VIP Ambassador Program

$RLY Grants
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As Rally, social tokens and NFTs continue to gain heat in the market, we’ve had the fortune of getting introduced to a handful of extremely influential individuals who can help us bring on some of the biggest “lighthouse” talent in the world to Rally. Bringing on these Tier 1A celebrities/creators can propel Rally to a completely different level. The value of bringing on these folks, both for social tokens and future NFT products, cannot be overstated. These lighthouse creators will help educate additional creators, fans and the crypto community on the value of social tokens.

Given this, we’re exploring a VIP tier ambassador structure. We have discussed this with a handful of highly-networked and influential folks and they are willing to work with Rally using this structure. We’d like to put up a proposal in the coming days for each of them (and share who they are) with the following structure:

  • 150k/mo RLY retainer
  • 250k performance incentive for each launched Tier 1A creator
  • 6 month term with termination capability by Rally community

These Ambassadors will be managed directly by Nick Millman, Rally’s new VP Creator Partnerships, who will manage the creator outreach list and hold them to a high standard given the compensation level. For future ambassadors at this tier we can revise the compensation structure based on how this program performs, while also observing and adjusting compensation based on the price movements in $RLY.

While these are the largest grants we’ve done, we strongly believe that it will be worth it. The case studies, storytelling, PR, and marketing we can do around these celebrities will be huge. There are literally only a handful of people in the world that can unlock talent at this scale, and we recommend acting on these opportunities now.

Feel free to provide thoughts on this thread.

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Thanks for sharing, Mahesh. At this stage, these structures will be very influential in driving very strategic artist, creator, musician, celebrity and influencer relationships and successful launches. These successful launches will drive market education on Rally and the many possible use-cases for a social token. While it is a relatively high-level of grant, we will be able to directly measure the ROI of these relationships based on specific creator launches and we can re-visit on a go-forward basis should we see a need to shift the structure based on ROI.

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Is this 150K/250K per individual?

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Yes that is correct.

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Very exciting, and easy to imagine the transformative impact for Rally to enlist multiple top tier creators to the network. Can you share some comps(similar level celebrities) to put Tier 1A talent into perspective for the community? The ambassador names when available will also help.

My personal preference would be to have some imperative to deliver (show me a launched creator) built into the agreement, even if it required sweetening the deal. I’d prefer to pay a full fortune to sign an artist than a small fortune for the promise of one…but if that’s the business…

Also, I don’t understand the performance incentive. Is that 250k rly/month to the creator/celebrity or to the advisor, and does this stack based on the number they bring in and how long do each of these performance incentives continue to be paid…in perpetuity while the creator is on the platform?

If that incentive is in fact for the ambassador, have you summed these amounts together with a ballpark amount of considerations that a T1A creator would require? If the incentive is for the ambassador then disregard.

Let us know what you can share.

Clearly an opportunity we will want to move forward with, and based on @BremnerMorris comments it sounds like some “sure things” lined up! Awesome news!

Cheers,

Grand

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Great points as always @Grand. Tier 1A talent = folks like Travis Scott, Kanye West, Top 3 YouTubers, A-list actors and athletes. These ambassadors aren’t just folks who “have an in” with a few Tier 1A talent or their managers in order to get a meeting. We’re talking about ambassadors who have significant influence and that these Tier 1A people respect and listen to. Names and bios will be shared shortly with the proposal of course (you’ll recognize some of the names).

My personal preference, like yours, would be to have some of those terms built in too, but the reality is that folks at this level wouldn’t agree to a deal like that. To be honest we’re lucky that they are interested in the Rally project and willing to provide their services at all. After all, they don’t need the money and are already highly successful in their fields. That said, they are chomping at the bit and have talent and meetings at the ready, we’re just waiting to put the ambassador program in place.

Ultimately getting talent to launch is up to Rally, not the ambassador. But their influence matters a lot in not only bringing talent to the table but also converting them. We’ll also be managing their target hit list very tightly, and only going after Tier 1A folks that we think can have successful and sustainable coin economies.

I had a typo in my original draft which I just edited. It’s not 250k RLY/mo, that is a typo. It’s 150k RLY/mo retainer, and then 250k RLY per launched tier 1A creator. So if they bring in two Tier 1A creators after one month, they’d get 650k RLY. This is all paid to the ambassador, not the talent.

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Fantastic, you have my vote! This will be a game changer for Rally! 2/3 Tier-A celebs will change everything and will supercharge growth. (something that would have took otherwhise ages for the team and community). So my advice to the community don’t be Penny wise, Pound foulish here, if you can get this category of celebs on board, pay!
Do I understand it well? Are there already talks with these Celebs and soft commitment? Or what would be the approx timeline for first one to launch?

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Hi Mahesh,

I can fully support this move! As said above as well, a few of these type of creators / ambassadors can be the fuel to not only reach massive awareness but also massive adoption by “the regular folks” (not being crypto and/or marketing/business related), ie the fans of those big celebs.

What I think is important to heep in mind:

  1. How many (max?) would the Rally community need in total / per category (ie not to spend 20x these amounts / set a certain limit on it)
  2. What to expect from this group - “just” talking about it or explicitly help them setup their own CC / fan engagement program / etc (I’d opt for the latter in order to attract fans AND have them make use of Rally).
  3. Bring in line with the “focus” categories mentioned in the GTM topic - where it makes most sense.
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Thanks for adding some detail there and clarifying on the 250k. Also for the quick response on the topic.
If folks like this define Tier1a then it’s a different conversation! It was simply hard to judge without some context and Terry Crews was the level of celebrity/creator I had previously bucketed at this Tier.

Count me in and we’ll trust Nick to manage this closely to do all we can to secure this level of talent for Rally. Any further functionality we need to develop for the platform to meet the needs of their economy should be fast tracked as well and I hope partnerships will be as proactive as possible to surface. True game changer.
Well done, Mahesh!

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@martinmartin These folks are already in talks with many celebrities, but no one at Rally has connected yet (waiting for this ambassador program). Not sure on exact timeline to launch as this is a “new category” and the talent at this tier are all different/unique, may have custom dev asks, etc. So we’ll have to approach these on a case-by-case basis. My hope is to have the first ones launched within the first month though.

@Markovic In terms of # of these folks, I think if we had 20 folks at this level that would be amazing and worth the RLY to be honest. Yes we’d be overpaying these people that just means the program was a success and then we can re-work the amounts after 6 months. But def important here to constrain the program to just a handful of individuals. The interesting thing is if we pay out a lot of RLY, these ambassadors at that point will have a vested interest in bringing us more talent without getting paid more RLY.

Rally core team will still need to do the coin launches, handholding, and drive creator success here. These folks don’t have the skillset nor are they in the fold enough to help creators directly (they aren’t the managers of this talent). Think about them as very influential advisors.

Yes, definitely want to align with focus areas as much as possible.

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This sounds great because it suggests there is a demand for Rally as a solution to a problem worth solving.

There are some concerns. Paying someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for convincing 1 potential active community (Rally needs active celebs, not passive ones) sounds suboptimal. 250k/mo in Rally, at today’s price of 1USD/RLY, is a very high marketing expense. I find it challenging to establish a value-cost judgement without knowing more on what exactly the added value of these people are. I believe Rally will make it to celebrities with and without these individuals. With these individuals, it will likely be faster. Yet whether the added benefit of “X days faster” is worth 250k/month is difficult to judge without more info. I don’t think it’s an obvious decision. I do trust the core team. I support the final decision by more informed people.

My main point is about incentive alignment. Some kind of lockup or vesting schedule for these Rally payments would make sense. A vesting schedule would align the incentives of the people who bring others on. It’s been pointed out they don’t need the money. The should get paid, but there appears to be no survival-level need for them to liquidate their RLY immediately. Agreeing to a vesting schedule or lockup would be a net positive for other Rally stakeholders too. It would serve as an excellent basis for future deals with similarly exceptional people. How the vesting works exactly is peripheral to me at this pint. Perhaps incentive alignment is signaled via agreeing to a 50% liquid 50% vested schedule. A classic VC cliff vesting schedule is potentially too complicated. What matters is the signal I think. I do think that no signal of commitment and incentive alignment would make me say no to working with anyone, no matter how exceptional the counterparty. Rally will make it with or without them, even though I hope it will be with them. Let’s lock arms and wallets for a better Rally future.

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Fair enough Mahesh, and indeed they’d have an even bigger incentive to get it off the ground with their vested interest! It would be amazing if this could be achieved!

Let’s first see to get an approval on such a proposal and soon after the first few on-board, I am convinced that magic will happen next!

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Yep good points for sure. Just to clarify my original typo, it’s not 250k RLY PER MONTH. It’s 150k RLY per month + performance bounties of 250k RLY that are only paid with the launch of an approved Tier 1A creator (target creator at Rally’s discretion). I agree this would be way too high if we were guaranteeing the 250k RLY per month.

Here are some of the names we’re talking about - Pharrell, Travis Scott, Muse, OneRepublic, Miley Cyrus, U2, Diplo, The Chainsmokers, Kygo, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Priyanka Chopra, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Coldplay, The Weeknd, Snoop Dogg, Pitbull, Mr Beast, Kevin Love, Maria Sharapova, Jessica Chastain, Halle Berry, Zoe Saldana, Mark Ronson, Dillon Francis, Lil Nas X, Anderson Paak, Dermot Kennedy, Paul McCartney, Shawn Mendes, Will Smith.

Worst case scenario we end up paying them for 1-2 months, and if they don’t deliver we’d likely terminate the relationship. But best case scenario we’re getting massive names in our target areas with successful and sustainable launches.

You make a good point on vesting schedule or other mechanics to ensure optimal alignment. However, not everyone is as sophisticated with crypto mechanics as we are in this community! It’s a good negotiating point for sure, but if I were them, I might agree to some vesting terms but then I’d just counter by asking for more overall RLY tokens. We opted for simplicity and speed with this structure as opposed to being too cute with our terms. I also don’t think they are likely to liquidate anyways as they aren’t look at this RLY as a paycheck but rather a long-term interest. Definitely worth considering what you mentioned in the future though.

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For me. The biggest thing is an involved community with a strong strategy.

This is a potential bit opportunity or a big black eye.

If we onboard a major creator and it flops we are all in jeopardy.

Personally.

Im a lil nervous blind here

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sounds great！rally looking forward for these ambassadors

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@Gary sounds like a challenge for any platform :wink: We can’t shy away from doing big things. Luckily, major creators are chomping at the bit to do NFTs and social tokens, so we’re not pushing folks to do anything unnatural. We’ll just make sure that we target the right folks, educate them well and come up with solid launch plans, and make sure the whole community is supporting them!

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@mvellank I trust the team. That’s just my little caution. Let’s really make sure they want to implement and play big in the creator community. Like what PTM did :). That stuff is amazing.

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Pharrell, Travis Scott, Muse, OneRepublic, Miley Cyrus, U2, Diplo, The Chainsmokers, Kygo, Post Malone, Dua Lipa, Ellie Goulding, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Priyanka Chopra, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Coldplay, The Weeknd, Snoop Dogg, Pitbull, Mr Beast, Kevin Love, Maria Sharapova, Jessica Chastain, Halle Berry, Zoe Saldana, Mark Ronson, Dillon Francis, Lil Nas X, Anderson Paak, Dermot Kennedy, Paul McCartney, Shawn Mendes, Will Smith

I can’t see what most of these people bring to RLY besides “awareness”. That’s great for a single payout or two, but it seems unlikely that most of them would actually use RLY for it’s intended purpose. It feels like the only one who would really be worth the trouble would be Mr Beast, and we’d be better served by giving him a bunch of RLY to give away. All these other people might mention it in passing, but they rarely get paid directly by fans, so they’re only going to care if it’s successful as an aside. They’ll just hold, effectively taking the RLY out of the supply without using it. I’d much rather see prominent streamers get partnerships than random celebrities. Streamers are much better at monetizing communities, which would get more people more invested for longer periods of time, and they also usually have staff that could easily be partially paid in RLY. Which would mean it’s actually being used instead of just held. I bet DisguisedToast, Pokimane, or the other OfflineTV crew would do a LOT more for RLY than Jessica Chastain, even though they have much smaller fanbases.

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I think the addition of Bremner will help with the questions above. Most celebrities are looking to monetize their fame. I am no expert, but half the time their Business Managers are making the decisions. They make the presentation and then the celebrity looks to them for advice on the decision… look at it this way Lebron James is approached daily [i am guessing] for endorsements from well known brands and they are willing to pay him millions for that. We are competing with this type of competition for big names.
I am on the outside looking in on the Rally project so I do not know all of the ins and outs of the roadmap. At this stage, it’s easier to sign on a bunch of creators and study how they perform. It was told to me by a wise person, that it’s better to give some fish away in the beginning to get their interest… then TEACH THEM TO FISH. [this is my metaphor]. I was skeptical on this advice but it makes total sense. Rally is your typical Defi token it has a real business behind it and has a lot more potential than many see on the surface …
ITS RALLY TIME!!!

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@mrq02 you’re exactly right, we don’t want folks who only drive awareness. Folks like Abe have strong rolodexes with hundreds of big names, but we’d whittle that list down tremendously based on folks within our target verticals and that meet our criteria. Essentially, we’re still totally focused on folks who can drive real economies, which definitely are NOT some of the people in the generic list of celebs I listed. I was just trying to give a sample of his rolodex.

And I don’t think going after folks like Disguised Toast and Pokimane is mutually exclusive. We can do all of the above in parallel :slight_smile:

Also, per Kevin’s Coinlist presentation today, we are planning to launch NFTs in a couple months and so this expands our target verticals to fine arts, sports, and entertainment as well, whereas social tokens along may not have been as good of a fit for these categories.

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