[Approved] Trove Labs - NEAR APAC "Founders Brunch" Event + NEAR APAC Coverage (N@N) [Edited 06/06/23])

Marketing DAO Marketing DAO
, ,
1

Astro DAO Link: https://app.astrodao.com/dao/marketing.sputnik-dao.near/proposals/marketing.sputnik-dao.near-740

Introduction:
Trove Labs is a web3 development and consulting firm specializing in the NEAR Protocol ecosystem. We have been deeply involved in the NEAR community since 2021 and have firsthand experience building two of the strongest NEAR native communities; Jump DeFi and Neko, which lead engagement and active user analytics. Trove Labs has created NEAR at NIGHT, the #1 Twitter Spaces Show on NEAR that serves as a platform for founders and team members of NEAR Native projects to showcase what they are building and discuss important topics within the ecosystem. Trove labs is dedicated to building the NEAR infrastructure while encouraging and enabling others to do the same.

Near at NIGHT has been extremely successful in providing a platform for NEAR native projects with over 60 unique guests being hosted on N@N so far. NEAR at Night has run 80+ spaces with an average of 126 views & 2090 impressions per show since its creation in August.

Introduction:
Last year Trove Labs was given the amazing opportunity to travel to Nearcon from the marketing DAO (NEARCON Proposal & NEARCON Report). While attending NEARCON we were able to strengthen existing relationships within the NEAR community by meeting up in real life and witnessing their achievements and passion firsthand. We were able to schedule multiple N@N AMA sessions with different projects and hackathon participants to highlight their work and innovations.

One of the most impactful experiences we had at the conference was the “NEAR Founders Brunch” thrown by Apollo 42 and the ASAC team. We were able to meet with ~20 team members from different projects and businesses and make lasting connections that have resulted in strong project relationships with teams like Tradeport, Apollo 42, and more. Ecosystem-led networking events like this are the most effective at encouraging members of the NEAR community to work together to build the NEAR ecosystem.

We believe in the importance of IRL events and conferences and know that with proper marketing, social media amplification, and genuine engagement, we can maximize the effect of events like NEAR APAC and NEARCON.

In an effort to support NEAR Protocol’s focus on global scaling and accessibility, we are looking to travel to NEAR APAC 23’ to meet active NEAR project teams, coordinate with NEAR Vietnam Hub to hold multiple “Founders Brunch” events, , and host multiple N@N spaces during the conference to provide social media for exposure project teams during the conference, and to promote/market NEAR APAC a reasonable amount of time before and after the event is over. (edited 06/06/23)

Marketing Type:
Community Events > Meetups > Networking/Educational
Community Events > Events > Hackathons/Conferences
Content > Social media > Distribution

Objective: Provide a spotlight to developers participating at NEAR APAC through N@N AMAs, Founder events, and sufficient marketing required to distribute content made from the above activities to a large audience.

Marketing Activity (edited 06/06/23):

  • Host 3 NEAR at Night AMAs (2 During the event, & 1 Round up AMA) in collaboration with NEAR Vietnam Hub, focusing on spotlighting new projects & Hackathon participants present at the conference. We will coordinate with NVH to procure guests from the event.
  • Throw 2 NEAR Brunch Events in collaboration with NEAR Vietnam Hub, with a highlight video of the attendees. We will ask the attendees a few questions about their experiences with NEAR and what they are building (attendees will be prime candidates for potential N@N AMAs). We will interview founders on camera and ask questions and create a highlight video of both days including footage of founders and the events.
  • Utilize the N@N twitter platform to spotlight NEAR APAC and important events. We will interview founders on camera and ask questions and create a highlight video of both days including footage of founders and the events.

Metrics for Measuring Success (edited 06/06/23):

  • Host 3 N@N twitter spaces during NEAR APAC (Sept 8-12) to cover notable updates for NEAR protocol and highlight new/upcoming projects & protocols coming to NEAR. (sufficient engagement)
  • Quantity of Near Projects teams committed to speaking in future N@N spaces
    • Target: 5-10
  • Hold 2 “NEAR Founders Brunch” events
    • Target: 10-20 guests per event
    • Short Video showcasing events is created and distributed through crypto twitter and NEAR channels.
  • Consistent engagement, impressions, views for respective content. (Satisfactory impressions being ~500-1500 average)

Expected Impact (edited 06/06/23): Drive awareness to NEAR protocol projects (With a focus on the NEAR APAC community) and provide social media coverage of the NEAR APAC conference for the NEAR/Crypto Twitter community. Establish relationships between existing NEAR projects & new NEAR projects present at the conference through live meetups during the conference to promote cooperation within the NEAR project ecosystem. Drive momentum from NEAR APAC and establish a relationship between Western & Eastern Near communities.

Requested Funds (edited 06/06/23) : We are requesting funds for trove labs to perform the following marketing activities at NEAR APAC :

Total Cost (edited 06/06/23) : ~2420 NEAR ($3630 USD) One-time

3 x N@N APAC AMAs $780 ($260 x 2)

2 x Founders Brunch events $2000 ($1000 x 2)

1 x APAC event highlight video $400

Marketing before and After event. Consistent twitter/telegram engagement before and after event ($450)

Wallet ID: trovelabs.near
Owner: Brandon & David

Team:

Brandon & David

Social Links:

Trove Labs Projects - Twitter Links:

Brandon Cantu:

Brandon is the co-founder of Trove labs and a former Laboratory Manager with extensive experience in managing project teams and developing business operations. Brandon has recently begun working in web 3.0 full-time, and oversees the product development of Jump DeFi, Good Fortune Felines, & other projects from throughout the crypto ecosystem.

David Leer:

David is the Co-Founder of Trove Labs; developer of NEAR native projects Jump DeFi & NEKO.

David began investing into crypto seriously in 2020; learning how to utilize DeFi to reach financial freedom. David started making crypto content in 2021 to teach others about DeFi and NFTs.

David was a first mover in many alt-layer 1 ecosystems before discovering NEAR in December 2021. At that time, David realized NEAR Protocol is special and he decided to devote his life to building in the ecosystem. David transitioned from a career in engineering to focus on Jump DeFi, NEKO, and the growth of the NEAR Protocol ecosystem full time. David is a passionate leader who works hard to empower people within the NEAR Protocol community.

Past Spaces Links:

3 Likes
3

Hey @TroveLabs thanks for the proposal. Can you elaborate on how funding would achieve the KPIs in our guidelines?

I’m conscious of the need for funding from approved proposals to benefit the NEAR ecosystem as much if not more than the recipients (one of the core values in our charter) of the funding.

Not that simultaneous proposals count against proposers, but there’s also the reality that you have a proposal request for Near at Night now also, and we have to be careful in terms of allocating funding to a variety of initiatives in the ecosystem, especially with the current funding soft cap we’re working with.

Last but not least, I think the Marketing DAO needs to have a conversation about whether a scenario like this would be better addressed through bounties vs. covering individuals’ travel costs.

We’ll discuss it during our next council meeting.

4 Likes
4

Thank you for the feedback @so608.

The funding would be used to achieve the following KPIs:

  1. Trove labs will attend the conference to establish a relationship between the existing NEAR project community and newcomers/active developers from the APAC community through NEAR at Night (Our established podcast/twitter spaces brand) AMAs and conference coverage. Our existing community includes a majority of well known projects and notable contributors to the NEAR ecosystem and is the perfect place to provide much needed social media exposure to new projects in an effort to drive positive traction, reach and education towards new projects in the market.

  2. Trove labs looks to strengthen the NEAR project community at a time when it needs it the most. We are fully committed to the NEAR ecosystem and ensuring that it retains the active developers it has left, while encouraging others to join and build as well. Our presence at the conference, along with our side events will allow us to represent the existing project/NFT community while encouraging founders and teams to strengthen the ecosystem by building together.

Our main goal at Trove labs has been to benefit the NEAR ecosystem. All of our past work with the marketing DAO has had that core value at heart, and we believe our ecosystem contributions and reports from past proposals are proof of that.

While we have multiple ongoing proposals, Trove labs has always followed through with each of our proposals and know that the NEAR ecosystem is in need of initiatives like ours that promote onboarding, growth and education. We have delivered consistent reports and measurable metrics and have a diverse team with multiple people from within the NEAR ecosystem contributing to our efforts.

Trove labs is perfectly suited for being NEAR community ambassadors at NEAR APAC and hope to do the same at NEARcon in November. While we know the Marketing DAO budget is limited, we believe our impact and contribution to the NEAR ecosystem will be significant enough to warrant the approval of our proposal. We want to thank the council for their time, and appreciate everything they have done for us and the NEAR community as a whole.

If you need any more information, or have any suggestions for the proposal, please let us know!

5

We have updated the proposal to remove the costs of NEAR APAC tickets, after we were able to secure two free NEAR APAC tickets from Keypom.

6

@TroveLabs thanks for updating the proposal and for the responses to my previous questions. Also thank you for bearing with the response time.

I want to note that I do think your team is providing value to the ecosystem, and I respect your team’s contributions. That said, I do personally think it is problematic for the MarketingDAO to travel and lodging costs for individuals to attend conferences. We ran into this as an issue last summer when we received a number of requests to attend NEAR CON. When we pay for travel costs, we don’t have the ability to track and show metrics/result for the funding allocated in the same way we can for marketing activities, content, events/attendance, etc.

That said, I would like to be able to recommend a way forward. I would be more likely to support a request for funding to host an event or produce a marketing initiative at the conference with the budget covering that vs. the travel costs.

Do you see a possible way forward based on that?

4 Likes
7

Thanks for your proposal and patience,

Proposals involving travel costs require a lot of nuance. Here are some initial thoughts:

  • Community travel costs must be assessed on a per-need basis. We would require reassurance from the team that they are at a financial disadvantage and without the grant, would not be able to attend. This framing would favour vietnamese applicants attending a conference in the US rather than American applicants attending a conference in Vietnam.
  • If we are satisfied that the team is unable to cover own costs, then we move on to assess the value that could be generated by having the team attend.
  • Drawing from my personal experience visiting Korea (at my own expense), I actually do see a significant amount of value in having established members of NEAR ecosystem and builders attend other active regions such as Korea and Vietnam.
  • I note that Trove Labs has an established, and active content presence so could be a meaningful asset to be able to broadcast to the world all the progress and momentum that NEAR has in Vietnam, this is something that western, english speaking audiences may not be aware of.
  • I also note that Trove Labs has a development arm and that Vietnam has a growing ecosystem of talented developers which could lead to opportunities that benefit everyone involved.

I am willing to support this proposal if the team commits to put in 110% to capture the experience and momentum (hard to describe but you’ll see it when you are there). This would include:

  • Going beyond twitter spaces (limited audiovisuals)
  • Consider any type of media as approrproate - twitter threads, photos, short videos, etc.

Also do note that we are very likely to have content bounties similar to the ones we had for ETH Denver. So even if it turns out that the team is able to cover costs of travel, there’s a good chance you can actually earn that money back by taking up these content bounties.

1 Like
8

Hi @TroveLabs

Thanks for your proposal. Can you please elaborate on the following?

What happens at the “Founders Brunch?”

  • Is it just networking and eating?
  • Is there a presentation?
  • Do you interview founders on camera?

What is the nature of the Twitter Spaces?

  • Will you have hackathon participants as guests during the hackathon or is it a wrap up?
  • Will the twitter spaces be held before, during, and after?

What are the social media deliverables?
How many posts across how many channels do you intend on creating?

9

After considering input from @satojandro , @so608 and @Klint, we have added more of a focus on marketing activities and taking advantage of the momentum of NEAR efforts in outreach in the APAC region. We will leverage the N@N platform to promote N@N APAC AMAs, Founders Brunches, and the conference events as a whole. We will achieve this by making multiple tweets for each of the above events, graphics, and tagging participating projects such as; Near protocol, Near Vietnam Hub and more.

We will also use the momentum from our marketing efforts at NEAR APAC and the N@N platform to begin promoting NEARCON to encourage further engagement from the NEAR community. We believe that our proposed in-person events, social media marketing and AMA content during NEAR APAC will leave a lasting effect on the ecosystem and help foster growth and outreach while solidifying the relationship between the APAC region and the west.

I have highlighted important changes I have made to the proposal here:

Requested Funds: We are requesting funds for trove labs to perform the following marketing activities at NEAR APAC :

Total Cost: ~2420 NEAR ($3630 USD) One-time

3 x N@N APAC AMAs $780 ($260 x 2)

2 x Founders Brunch events $2000 ($1000 x 2)

1 x APAC event highlight video $400

Marketing before and After event. Consistent twitter/telegram engagement before and after event ($450)

Metrics for Measuring Success:

  • Host 3 N@N twitter spaces during NEAR APAC (Sept 8-12) to cover notable updates for NEAR protocol and highlight new/upcoming projects & protocols coming to NEAR.
  • Quantity of Near Projects teams committed to speaking in future N@N spaces
    • Target: 5-10
  • Hold 2 “NEAR Founders Brunch” events
    • Target: 10-20 guests per event
  • Consistent engagement, impressions, views for respective content. (Satisfactory impressions being ~500-1500 average)

Marketing Activity:

  • Host 3 NEAR at Night AMAs (2 During the event, & 1 Round up AMA) in collaboration with NEAR Vietnam Hub, focusing on spotlighting new projects & Hackathon participants present at the conference. We will coordinate with NVH to procure guests from the event.
  • Throw 2 NEAR Brunch Events in collaboration with NEAR Vietnam Hub, with a highlight video of the attendees. We will ask the attendees a few questions about their experiences with NEAR and what they are building (attendees will be prime candidates for potential N@N AMAs). We will interview founders on camera and ask questions and create a highlight video of both days including footage of founders and the events.
  • Utilize the N@N twitter platform to spotlight NEAR APAC and important events. We will interview founders on camera and ask questions and create a highlight video of both days including footage of founders and the events.

If there are any suggestions or things you would like to see added, please feel free to comment!

1 Like
10

After our edit we have better defined our direction for the proposal.

  1. The founders brunch starts with networking, but we will also have some questions prepared to ask attendees. We will film some of the answers (Thanks for the ida @Klint )and create a general video of the event with an intent on showcasing the founders and their diverse backgrounds.

  2. The nature of the spaces would be to feature guest from the conference and from Vietnam with the help of NEAR Vietnam Hub. We think that N@N works best when we get to hear from members of the near community and are focused on providing a platform to amplify innovation and showcase the positive aspects of building on NEAR.

  3. Social media deliverables will focus on announcing the various AMAs and events in the proposal, as well as NEAR APAC. We will tag, feature and tweet about Near protocol, NEAR APAC, and other guests projects when applicable, and will continue with the marketing after the conference is over with our highlight video and round up of the conference. If you have any suggestions on how improve our approach, please let us know!

1 Like
11

Absolutely, we have found that using this approach makes the proposal more practical and really appreciate your input here. Please let us know what you think of the changes!

12

Thanks for the revisions and responsiveness to feedback. After reviewing, I am happy to support this as a one-time engagement for an event. It will be useful to the ecosystem to see how this kind of activation at an important event leads to growth and impact.

1 Like
13

Thank you for your feedback and support @so608 ! Your previous suggestions were invaluable and we appreciate the constant hard work from the entire marketing DAO council! We are looking forward to progressing this proposal! @Klint @Dacha

1 Like
14

Hi @TroveLabs
Thank you for clarifying the details of the proposals. Seems like a good initiative to get more engagement at the actual Near APAC event. Looking forward to seeing what you deliver in the report. You have my support.

1 Like
15

Thank you Klint, I created a poll but didn’t add the amount of $3630 on the astro DAO proposal and I cant edit it. Please let me know if I should make a new vote and add the amount.

Screenshot 2023-06-15 at 9.34.09 AM
Screenshot 2023-06-15 at 9.34.09 AM855Ă—393 23.6 KB