Newsletter Team Season 7 Budget

Grants/Funding
1

Newsletter Team: Season 7 Proposal

Project Team:

Weekly Rollup Content Manager: HiroKennelly
State of the DAOs Content Manager: siddhearta
DeFi Download Content Manager(s): Jake and Stake and AustinFoss
Treasurer: pending election
Lead Staff Editor: HiroKennelly

Project Summary:

The Newsletter Team currently has three newsletters that require ongoing resources and funding:

  1. Weekly Rollup (internal)
  2. State of the DAOs (external)
  3. DeFi Download (external)

The Newsletter Team manages the weekly operations, organizes and moderates weekly meetings, and ships content at regularly scheduled intervals. Each of these newsletters require formal roles and compensation in order to ensure quality, accountability, and timely execution.

Newsletter Team Multi-sig:

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TL;DR

  • Requesting 1,541,000 BANK for Season 7
  • Maintain current role salaries and bounty compensation
  • Requesting 90% of sponsorship revenue for Newsletter Team multi-sig
    • Remaining 10% to DAO treasury
    • Additional 10% may go to other guilds/ members for referrals
  • Partnership with DAOstewards to offer meta-governance in State of the DAOs
  • Roles and bounties created:
    • 5 salaried roles
    • over 100 writer bounties
    • 78 editor bounties
    • 26 designer bounties

Project KPIs:

Season 6 Goals:
Subscriber count:

  • Season 6 Goal: +20%
  • Start of Season 4: 18,000
  • Goal End of Season: 21,600
  • Current Subscribers: 19,000 (+6%)
    Open rate: average >40%
    Projected Revenue (End of Season Goal): $8,000
    Actual Revenue: $0
    Total Expenses: 1,569,000 BANK/ 13 week Season

Season 7 Goals:
Subscriber Count:

  • Season 7 Goal: +20%
  • Start of Season 7: 19,000
  • Goal End of Season: 22,800
    Open rate: average >40%
    Projected Revenue (End of Season Goal): $8,000
    Total Expenses: 1,541,000 BANK/ 13 week Season

Revenue-Generating Activities:

Direct revenue (sponsorships):

  • Each newsletter base rate: $8,000/ season or $3,000/month allocated in 90/10 split (Newsletter/DAO)
  • Rook referral program

Indirect revenue:

  • Driving sales for other DAO initiatives and partnerships.

Partnership with more DAOs and organizations, preserving:

  • BanklessDAO ethos
  • Serve BanklessDAO interest to attract more members and revenues
  • Distribution with BanklessDAO Newsletters

Budget Summary

Total Budget Request: 1,541,000 BANK

Salaried Roles: Total 544,000 BANK

  • Weekly Rollup Lead: 140,000 BANK
  • State of the DAOs Lead: 136,000 BANK
  • Defi Newsletter Lead: 136,000 BANK
  • Treasurer: 39,000 BANK
  • Lead Staff Editor: 78,000 BANK
  • Bounty jar: 15,000 BANK

Newsletter Bounty Compensation: 997,000 BANK

  • Weekly Rollup: 416,000 BANK
  • State of the DAOs: 266,000 BANK
  • Defi Newsletter: 315,000 BANK

Project Team:

The newsletter project team consists of various roles, including project coordinator, newsletter leads, authors, and editors responsible for consistently delivering high-quality content, efficient operations, management, and distribution. Multiple roles may be held by a single person. We propose the following roles be funded through both salaried positions and bounties.

Detailed Budget Spec

Salaried Roles

Role Weekly Salary Bounty Bucket Season Total (13wk)
Weekly Rollup Newsletter Lead 10,000 BANK 10,000 BANK 140,000 BANK
State of the DAOs Newsletter Lead 10,000 BANK 5,000 BANK 136,000 BANK
DeFi Download Newsletter Lead 10,000 BANK 5,000 BANK 136,000 BANK
Lead Staff Editor 6,000 BANK 78,000 BANK
Treasurer 3,000 BANK 39,000 BANK
Total 529,000 BANK

Writer and Editor Bounties

Weekly Rollup (ships weekly):

  • Content Curation- responsible for Community Highlights, What’s New, Get Involved, Action Items, and Proposals
    • 12,000 BANK/week
  • Headline piece author- responsible for weekly featured editorial
    • 6,000 BANK/week
  • Copy Editor
    • 3,000 BANK/week
  • Editorial Developmental Review
    • 6,000 BANK (3,000 x 2 editors)
  • Design (Header)
    • 5,000 BANK/week
  • TOTAL 32,000 BANK/ week = 416,000 BANK/Season (13 weeks)

DAO Newsletter (biweekly):

  • Content creation- responsible for DAO summaries and spotlight
    • 12,000 BANK/publication
  • Headline piece- responsible for weekly featured editorial
    • 6,000 BANK
  • Governance editorial- DAOstewards collab
    • 6,000 BANK
  • Editor
    • 3,000 BANK/publication
  • Editorial Developmental Review
    • 6,000 BANK (3000 x 2 editors)
  • Design (Header)
    • 5,000 BANK/week
  • TOTAL 38,000 BANK/ publication = 266,000 BANK/Season (7 publications/13 weeks)

DeFi Newsletter (monthly):

  • Author- responsible for curating DAO content
    • 12,000 BANK/publication
  • Headline pieces- responsible for featured editorials
    • 18,000 BANK
  • Editor
    • 4,000 BANK/publication
  • Editorial Developmental Review
    • 6,000 BANK (3,000 x 2 editors)
  • Design (Header)
    • 5,000 BANK/week
  • TOTAL 45,000 BANK/ publication = 315,000 BANK/Season (7 publications/13 weeks)

TOTAL BOUNTY BUDGET: 997,000 BANK/Season

TOTAL NEWSLETTER PROJECT BUDGET: 1,541,000 BANK/ 13 week Season

Newsletter Team Governance

Project funds will be custodied by a (3 of 5) Gnosis Safe multi-sig wallet with seasonally nominated members according to the Newsletter Team Governance. Gnosis Safe positions must be held by Newsletter Team Project Roles OR L1/L2 Newsletter Team members if there are not enough Role holders to fill the five positions.

  • Yes, I support this request
  • No, I do not support this request (leave comment)

0 voters

2 Likes
2

Millions of bank going to non revenue generating newsletters

1 Like
3

Appreciate you Ernest!

Our last sponsor was in October and we haven’t had any leads after the FTX collapse. We are confident as the market stabilizes we will see more revenue.

It is worth detailing that we have seen continued growth over the past six months despite the bear market (12k subs in July to 19k today). It think you are in a hard position to say that newsletter provides no direct benefit to the DAO as we highlight and promote every project and initiative. We directly act to further the mission of the DAO, which is to educate, onboard, and promote web3 culture.

But if you think we are not doing enough I respect that. And appreciate your honesty.

4 Likes
4

Might suggest moving this to the grants category for more visibility!

5

Heres Ernest. In every proposal.

6

Ecosystem exposure and reach pays future dividends. LFG :rocket:

1 Like
7

Sup Newsletter shipooors. quick question.

There are 3 different newsletters here
If each newsletter projected revenue is 8k/season
image

Shouldn’t the projected revenue be 24k/season instead of 8k?

image

8

While we have some sponsor leads for next season, none have committed yet. We are hoping to land at least one for the whole season.

1 Like
9

I enjoy reading many of the newsletters this team makes , thank you frens!

Since number of views is a popular demand amongst sponsors, what do you think about having BANK/view as a KPI to optimize around?

10

Considering we will ship 27 issues next season, with an average view of 10-13k views per issue:

1,541,000 bank/ 27,000 views = 57 bank/view

One of the things we have talked about trying this season is migrating one newsletter to paragraph.xyz and having it be a membership gated NFT. For reference, The Rug has just under 300 paid subscribers, so it is a balance of losing our subscriber base (19k) vs. trying out new models that might be sustainable but have a smaller base.

3 Likes
11

I voted no for this, my reasons:

  • averaging over 57,000 $BANK for each newsletter? That’s rich!
  • the newsletters are to long. A shallow reason? Definitely! but I do not believe I am the only one with that same opinion.
  • newsletters should be able to stand on their own (ad revenue or subscriptions) without being backstopped to this extent by $BANK. Is it early? Yes, it is somewhat, therefore I don’t mind subsidising the newsletter to an extent. But I don’t see revenue increasing enough to warrant this amount of continued funding.
  • Season 6 KPI goals are listed, what about the results?

Is there a way of dissemenating how many unique viewers are reading these newsletters?

Does the newsletter team work with the Marketing team to fine tune the delivery of these newsletters?

12

“27,000” views? Your preceding line says “10-13k views per issue”.

1,541,000 $BANK / 27 issues = ~57,000 $BANK per issue.

I find that number to be extremely ridiculous. I understand this newsletter to be just getting off the ground, but at season 7, it shouldn’t be near this much.

13

My bad, we both made a mistake with the math:

10,000 views/issue x 27 newsletters per season = 270,000 views/season

1,541,000 bank/ 270,000 views = 5.7 bank/view

You can see the summary of the allocations for each newsletter above, which ranges from 32-45k bank per issue. The newsletter team is a huge production, I am willing to bet we pay out the most bounties for any project or guild in the DAO. Here is a quick summary of paid bounties:

  • Roles and bounties created:
    • 5 salaried roles
    • over 100 writer bounties
    • 78 editor bounties
    • 26 designer bounties

That is a lot of work and we ship every week without missing. We already have one sponsor lined up for S7.

We are also planning a reader survey for next season. Maybe our content is too long like you say, trim it down to the essentials and reduce costs that way. Our stats paint a pretty good picture for newsletters though:

19k subs
average views 11-13k per issue
open average 40%

You are right though. We missed on KPI’s last season, which was arguably one of the worst seasons we have had in the DAO as far as sentiment and market conditions go. But we are still here building, committed to the long path, and the future is looking bright.

3 Likes
14

My math checks out.

1,541,000 $BANK divided by 27 issues = A cost of 57,074 $BANK per issue.

I’ll reiterate that I find that number to be ridiculous.

I do not know how metrics work for newsletters. In my opinion “views” only matters to paying or potential advertisers, not members of the bDAO forum.

15

Bankless DAO’s mission is to provide user friendly onramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media, and culture.
The newsletters contribute to this mission by disseminating accessible content to a large and growing audience. Surely the amount of newsletter views is a relevant statistic for both sponsors and members of the bDAO forum; it’s the evidence that the content is reaching its target audience. Average open rates for email newsletters are well below what these newsletters consistently achieve, so in terms of metrics for newsletters, it’s a pretty good one.

5 Likes
16

I’m very pleased by the amount of attention the Newsletter budget is receiving, as it’s part of an important discussion we need to have in the DAO. Our mission is to build user friendly onramps, as @trewkat said, and imo there is no better project than Newsletters (BP is a close second :rocket:) that distills, embodies, exemplifies, and disseminates this both the values of the mission and the actual content to further it.
I don’t think your position, @DoubleB, is that the DAO should only focus on revenue-generating projects, as that would basically shut everything down immediately. But if so, you’d be pleased to know that to my knowledge, no project, outside of our beloved DAOpunks, has brought more revenue into the DAO. That said, we’ve struggled the last several months to attract consistent sponsors, but as @siddhearta said, prospects are looking better for Season 7.
But for me that is besides the point. We fulfill our mission as a core function of the DAO; it’s essentially a quasi public good built to further the DAOs mission and shouldn’t be subject to the seasonal funding whims anyway, but that’s way besides the point and a battle for a different day. If you’re curious how we spend our time and BANK, I encourage you to attend our meeting on Thurday at 5pm UTC, or better yet, become a contributor.

4 Likes
17

Hey friend, can I ask why you think 57k BANK/newsletter is too much?

Personally i was ok with that number which is why I ask. If I rationalize it by BANK/hour, I can certainly imagine 57 hours across the dozen contributors it takes to put out each newsletter. If I rationalize it by output, 57k BANK/week for the reach and engagement #’s newsletters are providing seems very good, especially with the low price of BANK.

3 Likes
18

@Trewkat your post is spot on and you are 100% correct with the thoughts in your post.

However, we as a DAO cannot continually be paying out whatever amount of $BANK it may be because it is just not sustainable.

The amount of $BANK being paid out should be gradually going down in a sustained and noticeable way. Whether that be with paid subscriptions, advertisements, or some other form or sponsored content.

@links: Am I understanding your post correctly in that it takes a dozen bDAO members 4.75 hours each to write a total of one newsletter?

At a known cost of 57K $BANK per issue.

To this writer, who is only responding to what they see, this seems like a glaring problem in and of itself.

I’ll reiterate what I mentioned in response to @Trewkat, I support what the Newsletter team is doing, but the amount of $BANK being paid out each season needs to be declining in nature or at least be offset by revenue that will make the newsletter sustainable on its own.

A self funded newsletter is not sustainable.

Tagging @hirokennelly just to tie this together with his response to my earlier postings.

20

I agree - It’s pretty amazing that’s we’re coming up on two years and still talking about illusive sustainability. I’m encouraged that there’s a renewed focus on our runway as a DAO, which necessitates a discussion on BANK emissions. But how and where to cut BANK emissions is really the conversation we should be having.
I would ask this question more broadly, which is what is the DAO for? Is our mission to create user-friendly onramps through education, media, and culture - which does not necessarily imply that we should be revenue seeking as our guiding principal; are we a project incubator where we strive to be that Y Combinator of web3, extracting rents from profitable projects; are we a public good which should seek greater ecosystem funding to sustain our operations; are we just some drifty combination of all three?
You and I both agree the DAO is at a critical juncture - both in our ethos and sustainability. I for one am going to be bringing forth some proposals in S7 to bring my perspective to some of these concerns. I would encourage you to do the same. See you on the Forum.

2 Likes
21

Oh, and @Trewkat reminds me of another possible mission, to spread the BANK token far and wide, to tokenize the Bankless journey.

2 Likes