[Proposal] Trove Labs - NEAR Community Ambassadors at NEAR APAC (Sept 8-12)

Marketing MarketingDAO
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Introduction:
Trove Labs is a web3 development and consulting firm specializing in the NEAR Protocol ecosystem. We have been deeply involved in the NEAR community since 2021 and have firsthand experience building two of the strongest NEAR native communities; Jump DeFi and Neko, which lead engagement and active user analytics. Trove Labs has created NEAR at NIGHT, the #1 Twitter Spaces Show on NEAR that serves as a platform for founders and team members of NEAR Native projects to showcase what they are building and discuss important topics within the ecosystem. Trove labs is dedicated to building the NEAR infrastructure while encouraging and enabling others to do the same.

Near at NIGHT has been extremely successful in providing a platform for NEAR native projects with over 60 unique guests being hosted on N@N so far. NEAR at Night has run 80+ spaces with an average of 126 views & 2090 impressions per show since its creation in August.

Introduction:
Last year Trove Labs was given the amazing opportunity to travel to Nearcon from the marketing DAO (NEARCON Proposal & NEARCON Report). While attending NEARCON we were able to strengthen existing relationships within the NEAR community by meeting up in real life and witnessing their achievements and passion firsthand. We were able to schedule multiple N@N AMA sessions with different projects and hackathon participants to highlight their work and innovations.

One of the most impactful experiences we had at the conference was the “NEAR Founders Brunch” thrown by Apollo 42 and the ASAC team. We were able to meet with ~20 team members from different projects and businesses and make lasting connections that have resulted in strong project relationships with teams like Tradeport, Apollo 42, and more. Ecosystem-led networking events like this are the most effective at encouraging members of the NEAR community to work together to build the NEAR ecosystem.

We believe in the importance of supporting budding projects and establishing lasting relationships within the NEAR ecosystem and know that our presence at NEAR APAC will be extremely beneficial for us and the NEAR community as a whole.

In an effort to support NEAR Protocol’s focus on global scaling and accessibility, we are looking to travel to NEAR APAC 23’ to meet active NEAR project teams, coordinate with NEARvietnam Hub to hold multiple “Founders Brunch” events, participate in Hackfest 2023, and host multiple N@N spaces during the conference to provide social media for exposure project teams during the conference.

Marketing Type:
Community Events > Meetups > Networking/Educational
Community Events > Events > Hackathons/Conferences
Content > Podcasts/Twitter Spaces > Educational

Objective: Send 2 Trove representatives (@Brand0mand0, and @dleer_defi), to NEAR APAC in HCMC (Sept 8-12) to represent the NEAR NFT/Project community as Ambassadors, and establish working relationships with NEAR project founders, developers, and Hackathon participants to promote growth and synergy within the NEAR ecosystem (With an emphasis on the APAC community)

Marketing Activity:

  1. Host 3 NEAR at NIGHT sessions (~1 hour each) during NEAR APAC to provide social media spotlight for NEAR projects present at the conference. (Record each space)

  2. Coordinate with the NEAR Vietnam Hub to hold 2 “NEAR Founders Brunch” Events via eventbrite during NEAR APAC to network with NEAR project teams/founders.

  3. Participate in the NEAR APAC “Hackfest” Hackathon.

  4. Network with active NEAR project teams and create new relationships with new builders from the NEAR APAC region.

Metrics for Measuring Success:

  • Host 3 N@N twitter spaces during NEAR APAC (Sept 8-12) to cover notable updates for NEAR protocol and highlight new/upcoming projects & protocols coming to NEAR.

  • Quantity of Near Projects teams committed to speaking in future N@N spaces

    • Target: 5-10

  • Hold 2 “NEAR Founders Brunch” events

    • Target: 10-20 guests per event

  • Trove Labs participation in Hackathon.

    • Submit a project to NEAR “Hackfest” during the conference

Expected Impact: Drive awareness to NEAR protocol projects (With a focus on the NEAR APAC community) and provide social media coverage of the NEAR APAC conference for the NEAR/Crypto Twitter community. Establish relationships between existing NEAR projects & new NEAR projects present at the conference through live meetups during the conference to promote cooperation within the NEAR project ecosystem.

Requested Funds: We are requesting funds to send Brandon & David to HCMC and attend NEAR APAC 2023, including transportation, hotel accommodations, and conference tickets.

Total Cost: ~2533 NEAR ($3630 USD) One-time

  • NEAR APAC Tickets: $0 x 2 team members = $0 (edited 05/24/22: NEAR Apac tickets claimed for free via Keypom!)
  • Plane Tickets: $1350 X 2 = $2700
  • Hotel accommodations: 1 room x 7 nights = $630 ($90 x 7)
  • Transportation: $300
  • Food & Drinks: Paid for by team
  • Founders Brunch: Paid for by team

Wallet ID: trovelabs.near
Owner: Brandon & David

Team:

Brandon & David

Social Links:

Trove Labs Projects - Twitter Links:

Brandon Cantu:

Brandon is the co-founder of Trove labs and a former Laboratory Manager with extensive experience in managing project teams and developing business operations. Brandon has recently begun working in web 3.0 full-time, and oversees the product development of Jump DeFi, Good Fortune Felines, & other projects from throughout the crypto ecosystem.

David Leer:

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.

Past Spaces Links:

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Hey @TroveLabs thanks for the proposal. Can you elaborate on how funding would achieve the KPIs in our guidelines?

I’m conscious of the need for funding from approved proposals to benefit the NEAR ecosystem as much if not more than the recipients (one of the core values in our charter) of the funding.

Not that simultaneous proposals count against proposers, but there’s also the reality that you have a proposal request for Near at Night now also, and we have to be careful in terms of allocating funding to a variety of initiatives in the ecosystem, especially with the current funding soft cap we’re working with.

Last but not least, I think the Marketing DAO needs to have a conversation about whether a scenario like this would be better addressed through bounties vs. covering individuals’ travel costs.

We’ll discuss it during our next council meeting.

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Thank you for the feedback @so608.

The funding would be used to achieve the following KPIs:

  1. Trove labs will attend the conference to establish a relationship between the existing NEAR project community and newcomers/active developers from the APAC community through NEAR at Night (Our established podcast/twitter spaces brand) AMAs and conference coverage. Our existing community includes a majority of well known projects and notable contributors to the NEAR ecosystem and is the perfect place to provide much needed social media exposure to new projects in an effort to drive positive traction, reach and education towards new projects in the market.

  2. Trove labs looks to strengthen the NEAR project community at a time when it needs it the most. We are fully committed to the NEAR ecosystem and ensuring that it retains the active developers it has left, while encouraging others to join and build as well. Our presence at the conference, along with our side events will allow us to represent the existing project/NFT community while encouraging founders and teams to strengthen the ecosystem by building together.

Our main goal at Trove labs has been to benefit the NEAR ecosystem. All of our past work with the marketing DAO has had that core value at heart, and we believe our ecosystem contributions and reports from past proposals are proof of that.

While we have multiple ongoing proposals, Trove labs has always followed through with each of our proposals and know that the NEAR ecosystem is in need of initiatives like ours that promote onboarding, growth and education. We have delivered consistent reports and measurable metrics and have a diverse team with multiple people from within the NEAR ecosystem contributing to our efforts.

Trove labs is perfectly suited for being NEAR community ambassadors at NEAR APAC and hope to do the same at NEARcon in November. While we know the Marketing DAO budget is limited, we believe our impact and contribution to the NEAR ecosystem will be significant enough to warrant the approval of our proposal. We want to thank the council for their time, and appreciate everything they have done for us and the NEAR community as a whole.

If you need any more information, or have any suggestions for the proposal, please let us know!

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We have updated the proposal to remove the costs of NEAR APAC tickets, after we were able to secure two free NEAR APAC tickets from Keypom.

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@TroveLabs thanks for updating the proposal and for the responses to my previous questions. Also thank you for bearing with the response time.

I want to note that I do think your team is providing value to the ecosystem, and I respect your team’s contributions. That said, I do personally think it is problematic for the MarketingDAO to travel and lodging costs for individuals to attend conferences. We ran into this as an issue last summer when we received a number of requests to attend NEAR CON. When we pay for travel costs, we don’t have the ability to track and show metrics/result for the funding allocated in the same way we can for marketing activities, content, events/attendance, etc.

That said, I would like to be able to recommend a way forward. I would be more likely to support a request for funding to host an event or produce a marketing initiative at the conference with the budget covering that vs. the travel costs.

Do you see a possible way forward based on that?

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