August 2021 Progress Report - Silicon Craftsmen (UXisNear)

NDC Community and nodes Guilds
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August went by extremely fast as we explored a few new initiatives and spent a fair bit of time on a couple of big ticket items such as Metapool Launch and Ref Finance launch of Farming.

Below is a summary of all the initiatives, growth, lessons, and key areas of focus going into September.

Community Growth :fireworks:

We use our Social Media channels as funnels for growth - to reach new members, engage existing ones, and actively explore collaborations with other players in the ecosystem.

Some of the successful user conversions we’ve seen over the last month through our social channels:

  • Users are able to get a job done (Stake with Metapool, Farm with REF)
  • Users go from being passive followers to participants in other programs (Silicon Testers, OWS competition) and referrals (Hackathon participants)
  • Bonding and creating a sense of belonging through our weekly Ecosystem Hangouts on Twitter Spaces.

Product Demo :video_camera:

Over the last month we only produced one Product Demo for Metapool (comprehensive video on Youtube). This video was:

Reminder that any team or project can submit a request for a Product Demo using this form

For September we have received requests for Product Demos from two teams already, we encourage anyone interested to reach out.

Product Design :woman_artist:

Some of the highest value add this month has been working directly with teams and projects on their product strategy.

  • Metapool: Tokenomics, Branding and Messaging, Launch (very active in customer support, gathering bugs and feedback and translating to tech team).
  • Ref Finance: Farming, bug exploit. (Community Board DAO)
  • Appa Labs: Profile Picture NFT Project ‘The Bored Apes of Near’ dropping soon.
  • NEAR Bootcamp Office Hours (Thursday 19th, Aug).

While this has less visibility and is more time consuming, we also feel like it yields exponential results that provide value to the entire ecosystem through the creation of better experiences AND capturing the knowledge and experiences from these early teams so they can be shared and replicated with others

Silicon Testers :test_tube:

We officially launched the Silicon Testers Program with the aim of having a sizeable cohort that is representative of the community we seek to serve and is able to provide.

We are currently looking to expand our Testers database, we encourage anyone interested to apply here.

We are also in conversations with the first teams to use Silicon Testers, we expect several of these tests to be carried out over September, enabling us to gather feedback on the program and iterate.

WUI Podcast :studio_microphone:

We also launched the Wild User Interviews (WUI) Podcast! Full post will all the details here

Team :man_astronaut:

The Silicon Team is expanding to keep up with all of the initiatives above.

  • Simeon joined earlier in August
  • George has just joined us this week.

Simeon and George have both been very pro-active within the Near and Silicon communities and are now stepping up to help me keep up and continue to grow the Guild.

Initial focus is to create a consistent experience across all social media channels (currently most of the activity is on Twitter). More members + engagement to continue to grow our core programs and initiatives.

September :eyes:

  • MetaBUIDL Hackathon; we will be spending a lot of time getting to know team members and assisting them where possible. This also involves participating in Hackathon workshops and events; always gathering feedback for the next event!
  • Increase our understanding and activities within Aurora and Octopus ecosystems. We’ve been primarily Near Native focused up until now.
  • Consolidate Product Demo and Silicon Testers programs.
  • Growth hacking WUI Podcast (cheeky experiments through NFTs and other forms of incentives).

Funding :moneybag:

Silicon Craftsmen is part of the first cohort of Warpspeed Guilds and will be requesting funding accordingly (Tier 3, 2000 NEAR for August 2021)