Hello! David Hoffman here. Disclaimer, I own YFI, and I also would be receiving a portion of the funds that I am proposing gets allocated.
The Bankless Podcast just opened up Q4 sponsor slots, and we believe DAOs like Yearn governance should have access to the same advertising and promotion as any centralized entity. We want to extend an opportunity to Yearn governance to have Yearn reserve and purchase a Show Slot (Half) on the Bankless Podcast/YouTube show for Q4 October to December.
The proposed package is Show Slot (Half) at $2,050 per month for three months, October to December 2020.
Total: $6,150.
The Bankless Podcast has 10 shows a month
4 Podcasts w/ guest
4 State of the Nations
2 AMAs
The Show Slot (Half) would include a yEarn ad-slot in half of those each month.
Note: Bankless ad slots have been historically oversubscribed within the first 48 hours of release, and this current Q4 is no exception. So this ad slot is something we are intentionally reserving for a DAO like yEarn as a fun experiment and to level the playing field for decentralized entities. This has historical significance! To our knowledge, this would make yEarn the first DAO to ever secure a podcast ad slot! July had 47k downloads, and August looks like it will end at 72,000. The rate of downloads is doubling every 2 months
With regards to an ad-read, Ryan and I would focus on discussing Yearns various products, and what they can offer the end consumer. We would dive into how things work under the hood, and help people chose what product is right for what type of user. We would not discuss the YFI token or endorse it in any way; the advertisement would focus on Yearns products and its offerings.
The ad would focus on
Let the money-robots seek yield for you
Safer or more aggressive strategies are available, depending on your risk tolerance
If gas fees are eating you alive, Yearn might be the solution youāre looking for.
Organic, community-run protocol, very much aligned with the Bankless vision for the world.
Really excited about this opportunity to help promote Yearn and what it can do to help democratize access to DeFi Yield!
I believe we should work on bringing more products to market before focusing on advertising. Iām also unsure if advertisements would have positive effects for YFI (at least at this stage). I think the product YFI is building sells itself.
I donāt think YFI is ready for advertising. We need to build out our front and back ends more & improve security (audits) among other things
Building > Advertising
With that being said,
I tried to show a few friends YFI, but they were scared off by the āthis project is in beta, use at your own riskā. My concern would be similar for those who discover YFI from an advertisement. Now, I do like Bankless. Bankless has delivered solid content with a niche audience which may be useful for YFIās future development.
I do like this. It is important to get educational material out there. The majority of crypto consumers donāt yet understand what YFI does, and I donāt blame them. After all, $6k may not be much to us here soon.
When talking about this with Ryan, my main concern was that it may be too early in Yearns life cycle to start advertising.
Hereās why we decided to go and post this anyways:
We are turning towards quarterly ad-slots, so this ad-slot gets locked in until Jan 2021. If you think that Yearn will be ready for advertising before then, then this ad-slot might be a good choice.
Yearn is still pretty risky. It would be bad if we started advertising it too soon, and I would feel terrible if a Bankless listener submitted money to something āreceives an endorsementā from the Bankless brand, and then one of the vaults or pools blew up. I donāt want that.
On the other end of the spectrum, weāre all here in DeFi for returns, and Yearn is perhaps the best system for accessing returns. We are very clear about risks in Bankless, and we would make it very clear about the risks of Yearn. But at the end of the day, people are here for maximizing wealth, and not promoting such an insanely awesome wealth-maximizing system is also a disservice to our listeners.
Also, Yearn success means Yearn grows and matures faster. Maybe advertising actually contributes to Yearn maturation ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
At this time thereās too much to be built, designed and audited to spend on podcast ads.
Since the ads are awareness campaigns, itās impossible to track ROI or any metrics to measure whether it was worth it or not.
IMOā¦
As a YFI holder, you should promote the protocol organically using your platform.
and
As a boss owning a podcast in a space thatās breaking outā¦ you should take as much $$$$ as you possibly can from a bigger more ācorporateā sponsor.
The only thing to consider is that advertising might speed up the rate of development and progress. More cash flow, more ability to source labor to build.
I love you guys, you are doing important work.
I have also spent tens of millions on paid advertising for my businesses.
With that understanding in mind, this isnāt the right time for Yearn to advertise - yet.
It will definitely make sense soon, but not right now.
I donāt anything else extra to add, except that I concur that itās too early. At the very least, it seems like weād want v2 of the UI to come out and be vetted first before thinking about pushing for wider adoption of this kind. (And thatās not taking anything else into consideration like support for more vaults, improved governance, etc. etc.)
We are building way too fast, the website has bugs, it has beta all over it, the new website that @uhmpeps is spearheading is moving at super speed tooā¦so any noob traffic will be scared off
TVL is increasing on its own organically so not sure why we actually need it now.
I would rather spend that money to bring more developers and/or hiring developers for Vaults and Governance vaults security concerns and so forth, instead of advertising. Our supply is limited, and advertising is the very last thing we need.
Thanks for listing the sales doc. Iāve always been one to read the fine print. On page 4 it notes at the bottom if you book for 3 months there is a 5% discount. Would this be included?
This is more for the future as it appears the general thought is its too early to advertise. Looks like Q1 would be better in regards to timing.
Bankless has been recently sponsored by Ampleforth. I want to urge caution with this proposal because it could place us adjacent to a project that has very dubious token distribution and unethical behaviors. Yearn is a strong project and already dominates the DeFi discussion, we do not need to pay for advertising and more importantly we should not be seen as having to pay for exposure because it places the question of agenda on the protocol.
At the moment, yearn advertises itself due to its usefulness and convenience for users and does not need additional advertising.
It even seems to me that the bankless podcast could become a sponsor of the yearn if we compare the awareness and future growth of the user base after some kind of collaboration.
Even though I support Bankless, RSA and David I do not think that Yearn has much to gain from this. They already hosted an interview with Andre and that was probably the best ad we could get from their podcast (fwiw I enjoyed that conversation).
If anything, Banklessā subscribers are mostly members of the Ethereum and DeFi community and we can safely assume that they have already read or listened about YFI and yieldfarming already.
If we have to pursue an ad campaing I would suggest looking at the BTC crowd who probably have no idea of how to put their capital into work. Still, having a safe and user-friendly BTC-Vault comes much higher on the priority list that advertising a product under test.
Hi guys, really like your podcast and I think itās a wonderful source of value for people in this space (from newbs to OGs).
I do think itās going to be beneficial for YFI/Yearn ecosystem (and ROI positive) to be included as a sponsor in Bankless podcast, but as many said before: The timing now doesnāt seem great with all the things being built (thanks to the buidlers!).
Have you thought as a YFI holder to give YFI a trial in the ad space, maybe a small space every two weeks and in the next quarter we revisit this discussion?
Hey guys. I donāt see the option for closing a proposal, so Iām writing this comment.
Weāve received payment for a Full Ad slot on the Bankless podcast, so we will no longer need to discuss whether Yearn should fund this or not. Someone else took the initiative.
Look forward to hearing Yearn ads on the Bankless Pod for the rest of the year!
