Author: Helmass, Review: Pepperoni_Joe
Hello everyone,
I am writing this today as a follow-on to Pepperoni_Joe ‘s community management initiatives post from a few weeks ago to provide some analysis on our New Joiners data.
The purpose of this post is to:
- A) understand the background and interests of those who are drawn to The Index Coop.
- B) identify opportunities reduce the pressure on the wider community and core contributors.
Quick Context
@Pepperoni_Joe has been leading the new joiner call for six weeks now, with over 100+ people completing the new joiner forum, 65+ attending the New Joiner call and 40+ people providing feedback on the session. I think anyone who has attended a new joiner call (myself included), can attest to the amount of effort Joe has put in to create a welcoming environment for those interested in learning more about the Index Coop. Keep up the great work Joe. 
TL;DR
- The Index Coop is full of active promoters who are engaging and recruiting new community members.
- New joiners typically come from Traditional Finance backgrounds and are U.S. based.
- The new joiner call is being received well and is having a positive community impact.
- There is pent-up demand for new joiners looking to contribute and a desire for more structured processes around how they can get involved.
- There is still an opportunity for the Community team to improve by sharing more pre-reading and promoting a “a walk before you run mentality”.
Who is finding the Coop and how are they finding us?
New joiner profile
East Coast TradFi. The people most interested in the Coop come from traditional finance backgrounds (38% of total new joiners). This is followed by individuals with backgrounds in marketing and development, representing 21%/16% of new joiners, respectively. 33% of the $INDEX curious are located on the East Coast (likely due to the TradFi heavy background).
Thoughts and considerations:
- There is plenty of opportunity to diversify our team and marketing channels towards non-U.S. markets.
- There is a clear market fit for people who like our product, people who have had a background in traditional finance and are comfortable with index products. This has some interesting implications on the value of target marketing (@LemonadeAlpha , @puniaviision ) towards a more financially literate customer base. These are the first adoptors that intuitively understand the product and can be promoters for the Coop.
- An opportunity exists to proactively engage future members with backgrounds in in-demand Coop functions (ie: engineering/development, legal, graphic design, etc… - see Engineering and Product Constraints)
How are people finding the Coop?
At the moment, our New Joiner calls are only marketed for people who have
- Found their way to our discord
- Introduced themselves in the channel
New joiner question: When asked, “how did you hear about the Coop?” The bulk (~85%) of engagement is driven by Twitter, Word of Mouth, and online research.
High-level insights:
- That the Community is full of promoters. This begs an interesting question, do we want to reward those individuals who actively promote and draw in members, potentially via a referral scheme?
- It shows that Twitter is powerful not only as growth tools but also a means of engaging and drawing in new community members to the Coop. This finding suggests the Community team should be far more active on Twitter, using it as a core pillar of Community building.
- Finally it shows that building a strong network of partners and advocates across DeFi is helping funnel people in our direction who recognize the quality of what we are doing in the IC.
New joiner question: When new joiners were asked, “did any contact with an existing community member motivate you to join the Index Coop?”, responses pointed to BD/Community management promoting the Coop the most.
Thoughts and considerations:
- Key promoters on Twitter and through word of mouth were responsible for a substantial number of new joiners’ involvement. Broadly speaking, the top Index Coop “promoters” are involved in business development and community management. There is an opportunity for more aggressive promotion of our New Joiner call to grow our community and contributors, especially via Twitter.
- If we were to go down this route, there is a need for robust mechanisms to handle an increase in new joiners wishing to contribute. This post articulates our thinking in this regards, New Joiner process next steps (ask on WG leads) - #2 by jdcook, and hopefully can help address (@LemonadeAlpha’s considerations highlighted (Upcoming initiatives in Community Management (+extras) - #4 by LemonadeAlpha).
Why New Joiners Engage with The Index Coop
Three common themes emerged when New Joiners were asked, “what would you like to get out of the Index Coop”.
- Learn: I would like to learn new things, meet smart people, and find ways to contribute to the growing DeFi space.
- Contribute: Want to get involved and help develop indices.
- Community: I would like to join a thriving crypto community that has a solid product and seeks to change the world through DeFi.
These themes are aligned with Index Coop’s purpose and seem to show that our DAO naturally draws people who are a “good fit” to help support our growth and expansion.
Impact of the New Joiner Call
Positive community engagement. New joiner call participants are asked to fill out a feedback form post call. The first part of this form is focused on how well the New Joiner call built understanding and desire to contribute, based on the following New Joiner questions:
- The session has helped me understand how Index Coop works, and how best to get involved…
- The session has helped me understand Index Coop’s different products…
- I am more likely to contribute as a result of this session…
Here are the results showing the scores for these questions, and how these changed through the weeks as we developed the questions. Disagree and strongly disagree options were included in the questions, however garnered zero response and were excluded from the charts below.
High-level insights:
- The new joiner call helps provide context and direction for those joining the Index Coop.
- New joiner calls are excellently received - and considered hugely valuable by attendees
Sentiment analysis on new joiner call feedback
Methodology: SA was conducted on the open-ended New Joiner questions: 1) I would have found the session more valuable if… And 2) Please share any feedback or reflections on the session. SA was scored on a week-over-week basis, with each response reviewed individually to channel check accuracy.
I think SA helps normalize feedback that could be biased to the upside (ie. individuals won’t join the new joiner call without a baseline of support for the Coop).
High-level insights:
- New joiner feedback is generally positive.
- The narrow variance in sentiment (st.dev - 6.7%) underscores message consistency.
- Data is still limited, however, it provides an interesting starting point for future analysis.
Highlights from new joiner commentary:
- It was great to put faces and voices to those who are making Index a successful organization.
- The people more involved in Index did a great job of being great representatives.
- Covering a whole lot in a short time. Maybe figure out a way to break it up into a series.
I would have found the session more valuable if….
Feedback here highlighted one of the key considerations we are trying to account for within the Index Coop. Specifically, new joiners want to know how they can contribute. We should provide this answer, while minimizing disruptions.
Before jumping in. I believe it’s worth bringing up previous feedback from the initial forum post as this serves as one of the motivators for conducting this analysis. (Upcoming initiatives in Community Management (+extras) - #10 by BigSky7) Specifically, community members voiced concerns around how an onboarding initiative (like the New Joiner call) could disrupt contributor activity. In my opinion, this is a valid concern. I think this is best summarized by @BigSky7
- We are talking about a few different things here and blurring definitions - maybe this breakdown is helpful. Community Member: Owns $Index, participates on Discord and the Forums, helps brings Index Coop products to larger audiences, attends some calls, etc. Contributor: Active member of a working group, attends all meetings, doing meaningful non-trivial work for the Coop, has spent a significant amount of time in the community etc. This separation is relatively fluid. Generally, everyone starts as a community member and then progresses to greater and greater levels of involvement until they are making a meaningful contribution to an established working group. - bigsky
Here are a few examples of what new joiners are asking for:
- A greater understanding of what each team is doing and what WG short/medium/long-term goals are. This is understandable, given the New Joiner call is the first step within our new member onboarding process.
- There was a focus on impression mining & business development which makes sense as that seems to be the easiest way to contribute and dip your toes. But as someone who wants to contribute to investor relations or the investment committee there wasn’t too much content.
- Less material, more action items.
In response to this feedback, our main changes to the New Joiner Call going forward will be:
- Setup up a more detailed onboarding process for each Working Group with key points of contact identified - New Joiner process next steps (ask on WG leads)
- Establish a “bronze owl quest channel” to match people who want work, with those who have work to give - Optimizing Discord with "Roles" - #11 by Pepperoni_Joe
- Develop detailed pre-reads to share with New Joiners in advance of the call. This will be further improved with @mel.eth and Joe’s relaunch of the Community handbook/ Reduce the amount of general context given on the call (deliver this via the preread) but focus more on what we can do differently.
- Continue to make clear the difference between a community member and contributor and emphasize the “walk before you run” mentality.
Future Work and/or Bronze Owl Quests
- Create a framework to identify talent with Index Coop desired backgrounds (engineering, legal, design, etc.).
- Define clear onboarding routes for each Working Group.
- Conduct analysis around forum/discord engagement to better understand the threshold of knowledge required to successfully contribute within the Coop.
- Split out New Joiner call and run a “Introduction to Index” webinar with key community members talking to different sections.
- This can be shared with new joiners in advance of the session to get them up to speed on our products - thus reducing the overall time of the session and enabling a focus to be more towards contribution.
Really like the bronze owl quest to get new community members engaged and contributing straight away till they find their feet.