Community Engagement Proposal: Robb Spitzer for International Expansion

Community Treasury
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Hi all, I am incredibly excited to introduce you to Robb Spitzer. Robb has pioneered a multitude of projects at the convergence of entertainment, technology, and international audiences. With his key executive and leadership roles at companies like Tabuan Group, AEG Presents, Live Nation, Radical Media, Ticketmaster and 247tickets, Robb has been able to define and execute strategies for live music, festivals, sports and digital media experiences around the world. Part of his expertise stems from his understanding of the international entertainment industry, including cultural nuances for content and entertainment consumption in each territory across Asia, India and the Middle East. He has led diverse, cross-functional teams working with superstar artists like Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Maroon 5, Coldplay, Sam Smith, BIG BANG and Imagine Dragons to connect them meaningfully with their worldwide fan base.

Robb is passionate about helping creators capitalize on technology innovations to develop new revenue streams, and that’s where things get exciting for Rally. As one of the Rally network’s core missions is to empower creators to build and own their customized digital economies, global audiences are a huge factor in expanding the Rally community beyond anything we’ve previously been able to do. Due to the unique business and cultural characteristics of overseas markets, it will require an expert to facilitate these efforts - and Robb is well positioned to help the Rally network get there.

His collaboration with Rally would enable the community to effectively engage audiences throughout Asia, India, the Middle East, and beyond. He would advise on international strategy, compliance and payment structures, international talent and platform partnerships, people strategy and all elements of go-to-market priorities at an international scale.

Check out Robb’s LinkedIn and view his intro video:

The proposed engagement terms will be as follows:

  • 166,666 $RLY per month for a period of 6 months from Advisors and Collaborators pool, plus $25K USDC per month from the Rally community treasury.
  • Full-time focus on Rally.
  • During this period, KPIs will be established and achievements will be shared with the community for review.
  • At the end of the 6 month period, the community will have the opportunity to evaluate the engagement and, if the community decides to extend the engagement, it can do so through a new proposal.

Please share your thoughts!

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Hi Ira,

Awesome again! Asia is the growth market for both the creator as wel crypto community. It’s a lot of money, but if he can open up the Asian market, worth every penny. I think it is important to gain momentum to stay/become the leading Social token. As this will be a market with an extreme network effect it probably will be a “the winner takes all market”, so speed is super important. Is Rob’s main goal to onboard top tier Asian artists? Or help Asian creators monetize their economies?

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Thanks Martin for participating here as always. Our plan is actually super ambitious for Asia.

Robb and Weiwei (already hired) will be working together to put together a plan to create a sister Rally site that will focus on Asia through 1) a hyper-localized approach to Asian markets, tailored for the regulatory and compliance needs of those countries, 2) building a full go-to-market team to onboard top tier Asian artists and support to help these artists monetize their economies and 3) Asia specific platform integrations. Whereas Youtube, Twitch, Twitter, Discord, etc are the dominant Western platforms, we need to think WeChat, Kakao, LINE, Douyu etc for Asia.

It’s exciting to get such talented and senior folks working on Rally for Asia.

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Welcome, Robb! So excited to see this proposal in the works. Certainly not a minute to waste on this expansion, and rare to find someone who is both passionate about Rally and so well suited to lead this effort. Look forward to hearing more!

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As a community member I am not versed in all aspects of the marketing world, its is very difficult for me to support something that I do not have the qualifications to make an educated decision nor do I have the ability to compare compensation. My trust is in the leadership of Rally, the compensation in Rally always eye opening… Robb’s USDC compensation does fall in line according to LINKEDin and some other sources. I know we need to tap into Asia but 6m is a very short time. It takes a few months to just get up and running in any new job.

Can we get a little more idea of the Asia plan with timelines. I feel that we should be locking in a 1yr tenor. Were there other candidates that we interviewed? Are there other comparisons we can use to educate the community? I would have been comfortable with 25k USDC per month and some “bonus” per month IF the GOALS are HIT. The Rally awarded should come with vesting schedule.

** Many of you know I am one for accountability. I would like to see some type of reviewal process developed so we can see how the employees and contractors we hire are preforming** When and how we review employees/contractors should be made known to the community as we voted for these hires.

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I recommend referencing Bremner’s forum post here for a strong reference point on how compensation works for executives at Robb’s level (and how KPI’s will be measured): Engaging Bremner Morris for Go-To-Market success

This is a very exciting role for Rally to hire - and what a lucky find! Robb’s unique experience in building+scaling global creator-focused businesses make him an incredible fit - we’d be lucky to have him.

I am way stoked to get this kind of International Expansion brass on the team.

Onward & Upward!

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Good questions. Let me address, as I’ve personally vetted Robb’s background and spent considerable time talking to his references (which includes CEOs at the major firms he’s worked with, a great sign). We’ve also talked publicly about our goal of hitting China-language Asia expansion in Q4 of this year, and I believe we’re very lucky to have someone like Robb identified at this point to drive these ambitious efforts.

The experience of some Rally founders has been building out a 300 person Beijing and 50 person South Korea operation at Kabam, plus founding Gen.G Esports in Seoul and Shanghai Tigers for NBA2K. So I hope we have the credibility to earn the trust of the community to evaluate the right talent to lead up our efforts in Asia.

In terms of accountability, let’s start with getting aligned on overall framework. When a business has well defined motions, teams, and historical data, it’s relatively easy to define KPIs and accountability. Hiring the next Asia leader for AEG is an understood job and the leader can be held accountable for growing revenues by X% or growing market share by Y% or whatever. For Rally, we’re undertaking a 0 to 1 initiative in Asia. Where would we even start on accountability, as we don’t have a plan yet?
At this stage, it’s all about finding the right leadership, and asking the leadership to put together the plan for the community and then reporting against the proposed plan.

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Let’s take a look at some previous proposals and historical context of standing up a brand new initiatives for the Rally community:

PR - When we first proposed PR at $20K/month, our Discord exploded with criticism about costs and accountability. And justifiably so, since we had never done PR before. Later, we’ve formally updated the community with KPIs, and continue to provide updates in community calls and in the #PR channel in Discord

Bremner - we proposed a similar senior level hire just over 2 months ago. After being on the job for roughly a month, he put together a broad proposal to unleash a world class marketing program encompassing everything from branding, major creator initiatives, events, and education. We’re only a month in, but already have creators such as Jauz and !llmind joining Rally, and household names that I know his team is working on that we should be able to talk about soon as we get these deals across the finish line.

Similarly, I’m comfortable saying that Robb is the level of talent that will enable us to make a substantive push into Asia. I’ll be working with him to put together a more comprehensive plan we can present to the community to create the accountability we all want. But at this stage, it’s about bringing on the leadership talent to create the plan that the community can react to and create accountability.

And finally, until we have had someone focused on reporting against previously stated goals, it’s hard to create a real accountability motion. We haven’t done the best job introducing her, but @mobina joined recently as a serious talent in her own right. We’ll be working to create the type of accountability motion that we all clearly want.

Kevin

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Kevin,

Thank you for that summary. This is something I love to see: Transparency and honesty! Everyone has their ideas of how things should be run but at the same time some of that information can be sensitive. I am happy to see progress. In many other ventures in defi [being decentralized] there has been a bit of opaqueness. In the spirit of what Rally, as a community member I want to make sure we set the rails straight in the beginning so our progress is not questioned down the road. The rally team is focused on building so I hope the community will speak up and point out their wants/desires and see if they can be accommodated. Its refreshing to see the glimpse of the roadmap for Asia. IT’s RALLY TIME

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Thanks! Most importantly as a follow-up to this thread, we need a good meme game for IT’S RALLY TIME :wink:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmfE4KAZicY can that be used? The California Angels used this little guy but maybe we can get a meme for him with another form ?

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