Hey everyone, following the rejection of our previous proposal, we are sharing this discussion post to reflect on the feedback received and to share our thoughts. We believe we have reassessed our strategy and aligned it more closely with community expectations. Looking forward to hearing what you think!

About us & some thoughts

We are TEACHMEDEFI, a project active in web3 education since our inception in 2022. Our primary mission is to create and distribute high-quality, entertaining, educational resources. 

We have created a variety of educational resources including in-depth podcasts, an e-learning platform, e-books, newsletters and expert interviews which have collectively garnered over 3.8 million impressions in five months across various platforms. These resources have been instrumental in raising awareness and educating users, particularly focusing on the Polkadot ecosystem.

You can view our "2023 Wrapped" clip here, showcasing our key milestones and memorable moments in 2023. 

We have our roots within the Polkadot community and a history of delivering on promises. Our prior treasury funding led to significant achievements, surpassing the goals of our first proposal from February 2022. 

We put in the work for 10 months, even though our funding was supposed to cover only five. This shows that we are committed to this ecosystem. We're not like external projects that drop in without any history or goodwill, or projects that threaten to bail if things don't go their way. Even after our latest proposal didn't make it, we kept rolling out Polkadot content, such as our episode with Derek Yoo, founder of Moonbeam (128k views). No pettiness, no threats — just keeping our focus on the community and the work.

For a detailed overview of our accomplishments, including figures and highlights, check out our full wrap-up summary report. 

Revised Proposal:

Here's a summary of our revised proposal:

- Increased focus on our high-ROI platforms (particularly X) & content formats (particularly the TEACHMEDEFI podcast) 

- Focus on efforts with impact on Polkadot's visibility within the crypto space and high educational value

- Use our growing platform in Germany to educate newcomers on Polkadot

- A revised budget, reducing the requested funds while maximizing impact

We're proposing a new direction, increasing our focus on X/Twitter. This is where the crypto community mostly lives and thus this is the most important social media platform in our view to be active on. This is our main focus.

We will focus on content formats of ours which have had the highest impact, namely our podcast and short social media clips. These efforts are already bearing fruit. Our engagement metrics are showing promising trends, and by connecting with influential voices in the crypto space — like our recent collab with the Epicenter podcast, one of the largest crypto podcasts in existence — we're steadily amplifying our reach. Recent guests of high caliber, such as the co-founder of Avail, strengthen our reach and reputation, allowing us to push Polkadot's narrative more compellingly within the broader crypto space.

Furthermore, with retail interest in crypto increasing, we have been seeing growth on our more beginner-focused German social media presence on Instagram. We propose to create custom Polkadot content for this channel in order to reach and educate newcomers and then onboard them into the ecosystem through our German e-learning offers. 

To summarize: We are streamlining our activities to amplify Polkadot and our voice where it matters most, ensuring that Polkadot's narrative reaches the right ears. We think this approach will yield more immediate and impactful results, leveraging our track record of engaging content and community growth.

Deliverables:

We propose to deliver the following over a period of approx. 6 months:

• 20 Podcast Episodes: Engaging interviews on the TEACHMEDEFI Podcast with key figures and projects within the Polkadot ecosystem (40-60 min, English)
• 60 Short Clips: Short, viral clips based on interview highlights and showcases of guests’ products (max 1 min, English)
• In German: 30 Educational Reels, 40 Educational “Carousel” Posts, 50 Story Posts (50% purely Polkadot-focused and 50% with references to Polkadot)

This focus would allow us to assess the traction and, depending on the outcomes, consider expanding or adjusting our efforts.

We will focus on:

Providing reliable and trustworthy information: This will become increasingly vital, as Polkadot continues to grow. This space is often clouded by misinformation and hype. That’s why dependable educational resources are so important, not just for new entrants into the ecosystem but also for experienced users looking for accurate updates and insights.

Amplifying voices of Polkadot builders: In our view, the voices of teams building in the Polkadot space have not been amplified enough. We aim to continue to showcase the efforts of hard-working teams and innovative tools within the Polkadot ecosystem. Builders and projects, get in touch with us!

Increasing Polkadot’s reach outside of its ecosystem: Polkadot frequently remains outside mainstream crypto discussions, with external perceptions often characterized by misconceptions about its activity level, adoption or how difficult to use it is. Our content actively counters these misconceptions, pushing true stories of Polkadot into larger crypto circles. Here is an example from our collab with one of the leading crypto podcasts called Epicenter.

Teaching how it's done and that it's simple: Major spects of Polkadot, such as voting and utilizing parachains, remain challenging for many users. We will continue to create content such as our Opengov reel series (see here and here) featuring Polkassembly, that offers quick and practical explainers in under a minute to show viewers how something is done and that it’s simple.

Budget: 

The budget for the proposed deliverables and a period of 6 months would be at $74,900.

This will cover the work of two content creators, two video editors, social media support & ads. Compared to what we proposed previously, we have thus significantly cut the budget by around $93,000, focusing on deliverables with the greatest impact.

Feedback: 

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this and are open to any questions or suggestions! If You are a project or individual building something exciting on Polkadot, please get in touch! We want to amplify the voices of hard working teams in this eco. Let's continue to build and grow together!