TBR-Q1-2023 - Growth Team

Governance PT Budget Requests
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TBR Growth Team
Team Name Growth
Quarter and Year Q1 2023
Payout Address TBD
Total Payout Reqested 30,000

Purpose

The Growth Team is responsible for growing the PoolTogether Protocol through partnerships and integrations.

This includes:

  • Building relationships with Wallets, Protocols, Chains, and New Projects.
  • Producing the PoolTogether Community Podcast and Twitter Spaces as places to
  • Hosting events at conferences and casual meetups throughout the year
  • Updating L1 and L2 DeFi leadership on protocol KPIs
  • Court Influencers to promote the PT Protocol
  • Gather the PoolTogether Community for growth connections and directions

Recap

I’ve been part time with PoolTogether since August and it’s been a wild ride! So many great convos, so many unexpected opportunities popping up, and so many projects in the pipeline. Here’s a quick outline of what’s happened and what’s in progress:

Podcast

  • 21 Episodes since August
  • 2.3K downloads
  • Notable guests: Zerion, Aave, Coordinape, Juno, Polygon
  • DenicioDelToro editing and producing

Twitter Spaces

  • Livster running the show
  • 10-20 listeners per episode

Crypto Climbs Events

  • AMEX Connection
  • Normie convos

Campaigns/Integrations

  • No Loss November/Layer3 freebie
    • ~14K depositors across Polygon and Optimism
  • Decentral Games
    • 40K Pooly Wearables Distributed
    • 4 Depositors from 1+ week of ads
    • Activity on Polygon!
  • KuCoin Wallet Campaign
    • 21 Depositors
  • Dispatch
    • Message Grand Prize Winner
    • PoolStreaks (45 participants on Question 1)
    • Potential Prize Claim NFTs with new product
  • Nucleus
    • PTaUSDC Credit Card
  • Aave
    • Lens profiles for PT people
    • Potential PT functionality on Lens
    • Meeting in NYC with team
  • Rainbow
    • App Icon and Prize Notifications
  • Stader
    • MaticX Pool (Underthesea)
  • Eco
    • Eco Pool (Underthesea)
  • Ledger
    • PT Ledger Live Integration (Waiting for V5)
  • Juno
    • One click deposit into PoolTogether
    • They want integration of Juno Pay with PT referall bonus
  • Polygon
    • Figured out through podcast their needs and working on structuring dashboards to reflect DAUs (Underthesea)
  • Atlantis World
    • PoolTogether Party
  • Disco.xyz
    • PoolTogether Credentials
  • Bankless Card
    • PoolTogether POOL Rewards
  • Tacit
    • PoolTogether SwimPoints
  • Charisma Social
    • Defi Defender Personality Profile

Q1 2023 Goals

  • Launch PoolTogether PTaUSDC Card with Nucleus
  • Launch One Click PTaUSDC purchases with Juno
  • Launch Rainbow Notification and Icon Integration
  • Host PoolyCon at ETHDenver
  • Improve Distribution and Reach of PoolTogether Community Podcast (continue to build Lens presence)
  • Produce 12 episodes of the PoolTogether Community Podcast

Performance Metrics / Milestones

When I started stewarding Growth in August the key metric was TVL, but as I’ve met with key audiences I think our goal has shifted to Daily Active Uniques. Ideally, everyone with a wallet will have $10 deposited into PoolTogether for a chance at winning the monthly $1m prize.

To that end, we’ll pursue the following metrics and evaluate the value of them each quarter.

  • Build a strategy to increase Daily Active Users (18.7K ATH Polygon)
  • Number of Notable Social Interactions (including reach)
  • Meetings with
    • Wallets
    • Protocols
    • Influencers
    • New Projects
  • Host PoolyCon with 30 attendees plus an ETHDenver event at a Brewery (with oat distribution competition and championship belt prize)
  • Produce one podcast per week including a highligh video to be posted on Lens Protocol
  • Number of Deals Closed (Galxe, Decentral Games, Nucleus)
  • Develop Partnership Campaign similar to DG and Galxe campaigns

PoolyCon

People love PoolTogether, and following the PoolyNFT mint as well as the baning NFT.NYC Pooly Party, we’re throwing a PoolTogether two day get together plus bonus day excursion prior to ETHDenver for the PoolTogether Team and Core Contributors. Arrive on Feb 27th, attend PoolyCon Feb 28th through March 1, and head over to ETHDenver March 2-5!

Budget includes venue rental plus food and drink during conference Feb 28, March 1st excursion expense, brewery takeover during ETHDenver, and merch for the conference.

PoolyCon Budget

Team Members

Role Yearly USDC Compensation Commitment Percentage Quarterly USDC Quarterly POOL Contributor
Lead N/A 60% 0 (Covered by PT, Inc.) via Coordinape Tim Cox
Podcast Pro N/A 10% 0 via Coordinape Denicio Del Toro
PoolyCon/Growth Project Manager N/A 10% 0 via Coordinape Bab
Twitter Spaces N/A 10% 0 via Coordinape Livster
Additional Contributors N/A 10% 0 via Coordinape TBD

Team Expenses

Description Amount
PoolyCon $15,000
Coordinape Pool for Growth Contributors (in POOL) 22,500
USDC for Delegation $100,000
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Hello Tim.

Thanks for presenting a much needed growth team. I believe that the activity from this group of people is key to PoolTogether’s success.

However, I do not think that’s spending $50K on PoolyCon will provide a significant value for the protocol that would come close to justifying that expense. I think that given the financial situation of the protocol (no incomes), organizing and paying for a convention mostly aimed at people that are already part of the PoolTogether community, is not sensible.

Therefore, I’m against the formation of the team unless PoolyCon is taken out of the equation.

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How about reduced instead of removed, ser? Currently, the budget includes renting LifeHouse Lower Highlands for 6 days at 30K. Ideally Poolers who want to stay in the PoolHouse would pay for their rooms, but we also want to scholarship folks who need a place to stay.

https://www.lifehousehotels.com/hotels/denver/lower-highlands

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Thanks for your all your work, @tim, and the time you’ve put into the proposal!

Overall, I think the budget is reasonable, though I agree with @BRONDER that the PoolyCon expenses are quite high and might not be a suitable request for a team budget.

Performance Metrics / Milestones

These are all great goals to have, though it will be hard to measure the bulk of these goals without some quantitative figure to measure by:

Are we looking to increase daily active users across the whole prize network or on targeted networks like Polygon and Optimism? What is a stretch goal in terms of an increase–30%? I like the goal, but if you can give yourself something that POOLers can measure success by, it would be helpful when you evaluate your progress in Q2 2023.

Would also be good to have a baseline on what our notable social interactions are now and what our reach is vs. what you’re hoping to accomplish by the end of Q1 2023.

I’m not sure what the objective of PoolyCon is, and I haven’t seen it previously on the forum. Taking the total budget request / 30 attendees equates to $1,666.66 for the week, excluding airfare. It would be good to note what the objective of PoolCon is, why it’s exclusive to the team and core contributors, and how it furthers adoption or development of the protocol.

If this were an onboarding event or an educational event, I could see the value. It would be great to have more detail on PoolyCon. I’ll talk more about the budget request below.

While the podcast is great, I think you already cover this in the Purpose section. Since it’s not exclusive to Q1 2023, I think it can be removed from the milestones.

More detail on this would be great, too. Does “gather” mean on Discord or does this relate more to in-person at PoolyCon? If there isn’t a metric to measure here and it’s not exclusive to Q1 2023, it might be more suited for the Purpose section.

Budget Request

In-person events are important and do allow team members to connect. For remote teams, these events can be invaluable. As @BRONDER noted, the question is whether or not funding for team off-site should come from the protocol treasury or not. I’ll leave that question to POOLers.

Just going on the cost alone, $50,000 is a lot for one event. If compared to other team’s TBRs, the cost of PoolyCon could provide funding for the Finance Team, Community Team, and Education / Onboarding Team for nearly one quarter. In a bear market, every dollar counts.

I do think if PoolyCon were funded, it could be done for less. The LifeHouse Hotel is about $100/night higher than other hotels in Denver that could be booked. Saving $100/night on hotel rooms would save nearly $10,000 in expenses.

On the hotel: how many people do you anticipate having stay in the hotel and how many extra rooms do you have funding allocated for? If I’m assuming 30 people, that’s quite a large number of people to attend an off-site and conference for a week.

I do think the PoolyCon budget could be reduced by $10k to $15k if not by more. More than anything, I’d like to understand what we’re hoping to get out of PoolyCon and if this is a cost that should come from the protocol treasury.

Again, I think the Growth Team is really important. It would be great to see some revisions, so progress can be measured later; in addition, some budget trimming would go a long way as well.

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@BRONDER and @BraveNewDeFi thanks for your feedback! 'Tis a gift!

Regarding LifeHouse: my thinking was to find a block of rooms or an airbnb that could hold as many Poolers as possible, determine the rooms (most likely of team members) we would need to fully fund, provide scholarships for those who want to attend but can’t afford rooms, airfare, and other special projects during the conference. I’m also happy to roll over the amount to the next quarter. This venue has a restaurant/bar, is in a sweet neighborhood and isn’t too far from the main venue for ETHDenver and could house most attendees. Also you’ll see from the

I’ve put in a request with LifeHouse to see if a temporary reserve of rooms is possible so that people can purchase themselves and then release the rooms after a certain time, but another option is to reserve the Family Suite and Pioneer Suites and that will house 18 people and will cost :heavy_dollar_sign: $620 total per person for six nights (103 per night inclusive of tax). That would cost 11,160 and gets us down into what you, @BraveNewDeFi, think is appropriate, and we would still have that PoolHouse vibe!

In the intro to the Performance section, I address the change in key metrics to DAUs. I’m working with @underthesea to get a dashboard https://dune.com/queries/1749461/2884082 and a Layer3 campaign (that they just spun up on their own) contributed to these users. If we want a similar campaign, we’ll need to spend $15K. I didn’t budget for something like that this quarter because of ETHDenver, but if we want an easy pump on DAUs we could fund another one.

My concern there (and with tracking most stats in general) is that they’re so dependent on incentives and/or market conditions short term and not what the team is doing. What I’ve found with Polygon (and @Tjark with OP governance might have a different response) is that I need to track what they really care about (users only) and report to them any zingy stats as often as possible. So in each of these items, I see Q1 2023 as setting a base set of numbers (hyperstructure incoming) and then pushing for integrations, partnerships, and campaigns with as many wholesome protocols as possible. I think those are the real metrics (taking notes from Polygon’s BD).

This means when Vitalik, Stani, or Polygon RTs us or interacts with us. We get about one per month rn.

Here’s the purpose:
PoolyCon is a time for the PoolTogether community to gather, celebrate, and discuss! PoolyCon is designed to feel more like a family reunion than a marketing event. Our primary goal is to strengthen the ties and knowledge sharing between people already familiar with PoolTogether.

Face to face you can never replace, and I think the team and core contributors meeting IRL will build trust, empathy, and strengthen our efforts. Also I want to hug all of you. It’s really about me hugging you (especially @AndyKaufman).

This was in the purpose section! But to answer the what does gather mean: PoolyCon is a main way, but I also think it’s making sure the current gatherings have a growth focus (Community Call mainly), and then we as a Growth team meeting weekly will attract growth minded community members for this sort of collaboration/ideation.

Awww yeah, I think I did this so smooth sailing from here methinks!

wen hugs

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Great proposal @tim!

I really like the focus around DAU as the Growth Team’s north star. One thing I’ll mention is that if it is truly THE metric, all other metrics/efforts should be attempting to move the needle on DAU.

If that’s the case, one might expect PoolyCon to be part of another workstream/team’s mandate. I think having it part of growth makes it difficult to measure the success of your efforts related to DAU.

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Appreciate this, ser @links! As a marketer, allow me to spin this to be crucial to Growth:

Again, the purpose: PoolyCon is a time for the PoolTogether community to gather, celebrate, and discuss! PoolyCon is designed to feel more like a family reunion than a marketing event. Our primary goal is to strengthen the ties and knowledge sharing between people already familiar with PoolTogether.

I think that strengthening ties/knowledge sharing will multiply partnerships that will then multiply users. If the PT crew can meet together, bond, get on the same page, and get behind a vision, this will lead to opportunities to significantly increase DAUs. It’s basically getting us all on the same page to go out into ETHDenver as Poolvangelists.

Ideally we’re all asking the question “how can PT partner with the protocol that I’m getting SWAG from rn/person shilling me their NFT project/barbershop where I’m getting a sick fade?”

That and I think that I/Growth are the ones pushing this forward ATM and I don’t think there’s another team to take this and run with it.

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UPDATE: Added a reduced budget option for PoolyCon.

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All for a growth team. Two big topics I see here: DAU and PoolyCon

I think we need to all take a look at what DAU means. More users great. More bots NFT farming, not so much. Deposit =/= user from my perspective. I think a user is a wallet that deposits and is playing for prizes. How to filter that we can discuss more in another thread, but I want to point out that I believe we need to be more critical when evaluating real growth of the protocol. In addition we should still see TVL as an important metric to the protocol. The protocol wants to generate prizes.

As a POOL holder I’m against the PoolyCon spending which is the bulk of this proposal. This was mentioned several times on community calls over the past month but it was never presented as being funded by a TBR / Treasury. Did that idea just popup or was that the intention all along? Is there other consideration for how to fund these proposed “sponsorships”?

How would it be decided who qualifies to be sponsored? When this proposal was made yesterday I looked at the spreadsheet and there was a tab for who would be attending and it only included everyone on PT Inc + Bab who is listed as PoolyCon organizer. I would be for an onboarding or education event at PoolyCon or other activities that bring the protocol forward to new eyes. A get together event for PT community is cool. Putting up people with room and board I don’t think is realistic.

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Sorry, I could have been more clear. When I said another workstream could work on this, what I really meant to say was perhaps it could be more effective under a goal different than DAU (not that different people should work on it). I believe measuring PoolyCon’s value by seeing how it impacts DAU doesn’t set PoolyCon up for success.

It’s going to be very hard to attribute DAU change to PoolyCon, and it is the biggest part of the growth budget. If PoolyCon doesn’t drive 66%+ of you DAU growth, it’s going to look like a failure even if it’s been successful in other areas.

The biggest benefit to offsite events is increased team alignment and loyalty. Based on this statement, it sounds like you know this. Why not tie PoolyCon to these kinds of goals rather than DAU?

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Completely agree. I have two goals in my mind: every EVM wallet with $10 in PoolTogether and monthly million dollar prizes.

I’m not sure what you mean by sponsorships. We’re not sponsoring ETHDenver. That would cost us $35K for a sponsorship plus mini-conference that they offer. POKT might be able to sponsor a portion of PoolyCon but we’ll also need to think of the optics with ETHDenver. We love them. They’re where we started, and we don’t want to appear like we’re competing with them at all. We’ve sponsored with them in the past and aren’t able to this time.

As for this being part of a TBR, since I am planning the thing, and I’m doing growth, and I feel like it fits under growth and it’s the best use of funds for Q1 as PT Hyperstructure is developed, I decided it would be the main thrust of the Growth Team, and a good one for Q1.

I can roll it off into it’s own grant or something, but my time (and other growth group peeps I reckon) will spend considerable time executing this.

We’ll have to figure that out, but it would be based on need. Bab is helping to plan and execute this event, so they need to be housed. I haven’t synced with Inc. on how team housing would be covered. I deleted the tab because it was confusing to readers, not because I was trying to hide something.

Onboarding who at ETHDenver? The audience at ETHDenver: builders, protocols, and maybe institutions. In my experience there are few new to crypto people. Or you’re suggesting we do this some other time, or pursue non DeFi crypto people?

Just room for up to 18 people over 6 days and not board. Ideally people purchase their own bed at $80 a night to live in the PoolHouse.

I’m happy to spin PoolCon off into it’s own proposal, but I think the burden of execution falls on the growth team

The other thing about Growth/Business Development is that conversations I had three months ago are turning into opportunities in 2023. I might not be able to attribute PoolyCon to growth in Q1 2023, but I’m confident I will be able to point to conversations started in PoolyCon that will result in significant growth in 2023 (or 16.5% of Active User Growth for the year aka 2/3 of the budget of one quarter.

Sure! I can do that too!

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Hello Tim,

First of ALL great job, I personally wanted more clarification about the Growth Team.

The KPI’s, Roles & Goals, and estimated budget proposed really paints a clear picture for me and helps me understand the game, the field, and the strategy. Thank You.

Is the overall GOAL to GROW as much as possible no matter the cost?

OR

Is there a specific ceiling on the TBR which I’d assume makes the goal “Growth Per Dollar Spent” ?

Either way, I would LOVE to strategize and optimize the TBR output!

It just so happens that I’m an AVID user/advocate of Juno and would be happy to connect both of my favorite communities!

Below: I am expressing my interest in joining the Growth Team
(EVEN if its the 2nd Quarter of 2023)

As discussed with You, after I speaking with Leighton, He felt that my previous career and various skillsets fit well with Growth. I know I would be a great addition in that empty slot!

Especially as a free agent to pick up in the 4th quarter. However, If it disrupts anything then I’ll shoot for the 2nd quarter.

I’d rather start today.

Thank you
AllAnon

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Even this is difficult to quantify, because we can spend $15K for a two month campaign with Layer3 and we could potentially see massive growth in users, but it would be an insignificant TVL bump and they would drop off without continued incentives.

We want quality growth, we want a deposit with PoolTogether to be table stakes for crypto, and we want 1milly a month in prizes.

Results from Growth Team effort in Q1 won’t be realized until later in 2023. BD in non crypto orgs has 2-3 year windows.

This is a Coordinape pool @Allanon so you’re on the team bb! (If the team is approved of course)

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My 1st though when reading this,

If PT Offers Temporary Campaign
Then PT Gains Temporary Growth

SO in a way it’s a success! However, we want LONG TERM TVL & DAU Growth.

I would a/b test that against a new strategy aligned with LONG term goals.

NOT that this would be the answer but maybe it sparks an IDEA…
(I wrote this in August, for a Dework Marketing Territory Idea.)

I believe somewhere in here is the KEY to growth - Just the core Idea - check it out!

“Together” powered by PoolTogether. (working title haha)

Instead of the current depositors and believers in the PoolTogether protocol attempting to “Purple Pill” other communities through temporary campaigns this model takes the power of the PoolTogether protocol to support positive Initiatives in the surrounding communities.

PoolTogether effectively becomes the arbiter of community. Expressing the power of the protocol through community events works as a trojan horse to onboard more PoolTogether depositors, which fund more events, and on and on it goes.

Finding Influencers/Creators with existing following would be the ideal outcome.
(Because they generate the attendees from their own networks) OR 1 degree of separation from Immediate PT community members would be 2nd choice.

IF The Initiative is Aligned with PT values Then it’s Voted on
PT could fund these Events with Grants OR Delegations OR
an OPT IN ONLY % of Prizes from community depositors.

Some Examples:

IRL or Digital events, classes, courses, workshops.

CookTogether, ExerciseTogether, CreateTogether

DesignTogether, MemeTogether, WriteTogether

WorkTogether, BuildTogether, HealthTogether.

“Together” powered by PoolTogether.

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LFG bbbbbbbbbbbbbb! :pray:

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Proposal updated based on feedback!

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Jumping in late… I like where you are going with this… however how did you come to 66% DAU? - asking to learn not saying I have a different result.

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I will step up and do Twitter spaces!
Along with the other time and contributions. ( 20 Commitment)

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At the time I wrote this, PoolyCon accounted for 66% of the budget, for a team whose North Star metric (aka purpose) is DAU. At a high level, you would expect it to contribute to 66% of DAU growth.

Does that make sense?

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100% makes sense, I agree with you.

Although, IF 66% TBR to Poolycon = 66% more DAUs, WE will be hosting a lot more events!
haha! :joy:

In all seriousness though we need way better Attribution Tools, & KPI’s prior during and after the event to even begin to prove the success and or failure of any allocated budget. Which ultimately web3/crypto should fix so traditional companies can stop paying 3 different data leaching systems for the same BS leads. I digress.

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