How can I fund Lanyards app?

Mr. Haku: The Bland but Purrsistent by CitizenGrumpe

Lanyards is a scholarly profile built on the AT Protocol and it's in currently in 🚧 early development.

Launching a public BETA, Dec 2025 🚀

Think "link-in-bio for researchers": one simple link to maintain a complete researcher presence: publications, talks, preprints, social profiles and more... Free, open source, and decentralised.

Why I started building Lanyards - Marginalia

What is it? Why should researchers care about it?

View this thread for a preview 👇

Researchers operate a critical role in society, yet their infrastructure is fragmented across proprietary platforms.

I believe the potential opportunity extends beyond Lanyards. Demonstrating how decentralised networking can better serve scholarly communities better can shift behaviours.

AT Protocol is a game-changer for scholarly communication and academic publishing. - Marginalia

How to make research more open, continuous, and collaborative, while preserving ownership, credit, and integrity.

This solution isn't complicated, but it does need dedicated development time to get right.

Goals

Grow to my first 100 users soon, then 1000 within a year.

Run concept and usability tests.

Iterate on features that make profiles more-discoverable.

Create the infrastructure to existing data continuously and effortlessly from more public sources.

Network by attending conferences to build community, meet the experts, understand needs, and advocate for decentralised research infrastructure.

Rough estimates

I know the path to impact and growth needs funding, at least in the short term. I've done the napkin calculations and my reality is I can currently afford to spend exactly 1 day a week on development whilst freelancing and parenting full-time.

€20k for each weekday of costs

€3-6k for tools and infrastructure

€2-4k for training and networking

€30-50k total approx per year

That's not a huge amount, but far more than donation buttons will likely generate, especially without users...

Current progress

The lexicons are well defined. The basic infrastructure works. Profile creation, DOI ingestion, event tracking... It's working and ready to grow 🌿

I don't have users yet—so this might seem very premature—but I've built enough to know the model works.

GitHub - renderghost/lanyards: Lanyards is a dedicated profile for researchers, built on the AT Protocol

Lanyards is a dedicated profile for researchers, built on the AT Protocol - renderghost/lanyards

View on Github →

Funding constraints

I’ve set out some constraints to guide how I think Lanyards should be funded in future.

The property must remain in the public domain, with permissive non-commercial open source licences.

I will not take money from venture capital, as that will inevitably lead to enshittification.

I will not use crowdfunding platforms (a la GoFundMe) as they seem to involve too much admin overhead.

I will not get into personal debt.

Funding Options

Thinking aloud about potential viable options I've found so far (but don't know lots about yet).

→ Charitable foundations?

Foundations that fund open source or scholarly infrastructure projects. I assume some exist that would fund this sort of work, but I'm not sure about eligibility, application requirements, or whether they'd consider a solo developer with no users yet.

→ Community support?

Platforms like GitHub Sponsors, Ko-fi, and Open Collective enable recurring donations from supporters. Seems like they can help to maintain independence, but I suspect challenging to rely on as a primary funding source.

→ Ecosystem funding?

AT Protocol Community Fund seems to support projects extending the protocol beyond social media. Scholarly profiles seems like a good candidate, but I'm as yet unclear on what's available or how competitive it might be.

→ Fiscal hosts?

Organisations that can act as a legal home for my project, handling grants and finances without me having to set up my own nonprofit. Open Collective Europe and Center for the Cultivation of Technology seem relevant, but I don't understand how they work, what they cost, or whether I actually need one yet.

→ Public grants?

European and German programmes that fund public-interest software. I've heard (?) these exist for solo developers building infrastructure, but I don't know the application burden, success rates, or whether zero users is actually acceptable or even technically allowed.

Help needed

I'm very new to this topic.

I'm asking for informed opinions about how to sustainably advance work that could genuinely benefit researchers.

If you've navigated similar funding challenges particularly in the EU I'd value hearing your experiences and insights and feedback.

Which routes work for early-stage open source projects?

Are there specific grant programmes or foundations I should prioritise?

Are there funding models I've overlooked entirely?

What's realistic to expect from community funding?

What are the hidden downsides?

What am I not thinking about that I should be?

Let's talk!

I also welcome advisors and collaborators. Let's talk today 👇

B. Prendergast 👋 (@renderg.host)

💖 Makes things make sense 🤔 Writes about science, tech, people, products & the messy in-betweens 🌿 Designs to ease your org's growing pains 🐳 Specialises in product strategy and design for complex systems ☮️ Posts are IMHO ⧉ https://links.renderg.host

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