Grant Proposal: HK Web3Sports

Community Grant Applications
#1

Grant ID: 86851j36n

Summary:

HK Web3Sports is dedicated to organizing Web3 sports-related events.

Our mission is to unite communities through sports activities, fostering stronger connections and promoting healthier lifestyles among individuals in the Web3 industry.
By prioritizing physical activity and social engagement, we strive to create unique and impactful events that bring together like-minded individuals and create lasting connections.

We organise monthly sports meet ups with Web3 project owners and individuals. Our events are unique since they include different sports like Running, Muay Thai, Surfing, etc.

Sports not only give a feeling of belonging but also promote a healthier lifestyle while forming meaningful connections in a less stressful environment, foster stronger relationships, build trust and improve mental health, productivity, overall health and well-being.

Our events are also less overwhelming as an entry point for people interested in Web3 than the usual, more formal events and we are seeing almost 50% of attendees being their first ever Web3 event they attend.

Our events always end up with what they call in Rugby “Third half”. After our activities there is time to chat, meet the others and present the projects that have sponsored us over food and beverages, sometimes even bonfires at the beach. This “third half” can last from 1.5 hours to a whole day hence reinforcing the ties between the participants and making them a lot more responsive to project presentations.

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Describe what your project does or is aiming to do in 50 characters or less:
HK Web3Sports is dedicated to organizing Web3 sports-related events.
Our mission is to unite communities through sports activities, fostering stronger connections and promoting healthier lifestyles among individuals in the Web3 industry.

If available, please enter a link to your project below:

How far along are you?:
We have been organising events since early 2023

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you’re making?:
I hold a Sports Science University degree. I have 20 years of experience coaching tennis to individuals of all levels, from beginners and kids to professional players, experience in organizing sports events and 2 years experience working for an infrastructure Web3 protocol.

Some of my experience include: Participating in the organization of surfing and beach sessions for individuals with Down Syndrome through the non-profit organization Love 21. Organizing Beach Tennis tournaments in Hong Kong. Owning and running “Surf Lombok Adventure,” a company that specialized in organizing multi-day surfing trips in Lombok, Indonesia. Events organiser, including corporate and private. Web3 Product Researcher since 2021

User acquisition, brand awareness and the feeling of belonging to a group go hand in hand.

Events offer valuable opportunities for networking and promoting one’s work, but they can also be physically and mentally taxing:

  • Late nights, long hours, and unhealthy lifestyle choices are common at events and can impact individuals’ health and well-being.
  • Connections made at events can be fragile and not always lead to fruitful and long-lasting relationships.
  • It’s important to balance the benefits of attending events while prioritizing self-care and seek out meaningful connections beyond the event environment.

Sports events provide opportunities for physical activity, which can counteract the sedentary nature of many events.

  • Improves mental health, reduces stress, and increase feelings of well-being.
    -Engaging in sports activities with others fosters stronger connections and relationships than traditional networking events.
  • Shared activities build trust, establishes rapport, and you learn more about each other’s interests and goals.
  • Relaxed and informal atmosphere making it easier to form meaningful connections in a less stressful environment.
    -Physical activity and self-care improves productivity at events and your overall health and well-being.

What’s new about what you’re making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn’t exist yet (or they don’t know about it)?:
We offer a relax and stress free environment where deeper conenctions are possible, hence improving the user acquisition in such events.

By having periodic events people belong to a group. We see a lot of familiar faces in every meet up we organise. If The Graph was to sponsor them they would essentially become the ‘The Graph’ events. They are obviously very different to any other events happening in Web3 at the moment and they are a lot of fun. People love them.

By becoming the ‘The Graph’ fun events, The Graph will get very well positioned in the HK community, which is growing very fast, hence having a bigger user acquisition than formal events where most people only go for free drinks ( I plead guilty )

Follow ups to the event are done constantly in our tg group. The Graph could become the go to solution in a rapidly growing market by creating its own community.

What’s your vision for how your project will impact The Graph and/or web3?:
Web3 events need to change. Every event has become a copy of every other event and connections and presentations made in such events are usually meaningless.

Moreover, if we want to onboard the next 1 Billion people into Web3, we need spaces where newcomers feel safe, welcomed and not overwhelmed by ‘big words’.

The health industry has only been growing in the last years and we believe there is a better way to showcase products and form communities. Our goal is to help web3 curious to have an easily accessible path, project owners to be able to form lasting relationships and users to feel they belong in the Web3 community.

How will you measure success?:
60+ attendees per event, 10k+ impressions across socials, community asking questions and establishing conversations around The Graph in our telegram group, attendees saying these are the most interesting events they have ever attended. Attendees coming back to every event we prepare

What milestones will you achieve in the coming weeks/months, with or without the grant?:
We are planning a Football event in 2 weeks time. We have already thought and scheduled our next events for the next 3 months being: Surf the Web3 (a surfing event), Crypto Friends or Foes ( a paintball event ) and a Web3 bubble football game ( bubble football event )

Please select who you think will benefit from your project?:
Other

How much funding are you looking for? (USD):
9000

Provide a breakdown of your requested funding:
We propose to organise 3 events in 3 consecutive months. A breakdown of each event would look like this:

Hiring of 4 coaches for 2 hours to make sure all activities are safe - $700

Hiring of equipment / venue -
$600

Drinks: including water and beverages for the after activity meet up -
$500

Food -
$600

Photographer for 3 hours -
$400

Creation of banners/flags
$100

Other items we might need depending on the event like tables, chairs, etc -
$100

Travelling costs -
$50

Total: $3050

Have you applied for (or already received) funding from somewhere else?:
No

Can you share any information about current/past web3 experience?:
I have been involved in Web3 since 2018 as a user and since 2021 as a Web3 Product Research. We have already organised 6 events in 2023

Why are you interested in contributing to The Graph and/or web3?:
By combining my two passions of sports and web3, I am dedicated to bringing together the web3 community through engaging and exciting sports events

Are you applying as a team or individual?:
Individual

What type of grant are you pursuing?:
Long-term (continuous)

Please select the category your project best fits into:
Regional Community




Primary Community Poll

Do you fundamentally support this grant application, knowing that the final scope and grant amount may differ from the requested proposal?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters




Grant Committee Vote

Do you recommend this grant to the DAO?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

#2

I’ve read through your proposal, and i’ve got a number of reservations
before I state my reservations can you specifically highlight how your event will benefit the Graph community
note you are applying for a community grant, not a general grant

1 Like
#3

Thank you for your suggestion! In the process of reviewing it, I still have a few questions, thoughts:

1/ I don’t really see the value in the value this could bring to The Graph. So, as my thoughts are that people will be tired and later on will clearly not be able to still negotiate something new for themselves.

2/ Also from what I’ve read and reviewed, this looks more like some kind of tourist tour with a cool time activity than a grant that is aimed at the community.

3/ Also the cost and the number of people who might be interested might not meet the expectations of the grant. And those who will join the community in the future.

4/ I would like to hear if you have received grants from different projects before and what feedback they have had?

Thank you!!!

1 Like
#4

I appreciate the unique concept of healthy side-events, it is something completely different from the usual web3 gatherings. However, as far as I know, there are no major graph-sponsored events planned in HK in the near future. Considering this, I believe this grant would be more suitable as a one-time side-event held in conjunction with the next major graph-sponsored event in the region.

Currently, I am uncertain about the value that sponsoring this grant would bring, aside from hosting a cool event.

2 Likes
#5

Thanks for the comment!

Let me try to reply to your reservations.

1/ I don’t really see the value in the value this could bring to The Graph. So, as my thoughts are that people will be tired and later on will clearly not be able to still negotiate something new for themselves

We have had a number of events during 2023 and people actually stay the activities for a long time. Our last event, last Sunday, started at 9:30am and most of the people left by 3pm. After doing some sport you feel energised and ready to discuss new ideas and ‘mingle’ with others over a couple of drinks.

The idea is to create a loyal ‘The Graph’ community that joins the events, talks about The Graph and uses is aware of the latest news happening. This, in turn, makes them more ready to use their services.

2/ Also from what I’ve read and reviewed, this looks more like some kind of tourist tour with a cool time activity than a grant that is aimed at the community.

Sorry, I dont fully understand this one. HK Web3 community is growing rapidly and we are trying to form a dedicated The Graph community

3/ Also the cost and the number of people who might be interested might not meet the expectations of the grant. And those who will join the community in the future.

We expect close to 100 people in the events in the upcoming months. It is hard to adjust the budget even more

4/ I would like to hear if you have received grants from different projects before and what feedback they have had?

We have had help from other projects like Router Protocol, DFYN, CryptoConnect and Drop System by sponsoring drinks, logistics, marketing material, etc. They all have shown interest in continuing but we want to take these events a step further and actually create a community around them. All the past sponsors are part of our tg group, please feel free to join and ask directly.

I hope this clears the doubts a bit. I am more than eager to hear how we can improve the project we are trying to carry on. Thanks!

@temitopeohassan I believe this answer might interest you too. Thanks also for your inputs

#6

Thank you so much for the comment.

Yes, you are right. There is not much The Graph talk in HK circles despite its community growing quickly. I personally use The Graph services in a number of projects Im involved in and would actually love to see a community growing around it, hence this proposal.

A one time event could also be an excellent opportunity and I am more than happy to resubmit this proposal as a one time event only if that is what the community prefers. We actually have events drafted for Coinfest Asia and Token2049 that could be submitted.

Anything I can do to improve the proposal please let me know. Thank you again!

@temitopeohassan this answer might also interest you. Thanks!

#7

Just adding this comment in case it is not clear how this proposal benefits The Graph and becomes educational.

  • We bring people together that bond over fun sports activities and become part of a closed group, like a family.
  • In the tg group all the tweets, medium articles, news and development from The Graph are shared ( they can be translated to Chinese too although Im unsure how much value this would bring tbh since mostly everybody speaks good enough English )
  • The Graph becomes the center of discussion in the tg group gaining exposure
  • The HK Web3 community is very dev heavy meaning that if those devs are exposed to all the The Graph info they will be more inclined to, at least, try the services
  • A member of The Graph could be present at the group ( or me having a direct contact with one ) to answer technical questions that I might not have the answer for
  • At the next events people get to know each other, exchange ideas and discuss about use cases, implementations and their experience using The Graph. This is only natural since The Graph is the other piece of the puzzle they are bonding around. New members obviously get pull into this conversations hence The Graph gaining more exposure.
  • New members start asking questions and looking into The Graph. Devs using the services ask about blockers they might have and brainstorm ideas.

I do believe the concept would bring exposure, user acquisition and educational value but of course, I would love to hear the thoughts of the community especially in 2 areas:

  • Is the concept good and I should resubmit the proposal? If so, how can it be improved to serve The Graph better.
  • If you believe the concept is just not good enough, why do you think so? In my mind this concept can only grow over time, but I could be biased

Thanks everyone in advance for your suggestions

#8

Hi @HKWeb3Sports ,

Thanks for submitting your grant application. Similar to some of the other feedback posted here, these events sounds like a ton of fun, but even after your clarifying replies it doesn’t seem like this would have a direct impact on The Graph (in my opinion). The impression I’m getting is that the these events aren’t so much for learning or building in Web3. But for web3 folks to get a break from learning and building by getting outside and active together. To be clear, that sounds like a GREAT time and I wish I had that in my area :slight_smile: I just don’t think the funding request ultimately matches the impact.

I know you said The Graph would be the focus of the Telegram Group but it seems difficult to ensure that. And also, there are existing Graph TG/Discord groups with strong community support that they can engage with if they want to learn more.

Also, in the application it says you are requesting $9,000 but the breakdown shows $3,050. Can you provide more details on that?

1 Like
#9

Hi there @Mr.1776 . Thanks for your comment.

First of all, I totally respect your opinion.

Regarding your questions, being outside of your normal environment is a great way to brainstorm and share ideas as it is to have IRL contact. That is the base of every event and why they exist in the first place. The actual landscape of events fall, most of the time, into having a panel and then ‘networking’ over drinks. This brings a series of problems:

1- The market is saturated with the same kind of events, becoming boring and leaving people not interested in attending
2- There is a lot of people who is just not interested in being in that environment.
3- They usually end late and involve drinking forcing you to decide between being not productive the next day or attending the event
4- People dont really bond since they just meet once at an event and the connections they make are, most of the time, superficial
5- By having formal The Graph specific events the attendees are either already users of The Graph or have an interest in it hence limiting the amount of newcomers learning about it
6- They feel overwhelming for some people hence making the entry barrier difficult to overcome (I have been part of this category for a long time)
7- Healthier, more fun events are totally needed in the Web3 industry

We solve these problems by lowering the entry barrier, facilitating a stress free and engaing environment to express your ideas and concerns, providing a fun activity that brings people that might not be interested or have not heard of The Graph in the first place, giving newcomers a less overwhelming option to learn about Web3 in general and The Graph in particular and creating a close community that bonds not just over The Graph but also over different activities while keeping always The Graph in the centre of the equation.

This, in turn, results in better, deeper conversations of those already using or knowing about The Graph, facilitates the expansion of The Graph to newcomers that perhaps attended for different reasons, educates those that have questions and doubts since it is a lot easier to express doubts to a group of friends that you know IRL than to the general public in a discord server. All these reasons help turning the group into a loyal crowd.

You said yourself you wish you had these events in your area. Do you think if you were part of such group in your area sponsored by The Fiddle (totally made up name) with people of such group talking about it constantly, would you be inclined to check The Fiddle out and learn about it, which in turn might make you decide they provide good services and eventually become a user? Would it be easier to ask John, Maddie and Michelle questions about it than asking TheFiddleftw#3467? Do you think you will be more inclined to support and get more involved in their initiatives? This is a totally open question.

About the budget. Every event requires a different budget, some are a bit over 3k, some a bit below. The budget presented is an example and I have just round the total budget of each of the 3 events down to 3k each, making the total 9k. Hope that clarifies it!

Thanks for the comment again!

1 Like
#10

Greetings!

The presentation of the project will be in the public-voice-chat channel on the Graph AdvocatesDAO Discord server on July 25th at 10:00 UTC. Entrance is open and everyone is welcome to come in and ask their questions during the presentation!

Thank everyone for your attention!

4 Likes
#11

Hello!

I indirectly mentioned the Advocates Program during the grant presentation. Here’s a link - Advocacy | The Graph to learn more about the program, what roles you can take and be active.

Good luck! If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. Here is my discord ID - doxe_0x

1 Like
#12

HI @HKWeb3Sports

Thank you for applying grant here, your idea is really interesting and innovative, it really can help people to have a better life style, but it maybe also reduce the time for people to negotiate and meeting and I have some questions after reviewed:

1: What exact marketing strategies you will use to attract people, I think we need people who really interested in Web3 and Granph

2: How you can let people who joined the event know Graph deeply and join our ecosystem.

1 Like
#13

Hi there @JonathanZy . Thanks for the comment.

1: What exact marketing strategies you will use to attract people, I think we need people who really interested in Web3 and Graph

What we want to create is a HK community centered around The Graph using sports activities to have a more engaging environment and to attract people that might, otherwise, feel overwhelmed to go to more formal events hence the 3 months period to kickstart it. I would perhaps disagree in needing people who is already interested in The Graph, but what is needed is to attract people who are not currently using The Graph and can learn and educate themselves about it, both devs, who will be creating subgraphs and querying data from the blockchain, and less technical people, who will learn about the importance of The Graph and perhaps find their way into becoming curators, advocates, etc. Obviously this is oversimplified and more detailed was discussed during the call.

2: How you can let people who joined the event know Graph deeply and join our ecosystem.

By creating the community around The Graph, it naturally becomes the center of all the activities around it. People will have a local place where news, updates and developments are shared as well as having a safe place to ask questions without being judged and brainstorm ideas with familiar faces that they know IRL since they meet once a month.

Perhaps this presentation clarifies some doubts: HK Web3Sports Presentation - Google Präsentationen

but it maybe also reduce the time for people to negotiate and meeting

Quite the opposite actually. Usually events are in and out kind of events with a very limited time to meet the people around and connections made are very superficial. Our events, since they happen during the weekend and out in the nature, become a day out for the group and most people stay for pretty much the whole day. We do some sport together and then gather around a few drinks and food ( sometimes a bbq ) giving the ideal environment to relax and have deep conversations. Also, by meeting regularly, people in the community know each other and become friends, facilitating partnerships, forming teams to work in ideas, etc

Thanks again for the comment! Pls feel free to ask if you have more questions

2 Likes
#14

Hi @HKWeb3Sports ,

I just wanted to say I watched the recording of your grant presentation and you have successfully changed my mind. :saluting_face:

Now voting in favor of this application. Really appreciate your vision and what you’re bringing to the web3 space.

Wishing you luck!

2 Likes
#15

That means a lot @Mr.1776 , honestly. Thank you, thank you :pray:t4:

#16

Thanks @doxe01.eth . Application submitted

#17

Thanks for the reply and answer

Is there previous event’s Video/Metrics which can show the success of the event.

Like how much organic people joined the specific discord,and contribute to the specific ecosystem.

2 Likes
#18

Thanks for the reply @JonathanZy .

There are videos and photos in our website https://hkweb3sports.com , just go to past events and click in one of them.

We have been running these events without a central theme, they have just been general Web3 meetups, and we are looking to take it a step further with The Graph in the center of the project to have a common theme to talk about, share updates and ideas.

In terms of people, our biggest one to date was a beach tennis tournament + beach bbq were ~75 people participated. This is a short video of it:

We only created our telegram group for the last 2 events which one got rain out and in the other rained until 2 hours before starting, and at the moment there are 44 people in it.

Our next meetup is ready and will be hosted when weather conditions look good on a Saturday (rainy season in HK) and will consist of a 7 a side football tournament with drinks and dinner after it. It will be capped at 70 people ( 7 teams )

#19

The majority decision of the Grant Committee concludes to not recommend this proposal for DAO funding. Please recognize that this is not a statement on the proposal itself, but rather an aggregated reflection by committee members taking into account a number of factors, such as alignment to The Graph and web3 ecosystem, budget available to support grants and prioritization relative to other proposed grants.

Below you find brief feedback brought up within the committee to not recommend DAO funding that may help you to submit successful grant applications in the future:

The proposal itself looks quite interesting, but not as a major event, but rather as a separate small one-off event. There are also no major graph-sponsored events planned in HK in the near future. But the grantee has shown a good and pleasant attitude towards the grant. So DAO would be happy to have such a person as an advocate.

Thank you for submitting this proposal, and you are encouraged to stay engaged in the Graph community. You are also welcome to submit new grant applications in the future with proposals that may generate stronger support from the committee.

Sincerely,
Graph AdvocatesDAO

1 Like
#20

Thanks again for all the replies and discussions. It has been a very interesting journey and very constructive on my side.

On a side note, if not in this way, I still think The Graph should think in consolidating their position in Hong Kong considering its very rapidly growing as a Web3 hub.

Thanks again! Always open to discuss how can I help to consolidate The Graph position in my area.

Have a great day everyone!!

2 Likes