We think the multi-front marketing push format is ill-suited for a Mission. Hopefully in the future there will be other funding formats that would be better for something like this (potentially workstreams?) Like some of the others here, we would like to see a more focused proposal. For this reason, we will not be approving this proposal. But we appreciate the Alliance for crafting it and hope you all find a way to be properly rewarded for your efforts in supporting the Optimistic vision!
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Hello, responding here since I was reached out to for feedback. I like what youāre doing but Iām not sure if there is a need for this type of marketing at the moment as it seems like most of the marketing initiatves are handled by OP Labs and Foundation. There will absolutely be a need for this in the future and I like that you lowered your grant request, but I believe itās too early for this type of initiative. However, still sending you all good vibes and wishing you the best!
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Comprehensive proposal that would help increase awareness and understanding of the Optimistic Vision and RetroPGF. The updated 150K OP baseline grant amount is reasonable.
I represent KyberSwap, an Optimism Protocol Delegate for Season 4 with sufficient voting power, and we believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.
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I have to interject to make the case for this proposal.
Iām very surprised to hear that marketing and education at this stage for RetroPGF is something that cannot be coordinated by multiple teams. Coordination is hard sometimes but we are actively engaging and there is already a chat open on telegram for coordinating with OP Labs and the Foundation for the upcoming conferences and branding cohesion.
To me, this effort actually seems like a perfect intersection between Intent 3 (Spreading the Optimistic Vision) and intent 4 (Governance Accessibility).
Intent 4 almost explicitly requested it.
Marketing is a major part of this proposal, as that is of course critical for Spreading the Optimistic Vision, but the marketing we do will be backed by the Bankless Academy educational course, RetroPGF.com website to support RetroPGF voters and recipients, and the creation of a swag shop, infographics many other exciting engagement opportunities irl and online.
I would LOVE to see this proposal at least make it to the ballot. While OP Labs and the Foundation are really focused on the RetroPGF initiative within the Optimism ecosystem, we hope to begin to spread this concept outside of the OP ecosystem and start to make it a meme that is used throughout the blockchain space and hopefully even beyond.
A multi-front marketing push can add depth to the RetroPGF Meme
Giveth has been exporting the Ethereum vision for Public Goods to the wider crypto community and the nonprofit space since 2016 and can bring a lot of context for the concept of RetroPGF to have impact beyond just the Optimism ecosystem.
For instanceā¦
DYK RetroPGF is a very popular style of crowdfunding for the lower-middle class in Mexico?
A friend of mine from Tijuana and his wife took out a loan to fix up a neighborhood park and then collected money after the fact to pay back the loan.
The idea is that people donāt trust that promised work will actually be completed (low trust environment) so they have a culture of chipping in to pay someone back after they have done the work potentially even with a profit included (tho a lot of profit is culturally frowned upon).
They call this Coperacha, it is extremely common, so common that tech startups build apps around making it accessible.
This is the kind of context that we believe we can bring to add depth to the RetroPGF marketing campaign, and the RetroPGF movement.
This proposal needs 1 more delegate to support it to make it to the vote.
Thank you for your consideration.
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I am an Optimism delegate with sufficient voting power , and I believe this proposal is ready to move to a vote.
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Thank you for the support! 
@linda @ceresstation @lefterisjp
After thorough team discussions and careful consideration of the feedback received, we have decided to revise the budget for our proposal to 130K OP, down from the original 190K OP.
While this adjustment involves a certain level of risk for us, we firmly believe in the potential of this mission and are committed to its success.
Once again, thank you for your invaluable feedback, and we look forward to your support.
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We have two members of NaciĆ³n Bankless at ETH Barcelona and one in Paris for ETHCC. How we can help here? We are already spreading the word about Optimism and Giveth, as @Griff said coordination in marketing itās very difficult, and we have some on ground people 
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Just by coming to our booth and spending time with us, you are showing your support and it truly makes a difference. I hope to see some of the NaciĆ³n Bankless team there 
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Yeah! Come work our booths! We can hook you up with shirts and stickers to pass out, and we will have a solid set of talking points to align on.
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I agree that there is a gap in popular understanding of retro PGF, and I think itās definitely on the community to brainstorm and fund ways to overcome this gap.
There are a few open questions on here, mostly to do with spend and anticipated impact. My concern is that there is a ton of superfluous, inflated spending here for what is ultimately not a lot of meat.
Can someone explain to me, for instance, what reasonably results from sponsorship at EthCC? 50k OP, 15k of which to fly people to Barcelona, to pay for a KPI of 30 meaningful conversations?
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Hi @jackanorak, thanks for the feedback and for voicing your concerns, much appreciated.
Anyone who has done marketing and ecosystem development knows that campaigns cannot be isolated otherwise they will yield limited results and the rest of the spend will give a decreased ROI.
That being said, we have to respectfully disagree that āthere are a ton of superfluous, inflated spendingā, and Iāll try to elaborate.
ETHBarcelona and Funding the Commons (ETHCC) are the most relevant places to meet our target audience. Both with over 1500 attendees announced, weāre aiming for a 10% conversion rate at each, thatās about 300 people through direct F2F conversations. This will generate a lot of content and engagement. With increased awareness startups building on OP will bring in more users, which leads to increased ecosystem development.
Above mentioned events are the main hubs of our proposed targets. This in our opinion is currently the best ROI to get three things:
- Increase awareness directly within our target market (web3 natives, developers and business people)
- Increase branding (essential for any kind of activity - we will get large amount of materials that can later be reused in the online marketing activities and show again the target audience the activity)
- Increased overall goals met
30 meaningful conversations (out of 1500 people) means the likelihood of these conversations actually turning into something tangible (a GitHub commit) is significantly higher than any other activity.
In order to change the current situation (lack of awareness, activity and branding) is to target the hotbeds of activity and talk to people face to face. The conversion rates of F2F are 10x higher than anything you can do online.
When we sponsor these events, itās not just about checking off boxes or reaching a specific conversation quota. Itās about making real connections with people who are genuinely interested in what RetroPGF has to offer.
Itās not just about the immediate conversations, but also about the ripple effect that follows. When people experience the value of RetroPGF firsthand, they become advocates and ambassadors for it. They spread the word, share their positive experiences, and introduce RetroPGF to their networks of people that could use it to get funding for their project also, there by amplifying our reach far beyond the initial conversations.
As Arthur said here, and you acknowledged: āFor anyone building Web 3 products, crypto-native users should always be your priority until you have fully penetrated all potential crypto-natives.ā and this campaign is meant to reach them where they are.
Thank you for this detailed proposal, appreciate the budget breakdown.
Could you please help me with this -
1.2 - 22K sponsorship cost and 2.1 portal development cost, those two you are dedicated towards Optimism RPGF. Would you be going to present Optimism RPGF content on EthCC or this is just part of a bigger plan ?
Iām intimately familiar with the logic youāre employing here, but Iām afraid you havenāt answered my question satisfactorily on the cost side.
50,000 OP to target 300 conversations at a three-day conference, so 100 conversations per day, thatās something (speaking as an erstwhile conference attendee) you could easily cover with two people if you have a booth, maybe three if you donāt, especially if you intend to go to afterparties. How does that cost 50k?
Hell, Iāll do it for free. As should anyone here, for RPGF. Isnāt that the message being spread here?
Arthur0x is absolutely correct in beginning with targeting crypto natives, and this is something Iāve been deeply mindful of in evaluating missions and grants (a few of which, proposed by the greater Bankless / Giveth complex, have imo shot wide of this mark). Iām sure heād have something to say about resource management as well.
And please donāt misinterpret my intervention here. I think it is deeply important to win hearts and minds on this, and we should be prepared to spend in this effortāincluding in F2F engagementābecause RPGF faces considerable public skepticism. However, part of this message must be that we are demonstrating that we can do so effectively and efficiently, at the level of even the most centralized orgs. Otherwise all of this is just talk.
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Hey @jackanorak,
Thatās a fair question.
I agree that conferences can get expensive, but we believe the impact is worth the cost. Having irl conversations at cryptonative conferences lets us connect directly with no filter to see what people really think. They allow us to have deep conversations, address objections, and generate friendships and connections that can last for years (which is what we noticed with the connections we make representing Giveth at ETH conferences that become loyal users that believe in our mission).
The 50K OP we proposed is everything for 2 events (ETHBarcelona and Funding the Commons @ EthCC) and includes:
- The cost of sponsoring (22K OP for both events to get a nice booth and location).
- The cost of the booth itself and the materials we give out (8K OP for the cost of the booth setup, and high quality swag).
- The cost of design (5K OP for the design of the booth, the graphics that are used on social media, the shirts, stickers and the NFT).
- The cost of our time for both events (15K OP for getting to both events, 3 days ETHBarcelona and 2 days Funding the Commons @ EthCC, which also includes prepping the booth setup, running the booths for 9 hours from 9am to 6pm with 10 people working in shifts and more).
If we account for all of the costs of this proposal, at the current price of OP we barely break even (our profit margin is roughly 5% ignoring the one-year lockup).
Another point we wanted to raise was on the fact that the initial KPIās we mentioned were our initial assumptions and were a bit vague (what constitutes a āmeaningful conversationā is subjective). However, after our first day at ETH Barcelona, we have a lot more information on the kind of results that we are excited about (that @anamarijab.eth will share shortly).
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The first day of ETHBarcelona was a huge success!
We wanted to share some of the highlights from day 1 thatās relevant for this proposal.
- We had conversations with over 300 attendees on day 1 alone! (we still have 2 more days at ETHBarcelona and 2 at Funding the Commons @EthCC)
- We received 100 project leads (form submissions of projects that want to apply to get RetroPGF that weāll add to our newsletter), and had over 20 NFTs minted despite many technical difficulties.
- We distributed over 300 stickers and 100 shirts!
- We reached over 60 followers on Twitter
- We recorded 2 video interviews with previous RetroPGF winners (to generate more content in the future).
- We were featured in the ETHBarcelona recap video for day one (see us at the end of the video)!
And weāre only just getting started!
As a trend, we noticed a significant lack of awareness and understanding about RetroPGF all coming from crypto natives, and that was a major concern for us (our estimate is 90% of the people that visited our booth never heard about RetroPGF)!
This reaffirms why we put forward this mission proposal in the first place ā we genuinely believe in the incredible potential of RetroPGF and want to ensure that it reaches as many people as possible. Itās disappointing to see such a lack of awareness, but it also motivates us to work even harder to spread the word and showcase the amazing benefits of RetroPGF.
Many amazing projects with huge potential were unaware of RetroPGFās existence and we think that needs to change! 
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The more I see about this proposal the more confused I am. So there is a team already out executing on this mission? Do they plan to continue regardless whether or not the mission is approved? How is this initiative currently being funded and is there involvement from the Foundation or OP Labs regarding marketing and messaging alignment?
Apologies for the borage of questions, Iām genuinely very confused by whatās going on here.
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Yes, there is already a team that is executing this mission since both events are happening before the results of the voting and we are doing it with our own funds regardless of the outcome of the voting process.
In terms of messaging alignment, we are in close contact with the Foundation and OP Labs teams and they are aware of these efforts and actually were helping us get the right messaging that we will display on the booth.
Thank you for bringing up these questions, and I hope this clarification helps address any concerns.
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Thank you for your response and the hard work you guys are putting in. Itās good to hear that there is alignment on the messaging. Ironically, I think this proposal would have been better suited for RPGF lol but itās already being voted on so sending you good vibes and wishing you the best!
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