Proposal: Podcast Hatchery Program

Title: Podcast Hatchery Program

Authors: EurekaJohn, Soundman, Droste, Liquidiot, ZimTeemo based on original doc by frogmonkee#6855

Current Squad: frogmonkee#6855 (advisor), EurekaJohn#2094 (champion), Soundman#6783 (champion), Droste#0063, Liquidiot#5975, ZimTeemo#1909, Ernest_of_Gaia#4762

Date Created: August 15th, 2021

Date Last Updated: 11/5/21

Status: FINAL DRAFT prior to FORUM

Date Posted:

SUMMARY

We propose to create a podcast development program for content creators, known as the Podcast Hatchery, within the DAO, to support logistics, design, production, research, writing, and distribution of podcasts. The intention of the program is to create Media Nodes that ultimately create incoming revenue for BanklessDAO through sponsorships.

The word ā€œsupportā€ above is underlined to delineate the role of the Podcast Hatchery team member as a support role, to aid the team in producing a quality product meeting the standards representative of the BanklessDAO. The Podcast Hatchery is not a team member and will not be the Project Manager or Producer.

This program will consist of three stages: Incubation, Acceleration, and Media Node.

Podcasts that ā€œgraduateā€ from the program will go on to split their sponsorship revenue with the DAO.

Season 2 is an MVP for the Podcast Incubator/Accelerator program. Our objective is to have 2 to 3 podcasts fully operational and being released on a regular basis.

CryptoSapiens is the first podcast to come out of the accelerator during Season 1. The primary goal for the first month(s) of episode releases is to determine our cost structure, rate expectations for sponsors, as well as determining and measuring relevant KPIs moving forward.

At this time, the aim of the Podcast Hatchery is to produce audio-only podcasts, however, we can envision in the future this same system being extended to include video streams and productions.

Internal vs External Podcasts

Internal

All production, design, editing managed by Hatchery team - funded by grants until sponsored. Distributed on our podcast network, in which we create a single channel to sub with different series coming out on a regular basis.

External

DAO provides sponsorship connections, manages sponsor relationships, handles marketing and promotion.

BACKGROUND

Podcasts have become a massive media channel in recent years ā€“ most of us discovered Bankless due to the Bankless LLC podcast. In order to capitalize on this trend and grow our brand, we need to disseminate a diversity of podcast content.

What some may describe as a problem that the Bankless DAO is in many cases confused with Bankless LLC. This channel will allow BanklessDAO to fully distinguish itself from Bankless LLC by showcasing the diversity and talent of those in the DAO, while still maintaining the direction, branding, and mission that has been instantiated by Bankless, LLC. Bankless LLC created the DAO as the engine to fulfill the goal of making 1 billion people Bankless, the

Podcast Hatchery program will empower individuals and teams to exponentially spread this focused mission through a diverse array of podcasts.

The driving factor that makes the Podcast Hatchery a good idea, is that it allows a regulated, yet flowing faucet of all the diverse talent that is in the DAO into the outside world. If the Hatchery were just tools available without structure, guidance, or coaching, then the podcasts would just be Bankless branded podcasts that would possibly deviate from the Bankless Mission and be a cacophony of possibly erroneous and conflicting information. However, If it had too much regulation and message control without the allowance of creative freedom to use the tools and structure available, then it would just be a cookie-cutter, robotic message parroting the same information across all podcast channels.

The Podcast Hatchery as outlined in the Podcast Hatchery Detailed Description above provides the correct balance between structure and creative freedom that will generate the quality content that will represent the mission, ethos, and diversity of BanklessDAO.

The Podcast Accelerator Program is a revenue-producing and mindshare-expanding opportunity to drive the Bankless message and vision. It will empower individual creators to develop their own content, improve their production skills, grow an audience, etc.

The Podcast Hatchery program works well with the intended Media Node Protocol that aims at working with internal and external content creators to disseminate high-quality media to the Bankless audience.

MISSION & VALUES ALIGNMENT

The BanklessDAO mission is to ā€œhelp the world go Bankless by creating user-friendly onramps for people to discover decentralized financial technologies through education, media, and culture.ā€

This Hatchery Program falls squarely into the media category.

RELATED DISCUSSIONS AND DOCS

DETAILS

Producing a professional podcast is not an easy task. It requires research, production, editing, distribution, marketing, and more. This incubator program utilizes the BanklessDAO guilds to abstract this work away from content creators.

In the beginning, the Hatchery Program would front all costs (eg. AV Guild bounties for editing or Design Guild bounties for banner images). All resources, support materials (graphics, tweet messaging), and bounties for these resources used by podcast teams will need to be accounted for and turned into the Hatchery Team Lead. Outline of the services by AV Guild will be provided with the costs associated. The Hatchery Squad would take care of distribution and coordinating with content creators. AV Guild will track the program as a separate cost center, as well as track the costs associated with each podcast produced.

Each podcast would go out as a series on a single BanklessDAO podcast network, similar to Bankless LLCā€™s serialization:

  • Rollups
  • State of the Nation
  • Regular episodes

The end goal of the Hatchery would be to find a sponsor for each podcast and ā€œgraduateā€ them out of the program. Sponsored podcasts would split some of their revenue with the DAO and ā€œgraduate.ā€ If they would like, they can reinvest a portion of their sponsored revenue to keep buying guild services. The specific portions shared would be determined on a case-by-case basis (aka: negotiation phase).

Difference between internal and external podcast responsibilities:

  • Internal = Concept generation being built to a MVP. All production, design, editing managed by Hatchery team - funded by grants until sponsored. Distributed on our podcast network. The podcast distribution platform Podbean that the Bankless DAO uses has different levels of channels.
  • The Hatchery will have an internal (DAO only) facing private channel, and an external facing public channel.
  • Once the podcast has attained the POAP badges for each of the ā€œpillarsā€, the team will be eligible to present their product in the internal stage.
  • All community feedback is done during the incubator stage on the DAO private podcasting channel. (This channel is not a Discord channel, it is a Podbean private RSS feed channel). s
  • The internal, DAO facing (Podbean private RSS feed) channel will be used during the incubation stage for the podcast team to present their podcast to the internal members of Bankless DAO for evaluation and feedback in order to obtain the green light to graduate to the next stage of the program: acceleration stage.
  • The external-facing channel will be used during the accelerator stage for the purpose of presenting a finished product to the public audience and revenue generation.
  • External = DAO provides sponsorship connection and manages sponsor relationships. Marketing/promotion.
  • Media Node: Currently, the Media Node is out of scope for the Hatchery Program. However, for visions and goals we are creating a potential vision of how the podcasts graduating from the Hatchery can become Media Nods if they choose to do so. Once all expenses have been recouped, the podcast team will have the option to leave the Podbean public facing channel to become a Bankless DAO full Media Node. (for full details of the Media Node, please see the Media Node documentation).

VALUE

  • As the Hatchery is part of the BanklessDAO, there is inherent value: Built-in audience, twitter army, subscriber bootstrapping, test audience for early feedback, etc.
  • Builds a structure and pipeline process to turn the Hatchery into a revenue-producing service: the R & D process will bring value through prototyping, documenting results from various approaches. This process and the information gathered by documenting the process will create a revenue generating product which we can sell and offer as a service.
  • Once in accelerator stage the podcast will bring revenue in via sponsorships (see below section on Revenue Potential)
  • Access to the Hatchery Program will add value to being a member of the DAO as a perk.
  • Potential for early supporter rewards & bootstrapping. For example, an NFT could be issued to early listeners. This NFT could accrue value: access to exclusive drops, private feeds, a portion of future revenues, etc. The NFT could also provide seed funding rather than relying on the DAO treasury as the sole source of funding.

APPLICATION PROCESS

The application will be available in the form of a link to an Airtable document pinned to the top of the Podcast hatchery channel in Discord. The application will need to be submitted to a Podcast Hatchery team member. The application will be reviewed and any questions will be directed back to the applicant. The application may be either approved or denied with suggestions for modification. The application acceptance process may not accept all applicants, and the applicant reviews may not happen and be accepted in sequential order. The applicants will be based on the best fit for the program and the mission of BanklessDAO.

An applicant MUST be a BanklessDAO member. Members on a podcast team may be on a guest pass, however, the actual applicant must be a full BanklessDAO member.

The first round of submissions have currently been sent out to four applicants who have been providing input and/or have been beginning the process of podcast creation themselves. This application process is in ā€œbetaā€ form and has been notified as such to the applicants, Team Matterhorn, Team Merkle (withdrawn), Team ZBerwalt & Ivan (withdrawn), Team 0xEmile. So far two of the applicants have completed the application and will potentially be moving forwardā€¦ The Podcast Hatchery team is currently scheduling a time to review the applications.

https://airtable.com/shrc7A7if1Lo0kCrq Airtable Application Form

Intellectual Property - who owns what? (This is a discussion that happens after submission?) Might need a consult from legal

Early Stuff

The mushy funnelā€¦. Incubator coaching; draft whatā€™s needed for that creator, for reaching a goal post.

SPECIFICATION

Essential elements needed to deliver a podcast feed ready show which include but are not limited to:

  • editing/production per episode (bounty with standard rate reference)
  • Initial and ongoing marketing campaign
  • Theme music development (bounty)
  • Design of thumbnails, banners, marketing images (bounty)
  • Misc. bounties and special requests

Progress and completion towards these tasks in Season 2 requires the following roles. These time estimates are based on the assumption we will be producing approx 3-4 podcasts in Season 2.

General Administrative Roles

  • Team Coach/Facilitator: 10 hrs/week split by Podcast Hatchery team - The role podcast team coach/facilitator needs to be in here, but that is a role that can kind of be carried by all the Podcast Hatchery team members at the interim. However, in the budget, maybe we can be compensated for it as a Coordinape shared role. To be determined.
  • Project Coordinator/Secretary: Avg 7 hrs/week
    • Coordinates with guild reps to meet creative requirements of each show
    • Liaison between content creators, project champions and DAO to ensure the vision of all parties are being met to the best of everyoneā€™s ability
    • General project organization
    • Track incoming and outgoing multi-sig transactions
    • Cost center and reimbursement tracking and reporting to treasury
    • CollabLand bounty payout
    • Maintaining/organizing Notion and Discord channel
    • Taking notes for weekly and other meetings
    • Assist in governance/funding
  • BizDev Rep: At the outset this role will be filled by Show Champion and other members of the Hatchery
    • Sponsor outreach
  • Marketing Guild Rep: - Bounty basis until project grows (Ernest of Gaia as team default - not bounty based)
    • Point of contact between project and Marketing
    • Organize and coordinate campaigns, content, publishing and strategy
    • Per Ernest of Gaia this can be worked out, but for time being stands as a bounty basis: Initial weekly labor I estimate to be low, however if there is a per Show amount of marketing done each week this will have to be factored. I am also open to a Coordinape distribution or a bounty per Show so that maybe i could recruit new folks from marketing once the strategy has been defined for marketing.
  • Design Guild Rep: - Bounty basis until project grows (Jenetics as team default - not bounty based)
    • Point of contact between project and Design
    • Sources talent for Design oriented tasks/bounties such as logo design and banner images
    • 1hr per episode per week as a rough estimate

Production Roles Per Show

  • Show Champion (Content Lead and QC): Avg 3 hrs/week
    • Final quality control
    • Collaborates with content creators for revisions and additional edits
    • Instruction, counseling and guidance for creators/applicants including expectations and responsibilities of said creators.
    • Production of episode show notes and timestamps
    • Final sign-off and publication of episodes (Podbean Access)
    • Brings additional editors up to speed and delegates related tasks (Airtable Access)
    • Currently to be shared by @Soundman and @EurekaJohn
    • Helps to match and maintain supporting team member primarily sourced from AV Guild
  • Audio Editor
    • Audio editing, production and mastery for each episode - 4 hours Per 1 hour of Content
  • Host / Creator
    • The voice of the show. Focus on creative content, honing on-air personality.
    • Not a paid role. The host will receive a majority of revenue if/when sponsored. Hatchery support is the remuneration during show development.
  • Podcast Team - Each podcast will require a team of contributors, or if the same contributors are assigned to various podcasts, they will need to manage their time and contributions respective to each podcast. Roles can be shared or multiple roles applied to an individual. Below are a list of possible roles within the podcast team (not Hatchery Team)
    • Coordinator - primary liaison with Hatchery team
    • Researcher
    • Writer
    • Designer - logo and accompanying episode graphics
    • Recorder - can act as producer during podcast as well.
    • Sound Engineer - usually responsible for mastering to publish
    • Podcast Editor - usually responsible for content edits
    • Publisher - can cross roles with Sound Engineer and Marketing
    • Video - This rols can be subdivided into many roles. Not applicable for the first season.
    • Marketing -Strategy per show, Campaign creation, brainstorming, sponsorship awareness support
    • Data - analytics for KPIs and other performance feedback
    • Host - most likely to also be podcast team lead

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

Total = 375,000 $BANK

Season 2: Oct.8- Jan 7 (13 weeks)

Season 2:

Podcast Hatchery team totaling 8 members:

  • Jenetics
  • Zim Teemo
  • Humpty:
  • EurekaJohn:10 total; 2hrs/ep editing + 4hrs PodAccel meetings thru Sep 20
  • Soundman:(expect similar to EurekaJohn totals)
  • Droste
  • Liquidiot: Proposal documentation and Interim Admin and outreach
  • Ernest of Gaia or Intl Capitalist- Marketing?

Season 2 projected costs:

  • For roles: 23 hrs/week * 13 weeks = 299 hours x 1000 BANK/hr = 299,000 BANK
  • 8 team members = 37500 BANK per role if equally allocated. Allocations will be revised internally if needed.
  • For bounties/tasks: 75000 BANK:
    • Writing tasks for social media post pipeline
    • Graphic elements, banner images
    • Standard edit rates for ā€˜editor at largeā€™ talent pool (see Soundman estimates)
    • Example: Marketing basic package = $1500/month = ~15000 BANK (@ $0.10/BANK) = ā…• of cost budget.

This image demonstrates external customer pricing. For internal customer pricing, the services are estimated to be priced with a discount. Eg: 1500 BANK/week (@ $0.10 BANK)

  • Podcast hosting: $125/month = $500 (~5000 BANK @ $0.10/BANK)
  • Airtable: $75/month = $300 (~3000 BANK @ $0.10/BANK)

Total hours: XX reimbursement + XXX for Season 2 = XXX requested hours of funding

REVENUE POTENTIAL

  • The Hatchery program would receive 85% of sponsor revenue until startup costs have been recouped. This helps pay for editing and production costs. After that, a sliding scale based on relevant kpis (views/downloads, etc) would activate. At this point the DAO treasury would receive a portion of the split.
  • A typical case would be a podcast achieving the accelerator stage where it has sponsors and is bringing in some income. 85% of that income goes to cover all related production costs and anything left over can go to the dao treasury. At first, there probably wonā€™t be any left over, as the Hatchery will have to fund the difference and the Hatchery will need to keep a tally on how much it spends on a podcast. When it makes enough that the DAO is paid back, and the balance is even, then the podcast creator can renegotiate with the dao on a new revenue split, or go off on their own. The 15% left over is the compensation for the creators until that break-even point ,at which time the DAO has made their initial investment back and thatā€™s essentially when they can become their own media node (media nodes out of scope at this stage, only referenced for process explanation) and renegotiate with the DAO on percentages and whether or not they want to use DAO resources.
  • Each Team would be tasked to do their own Business Development and Marketing with the assistance of the Hatchery Squad.
  • Grants (ie: Gitcoin Grants) and crowdfunding resources should be pursued by each team to help build an audience and support for their podcast.
  • Graduation: Sponsored and run by content creators. Resources are paid out of pocket from sponsorship revenue. DAO takes a % of revenue.
  • Web 3 Social media platforms are tokenized and provide revenue opportunities for creators, provide decentralization, and permissionless. Peepeth, Sphynx.chat, so many more

Stages of revenue generation

Once a podcast graduates from the Incubator Stage, the focus will shift from building out a functioning podcast internally to reaching outwards seeking revenue generation through sponsorship. This would be done at first primarily through bounties and direct efforts from the Hatchery team. Once the program is further established, we hope to bring in a team member specifically dedicated to Business Development.

BRAND USAGE

The Incubator/Accelerator program would have a broad impact for the Bankless brand. The Media Node protocol has a WIP specification for onboarding media nodes that align with the Bankless mission, vision, and values.

Once a podcast has been properly scoped, and perhaps the initial episode has been recorded, it can be voted on to confirm the DAO wishes to move forward and devote further resources.

#banklessHatchery #banklessAlphaMedia #banklessMedia

SUCCESS METRICS OR KPIS

  • Number of podcasts series started in a season
  • Steady frequency of podcast episodes
  • Numbers of podcasts sponsored in a season
  • Number of podcast subscribers and weekly episode downloads
  • Satisfaction of Creators with hatchery service
  • Satisfaction of Hatchery Team membersā€™
  • Development of alternative revenue models

NEXT STEPS

  • Scope the initial MVP of the Podcast incubator, likely starting with one or two podcasts
    • Initial podcast is Humpty Calderonā€™s CryptoSapiens
  • Fill roles and find representatives for Marketing and Design and possibly Analytics and Research (with a Sesh Poll for consensus)

RESOURCES REQUIRED

  • Notion
  • Airtable
  • Digital Asset Manager
  • Production Software
  • Podbean Subscription
  • Flote.app, Theta, or Odysee profile

SQUAD BACKGROUND

  • EurekaJohn#2094: Active contributor in AV guild. Years of experience in producing content and podcasts. From 2003 - 2009 I created and ran a pirate radio station in Austin, Texas that was featured in the Austin Chronicle in 2006.
  • Soundman#6783: Active contributor in AV guild. Audio engineer who worked for Spotify setting up podcasting studios.
  • Ernest_of_Gaia#4762: Contributor in Marketing Guild. I earn crypto for walking, driving, searching, browsing, daoing, gaming, trading, social media, and solving math modeling equations for cancer research.
  • Droste#0063: AV Guild coordinator, active across the DAO. Experienced hosting live, in-person training and product launch events for a major tech company.
  • Liquidiot - Voice over specialist and audio production enthusiast, AV Guild member and Coordinator
  • Further bio pending

POLL

  • I support the Podcast Hatchery Program - approve
  • I DO NOT support the Podcast Hatchery Program - reject
  • I support the Podcast Hatchery Program, but needs revision - counts as reject
0 voters
3 Likes

Understand you are looking forward comments and feedback. Sorry while I voted yes already failed to let you know why I fully support this proposal and project. We need to move 1,000,000,000 folks, folks, podcasts are a primary vehicular to do that. Make them education tools and train folks in making them great in an incubated, accelerated and released format and we assist the primary mission of the DAO a the bankless movement. BanklessHQ has a following and our Hatchery proposal is likely a great additional revenue source. We can and will leverage RSA and Davidā€™s fame and popularity.

1 Like

Hey guys - Great proposal. So in-depth.

Two thoughts:

  1. Are external podcasts in scope for this initial launch phase?
  2. Can you confirm the marketing basic package is accurate? 1500USD/mo seems steep, especially because much of it can be automated.

As a podcast host IRL, I support this proposalā€¦ incredible depth. Well done and best of luck!

1 Like

Love this, really excited to see what you all create. Just highlighting this quote and raising my hand as the talent scout of the writers guildā€”if you need writers for these bounties, DM me and I will supply!

1 Like

Hey, I took a look and I think there are some things to iron out before we have a chance to judge the success of the project later on. Iā€™m strongly for the creation of a podcast hatchery!

The KPIā€™s can be quantified and given time frames in general, here are a few points:

  • What constitutes a sponsorship? Please give us some examples of sponsorships that we can offer aspiring podcasters.
  • What kind of publishing and marketing can a podcaster count on from bDAOā€™s side?
  • ā€œDevelopment of alternative revenue modelsā€ What would implementation look like?

Iā€™m also wondering if the revenue model is a bit self referential and only caters to the first phase of the process, not the external phase. Isnā€™t internal advertising such and mentions in community calls and the DAO newsletter a benefit for the DAO and the podcast hatchery itself, and not something to charge the podcaster with?

I would expect efforts towards external outreach as a podcaster already has to be a bDAO member and therefore already has access to these fora.

Moving through the textā€¦

This process and the information gathered by documenting the process will create a revenue generating product which we can sell and offer as a service.

Which product is this?

A typical case would be a podcast achieving the accelerator stage where it has sponsors and is bringing in some income. 85% of that income goes to cover all related production costs and anything left over can go to the dao treasury. At first, there probably wonā€™t be any left over, as the Hatchery will have to fund the difference and the Hatchery will need to keep a tally on how much it spends on a podcast. When it makes enough that the DAO is paid back, and the balance is even, then the podcast creator can renegotiate with the dao on a new

How many episodes are the creators expected to host to achieve this post graduation? Will the obligation remain if the podcast develops into a media node very quickly?

Once a podcast has been properly scoped, and perhaps the initial episode has been recorded, it can be voted on to confirm the DAO wishes to move forward and devote further resources.

Who is voting? Wouldnā€™t it be best to keep this vote internal to the AV Guild to make sure people have context?

Thanks! For question 1, an externally facing podcast is part of the accelerator program on the externally facing Podbean Bankless DAO channel. If you are referring to an external media node, that is not part of the program at the moment, but could be a ā€œnice to haveā€ for this season if a quickly advancing podcast team makes it that far.
For questions 2, I deleted the marketing estimates and used the actual pricing guide supplied by the Design Guild as an example estimate for services.

1 Like

Thanks Nakamomo. Your questions are great questions. At this proposal stage we are ironing out details. On several of these points we are working with an ambiguous framework until we have more data and completed case-studies to apply to our proposed framework. The proposal at this point does indeed focus more on the incubator (internal) stage of the program, as the Hatchery needs to trial podcast teams and collect data on the effectiveness of the rails being laid down. The accelerator (external) stage is also in consideration, however, the success of the second stage is dependent on the success of the first stage. At the current stage of the proposal, it is necessary to gain funding with the incubator stage primarily in mind as this is the foundation for the accelerator stage. Anyone applying for the program is being informed that they are participating in the process of the formation of this program and protocol.

We have one current case-study to work from in the form of the Crypto Sapiens Podcast. The Crypto Sapiens podcast has not gone through the incubator stage as proposed, however it has established a workflow on the procedures and expectations of how to set up a successful podcast. Crypto Sapiens currently has sponsorship interest, however, it is not in my position to disclose that information.

To answer in a general manner, a sponsorship could include a zinger or blurb at the end/beginning of the episode declaring the name of the sponsor. It would not include paid coverage of a project or subject.
Regarding marketing/publishing, the marketing would include the services that the Marketing Guild would be able to provide. This can be done by a marketing role as mentioned in the proposal, or can be done on a bounty basis with the budget provided. All publishing will be done on the bDAO website and on the distribution platforms that Podbean Provides (Apple, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, etcā€¦).

Regarding your questions on the post-graduation payment obligations to decide to become a media node or not, again there is no data yet with which to establish this procedure. All current participants will be a part of these case-studies and data collection. Becoming a media node is also not the primary focus of this proposal or season.

Regarding your question about voting from incubator to accelerator stage, the formal vote would be done by the Podcast Hatchery team, however, there would be a soft consensus done by the DAO as a whole once published on the internally facing BanklessDAO Podbean channel.

Once again, Nakamomo, I really appreciate your well thought out questions/observations. I am sure I may have missed some points and ideas, but I wanted to make sure some of these items were acknowledged at a minimum for future discussion in the weekly Hatchery meetings.

1 Like

Moving to archive. Please reply to reopen.