and then being accountable  and showing you how we've changed and then empowering you to keep doing that over and  over and over and faster again is is the only way that we're relevant and useful here and  we kind of we constantly want to know how we're how we can be better um so you know just  supporting that culture we we're we're trying to make it true to our core um oh yeah right  okay so here's the deal we ended a little bit we got two minutes um we're not going to do  Q&A now and we don't like that we want to like ask your questions but we got this whole  other meetup at 3 p.m. but what we're interested in doing right now is if you have questions  um we would love for you just to make it I mean really really quickly say it so no no  comments please now unless you've got a question but just so that you all can hear what everyone  else is thinking and also for the live recording that's being being done here if you want to  really quickly ask your question just for the record we will answer those questions at 3 p.m.  and if you come we will we will we will be yours for as long as as you can stand to be around  us okay so really quickly who's got questions that they want to okay we got one anybody else  come on it's got to be more than one real quickie do you also support open hardware projects was it just software not yet not yet not yet we're like other questions but there's a long answer to that so come to the meetup really like okay okay since we've got another  minute you can also make a comment as long as you make it really quickly no comments we love your person thank you that is all of them  okay thank you all thank you very much yeah thanks they've just the place can you tell us where meetup red is I know we're meetup red is I think meetup red used to be in the  relax zone and now it's somewhere close to stage 4 does anybody know so let's all find out together and meet there at meetup red at 3 o'clock right  it's like a scavenger hunt someone knows the info punch yes the info punch I should not know it but thank you again thank you very much thank you
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