[Approved] NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces - 3 Month Funding Request (Edited 02/13/23)

Marketing DAO Marketing DAO
, ,
1

ASTRO DAO Poll: https://app.astrodao.com/dao/marketing.sputnik-dao.near/proposals/marketing.sputnik-dao.near-616

Project Name: NEAR at NIGHT

Link: https://twitter.com/NEAR_at_NIGHT

Funding: 3 Months of Twitter Spaces (48 total sessions)

Background:

Following a highly successful month of NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces in September, and again from December - January, we are eager to continue the NEAR at NIGHT mission for 3 additional months. Reference last months report here.

A consistent community presence on Twitter Spaces is extremely important for onboarding new users from other blockchains. Twitter Spaces also act as a primary source of information and community interaction for many people in Web3. We are proud to provide this presence for the NEAR ecosystem.

Introduction:

After spearheading NEAR at NIGHT in August, we received grant funding support for two proposals from the Marketing DAO to continue these efforts for a total of two months. On (10/3/22), we submitted our report that outlined the last month of NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces. We hosted 16 Twitter Spaces sessions as planned in the proposal; Monday - Thursday, every week, from 9/5 to 10/3. We have also submitted a report for 12/26-01/24 that is currently in progress.

NEAR at NIGHT served as a platform for Founders and team members of NEAR native projects to showcase what they are building and discuss upcoming roadmap milestones. Additionally, we covered the latest updates and news from all facets of the NEAR ecosystem. NEAR at NIGHT is a node for the NEAR community to stay up to date and involved with the NEAR ecosystem. Also, the NEAR community grew closer to one another as bonds were formed by hanging out together during NEAR at NIGHT.

Professionally structured Twitter Spaces for the NEAR community, by the NEAR community, is one of the highest impact community-led marketing activities that exists at this time.

Project Description:

NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces is a safe space for people to speak their mind about issues they see in the NEAR ecosystem. Founders provide updates on approaching milestones for their respective projects. The community receives information on how to participate in community-led marketing efforts. Community members are forming strong connections as we hangout and talk to each other after a long day of work.

NEAR at NIGHT has scaled to its own Twitter account; enabling more people to take on host roles as we grow to accommodate multiple time zones. Also, we have diversified the timing of certain NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces to ensure any NEAR Project can be a guest regardless of their geographic location, with spaces Mon-Tues @ 3pm EST & Wed-Thurs @ 10pm EST.

Stats:

We held 16 NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces from 9/5 - 10/3, with an average time of 70 minutes per session and an average of 106 viewers. We totaled 1700 views for the month of September. We anticipate continued growth in these statistics as we scale NEAR at NIGHT month by month.

We have held 15 sessions out of 16 for Dec/Jan with our spaces on Jan 18th with 246 people already having tuned in.

So far, we have held 11 separate NEAR native projects, communities, or NEAR Foundation representatives to be guests at NEAR at NIGHT.

*10/5: Ample Stream
*10/6: V-Self Wallet
*10/11: Tradeport
*10/13: Playible
*01/03/23: NearStarter
*01/09/23: Playible
*01/10/23: Amplify Art
*01/12/23: Near India
*01/ 18/23: Web3Mon
*01/24/23: Raiz Vertical
*01/23/23: AAXXII Ventures

Requested Funds:

Note: We have edited the budget according to the dialogue from the council regarding our proposal on 02/13/23

We are requesting funding for 3 months (12 weeks, Mon-Tues @3pm EST, Wed-Thurs @10pm EST) of NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces from the date (In January) we receive funding. Total of 48 QTY NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces.

Content > Podcast/Twitter Spaces > Educational = $258 (~120.56 NEAR) per Spaces session = $4128 (1928.96 NEAR) per month (16 spaces)

$4128 (1928.96 NEAR) per month

$12384 (5786.88 NEAR) per 3 months

**48 QTY NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces per month at a total cost of $12384 (5786.88 NEAR) **

$258 (~120.56 NEAR) per Spaces session

See below breakdown of costs including 1 host, 2 co-hosts and 1 researcher

Breakdown of David Leer time:

  • Research / Create Agenda: 1 hour per day
  • Coordination: 30 minutes per day
  • Host Spaces: 1 hour per day

Breakdown of Brandon Cantu time:

  • Research / Create Agenda: 1 hour per day
  • Coordination: 30 minutes per day
  • Co-Host Spaces: 1 hour per day

Breakdown of Zach Harmon time:

  • Research / Create Agenda: 45 min per day
  • Co-Host Spaces: 1 hour per day

Breakdown of Şenay Akdemir Bükrek time:

  • Research / Create Agenda: 1 hour per day
  • Coordination: 1 hour per day

Giveaway:

At the request of the council, giveaways will no longer be a regular occurrence on behalf of the N@N team.

Continued Impact:

NEAR at NIGHT is now the main social landing zone for the NEAR community to assemble on a daily basis. Community members finally feel like they have a voice to discuss issues and ask questions about NEAR. Strong friendships and connections are being formed. People are learning how to get involved with NEAR marketing efforts. Founders have a platform to give the community consistent updates on their project milestones. We have been able to increase our followers from 400 to 1200 in a month showing a steady increase in engagement with our platform.

We are working closely with NEAR native project founders, artists and creators to coordinate attendance for speaking at NEAR at NIGHT on a daily basis. This brings awareness to upcoming project milestones and activates the community to support the various project’s marketing efforts.

NEAR at NIGHT is expanding to multiple sessions per day to accommodate different time zones. We are searching for leaders in the NEAR ecosystem who live in different geographical locations to become hosts for NEAR at NIGHT. When we accomplish this, NEAR will finally have a regular presence on Twitter Spaces similar to the other L1 ecosystems.

Success Measurements:

Measure growth and retention in listener attendance

Consistent attendance from important figures within the NEAR ecosystem including Founders, NEAR Foundation, NEAR Marketing DAO, NEAR Core, etc. to speak with the community and deliver valuable information that listeners want to come back to.

Survey attendees monthly to determine the effectiveness of NEAR at NIGHT and request feedback on how to improve.

Wallet: trovelabs.near

Owner: David & Brandon

Team:

Host: David Leer

Co-Hosts: Zach Harmon, Brandon Cantu

Research: Şenay Akdemir Bükrek

Social Links:

Trove Labs Projects - Twitter Links:

David Leer - Host & Coordination

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.

As host of NEAR at NIGHT, David is responsible for maintaining engaging conversation through the duration of the Twitter Spaces. David moderates the conversation to ensure all speakers feel safe to speak their mind. Additionally, David participates in daily research for the NEAR at NIGHT agenda and coordinates with Şenay to schedule project Founders to attend as speakers. Finally, David is leading the charge on scaling NEAR at NIGHT to multiple sessions per day by finding responsible leaders within the NEAR ecosystem to become hosts at different time zones.

Zach Harmon - Co-Host

Zach Harmon has been in the crypto space as a participant/consumer for over 3 years. In January 2022 he transitioned to a more active role building in the crypto community; specifically on NEAR Protocol. Zach has a degree in Education and a passion for helping people learn. The crypto space can be extremely difficult for newcomers, Zach and his partners are working to make the transition from web2 to web3 easier. Zach has worked with NEARNFTDAO and he is a core member of the WGMI Solutions Team working with various projects on Web3, Funding, and Marketing Solutions.

As Co-Host of NEAR at NIGHT, Zach helps lead conversation and build out the daily Spaces agenda. Zach is also the main moderator during NEAR at NIGHT. He makes sure speakers requests are accepted quickly, he pins important links during different points of discussion and mutes/removes any speakers that are being disrespectful to others.

Brandon Cantu - Co-Host

Brandon is a former Laboratory Manager with extensive experience in managing project teams and developing business operations. As Co-Founder of Trove labs, he lives out his passion for web 3.0 by overseeing the product development of Jump DeFi, Good Fortune Felines, & other projects from throughout the crypto ecosystem. He provides a practical viewpoint to other projects/founders in an effort to bring their visions to fruition in the web 3.0 space.

As Co-Host of NEAR at NIGHT, Brandon helps lead conversation and build out the daily Spaces agenda. Brandon is also in charge of distributing JUMP token and NEKO token airdrop giveaways to winners who attended NEAR at NIGHT.

Şenay Akdemir Bükrek - Research & Coordination

Şenay has been a full time crypto degen since 2020. She enjoys playing around on testnet betas, following early products, supporting builders and being a dedicated member of NFT communities. Şenay is a major contributor to NEAR native projects; working as Community Manager for the Mr. Brown Project and as a Neko Ambassador. Şenay is committed to the women in crypto movement and LGBTI+s adaptation to crypto.

Şenay has a background in Labor Economics and Industry Relations. She has worked in different sectors of administrative duties including Personal Assistant, Executive Assistant, Logistics, Governance, Project Management, HR and Residence Planning for more than 15 years. She is passionate about giving back to society by participating in multiple NGOs including Purple Roof Women’s Shelter, Greenpeace and Doğa Derneği(Nature Organization).

Şenay is supporting NEAR at NIGHT with research and coordination. She helps assemble the daily agenda by finding important news and events happening in crypto and the NEAR ecosystem. Şenay reaches out to Founders of NEAR native projects to schedule them as a speaker during NEAR at NIGHT.

6 Likes
4

Hey guys – thanks for the proposal. Can you fill out the form that’s part of our application process since the relaunch of the MarketingDAO in Nov? Thanks!

1 Like
5

On it now! Thank you so much for reminding me!

6

We have completed the form!

7

Hi @Gabbar070
Thank you for your proposal. I’ve listened to one of your more recent spaces (Feb 2nd). I think the hosts are easy to listen to and it works.

According to your proposal, the average reach is 106 viewers per Twitter spaces.

Just wondering, how you plan on bringing up those numbers?

The price of your Twitter Spaces continues to creep up.
With your current asking price, it comes out to almost 1 Near per listener (109 / 290 = $2.74)…

I think your previous price of $258 is very reasonable per session:

Would you consider lowering your overall budget to accommodate that price?

1 Like
8

Hello Trove Team,

Thanks for your proposal and patience.

I support this proposal IF:

  1. Reduced to one month.
  2. Rewards and giveaways are taken out.

Few notes and comments -

  • This proposal is for the continuation of. body of work. Assessing applications is a lot easier once the team has built a body of work, a brand, an audience, after they have received funding in the past.
  • NEARatNight hosts are very patient and reasonable, creating a great atmosphere to enable their guests to share.
  • Due to M DAO general guidelines, we only handle multi-month proposals on rare occasions.
  • There have been issues in the past arising form the opaque nature of giveaways. I am also mindful of rewards being used to fuel vanity metrics and distracting from the quality content creation.

Let me know if the team is happy and willing to proceed with the above changes.

1 Like
9

Thank you for your reply! We are very eager to hear feedback from the council members on any ways we can improve our proposals. Our last months proposal was very successful as well, with some spaces reaching over 270 views/people tuning in.

In terms of expanding our viewer base, we are planning on inviting guests from outside the near ecosystem to start tapping into new audiences and explaining the benefits of the NEAR ecosystem to other blockchains. We have been able to establish a consistent base within NEAR and are ready to focus on drawing in users on other blockchains. We already have some guests in mind.

We are open to lowering the current proposal ask, and accommodating a price point similar to our first spaces. We are very excited to continue Near at Night and we appreciate the support of the marketing DAO!

10

We are very open to input and changes from the Marketing DAO council members, and appreciate the points you have made above.

For rewards and giveaways, we believe that they are an important tool to help onboard new users and expand the reach of any project. We ask that the Marketing DAO consider this, but are willing to remove the guaranteed 5 NEAR giveaways from our spaces if required to better gauge natural metrics and remove possible issues arising from giveaways.

We are asking for multiple months of funding due to the positive impact it would provide for NEAR at night. After funding for our first N@N proposal, we have a very successful September run, but were required to wait until December before N@N was funded again. In the meantime we hosted a few spaces without funding, but we were not able to hold the momentum we generated from our first month of continuous spaces, and had to cancel on a large amount of guests and planned spaces.

We are aware of the hard work and dedication the Council puts into their work, however we know that the reality is that passing each individual proposals takes time. If there is a way to pass the proposal for 3 months, but fund each month in chunks pending a monthly progress check by the Marketing council to expedite the funding process, this would allow us to build our momentum and help increase our impact without additional downtime.

Eager to hear your thoughts @satojandro .

11

Hi @TroveLabs thank you for your proposal.

I have reviewed your plans - it is good to see that you have a formula that works! I am happy to support along the lines suggested by fellow council - orginal price point, one month funding and remove funding for giveaways. Hope this helps…

1 Like
12

This helps a lot! We appreciate the feedback, however we would like to discuss if there is a way to expedite the renewal process of N@N for the next 3 months. There is a significant loss of momentum, viewers and reduced impact with the 3-4 weeks of down time between funding for each proposal from the marketing DAO.

We think that continuous funding will increase the impact N@N has, and the viewers we receive if we maintain a regular schedule and are able to plan guests in advance without waiting to get funded or reimbursed for our efforts. We would love to hear your thoughts on this, but are wiling to edit the proposal to match the feedback from the council!

13

Noting all the feedback and replies. I am also in support of approving this along the lines of what other council members have suggested (1 month, removing giveaways). That said, I understand what you’re saying about the momentum issue and uncertainty around having to request monthly. We are meeting tomorrow - we will discuss this issue with the council as a whole and come back with a response. Because you have the support of three council members for the revised scope/funding, one option you have is to accept the one month to move this forward and then we can review a report and consider multiple months going forward.

1 Like
14

Thank you for your response. We again appreciate the hard work of the council. We would love to hear your decisions after tomorrows meeting, we believe additional funding would help keep N@N running smoothly while relieving some of the councils work load each month. In the meantime, we will submit the amendments to the proposal here.

15

Hey @TroveLabs given your project’s roadmap for 48 episodes and past track record, we are okay to support approving funding for three months under the following circumstances:

  • The original post at top is updated with the revised amount as recommended by the council in feedback. This includes removal of the giveaways.
  • You submit a report each month updating us on the progress according to KPIs outlined in the Guidelines post.
  • You and your team are aware that receiving funding for three months exposes you market volatility in terms of the value of funding. Once paid out, we consider it your team’s responsibility to manage the funds so that you can carry out the project as proposed.

Thanks!

1 Like
16

@so608 , @satojandro , @Klint , we have updated the proposal to comply with the budget suggested by @Klint , and have removed giveaways as well. We are ready to proceed once we receive confirmation from the Marketing DAO council!

Thank you all again and we look forward to hosting N@N spaces again soon!

1 Like
17

Awaiting approval for the revised proposal :smiley: ! @satojandro

18

Thanks @TroveLabs – moving this to approved. You can submit to Astro. Thanks!

1 Like
19

Thank you again! We appreciate another opportunity to build the NEAR community with NEAR at NIGHT! :heart_eyes:

20

The AstoDAO vote was approved. Do we still fill out the Iron Clad form for the next steps?

21

Hello! Yes, please :blush:

2 Likes