Proposal: Asia Pacific Working Group (APWG)
Title: Proposal to establish the APAC Working Group (APWG)
Status: Voting for the ESTABLISHMENT of APWG
Former Iterations: APWG Proposal Post edited based on feedback
Decision Process: Voting as per Proposed Decision Making Process
Authors: @lee0007 @pujimak_in @lanks @tudou
Created: 30 September 2021
Summary
We propose the creation and Q4 funding of an Asia Pacific Working Group (APWG) for the three months from 1 October 2021 ending 14 January 2021. As an independent and autonomous working group, we will work with the existing WG to position APWG as a growth engine for the Asia Pacific.
Strategic Objective: Deliver quantifiable value ā„ 5 x APWG Requested Budget = ~$770k quantified in terms of increased awareness, net inflow, and minimised costs
1. What has been done?
Recognizing that community and working group calls serve a vital function within Index Coop (IC) in June 2021, we sought the opportunity to ādevelop an APAC community and ultimately move towards establishing an APAC working groupā.
At the time, most IC community members were (and remain) located in the US and EMEA regions. Subsequently, calls designed to keep the community up-to-date, informed, and aligned were scheduled across US/EMEA time zones, making it challenging to engage the growing number of APAC community members.
In the weeks since inception (6 July 2021), APAC community calls have shown a steady increase in the number of participants and contributors. We had 11 participants at the most recent meeting on 14 September, up from an initial five now consistently upwards of nine.
2. What Worked?
Our relatively small and agile team have collaborated to:
- Identify and prioritise market entry points and align community members with these markets
- Identify trading habits, key media agencies and news outlets within the APAC market
- Support relationships with Institutional, High Networth, Venture Capital and Retail investors
- Coordinate APAC review and feedback for Index 2.0 workshops
- Promote IC products in key communication channels in the market.
- Language Ops contributors set up official WeChat and Weibo channels as part of the regional content marketing strategy to boost the visibility and reputation of ICās index products and serve as a funnel for talent, retail and institutional investors from Chinese-speaking regions.
- tudou WeChat (blog): Index Coop äøę
- tudou Weibo (microblog): IndexCoopå¾®å
- Other language activities to further expand the global reach of Index Coop products
- Establish a strategic direction and workflow (Notion) for delivering Q4 objectives
- Establish performance measures and Key Performance Indicators (KPIās) for the APWG in line with IC North Stars, Core KPIs and channel metrics
- Identified responsible contributors to ensure open, transparent and cross-functional communication.
3. What Needs Improving?
3.1 Accountability: we need to establish accountability for achieving product, community and contributor growth.
3.2 Communication: we need to formalise clear and open lines of cross-functional communication and share this responsibility.
3.3 Community: we need to strengthen a sense of belonging, coordinate and leverage the wealth of talent within the APAC community.
3.4 Planning: we need to plan for future development to capture the potential growth of deFi within the APAC region.
3.5 Compensation: we need to fairly compensate APAC contributors so that they can be held accountable for progress against our proposed KPIās.
4. What are you proposing?
We propose the creation and Q4 funding of an Asia Pacific Working Group (APWG) for the three months from 1 October 2021 ending January 14 2022. Key contributors will be responsible for alignment with current working groups to;
- Ensure clear communication
- Maintain alignment of purpose and goals
- Minimise duplication of effort/cost
5. What is the core problem(s) you want to solve?
Index Coop is experiencing hyper-growth both in terms of AUM and the size and spread of our community. This is a positive result of the high-performance and results-orientated culture we strive for - however, growth, for any organisation, is a double-edged sword.
If growth is constrained, we will fail to achieve our mission to become the Blackrock of Crypto. On the other side, hyper-growth could become unsustainable without the leadership, systems and culture required to support forward momentum.
The formation of the APAC working group is an effort to plan and prepare for the inevitable growth opportunities we see within the APAC region. To capture market opportunity, we look to provide solutions for:
5.1 Geographic Expansion: we hope APWG might provide proof of concept (PoC) for creating multiple, geographic-specific working groups, each functioning as independent and autonomous teams. We believe this form of organisation will facilitate efficient, effective geographic expansion.
5.2 Organisation Support Structures: as APAC activity expands, responsibility and accountability will fall to APWG instead of existing IC WG leads.
5.3 Timely Decision Making: We can seize opportunities and mitigate delayed decision-making due to time-zone differences with funded autonomy.
5.4 Market Growth & Development: in line with the North Stars and Core KPIs, we work to increase awareness, influence consideration and facilitate investment for IC products.
5.5 Community & Cultural Autonomy: we seek to identify, nurture and retain talented advocates and IC contributors, to increase autonomy for APAC contributors and reward results.
5.6 Efficient Communication: we intend to formalise, streamlined cross-function communication to ensure the APAC community is up-to-date, informed and aligned with ICās vision, purpose and mission.
6. Why is this worth addressing today?
A 2021 report by Messari on Asiaās Crypto Landscape shows the vast market opportunity APAC presents.
Leading crypto countries, such as China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have deep pools of liquidity, while other countries have a great potential to scale. The nature of traditional finance has played a key role in the adoption of crypto: capital controls pushed investors towards cryptocurrencies in China and South Korea, while low-yields pushed adoption in Japan. YE June 2020 Asia accounted for 43% of global cryptocurrency activity, or US $296 billion in transactions. Asia has an outsized role in the crypto markets due to a variety of reasons. Each country has its nuances, but factors include high penetration of public market investing, high-technology pedigree, the prevalence of WiFi, deep penetration of e-payments, propensity for gambling, and a high percentage of computer science graduates.
This region has substantial untapped potential in terms of both market development and the talent required to drive growth. Establishing the APWG is important to address today because;
6.1 First-Mover Advantage: as a leading DeFi Protocol in a market that accounts for upwards of 40% of global cryptocurrency activity, the first-mover advantage could be lost within months.
6.2 Geographic Expansion: bridging the gap between east and west ecosystems should be a priority for Index Coop, as we strive to make crypto easy and accessible. Our team seek to identify and foster new institutional and business development relationships in the APAC region.
6.3 Accountability for Growth: we need to formalise accountability, support growth and set clear objectives to grow the APAC market.
6.4 Decentralized Autonomy: we seek your trust signalled by granting us the autonomy to set direction in this region based on cultural alignment. We require funding to plan, coordinate and implement work and to research, identify and secure opportunities as they arise.
7. How will you address it?
Our first approach is to identify the work currently undertaken by APAC contributors and align with the strategies established by global working groups for the following functions.
- BDWG: Build best in class investor relations and leverage major stakeholders to drive results for the Coop
- IBWG: Progress APAC Custodian Token listing and investor resource development
- GWG: Develop region-specific content and events to promote, educate and raise awareness of our product suite.
- POC: Support the development of APAC contributors
To focus these efforts, we identified and prioritised metropolitan hubs to connect and engage with communities and deFi sectors.
East Asia || Primary Hub - Hong Kong, China
South-East Asia || Primary Hub - Singapore
South Asia || Primary Hub - Bombay, India
8. What impact will this project have?
8.1 Increase $Net Inflow through strategic Business Development & Institutional Business partnerships
- [KPI] # New IB BD opportunities identified
- [KPI] # Strategic Relationship established/progressed by IB BD team
- [KPI] $ Growth of APAC Net Inflow
8.2 Increase $ Aggregate Trade Volume by raising awareness of Index Coop Products through regional content development and events.
- [KPI] Increase APAC % of Trade Volume
- [KPI] # Event participants
- [KPI] # Impressions for content and events
8.3 Increase # unique holders & community contributor autonomy through effective coordination and alignment of peopleās skills and interests.
8.3.1 People: focused on the development and retention of contributors owls through the use of APAC onboarding activities
8.3.2 Organisation: focused on supporting new contributors to develop context, depth of market and product knowledge and empowering high-impact contributors through increased autonomy
8.3.3 Community: outreach focused on crypto native audiences such as young professional and university students
- [KPI] # Gold, Silver, Bronze level owls
- [KPI] Target 15% representation of women/non-binary contributors (3% above industry standard 1)
9. Request For Funding
|Catergory |October|November|December|Total|
|ā|ā|ā|ā|ā|ā|ā|ā|
|Humans Resource|
|Fixed|
|Work Group Lead INDEX|200|200|200|600|
|Core Contributor INDEX|160|160|200|520|
|Working Group Lead USDC |$4,000|$4,000|$4,000|$12,000|
|Strategic Contributions|$1,760|$1,760|$1,760|$5,280|
|Variable|
|Core Contributors |$11,520|$12,672|$13,939|$38,131|
|Community Contributions |$5,600|$6,160|$6,776|$18,536|
|Contributor Job Rewards|$1,200|$1,320|$1,452|$3,972|
||
|Reward Totals|$24,080|$32,912|$34,927|$77,919 + 1120 INDEX|
||
|APAC Community|
|# Core Contributors |4|4|5|
|# Active Contributors |5|6|6|
|Expected Operationsal Costs
|Business Development USDC
|Industry Conferences & Events|$1,500|$1,500|$1,500|$4,500|
|Partnerships|$1,500|$1,500|$1,500|$4,500|
|Product Growth Marketing USDC
|Product Marketing & Promotions|$5,000|$5,000|$5,000|$15,000|
|Content Creation|$1,250|$1,250|$1,250|$3,750|
|Outreach Events|$1,000|$1,000|$1,000|$3,000|
|APAC Multi-Sig INDEX|
|Gas Fees + Initial Set Up|$2,000|$1,000|$1,000|$4,000|
|Total Operationsal Costs|$12,250|$11,250|$11,250|$34,750|
|
|TOTAL REQUEST BUDGET|$36,330|$44,162|$46,177|$112,669 + 1120 INDEX|
|
We are requesting a total budget of 112,669 + 1120 INDEX allocated in the following currencies:
- USDC: $48,030
- Fixed INDEX: 1120
- INDEX at 20-day TWAP: $64,639
$77, 919 + 1120 INDEX contributor rewards to be held by the funding council and distributed to contributors as per the normal process.
$34,750 operational expense for the next 3 months ending 14 January 2022 and allocated to the APWG Multi-sig
10. Organization - How Will it Work?
As an independent and autonomous working group, APWG aims to organize and collaborate based on:-
1. Relentless focus: We will continue to ask ourselves what does/doesnāt work, what should we do thatās new, of impact to the North Star, Core KPI, and very specific to our region.
2. Trust & Action-Orientated: trusting in one anotherās ability to deliver, we work to Get Stuff Done (GSD) and interact with others on the understanding that everyone is busy driving our collective success
3. Radical Candor: As a diverse melting pot of cultures, we will apply the concept of radical candor to guide our approach when providing and receiving feedback.
4. Assume the Best of Each Other: Intent can be easily misinterpreted, especially online. Therefore we must always assume communication comes from a positive place of desire to help and connect.
5. Self-Identified Autonomy: we are taking an experimental approach to empower and build contributor autonomy by applying a framework for members to self-identify their level of autonomy in relation to six key interactions
10.1 APAC Core Contributors
- Irsyad Nazri (@pujimak_in ) APWG Lead
- Jack Lanks (@lanks) South East Asia POD
- Tudou Hou (@tudou) East Asia POD
- Vanita Kadam (@vanita) South Asia POD
- Renee Lee (@lee0007)
@Pujimak_in will lead the APWG. Projects and subregions will be led by a core contributor with a track record of impact. The working group members will be accountable to execute APWG objectives as per a self-identified level of autonomy. The APGW Lead will decide on the performance and payment of core contributors, while APWG Lead + Core Contributors will co-decide on the performance reward of subregions/project contributors.
10.2 What will you be doing?
- Plan, prepare and report to APAC community, and DAO calls
- Attend associated leadership & strategy calls and workshops
- Share IC vision & mission, goals & achievements
- Recognise, celebrate & share wins
- Develop forum posts and proposals for community consideration and feedback
- Analyse, measure and refine growth performance
- Report performance, refine, adapt or pivot as required
10.3 How will you interface with the community?
- Weekly Standup Updates
- Bi-weekly APAC community call
- A representative at a majority of western weekly standup calls
- AdHoc Community calls as required
- Publication of all expenses and contributor rewards
- #APAC Channel on Discord
- APAC KPI update in Monthly and Quarterly report
11. Our Commitments
We are committed to
- Index Coop Guiding Principles and will use them as a reference point during challenging conversations to promote constructive conflict resolution and guide purposeful decision making.
- Service to the entire Index Coop with our work.
- Open, rapid communication style knowing that clear, constant, public communication lifts the entire Index Coop community.
- Sharing progress and learning with the entire community and will ensure that anything we create is accessible beyond our tenure for future generations of owls to access & build upon
- Intellectual honesty, growth and improvement.
- Being open to feedback and will use feedback to improve our work for the benefit of the entire Coop community.
- Community and making Index Coop a welcoming, fun, and engaging community to work in!
- FOR
- AGAINST
