Approved] Ready Layer One Podcast Series of Episodes

Project Name: Ready Layer One Podcast
Link: Ready Layer One | Podcast on Spotify
Funding: Next series of episodes

Hello! We’re back once again proposing a new grant to help continue and grow the Ready Layer One podcast for the NEAR ecosystem. Our growth in this challenging market has stayed steady and we continue to build a strong brand and commitment to NEAR. Part of this commitment includes that we have also been able to secure the readylayer.one domain from the NEAR Foundation to continue to our positive mission within the ecosystem.

Changes & Growth Since Last Grant Request:

Updated Project Description:
Two long-time friends have a weekly podcasts about what is going on in the crypto world, specifically within NEAR. Guests from within the NEAR & Aurora ecosystem come to talk about their projects and the state of crypto.

Funding Requests:
We are looking for a grant to support the next series (10,000 USD total / ~6024N at the moment):

At least 8 (we did 16 since the last grant) full-length audio & video episodes (time for research, recording, editing, promotion)
This includes help for editing videos and cutting clips for social media. Which we now post across our YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter accounts. While editing has gotten easier in some regards we continue to experiment with new formats to help highlight the uniqueness of NEAR.
We are also working on themes, one which we have started is focus on the BOS. We think the themes will help paint a clear picture of happenings across the NEAR ecosystem.

Cost per episode breakdown include:

Editors/Editing
Post Production
Optimized Show Notes
Social Media Artwork
Audio & Video Trailers
Featured Quotes
SEO Heavy Blog Post & Transcripts
Social Media promotion & content
DAO: ready-layer-one.sputnik-dao.near
Wallet: readylayerone.near - Owned by Jared & Joe

Detailed Content Breakdown:

We plan to release at minimum 8 full episodes under this grant.
For TikTok & YouTube Shorts we plan to have at least 24, but typically we now get 4-8 clips per episode
Editing varies from 1-3 hours on interviews depending on how it went. Post-production can be extra specifically around the shorts/TikToks.
Trailers are for interview-based episodes, where we typically do 1-2.
For Twitter based social media content, we do at least 2-3 per episode from our main account and then another 2-3 unique posts from our personal accounts to share. We also prepare posts to showcase our shorts. In addition, we create ecosystem promotional posts, this number can vary depending on what is happening.
While not part of this grant, both Jared and I regularly speak on spaces and with new projects to help highlight what is happening in the ecosystem.

Continued Impact:
This will continue to help promote the NEAR ecosystem by giving those within the ecosystem a chance to tell their story and be part of the recorded history of NEAR. For a niche podcast we continue to get solid engagement on multiple platforms that all highlight NEAR.

As we have mentioned in previous grants we now have projects of all sizes coming to us to be on the podcast. We continue to regularly have a long backlog of potential guests. As this is not our full-time work it is hard to keep up with all of the requests but we see this as a good problem and proof that our content is resonating.

Additionally, we have gone above and beyond the stated outcomes of each of our grants and we will continue the work with this kind of focus.

Continued Success measurements:
Success for us will be both listeners (per episode and across all) and community engagement. For community engagement, we will try to measure the reach of our show/content on social media channels and qualitative feedback on the work we are doing.
We hope to see our reach and overall engagement continue to grow month over month as it has even in the bear market.

Metrics:

  • Release 8 episodes
  • Post 24 short form pieces
  • See growth of listener/viewership of 5%

Our engagement has also increased across all social media and have given added exposure to other Ready Layer One events and projects (not part of this grant) like Flex-A-Tech Hackathon which we organized, hosted, helped judge, and created long-tail content for. A small “game” to highlight the power of NEAR and to hopefully add some growth to NEAR NFTs, https://ReadyDegen.one. And lastly, ShardDog, which is rapidly growing and been a strong indicator of our reach and continued growth.

We believe our endeavor will continue to be successful since our message about NEAR and crypto comes from a place of passion. Additionally our skillset in content creation and community engagement is showing dividends as our voice in the community is helping improve overall engagement. With our different backgrounds in marketing and software, we are well equipped to develop and execute a roadmap that includes content creation, marketing, and product development which we have already shown proof of.

Thank you for your continued support!

Team (Hosts):
Jared is a content creator and crypto investor. Starting his crypto journey in early 2017 he learned a lot from the ICO boom and bust cycle, followed by the multiyear bear market. Today he focuses on web3 and NFTs. He’s the director of video for a tech company in NYC. For the past 10 years he’s been focused on marketing content that amplifies the brand strategy and delivers the content globally for marketing and social media teams.

Joe is a software developer and architect with over 15 years in the web2 space. He started with crypto back in 2017 as well and began tinkering with web3 and NEAR in 2021. His day job currently is as an integration architect for a global software development company but is working to move to web3. He provides the technical viewpoints on the podcast and will serve as tech lead for any Ready Layer One related projects.

Social Links:
https://twitter.com/ready_layer_one 1
https://twitter.com/joespano_
https://twitter.com/jarednotjerry1

7 Likes

Thank you for great job! I am happy to support your proposal.

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Hey @joe-rlo thanks for the proposal and for bearing with us during the review process. Do you have an anticipated timeline for rolling out the next series? I’m noting your last funding came through via a December 2022 proposal? Do you anticipate this funding request sustaining the program for a similar length of time going forward?

Thanks!

1 Like

Thanks for your proposal and patience,

Happy to support. As the continuation of an existing, well established, line of work, most of my reasoning remain consistent with last proposal, so I’ll keep it brief here.

My only comment is that, when taking the whole picture into account, the proposal represents great value when taking into account the ongoing presence and impact that the podcast and team have across many channels and in activities well beyond the podcast.

Keep up the good work,

AVB

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Hi @joe-rlo thanks for your proposal. I look forward to seeing answers to the question regarding funding period. Is this for 6 months worth of podcasts? Thanks

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@joe-rlo
Thanks for your proposal. There have only been a handful of projects that I’ve noticed that continue to repurpose content for purposes of growth and this project is one of them.

Adding more clarity on those efforts and citing some of them in the reports would be greatly appreciated.

You have my support.

Hello! Thank you for your questions. So due to the nature of scheduling with guests, we typically try to stay away from being time bound. Our last grant was for 8 episodes as well but we have been so active that it ended up being 16. Our plan would be to re-apply in the fall depending on progress. With the down market it’s been tough at times with scheduling but likely this would take though the next dozen full episodes. Additionally, the longer time period gives us time to continue to experiment with distribution (we’ve been trying to leverage paid promotion on Twitter) and experiment with additional content forms but the base of everything we do is the long form interviews which is what we set as the bare minimum.

Thank you

2 Likes

Hi @cryptocredit

We responded above but just to reiterate, emphasis on time bound is tough with scheduling. We estimate this would cover likely 3-4 months.

Thanks!

1 Like

@joe-rlo noted… thanks. Now moving to Approved

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Hey Klint,

We appreciate the support and the question.

So a couple of repurposes besides cutting up for TikTok and other socials are:

RLO Recaps - (example here: https://twitter.com/ready_layer_one/status/1662433431538499584?s=20) where we take groups of pods and do a recap and revisit previous episodes.
Content for projects - We did multiple content pieces for the interview we did with Hack-A-Chain but then gave them the video so they could repurpose it too. (example here: https://twitter.com/hideyourcash/status/1654484340225765377?s=20)

Thanks!