Hey everyone,
Forgive me for the long explanation as I felt like I needed to clear up a lot of misgivings and also just address some concerns that I had when I read this.
@Hina as per your observations, Iāve also written a response on the latest proposal for my attendance at NearCon.
https://gov.near.org/t/approved-nearcon-attendance-nearnordic-marketing-dao-council-member/
@Dacha and @satojandro have approved the proposal.
As stated previously, the council meets every Wednesday to discuss proposals, reports, and specific projects. We had discussed my project during a weekly call and while it is inferred that the person submitting the proposal would support the project, I can see where this is unclear. Again, this proposal was discussed during our call and unanimously agreed to. @Dacha had marked this proposal to āapproved.ā
We have addressed this more recently and I donāt believe this was done by @Dacha to skip the process. We have addressed this again and will continue to stick to the agreed to process for approval of ALL proposals. Now more than ever he understands the importance of sticking with the process.
None of the other team members on Near Nordic or my agency are active or submitting other projects on the governance portal. The reason the council often asks (prior to a proposal approval) who else in the governance portal is involved in a project is to avoid awarding too much cash to any one group in the same region.
For example, weāve seen $30K+ worth of monthly proposals awarded to very small teams running multiple but similar social media projects such as
- Meme / contest social accounts
- Promotions for local NFT projects / artists
- Instagram / contest community accounts
If all the project work is being executed by the same small team of people in a certain region, the council is trying to ascertain the overall value and quality of these projects.
Additionally, the council is working hard to be sure there is even distribution of funding across different geographies around the world for the Marketing DAOs. We also want to make sure weāre not awarding the equivalent of multiple years worth of salaries for monthly projects.
As of right now, (as far as Iām aware of) there have only been a few projects funded based in Scandinavia and therefore I donāt think thatās an issue here.
To go further, I have a team of marketers that work at my office every day that have supported the execution of the projects. If you want specifics on who they are, many of them are highlighted throughout the Social Media posts as they join the team.
All of the high-level projects, strategy, and much of the execution is handled directly by me. I approve the majority of the production, flow of processes, and all the meetings with startups, mentors, and partners.
I donāt think weāve ever asked for anywhere near that level of detail from any other projectā¦ just trying to provide as much transparency as possible.
The purpose of Near Nordic has always been to discover and engage with builders (founders), mentors, and partners for the purpose of launching successful Dapps.
We are not (at this time) directly marketing to the general public. The nature of our marketing initiatives is not seeking to pump the release a 10K profile picture NFT project (10K PFP) on Mintbase or Paras.
If you want to truly create lasting engagement and get more people to partake in Web3 for the long term, I donāt believe itās done through NFT giveaways and promotions.
While I am very supportive of artists, musicians, or creatives, that was not the purpose behind building the Near Nordic ecosystem.
Again, our focus, since the beginning, has been to generate interest and support behind the next generation of layer three dapps built on Near.
Our hypothesis is that you need to support the local startups, builders (founders), mentors, investors, and the most engaged ecosystem partners to get something meaningfully done.
There was a copied screenshot of the Linkedin Ads reach in this pose. Note, this advertising campaign was not included in the original proposals for the purpose of getting more visibility for the launch event. We targeted very specific types of profiles to attend the event (mentioned above).
Very early on, we saw minimal reach across our social media pages. We didnāt focus on vanity metrics (impressions, followers, clicks, etc) when we first set out to generate interest in Near. And no, I am not thrilled with the lower levels of engagement on these communities nonetheless.
But letsā dig in.
Overall, Social media usage in Denmark on is quite low compared to other counties.
Additionally, the percentage of the population that owns crypto is also low.
If you pair this with a smaller overall population (~5.8M), itās going to be challenging to get large numbers of people that donāt use crypto or talk about anything in Web3 to create wallets based on shill posts, contests, and Memes.
So why would anyone focus on building anything in Denmark or Scandinavia?!
As Iāve written in many of my early proposals and demonstrated within most of my public presentations, this ecosystem has some of the most successful tech unicorns, the highest investment per capita, the largest overall investment in Europe, and the highest levels of adoption of new technologies in the world.
This translates to a collective opportunity for building the first wave of utility-focused Dapps in the world and be the first touch for many retail adopters entering the market for the first time.
Given the nature of the Scandinavian culture and our values, we chose not to engage in cheap marketing tactics or mercenary for-hire marketing to quickly build up low-value followers for our online communities. This means the following:
No purchasing fake viewers or followers
Thousands of followers can be purchased across all channels for very little money. This will only water down your community and ultimately results in more scammers and spammers entering your community.
No AirDrop Engagement Bait Contests:
This is where you run regular āgiveawaysā in exchange for 2-3 actions (e.g Follow X Channel, Like, Comment to be entered to win $100). Giveaway airdrop contests to build up a community of people that are only engaged for the chance to win free money. These people are seldom localized to our ecosystem and are unlikely to be supportive of our vision to build up the next generation of Web3 Dapps.
No Shilling:
We also donāt participate in shilling (spamming) across other communities. Iāve directly seen the results of running this type of marketing per the request of other Web3 clients across various channels such as reddit, discord, and telegram. I can tell you it very rarely results in value created and only makes a project look desperate and illegitimate.
Weāre tracking the number of startups that we continue to engage with. There are 50 founding teams and Iāve personally met with. Many of them have been supported in applying for grants. Weāve also met with 25+ investors and corresponded with many to discuss opportunities for financial support.
Note: I had to block out the names of the startups, urls, and founders as this is my deal-flow for engaging with VCs and Angels
Getting people to actually build on Near is far more valuable in my eyes. This is not a short-term play and therefore requires long-term planning and execution.
My strategy for building up Nearās presence in Scandinavia has always been a grassroots approach.
This is a longer route but ultimately how things get done in Scandinavia.
Iāve personally engaged and formed relationships with contacts from the following areas:
Academia
Working with international schools, Academic Innovation labs, and internships to get people interested in building on Near. This includes running and moderating 2 separate panels on NFTs and Crypto for Harrisburg University. Since itās the summer, many of the relationships with academia are positioned to hit in the fall.
Funding Partners
Extensive research and connecting with countless Funds of Funds, VCs, Angels, Family Offices, etc for the purposes of raising capital for our venture fund and supporting the startups weāve engaged with.
Community Partners:
Mentoring local startups, speaking at international and local events, podcast guest spots, international webinars (such as the Global NFT Summit and TMRW CONF, and First International Conference on Sustainable Energy Blockchain & Cryptocurrency), and workshops for Startup Wise Guys, Antler, CSE, and Blockchain Founders Group.
Corporate Partners:
Forming relationships with Corporates and engaging for opportunities to invest, support, and provide early collaborations.
This includes meetings with Danske Bank and Nordea + Running a Web3 workshop for venture team of Maersk Growth.
Web3 Ecosystem:
Engaging with local and international Web3 startups with advisory and helping them navigate the grants application process. Additionally, we have been producing materials, content, and establishing the pipeline for our ecosystem + engaging with media organizations via press releases.
Government Partners:
Meetings for feedback on the deck for funding and determining requirements and elgibility for Gov Grants.
As you might imagine, these types of initiatives take time. The tracking and metrics are not as clear as # of impressions, clicks, or shares when pushing out Memes, Contests, NFT promotions, Influencer Marketing, etc.
This is in part why Iām waiting to release my report for the last funded proposal and why I have not asked for further funds for ecosystem growth. For example, some of the media from a joint partnership interview and media blitz with Nordic FinTech Magazine are going to be released during the 2nd week of August. Most of Scandinavia leans heavily into the worklife balance which means the tail end of June and all of July are pretty much dead when it comes to events, business activities, and meetings.
Most projects of this ambition have received far larger grants to fully develop and execute the development of similar ecosystem hubs. Given the state of the market and the focus on other ecosystem hubs, weāre doing the most that we can to create value on a shoestring budget.
In summary
The Near Protocol Marketing DAO is an amazing opportunity for people to get involved with an active community and learn while doing.
One of the biggest challenges of being on the council is trying discern the āvalueā of a proposals based on limited information- every week. We have to take into account so many variables when determining whether we can support a project.
Just trying to categorize the nature of projects can be tricky given the creative nature of the community.
In some cases, after 4 or 5 months, if there isnāt a clear value proposition still present, we canāt continue to fund expensive top of funnel projects. For those that find themselves in this circumstance and feel the council has unfairly judged your project, please understand that itās not a personal attack. There are so many people that are eager to support Near and various avenues to generate legitimate value within the ecosystem. Everyone deserves a chance to propose projects and deliver against them.
Unrelated but true, we also need be aware that not every proposal is genuine in its mission to grow the Near ecosystem. When money is introduced into the mix, there are always going to be complexities.
Part of the challenge is to discern whether a project has legitimate intentions and take any personal feelings out of the mix when rendering a decision.
The Marketing DAO has approved countless projects that had āpotentialā and we will continue to support early-stage projects that make a strong enough case for funding, demonstrating a strong previous track record, value to Near, core competencies, etc.
Part of the reason I believe I was selected to be an advisor and then council member for the Marketing DAO stems from the insights gained over many years launching hundreds of Web2 and Web3 projects. My perceptions and interpretations are different of other council members, which gives us a well-rounded approach to approving projects.
Having seen many different types of proposals come through, I was enticed very early by the prospect of helping build and support the next generation of Dapps.
Going through the process of funding via the Marketing DAO and delivering against those initiatives has given me and others far more empathy and transparency for the nature of the process.
Itās also fair to say that the scale and types of traction required for real sustainable growth are dependent on the nature of the project. This too has given the council a better understanding of reasonable timelines.
We continue to take into account all these moving parts when reviewing the value of different projects and my initiatives are no different. This is at its core a principle of a decentralized organization.
I hope this clears up some speculation. Thanks for your support and all the best,
Taylor
