[Proposal] Introducing Dash to Serbian IT community through Startup Grind

[nebojsa]

Hi all,

After I got pretty good suggestions on my pre-proposal thread that I posted a couple of days ago, with few changes and adjustments, I made an official proposal. Please take look and let me know what you think.

Proposal Overview

This proposal is meant to introduce Dash to the business startup community on monthly Startup Events in Serbia. The objective is to energize and
educate the startup community of entrepreneurs about Dash and how they can add
value through submitting proposals. Consider this a test case for a worldwide
introduction of Dash to the entrepreneurial startup community – talented and
motivated individuals that Dash could greatly benefit from!

Who am I?

My name is Nebojsa (Linkedin Profile) and I am an Event Manager with over 3 years of experience, mostly organizing events
oriented to startups. Currently, I am Chapter Director at Startup Grind Belgrade
and I am organizing monthly fireside chats with startup founders and VC funds
to show what it takes to be an entrepreneur to people who wish to start their
own startup or startups who seek investments.

My previous experience includes:

- TEDx ZemunED (Serbian Version)
- Startup Camp - Camp oriented to students where they face challenges like which they would face in real world as startup founders
- Brain Hunt - Jobfair dedicated to connecting developers and start-ups
- Binfluencers - Co - Founder of NGO dedicated to making free programming schools in order to attract more people into programming
- CESA Awards - Co- Ambassador for Serbia 2016 - RegionalStartup Awards


What is Startup Grind?

Startup Grind (www.startupgrind.com) is the largest independent startup community, actively educating, inspiring, and connecting 1,000,000
entrepreneurs in over 250 cities. We nurture startup ecosystems in 105
countries through events, media, and partnerships with organizations like Google for Entrepreneurs.The cornerstone of our global community is monthly events featuring successful
local founders, innovators, educators, and investors who share lessons learned
on the road to building great companies. Founded in Silicon Valley, Startup
Grind has hosted 5,000 fireside chats since its founding in 2010. To date,
Startup Grind has helped millions of entrepreneurs find mentorship, connect to
partners and hires, pursue funding, and reach new users.

I reached out to Startup Grind back in 2015 in order to start my own chapter (www.startupgrind.com/belgrade) to inspire young people to start their own startup and to help increase number of startups in my city and so far
I connected over 100 people, 4 startups and helped over 50 developers, grad
students to find appropriate jobs for their skills. Three startups have been
founded with the help of connections they made at my events.

My previous speakers are from:
- Devana Technology (now bought by GoDaddy),
- Embassy of Israel (they are close partners of Startup Grind Belgrade),
- Speed Invest (largest VC fund in Austria),
and this month my guest is
Michelle E. Messina
(author of “Decoding Silicon Valley: The Insider’s Guide.”), you can see all of
my speakers in the link above.

On the other side, my plans in the future for promoting and proposals Dash includes:

1st step (which is this proposal meant for) - Introducing Dash to local community
through Startup Grind events for 3 - 5 months

2nd step - Starting Dash independent and dedicated meet-ups

3rd step - Introduce Dash to other Startup Grind chapters in 100 countries and 250
cities worldwide in 2018.

My stretch goal is to get Dash Core CEO Ryan Taylor to speak at the Startup Grind
Global Conference 12-14 February 2018. (https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/#/). I believe we should be the Main sponsor of this event which has over 3000 attendees from Startup/IT world and
list of past speakers include major startup/VC companies (which you can check
on the website mentioned above): Airbnb, Google X, Twitter, Nest, Instagram, Lyft,
etc.

Also, check out the great interviews on YouTube channel!


4th step - Organize Dash-oriented Hackathon (2nd/3rd quarter of 2018) after Evolution is
released and speak to Dash Core team to be mentors for the hackathon.

In meantime, I made a Dash Facebook group and page in order to provide more
information for locals and I wanted to make Serbian dedicated website for Dash,
but Mark Mason gave me a better idea - to contact Tungfa so I can translate
Dash website to Serbian which will I do as soon as I get access.

What is sponsorship meant for?

This sponsorship will cover:
- Venue
- Stickers
- T-shirts
- Brochures
- Badges
- 2 Rollup Banners
- Catering
- Marketing and design
- Dash writer and social media manager
- Dash give away $2 to 25 people
- Filming and video editing
- Exposure on Social Media platforms- both on Startup Grind and on new Dash Facebook page I started (Linkedin, Facebook,
Twitter, Meetup), newsletter, thank you note at the event, Sponsorship space on
official Startup Grind Belgrade website.
- Facebook ad campaign
- 5 Dash proposal reimbursement

Requested funding for October is 21.465 Dash based on current price of $320.

If there is some funding left or Dash price increase, it will go to funding Event for
following month.

If the price of Dash decrease, I will add the needed amount from my own budget.

Let me know your opinion in the comments below and I will reply ASAP.

 

[nebojsa]

-----UPDATE-----

Hey, guys, I've been pretty active in the previous period, setting up everything for this proposal.

Here's what has been done so far:

- I secured cooperation with ICT Hub (https://icthub.rs), one of the largest tech communities in Serbia, which comprises of a largest co-working space, VC fund and a Corpo Lab (digital innovation services for large corporations - possible cooperation with the corpo sector in Serbia). Their amazing venue and their vast community will be the cornerstone of the project.

- I gained the support from Smart City Challenge Serbia (https://smartcitychallenge.rs), the first Smart City accelerator in Serbia which has a special focus on blockchain smart city solutions this year.- I've started discussing the possibilities of implementing Dash as a payment option in local cafes and restaurants with experienced lawyers, and there is big potential to implement it (there are several places in Belgrade that accept bitcoins as the payment option). Several cafe and restaurant owners I've talked with are very interested.

- I already initiated the preparation for the first Startup Grind event that will serve as the first Dash info session. This includes: considering possible speaker(s) and dates, gathering the logistics team and preparing the design for the goodies (t-shirts, stickers, brochures, etc.)

- The Dash Serbia Facebook page has been created and I that is the first step towards building the Serbian Dash community online. I am planning to invest some money for the promotion campaign over the upcoming weekend.

- I talked with several influential people in the Serbian tech community regarding the whole thing. They liked the idea and have agreed to support it once we launch the project. This would give us huge additional visibility once we start, through two of the most visited online tech magazines in Serbia.

- Last, but not least, I contacted Tungfa regarding the translation of Dash.org website to Serbian language and I am currently working on it.

I was updating this on Slack channel and since I am aware that most of MN's are not often on Slack, I felt it was a good thing to write an update here as well.

Will keep you posted with more updates soon!

Regards from rainy Belgrade