Cycle 4 was more conservative that we expected. In support of API3’s commitment to build Airnode right rather than rush it out the door, we chose to hold off on some anticipated expenses and instead carry a sizable budget over into Cycle 5.
Cycle 4 was a blessing as it allowed us to learn and optimize the team composition so that we can operate leaner and make room to create new roles that will help drive Airnode adoption in Cycle 5.
The Cycle 4 proposal for reference:
Cycle 4 Deliverables
Publish updated vision and mission. Overhaul website to reflect updated vision and mission.
We did not publish the updated mission and vision for the public in Cycle 4 but we did a lot of work on it, including extensive discussion and debate. The refreshed mission and vision guided website messaging, writing, and even had impact on product development.
While it’s still a work in progress, here is a preview of the refreshed API3 vision and mission.
API3 Vision
We envision a world where businesses can easily deliver their services on the blockchain and any developer can create trustless, real-world, business-critical applications and decentralized data feeds, making the world a more equitable place, where entrepreneurs and enterprises can collaborate and create value on a level playing field.
API3 Mission
Our mission is to connect Web2 APIs with Web3 to unlock the tremendous potential of trustless applications that interact with real-world businesses, and truly decentralized off-chain data feeds.
These principles are behind the messaging new messaging we began using in Cycle 4 such as referring to API3 as “The Web3 API Economy” and Airnode as “The Web3 API Gateway”.
Extensive community engagement and outreach activities with a goal of minimum 300% increase in community activity.
The community engagement efforts were overall slower than we had hoped in Cycle 4. We’ve identified several reasons and will take these as lessons learned to improve in Cycle 5.
- The community engagement initiatives program took longer than expected to plan and launch. It kicked off at the end of September and we are now wrapping up the second community contest.
- We are working hard to build the developer segment of the API3 community but the production Airnode release has taken longer than we anticipated making developer engagement more challenging.
- It took longer than anticipated to coordinate and approve the announcement of the Bitcoin Bankathon which was a catalyst for increased community activity.
We made a concerted effort to increase community engagement on the API3 Discord, which is designated as the primary place for the API3 community to chat. We measured a 205% increase in Discord joins from July to October and a 375% increase in Discord messages.
We began an effort to increase social media activity from previous cycles which resulted in increases across the board on Twitter.
Expand community from being Telegram-centric to being distributed across the API3 Forum, Discord, Reddit, and Github.
The API3 Discord has been designated as the primary place for the API3 community to chat and is now featured prominently on the website as “Community Chat” instead of just “Builder Chat”, and ahead of Telegram.
We launched the API3 Forum just before Cycle 4 began and are working hard to establish it the place for more complex, longer term discussions.
We still have a ways to go on both of these, as well as increasing Reddit and Github community activity.
Add German/Germany as a language/geography target audience.
The API3 German language community, lead by @Marcus, was successfully launched in Cycle 4. German community channels are now running on the API3 Forum, Discord, Twitter, and Medium.
Dramatically increase publicity and earned media on major news publications.
We ramped up our PR efforts in Cycle 4, resulting in a more steady stream of attention from notable publications. A forum category to track/index and discuss API3 publicity from notable media has been created here.
Earned media has a cumulative benefit and we will continue to build on this initial traction in Cycle 5.
Deliver regular industry and case study promotions that showcase API3 and Airnode.
Our industry focuses for Cycle 4 were Parametric Insurance, Escrow Contracts, and Open Banking.
The Open Banking use case will be showcased on the public stage in November at the Bitcoin Bankathon. Planning and organizing this event was a large undertaking during Cycle 4.
Create high quality multimedia content including video and animation.
Much of this work is still in progress and will be delivered during Cycle 5 but some was published during Cycle 4. For example:
Consistent narrative that clearly articulates the benefits and differentiators of API3.
The API3 narrative was guided by the updated vision and mission. Examples how we’ve clearly articulated API3’s differentiators can be seen on the Home, Airnode, and dAPIs pages.
Go live with API Provider partner marketing
We launched the Web3 API Search feature on api3.org. This is a critical step to promote API3 Alliance members, helping developers find and use them.
In addition listing Web3 APIs, we also launched the API3 Alliance Member Spotlight series to help API providers successfully promote themselves to Web3 developers. For example:
Co-marketing program that leverages the power of our partner network to raise the API3 tide.
The API3 Alliance was launched early in Cycle 4 to help promote API3 data providers to Web3 developers and to help API3 Alliance members efficiently promote API3.
https://medium.com/api3/the-api3-alliance-125-api-providers-on-web3-via-airnode-37073df9825d
The power of this alliance model can not be understated. With almost no coverage from traditional media, the API Alliance announcement resulted on the most brand mentions of Cycle 4, even more than the Bitcoin Alliance press release about El Salvador.
Cycle 4 Financial Report
The Cycle 4 marketing spend was intentionally decreased from what was planned in order to conserve funds as we build toward the production Airnode release. As a result we will carry over $79,736.11 into Cycle 5.
USDC Income Statement 2021-08-01..2021-10-31, valued at period ends
|| Aug Sep Oct
=============++======================================
Revenues ||
-------------++--------------------------------------
API3 DAO || 406,038.05 0 0
-------------++--------------------------------------
|| 406,038.05 0 0
=============++======================================
Expenses ||
-------------++--------------------------------------
Advertising || 4,728.73 1,000.00 2,000.00
Bonus || 382.51 0 0
Content || 5,500.00 4,500.00 23,075.33
Events || 8,141.89 6,699.57 16,913.23
Exchange || 0 1,000.00 0
Grants || 67,850.00 72,710.00 48,800.00
IT || 494.40 1,320.59 961.84
PR || 16,500.00 15,000.00 16,005.00
SWAG || 0 210.27 0
Shipping || 0 0 25.53
-------------++--------------------------------------
|| 103,597.53 102,440.43 107,780.93
=============++======================================
Net: || 302,440.52 -102,440.43 -107,780.93
USDC Balance Sheet 2021-07-31..2021-10-31, valued at period ends
|| 2021-07-31 2021-08-31 2021-09-30 2021-10-31
=================++================================================
Assets ||
-----------------++------------------------------------------------
API3m || 0 294,461.93 194,869.05 86,529.85
Old Wallet || 878.43 873.43 873.43 873.43
-----------------++------------------------------------------------
|| 878.43 295,335.36 195,742.48 87,403.28
=================++================================================
Liabilities ||
-----------------++------------------------------------------------
Credit Card || 8,361.48 5,377.89 8,225.44 7,667.17
Operations Team || 5,000.00 0 0 0
-----------------++------------------------------------------------
|| 13,361.48 5,377.89 8,225.44 7,667.17
=================++================================================
Net: || -12,483.05 289,957.47 187,517.04 79,736.11
ETH Income Statement 2021-08-01..2021-10-31
|| Aug Sep Oct
==========++==============================================================
Revenues ||
----------++--------------------------------------------------------------
Exchange || 0 0.264021451567 ETH 0
----------++--------------------------------------------------------------
|| 0 0.264021451567 ETH 0
==========++==============================================================
Expenses ||
----------++--------------------------------------------------------------
Txn Fees || 0.093522870915 ETH 0.046064130000 ETH 0.113502900607 ETH
----------++--------------------------------------------------------------
|| 0.093522870915 ETH 0.046064130000 ETH 0.113502900607 ETH
==========++==============================================================
Net: || -0.093522870915 ETH 0.217957321567 ETH -0.113502900607 ETH
ETH Balance Sheet 2021-07-31..2021-10-31
|| 2021-07-31 2021-08-31 2021-09-30 2021-10-31
=============++================================================================================
Assets ||
-------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
API3m || 0 0.020000000000 ETH 0.284021451567 ETH 0.106239051191 ETH
Old Wallet || 0.626686877516 ETH 0.585630248370 ETH 0.585630248370 ETH 0.585630248370 ETH
-------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|| 0.626686877516 ETH 0.605630248370 ETH 0.869651699937 ETH 0.691869299561 ETH
=============++================================================================================
Liabilities ||
-------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erich || 0 0.082466241769 ETH 0.115425921769 ETH 0
Manu || 0 0 0 0.031524885000 ETH
Ryan || 0.010000000000 ETH 0 0.013104450000 ETH 0.032725987000 ETH
-------------++--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|| 0.010000000000 ETH 0.082466241769 ETH 0.128530371769 ETH 0.064250872000 ETH
=============++================================================================================
Net: || 0.616686877516 ETH 0.523164006601 ETH 0.741121328168 ETH 0.627618427561 ETH