RE: Let's Talk Marketing Gridcoin. A Response To The Proposed Marketing Initiative.
Thank you for your feedback on Joint Marketing Initiative, @jringo. I upvoted it because I value different opinions, even if I don't agree with them fully.
The main point in your detailed post seems to be that we are somehow spending too much on marketing, implying that we should scale it down to reach a certain lower 'equilibrium' with development. I think that's a very unusual marketing approach, especially for a rapidly expanding market like crypto - scaling down isn't exactly called marketing nowadays.
I propose a different course of action - let's scale up our marketing and recruit new users. Some of them will be devs and they might contribute to Gridcoin development, increasing the amount we spend on it, reaching a new, higher and more productive dev/marketing equilibrium.
P.S. This new Initiative does not set a precedent. Our marketing efforts in 2016 and 2017 were also funded from the Foundation. Past votes are visible on Gridcoinstats.
@jringo, I appreciate the hard work you've put into engaging with the recently proposed marketing initiative. However, I'm inclined to agree with @vortac that '26% on marketing' is actually a reasonable figure given the present state of Gridcoin and the crypto market as a whole. Every day more and more people are heavily investing in crypto, and we want to attract those people to Gridcoin first before they buy into other coins. Doing so will likely increase the number of developers and the funds available to disburse them.
I agree that development should be our foremost concern. After all, we are here to realize our (various) visions for the potential of Gridcoin to transform blockchain technology and computational science, not to inflate Gridcoin's value by placing all of our energies into attracting new users. However, based on the above comments by myself and @vortac, I find the current marketing initiative supports the focus on development and organic growth rather than betrays it.
I agree with a lot of this! Read my longer response above. I address some of these responses in there.
Agreed 100%. I've said it before and I'll say it again, a Gridcoin ad was my first exposure to Gridcoin several years ago. I organized (in a vague sense) the rebranding effort. @joshoeah, whether brought into the fold via paid ads or organically executed and created an entire brand image for Gridcoin. Users who want to see a project they care about become even better are what makes Gridcoin as strong as it is.
Gridcoin has an really strong community. I believe we will self organize and do everything we need to do. The main thing we need centrally planned is a marketing fund to bring in more of said users.