[Approved] NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces - Monthly Funding Request 05/03/23 (edited 05/10/23)

Marketing DAO Marketing DAO
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Astro DAO Link: https://app.astrodao.com/dao/marketing.sputnik-dao.near/proposals/marketing.sputnik-dao.near-714

Project Name: NEAR at NIGHT

Link: https://twitter.com/NEAR_at_NIGHT 8

Funding: 1 Month of Twitter Spaces (16 total sessions)

Background:

Following 5 successful months of NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces, we are eager to continue the NEAR at NIGHT mission for 3 additional months. Reference last month’s (ongoing) 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 continue providing this presence for the NEAR ecosystem.

Introduction:

After spearheading NEAR at NIGHT in August, and 2 successful months of N@N, we received grant funding support for an additional 3 months of N@N from the Marketing DAO for a total of five months of spaces. On (04/18/23), we submitted our latest report that outlined the last 3 months of NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces. We are currently in progress for the current and have hosted 39/48 Twitter Spaces sessions as planned; Monday - Thursday, every week.

NEAR at NIGHT has 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.

For this proposal, we are asking for an additional 3 months of funding, and requesting funding to purchase twitter blue in an effort to verify the N@N twitter account to increase our engagement via the advantages in the twitter blue algorithm.

Stats:

For our most recent proposal, we have held 39/48 spaces so far, with an average of 126 views and 2082 impressions per space so far (an increase of 20 views per space from our last N@N proposal). Our current figures show a marked increase in viewership and engagement that can be attributed to momentum from our 3 month span of funding from our most recent proposal.

For tour latest N@N run, we have had AMA guests from 21 separate NEAR native projects, communities, and 3 AMA guests from outside blockchains.

LazyFi
Few And Far
BadBears (Ethereum)
Near Insider
Popula
Inna Everstake
Parrotopia
Tradeport
Ghost NFT
Boneyard Gaming
Binocs
NDC
Borderless Community
Mintbase
Jump Defi
Keypom
Paras
Ready Layer One
Famous Foxes (Solana)
Rogue studio (Polygon)
NEARisNOW
NEAR Vietnam Hub
Creatives DAO
Naomi (NEAR is NAO)

(See Report for more details)

Requested Funds:

We are requesting funding for 1 months (4 weeks, Mon-Tues @3pm EST, Wed-Thurs @10pm EST) of NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces from the date (In May) we receive funding. Total of 16 QTY NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces.

Content > Podcast/Twitter Spaces > Educational = $258 (~120.56 NEAR) per Spaces session = $4128 (~2268.13 NEAR) per month (16 spaces) + Twitter Blue @ $8 per month

$4136 (~ 2537.5 NEAR) per month

**16 QTY NEAR at NIGHT Twitter Spaces per month at a total cost of $4136 (~ 2537.5 NEAR) **

$258.50 (~158.6 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 were dropped from N@N with no effect on attendance or engagement! Regular giveaways will remain absent from N@N going forward.

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 1200 to 1600 the 3 months 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.

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.

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  1. Who many new users we acquired after your expensive AMAs?
  2. How can we measure impart?
  3. Why you don’t want to charge projects for AMA? Community is not a charity organization.
  4. What are your plans for self-sufficiency?
  5. Please share a list of grants with the total $ you have received in 2022 and 2023.
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Thank you for your comments on our proposal.

For questions 1, & 2, I will attach the links to our reports for all 3 of our approved N@N proposals where we have outlined important statistics such as views, new followers & impressions to measure the impact of N@N.

For question 3 & 4, we believe that N@N should be a free experience for projects in order to maximize exposure for all founders and teams looking to build on NEAR. Charging for AMAs would hinder the exposure and growth that projects desperately need at an early stage of development.

Charging for AMAs would also completely change the environment of the show and remove the organic feel and natural discussion that is the hallmark of NEAR at NIGHT. While we continue to ask for funding from the Marketing DAO, we feel that the hard work of the N@N team has provided clear value for the NEAR ecosystem during an important stage in NEAR protocols growth.

At this point in time, we do not have plans for self-sufficiency for the reasons above, but are open to suggestions/ideas from the Marketing DAO council.

Near at Night has received 3 grants in total for 5 months and a total of 80 spaces show, with each show averaging ~1.3 hours in length.

Proposal 1: $4,134.40
Proposal 2: $4,424
Proposal 3: $12384

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Team TENAMINT would love to be a part of your Twitter Space :slight_smile:

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I will message you so we can get something scheduled!

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Thanks for the proposal,

I support this proposal on a monthly basis. Notes and comments;

  • The standard proposal length is 1 month. We are able to make an exception for well established teams and project where we have a working relationship and positive results. However, I also note that we have been operating on a reduced monthly budget since we resumed operations in November 2022. Currently in the process of increasing the cap (leasing with NF, NDC). Until then, we’ll have to continue on a monthly basis to ensure there are sufficient funds to cover other incoming proposals.
  • NEAR @ Night has been consistent, building a brand, a sense of community and a valuable platform for new projects seeking exposure.
  • Addressing questions/comments from Community. When it comes to content, measuring impact can be tricky as attribution is challenging. There are many reasons for this, including things such as:

a) average user would need X number of positive touch points before converting
b) lack of tools to measure exactly what the touch points have been at the point of conversion

This is a challenge even in Web2, where analytics and surveillance is more prevalent.

As such, I would place NEAR @ Night, as well with other pieces of prominent content, in the Top of the Funnel category. I invite you to read the guidelines we’ve written to assess these type of proposals where we look at things such as:

  • What would someone new to NEAR think of they encounter the content?; &
  • Would someone new o NEAR be inspired to learn more

web3 is a fierce battle for attention and we must occupy space in Twitter and elsewhere or we will lose ground to competitors. You may also find interesting how the NEAR foundation is now measuring and tracking closely the ‘Share of Voice’ (SOV) on twitter - see latest two Town Halls for more info and references to that:

Town Hall May 3
Town Hall April 19

In general, I always welcome feedback and questions from the Community.

General reminder to participate in discourse in a respectful manner.

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Thank you for the feedback @satojandro! Being funded for 3 months was extremely beneficial to the momentum of NEAR at NIGHT, however due to the limited marketing DAO budget, we are completely open to reducing the proposal duration to 1 month and to reducing the ask respectively.

I will edit the proposal according to your comments.

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Hey @TroveLabs thanks for the proposal – I’m willing to support this for one month. As @satojandro we have a reduced funding cap, and the initial proposal here would exceed that. We also need to be able to assess growth/performance of initiatives on a monthly basis in order to responsibly allocate community funds.

I would strongly encourage the team to submit a report that addresses the KPIs in the guidelines we have been asked to follow by the NEAR Foundation. I would also encourage your team to think about self-sufficiency and revenue generation, as we cannot guarantee future funding, and it’s important to understand how you’d navigate the path forward were we to not allocate for your next proposal.

You still need the support of one more council member in order to move this to approved. Tagging @marketingdao-council for visibility.

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Thank you again for your response @so608!

If you take a look at our proposal and our previous reports for N@N, you will be able to see that we fulfill large number of the priority KPIs the NEAR Foundation is looking for, including education, and outreach to new developers/builders. N@N has shown considerable growth since our first proposal was approved, and continues to show growth and engagement from the crypto community on twitter.

N@N creates engaging and varied content while maintaining its presence as a funnel into the NEAR ecosystem. While self-sufficiency is important in the web3 ecosystem, we know the service we provide to the NEAR ecosystem is invaluable and hope to continue receiving support from the NEAR foundation/Marketing DAO as long as we are positively impacting the NEAR community and ecosystem!

Please let us know if you have any suggestions to improve NEAR at NIGHT, and as always, we would like to thank the marketing DAO for their support!

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As always, my wife and I look forward to listening to N@N. They find new projects that have flown under my radar and I work in web3 full time. They break down crypto into digestible chunks my normie wife understands. Anyone can teach, but to do it in a way for most to understand is rare.

I back this proposal because N@N is my favorite spaces to attend. More founders should look at what they’re doing to bring the next gen builders/KOLs into this space as they are.

I look forward to their spaces as long as they do them, they’ve inspired me to do my own for the past 4 months.

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Hi @TroveLabs have reviewed your proposal and would be willing to support on a monthly basis. Now moving to Approved. You can now post on Astro to request one month funding.

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