marianne@tuakdotsol
so what actually gets funded?
I've reviewed many grant applications at @SuperteamMY with @hanstmy.
here's what separates the ones we approve from the ones we don't.
first, understand what a grant is, and what it isn't.
a grant is not a salary, validation, nor a reward for effort.
it's a bet on a specific outcome happening in a specific timeframe.
the question we're always asking: does this application give us enough confidence that the outcome will happen?
most applications fail before we even get to the content.
the most common rejection: no real problem
"we're building a DeFi aggregator for Malaysian users."
okay.
who is desperately waiting for this? who is suffering right now because it doesn't exist? why restrict to Malaysian users only? why will your solution be better than what's already out there? why now?
if you can't name a specific person with a specific pain, you don't have a problem. you have a category.
the best applications open with a user story and pain point, not a product description and list of features.
the second most common: no distribution thinking
"we'll get 1,000 users in 3 months."
how?
"organic growth and community building."
that's not a plan. that's hopium.
tell us exactly who your first 10 users are. how you'll reach them. why they'll stay.
distribution is half the product and your moat. treat it that way.
the third: milestones that aren't milestones
bad: "simplify user experience"
bad: "scale product"
good: "working product live at [URL] with these 3 specific features, with 10 real B2B/B2C users acquired from partnering up with x, y, z"
good: "beta live at [URL] with 10 paying users acquired via X DMs"
milestones need to be verifiable. we should be able to check them without asking you.
links. demos. onchain data. real user evidence.
if your milestone is a document or a design, that's a deliverable, not a milestone.
KPIs you set are yours to own
don't write "1,000 active users" if you're not confident you can hit it.
we will hold you to every number you write.
conservative and credible beats ambitious and vague every time.
and no vanity metrics - GitHub stars, Twitter followers, Discord members are nice to have. give us active users with a definition of "active," onchain transactions, or revenue.
the regulatory blind spot
if you're building anything touching payments, tokenised assets/RWA, stablecoins, exchanges, or secondary trading in Malaysia, you need to show you've thought about the regulatory landscape.
we have a graveyard of projects in this area so if your application doesn't mention regulation for a product that clearly needs it, we assume you haven't thought about it.
that's a red flag.
validate your thesis and why @solana
before you apply, validate your thesis.
use solana[dot]new and @colosseum Codex to pressure-test your idea against the graveyard of projects that tried this before you.
ask your LLM to be critical, not to validate what you already believe.
and tell us specifically: why does this need to be on Solana? what does Solana's speed, cost, or composability enable that couldn't work elsewhere? "we'll deploy a smart contract" or the product just being a Solana wrapper won't cut it.
proof of work matters more than the idea
two applications with identical ideas:
one founder has shipped two previous products, won a bounty, attended a hackathon.
one has a GitHub with 3 commits and an X account that's almost empty.
we fund the first one.
show us you're embedded in the ecosystem. bounties, event appearances, community contributions, prior builds - all of it counts.
we can't fund potential. we fund momentum.
what a strong application looks like:
• opens with a specific user and a specific problem
• explains distribution - first X users
• milestones are verifiable links and demos, not documents
• KPIs are conservative, specific, and owned
• regulatory awareness where relevant
• proof of work from the founder
one page of this beats five pages of vague ambition. every time.
if you're building on Solana and want to apply, the link is in 🧵
read the brief carefully. answer the questions actually being asked.
and if you're not sure whether your idea is ready, come to one of our events first. ship a bounty. join a hackathon. talk to us.
the best grant applications come from builders we already recognise. 🫡
