[RFC] PTBR-3: Growth

Governance PT Budget Requests
1

Growth
Start Date July 1st, 2023
Duration of Work 3 months
Budget $25,000

Growth at PoolTogether

Growth at PoolTogether is focused providing opportunities for the advancement of the PoolTogether Protocol through partnerships, integrations, and content.
Growth is made up of dedicated poolers.

Growth Consists of

  • Darby, Lead
  • Denicio Del Toro, Podcast Producer
  • Thumbs, Content
  • Bab, Growth Product Manager
  • Allanon, Contributor
  • Livster, memelord
  • Richard, Contributor

Scope of Work

Motivation

Growth is how the PoolTogether Community contributes to the growth of the PoolTogether Protocol. We do this through content marketing, mining the community for partnership opportunities, and empowering advocates.

Goal

Growth’s goal is to have a successful launch of the PoolTogether Hyperstructure. We will collaborate with Community and Generation Software on content marketing pieces promoting Hyperstructure Launch.

Milestones, Deliverables & Timeline

Growth will produce

  • 12 weekly podcast episodes, including highlight videos and Shorts Video Content
  • 6 bi-weekly Twitter Spaces
  • 4 monthly Newsletters/Posts
  • 1 meme contest mid-quarter
  • 6 Pool Party Events
  • and initiate at least 12 potential partnership conversations in coordination with Generation Software

Budget

Amount Token
25,000 USDC
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Thanks for putting this up.

I believe that a Growth Team is necessary for PoolTogether to reach other protocols and secure partnerships for V5. However, I’m uncertain about the effect that we are having with podcasts, newsletters and Twitter Spaces. I’d really like to see some stats on those to help me understand how many people are we reaching and if it makes sense to continue those.

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What do these 6 Pool Party Events entail? How will they be hosted and what are the goals?
Are these focused on educating existing users on the protocol or trying to reach new ones?

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Hi Andy!

Here’s a rundown of what the PoolParty are designed to do.
I’ve already run one of these local events to test things out.

These are focused on educating existing users on the PT Protocol + trying to reach new ones + provide a space local space to discuss blockchain technology around the local community.

I want to help provide a safe space in public that would allow newcomers and professionals to learn about web3’s current updates, PoolTogether, and help answer questions about cryptocurrency.
PoolTogether PoolParties aims to provide a safe space allowing blockchain newcomers and professionals to discuss web3’s current updates, learn about the PoolTogether protocol, and network around blockchain.

Goal of Event:
PoolTogether (PoolParty) aims to provide a safe space where individuals can come together to share their knowledge, insights, and experiences related to blockchain technology.

Anyone interested in blockchain technology, web3, or the PoolTogether protocol can join the group. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert in the field, the group welcomes individuals interested in learning more about this rapidly evolving technology and its potential applications.

By attending PoolTogether PoolParties, members can engage in meaningful conversations, exchange ideas, and network with other like-minded individuals. Through these meetups, members can better understand the PoolTogether protocol and how it can be leveraged to improve financial inclusivity and democratize access to finance.

KPI:

  • Number of participants signed up for Events
  • Number of new depositors (During PoolParty)
  • Weekly, Monthly Amount in Deposits (from PoolParty)
  • Number of depositors (Already use PT)

Happy to answer any questions about this!

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Hey @BRONDER the team put together this doc with stats for the quarter. You can zoom in to the screenshots to get the details!

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Hi, thanks for proposal. Nice to see all of you on this roster!

I like a good meme contest :cowboy_hat_face:

I like the idea of having in person events but I’m wondering how do we make them bigger impact from the metrics outlined here.

In terms of V5 partnerships I’d love to see goals that show growth in the protocol. A big topic brewing seems to be yield sources. I also imagine interfaces to the protocol are going to be a focus for growth. I’d love to see the partnership leads be measured for results. How many yield source and interface integrations, for example.

Thanks for sharing the twitter space and podcast metrics but I don’t get a lot from those. I think theres a bot thing going on with the twitter space, no?

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hey @underthesea ! thanks for your reply :slight_smile:

there are talks of collaborating with other projects for the in-person events to help drive more interest. more info on that is forthcoming.

as for partnerships/integrations, they are a big focus for growth, aiming to initiate twelve potential partnership convos and hoping to finalize at least three. i have been personally involved in establishing talks with potential partners over the last couple months. i plan to continue establishing relationships and connecting generation software with dev teams that have an interest in integrating V5 to their interface.

for twitter spaces, i am not aware of a bot thing. all i know is that link3 has been featuring The Deep End on their home page since about april (when jiho was invited) and that seems to be driving a lot of listeners to the twitter spaces. in fact, The Deep End is featured on the home page right now alongside phaver’s community call, feel free to take a look: https://link3.to/

let me know if you have any other questions! i’ll be sure to answer more during today’s council call as well :blush:

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hey folks, the PTBR-3: Growth vote is live! :raised_hands:

vote: https://vote.pooltogether.com/proposals/74

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Looking forward to seeing this team in action. Love seeing Richard joining up too! Let’s go

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Okay enough is enough. This is like a bad sitcom that nobody wants to admit isn’t funny, yet it’s renewed every season.

I think the growth team should be either dissolved or have it’s budget greatly reduced. You’d think the growth team would focus on just that, growth. Not just talking about PoolTogether to an audience of bots and or very meager amounts of listeners.

$25,000 budget split between 6-7 people over 3 months with not much to show for it. Throwing “Pool parties” for 5 people is laughable. I was against this team early on but see I should have been much more vocal about it instead. There simply isn’t much substance, and when there is it’s not reaching people of note.

Are there any more data on the KPI’s established by this team we can review?
This link is a couple screenshots from several months ago Growth Stats - Google Docs

This might seem like an attack on the growth team but sometimes just having a good attitude and intentions isn’t enough in the real world. Spending $8,333 per month for a fan-club that seemingly shows up for ritual meetings (growth, community call, council, podcast, Deep end) is ridiculous. You can check the message history of the members on discord yourself. It’s lackluster at best for most.

How about the Governance forum?
Maybe the partnerships tag will have some engagement.

I understand the often low quality “partnership” opportunities presented here but is it so hard to at least reply to them? Even if it’s not a listed responsibility, wouldn’t that be where the Growth team would look?

Imagine how much impact an actual marketing campaign could have instead of spending it on a repeatedly failed set of experiments.

The larger issue at hand here is that we are far too lenient on spending the PoolTogether treasury in in-effective ways to “trusted” people without real results.

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(pasted from Discord)

So there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Growth team fully schedules edits and ships the pod. I just show up. And it’s very helpful in partnership convos, and real people listen to it. It’s not big numbers, but it’s numbers, especially with YouTube views added.

There’s a lot of work that goes into editing and creating the YouTube Visuals

Growth and Community teams powered the Private Beta Launch and will power the Public Launch

Twitter Spaces pulls in 100+ real people too and has baller guests. Growth team sends me leads. Community Team sends me leads. Both are present and leading important convos and initiatives.

And all for a lower-than-market rate pay for one full-time marketing contractor

plus they have to deal with trolling twitter accounts

They can definitely make some changes and it sounds like they will. This is their third quarter and first under new leadership. @darby :ocean::trophy: is a gift to the PoolTogether Community fr fr

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Editing a podcast costs us $1400 per month? Take a look at the coordinape distributions it’s $700 per epoch to the editor @DenicioDelToro1. Please give us some insights into how much time you spend on this but having edited my own podcast before it’s baffling to see this amount.

I disagree. The effort is creating templates for future use, just like with descript cutting down a lot of effort, the same can be said for an established video formula.

Can you please point to the partnerships that have materialized from these? Are they in the room with us now?
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That’s exactly my point of “repeatedly failed set of experiments” It’s time to move on. This is obviously not working. Instead of draining the treasury continuously with lack luster results, have some respect for the community & protocol the growth team speaks so highly of and step down.

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If each episode took 4 hours (highlight video, long form video, podcast audio editing, and description) that’s $350 per episode or $87.50 per hour. That’s a completely reasonable rate.

There are templates. We use Descript which is an AI platform to speed things up. 4 hours per episode is an underestimate on hours worked.

you’re trolling me my guy

Partnerships take time. I said leads here.

Rocket Pool is an anomaly that @underthesea turned me on to and we were able to turn that around in month. That will be huge for the Protocol but lots of moving parts there and will materialize in November. Most of the converstations I’m having will take 6 months to a year to materialize into a partnership.

An example of a lead from the growth team: Darby got Shane Mac, founder of XMTP, on the pod. Dude is a legend. I’m pumped about the conversations that will continue from that.

We need to keep pushing, keep experimenting, keep building, and I disagree with your framing of the results so far.

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okay so, i have no idea Andy why do you think 700 per month is outrageous? (i usually get less when i dont do extra tasks)… do you really know all im working here? i average out to less than minimum wage if you count my hours i promise you.

so to begin with a regular epoch and my deliverables and the things i have to complete.

Milly posts the audio and i have to first write a good title, write the Podcasts episode description (keeping in mind keywords for SEO Optimization and URL LINKS), each episode goes from editing inside on Descript(removing silences and umms/ahhs) to Pro Tools, where its passed by some variations of plug-ins and adjusted to hit the precise levels that are standard for podcasts.

aside from everything, i need to create a visual Thumbnail from scratch, and then create the video.

yes from a “Template” i created and which still needs some adjusting every time, to make it work.

and yes i have been learning and doing SEO and anyone willing to help im all ears.
after all of this is done i need to distribute the podcast on to Substack & Youtube but i also create Highlight videos for each and every episode, which are also tough (1hr episodes down to 5 minutes).

The episodes and highlight videos when i first got here were not nearly as detailed as they are after i took over, and im doing it for more than half the original price…

Also i have done a bunch of Media/Flyers/Trailers and extra stuff which no ones seen yet, all without even asking for anything in return.

I understand your opinion, and if you think PT shouldn’t spend any more resources on it, then okay.
but this is just that, your opinon…

So if you want to talk about PT not needing these things sure, go ahead i hear you…
But don’t single me out as if thats my fault, or as if to call me out like im stealing from you when im here to do what i was hired to do!.

and im doing a damn good job at it. and im going above and Beyond whats asked of me.

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So the epochs are monthly then for the $700 correct? Or is it $700 about every 2 weeks?

You’ve made a good point that brings to light some of the bigger issues, it seems we pay too much for talking heads and not enough for people doing actual work such as yourself. I’m not here to discredit your work but to point out the spending of wheel spinning activities that the growth team has established themselves. Actual editing and production is time consuming and costly.

I would hope that with all the effort you are putting in that these videos would actually reach meaningful people which is the task of the rest of the team. That does not seem to be the case here.

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hey andy, hope you’re well. thx for sharing your thoughts and concerns :pray: i highly appreciate it.

the growth budget has already been significantly reduced this year since i took leadership. it was cut by half actually, and i did so based off the feedback i had observed since joining growth back in Q1.

an updated KPI/stats doc for this quarter was shared with the council on discord alongside the Q4 growth TBR RFC a couple of weeks ago (feel free to look thru my discord message history). so, yes, there is more data prepared to be reviewed and will be published publicly soon.

the same doc also lists potential partners for wallet and yield source integrations i’ve reached out to throughout the quarter. i’ve been discussing partnership leads in council calls and including details (like meetings i personally booked and held w/ projects alongside tim) in meeting notes. a lot of BD stuff happens behind the scenes (DMs and telegram group chats), so i totally understand if it looks like not much has been going on in that department. rest assured tim is doing everything possible to turn leads into actual partnerships.

major V5 marketing efforts were pushed back due to the delays of the public launch. because of this, pursuing partnerships, integrations, and incentives programs were prioritized instead.

however, while the devs were heads down building the hyperstructure, the growth team continued creating content to keep pooltogether on people’s timelines in between V5 announcements and updates. marketing campaigns are in the plans for Q4 when partnerships, integrations, and incentives programs go live post-public launch.

as for the pod and deep end: i hosted sablier on twitter this week with 121 listeners, 76 of whom joined live and 45 of whom listened to the recording afterwards. the pod continues to also do well thanks to tim and denicio. the pooltogether community youtube channel is looking great too.

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experiments are crucial to figuring out what works and what doesn’t. the team has a better idea now of what has been working and what hasn’t. i’ve taken many things into consideration for next quarter. if you do end up checking out the TBR draft i previously mentioned you’ll notice i made several changes, including the members section. i am always open to feedback and have been doing my best to incorporate it as it comes in. thanks again for your comments. let me know if you have any other questions.

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So the budget ask is exactly the same but with less members. $25k in 3 months. So once again $8,333 per month for talking heads.

Livster position is memelord… really? Please share any memes that have been made as a reference and they will be judged accordingly.

This is the KPI document you were speaking about?

" Partnerships & Integrations

  • Initiated talks with Obvious wallet, xDEFI wallet, Fluvi wallet, Fuji Finance (cross-chain DeFi app w/ ERC-4626 compatible vaults), MyEtherWallet, Pillar wallet
  • A few projects that were reached out to already had talks/TG group chats going with Tim"

If this is what we have been paying for it’s vastly inferior. These stats are laughable for a team spending $8,333 PER MONTH on growth. 20-30 views per video. So we are spending what, $45 per view on youtube?

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As stated before, the larger issue at hand here which the Growth team is an active participant of is simply:

We are far too lenient on spending the PoolTogether treasury in in-effective ways to “trusted” people without real results.

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if you and the rest of the PT community could amplify content on social media, that would be of great help! for youtube it’s mostly been denicio publishing vids and then me amplifying on twitter. we’re doing what we can.

if you include the highlights clips i post on twitter the views and impressions are much higher.

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Sure, I can greatly boost and amplify our content easily. With a $4200 production budget and $20,800 marketing budget I can reach a lot of people easily :wink:

It’s that simple.

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