AIP-479: Coffee with Captain Powered by $APE on ApeChain


PROPOSAL NAME:

Coffee with Captain Powered by $APE on ApeChain
cwc powered by apecoin

TEAM DESCRIPTION:

Cap & Steve have hosted “Coffee with Captain” every single weekday since late 2021, proudly representing BAYC from the beginning for over 665 shows.

Coffee with Captain is an established leading daily show in web3, trusted by several sponsors including large web3 brands like DraftKings and web3 staples like ENS and Mintify.

“Super Host of the Year - 2023” - SuperSpaces

Screenshot 2024-06-20 at 4.15.09 PM

“Daily Spaces of the Year - 2023” - NFTStats poll

Screenshot 2024-06-20 at 4.16.17 PM

>1,000 live listeners most mornings and typically 200-250 concurrent during the 2 hour show
(# of daily listeners is the column on the right)

>11,000 listeners during an impromptu 6-hour Saturday Space following Yuga’s acquisition of Proof
IMG_1586 2

All organic, real audience, never botted

Major guests include:
Luca Netz, Pudgy Penguins
Julian Holguin, Doodles
Ray Chan, 9gag & Memeland
Gary Vaynerchuk, VaynerX & VeeFriends
Raoul Pal, Real Vision
Jack Lu, CEO Magic Eden
Daniel Alegre, former CEO Yuga Labs

In addition to CwC, the two co-hosts have both hosted several other Spaces for leading brands, including the monthly “From the Bodega” that Cap co-hosts with Illa.

Welcome Apes was originally ideated from a discussion with Vicki J, Bulla and Cap on Coffee with Captain. Cap also hosts the weekly Welcome Wednesday Space for Welcome Apes.

Steve co-authored the first Harvard Business article about NFTs and he co-authored The Everything Token, a best selling book about NFTs and web3 published by Penguin Publishing. Steve’s ape was featured in the HBR article and on the first page of his book.

Producer Pain and clip-master Macki round out the CwC team, and @Lost will be providing the weekly ApeCoin Ecosystem Update.

PROPOSAL DESCRIPTION:

Title Sponsorship of a leading web3 daily show and a weekly segment featuring MBAC brands. Ongoing promotion of $APE, ApeChain and MBA / MBAC brands on X and the major podcast platforms.

Six month partnership to include:

1) Title Sponsor

  a) Coffee with Captain Powered by $APE on ApeChain

  b) Coffee with Captain Powered by ApeChain

  c) Coffee with Captain Powered by $APE

The title will appear in the Live X Spaces for the duration of the show, as well as in the title of the podcast recordings and preferred link(s) will be included in the show notes. This title sponsorship includes any live shows during the sponsorship period as well. For example, live Coffee with Captain at ApeFest will be powered by $APE

2) A weekly segment “Made by ApeCoin Mondays”

Sponsored interview around 9AM EST on Coffee with Captain.

Each week we’ll interview a MBA builder at/around the peak of our Monday show.

Preferred brand links will be featured in show notes in the podcast recordings.

We’ll also work with Thank Ape to encourage and reward audience engagement with the brands that are being featured.

3) A weekly “ApeCoin Ecosystem update with @Lost

A recurring sponsored segment on Wednesday at 9:45am EST on Coffee with Captain. Clip will be captured and Audiograms can be repurposed as shorts ApeCoin Youtube.

4) ApeChain will become the home of Coffee with Captain

Through a multi-phased approach we will migrate all of our future published content to be hosted on ApeChain. Beginning with our weekly show summary

Potentially a fork of Mirror or Paragraph

To be clear, this proposal does not take into consideration the development of, or funding of an on-chain publishing platform, rather a commitment to making ApeChain our home for published content and we’d love to work with others in the community who build the platform.

5) With a partnership in place Cap & Steve will actively seek news and events from the ApeChain community to discuss organically on CwC throughout the week, in addition to the Made By ApeCoin Monday segment.

6) Two professional audiograms per week will be provided to the ApeCoin DAO, ApeComms, and the MBAC brand that was featured. An example of an audiogram clip produced by Macki can be seen quote tweeted here - capturing the attention and engagement of other leaders in the space.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:

This proposal will benefit ApeChain and Made by ApeCoin builders, as well as the Coffee with Captain community, listeners and the small CwC team, including two OG Apes, at a minimum. Hopefully this idea inspires other content creators to work closely with the ApeCoin DAO and make ApeChain their home also.

In addition to live Spaces, podcast recordings and summaries - this title sponsorship will carry over to any events in real life, and will include sponsorship at a minimum of 3 live events over the remainder of 2024, live shows are planned at VeeCon, ApeFest and Art Basel.

In total over a 6 month sponsorship, there will 52 professional audiograms provided featuring $ape and community build brand and businesses. 26 business or brands built by ApeCoin will receive a sponsored interview at no cost to them, as well as 26 ApeCoin DAO Ecosystem updates presented to a diverse crypto and web3 audience. And ApeChain will hopefully become the first ecosystem that the Coffee with Captain community and listener base thinks about when looking for a home to build.

DEFINITIONS:

CwC = Coffee with Captain

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT:

  1. Open discussion and dialog prior to going to admin review & vote
    Engage with Banana Bill Advisors to discuss recommendations for BB-funded brands

  2. Launch on the first of the month following AIP passing
    Launch title sponsorship
    Launch site for reports and audiograms
    Schedule the first MBA/BBAC brand interview

  • We anticipate fully launching on or before the 1st of the month following receipt of funding. All-in costs for repository site for reports and audiograms = $500.
  1. Run initially for 6 consecutive months, open to renewal or extension

REPORTING EXPECTATIONS:

Monthly reporting will be provided, including but not limited to # of listeners and links to the MBAC segments and audiograms. Reports will be updated monthly and Audiogram files will be uploaded weekly, for the duration of the partnership.

OVERALL COST:

Total amount requested from the ApeCoin Ecosystem Fund = $85,000 USD paid in ApeCoin.

Website - $500
Production - $8,500
Show Operations - $8,500
Talent - $67,500
Total: $85,000

1 Like

This is definitely a good AIP idea, though I will wait to see what the final ask is.

4 Likes

Thank you.

Does the scope make sense? Any suggested additions or other ways we could help amplify the DAO, apechain and the builders?

4 Likes

I think the scope makes a lot of sense. It’s not bloated, it’s clear, no fluff etc. I wouldn’t change anything about it, Cap.

What makes it even more interesting - at least to me - is that these are the sort of activities that I am currently advocating for the DAO to engage third-parties in because our internal MarComms working group is ill-equipped and inexperienced to reach these types of heights and audience.

I would gladly see the DAO give you guys $500K per year rather than give it as salaries to MarComms stewards who have no chance to reach such an audience.

Please don’t ask for $500K. lol

5 Likes

As an active CwC community member for the past 2+ years, I’m obviously excited to see my CwC family combine with my DAO family.

A few thoughts:

  • I’d definitely put some thoughts around funding requested. Happy to help you think through this if you want/need it, but the benefits of the AIP are always judged against the amount of the ask.

  • Love providing a platform for AIP builders each Monday. Founders need as much help as they can get creating awareness so this is needed. Would you also consider also providing visibility to AIPs that are going up for votes to help bring awareness to their proposals as well as the DAO? Wouldn’t need to be having them up on stage all the time, but could have @Lost or someone in the WGs provide summaries every voting cycle.

  • Any ideas on how to incorporate Thank Ape? I’m sure the team can help figure out some ideas given their experience, and we haven’t seen them do anything w/ Spaces in their seasons so far. Would be good to have some of these ideas baked out before this goes to formal vote.

  • Would you be open to setting up an official voting delegation as part of this? The DAO is always looking to bring more people into our ecosystem and, given the platform and reach you both have, it could be a great avenue to continue to grow our holder (and voter) base. Again, happy to help if interested.

  • Have you had any discussions with the Marcomms team? Could be great synergies there to amplify each other’s efforts in a 1+1=3 type of relationship.

I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later, but great start for the AIP and really looking forward to seeing this play out.

6 Likes

Thanks, VonFrontin

Appreciate the feedback and for all your support

  • will plug in our ask prior to the end of the discussion period; intent was to gauge reception, gain feedback and make additions or subtractions to the scope in real time over the weekend

  • for example, an AIP update or DAO download is certainly a segment that we could consider adding. If DAO community finds valuable, what day would be optimal? Wednesday morning?

  • at minimum we can plug into their existing programs with the current season, and we can work with them to see if possible to extend or have any additional quests added. Similar for live events

  • Yes, potentially - although first thought is I’d prefer to promote a larger BAYC/MAYC delegation, but open it either

  • Have not discussed this with Marcomms, but will reach out, we’re open to ideas

Thanks again!

6 Likes

Thanks again for the support.

& we won’t be unreasonable and ask for 500K, if in that range we’d go for $420K

I kid, we’d like to get an official partnership started and grow relationship deeper while working together and delivering results.

& if all parties are pleased with results discuss a longer term and potentially deeper relationship then… but we really just want to get started helping.

On “results” - any suggestions as to tracking the success of an AIP like this?

Whereas it’s a long term branding and awareness for ApeChain, $ape and the MBA brands - we don’t have any call to actions or way to track any conversions or new members.

If successful, we’d attract not only new users of ApeChain and new buyers of $ape, but new DAO participants and new builders on ApeChain.

Our early morning audience includes many business owners, CEOs and founders, in addition to interviewing multiple web3 founders every week.

Open to ideas as ways to track.

Does any “affiliate links” or ref codes exist yet?

First thought is we could track a Thank Ape quest, and while that would give an idea of # of active participants it would only be a partial view of the impact.

6 Likes

These type of partnership/sponsorships make sense for the obvious reasons. What’s curious to me though is, should or would the MarComms budget account for this type of thing? It’s marketing and communications. Right? Maybe it’s a bit more than that as you’ve listed, but at the end of the day it’s marcomms.

Side note: There was a recent idea to sponsor threadguys podcasts. He just did that Iggy Azalea one that got lots of views. Eyes. Exposure. I’m not saying that to compare CwC with his work, since the audiences may be different. But it’s marketing.

So that takes me back to…should these type of asks be via the MarComms team’s budget (which was approved)?

Either way, you guys do great, consistent work with your shows and content (CwC is part of my daily morning routine). So this is a no brainer for marketing and exposure.

Regarding ThankApe integration, that would be interesting. Would you be using part of your AIP funding to reward contributions or would you want ThankApe to use their funding for that? It would be important to point that out in the AIP if you go that route, just for clarity.

If I think of anything else I will be sure to come back. Good luck on the AIP!!!

5 Likes

All sounds good, Cap.

I don’t believe that there’s a need to track anything as that would just create an artificial and burdensome task that’s devoid of any meaningful metric. Then you’re just going get heat over it because not everyone has an understanding of what metrics like that even mean - unless they see likes, votes and all that other nonsense which, by their nature, are themselves artificial and can be gamed.

To that end, the one suggestion that I do have is that, considering the scope of this and the ask, that you do a segment maybe once a week featuring the DAO; and you can somehow feature ThankApe through that as well. You have a wider reach that our ApeComms and other media outlets do. And for that, I would recommend that you talk to @Lost who, as you may already be aware, is a really good host. He is an articulated speaker, he gives his speakers chance to speak, his dialog tends to be neutral etc. Doing that will yield a lot more benefit to the community because, for as much as we argue, fuss, and fight, increasing our exposure is a good thing. And since he obviously will have the time, a paid gig outside of his GwG duties won’t be a conflict even if the DAO is sponsoring the show.

Just a suggestion. I mean, what’s the worse that could happen? We literally just flushed $5.5M into a cesspool via an F1 sponsorship while some people on CT and their 10 followers are busy rejoicing even as the sh*t team continues to be that. Zero benefit to the DAO. Just money. Gone.

5 Likes

CwC featuring Lost would actually be a great DAO segment.

Would require an early wake up for him though :rofl:

3 Likes

First, thank you for the support and for tuning in!

Secondly, great question!

I’m not really sure about the budget for ApeComms and if any is intended for this. Will reach out and explore. It appears that their 6 month budget included $15K for PR/Comms/Social Media and $145K for Content Ecosystem - but I couldn’t find any details in regards to the specific plans or how that was intended to be distributed.

Re: the idea to sponsor TG’s podcasts, it appears the general consensus has been an aversion to branding sponsorships with content creators in web3; rather prefer to spend funds on F1 team sponsorships.

This is part of the reason for our desire to incorporate a segment or two, so that in addition to the branding element we’d be driving specific attention to MBA brands, founders and what they’re building… as well as a DAO update if we decide to incorporate that as suggested.

Re: Thank Ape - our initial thought was that we’d promote their current programs and funding, several of which will crossover to several of the MBAC brands we’d be featuring.

Not opposed to funding ourselves - and this is partially why the amount of $ape in our ask has been omitting so far… attempting to get a better idea of the most preferred scope.

Thanks for the feedback and ideas!

2 Likes

Unless I missed something, I don’t believe they actually have an on-going budget.

I have personally and publicly tried to get Lost and ssp1111 to make it a commercial venture, funded by the DAO. And that was before AIP-351 was created (and later withdrawn).

As I’ve been out of the DAO activity since Oct 2023, only returning two weeks ago, some things may have changed. So, it’s best to check with both of them.

3 Likes

Hey Guys,

Finally, CWC Powered by ApeCoin!

Like @SmartAPE says, keep it simple, don’t overthink it and certainly don’t promise a bunch of line items and then get bogged down in reporting – ugh.

Just a couple of notes for context, that may or may not be relevant:

  • @ThreadGuy and @Leap_xyz did propose a Spaces Sponsorship in the past asking for $420k for 12 months – it was met with enthusiasm for the collab but pushback for the $$ ask. How it would have fared in Snapshot is anyone’s guess, as the authors never followed through.

  • AIP-246 MarComms Charter was co-authored by @Adz and myself with an eye towards the bigger picture, specifically in creating the foundational infrastructure for all Marketing & Communications initiatives and AIPs moving forward - brand consistency, voice, assets, brand bible, etc. Adz and I always came from the position that empowering our members was the purpose of all working groups, not just an entity to attempt to do all the work themselves.

  • As Derek reminds us, AIP-351 Communications Action Team was set-up between the three of us to help the incoming MarComms Stewards get a running start and we asked for 199k APE which included the costs for legal entity set-up, etc. I cannot for the life of me remember why we withdrew it - Steve’s bestseller schedule or something? Remind me.

  • AIP-290 was also a request for underwriting, and for comparison’s sake, I had suggested to @krafter_eth a request of $60k for 12 months of his podcast Powered by Apecoin.

  • And then as @SmartAPE so often highlights, ApeComms should be a funded group and it’s not like we haven’t tried - both AIP-142 and AIP-175 failed to pass with funding attached, and AIP-348 passed as a zero-cost proposal.

In summary, don’t over promise, don’t change the consistency and flavour of CWC in the mornings lest you find yourself catering to a different audience and make it a simple request for sponsorship of the show without getting artificially entwined with other groups in the ecosystem. You do you.

Them’s just my own opinions, nothing I say is on behalf of the ApeCoin DAO or the Foundation, opinions expressed are solely for entertainment and educational purposes
:rofl:

SSP :call_me_hand:t4:

PS – Thanks @SmartAPE as always, for your unwavering support of ApeComms.

5 Likes

A very well known voice in the space with a vast audience? Hell yeh

2 Likes

Indeed. However, I think it’s a case of timing. With ApeChain now on the horizon, and given that the DAO doesn’t have anything even remotely resembling an effective marketing and comms team (no offense to MarComms, just being factual here) similar to ApeComms, CwC etc. now may be the time for you ApeComms guys to revisit that, and do a consolidated AIP.

Marketing is a vital part of any revenue driven business; and despite my misgivings about it, if ApeChain is to be anything resembling a success, it must be given a chance to extend beyond this small internet enclave of degens. And only marketing - not sh*tposting - can do that.

4 Likes

Thanks for the question, Matt - it’s a good one.

I think you might find that this specific market varies greatly from YouTube and other platforms. I’d love to get any additional insight from the community on this topic and happy to share my thoughts and assumptions as to why the gap.

Other platforms present a better ability to monetize just off views & tips without sponsors, whereas Spaces aren’t monetized on X, even for those that have qualified for monetized posts, and while there is a “tip” option, it’s not part of the culture or UX like it is on YT and Twitch.

On the other side, one big benefit of X Spaces and why they tend to demand sponsorship premiums over other platforms is a hyper targeted audience, with much higher net worth and disposable income than average Twitch or YT viewer. I’ll see if we can get updated numbers, but I believe the collective total audience or combined following for Steve and me has public wallets holding over a billion dollars on chain.

As far as competitors, there might be others in the community with more specific and current information; my understanding is that two of the other three Daily Shows included in NFT Stats community poll referenced above both charge $10K+ for sponsored interviews. I’m not aware of what title sponsor rates are for others.

Previously we’ve used the title sponsor spot for self promotion. Our recurring sponsored segments range from $4K-$8K/month, and for a single one-off sponsored interview our rate is $2,420, discounted for our partners with ongoing sponsorships.

Hope that helps, and I’ll see if I can track down more specifics.

1 Like

Glad you took the jump and decided to post it in the forum, I fully support your initiative and it would be a net positive. Waiting on that Overall Cost section but I’m sure it will be coherent :wink:

2 Likes

Yup. And that’s precisely why I advocated (above) against tying anything to artificial, superficial, and inconsequential metrics.

3 Likes

Noted and agreed.

Question for the community though is “what are the best ways to measure if this was a success?”

Our desires are not to enter into a 6 month partnership and move on, rather we’d like to enter into a long term relationship with this first AIP serving as proof of concept with our goal being to exceed all expectations of us and the value we’re able to deliver to ApeChain, the DAO and builders.

Open to ideas and suggestions for tracking results … that aren’t fluff and inconsequential.

1 Like

Thank you!

Have had a few conversations with community members that have helped … we’ll likely update with a specific ask later today.

1 Like