Memorializing the Vision | Forgd Academy

Introduction: Documenting everything you've created

While you have started writing down some of your ideas in our templates from the previous sections, creating a formalized version of your token design as a whitepaper is important. The tool doesn’t matter.

There are a variety of tools available to you for memorializing your vision. You can use a Gitbook, Google Docs, or a slide deck. What does matter is to touch upon the most important aspects of your design. Your token design will be relevant to your team members, potential investors, or community.

The Whitepaper (or formal "documentation") should roughly include the following structure if you are looking to draft a concise overview of your project:

Overview
1. Problem & Solution statement
2. Mission & Vision
Token Strength (i.e., Demand Drivers, Sinks)
1. Business Model
2. Value Proposition & Value Creation
3. Value Capture
4. Token Utility
5. Demand Drivers
Token Supply (i.e., Faucets)
1. Distribution
2. Emission
3. Valuation

Alternatively, if your goal is to provide more thorough documentation of your project, protocol, Tokenomics, and other aspects of your decentralized ecosystem, consider using the below structure:

Learn about [PROJECT NAME]
1. About [Project Name]
2. The Mission
3. Problem & Solution Statement
4. Why is this problem worth solving?
5. Business Model
6. Our Values
Learn about the Protocol
1. Value Proposition & Value Creation
2. User Overview
3. Tasks & Motivations
4. Value Creation
5. User Behavior & Activities
6. Incentives
7. Sinks & Faucets
8. Protocol Value Flows
Tokenomics Overview
1. Token Demand Drivers
  1. Utility
  2. Demand Mechanisms
  3. Token Value Capture
2. Token Supply
  1. Distribution Schedule
  2. Emissions Schedule
How to interact with the Protocol
1. Customer Experience Journey #1
2. Customer Experience Journey #2
3. Customer Experience Journey #3
4. …
Technical documentation Repository (Optional)

Tasks

Action required

Create sanitized versions of your Token Distribution and Emissions Schedules for use in any external or public-facing documentation.

For each "group" of recipients, select a "public facing" group name from the dropdown. You can select up to six unique "public facing" group names. Based on your selection, the charts for your Token Distribution and Emissions Schedules will automatically update. The purpose of this exercise is twofold:

Reducing the number of groups illustrated on these charts will make them easier to read and interpret.
Using industry-standard naming conventions will allow the investing public and prospective community members to compare your project to others more seamlessly.

NOTE: This exercise is optional but highly encouraged. Even if you have selected less than six groups of recipients on your Token Distribution Schedule, the exercise will still be helpful to convert some potentially less favorable group names into more industry-standard naming conventions. For example, an internal group named "Team" should carry a "public facing" group name of "Core Contributors." Similarly, Forgd highly recommends categorizing all network incentives and allocations for your project's "Treasury" into "Ecosystem Incentives & Governance."

Tasks

Action required

Create an initial draft of your whitepaper or project documentation based on the work you've done thus far.

Documenting what you've accomplished thus far will be helpful as you begin to scale your community and reach out to investors. Follow the proposed outlines in this section for a good starting point, but don't be afraid to diverge from these structures. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here; however, at the very least, you'll need to include the basics related to supply (i.e., token distribution & emissions schedules) and demand (i.e., demand drivers and value capture).

NOTE: Phase 2 of this exercise may lead to some adjustments on both your supply & demand as you optimize for post-TGE performance.