FWB Radio

Team: Raihan Anwar, Naomi Menezes

Abstract: Greenlight launch of 2 Seasons (24 Editions) of FWB Radio for $105,000 total (USDC + FWB blended). 

Description: This proposal will focus on scoping out FWB Radio. A new iteration of radio built on community and collaboration. It will focus on high quality content, and be artist led and curated with partners. Its key components will be mix-style audio and a product/website built to support its unique distribution.

Impact on broader FWB community: FWB's earliest community growth has spawned from music. The community is home to artists, influential tastemakers and more --- many of whom are looking for ways to give back to the community, and bring in other cultural icons. The successful launch of the radio vertical gives us the opportunity to:

• engage existing members
• invite new artists for collaboration
• build rails for the best practices in the web3 music space. 

A native radio station format gives the FWB community as well as potential new members an easy touchpoint to understand and texturize our community's unique culture. It will generate an archive of evergreen content, be a meaningful way to reach out to cultural figures for collaboration and form a tangible benefit for existing token holders while driving awareness to new members. There is a lot of flexibility for partnership explorations within this format which could be used as promotional and revenue tools for FWB. Additionally, FWB Radio will sync with existing FWB properties (Works In Progress, Gatekeeper) and web3 partners at large (Metalabel, SoundXYZ, Catalog) to provide further cultural resonance.

Details:  FWB Radio will contain three components to start, with the ability to iterate and build on top of. 

In brief, these steps will be: 

1. Radio Product: A web3 native website built to support live streaming audio and house the archive of shows. The product will emphasize the quality of mix vs 24/7 availability of music. We will go in depth to the product functionality later in this proposal. 

2. Curatorial Line-Up: The radio will not have residents; but rotating curators for set amounts of time. Once the product is built, we can work the cadence of curators on top of this. 

3. IRL Events: We will work with the schedule of already planned events and activations to book our existing FWB Radio curators into our IRL events. 

These are the core functions of the Radio on its own, and it can be amplified with existing editorial, design, product and social support FWB has. 

RADIO PRODUCT We want to rethink the delivery of traditional radio for our owned product, with a focus on highly curated, quality mixes as opposed to 24/7 on-air programming. This approach will make the radio station function like a magazine versus a traditional station -- with monthly themes rotating curators assigned for set schedules. We can explore the ideas of 'seasons' within the radio brand, as we do with the DAO as a whole. 

A key part of this will be in the delivery of the mixes. Every week a new 4 hour mix will be available for public consumption on a loop, building a habit with our listeners and ensuring these mixes become listenable and a manageable part of their day. The mixes will be archived into a token-gated section to access for asynchronous play after this. 

In order to emphasize the thought and quality curation behind this, we would want to build 'liner notes' within the player. Where the DJ can write notes and thoughts behind their selections at the timestamps versus voicing them over on the mix. Think of how the SoundCloud comments section function currently. 

In addition to liner notes, each mix will push visual and aesthetic boundaries on how a traditional mixed set can be consumed with compiled imagery, photos, sounds that the curators select to further create textures to these individual sets. Verified community members will also have the ability to post notes/comments on mixes. 

SELECTORS/DJs FWB comprises many subcultures, and it makes sense to tap adjacent communities to curate the daily mixes. 

Our first cohort of artists will be community members, from established musical creatives (Jacques Greene, Latasha, Rowan Spencer [Public Records NYC]) to adjacent community tastemakers (Ishan's metal hour. Eric Hu overdubbing mechanical keyboard noises to jazz.)

From there, our goal is to establish monthly residencies with culture makers from party promoters like Hot Mass to non-music focused creatives like Martine Syms, and cultural institutions such as 032c. We want residencies to feel like an expression of their music taste and community from a personal standpoint, and will give these lead curators a budget to work with their friends and partners to bring their own mixes and stories to the monthly set up. We have the chance to really tap into promotional cycles with this approach -- offering an artist with a new release to use this as a promotional channel or maybe partnering with a movie's music supervisors ahead of a release for a deep dive on the sounds of their film.

IRL EVENTS  There is a natural transition between this virtual curation to an IRL event. We can have a party with a relevant partner when their monthly mix series drops in one of our DAO cities, or book featured artists within the lineups for one of our tentpole events. This can always be an additional value proposition when talking to partners. 

PARTNERSHIPS Partnership opportunities exist between Initiatives within FWB as well as outside brands and partners.

WIP x FWB Radio  As a part of the FWB Editorial arm, Works In Progress has quickly established itself as a unique voice in the Web3 space that is driven by thoughtful exploration of what's possible. In collaboration with FWB Radio, WIP will collaborate on editorial aspects of the project. Possible avenues for this collaboration include assisting with defining overarching curatorial themes, identifying opportunities for crossover between FWB Radio themes and WIP pieces, and assisting with the editorial components for the mixes themselves. 

FWB Radio introduces yet another way to contextualize the FWB community to outside brands and partners who are values aligned with our community, similar to our Digital Events or Editorial streams.

TREASURY FRAMEWORK:

• The entire listening experience will be token gated to 5 $FWB, driving token velocity and another touch point for our community.
• Select components of FWB RADIO sets will be available to purchase as NFTs with splits to contributing parties.
• Curators compensated in $FWB to ensure continued propagation of FWB token to cultural creators and maintainers.

Budget Overview: Selectors to be paid in $FWB. What's provided here is the full-season cost for Digital Events, inclusive of production, host compensation, design costs, and contributor compensation. Full 6 month budget proposed here.  

All guests and hosts are given the option of donating their compensation to the Benefactors program.

KPIs:

• Prove Radio as a driver of FWB cultural and brand awareness: Offering a culture first way for people to understand FWB
• Expand Membership Base + Token Velocity: Offering a new avenue for low-threshold membership and involvement.
• Expected Cadence: Four releases a month

Program Leads: 

• Raihan Anwar (FWB)
• Naomi Menezes (NTS, Clubhouse, Super Deluxe, Soho House)

Timeline: Launch in April 2022 to EOY

Benefits:

• Culture for culture's sake. As FWB continues to build in technical spaces, it is paramount we continue to create and produce culture through music, a strong tentpole of our community.
• Increase lower tiered access points for future community members contributing to token velocity 
• Great way to engage potential new community members in creative and cultural spaces
• Begin to explore an FWB first way of music NFTs

Drawbacks:

• Other use cases for funds
• Not value additive enough