Fan-Led Content Lab

Fan-Led Content Lab

Author: crabtree

TL;DR there’s a lot in this this proposal on how to build this product, but the main takeaway is us building a resource that lets fans decide what basketball content and stories they’d like to see.

What Is It?

This proposal is about moving us closer to the fan through the two lens they are most attracted to:

1. Content

2. Their own voice

My thesis is that the NBA and similar sports league digital relationship with fans is consume -> consume -> consume. And it definitely works, but only for the brand.

But what if the relationship flow was to consume -> participate -> expand -> contribute -> consume?

What if the majority of a media effort was ‘fan-led’? If anyone is in a place to solve this puzzle it is Krause House. That’s the idea, the first fan-led decentralized media effort.

We introduce compelling formats, gather interest from fans on what they want to learn about or attend next, produce quality content, then gather more interest and ideas, and keep continuing this cycle.

Team

• crabtree
• greg (separate proposal as lead developer among other projects)

Intent + Strategy + Project Details

All product prototypes: Figma Link

All email mockups: Figma Link

Interactive prototype: https://content-lab-app.vercel.app/

Externally this is about generating interest and adoption to a wide basketball audience. Building demand is the name of the game, no other way around it. Can Krause House generate a real content waitlist and enthusiastic voting environment?

Internally, delivering high quality content is the #1 priority. We want to use our process as a narrative to NBA teams when pitching, so let's lean into what we can be good at.

The goal is to uncover stories, not regurgitate old ones. I think about us helping the fans surface the stories behind the basketball. The output has to be established at a high level from the start, so quality > quantity matters most in early days.

In addition livestream/live content is a format we believe can provide early wins due to the production load being taking on by the stream, thus moving fan decisions towards what happens in and around said stream.

Crabtree will lead producing the winning requests and projects voted on by the fans.

Greg will lead building the product, and the decisions on where to improve as it evolves.

We are starting with a simple email signup to be able to contribute and vote, and then deliver results and drive users back into the product. Email will also be the way to drive users into the ‘Submit’ portion of the product.

Eventually we will build a referral system that awards votes for bringing in fellow fans.

Philippines Rollout

Testing the Philippines market is one of our early goals to understand 1) what user acquisition methods work and 2) which formats have high engagement with international fans.

We believe many of the lessons here can be applied to U.S. and Canada markets as we continue to scale the product.

In addition this effort will compliment the groundwork our team has already put into this country’s fans.

Format

These are the first round of concepts, not final GTM plans.

Krause House Stories: A series around the original, the unique, and the in-depth tales of Basketball

Stories Voting Portal: Link

Novelty, novelty, novelty. This format calls for producing stories with high-end production and in-depth research. This is our chance for fans to produce mini-versions of ‘30 for 30s’

Our working plan is to produce at monthly intervals, or have voters reach a threshold that moves a ‘Story’ into production (e.g. we will produce XYZ Story if it receives 1000 votes).

Long Term Vision:

Show the ability to crowdsource and produce narratives that can compete with top media groups.

Immediate Distribution:

Use Twitter, TikTok, IG and YouTube for releases.

Insert discussion on topics in threads, as well as promoting voting in niche communities and threads.

Player Spotlight Stories

Player Voting Portal: Link

Community submits and votes on individual players to be spotlighted each week. The output is telling the story of a mix of up-and-coming, role, or unique players…less around stars and over-discussed players.

Potential coverage for each spotlight, all segments voted on by the community: current overview, high school, college, draft, progression to now, video breakdowns, advanced stats, etc.

This is critical for educating the more casual fan, domestic or foreign, to the player's origin.

Also shows the DAO’s capability to dive deep on a full range of players (a.k.a. any team’s roster).

Lu Dort example I spun up in 15 minutes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1q9dj5kzivu8c8/lu%20story.mp4?dl=0

Long Term Vision:

Show ability to educate any fan at any interest level about a player that intrigues them (but doesn’t have time to do this on their own).

Immediate Distribution:

Use Twitter, TikTok, IG and YouTube for releases.

Use personal Twitter to insert discussion on players in threads, as well as promoting voting in niche communities and threads.

The Afterparty/ The Morning Show

Postgame Voting Portal: Link

Community submits and votes on a ‘late night show’ or ‘morning show’ concept for game(s) each week. We will test both formats.

When teams win, their fans are still on their high, all they want to do is go to some digital forum and rewatch and reignite that high. The IRL version of this is ecstatic fans going to a post-game bar and just talking it all out with other fans. The same happens with a loss.

Fans vote on which plays or themes to break down after the games are completed. Think of this as a KH instant analysis reaction show.

Colorful recaps are exactly what casual fans want. This is a really important way to engage fans who don’t watch full games but want entertaining stories from the field.

In the early days focusing on marquee matchups could be a preferred route, but we should trust the voting structure. It could be that fans prefer traditional recaps for the biggest games of the week, and enjoy alternative efforts for lesser games.

Long Term Vision:

Become a top alternative to post-game consumption of an NBA game.

Immediate Distribution:

Use Twitter and Instagram to push and poll during a game, driving visitors to contributing on the site.

Krause House Gameday (livestreamed games)

Player Voting Portal: Link

Host Voting Portal: Link

Community submits and votes on an individual livestreamed game hosted and commentated by KH each week. The world by which the fans consume the game is changing. We are beginning to see a lot of these alternative broadcasts that are taking place...It's becoming an interesting way to watch the game and hear the game and learn about the game.

The approach is to let fans vote on the game and specific content to build up the week.

There is the opportunity to bring on different voices and Jerrys for live game commentary, even having different voices for different segments of the game. Think ManningCast evolution over the past few years.

In the early days focusing on marquee matchups could be a preferred route, but we should trust the voting structure. It could be that fans prefer traditional streams for the biggest games of the week, and enjoy alternative streams for lesser games.

Long Term Vision:

Become a top alternative to live consumption of an NBA game.

Immediate Distribution:

Figure out the best streaming option that is enjoyable and legal! Promote across channels.

Other prototypes:

Archive Page

Login Lightbox

Submit Page

Creators

Once we establish a baseline for formats, this can be a channel to further engage basketball creators and tap into their reach. A basketball creator/influencer can jump in to host a livestream, create a video with their style, and more….there’s even potential to have fans vote on which creator they want to interact with.

On the high end of creator spectrum, we have the option to white label a portion of the product for branded voting experiences. Example: In The Lab are the hosts of our weekly livestream → a vote on which game they are breaking down → their audience is introduced to KH and continues to vote on livestream concepts.

Reporting

To start each weekly interval (Sunday or Monday) stats can be reported to the DAO: new signups, total signups, allocation of votes on different formats, social stats on the outputs, etc. I can also make this a reporting segment during Town Halls.

As we evolve the product we will be able to report on concepts such as referrals, power users, and other product trends.

I want to again emphasize this is about starting small and right. Growing adoption week over week is bigger than a massive attention grab in Day 1. If we get enough reps and keep improving the quality there are opportunities for outputs to take off.

Outcomes and Value Propositions for Krause House

Fan-Owned

This is Krause House. A step in continuing to become ‘The Internet’s Home Team’ if successful.

Media

New subscribers, followers, and reach are always critical to KH efforts. Over time this should snowball to increase those counts.

We can also use this to attract voices and personalities if they enjoy the format, thus a vehicle to amplify their efforts we simultaneously benefit from. Early groups we will pitch will be Ball Is Life and In The Lab.

A side effect of these efforts is finding out what content is most engaging once it's out in the wild. This allows us to rapidly innovate on winning content while receiving submissions on new types.

Acquisition

Users entering the product allows us to figure out their value over time outside of an email in a CRM. Can they be tied to MyJerry/ Heat Check efforts? Can they be pushed to KH Discord and Jerry’s Digest? Can this lead them to bigger decisions that benefit KH?

Brand

It’s another project to show our elite range of web3 innovation, media ability, and product building.

Krause House can continue to insert itself as a respected basketball powerhouse.

What This Is Not

Highlight Reel Series

• This isn’t our north star. Competing with in-house media teams and the many basketball social accounts chopping up videos for views is the wrong battle to fight.

Similar Ongoing Efforts

• This is not meant to mirror Around the Association or Krause House DAO podcasts. I consider those more macro media efforts. It’s also not a podcast.
• This effort takes a wide range of input for detailed output: It's a wide entrance, small exit like a funnel. So deep, it's picked up on radios in tunnels - GZA

Statistics Play

• Not in the business of entering the social stats war. We can properly introduce them in the project but trying to be the leader in this space is a rat race.
• Fun example of how low the bar can be: Statmuse vs BR

Hot Takes, Clickbait, and Low Quality Humor

• We’re not trying to pump out lower quality content via memes, clickbait, obvious poor stances to rile up certain fans, or anything else to attract users the ‘wrong way’.

Development

MVP Acceptance Criteria

• User can create an account using their email
• User receives 10 initial votes on account creation
• User can burn their votes to vote on potential content
• User receives 5 new votes every Sunday evening
• User can view created and upcoming content
• Admin can add and remove content to vote on
• Admin can upload created content

Post-MVP Enhancements

• User can invite a friend via email, if they accept both users receive 10 extra votes
• User can tweet about a vote with the click of a button (and receive a vote multiplier for doing so)
• Marketing-oriented landing page
• … and much more

Funding

Build/Content/Marketing Costs (crabtree)

$5,500 USD/month & 3,500 $KRAUSE/month for 3 months

• MVP product management, copy, and design
• All content production
• Email rollout
• Livestream and/or live show hosting
• Daily marketing and fan engagement
• Estimated 25-30 hours/week to prove out beta.

Development (greg)

Greg will be writing a separate funding proposal for his work but will be the dedicated developer for this project.