Pre-Proposal: Elite Hackaton for Dash Global Marketing

ragnars

ragnars

New member
Hey folks!

My name is Ragnar Sass and i want to create Dashathon - Xtreme Crypto hackathon - mixing together world class marketers & engineers to find creative ideas how to growth hack Dash to bigger audience.
A- engineering as marketing B - developing real use cases for Dash

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I am a serial startup founder & angel investor. Co-founder of Europe's best b2b startup Pipedrive, a simple CRM tool with 70 000+ paid companies. I am also the co-founder of Garage48 non-profit foundation and personally organized more than 70+ hackathons in 20+different countries. Biggest success is from 2015 november Minsk Garage48 hackathon, as the winner MSQRD was bought by Facebook just 3 months later for 100+ million USD.

What makes our hackathons very different from many others is that we are fully focused that teams deliver a working prototype by the end of the event. No fucking powerpoint - only live demo. All events are organized by the core team with local key influencers, so we have strict rules and structure in place. That's why even Skype founders have participated in our hackathons.

So here is my idea. I want to bring together the best engineers & marketing folks from around the world for Dashathon - with the main goal to develop engineering as marketing ideas to working prototypes, what should boost Dash globally. With only hand picked participants.

We are not talking about ads in Facebook or Google or in any kind of other online or offline media. But developing unique solutions for marketing using engineers brains. Combining engineers, marketers, designers, machine learning gurus with team leads could lead into very surprising results. Every team will work indepently & owns their solution indeed. In best scenario we will have several new crypto startups from this event.


Core principles:
  1. Dashathon - 48 hours, starts on Friday evening with pitching ideas and ends on Sunday with live prototype demos.
  2. We will handpick every single participant. Up to 115 ppl.
  3. Individuals apply to take part - make a test exercice, give us reference about experience and then organizers will pick only the best ones. We will fly them over from whatever country and cover their flight, food & housing costs.
  4. Mentors. We will bring in 10 best marketing & cryptocurrency & financial mentors to support participants & teams. This should include a few people from Dash core team.
  5. We will build up a special hackathon venue in old factory building next to LIFT99.co startup community centre in Tallinn, Estonia.
  6. Main event would take place 23-25 March or 12-15 April. Every participant can present idea on Friday evening, participants choose the ideas they want to join, teams will be formed (15-20 teams) and real hacking starts.
  7. To make this event accessible globally we will hire professional video crew for Friday opening & Sunday final event online streaming. And making video clips through all event. It should feel like a reality show with professional quality.
  8. For extra motivation for best folks to attend we will have crazy prizes. I propose total prize pool for 150 Dash. Winner will be decided together by Dash community & local jury Sunday evening.
  9. Extra motivation budget will be also for mentors, what will be divided after getting participants feedback. Something between 20-30.

END RESULT

At the end of hackathon we will have at least 15 different solutions how to promote DASH for BIG audience globally. Some of them will die, but usually half are pretty neat. And I am super sure that majority is great for asking more budget in future from Dash community. Most importantly - thanks to hackathon advertising & media we have delivered message to more 100 000+ folks worldwide that Dash is innovative crypto with strong community. And it could be first step building appmarket for Dash.

Here is first draft for budget, what will be more detailed for final proposal - taking account feedback & ideas from community. And yes - organizing high quality event with world class professional can't be cheap, but Estonia has best price & quality level. Calculation is made for 115 participants + 10 mentors.

  1. Participants & mentors flights/hotels/visa/insurance - 115 000 USD
  2. Catering / drinks - Food/water/coffee/redbull + craft beers for Sunday evening - 21 000 USD
  3. PR & marketing activities - before & after event (FB, Linkedin, Reddit, mailing lists + design, T-shirts, PR & communication ) - 17 000 USD
  4. Venue rent / building a hack setup & stage / video streaming + video clips - 25 000 USD
  5. Pre-event @ LIFT99 - 2 400 USD
  6. DJ + Stand Up comedian + live band for Sunday after party - 7 500 USD
  7. Hackathon team payroll + project management + format fee - 50 000 USD
  8. Unexpected crypto volatility - 20 000 USD

Event total: 257 900 USD - 344 Dash (@ 750 excange rate)
Prices for participants + mentors: 135 000 USD - 180 DASH

ALL TOTAL - 524 DASH

All crazy ideas how to make it better & more crazy are super welcome!
Lets kick this off now! Rock n roll!
 
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GrandMasterDash said:
but seems expensive
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Yes, you are totally right - it is not cheap. But my core idea is to make this hackathon so different so this should feel like going Stanford or Harvard. Great people dont want to join usual hackathon, as those are happening everywhere any given moment. With so different quality. To attract great folks attention, i need personally spend time to invite them over. And quality simply costs.

From the 524 Dash budget -
33% (180 Dash) is motivation prices for winners and for great mentors who really helped (it will give out after getting feedback from participants). 150 Dash for winner teams + 30 best mentors.
30% (152 Dash) is participants / mentors flights /hotels etc. In 4 star hotels and normal economy flights.

Invite only participants image will make huge difference for event quality.
But any feedback is great, thank you for a message.
 
I think this would work much better once the Dash DAPI is live as software development will be so much easier and faster.
 
GrandMasterDash said:
I think this would work much better once the Dash DAPI is live as software development will be so much easier and faster.
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200% - totally, this would makes things mush easier for apps. As far i understood then creating secure and distributed API for dash network is in the progress at this moment. But there is no any clear estimate yet. So i am trying to get any feedback from core team next days (or weeks). And will push event date a bit later - end of April most-likely.
Same time - developing engineering as marketing solutions - this can be done without API. Pipedrive never had big advertising budget - we always focused alternative solutions. I am very sure that this global hack would give extra motivation pushing API works with more power.

Thanks for very sharp comment.
 
Because your companies have benefit from this event and it is fair if your companies also contributes to the budget with Dash.
 
bhkien said:
Interesting idea, but it is more reasonable if asking for about $200,000.
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Thanks for a comments, this kind of discussion is very helpful. And helps me to better understand is there any great chemistry between Dash community & my ideas.
I do understand your view totally. I will overview budget in any case.
What we could change. Usually biggest costs makes difference - cutting travel costs means that we have to focus only countries what are closer - mainly only Europe. Might be other things - like a smaller prize pool - will take a very close view to this after few days with my team.

Do i contribute personally - 200%. And sadly no - Pipedrive is not connected with this project at all.
I can assure that my motivation here is not connected with money, as there are corporates with higher fees, but i am here because of impact. Global crypto hack seems so exciting & interesting challenge. Indeed it will take huge amount of energy - but final result for Dash community & participants could rock roof off ))
 
GrandMasterDash said:
I'm being a bit slow but can you please explain "Prices for participants + mentors: 135 000 USD".
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Absolutely. Thanks for a comment.

A - Independent jury will divide 150 Dash among best teams. Exact amounts will decided sunday evening. It can be - winner team 100 Dash, second place 30, third place 20. But i can be a bit differently, if teams are more equal.

B - Total of 30 Dash for 10 mentors, after receiving feedback from participants. Same thing - it can 3 for everyone, or a bit differently if participants are telling that this people was way more helpful then other.
 
demo said:
I dont like the word "elite" you are using.
Whenever I hear rumors about the elites, I expect the stupids to arrive.

#13
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Thanks for a comment. Yeah - no-one like this word. My team biggest motivation is organize event only for carefully handpicked participants, who are all super talented. And there are zillion hackathon every week - so we need to build difference image from first second. But i think we found better name.
Dashathon - Extreme Crypto Hackathon.
How this sounds?

QGwNiHv.jpg
 
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I like the basic idea but as others have said it is quite expensive. Especially the 150 dash for the best teams seems quite a lot.

And you said if you have to lower travel costs you could only focus on people from Europe. That seems totally fine to me. There should be enough capable people in Europe.

I'll see how it develops but I'd say I'm likely going to vote yes.
 
TheSingleton said:
I like the basic idea but as others have said it is quite expensive. Especially the 150 dash for the best teams seems quite a lot.
And you said if you have to lower travel costs you could only focus on people from Europe. That seems totally fine to me. There should be enough capable people in Europe.
I'll see how it develops but I'd say I'm likely going to vote yes.
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Wicked, thank you for a feedback! Very helpful.
Absolutely - 150 Dash seems a lot in first second. But if divide this into smaller pieces - lets say for 5 teams - from 10 to 40 Dash - this seems more reasonable, isn't ?

But i heard you, people. We will make some changes & will update new budget version very soon.
 
Okay - after changes - total budget decreased -25.96% from 392 900 to 290 889.
Total cut is - 102 011 in USD value.

Main things - less participants / less travels etc. + smaller prices for participants & mentors.
As cryptomarket is still super volatile, then new budget is calculated 1 Dash = 650 USD.

NEW total: 290 899 USD / 447.54

  • Participants & mentors flights/hotels/visa/insurance - 110 000 USD / 169.24 DASH
  • Catering/water/coffee/redbull + craft beers for Sunday evening - 17 639 USD / 27.14 DASH
  • Venue rent / building a hack setup & stage / video streaming / video clips + live band for sunday evening - 31 000 USD / 47.70 DASH
  • PR - Marketing & advertising activities - (mailing lists, FB, Linkedin etc ) - 12 000 USD / 18.46 DASH
  • Hackathon team payroll + project management + format fee - 39 000 USD / 60 DASH
  • Voting fee - 3250 USD - 5 Dash

Total without prices - 212 899 USD / 327.54 DASH

Prices for participants - 65 000 USD / 100 DASH
Prices for mentors - 13 000 USD / 20 DASH
 
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