Pod for kickstarting Nouns branded B&M ventures?

NounsDAO NounsDAO Proposals
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Was thinking last night about value-adds to the Nouns brand, and wanted to gauge sentiment for this idea.

Would there be any interest in starting a pod that acts as a kickstarter for IRL recreational venues? Something like a loosely-defined franchising model where the branding and ethos of the proposed businesses are Nounish, and where a committee of ~five reviews applications and decides which to fund?

I think stuff like this could be funded on a case by case basis, but would be vastly more efficient if entrusted to a pod. For example, pod could start off with funding ask of 250 eth, with five 50 eth grants to be disbursed. Or even smaller, if need be: 150 eth split into 3 proposals. With any future funding dependent on status updates/success of in-pipeline projects.

To encourage creativity, I envision there wouldn’t be strict requirements around grant proposals, so long as it involves an IRL, brick and mortar presence. Could be a taco shop, a barcade, a hostel, taproom, etc. Certain areas could also be avoided if community feedback dictates (ex no alcohol, etc).

Vetting the applicants would be a top priority of the pod, to make sure the funds are properly spent, and that the branding is truly Nounish. But if done well I think establishing real life venues would be a massive W. For one, I think it would greatly increase the market value of Nouns. For those who travel regularly, having a Nounish hangout in 20+ cities worldwide, each of which feel like “home away from home” to you, is a pretty cool selling point. Nothing wrong with charity work, etc, but I don’t think those have impact in making people want to OWN a noun. And the impact for those initiatives is generally short lived, and not permanent.

In addition, it would be easy to envision businesses offering token-gated rewards mechanisms to community members - ex: a free daily taco to nouns holders, or a free taco on Tuesdays (only) to smaller communities.

I would love to help fund this decentralized, CC0, web3 version of a “franchise”. One of the pain points I foresee is, that its really hard to start - and run - a small business. Most lose money; most fail in the end. I don’t envision crypto people would have the time or patience (or see a big enough financial compensation in it for them) to do something like start a restaurant.

So for this sort of thing to succeed, I feel we would really need to reach out to the general public - likely people who have never even dabbled in crypto - to explain Nouns, and solicit proposals.

Anyway, just throwing these ideas out there - any thoughts/feedback appreciated. If anyone is interested enough and wants to fleshing this out for a prop, would be happpy to collab.

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gm, when I see your moose I always remember it was the Noun before we got our Ugly Box…

There’s a lot here of interest and I may come back after I think about it and read it again, but for now I wanted to make sure you know about these guys and this idea. It fizzled out as a prop for many reasons, but no doubt you’d like to know about them and potentially connect.

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Thank you! Wasn’t aware but this prop but it is exactly the type of thing I am envisioning. I will connect with them.

I would prefer to fund for a much smaller ask size though, and have the amounts be standardized (I think 50eth or 75k is a good starting point). It wouldn’t be intended to cover all costs; the proprietor would treat it as a partial kickstarter, while footing the remaining amount him/herself. After all, the goal would be to have a profitable establishment in the end, leveraging the Nouns brand and ethos. Everyone wins.

I think a pod is crucial for this - it would streamline things and be much more agile than sending individual props to the DAO one at a time, for varying asks, etc.

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Very interested in this and have quite a bit of experience in activations IRL for various brand partners and now building quite a bit around Nouns with nounworks.wtf. here is an example of something we did in november to help bring awareness to nouns and our Nounish projects to the global creative community at DEsigner con Nounworks at DesignerCon 2022 - YouTube We already built an extensive library of assets and would love to work with a team to build sustainable opportunities for our global builders.

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Love it. Existing output from nounworks would feed perfectly into the branding and merch supply for coffeeshops, etc!

Would act as a one-stop shop for a proprietor to stock shelves with stuff like tumblers, noggles, shirts, and not have to worry about sourcing it on their own.

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that is the idea
also this should be thouht of as a pop up experiece so there is no pressure to maintain year round

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Looks like Prop 254 just tackled this in a very well thought out way - much better than I ever could have proposed!

Huge respect to Jarmen, Maty, and Goldy, and especially 87Bones, for taking this on. An incredible team with an incredible vision. There is no doubt in my mind that what comes out of this will be the biggest value-add to nouns proliferation, by a mile.

If I can be of any help in any capacity, please feel free to reach out!

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+1 for me on this too

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