It might be a good idea to share drafts with friends for feedback prior to publishing. Funders tend to have limited time to evaluate projects, and I personally found it difficult to judge the merit of these proposals based purely on the descriptions you’ve provided. It’s alright to share early pieces of work, but you might have too many dangling TODOs, which does not inspire confidence and trust in your ability to reliably produce high quality outputs. If there was a prototype you could share of the interface you describe or other concrete evidence backing your technical skill or prior visible impact, that would add to the credibility of your stated plans. That said, I took a look at your comment history and came away with a better impression than if I’d stopped with this post, and I’d encourage you to slow down and keep updating it with a focus on adding structure as you flesh out your thoughts and put more work into grounding them in data. It’s not clear to me how much funding you’re asking for, over what period, and which options you’ve already explored (manifund? OpenPhil? other support from existing institutions?). If you provided your contact information when asking people to contact you, that would make it easier for them to get in touch. I’m sure all of these issues of presentation can be worked out as you acquire more experience and get tangible results to point at, and it’s quite understandable to not have everything sorted when you’re trying to move quickly. Best of luck!
I agree with most everything you’ve said and I’m grateful for your feedback!
I am hoping to replace those TODO’s tomorrow, I wasn’t really expecting any funders to stumble across this post before then, but I suppose you’re right, if I don’t want people seeing it I shouldn’t publish it. I guess it’s because I’m thinking of this more as a living document, so I’m leaving this post up, but in the future I’ll be more hesitant to publish before a reasonable level of completion.
I think these are really good points I should address:
How much funding I’m asking for. -- Right now I’m only focused on covering my own costs / salary, but I may someday be interested managing teams focused on these or other projects.
What options I’ve explored. -- I’ve been applying to programs like MATS and there are a few grants I’m planning to apply for. I’m not sure how much I want to list all the people who have rejected me though, it seems a bit demoralizing and bad advertising.
Contact information. -- I was hoping people would just think to use a LW DM, but I suppose I should say that or provide other contact info. Do you have suggestions?
It might be a good idea to share drafts with friends for feedback prior to publishing. Funders tend to have limited time to evaluate projects, and I personally found it difficult to judge the merit of these proposals based purely on the descriptions you’ve provided. It’s alright to share early pieces of work, but you might have too many dangling TODOs, which does not inspire confidence and trust in your ability to reliably produce high quality outputs. If there was a prototype you could share of the interface you describe or other concrete evidence backing your technical skill or prior visible impact, that would add to the credibility of your stated plans. That said, I took a look at your comment history and came away with a better impression than if I’d stopped with this post, and I’d encourage you to slow down and keep updating it with a focus on adding structure as you flesh out your thoughts and put more work into grounding them in data. It’s not clear to me how much funding you’re asking for, over what period, and which options you’ve already explored (manifund? OpenPhil? other support from existing institutions?). If you provided your contact information when asking people to contact you, that would make it easier for them to get in touch. I’m sure all of these issues of presentation can be worked out as you acquire more experience and get tangible results to point at, and it’s quite understandable to not have everything sorted when you’re trying to move quickly. Best of luck!
I agree with most everything you’ve said and I’m grateful for your feedback!
I am hoping to replace those TODO’s tomorrow, I wasn’t really expecting any funders to stumble across this post before then, but I suppose you’re right, if I don’t want people seeing it I shouldn’t publish it. I guess it’s because I’m thinking of this more as a living document, so I’m leaving this post up, but in the future I’ll be more hesitant to publish before a reasonable level of completion.
I think these are really good points I should address:
How much funding I’m asking for. -- Right now I’m only focused on covering my own costs / salary, but I may someday be interested managing teams focused on these or other projects.
What options I’ve explored. -- I’ve been applying to programs like MATS and there are a few grants I’m planning to apply for. I’m not sure how much I want to list all the people who have rejected me though, it seems a bit demoralizing and bad advertising.
Contact information. -- I was hoping people would just think to use a LW DM, but I suppose I should say that or provide other contact info. Do you have suggestions?
Thanks again for your feedback : )