Reimbursemnt and grant proposal

Grants
1

Hello, I am a long time DAO member, one with all of my very precious MNGO locked for 5 years in a cool place for safe storage. I see my role as a design/marketing consultant and I contribute and fill any holes where I see them. I’m currently an unpaid contributor, and nobody manages me.

General things that i’ve done as a DAO member include:

I helped build the mango brand and its core values early on and is how I frame the work I do for the DAO.

I’m personally here because I have experience in visual design, marketing, and some more specific experience in building integrated marketing solutions for user acquisition. I’ve managed consumer mobile app marketing, app store content as well as the app store optimization for both iOS and android and I know I can help grow Mango and its user base. I’m excited for that at Mango and continue to push and look for that opportunity.

Since the launch of v3, I have anticipated the eventual need for integrated paid marketing for the purposes of growing the user base for the upcoming app(v4) as well as assist in any way i can for the initial launch of the mobile application.

I have been building out the infra to do all this in accordance to this plan.

You can find that work here

  • Lassi_Proposal (first paid marketing proposal, discussed internally, was still early but was garnering initial support for my ideas, general consensus was this was needed but not now, this was also proposed before Avi fiasco
  • Lassi_DistributionStrategy(first initial distribution strategy from the above proposal)
  • Redacted_LaunchStrategy (Created when a new mangolite team came onboard and I started integrating their feedback. I restructured the distribution plan into this new one and added an app store strategy so Labs could have a head start right at launch for either crypto and global payments markets.)
  • The website funnel work was in progress up until a few days ago: https://mango-5g3a6fv92-blockworks-foundation.vercel.app/
  • Initial content piece for product funnel being worked on: Mango - Building something for mom - YouTube
  • Initial content piece for brand funnel being worked on: Open by default. - YouTube
  • This was the latest proposal for the culmination of the design and marketing work I was going to put forth so that I can potentially continue in this role I had been forming to help the DAOs products grow over the next year.

I wanted to be ready for growth when apps launched, not waiting for it.

As it stands, Mango Labs would like to now do the website design work internally, so this means that I need to sunset my current efforts at pushing this role forward.

This was frustrating to hear as I’ve put in good effort into doing the work that is needed for systematic growth campaigns to start, work that no one else was pushing for early on yet still needed to be done. Ultimately I understand if the team doesn’t want to utilize my work/recommendations. Something something, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

I only wish the communications around this matter were handled better.

—----------------

All this said, I feel I should still be compensated for the work and effort put in, some of the work can still be utilized and i can even repurpose and utilize all the content I produced.

Given that I no longer will be working on website work moving forward, I would like to put forth two new proposals, one for reimbursement, and one for continuing work.

I would still like to continue contributing to the DAO, but with a more sustainable relationship moving forward.

  • First, I request 35k USDC vested immediately for work and time spent these past months planning, building out the infra for the integrated marketing work, and producing the content needed as well.

Along with the above request, I propose to take on work that is currently needed by the DAO

  • social media management.

For taking on and managing social media for the DAO. I would like to request a monthly vested grant of

  • 3,500 USDC vested monthly for a year with claw back
  • 75,000 MNGO vested monthly for a year with claw back

I would personally consider this a part-time role going forward, but happy to continue being a resource to the DAO in other scenarios. Simply, all my tokens are locked and my incentive is protocol success, so im here for it.

I would also ask the DAO to consider another smaller grant, specifically to be earmarked for twitter paid advertising.

  • 1,000 USDC vested monthly for a year with claw back

This would be utilized fully every month for:

  • pushing marketing content created thru targeted twitter ads
  • I would create and test an educational integrated marketing campaign and run it thru twitter.

Even this little budget would help with getting quantifiable data around how even a small integrated marketing strategy could help with shared brand and product goals and might help with deciding future proposals based on this data.

I still hold firmly that we need a more structured paid marketing role to build a multiple sustainable marketing funnels, as this directly impacts protocol fee growth by acquiring real transacting users. – I’d support any sustainable solution to this point, even if it is not my own.

This is a great product and it would be a shame if we couldn’t make a good faith effort to market it to a larger audience, growth takes investment in marketing as well as development…

Hope you consider my proposal for reimbursement and future work.

6 Likes
2

As a longtime follower of @ToxicMangoMaximalist on twitter, I really appreciate his fun tweet and believe that he is eligible to Mango’s media management. Mango indeed needs a more structured role for marketing and awareness.

1 Like
3

I’ll second @kowei on this. I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated his content, humor and input. He’s cultivated the Mango’s brand really well.

If the plan is to go internal with all the work, I’d still support a proposal for him to be compensated for work already completed as it would be a good faith act and likely still usable for future purposes.

1 Like
4

Payment for Branding Work
The DAO should be generous with contributors, but having contributors come to the DAO asking to be paid for work that the DAO never solicited, much less agreed to—that will likely never be used—is a really bad precedent. If a contributor feels something needs to be accelerated/completed differently, they can proceed at their own risk, in hopes of being vindicated and rightfully compensated in the future. However, to the extent the DAO never requests the work, and ultimately never uses the work, the DAO should not be paying for the work.

The DAO needs to have a more explicit policy for how this type of thing is handled in the future. In my opinion, proposals should always be approved by the DAO before the work is undertaken, or have some explicit request from Daffy, Max, etc. Work done pre-proposal is otherwise “at the contributor’s risk.” If approved, the lockup/clawback mechanisms can then be used to provide reasonable assurance to both parties that, if the work is completed, compensation will be distributed. The DAO risks paying for tons of unnecessary re-work if we don’t have a firm policy in place.

Not only does the DAO run the risk of double paying for re-work, but there’s also the risk of being held “hostage” (for lack of a better term) by people that have put forward considerable effort and would, understandably, like to be paid. Because, right now, it seems like the DAO’s choice is either: pay the 35k or risk losing a contributor that is passionate about the success of the project.

Social Media Manager
Totally agree that the DAO needs someone to run the socials. However, this seems like something that should be hired out of Labs. There are lots of potential risks to how the DAO goes about marketing to retail, and I think the “official” socials should be run under the umbrella protections of the LLC.

Twitter Ads
I don’t think Twitter ads are a great idea. Personally, I’ve never received a targeted Twitter ad that was helpful, and almost every crypto project with Twitter ads seems scammy to me (eg, lots of random NFTs, etc.). Regardless, this also seems like something that would be better run under the umbrella protection of Labs.

5

DAOs should indeed be generous with contributors, thanks for your input. I’d say the edge case is the person doing work without getting paid and then requesting the DAO for payment, what contributors have seen more of is many requests for grants but no input or follow thru with applicants unless contributors feel the opportunity is there.

Personally, and I don’t speak for all, but I’d actually encourage more ppl to work and build something useful for a DAO without getting paid initially as it shows initiative and dedication in an environment where the majority just request to try and get paid, grift and move on. If individuals request and DAO wants to pay after that’s fine to.

I don’t think Max or Daffy should be the end all approvers or that we should get “explicit request “ to do work before starting, The goal should also be to disperse decision making responsibility over time not centralize it to two parties.

IMO, A protocol success is driven by its community of dedicated individuals contributing to the greater vision.

—----

FWIW, I also believe it was understood/known that I was working on website/branding work. There were back and forths with contributors, there were plenty of opportunities to share whether they wanted to go a different direction or not, etc. I would have happily obliged to requests, i wasn’t working in a silo if that’s how it seems. Your comments come with many assumptions.

A majority of the work I did will likely just be reused in other ways. It is specifically the website work that wouldn’t be used. However, the copy/messaging, illustrations, funnel work can be repurposed for social media and future marketing campaigns.

——

As far as social media, I actually did indeed start my own LLC called “Lassi”, that I would be running everything from for these purposes specifically. This would decentralize some marketing responsibility from Labs as I don’t think Labs should drive everything from product development to marketing.

On twitter ads, DAO shouldn’t make a decision to use or not use a distribution platform because “Twitter ads seems scammy to me” - Sorry you see a lot of scams lol

Mango is losing out on a simple way to help stay relevant and in front of real ppl consistently, which IMO is what’s needed right now as more competitors spin up and have head starts on user acquisition.

All these proposed grants are on clawback anyway. If the work isn’t making an impact just cut the program. With the amount DAO and Labs has spent on development, marketing spend to help with the potential success of the protocol and it’s products are merited.

3 Likes
6

I think combining these proposal has created confusion. I’m still uncertain as to what the 35k encompasses. Is it for the linked Vercel and Figma design work? I believe a separate grant was already given for the youtube videos (what’s the status on these?) and the Lassi documents were created as part of a separate proposal in September 2022.

Also it sounds like there were some behind the scenes conversations that are making this hard to follow. Did someone tell you to stop working on it? Since the mango website is open source, isn’t it possible for multiple parties to work together on the website? Or is there some fundamental disagreement that is preventing collaboration?

If collaboration isn’t possible but both want to build website designs separately, maybe they both could be proposed and the dao could vote on the one to pay for?

I agree with @thatguypal that at least a better process is needed. Two separate proposals in the last month to pay contributors for work done that potentially wont be used should frustrate governance participants. Perhaps a new post in the Grant category can be used to keep an updated list of grants, or something more official like Solana Foundations grant page or Drifts. Figuring out how to solve this going forward should happen in a separate post though.

Regarding marketing, I think dedicated work on this makes sense. It’s a bit hard to generate a meaningful discussion in the same context of the reimbursement request, but I’ll add in my initial questions below.

What does social media management entail? I would have assumed that means twitter but then there is a separate request for a grant for twitter.

I looked at the Design & Marketing Proposal and saw details on potential KPIs and why marketing was needed but not much on potential strategy. Is this in a different doc?

I’ll add to the other commenters that I’ve also worked with @ToxicMangoMaximalist and think he does good work on both design and enjoy his posting on twitter.

2 Likes
7

The 35k is for the dedicated time I’ve put into the DAO, helping contributors, being a resource, planning and building when i could have been working on more paid work outside of the DAO to help supplement my income.

I’ve made many efforts in designing and building things over the last months like icons, different illustrations, writing and iterating on copy, editing videos, developing the web funnel out, even being a resource for QA and feedback trying to align product development with marketing goals.

E.g. even something like the mobile app icon (see the work in the figma) I went thru multiple icon iterations, we had a final version that was agreed upon by the group and then scrapped with out any notice to me. I had to ask about it in Lisbon a couple weeks later, and now even something like that was redesigned again 2 months later, I feel it’s just wasting resources to some extent.

As far as the current situation around the website stuff, no one has really told me much of anything, tbh I thought we were working on it together. :man_shrugging: - Last we left off I was suppose to meet with mangolite team to discuss website changes with the greater group but I never got brought into the fold fully.

It’s my current understanding that mangolite team wants to build everything (website, design, illustrations, etc) internally and don’t want to use my website work so I stopped developing that Design and Marketing proposal once i heard this. The most current strategy work is in the redacted launch strategy.

Max ended up being the liaison between Labs and I, which he shouldnt have to be IMO, I feel like there were multiple opportunities to bring up anything Labs wanted to add, change, or didn’t like. Right now to me it feels like my efforts were scrapped so Mangolite team could have full control over the creative.

Honestly, I dont even care if the website work isnt used and Mangolite team wants to have control over that creative and design, I wholeheartedly understand, im a designer lol. I just want my time to be respected and feel like this could have been avoided if that was the case, not hard to communicate with ppl if the shared goal is business success imo.

At this point, I’d personally rather just move on amicably and focus on growth for the protocol in ways that I can still contribute and utilize my experience for. There’s plenty to do as contributors launch the new version of the of Mango and the mobile app.

Im happy to be here for it. :handshake:

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Specifically to the video work @tyler, you are correct initial video production was indeed funded, It paid for videographer, equipment rental, travel, etc, but I personally received no payment from that and I worked for free during that production time.

Unfortunately that original DAO video was killed by the avi fiasco imo — I still have the roughly 12min cut we made but I never got far in terms of feedback from Daffy or Max to push it forward unfortunately cause market took a shit real quick and focus went elsewhere.

However, it was always my intention to repurpose the footage for my own marketing needs. Building evergreen top of the funnel content, so my efforts now in that area (editing, etc) are all work and time outside of that initial proposal.

I would add again here that we can repurpose even a majority of the work completed above into social media post, targeted twitter campaigns etc… It shouldn’t go to waste, and i personally wouldn’t let it.

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You are correct in assuming the grants are for twitter management.

There are 3 grants because governance instructions were to large for one proposal, the USDC and MNGO grants are for social media management. This is a payment for running twitter creating content for it, posting more regularly, engagement with twitter community, etc.

Then one grant specifically for targeted twitter ads. This grant would be used to pay for ads on twitter so we can have paid marketing running constantly at the very least on twitter. Within this bucket I would also create an integrated marketing funnel to help build the data and show the need for a greater budget here.

My work has been in an effort to spin up more systematic marketing efforts and focus on growth that way, it seems difficult for the DAO to justify the large spend without much data given the chain stability currently, so scaling down to something manageable under current chain conditions seems more feasible for protocol at this current time.

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FWIW My intention was not to create confusion or any negative energy here for Mango community.

I dont disagree around a more honed grants structure It could help, but also feel like this situation in particular would have been avoided with better communication internally between teams and contributors not necessarily a problem with our grant system, we need more participation and communication not creating silos.

I’d think that DAO needs to more align grant proposals to business goals and see what ppl build towards those goals. e.g fee generation, users, DAU, MAUs, liquidity, etc, To some extent the DAO has done this already but some future discussion seems merited and happy to be apart of that convo.

Contributors shouldn’t deter ppl from working for the DAO on their own accord in hopes of becoming a part of, you never know what someone will build or how beneficial it could be for the DAO in the future…

1 Like
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Ultimately, it’s a question of who’s bearing the risk. If the DAO approves a grant for someone to work on a project, the DAO is accepting that the work may be in vain, but it’s worth taking a chance on. If the DAO has not approved a grant, and a contributor would like to push forward anyways, they are taking a risk on behalf of themselves—not on behalf of the DAO.

To the extent something is created by a contributor and used by the DAO, the DAO should compensate the contributor generously. However, if the DAO doesn’t use it, I don’t understand why the DAO should pay for it?

My point in referencing Daffy / Max / etc. is that they have the best understanding of the goings on with the DAO. They have a far better understanding of what is needed than xyz discord anon. So, when they weigh in on a vote or particular course of action, they are very influential. So much so that I believe one could reasonably interpret a request from them as being akin to a request from the DAO.

Although decentralizing vote share is maybe a noble end goal (debatable, imo), it’s not where we currently are. Even if it were, it’s important to have specific points of contact that have a more in depth understanding of short/long term plans. “Decentralized” does not have to mean “chaotic workflows with no continuity.”

Why shouldn’t DAO’s make decisions based on perceived credibility of different advertising platforms? We can target with similar effectiveness, with far more credibility, using different well known CT traders.

I haven’t really seen any new competitors that offer similar cross margining? FTX was one of the only ones that offered cross margin trading, and they are gone. dYdX seems to be the only one that provides something remotely similar currently.

I don’t think you having your own LLC provides any legal protections for the DAO? It would make more sense for Mango Labs to contract with Lassi, if this is the chosen path.

9

For a forum anon you seem to have strong opinions, appreciate you for sharing them.

I will say this:

  • a majority of the work would likely be used if I push to repurpose it all for social, so according to your logic, it should be paid for, generously.
  • my point is that daffy and max shouldn’t be the only “arbiters”, for lack of better terms, for the DAO. Otherwise it’s not really a DAO is it.
  • A DAO, imo, should aim to actually become bigger than it’s “founders” - this isn’t “noble” it’s just the process of decentralizing an org and distributing responsibilities amongst trusted parties.
  • lack of continuity comes when the ppl working for the org don’t work with the vision the DAO has set, if we’re all on the same page then we’re building value towards these goals and the greater vision.

Frankly, contributors are here because they have the expertise within their own fields and they also know and have far more understanding of what’s needed for the business to succeed, at least more than an xyz forum anon :wink:

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One shouldn’t make decisions based on perceived credibility because you’re essentially just judging a book by its cover. You’re making a business decision based on an assumption. Goood luck.

How about we make decisions based on data instead. Data that will help determine whether a program is sustainable or not. As we did with the liquidity incentives we should do the same with systematic marketing approaches to understand the different distribution methods and how we could utilize them.

Fwiw, from my experience CT traders and influencers generally don’t convert users that well. They’re alright for brand awareness tho, the goal for them should be to create a sustainable referral system where they want to shill mango not that mango pays for influencers to shill. They should love the product enough and be organically incentivized to shill. e.g. rollbit as an example.

Under your logic, to me it’s more scammy to pay an influencer to shill us than let’s say running an educational marketing campaign thru twitter targeted ads.

DAO would likely reach more users and have more control over the campaigns we run than running similar campaigns thru influencers who’s value deminishes with every passing post.

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Our competitors are more than just one feature of the protocol. Where competing with every dex that offers perps, spot, etc.

Our differentiators are mangoes powerful feature set. We have competition outside of that feature set.

Solana:

  • Rollbit
  • cypher
  • zeta
  • drift

Eth:

  • perp
  • Dydx

Mobile app:

  • phantom
  • Solflare
  • glow
  • backpack
  • Venmo
  • Cashapp

Not to mention the new L1s like aptos and what’s being built out there and centralized exchanges like Binance.

Also, Just because mango is a wonderful product doesn’t mean it will succeed, we should push for success in what ever creative way we can.

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The DAO essentially would be contracting Lassi for social media management and targeted ads.

Labs contracting Lassi is just the same as hiring someone under Labs.

Goal imo should be more decentralized orgs working together for the DAO and it’s values.

Labs works for the DAO, Lassi would work for the DAO.

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I would love to hear what @daffy or @mschneider think as well, as this proposal is coming to a close today and there’s been plenty of time and opportunity to discuss this imo both here and in discord.

10

I only object insofar as the work: 1) isn’t being utilized; and 2) wasn’t requested. I don’t know where the line should be drawn in cases like this, as it could likely lead to tons of low effort attempts at money grabs. DAOs aren’t make-a-wish programs where everyone gets to be whatever they want to be. And it takes more than being an ~expert~ in something to actually create value.

My personal opinion is that I think it probably makes sense to compensate you for the work as it becomes incorporated, and I don’t even object to you being paid now if it’s true that you were actively collaborating with Daffy & Max.

I don’t want to make ~assumptions~ but it seems likely that the goal of Mango Labs moving towards doing all of the website design work internally has something to do with wanting to maintain consistency across the brand. If that is the case, I’m not sure I fully understand the thinking behind having a completely separate entity handling other marketing & design work.

11

Respectfully, I’m assuming you don’t really have the purview of what is or is not going to be utilized, or even is being utilized now on what’s being built currently, unless you are a contributor or labs team member already?

I’m simply assuring the greater community that I personally wouldn’t let valuable work go to waste, and I’d make sure it gets used somehow.

Also, no one said this was a make-a-wish foundation lol so maybe just chill daddy.

The DAO shouldn’t make decisions based on unknown future events. If more ppl come to the DAO, that’s actually a good thing. It means more possible participation which could lead to more decentralization of the DAO and its responsibilities or even some cool new features for the DAOs products.

Furthermore, if they attempt to build something, good! Those that participate deserve a chance to be heard as well, if it’s low effort and not needed, then don’t vote for the proposal to pass, that’s why we have a DAO innit?

My personal opinion is that I should be compensated for the time I put in whether the work is used or not because:

  1. My time is valuable just like all the DAO contributors working on the project, in the time i was working on the site and all the other work i still needed to pay for rent, handle life costs, etc. If im not getting paid then I shouldn’t be here, I should be focused on client work fully.
  2. I’m a dedicated participant, vote on about 90% of the proposal, someone that has been here since inception of the DAO, that has been a resource for everyone in many different scenarios, and I continue to be dedicated team player for the DAO.

Tbh, whether some anon on a forum sees that or not is irrelevant imo. If you want to vote please do so with your mangoes ser. I’m biased but if you do vote, I’d obviously appreciate a yes vote, I got bills to pay. :joy:

I have my thoughts on why they brought it internally, but I’ll refrain from speculation, as I don’t think it really matters much to my proposal.

Having separate marketing and design makes sense to me, not all marketing should be handled by one entity like traditional start up do. Again, the goal should be decentralized entities and contributors working together for the DAO. If everyone is on the same in regards to brand values then a cohesive and consitant brand stays intact.

Mango labs was hired for building the product by the DAO. The DAO is the hiring party here. Lassi wants to be hired to handle some social media and marketing for the DAO and is fully equipped to do so.

12

Hi Steve,

With regards to the work until now

i think this is a really difficult situation as a lot of people are actually surprised as your effort was perceived from the outside largely voluntarily and very sporadic. It looked for me and others as if you were busy with other clients and just checking in for comments and discussions because you care about the project but are not working full time on it.

When you asked in August 2022 what people thought about your $0.5M ad spend marketing plan, the feedback I and others probably shared was that it was not the right time. How did this influence your allocation of time and efforts?

When you asked in December 2022 if I personally think a salaried position with the DAO would be possible, I sent you an answer that I’d be happy to support you at least for a while and give it a try. But also mentioned to you that it is really difficult that there’s not a lot of trust in your self motivation to get stuff done.

I can see how you might have interpreted this as a done deal, but it really wasn’t meant to be one, just a confirmation on a possibility. In the end all expenses need to be approved by the DAO through voting and although my voice has a lot of impact, all decisions of the DAO are approved by more people than me alone.

This situation is especially uncomfortable as this proposal comes so late:

Hypothetically, if you were granted 35,000 USDC from the DAO to work for some months on a website & marketing strategy. For sure people would have interacted with you differently in the process, and the outcome would definitely not be, that the website project is canned and another effort from scratch is started in the end. Maybe people would have given more quality feedback or possibly pulled the plug a bit earlier.

It is still not clear to me for which time period you are invoicing and what your commitment during that time was, it would help, if you could somewhat explain, why you think that 35,000 is the right number.

With regards to the work going forward

I recently proposed to you that you start working on social media management, and that you post here on the forum this time so that there is clarity going forward.

I think there’s a very clear opportunity for Mango to run two larger campaigns on twitter in the next two months. It’s just a nice medium for us to drive positive engagement and reach out to the larger community that can not follow all the messages on discord.

  1. Reactivation campaign of previous users to try v4 and the mobile app
  2. Referral campaign to onboard friends & family to the mobile app

To achieve this we would need someone to focus on getting a weekly minimum of:

  • 7 short tweets
  • 1 thread about the product (in collaboration with different developers, they will probably need to make a rough draft)
  • 1 visual meme
  • answer any questions that come up on twitter and post a summary on discord

I am not sure paid twitter ads are required but open for suggestions.

My estimate for what the minimum I proposed is worth in the market would be 20,000 USDC + 1M MNGO annually. I have seen people do really great work for way less. Your proposal is in a different price range from those numbers, but didn’t mention any KPIs, could you clarify, what you were trying to achieve?

In addition there are a few mobile app launch related work items that have been discussed previously, which I am aware of. Albeit people thinking so, neither me or daffy are aware of everything happening. I would like to clarify that these don’t need to be part of this proposal, your input is ofc. welcome but the responsibility for executing them wouldn’t lie with you.

  1. Design and implementation of an effective referral / onboarding rebate scheme
  2. Creating illustrations for the application & website that can be re-used to make marketing material
  3. Creating some form of video content - a teaser to excite people for the mobile app

In summary: I think the reason a lot of people didn’t vote on your proposal is that all this is very confusing to follow and no one except for you sees the full extend of the work you did. It’s hard to trust your estimate, albeit people cherishing you personally, just based on the outcome so far and the compensation requested. I think it would be very helpful if you could provide more details before proposing a new vote.

We clearly messed up here, and it’s kinda silly that now the process is so time intensive (no one wants to arbitrage comp on the governance forum). I think this shows clearly why sticking to pre-approving of grants is a good idea as it does completely remove the risk of no or lower than expected compensation.

1 Like
13

I appreciate your reply @mschneider , I hope this context helps.

On the reimbursement:
When I asked the group in August about Lassi’s original proposal, it was said this work was needed, but not now. I respectfully addressed any concerns brought up.

While I understood the points given the market environment and where Labs and the DAO were with development at the time, It was never mentioned to me that we should scrap the work or proposal entirely.

You said that i should focus on the parts of the proposal that i could accomplish, you said this then:

Screenshot 2023-03-01 at 4.16.06 PM
Screenshot 2023-03-01 at 4.16.06 PM2300×1084 380 KB

So i went forward with my 6 month plan doing just that, which was the original intent anyways:

I know the brand deeply, I created the brand values, I know the messaging we should be pushing so I pushed forward designing and developing towards this plan.

From that point onward, I even continued to help outside my website design and development and the 6 month plan had been working on.

Just SOME things I had helped with in that time. Im sure i can find more stuff, but these came to mind:

  • Mobile app Icon work
  • Mobile app illustration work
  • Some conference thing i went to with daffy to represent mango there

App development changed as Labs brought on new ppl. The work I had initially completed for Labs was sunset as a new mobile designer came onboard and started redesigning the applications from the ground up, my designs to that point didn’t fit in the new structure.

Which is fine, I think it was needed to bring the app to another level, for the better! However, I still put the time and effort there.

As the new designer started updating the branding on his own accord with new colors and fonts etc I incorporated his efforts into our brand content adjusting what we had in place already.

I continued concurrently building the website and working with the mobile team on their needs as they needed, pushing and testing different potential features, QAing their builds, competitive research for strategies, and even started repurposing my original ads strategy for mobile so they can have a head start at launch.

Some from the Lite team and I had discussed what they were looking for in terms of messaging and who they wanted to target, So I took their considerations into account and adapted the strategy and content for them to push for launch with suggested budgets to use and a plan for action.

This was me adjusting the original Lassi proposal and updating it as we got closer and closer to launch.

My personal intent here was that I could manage the portions of the app marketing and distribution that others don’t have the experience for as I am able to create the content, manage the funnel, and do the entire marketing stack on my own for the most part. I helped BRD (my previous employer) grow from ~900k users to 2.5m using similar strategies and felt we could accomplish our goals with little spend and more efficiency.

FWIW, I feel I also mentioned that I was working on the website to them as this was all happening because i was incorporating their feedback into my work. I mentioned it in Lisbon as we were all together and, in one of my QA sessions with Aigor in mid December, I mentioned to him that I was building the website when he asked what I did for the DAO lol.

Even if the work I was doing was “voluntarily” done, why would I be doing this for, if not to push my work and my strategies for the business. Since i’m not technically paid, all my work is voluntary! I think that point is just moot .

This was all happening during the Eisenborg fiasco, FTX implosion and development slow down until it came back up in January.

This shit affected us all, but we continue on. We continue building.

Max when I came to you in December, yes I had asked for a salary role and the possibility of that, something i’ve been asking for more than once. You understood my life circumstances at the time, and you mentioned yes you can help me out and I took that for face value that i would be helped,

I never requested anything from there tho i just kept working under that assumption. I feel given our relationship, that was fair to do. I’m here for the DAO.

I doubt you saw what I had already done to this point, which is also fine, I’m sure it’s hard to keep track of everything going on. I get it, but I was doing what you needed even before asking, maybe i should have spoken up then about it but i did think this was understood outside of our conversation.

At that point I was already finalizing my designs to move on to the development phase of the website where we could start copy editing, structure adjustments, etc. First, I created a new branch with a teaser page and shared that with you if we wanted to use it or not, then started development on turning my designs into a website for the next launch of V4 and the mobile app in accordance to my original 6 month plan.

Ive been managing myself the entire time since August. I was indeed making the effort here to support the DAO and had been. The reality is everyone here is hyper-focused on what they are focused on, so I focused too and asked for feedback when I needed it. So while it may seem like I was just “sporadically working” to me it seemed like I was heads down just like everyone here building towards our goals as a DAO for release.

Even in January while I had been developing the website and incorporating feedback from the mangolite team to make sure everyone was okay with what I was doing. Everyone seemed to be onboard with this.

At one point in early January you and I had a check-in and got my feedback from you, you said you needed to talk to lite team for their feedback. Kieran in chat pointed out that you had set up a landing page docu, this was after our check-in meeting regarding my website work, and I reaffirmed then in chat shortly after how we should be thinking about landing pages/marketing website and that we should tailor separate pages for mango labs needs in their marketing efforts, that there is structure to systematic marketing.

  • Ad → landing page (specific to campaigns) → sell → CTA → KPI success haha

I shared again what I was working on in chat, after that I continued development, getting feedback from the mobile team and incorporating it into the website I had been working on.

Last we left off I was brought into a private chat with Daffy, Luke, Aigor, Kieran, and Faiyam to discuss the website and Kieran said that they “heard” I was working on the site.

Tbh i just ignored that portion of the message because, wtf lol, just look what ive been doing, of course ive been working on the site it was mentioned, a lot i feel at this point.

I specifically said in that chat what I was working on at the time and what was next in line for what we needed for launching. I even incorporated more feed back from Luke in that chat, but a majority were silent. Then a week later they essentially decided, hey we dont want to use your work, we want to build and design everything ourselves all over again.

Now we’re redesigning an entire website, finding a new illustrator, and using the efforts of essentially 3 ppl when I had already pushed and done all this on my own.

As a person that values his time tremendously, I took this disrespectfully and reached out to you asking what the deal was that this was kinda messed up. We chatted a bit and I understood to some extent but I stated that I wanted my time compensated for, you said you understood and agreed to this point but to post on forum for discussion so here we are.

The 35k is for the time and effort I put in the last few months doing this work and it encompasses a lot in terms of design, content, illustration work, etc.

FWIW I’m not sure if I should have been more transparent in how i work but I feel like I was as transparent as i could have been, I feel like there was plenty of opportunities for comment, I feel like I made the efforts to work with all the ppls and figured if there was actually strong opinions to my work that they would share those with me as they came up.

It is indeed silly that we spend literally hours writing out our thoughts here for a measly 35k reimbursement when we spent more than 20x that cost developing just the mobile application and costs are still incurring there.

You said it yourself to me earlier today, you spent 3+ hours writing your response. That’s insane dude, your time is WAY more valuable than this, I spent 4+ hours alone writing this one out, my time is WAY more valuable than this.

While it may be “mismanagement” or “miscommunication”, it’s also now becoming a misappropriation of time for all of us. I feel Labs needs to take responsibility here imo, I think governance participants and contributors working with them should expect more from them.

This is a DAO, there needs to be more communication and transparency all around. If governance participants should be angry about anything it should be that, they shouldnt be angry about reimbursing someone because they spent a good effort trying to help the DAO and the business.

14

With regards to the social media work going forward

Happy to implement your needs into my strategy. I request for taking on and managing social media for the DAO a monthly vested grant of

  • 3,500 USDC vested monthly for a year with claw back
  • 75,000 MNGO vested monthly for a year with claw back

More concretely,

  • I would be posting 1-3 times a day most likely, maybe more.
    • This could include any threads etc from developers, memes, w/e.
  • I would increase engagement with the community to help with our engagement reach

I feel like the above incorporates your input, plus more.

Frankly, I bring more to the table more than just social media management so salary incorporates that imo, otherwise i’d say just go get an intern i’m sure some new grad would be happy to work for 20k a year lol.

Im trying to achieve, increase social media presence, more social engagement, and essentially drive user acquisition thru marketing campaigns run thru twitter ads.

Twitter ads are indeed not required, but suggested and highly recommended for this role as a social media manager and within that purview is twitter ads, those would give me more of an opportunity to utilize the work I’ve completed to date in a way that we can see some good return on investment there.

E.g. All the video work, the illustrations from the website and content, etc.

An ads budget of:

  • 1,000 USDC vested monthly for year with clawback

This would be used solely for ads, it would allow us to create brand awareness campaigns, educational campaigns etc, and build data and understanding for future distribution methods we’d like to utilize.

I think this is more than fair and can always be clawed back if the work or program if it isn’t needed anymore.

Again, and i hate to keep stressing this point but we’ve spent loads more on development costs, spending some on marketing should be okay to justify $1000 imo, not sure what the push back is for this if there is any at all, DAO should be pushing more and be more critical on the cost of development if that is the case.

Nickel and diming marketing is not the way.

Those that voted didn’t mind my proposal, it just seems that more require you (@mschneider ) and @daffy to be on board, but I’ve received support privately from contributors who are okay with my proposal and reimbursement :man_shrugging:

15

Quick summary of your answers to confirm and some follow up questions:

How did this influence your allocation of time and efforts?

You changed the focus of what you worked on. Instead of working on adapting the proposal itself and bringing it up for a vote, you took the feedback for your grant proposal and started to work on the actual project without a pre-approved budget.

It is still not clear to me for which time period you are invoicing and what your commitment during that time was, it would help, if you could somewhat explain, why you think that 35,000 is the right number.

$35,000 because the DAO spends a lot on other pre-approved work. The points you marked in the screenshot (out of an internal chat, i’d appreciate if you could refrain from posting further, as it makes the conversation look like blackmail, but let’s keep focussed) comprise a list of items that you did work on.

I think this comparison is not working. Wildly out of budget spiraling cost is regrettable, but that’s why other projects have been pre-approved, to create clarity and to make sure there is no risk for the people working on them. You carry that risk by not asking for a grant upfront.

If you would ask me what those should cost, i’d say $10,000. Someone did propose already to not pay at all, i think that’s not a good solution, given that you are not a stranger but someone that has been around for a while and deserves goodwill. I would still appreciate if you could propose a settlement that’s closer to the market value of what you were trying to achieve.

Your proposal is in a different price range from those numbers, but didn’t mention any KPIs, could you clarify, what you were trying to achieve?

“increase social media presence, more social engagement, and essentially drive user acquisition thru marketing campaigns run thru twitter ads.” These high level goals are very difficult to measure but of course should be part of the evaluation. From my experience it is very hard to attribute them without a rather complex tracking setup, I don’t know if anyone has time to implement that in the short term, although I think it would be a good idea in general. Could you alternatively break down one or two work items ideally in the form of weekly (or bi-weekly) responsibilities, so we can add it to my previous list so it’s clear what the DAO receives?

16

It’s more nuanced than this…

These proposals adapt change as the project evolves, as more ideas get incorporated, also my original proposal came before avi, and ftx.

I took the original feedback, sat with it during that time, and I continued to work on portions of the proposal that i could push thru, as that was the feedback given or how I understood it.

Things we needed to do regardless of whether my eventual proposals could get approval or not.

The adaptations and restructuring of the original proposal came as we internally discussed more ideas and structure around the desired goals for mobile marketing and I saw the potential interest and opportunity again in my original proposal but with fresh eyes to improve it and adapt it to what I was now building.

fwiw, I do not intend this, if anyone here truly feels that way, I’m genuinely sorry.

My comparison was simply a criticism out of frustration given the circumstances of the situation. I understand the risk and never denied this.

I was however making a good faith effort to own the website work and subsequently potentially add more to my purview as a DAO member. I want to market efficiently for the business and push the brand and I had a plan for it.

Im only even requesting a reimbursement cause the website work was basically sunset with out much notice. This made me feel unappreciated when in the moment I felt like i was building with you all. I would have respected more honesty and communication rather than crickets when opinions changed, which is what it seems like unfortunately.

35k is actually fair for months of work on website design, development, illustrations, content creation, copy-writing, research and strategy development, etc.

Normal salaried positions for this type of work is easily 10k+ p/m at a startup and that’s just a person managing the spend and a team like a dev, a designer, a content writer, etc.

This obviously comes with marketing department bloat (spend) is real for them and we really don’t want that.

I’m doing the workload of a marketing team creating the funnel, content, etc for a fraction of what it should cost you to hire someone for this work…

Tell me the monthly salaries of both designers building the new site, and then what Labs is going to spend on freelance copy-writing/editing and any illustration work for the new site, then tell me how much they will spend hiring a person to actually properly market the products themselves, and i’ll show you an average monthly cost leagues higher than what I’m proposing.

What im doing is splitting the 35k into 6 months, roughly 5833 p/m. I think that’s more than fair for this work, that’s ~60% below market rate already.

Daffy said it here best at one previous proposal and this is paraphrasing, but “DAOs need ppl that have multiple talents and skills to do multiple jobs.”

I was in a unique position to offer that to the DAO in my own way.

Sure i can be more precise.

  • Daily minimum, 1-3 posts
  • Weekly developer thread minimum, 1-2 posts
  • Meme hard lol 2-3 memes a week
  • Engage and support the twitter community and summarize questions for discord

in regards to the tracking, IMO, there should be enough tracking in place already between twitter and whats available with vercel or google analytics to help build a base for some KPIs to push for if we’re talking about tracking conversions in some manor, we don’t need much to achieve some insights.

Specific KPIs would be likely finalized within the first month or two of starting the ads grant and I’d happily also push to implement what I can. We need data, this would give us something.

17

Hey all, @mschneider, @daffy , I took some time to create a more concrete proposal for the DAO in the heir of transparency and to keep the conversation flowing.

This, more specifically, is what I would like to do for DAO in regards to the social media management.

Social Media Proposal :baby_chick:

If everyone is onboard here for this, I’d like to propose this work to start on March 15th and the ads budget to start on April 1st.

I’d say feel free to vote down the ads spend if you really feel strongly about not needing it but i would love to push the great content being made already, in a more evergreen way. We can reach a wider group of users more tailored to our needs and this small budget would be great to start.

As far as the reimbursement goes, I’m keen to continue to discuss this with you all and hopefully find a solution that all parties can be happy about.

18

Maybe my headphones are just acting weird, but the “open by default” video doesn’t seem to have audio on the left hand side?

I would be curious to know how other people feel about Twitter ads, because I have never found a new crypto project worth supporting through them. It really seems like the only crypto projects that are purchasing twitter ads are the ones that are unable to generate engagement / impressions organically. It’s a bit of an oversimplification, but, if you need Twitter Ads to get impressions, your content probably just isn’t very good.

Additionally, one of the bigger obstacles we will likely face in marketing v4 is rebuilding trust. And purchasing Twitter Ads does nothing to rebuild that trust. The two things that I think will be the most effective at rebuilding trust are:

  1. Coordinating with the project’s supporters with large followings to push some blog or similar feature that outlines the changes since v3, why it’s safer now, etc.

  2. Providing referral links to active Solana DAOs and other crypto twitter accounts. Even though I don’t think this will necessarily require additional USDC payment, it would be a better use for it than Twitter Ads because of the credibility they would lend to the project.

19

Yeah these videos are just cuts from when i was working on the b-roll. They’ll be done in the next few weeks.

Twitter ads or targeted display ads are just a tool to get in front of a larger audience of people that would/could use your product.

The goal is to amplify good organic content with thoughtfully executed campaigns that build trust and product awareness. Its how you utilize the tools that matters.

If the content is good organically, then it should be even better and produce even more driven through a thoughtful campaign and it would be cost effective because you don’t have to produce more content to get the same results, it just runs and works on its own.

You’re right in that some do that because they dont have other options, they just suck at marketing and building quality content lol. That’s not the rule.

Mango has had great content and contributors have always strived for producing a quality brand both online and within the community and I think that shows already.

All we hear are things like:

“Wish mango was here”
“When are you guys coming back?”

The people want Mango.

To your point about:

We should def do this, I agree.

FWIW, I also believe more that rebuilding trust happens with execution in marketing, product development, and how we handle customer interactions (e.g. customer support, community engagement).

It’s an uphill battle in general too. its not just mango that needs trust rebuilding, crypto industry in general is super negative lately, news is always bad it seems. more in the US than internationally tho.

I would also say as far as the builder atmosphere goes, I feel it is thriving and that’s what matters near-term.

Public opinion shifts on macro driven cycles. It’s more important to stay alive, stay in the minds eye of potential users and keep producing all around… e.g. product wise, community contributions, fostering a thriving ecosystem, etc.

Reason i push for paid ads is we’re fighting with other companies in this space for the same users as much as everyone is friends, the reality is some of these protocols/companies arent going to be here in 2 years.

New crypto entrants won’t know much unless they’ve read one of the many articles with mango and hack in the title, but that could be eased with different assurances or a piece of content they see organically or thru ads.

Potential user might subconsciously remember the name, not remember the article title and click the ad cause they already know who we are but forgot about us.

I feel we need advantages in reaching the right users, else it’s easy to get lost in the ocean of competition, one of those dead projects could easily be Mango.