Proposal: New Media Opportunity That Can Help Grow the Rally Creator and Social Token Economy

Community Treasury
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Hey everyone,

TLDR
We are building a new media organization that fills a significant gap in the creator economy and impedes growth, particularly for creators using social tokens. A grant from the Rally community would help accelerate the work and bring more focus to Rally creators and topics specifically. It can be a building block to support other efforts already underway, help directly impact metrics important to Rally, and would be led by an active Rally community member.

Little More Detail TLDR

  • I am Bret Kinsella, the creator of $BOT Coin along with several industry colleagues.
  • In 2016, we identified a gap in the Voice AI market around intelligent assistants. That led to the creation of Voicebot.ai which along with our research division became the top source for news, data, and analysis in the Voice AI industry and the most cited resource in the news media and throughout academia.
  • A similar gap exists in the creator economy. There is no central resource that people trust or even have access to that addresses the business and technology of the creator economy and that constrains growth and leaves money on the table.
  • Rally faces specific challenges that this gap exacerbates.
  • Filling that gap while simultaneously shining an independent spotlight on the Rally Network, Rally creators, and the unique value offered can help existing creators be more successful, help recruit new high-quality creators, and bring new money and attention to the network. It will help amplify the work Bremner and the marketing team are doing.
  • We are launching a new publication, media business, and research firm under a new brand to focus on this space. Our original plan was to grow this slowly but given Rally’s needs and suggestions from some of the coin creators, we have identified a plan to accelerate the growth strategy and drive even more near-term benefits to Rally with a modest amount of community support.

Now for Those of You That Would Like to Dig Deeper

I am working on a project that I believe can add value to creators and Rally directly as well as benefit all creator coin holders in the network. There is a gap today in awareness of Rally and its unique business model. That isn’t unique to Rally. It is faced by all new companies, particularly those that are inventing a new way to do business. The Rally marketing team is moving forward with an aggressive plan to help drive up awareness. Those are critical efforts as this market is accelerating.

However, Rally faces more challenges than a typical startup. There is general market confusion about cryptocurrency. How does Rally compare to other ERC-20s or to Bitclout and even to NFTs? Is it like Bitcoin? Didn’t Bitcoin just tank? Aren’t the Chinese shutting down cryptocurrency? Do I need a cold storage Wallet? What the heck is Gas fees? Or, how high are Gas fees for Rally creator coins? Close to zero civilians can answer any of these questions and they come up every day as a coin creator. Very few experienced crypto users would even be able to answer these questions in a Rally context because it is one of so many ERC 20s.

Not many people really understand Bitcoin and fewer still have come to understand the concept of a sidechain based on Ethereum. To compound this problem, most people don’t even understand the fiat monetary system they have grown up with so trying to translate all of this is time-consuming and often leads to frustration. These layers of technical complexity obscure the value Rally has introduced. The Rally marketing programs will help but there is much to be done and it will be a continuing process.

With that in mind, the project I am developing adds value beyond traditional marketing efforts and will benefit everyone in the Rally network. This is based on a playbook we have run before and are tailoring to this new segment. Some specific benefits include:

  • Generate more awareness for Rally creators among brands and other organizations with budgets for influencer marketing campaigns that could be integrated with creator coin projects
  • Generate more awareness for Rally creators among media by providing a platform for independent exposure through a specialist media and research organization that backs analysis with concrete data
  • Provide an independent source of information about Rally that can help educate businesses, media, and others
  • Provide resources for creators to help them better manage and add value to their coin economies
  • Raise awareness among creators that Rally is an attractive option for building their businesses

This post has a simple aim: gauge whether the Rally community would be interested in helping accelerate these efforts given the importance of quickly raising awareness and developing momentum around both the Rally network and individual creators. It would be designed to bring positive attention to Rally which can help recruit more creators, help existing creators be more successful, draw in corporate sponsors that will invest budgets in creators and their coin economies, and provide another source for media to generate story ideas related to Rally. These are all elements that can help create a Rally flywheel and complement the market education efforts soon to be underway by Miguel Vias with the exchanges and efforts of the Rally marketing team more broadly.

Boosting Shared Success

For those of you who I have not met, I’m Bret Kinsella. Along with several industry colleagues, I created $BOT Coin in March. $BOT Coin is a community effort in the Spirit of $ART (but with developers instead of artists) with shared benefits and is in many ways similar to the entire Rally network. We all have a shared fate to some extent. The better Rally’s awareness and reputation, the easier it will be for all of our individual efforts to be successful and benefit everyone holding a coin in the Rally network.

Filling Gaps in the Creator Economy

There are some gaps today in the way the creator economy is organized (or is not organized as the case may be). There are media that cover the gossip or big news events and others that focus on the social media platforms but none focus exclusively on the business and technology of the creator economy. This is the same gap that Voicebot filled in for the voice AI technology world. We took something that was highly fragmented and through news, data, education, and analysis established the central hub globally for information and networking in the industry.

From the outside, Voicebot.ai looks like a successful industry publication with a podcast, newsletter, the occasional live stream, webinars, and other things you’d expect. But, there is more to it. Voicebot.ai has become and core part of the industry fabric. At a recent industry conference, more than 60% of all presentations had at least one Voicebot chart or reference. Many had several. Every industry needs a trusted source.

We are working on a new launch to fulfill that same role for the creator economy. It will include daily news, industry research, consumer data, reports, and other elements that will attract marketers with budgets as well as provide information that will be useful to creators and generally promote the best elements of this radical change in our media landscape.

My past work has involved both sides of the table. As a creator, I’ve built a large high-value audience and new revenue streams. As a CMO, I’ve also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring influencers and supported many independently as a consumer. This knowledge combined with my team’s experience in news publishing, research, and analysis offers us significant advantages in building out a unique resource for the creator economy.

Bringing Specific Value to the Rally Community

Our plan was to build the publication and research business up slowly using existing resources starting next month. However, we are considering a way to accelerate this process and bring more focus to Rally based on some conversations with a few Rally creators and others in the community who suggested this was needed now. To be clear, the focus would not be exclusively on Rally. We are going to cover the business of the creator economy broadly. That is the best way to build a large, sustainable, and valuable audience. However, with some Rally backing, I would plan to accelerate these efforts and bring a great deal more focus to the community more quickly.

Examples of specific outputs that would directly benefit the Rally network:

  • A Rally specific section of the publication
  • Profiles of a minimum number of Rally creators per month
  • Regular news and updates related to Rally
  • Information on how Rally works and differs from other ERC-20 or similar concepts
  • How crypto is being used to grow the creator economy and creating more value for all parties involved
  • Publication of a Rally portfolio index
  • HIghlighting of Rally in an industry report

In addition, we would be providing educational resources for creators to help them grow their economies while simultaneously attracting brand marketers with budgets to support Rally creators.

To do this would require additional staff and investment in primary research which we could support at about 16k RLY per month for six months.

Rally is implementing a Blitzscaling approach which seems wholly appropriate for the market size and the timing. This new resource that I am working on could be the first third party to really bring focused attention to the company and do it in a way that brings analytic depth. That would be valuable as a reference point for assuaging concerns of future coin holders, convincing new creators to choose Rally over alternatives, recruiting corporate interest in sponsoring Rally creators, and driving media attention.

Let me know what you think.

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I am so much in favor of this I need a new word to describe it correctly. I experienced what you did for the voice space first hand. It helped me make career decisions, stay informed in my downtime, and know what the heck was going on that I couldn’t see. You have a way of digging deep that reminds me of a neutral wartime journalist deep in the trenches, and managed to collect lots of juicy tidbits that made me want to become a Voicebot Insider too haha. I’m hoping you could do the same for this space too and maybe offer a premium membership like you did for the voice world?

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This gets my support for sure. Having a media platform dedicated to Rally/Creators is a must.

Bret has been a passionate advocate of Rally, our creators, and the technology behind it for quite a while. I trust in him to deliver on his vision.

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Seems like a useful channel to evangelize for rally, and a trusted member of our community doing it. Sounds great to me!
(I’m a.k.a. Arcanor, a member of team PLAY)

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Thanks for the kind words Dave. That was a good blueprint for how to do this type of thing. I’ve actually done something similar a couple of times now so very energized to crack this open for a new wave of change and help Rally in the process. No plans for premium memberships anytime soon. The first phase is to build audience reach and establish the right type of reputation for adding the kind of value you mentioned above.

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I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea. I think it needs to go further though; as you mentioned, a lot of people (even in the core crypto audience) do not understand even basic economic concepts. It’s clear that they’ve pieced together their information from things they’ve heard in passing but do not fully understand. I would like for there to be a section called something like “Economics 101” that explains the concepts behind the concepts behind Crypto in a formal and educational way, but that differs from other courses by leaving out the irrelevant stuff one would find in a true Economics course (e.g. no need to spend a month talking about stocks vs bonds, etc). Though I think this section might not directly benefit Rally, it would still be beneficial all around.

Regarding the stuff directly relevant to Rally, I think it would be cool to have bios of creators; I’m constantly learning new things about them…of the creators on the platform, I knew less than 5 before joining the community. So that would be very useful, both directly for those creators and for Rally as a whole. I also really wish there was some kind of “news” about creators doing neat new things with their coins; right now you have to go into each one or hear about it through a discord somewhere. So an actual place that aggregated that data would be extremely helpful!

As for price, I am always going to be one to ask for more value for less money. And without a further break down of costs, I don’t really know whether you’re asking too much or too little. 16k for a month doesn’t seem unreasonable with staff pricing, but why 6 months? Is there any way the proposal could be structured for 3 months with well defined KPIs that, if met, automatically extended it to 6? And if not met triggered a second vote for the additional 3 months? Right now we’re not buying a thing, but an idea. And buying ideas is a risky business. Maybe you have a more specific plan or some example material?

The core of the proposal I think is a great one. But the devil is in the details!

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Please see here for sample material :slight_smile:

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So much yes I need to use yaas!

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Hey mrq02. Very pleased that you like this idea given how active you are in the community. As to your education idea around crypto, I like it. We were planning on doing some of this but a more structured approach may be in order. There will be a section on monetization and crypto will be a big focus obviously. I have a background in economics (UPENN Wharton degree and lots of financial analysis for clients over the years) so taking that approach (or one that is even simpler) will be pretty straightforward. Both my parents were teachers and I have been blessed with the gene that enables me to explain complex topics to the masses. I typically do this with tech but actually fusing tech and finance in this way is a fun prospect for me.

As to creator bios, I guess that’s up to the individual creators. My plan is to feature regular interviews with creators and enable those that have something interesting to say to participate with guest posts. In other words, featuring creators on Rally is expected to be a core part of our offering and we can figure out what makes the most sense for different creators.

On the topic of creator news: yes case studies. What few people really understand is what people are doing. Kurt does a great job with his weekly Medium post and I think we can supplement that. In addition, we plan to cover interesting tactics and strategies used by creators outside of Rally as well. That might provide new ideas for Rally creators that they can adopt for themselves. Regardless, keeping track of all of this in a central location with a consistent editorial approach is one of the core benefits. So, yes on that recommendation.

I put six months in there because I thought there would not be enough visibility into how it will develop to say 12. These types of business are very dynamic. Of course, if I’d said 12, someone would have suggested 6 or 3. These are fair comments. My thinking was that 6 makes sense because I have clear visibility into what that would look like. It is also the time frame you need to really establish the solid metrics that everyone can look at and assess the true value. In fact, there are things we will do in the first four months that will have an impact 12 or 18 months later but won’t show up in metrics in the near term. I am not anticipating coming back to the community for another grant. By that point, the enterprise should be self sustaining. Granted, there might be something that people recommend for another grant at that time, but I’d consider that a new type of project.

The 16k RLY is actually a fraction of what I am investing personally to get this off the ground. Personnel and some research efforts are the key cost drivers of the figure. I zeroed in on that figure by projecting the time and labor that would be Rally specific that I would invest in up front to have a strong start. Since I already run a business like this that I launched in 2016, I have a good set of assumptions about what is needed to be successful and this proposal addresses a part of that.

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I love the idea. Vociebot.ai has been present throughout my entire journey into voice. Always a reliable source of information, stats and general guidance about the industry. Right now in the creator economy space we are experiencing similar issues that I’ve seen when I was entering voice few years ago. I would love to have a place I can refer to for news, general guidance on who’s who, recent stats and information I can use for strategic planning related to the space. Bret has demonstrated that he can successfully lead such endeavour. This proposal has my full support!

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Love the idea. The creator community definitely needs vehicles to better communicate.

Part of the challenge is the tie-in with crypto - I know many who “run in horror and confusion” when they hear the term. Straight forward, non-technical, non jargon-laden explanations of crypto, blockchain,NFT’s, etc are sorely needed. Currently, with all due respect to the brilliant leaders in it, the crypto/blockchain community tends to talk to itself (much like the voice community and many others). This keeps it a closed club, not the open decentralized, and inviting community that it can be.

And having bios, interviews, and more information about the creator community would be another welcome addition.

Net, net, the Creator Community version of Voicebot - love the idea!

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When I heard you mention this I thought it was a cool idea and now after reading this detailed breakdown, I’m even more a fan of the idea.

Let’s face it one of the biggest issues is the continued education and the connection of media to give different perspectives while also staying on a theme.

I’m in full support of Bret and this venture!

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This sounds like a great idea! My goal with $GARY is to get every single person I can to hold 1 $GARY (and then 2, maybe even 3 and so forth). The more knowledge the world has the better!

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Yeah, this needs to happen. Without education and awareness, getting traction as a creator is 100X harder - especially if your target audience isn’t crypto/blockchain savvy - the majority. I love the idea and hopefully this is just one of many education and awareness initiative that gets supported. Count me in as a backer/contributor!

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So exciting to see the support for this initiative, Bret. A trusted source for education for the next phases of the creator economy is SO needed and, given your experience in building Voicebot.ai, I think you have the proven ability to create a destination for this content.

My main questions hinged around the use of funds and the areas of investment that you covered in your response to @mrq02’s question so I think I feel comfortable in the current spend and use of funds!

Thanks for such a diligent and thoughtful proposal!

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Thanks Bremner. I appreciate the comments. I am excited about this.

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This idea makes a lot of sense, I agree education is really an issue with the Social Token space, and Blockchain/Crypto in general.

As long as @BremnerMorris is in agreement, you have my vote Bret @voicebot

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Thanks for addressing. I’m hugely supportive as well!

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Just awesome approach and highly valuable not only for Rally but for the whole newly arising creator economy.

I’m fully on board to support your proposal! With a vote and if needed in time as well :ok_hand:

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Well laid our in your presentation
100 percent like the initiative…

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