[Approved] Datality Grant proposal 03/24/2022

Dear NEAR Community Members,

Our team recently applied for a second NEAR Grant and we thought that it would be fair to share it here with you all. :innocent:

During the application these were the main points we went through to give a full insight for NEAR and the Community on what Datality has achieved and what is aimed to be achieved in the near future.

What are we building and why? :thinking:

We are creating the first blockchain-based data marketplace that directly connects buyers and sellers of research data. Our founder came up with this concept and patented an underlying methodology that allows participants to transact confidentially and securely by addressing previous obstacles to two-sided data markets with the transparency, trust, and security of NEAR Protocol blockchain.

Additionally, dominating one-sided marketplaces restrict many of the economic advantages of a free market, such as access to talent, access to products, and unnecessary intermediary costs. Datality is a solution for these challenges.

Moreover, our project’s value is building a trustful relationship between data sellers and data consumers, preventing fraud, ensuring appropriability, and maximizing market thickness by employing the power of blockchain as well as platform economics.

What makes us different from the competitors? :thinking:

There is no platform that directly and transparently connects private researchers and research data consumers. It has been tried by Microsoft, Amazon and others so it’s a lucrative space. The combination of technologies to overcome the economic obstacles to a sustainable two-sided data market have not been available; that’s where the permanence and immutability of blockchain-based transactions come in.

Further, existing one-sided marketplaces dominate supply and market share – they hold back private sellers of data, inflate the cost to data consumers, and restrict all the economic advantages of a free market.

What are our project milestones and estimated budget for each step? And when are the expected delivery dates for each milestone? :thinking:

  1. Build and coordinate a large community using Discord. Create a systematised server with numerous Channels like Onboarding, Support, AMA, Debates (for researchers to discuss off-topics).

  2. Make an Onboarding tutorial and gather all the useful info in the said “Onboarding” Category.

  3. Create and pin a FAQ doc in “Support”, plus have moderators manage customers’ issues.

  4. Schedule weekly AMA sessions in voice chat and post recordings on our socials.

  5. Plan different activities (games, events, upvotes, etc.) in “Debates” to create buzz and make the community more active. Do tip-outs for the most active users.

Estimated Budget: 1000 USD per month (2 moderators from NEAR community(based on NEAR Mentorship program)

  1. Presence on Twitter/Linkedin/Reddit/Tiktok/1Hive platforms.

  2. Tweet daily and engage in discussions with DeFi and crypto-related projects. Retweet recent Blockchain-related news. Announce airdrops.

  3. Post AMA recordings and announcements on LinkedIn. Contact researchers and possible data consumers to promote our platform, write a cold letter.

  4. Post short announcements for upcoming events in the community. Announce airdrops. Post memes. Upvote interesting DeFi posts to eye catch crypto enthusiasts.

  5. Weekly creation and posting of funny videos to reach out to college students.

  6. Release 4 articles a month on Hive Blog.

Estimated Budget: about 2200 USD per month (full-time community manager (700), researcher (500), and branding design agency 1000)

  1. Partnership Specialist

  2. Increase the presence of Datality within NEAR ecosystem

  3. 15 partnership a month with AMA & Collaboration calls

Estimated Budget: 500 USD per month

!!Total budget: 3700 USD per month. 7400 USD for 2 month time!!

How will this impact the NEAR Ecosystem? :thinking:

Our goal as NEAR enthusiasts is to promote NEAR as a platform for new blockchain projects and make $NEAR more liquid. Datality’s target audiences are researchers and buyers who are both comfortable in crypto as well as those who are not yet comfortable with crypto. We provide the crypto-uncomfortable with a safe ramp into Web3 by transacting in both fiat and cryptocurrency; those unfamiliar with NEAR will be introduced to it and can transact using NEAR tokens and join the community at their own pace while still being successful on Datality.

The CEO of Datality has the patent for transacting finite data sets on a blockchain-based marketplace using on-chain file hashes to provide an irrefutable fingerprint back to the files transacted without revealing their nature or compromising their sovereignty. Therefore, NEAR effectively has exclusivity on this patent’s intellectual property via the Datality platform having been built on NEAR Protocol, giving the entire NEAR ecosystem a competitive advantage.

What makes us excited about NEAR? :thinking:

Our team believes that NEARs blockchain is one of the most developer-friendly platforms in web3. The welcoming environment and great conditions for project development make NEAR an effective networking workplace where devs that work on different products can exchange their experiences and skills with each other.

It is also worth mentioning that by building Datality on NEAR we contribute to those promising projects that are also currently being developed on it. We have both learned

On top of that, the Nightshade approach of the NEAR tech delivers outstanding performance, which gives us confidence that the growing number of Datality participants will not be stifled by slow blockchain transactions.

How will we measure project success? :thinking:

Our main goal is to launch the Datality platform with perfected UI/UX and fully functioning. Beforehand creating buzz on social media, reaching at least 1000 followers on Twitter and about 300 on LinkedIn. Establishing a Discord community with at least 500 unique users.

How will this impact the NEAR Ecosystem? :thinking:

Datality Launch will drag a lot of attention to NEAR and thus give $NEAR more liquidity. In addition, a new data marketplace for researchers might bring talented scientists to the NEAR platform and then possibly form a Guild or DAO on NEAR with these researchers’ hands.

What have we already achieved? :thinking:

  1. Planned and executed our project’s social media presence on Twitter and LinkedIn. Scheduled organic content creation and posting. Worked on our identity to appear recognizable and eye-catching for potential followers.
  2. Brainstormed and wrote numerous articles on Data in Blockchain/Datality/Data Trading topics. A launched introductory article on GOV.NEAR. Pre-recorded videos of our CEO delivering the product’s idea for further content.
  3. Perfected the website’s roadmap and added new features. The major update is the implementation of NEAR token and the creation of a marketing website. Went through the first major QA sessions. Executed over 100 test cases. Black and white box testing.
  4. Hired Valeriy Nemyrov with our last grant who has onboarded several resources from within and outside the NEAR Community for Datality creative assets and content
  5. Established a highly-organized team of professionals in both development and marketing. Employed and onboarded numerous people from across the globe, that are enthusiastic and highly motivated in their contribution to the Web3. Currently, our team consists of:
  • Clint Taylor, Founder
    Scope: Workstream management, Briefs execution, Ideation

  • Valeriy Demyrov, Marketing Leader
    Scope: SMM Strategy, Market Analysis, Content review

  • Santiago Chamat
    Scope: Legal Counseling, Data Protection

  • Digital Avenues
    Scope: dApp Development

  • IceScream Agency (Dubai)
    Scope: Logo, Branding, Landing design, Visual support

  • Kovaci SMM Agency (Tirana)
    Scope: Twitter/Linkedin post-management, content creation

  • Rafa Melo (Brazil)
    Scope: Twitter Moderation

  • Olha (Ukraine)
    Scope: Copywriting

Thank you to each and every of NEAR users for following our project’s journey :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
See you soon!

7 Likes

Shoutout to Datality’s team! Eager to see this project take off and proud to be part of it. :smiley::rocket:

2 Likes

Good evening guys, looking forward to see your report.

Thanks

2 Likes

Hello, Dacha!

Part of the original grant funding included 3 months of Flying Rhino Tier 1 services. However, we quickly decided that Flying Rhino was not the best match for Datality’s goals at this time, so most of these goals that Flying Rhino was to have achieved ended up being abandoned and not funded by MarketingDAO until we could find the right SMM resources for Datality.

The other part of that grant request was for $6500 for me to spend more time leading the marketing. We instead took that $6500 that was allocated to me and invested in @valeriy.nemyrov to lead the marketing charge and prepare us for scale (by removing my bandwidth from being a bottleneck). He has since recruited and engaged @Olha-Datality , @0xprofiteroles and others to begin a SMM campaign that’s proper for Datality.

What you see as a progress report in the What have we already achieved? :thinking: section reflects $6500 spent since January to recruit and establish SMM and broad marketing activities for Datality.

So, we pivoted based on an assessment of how best to utilize the grant awarded in Jan. We lost some time but established an excellent fit so far. Happy to ask @valeriy.nemyrov and @Olha-Datality to help provide further details upon request so you know we’re investing resources in the right places on behalf of NEAR at large!

2 Likes

Good morning, thanks. Just wondering why Flying Rhino Degens army continue to work with Datality account.

@valeriy.nemyrov @Olha-Datality probably, my question to you

  • why Flying Rhino continue to lead your Twitter account if their work doesn’t match Datality’s goals.
  • would be great to understand what kind of campaign it was, if Flying rhino got $5700 grant from NF and $6500 Datality project from Marketing DAO and Flying Rhino work doesn’t match Datality’s goals.

Ps: Please, create a new topic [Report] Datality to continue our conversation there.

Cc @williamx @Monish016

Thanks

3 Likes

Thank you for pointing out. Since @AnaNastya is in charge of this, can you help answering?

3 Likes

They have not been working with us since Feb 15. If you’ve been getting charged above and beyond that, it’s wrong. We have paid for our current SMM traction as part of the separate $6500 grant not through any grant offered to FRG for Datality work.

They do not. Pls let me know if some other source indicates otherwise.

Will continue there with report details! I wanted to quickly clarify FRG’s involvement on this thread.

Thank you!

1 Like

Ok, thanks for information.

1 Like

Very cool!!! Hope that you all will achieve a great success

2 Likes

I heard this project from very long days and Today I saw their work and really Like to work with them and contribute as Community building.

Thanks

2 Likes

@Dacha , please see here: [Report] Datality Q1 Marketing

Thanks!

1 Like

Dear Coucil/Community,

We would kindly ask you to provide your opinion about our proposal, as we would like to be building further and plan the forthcoming period.

Open for suggestions and looking forward to continue!

1 Like

Thanks for the proposal. Can you share links to where your current content is available (Twitter, LinkedIn, blog, etc)?

Can you elaborate on the airdrops you’re planning and how that will work?

You mention 15 partnerships a month via AMA and Collaboration calls. What kinds of partners is Datality looking for? Is there a regular schedule for your AMAs/calls?

3 Likes

Hi so608,

Thanks for your interest in our project and we are looking forward for you to join, when Datality will be live!

@Olha-Datality , please share the Link Tree. @0xprofiteroles give 2-3 sentences about our Twitter Strategy for the next 2 month

@Tothemoon, give the overview of our plan for the next 2 month for the engagement sessions, including the overview of the packages

As for airdrop, that would be an event, where we will encourage the early/white list users to upload data for Datality platform with the small incentive of doing so

Team, make sure we provide an overview within today. Thanks!

2 Likes

Greetings! We are glad you expressed such interest in our project :partying_face: Here is our linktree to all the available social media Datality the Data Marketplace | Linktree

2 Likes

Thank you for the replies and the links. Your Twitter threads and first blog post are solid. In looking at your plans, my advice from a marketing standpoint would be to use funding to focus on only the most important channels while experimenting with the rest at this early stage. The most successful tactic I typically see for early audience development is being crystal clear about your audience, choosing 1-2 places that audience either already hangs out (i.e. Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn) and 1 place to ask them to opt into (i.e. Discord or Telegram) and then repurposing your content as best you can to the other platforms until you get traction. Trying to cultivate new/early audiences in 5 different places at one time can spread your efforts and funding too thin.

One other small thing that stood out to me – why spend time attracting college students? Are they the target customer/avatar on either side of the marketplace?

That said, I can support your proposal based on what I have read here and in the report.

Curious if @marketingdao-council has any other thoughts/questions?

4 Likes

Dear so608,

Very strong and insightful points! @0xprofiteroles , please incorporate the suggestions into our SMM/Twitter strategy.

For colleague student, the idea was to offer them monetizing opportunities for their research papers, which they already completed. But you right, might not be the Core/Urgent Target Group

I would also love to have a brief catch up in month time, to present you the progress and results, so we can get your view and mentorship on the direction.

One more time thank you for input!

2 Likes

Great input @so608!

Our SMM strategy kickstarted by focusing on raising awareness on what Datality is building, which gaps it fills and the solution it brings by integrating data marketplace & blockchain. In order to achieve that our Twitter posts aims:

  • Web2 public already involved in data market / interested in participating (as sellers / buyers) but mostly still “blockchain naive”
  • Web3 developers also building data projects which can integrate/build on top of Datality and enrichen the ecosystem
  • The NEAR Community: which even when not directly involved with it’s use case may embrace such an unique project being built in the ecosystem and actively contribute either on community building process and on spreading the word about it.

Twitter seems to be the crossroads that links the 3 above but LinkedIn also may reach out the much needed institutional/academia audience (where the bulk supply & demand of data is) and, finally, take them to a common place where the community will take roots (I’d say Discord suits perfect for that).

Finally, the question arose for me: which target group is THE paramount in order to get traction at this stage?

1 Like

Hey @so608, great questions and suggestions! Our project will have two wings for the collaboration – crypto and institutional. For the last one, we will reach out to big research institutions to provide us with the data we need and fill the platform with it. For the crypto wing, we are looking for partners that are companies with a unique solution built on Near and for the prominent projects in DeFi, NFT and GameFI spaces. We will join our forces with the Near Foundation and leverage their support to add more value to what we already have. Upcoming AMAs will be announced on our social channels, so stay tuned for the first one.

1 Like

Hello, @marketingdao-council !

Is there any further information we can provide to help you make a decision on our proposal? If you have all you need, could we move it to an official vote?

Many thanks!

cc: @Olha-Datality @valeriy.nemyrov