The issue of the revenue royalties isn’t his fault. I mean, Yuga is licensing the brand to far less worthy enterprises, and given my experience with brand licensing, I can say with certainty that they’re not making enough revenue to even be more than a rounding error on their financials. So, I don’t see the DAO giving a grant being that big a deal. Especially since it’s an IP branded device.
I think that you should do it. The value is to the brand, not the DAO. There’s a specific distinction.
It is not so. I don’t think you are clear what is the mission of apecoin. The resources there are and they must be used, but wisely. The idea of headphones is interesting but not in the terms in which it was proposed. He could create a prototype and later distribute them to dao members who would pay the shipping costs or he can create a lottery contest together with thankape. that would make a lot more sense. as proposed this AIP will most likely not pass, however I don’t want to discourage anyone from trying and my words must be taken as collaborative and not attacks.
The APE Foundation serves the ApeCoin DAO to steward the growth and development of the APE ecosystem in a fair and inclusive way. It utilizes the Ecosystem Fund, which is controlled by a multisig wallet, to pay its expenses as directed by the ApeCoin DAO and provides an infrastructure for ApeCoin holders to collaborate through open and permissionless processes .
That’s why there is an AIP voting process whereby you can vote against it.
His idea of building an IP branded device definitely fits the mandate - especially since the DAO isn’t setup to receive any proceeds. Why does Yuga do branding? Also, the rug that was funded through AIP; are you saying that it fits the mandate better than this device?
I wouldn’t call it entirely risk-free, as I would still bear the administrative costs, the exposure of inventory and the costs associated with it. I wouldn’t be starting a business so much as developing and launching a brand under the umbrella of the business I have running.
Asking the DAO to cover the cost of production and freight is the only way this works for me. I take your input to heart and understand where you’re coming from, as the first goal is just to get an AIP to pass - but better to ask for what’s needed and fail, than undercut and not be able to fulfill the project. Easy way for people to walk with free money, imo.
As for promoting use of the coin, that’s a huge question too imo. There are currently roughly 126K $APE holders - this is the addressable market, if a product were to be sold exclusively in $APE. I typically like to designate roughly 1.5% to presumptive sales, meaning that of everyone that currently holds $APE, I might expect to sell about 1900 headsets. Given the supportive nature of the community, let’s triple that to 4.5%, or 5670 headsets.
After exhausting that base, there should be a steep decline expected, at least in the short-term until marketing activities could take place - which is an even more significant investment than the production, and one I’m questioning. I’d initially seen this as the chance to build something cool for the community, pay the loan back with royalties, and make a little revenue. More or less a one-time deal, similar to the Superplastic BAYC figures.
Make this and any future accessories under the brand a one-time drop. Finalmouse is one such gaming brand that has done this exceptionally well, and after 8 years is only now releasing a mouse with an unlimited quantity.
You just hit the nail on the head and which brings up another issue about these ventures.
There aren’t that many $Ape holders to make most ventures worth doing. I mean, if any of my games sold 126K or less, it’s a financial failure that would seriously effect my studios; for other studios, it could put them out of business. It’s all in the numbers - and the risk. That said, why would anyone want to adopt $Ape if the DAO or even Yuga aren’t on-board to fund grants that would promote the IP beyond the bubble? It’s specifically why most chains offer micro-grants to builders that use their chain. In the end, they ended up doing all these micro-grants which were just rug pulls or ineffective cash grabs that just littered the Web3 landscape with rubbish cash grabs that ended up taining the whole scene.
The gear and your experience are impressive! And the total investment of 300k is small compared to the large funding pool of the DAO. The benefit to the community/ DAO/ ApeCoin which a product like this provides is not something anyone can predict at the outset.
So, to minimize risks, can we do an MVP first? That is, design final product renders, website etc. and accept orders clearly mentioning that the actual shipment will be after x months… 3-4 weeks after you start accepting orders, we can evaluate the interest from the community. If the interest (# of orders during this period) are greater than some pre-defined threshold, we can continue with the actuial production and shipment (and make a higher amont of funding available to you).
If the interest from the community is not high enough, unfortunately, we can just refund the people who paid and cancel their orders and stop this project.
This approach, or something similar, would ensure that the initial risk to the DAO is minimal. While at the same time, allowing you to get the funding and continue the work if the community is really interested in this.
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