nouns-ar-lab-apps-retro-funding-and-more-experience-
Totally in favor of this candidature. The AR app is great, and we definitely need it on Android. I'm the co-founder of NounsWatch — the team developed an AR feature for our watches, which is amazing, and they didn’t ask anything in return. Their contribution goes beyond the initial scope of work, so I believe they should be compensated, and additional features should be supported for development.
Thank you, everyone, for reviewing our proposal. Remember to vote for the community, not for oneself, because we are building something for a larger group, not an individual. Just because you may not wear Versace (just as an example, it could be any other brand) doesn't mean they are not successful in a very saturated market. Let's think about a group, let's think bigger, let's get watch lovers to love Nouns as well. The watch industry is huge, and there's enough space for Nouns to grow in it. Nouns cannot only work digitally; in-real-life connections are much stronger. Nouns Watch will introduce more people to the Nouns.
@Nouns40, we appreciate your feedback on the proposal. It seems there might be some misunderstanding regarding the nature of the funding.
You mentioned, 'this funding alone is $169k in revenue that they would otherwise not have.' In reality, this funding is meant to cover $169k in costs that we will have by doing this project. If we have this cost (or half of it as you suggested) would make sense investing in our own brand right?
This project is centered around Nouns, and we are asking Nouns to fund it in exchange for our extensive expertise in design (15 awards at the time of writing) and 12 years of experience in design, production, marketing, sales, after-sales support, not to mention our own brand image. This will be done for 6 months (minimum), and we are asking a team compensation of 18k for that (not 169k).
We are betting on the sales of the watches to generate income for us, and it’s important to know they are not net income, we will need to pay 10% indiegogo and credit card fees, 10% returned to Nouns, 20 USD shipping costs per watch, 20% paid advertising and 7,7% Swiss taxes. So, it's safe to assume that 50% of the sales will be our income per watch sold.
The bottom line: Is it worth to invest $169k USD and produce a world's first product in the NFT/crypto world that will place Nouns in front of more than 10 million, or is it not?
First and foremost, thank you for your feedback, which helps us better understand the concerns raised in the proposal.
One very important point that everyone needs to understand is that we don't view giving 888 watches to the DAO as a success. In fact, it's quite the opposite; this represents the worst-case scenario in the proposal. Let me explain:
When we initially conceived this project three months ago, we calculated the expenses for production, development, and marketing to introduce the watches to the public and make them available for sale. Our conclusion was that if the DAO funded the production and marketing costs, while we would manage the sales, it wouldn't make sense for the DAO to sponsor it. Moreover, there would be no risk on our part if the watches didn't sell.
So, we explored a second option: we'd request sponsorship for production, marketing, and labor expenses and commit to returning the funds to the DAO. However, a problem arises with the payment process—how would the DAO receive the funds back? We considered creating an NFT, where people would need to purchase the NFT, and the funds would go directly to the DAO. The downside of this approach is that it would exclude non-crypto native buyers. Additionally, if we didn't sell all the watches, we'd face another situation with no risk on our part.
This led us to the third option we decided to pursue. We're asking for the budget required to cover Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) production, labor, and shipping costs. In return, we plan to allocate some of these watches for marketing purposes, essentially using watches as part of the marketing budget instead of money. However, the decision about who should receive these watches remains open. While we could make that choice ourselves, we prefer to have the DAO make that decision. We will handle the physical distribution; simply tell us where in the world to ship them.
We have some influencers and YouTubers who are eager to review the watches. The DAO can choose to sponsor the project, and we will distribute the watches to the right individuals. This is an ongoing effort from our side. As an example, here's a review of a product from my brand on a YouTube channel with 2 million subscribers, and the video garnered 21,000 views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMpK8jDv9I8&t=42s
Our goal is to create a watch to sell, not to be distributed within the DAO. The distribution aspect serves as a marketing strategy. We are building a cc0 watch brand, with the intention of working on it for the long term. However, we cannot invest our own money in production if we do not have ownership of the brand; this exposes us to the risk of working for nothing. Nevertheless, we are convinced that we are working for a just and worthy cause.
If the project is funded, we will initiate pre-sales through our website, which is already online. We will accept various forms of payment, including crypto and fiat. If we manage to exceed the MOQ in pre-sales, we will produce more watches using our own budget. We will continue to promote the brand and generate sales. We will also produce more watches based on demand.
We will build the first cc0 watch brand!
Some clarifications on doubts and comments have emerged:
The watch market is enormous, catering to both high-end and low-end consumers. Just take Daniel Wellington, for example; the guy made a fortune with it, and everyone knows this watch (that's just one example).
Our go-to-market approach remains the same as we've been doing for 12 years – online sales directly to clients, Facebook/Google paid marketing. Due to the lower prices of Nounswatches, it will be easier to distribute watches to influencers and YouTubers (with whom we already have direct contact) to promote them.
The 888 watches will be given to Nouns as a token of appreciation for their support in reaching the minimum order quantity (MOQ). It doesn't make sense to invest in the production of a brand that is not under our umbrella without the brand's assistance.
Nouns don't need to take IRL action. We are managing it from our end. If there has been no traction until now, it's time to change the strategy and team to achieve it.
If we don't try, nobody will ever know.
In the end, even if everything goes poorly, and we can't sell watches or bring more attention to Nous, at least the 888 community members can FLEX and tell time in a more #Nounish way.
nounswatch-nouns-iconic-timepieces@discopipe.eth mistake on the proposal. Shipping should be mentioned once, 25,000 USD External Labour, Taxes. 30,000 USD Packaging and Shipping. The 30k covers the packaging and the shipping of 888 single watches, if we ship all together is much cheaper, but we will be handling all the single shipping to all holders, which is not easy neither cheaper unfortunately. We are putting the costs lower as possible, at DWISS each shipping costs 40 USD for example. Glad you liked the design. We can make them available to print for sure, but only the case, will be missing movements, hands, screws, glass and dial, these cannot be printed.
nounswatch-nouns-iconic-timepieces@sqx10.eth
there's a market for sure, we are doing watches since 2011 and this is the cooler ever I think. Check this video I posted about the watch: https://x.com/rsmiranda/status/1714557390241059120?s=20