Hey @tim,
Appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on the gtm strategy and ask for input.
Since the hyperstructure (hereafter, v5 since it’s shorter) is still in development and the promise of v5 is a wider variety of assets available for deposit and higher yields, my view is that the target audience you want to focus on is the potential integration partners (i.e., vault managers).
Looking at the growth factors you’ve outlined in your post (included below as well):
Posts. This initiative targets potential retail users, and the marketing campaigns executed in the last 6-12 months show that as well. We’re seeing small deposits from a large number of wallet, which could either be unique depositors or people splitting wallets, attempting to sybil the protocol in hopes of an airdrop or greater rewards. This is a top of the funnel initiative that helps with discover of PoolTogether.
I’m not sure if you have any analytics or information that create a picture of who the average audience is for the community podcast, Twitter Spaces events, marketing campaigns, and other growth initiatives the team has executed to date.
Partnerships. PoolTogether has been integrated into the Rainbow and Coinbase apps, among others, which is a great way to increase reach. But given the low yields available in Aave markets right now, PoolTogether isn’t seen as competitive or compelling for the protocol to realize conversions from these integrations at the current moment in time. Before the growth team focuses on more partnerships with wallets and CEXs, it might be beneficial to focus on the core value proposition of the protocol.
Prize-linked savings with a chance to win outsized prizes
Once people are able to deposit a wider range of assets and realize higher yields within the PoolTogether protocol, partnerships should be easier to pursue and close. Because of that, I think this is a priority that can come post v5.
Prizes (a.k.a., yield). The core benefit of v5 has been highlighted as a unified prize token, which enables the permissionless creation of different vaults that accept different assets other than just USDC. While this infrastructure opens up the potential for a wide array of different vaults, it might be beneficial to ask:
- What assets can be supported at launch that drive the most growth?
- What yield sources provide higher-than-average yield on those target assets, while meeting the security standards of the community?
If the community and Growth Team can select a core 3-4 assets for question 1, then the audience then is narrowed down to the teams that can satisfy the requirements in question 2.
The incentive for an existing development team to launch a vault in PoolTogether v5 is two-fold:
- Bootstrap TVL. As you noted, PT represented a large share of Aave v3’s USDC market on Optimism. By integrating with the PT protocol, you can bootstrap your TVL and, in turn, drive adoption of your protocol.
- User retention. One of the strengths noted in the Analysis Of PoolTogether growth metrics post was the protocol’s user retention rates (cited below). Development teams who launch vaults that allow Poolers to deposit in their protocol can expect a higher rate of retention that other DeFi protocols. For lending markets, yield aggregators, etc., this means more protocol revenue for teams that create vaults in v5.
Pooltogether has noticed a rather high six month retention at 46%, illustrating the high probability of users maintaining a positive balance in the platform, while on a yearly basis it goes just below 30%
There’s a clear economic incentive to integrate with PoolTogether when v5 first launches. Grants could be given, but I’d imagine protocols with ERC-4626 vaults would have the resources to integrate, given the key benefit of ERC-4626 is greater composability and easier integrations.
Imo, this then means the audience the Growth Team would benefit most from targeting between now and the launch of v5 would be:
- Protocols that accept supported ERC-20 assets; and
- Provide average, higher-than-average (competitive) yields in the supported assets; and
- Have ERC-4626 compatible vault infrastructure already developed
It also seems beneficial to limit the chains that v5 will initially be deployed on, so optimizing for chains where sustainable growth (i.e., sustainable yield) is possible and limiting to 2-3 target chains were gas fees are reasonable (e.g., Ethereum L2s, Polygon, etc.). Locating the yield sources that fit into the specifications above, talking to their development teams, and gauging which chains they want to achieve growth on would be a great way to narrow down potential chain/network deployments.
Of the pitches you’ve shared, the audience for the Token/Yield Sources Pitch is likely the most important to achieve growth after launch.
Once the yield is there and more assets can be deposited, then increasing awareness through content marketing, while pursuing wallet and CEX level partnerships will be a clear focus. There’s also a clear CTA for a retail audience (“many assets accepted, fun way to save, chance for outsized prizes, etc.”) and potential partners (“growth in deposits & DAUs, competitive yields, many assets accepted etc.”).
Focusing on content marketing or wallet and CEX level partnerships will be much more difficult and perhaps not the greatest use of the Growth Team’s limited time between today and the launch of v5.