[Closed] May 2023 Marketing and Community Activation Budget for Loozr

Marketing DAO Marketing DAO
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Dear NEAR Community,

We, the Loozr team, are applying for funding to support our marketing and community activation efforts on the NEAR ecosystem.

Despite being built at the peak of the bear market on Web3, Loozr is one of the fastest growing projects in the creative space globally. To support our marketing and PR team,

  • we are humbly requesting $3,000 for a 3-month activation support and marketing runway.

Loozr is a social music streaming and DeFi platform that enables music and content creators to tokenize their music and potential on the NEAR blockchain for fans to autonomously trade, invest in their craft and grow/earn collaboratively (currently on Testnet).

We believe that with your support, we can continue to grow and bring more value to the NEAR ecosystem.

Testnet Metrics:

Social/Community:

Community Engagement:

We have observed that constant community engagements and social events have been the most active way to organically grow the Loozr community. We have various community engagement initiatives, such as:

GM $NEAR: This is a community-led event that highlights projects and communities based on NEAR, highlighting their distinctiveness and allowing everyone to interact and learn more about the opportunities they provide to the NEAR ecosystem and beyond (View on Official NEAR Wiki: Growth & Marketing | NEAR Wiki).

Recently hosted;

Artist Spotlight: We bring in creators, Grammy award-nominated musicians, spotlighting independent artists, and having a live session where they are educated and onboarded.

Below are a few links, and you can find more on our social media pages;

Women Web3 Wednesday: by Loozr is a weekly Twitter Spaces for women in Web3 to network, collaborate, and share their views. Over 8 months, it has reached 20k women in 20 countries and facilitated collaborations and opportunities.

Creator Fest’ Economy: We engage the creative community with renowned and successful builders, creators, DOGs, etc. We also onboard creators from other chains like Sui, Aptos, etc., which make up a greater percentage of the Loozr community (also airdrop new users little NEAR token to signup via our custom QR code).

Few links;

ViBE: Consistently creating and sharing visual content on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to engage, educate, excite, and attract the Web2 community to Web3 and Loozr. We are collaborating with top influencers to enhance our content and marketing efforts (https://www.instagram.com/p/CqxOlgAoOOf/).

Cast and Banta: We partnered with a creator banter FM show to keep the Web3 conversations in the air with our partners in Nigeria. We are thrilled to announce the partnership between Loozr and Cast and Banta, two innovative and game-changing players in the music industry and blockchain ecosystem. | by Cast and Banta | Mar, 2023 | Medium

Office Hours: We have one-hour developer hours with our dev team to help developers build on NEAR, understand how NEAR works, and debug Loozr platform live coding.

Listening Party: We partnered with the Rivers State Music Guild of Nigeria to host live music performance sessions, educate, spotlight, and onboard musicians to Web3 every last Wednesday of the month (https://twitter.com/officialloozr/status/1529229780519899137?lang=en, Loozr and the Rivers State Music Guild collaborate to further the application of Web3, NFTs, DAOs & Metaverse for Africans | by Loozr | Medium)

As featured in the Nation’s News Blog (Vanguard News) — https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/05/listening-party-using-music-to-meet-community-talent-development/

Our Team is made up of creators, talent managers, software engineers, product managers, and we have an extensive network of creators, influencers, and professionals in the music industry.

Our Roadmap includes Testnet Phase 2, Seed/Private round, IDO, Mainnet, Events, partnerships, regional onboarding, and social media integrations (Roadmap - Loozr Docs).

We are committed to contributing to the NEAR ecosystem’s growth and development, and we believe that with your support and activations, we can achieve more. We appreciate any support you can offer us.

Apart from seeking funding support, we welcome communities, individuals, professionals, enthusiasts, beginners, builders/founders, to join us in exploring possibilities, collaborating and growing together to bring more value to the NEAR and Web3 ecosystem.

Please reach out to our Communications Lead via Telegram: Contact @Web3Woman

Thank you.

NEAR Wallet ID: loozr.near

Wallet Name: Loozr

Website: https://loozr.io

Apologies for the lengthy text :slight_smile:

6 Likes
2

I fully support this, as it holds alot of great prospects and encourage the @marketingdao-council to look into this!

2 Likes
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Thanks for your proposal,

I’ve taken the time to go through a lot of the information and links provided above - never apologise for creating a properly documented application - including signing up to Loozr testnet and playing around.

Qs -

  1. Seems like Testnet period ended in December 2023 - wen Mainnet?
  2. Testnet create sub-account (avb.lzr.testnet), curious as to why and whether it will be the same on mainnet? (can users with an existing near wallet join using that or do they have to join via sub-account, seems like locking user in)
  3. Many questions around tech stack - some things live on-chain while others don’t. i.e. Follows or updating profile aren’t on-chain transactions, while purchasing Artists coins are…
  1. This seems misleading. Testnet money doesn’t have any value. I note that every new Loozr testnet account is preloaded with 100 Loozr at an (arbitrary?) price of ~$16 per coin. I am only pointing this out because this is not real market validation. Market validation is when users a) use your product without any incentives b) take out real cash and pay. Testnet can be used for identifying bugs and validating hypothesis, be careful not to confuse these.
  2. Bugs - overall the platform is very hard to use:

  • The email link sent to validate account and log in isn’t hyperlinked (as a regular user I would’ve dropped out here).

  • I was unable to update my profile (pic, social media links);

  • there are typos that should’ve been easy to pick up doing basic proof-reading

  • the Loozr balance on my profile doesn’t change even after performing transactions (as the front-end been hardcoded? issues indexing the txs on-chain?).

  • I was unable to play any of the songs on the "tracks you would love’ section (nothing happens when you click on it).

    Screen Shot 2023-04-21 at 4.05.25 am
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  • Every ‘Music NFT drop’ plays the same song (which I am almost sure is a mainstream commercial song), I was unable to ‘like’ (heart button disabled, all those likes are fake?), there is a call to action to buy on Mintbase which doesn’t redirect anywhere (and it displays an asset for purchase in SOL?). Every ‘artiste’ has the same profile picture…

These are just some of the things I’ve identified in half an hour of testing. I personally find it hard to believe tat 20,000 people tested this platform - were these things reported? Why have they not been fixed?

At this stage, I am unable to support this proposal. The product seems to be at a very early stage and I am concerned about certain practices that may be trying to mislead people into thinking otherwise.

1 Like
4

I appreciate your questions and respect your judgment. Apologies for not providing the Testnet roadmap, activities, and documentation earlier. Loozr is indeed in its early stage of development, and we are actively seeking support and partnerships as we continue to build, grow and try out new ideas.

It is important for new reviewers to have a clear understanding of our development stage to avoid misjudgment. Here is some information for everyone to learn about our current development status and Testnet event.

Website https://loozr.io

Loozr Docs https://docs.loozr.io

Testnet Docs Testnet: BOLT⚡️ - Loozr Docs

Project Roadmap Roadmap - Loozr Docs

Qs.

“1. Seems like Testnet period ended in December 2023 - wen Mainnet?”

Testnet started in December and has two phases: Bolt1, which covers the SocialFi part of Loozr, and Bolt2, which will focus on the MusicFi product phase and we are currently in phase 1 still.

The team intentionally aligned the phases this way to gather feedback from creators and users during different stages of development.

Due to being unable to raise a seed round in Q1, a Community Transparency report was shared with users, informing them that the Mainnet and next phase of Testnet would be communicated soon. The original plan was to test with real users, define business models, build communities, and then proceed to IDO and Mainnet. Mainnet is scheduled to be announced next week. Further details can be found here: Discord.

Also updated on community roadmap here https://docs.loozr.io/roadmap/phase-03

“2. Testnet create sub-account (avb.lzr.testnet), curious as to why and whether it will be the same on mainnet? (can users with an existing near wallet join using that or do they have to join via sub-account, seems like locking user in)”

I don’t understand your idea of “locking users in.”

However, Loozr operates in a Web2-centric industry, which requires user-centric and simplified onboarding hence we intend to take away Web3 complexities and give users seamless but Web3 backend onboarding. We will also support other means of sign-ups, such as NEAR wallet ID, cross-chain auths, and more, to ensure a seamless experience for users.

“3. Many questions around tech stack - some things live on-chain while others don’t. i.e. Follows or updating profile aren’t on-chain transactions, while purchasing Artists coins are…”

Loozr is partially on-chain at the moment, as not everything needs to be on-chain.
After extensive testing with industry and legal experts, the decision was made to selectively use blockchain in areas where it can be effective, such as transparency, contracts, and accounting, in the sensitive music industry. Loozr does not aim to be a Jpeg NFT platform, but rather focuses on real-world licensed assets. We currently have on-chain features such as tokenization, transactions, profile and music asset trading, artist coins, accounting, stream analytics, etc.
As we continue to build, more models will undergo legal auditing to ensure a safe and decentralized ecosystem. The Testnet is designed for demos, and the 142,009 transactions handled indicate that users were able to utilize Loozr tokens on the platform to perform various operations, such as sending and receiving creator tokens, investing in platform-based music creators, and exploring other features, while we continue to learn and improve.

Which we were able to track a total transaction of 142,009 transactions during all of these and this can also be verified on the NEAR explorer (Users NEAR Explorer | Account, music creators NEAR Explorer | Account)

“4. This seems misleading. Testnet money doesn’t have any value. I note that every new Loozr testnet account is preloaded with 100 Loozr at an (arbitrary?) price of ~$16 per coin. I am only pointing this out because this is not real market validation. Market validation is when users a) use your product without any incentives b) take out real cash and pay. Testnet can be used for identifying bugs and validating hypothesis, be careful not to confuse these.”

Thanks, noted. This information can be found on our Testnet channels and Testnet event doc, which we encourage everyone to read before contributing.

“4. Bugs - overall the platform is very hard to use:”

We did an update recently, and we are experiencing some bugs. We hope to fix them soon. Thank you for your honest feedback.

“I was unable to play any of the songs on the "tracks you would love’ section (nothing happens when you click on it).”
Screenshot 2023-04-20 at 8.49.03 PM

Music player feature not done yet, phase 2 of Testnet is for music trading and uploads.

“Every ‘Music NFT drop’ plays the same song (which I am almost sure is a mainstream commercial song), I was unable to ‘like’ (heart button disabled, all those likes are fake?), there is a call to action to buy on Mintbase which doesn’t redirect anywhere (and it displays an asset for purchase in SOL?). Every ‘artiste’ has the same profile picture…”

Music playback and interaction will be available in phase 2 as seen on our roadmap. The current placeholder songs on the Loozr platform have verifiable rights owned by real artists.

“These are just some of the things I’ve identified in half an hour of testing. I personally find it hard to believe tat 20,000 people tested this platform - were these things reported? Why have they not been fixed?”

You are testing the new updated version (as of April 18th, 4:21 PM UTC) with expected issues being handled, such as QR code integration and a tipping feature for creators. All issues will be fixed soon and a fixed version will be pushed shortly.

2 Likes
5

Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns and for providing additional links, documentation.

I stand by the original position that it is too early to fund this project. Some additional context:

Marketing DAO operates with a limited budget from Community Treasury, so we often have to prioritise the projects that can have the biggest impact.

I believe that it would be best to wait until all the bugs have been ironed out and the roadmap is further advanced to ensure that as the paid marketing efforts reach new users, they don’t rapidly fall off because the product is not ready for them.

Proposal may still go ahead if you are able to get support from three Council members (I am only 1/5). In case it does not go forward now, you are welcomed to come back at a later stage and submit a new proposal.

6

Hi @Yobo – thanks for the proposal and your patience as the council has reviewed. While I applaud the idea behind the initiative, I can’t support the proposal at this time. Here are my reasons for visibility/transparency on the forum:

  • I don’t see evidence of the claim made about 20K+ new users to the NEAR blockchain, nor for the $400K (as per comments from @satojandro). That stood out to me when I first read the proposal. It’s the job of the proposer to substantiate claims and give confidence to the council reviewing the proposal, as well as the community.
  • In your comments replying to Satojandro, you said essentially to review your testnet and documention to get more information. Again, it’s the job of the proposer to substantiate claims clearly in the proposal. While we do review supporting documentation that is submitted, it is not feasible for each council member to need to review lengthy documentation in order to vet a proposal. The claims should be easy to substantiate and prove. Otherwise, they shouldn’t be included in the proposal.
  • I also think the project, while it has solid social media in terms of followers, looks too early stage to fund. In the telegram, for example, most channels look like they were created last week. And then main channel has large gaps in active users. Curious how you’re onboarding the users to that? It doesn’t look like it’s very active vs. number of members. That gives me concern, as we’re aiming to fund projects that can show evidence of real, engaged followers who are truly interested in interacting with the platform or project.
  • I also don’t see much cross-promotion referencing NEAR on your social, web site or digital touch points. While I respect that brands funded by the Marketing DAO do not need to promote NEAR in every piece of content or even the majority, if we are providing funding, then I think it’s important its clear to newcomers and audience members that the initiative is connected to and aligned with NEAR.

I do encourage you to keep building and welcome you to come back when there is more evidence of growth, traction and the UX is improved. Thanks!

7

Thank you for your proposal. Unfortunately, I can’t support it.

8

I don’t see evidence of the claim made about 20K+ new users to the NEAR blockchain, nor for the $400K (as per comments from @satojandro). That stood out to me when I first read the proposal. It’s the job of the proposer to substantiate claims and give confidence to the council reviewing the proposal, as well as the community.

As mentioned earlier, these statistics are based on testing as we are currently on Testnet.

Testnet Metrics:

  • Loozr acquired 20,590 new users actively on the NEAR blockchain,
  • and handled 142,009 transactions totalling over $400,000.

Which I also included Loozr’s Testnet smart contract as evidence for you to verify these transactions.

KYC Proof - Contract Testnet Addresses; users: lzr.tesnet, creators contract on-chain; lzrmixr.testnet

Screenshots:

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The current number of registered users can be found by searching the NEAR testnet explorer using “.lzr.testnet” as the suffix. Additionally, all users on the Loozr platform can be viewed, along with their followers.

For instance this is a creator on Testnet with acquired 4,000 user base on Loozr;

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Here is a screenshot from our private database:

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  • In your comments replying to Satojandro, you said essentially to review your testnet and documention to get more information. Again, it’s the job of the proposer to substantiate claims clearly in the proposal. While we do review supporting documentation that is submitted, it is not feasible for each council member to need to review lengthy documentation in order to vet a proposal. The claims should be easy to substantiate and prove. Otherwise, they shouldn’t be included in the proposal.
    I apologize for my mistake.
  • I also think the project, while it has solid social media in terms of followers, looks too early stage to fund. In the telegram, for example, most channels look like they were created last week. And then main channel has large gaps in active users. Curious how you’re onboarding the users to that? It doesn’t look like it’s very active vs. number of members. That gives me concern, as we’re aiming to fund projects that can show evidence of real, engaged followers who are truly interested in interacting with the platform or project.

This is why we are reaching out to the Marketing DAO for assistance. The market has been a significant setback for us, affecting not only our team morale but also our community. We were unable to raise the funds we anticipated in Q1 of 2023, and we are currently re-strategizing to get back on track. We are not asking for a $3,000 VC funding for Loozr, but rather to support our efforts to attract users and drive activation, in preparation for mainnet launch. It has been challenging for us to do this alone. In return, we are committed to activating NEAR-related initiatives and onboarding by regularly hosting educational, social, and local support events, onboarding more creators, and leveraging our network and community to promote NEAR.

I also don’t see much cross-promotion referencing NEAR on your social, web site or digital touch points. While I respect that brands funded by the Marketing DAO do not need to promote NEAR in every piece of content or even the majority, if we are providing funding, then I think it’s important its clear to newcomers and audience members that the initiative is connected to and aligned with NEAR.

I find it truly disturbing that you could make such a statement without reviewing all the links i shared.
We host NEAR events every week, such as educational sessions, video content creation with top creators (WATCH VIDEO CONTENT Omah Adanma♎️ on Instagram: "I don go loose dollars o 🙆‍♀️ but my crypto safe and secured on the blockchain😉 🎵: Crypto ft @richthekid Declan rice : @odumodublvck private landing @dontoliver @justinbieber @future Unavailable : @davido Rich flex: @champagnepapi @21savage"), attending events with NEAR branded shirts and banners and having our team reps talk about NEAR, blockchain and the opportunities for creators and even setting up booths at tech events, weekly airdrops of NEAR tokens to first-time users and new creators to encourage them to try out ecosystem projects and opportunities, spotlighting projects, and hosting weekly events focused on creators to generate interest in the potential of NEAR. Personally, this is the funniest comment I’ve read this month.

Recently hosted;

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Regardless of Marketing DAO’s support, we are passionate about NEAR, its innovative technology, and its incredible community. We keep building and pushing forward!

Thanks again for the reviews.