I would like to thank Skrillah, Ertemman, Natalia, and Brendan for their excellent work on business development. I believe my guidance has contributed to their success and I look forward to continuing in Q1 2023. My role has evolved to include helping architect solutions for business development and marketing, assisting dapp teams with fundraising, making introductions to VCs, and bringing in new VCs to further our relationships.
Q1 2023 milestones:
I will improve the scrt.network website along with John Brodish and conduct usability testing and user research to generate leads for our primary personas. This will help align our marketing efforts and improve the site.
I will work with Jay and Evelin from the Foundation to improve email marketing, content marketing, paid search, and SEO to improve the lead generation funnel
I will work with dapp teams to improve their fundraising efforts by helping them improve their pitch decks and implement best practices when pitching and fundraising.
I will work with Tor and deepen my relationships with venture capitalists and continue to bring in new venture capitalists.
I disagree with the characterization that the scope has been reduced. Itās just evolved to leverage more valuable skill sets to include things like user research and usability testing (among more, as pointed out in the proporsal)
I disagree with the characterization that Iām only working with foundation employees. I suspect Iāll continue to coach you and your team on best biz dev practices, as Iāve done in the past. I also suspect that Shahar will continue to need help pitching, and will tap into my 10 years of experience in pitching and selling
I also work directly with dapps, helping them fundraise and improve their decks, as noted in the proposal
I do appreciate your comments, and look forward to continued collaboration
As communicated to Dan privately, Iād like to say that SCRT Labs will not be supporting the BizDev committee going forward.
We thank Dan for his work and effort, but as for the last 1-2 quarters we have not been working with Dan, and have in fact hired a part-time BD role from the community (Waffle) + have deepened our working relationship with the Agency, we feel that the BD committee has become redundant.
I want to qualify my response by saying that I have a lot of respect for you as an entrepreneur and creative thinker. However, I disagree with your statement. Here are some points to consider:
In the last 1-2 quarters, I have been working with Secret Labs through Shahar Raz, the head of Secret Labs marketing. In fact, I introduced more VCs to Secret Labsā incubator than Shahar did. I also provided coaching on various aspects of pitching.
It is important to understand that the business development efforts of Secret Labs, a private company, are distinct from those of Secret Network. In my role as a community-paid representative, I have introduced venture capitalists to dapp teams fundraising on the network and provided assistance in preparing pitches. Venture capitalists introduced to the Secret Labs incubator are being reserved for that specific purpose.
The agency program, although funded by the network, does not have the same level of experience in business development and marketing as I do. Many of their lead generation strategies and tactics were based on my ideas. I believe I will be able to continue helping design business development solutions for the network.
Additionally, the ābusiness development committeeā has expanded its role to include not only traditional business development, but also marketing efforts and assisting dapp teams with fundraising. It may be appropriate to rename this to reflect its broader responsibilities.
I am based in Miami and New York City, two significant centers for crypto in the United States, while most of the business development team mentioned is based in Europe with the exception of Brendan in Puerto Rico. Additionally, the United States has a larger concentration of crypto capital compared to Europe, and most large venture capitalists investing in crypto are based in the United States. Waffle and Agency do not have access to these venture capitalists. I believe Iām a valuable asset to the network.
Thanks for your feedback on the deck a few months ago, it was indeed helpful.
I also like to thank you for the ~5 meetings you were able to set up (a lot less than what I managed to bring and way less than what the incredible Secret Agency team was able to do, but I appreciate the effort).
We havenāt really been in touch in the past few months so I donāt know what youāve been up to but I wish you all the best in whatever you do next.
To build on that, I asked community members, including people on the agency and Secret Labs working on BD, VC relations and devrel and no one can exactly say what Dan has been up to in the past few months. Frankly, it seems that at this point heās popping back up mostly around the proposal to collect a paycheck from the network, which in my opinion is not acceptable.
Now, I could very well be wrong and thereās been a lot of work going on behind the scenes that neither I or other community members are aware of ā but even if thatās the case, Iād argue thatās equally problematic.
In any case, I donāt want to drag this out - I gave our perspective, and if this proposal goes on chain we will unfortunately vote against it. Iāll let others make up their own mind, and I donāt expect to continue participating in the discussion, I just wanted to make our position clear and visible.
Thank you, Guy. Itās worth mentioning that absent from your list are the people at the Secret Foundation. However, I believe the original proposal and my replies thus far speak for itself. I strongly disagree with the claim that Iāve done nothing and am only here for a paycheck. This suggestion is not only untrue (as stated in the proposal) but also offensive and unnecessary. I will not be responding further on this matter.
Dan was instrumental in reinvigorating user research at the Foundation these past few months, drawing attention to our need to better-serve business development audiences on the scrt.network website, such as prospective developers, projects, and partners.
He and I have been collaborating on said user research, establishing processes that would allow for regular biweekly/monthly user research & testing. This work will inform iterative design improvements we make to the Secret website, helping us better-capture and retain Secretās target audiences. Secret Summit admittedly slowed my involvement, and subsequently Danās progress, on this a bit. But, we have begun recruiting for our first research study with developer audiences and plan to kick it off shortly after the holiday.
Dan has also been acting as a consultant for other, quantitative market research efforts foundation has been conducting.
I understand recent organizational shifts in the community have put the bizdev committee in an awkward place, where it may be seen as redundant.
I would nonetheless like to see us explore options for continuing to fund Danās involvement in the network, particularly in this market research space.
This work is incredibly valuable and Dan has a great understanding of how to execute and leverage it to benefit network growth and adoption goals. While it may take a few months or more for us to start seeing returns on this investment, Iām confident the long-term value delivered will far out-weigh the short-term funding costs.
Thatās a good change of strategy. My main issue with BizDev under your leadership was just that (whether or not funding was collected is irrelevant as there was an arrangement for paid consulting-which only fell through as a result of performance concerns, combined with the fact that you were receiving on-chain funding at the time).
As you were asking for feedback from more Foundation people, Iāll give my two cents here.
I think the initial assessment you did of what Secret Network could improve marketing & lead gen-wise was a great start, as it pointed out a couple of things we could work on and could greatly benefit the network. With your actions, you also kickstarted a renewed focus on lead gen and user research, which was very needed.
However, your advice on SEO and marketing remained too high level for me to be actionable. And figuring out how to apply general marketing best practices to a specific project (and prioritize what to focus on) is usually the hardest part.
So if you could help out more with the concrete implementation part, then I think another period of biz dev funding could be worth it!
But, until now, whenever I asked you for more concrete implementation advice I didnāt get much of a response. Youāre also listing here things like attending the Personas calls, during which you barely gave input (if any). And SEO and SEM, which I havenāt been getting much guidance on from you so far eitherāthis is something me, Telegram Brian, and Jay have been collaborating on.
So I find it hard to evaluate how much you could help out with marketing and whether youāre worth the price tag. I know youāre just getting started and it might be a matter of getting more involved with the team. But, so far, Iāve been missing advice from you that goes beyond general marketing advice, and help with the concrete implementation.
*To add: I agree that helping dApps with pitching & fundraising is very valuable but not something the Foundation can easily do, so I support your focus on that for the next quarter!
I would like to point out here that agency is taking the lead on helping dapps and upcoming leads to reach VC funding after making connections and getting soft commits of several VCs. This is a good structure in my opinion because we have the working connection with all dapps, communication channels and resources to improve pitches, profile VCs and spend thorough time with each single dapp. In the meantime Shahar is focused on the VC incubator and incoming leads might be able to get seats in both programs dependent on how much interest there is from our own dapps first. And although i probably agree with Dan on that knowledge in the Agency on this aspect is slightly lower than what Dan can offer i also think we have a more personal touch and better alignment/understanding with the rest of the ecosystem which simplifies the process.
Dan has shown great efforts in the SEO/marketing, website navigation and cold emailing departments and seeing as his focus is shifting towards that its up to the community to decided if they want to keep him on for that.
Lavender standpoint:
Dan has in the past shown very negative reactions to feedback given in public meetings and we dont think his way of communicating has severely changed. solely for this reason alone we are already at a NO for this proposal. The community pool is here to support people that have a positive connection with core stakeholders and other community members and that doesnāt seem the case here. Besides that the bizdev committee was never able to fully function due to how disconnected it was from the core organizations which did both grants and VC connections. Dan tried to change this but now that it has again shifted to a structure with network organizations leading we donāt think the bizdev committee can ever extract full value. This has little to do with how Dan operates and moreso with the way this community operates but really both are at trial here.
I just like to comment that knowing Telegram Brian is in the canoe makes me feel good.
Dan, you asked for far too many of the precious SCRTs , I think 50% less and weād all be feeling blessed for having you in the boat paddling forward with the rest of us privacy Moe Moeās
As for the comment about you not playing nice nice when you are spoken to by a wtf voice , I say nobody should be offended by legit questions, ever. Criticism is gonna be slung over and over again while we dress this privacy bitch up, anyone not wearing their thickest skin while working to create the future hottest network ever, needs to take their wettest shit then get the fk off the pot, pull up their pants and take a walk.
Dan, itās a what have you done for me lately world , you know this ā¦ touch ruthless and impolite in the replies in my opinion, these straight direct retorts though, I admire. It nice to know there are grown ups sitting at the table.
Long story short ,I feel like you should have an extra loyalty quarter. An opportunity to show the community that your worth the amount you feel you should be compensated for being here with us building the fair free futureā¦
Itās always OK imo to overpay for passion ā¦ seems like you have not been in the open showing your SN bleeding heart to often.
If you feel even a touch pissy pants about the feedback then you need to go look at yourself in the mirror.
How about thisā¦ do it for 50% less this trip then in the next bizdev proposal you set your price again.
Could you please expand on what ābroughtā entails? Have these entities acquired a position at all?
I think that, given the nature of this thread is a bit controversial, taking a bit of a utilitarian approach might simplify the process. (i.e the expense of paying you vs the people you get to buy)
I understand the importance of developing an actual relationship but at the end of the day what matters is if money has been invested or not. Anything else (soft-commitments) feels like grandstanding. So how much money have these entities put in already?