Questbook

Questbook, a product operated by CreatorOS Inc., provides tooling for grant and bounty programs in the Web3 ecosystem. On the grantee side, the platform lets builders create a profile that is referred to grant managers, browse featured and recently funded grant listings, and receive grant opportunities. On the program side, organizations can launch and administer grant programs through the application.

The product is organized around what the company calls "delegated domain allocation," an approach it describes as pioneered by the Ethereum Foundation, in which a program owner delegates capital allocation decisions in a given domain or region to designated allocators. The company positions the dApp as trustless and composable, stating that data and source code are permissionlessly available so that programs can customize the tool. Press coverage from 2022 described Questbook as screening projects using signals such as a developer's on-chain and GitHub history, and reported that the company had built its own gasless wallet so that users store information on-chain without paying transaction fees.

Questbook also maintains community and content activity alongside the core product, including a builders podcast featuring founders from other Web3 protocols, research content, a Permissionless Work Improvement Proposal process, and a grants pool for improvements to Questbook itself."]

Founding story

TechCrunch reported that the startup was founded in May 2021 and initially set out to help builders earn in crypto. Co-founder Madhavan Malolan said the team found that few developers knew Solidity or Rust, so Questbook began teaching those languages for free and published over 100 tutorials, building an audience of more than 18,000 developers before pivoting toward helping those developers secure funding.

Business model

Questbook supplies grant- and bounty-program software to protocols, DAOs and foundations that distribute capital to developers, and a matching layer that refers builder profiles to grant managers. At the time of the 2022 Series A the company said it did not monetize the software.

TechCrunch reported in May 2022 that Questbook did not then monetize its software; no other revenue model is described in the available sources.

Traction

Site figures cite 60,000+ builders, 7,000+ proposals and more than $10 million paid out. In May 2022, the company reported facilitating over $1.5 million in grant money for partners including Polygon, Aave, Near and Harmony, an 18,000-developer learning community, and a stated plan to scale disbursements to $30-50 million over the following two quarters.

Latest developments

The questbook.app site currently presents a grantee referral flow, grant listings and a path for organizations to start a grant program, reporting 60K+ builders, 7K+ proposals and $10M+ paid out. The questbook.xyz site markets delegated domain allocation tooling for DAOs and foundations and a $100K grants pool for improving Questbook.