Project Name
The Deep
Description
The Deep’s mission is to accelerate DeFi adoption and inclusion through advanced education. It is a high quality video educational series entirely created by women that deep dives into DeFi through educational walkthroughs and in-person interviews with protocol founding teams and founders.
Vision
As an all-womxn team focused on providing intermediate to advanced DeFi educational content, we aim to bridge the gap between technical documentation and approachable learning.
Our goal is to empower womxn and other underrepresented groups to take control of their financial future through education and inspiration. By promoting diversity and inclusivity in the world of DeFi, we can create a more equitable and thriving industry for all.
The Deep will specifically hire womxn to execute the entire series in order to support and fund womxn in the web3 space both in front of and behind the camera. We will also be providing a paid learning opportunity through a production internship on our first season, and aim to continue to expand this program for further seasons.
Finally, we aim to take the video production quality of our content to the highest standard (Netflix quality) as this is currently missing in the web3 thought leadership content space.
These unique elements are how we intend to elevate the content standard in the web3 space and make a lasting impact for womxn in DeFi.
Problem
The emergence of blockchain technology has opened up new opportunities for financial access and inclusion, but unfortunately, womxn users and builders are almost non-existent, particularly in DeFi. The lack of diversity in the tech and product levels of blockchain and fintech companies can create products that only cater to men, further excluding diverse voices from the industry.
As the industry grows increasingly complex, it’s not always easy to find accessible educational resources. Documentation for DeFi protocols can be highly technical and intimidating, especially for those who are just starting to learn. This can be particularly challenging for womxn, who may feel discouraged by the lack of representation in intermediate to advanced educational content.
To address this issue, we need more representation in leadership and technical roles in the blockchain industry. It’s important to recognize that womxn have an equal place in the world of DeFi and blockchain technology. That’s why initiatives like SheFi are so crucial in providing a safe and supportive space to learn and ask questions. But we also need more educational resources that are inclusive and accessible to all, regardless of gender or race, and that take education to the next level.
Solution/Product
FORMAT
The Deep is a high quality production (Netflix standards) video educational series that contains in-depth protocol deep-dives and interviews with protocol founding teams. Our first season will focus on 3 different protocols from a similar subsection of DeFi, with a focus on lending protocols or decentralized exchanges for the first season. Funding received through MGD will go towards capturing content for all 4 parts, but primarily towards parts 2 and 3.
PART 1 - includes standard solo-presenter-to-camera long-form video walkthroughs of each of the three DeFi project whitepapers by our host Ava, an analysis of their tokenomics structures and incentives, a history of their on-chain activity and achievements (if any), where potential pitfalls are, as well as an entire demonstration of using the protocol from connecting to disconnecting the user wallet. This will allow viewers to learn how to perform due diligence and analyze a whitepaper through the eyes of a womxn expert, as well as become comfortable seeing a protocol’s interface without taking the risk of connecting to it or investing directly themselves (which has proven to be a barrier for womxn and underrepresented groups in getting started in using DeFi platforms).
PART 2 - includes 3 in-person, 3hr deep dive video interviews with each protocol’s founding team (including the founder/CEO, chief technical officer, and the tokenomics or incentives architect, for example). Topics as part of the discussion will include the problem in the financial space they are trying to solve, why they feel their solution fixes this, why they chose the technical solution/blockchain/infrastructure and how did they go about making that decision, how did they holistically think through tokenomics and incentives, how did they work as a team, and what were some of the unexpected challenges they faced. These 3 interviews will be conducted in a private, quiet, home-like environment to create an intimate, safe, and comfortable space to focus on humanizing these discussions to get the most impactful and quality in-person interviews. Our host Ava will have equal contribution time to the discussion and debate, and not just ask questions.
PART 3 - includes a 3hr deep dive video interview of just the 3 founders of the DeFi protocols we interviewed prior. The environment in which it is captured will be the same, but the discussion will also include unique startup challenges in DeFi, DeFi culture, challenges as founders, as well as debating their unique approach and solution to similar problems that each protocol is trying to solve in the financial world.
PART 4 - includes behind the scenes footage and moments that we will capture during our planning process (as an all womxn team working on this project), and candid moments occurring on set, to include for social media promotion as well as other layers to experiment for tiered paid content.
Summary of the content for Season 1:
3 - 30-45m preliminary walk-throughs of the whitepapers and protocols (part 1)
3 - 3hr in-person long interviews with the 3 protocol founding teams (part 2)
1 - 3hr in-person long interview with the 3 founders of the protocols (part 3)
general behinds the scenes footage (part 4)
TIMELINE AND DELIVERABLES
Once funding is raised, we will schedule the first season shoot a few days before an in-person conference. The first content to be released will include soundbites for socials within 2 weeks after production. Our first walkthrough (part 1) will release 1 month after production, with the subsequent protocol interview (part 2) will release the following week. Each walkthrough (part 1) and protocol interview (part 2) will release every week thereafter, until the final founders-only interview will be released. We will then repeat this model with some timeline tweaks and improvements based on our learnings for a second season.
DISTRIBUTION
These videos (parts 1-4) which encapsulate the first season will be distributed widely on all current web2 media channels, including Youtube and anywhere you get your podcasts, and soundbites will be used on socials such as twitter/X, instagram and tiktok to drive traffic to the content. We will also be exploring promoting on web3 socials such as lens, farcaster and other on-chain solutions, as well as eventually building our own token-gated platform to access paid tiered levels of content we create.
BUSINESS MODELS
We are experimenting with token gated access to parts 3 and 4 of our format and other behind-the-scenes and making-of content that will be tiered as a revenue stream in order to monetize the project for future seasons. The Deep will capture its own subscription email list and user-base to monetize sponsorship and advertisement placements (similar to Blockworks and Bankless models), as well as potentially provide productions services for protocols through future seasons by creating a pipeline of engaging visual content for protocols to use with their communities, which further incentivizes participation to generate quality content for and about them to the space.
Validation / Traction / Progress so far
The genesis of The Deep dates back to July 2022 at EthCC Paris. Ava spontaneously and without resources organized three brunches aimed at bringing womxn together around DeFi. The initiative was called “Womxn in DeFi”. Each brunch addressed a specific theme such as regulation around DeFi, lending, and decentralized courts of justice, welcoming and hosting a panel with a crypto-specialized lawyer, the head of risk management from Aave, and the research team from Kléros respectively. Following these brunches, Ava created and led a Telegram group of 60 womxn around DeFi.
It wasn’t until January 2023 that Womxn in DeFi became “The Deep”, whose mission became to accelerate DeFi adoption and inclusion through advanced education. Between January 2023 and March 2023, Ava led two interviews respectively with the Morpho and Paladin protocol founders and with DeFi expert Token Brice (founder of DeFi France) in a 3hr in-person interview format, allowing her to dive deep into the protocol with its founder. The content was divided into three parts covering the founder’s personal story, the genesis of the protocol, and finally a detailed presentation of the whitepaper, mechanisms, and tokenomics of the protocol followed by a “how-to” functional component. (interview with Paladin protocol - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YHn-QVqfBo)
It was in March 2023 that Ava met Elizabeth through the SheFi community, and together they rehashed the season format and production quality standards, the vision for an all-womxn production team and intimate culture and shooting environment, and discussed future scalability, partnerships and business models. With this new purpose and through its execution of the first season, The Deep aims to elevate the level of educational content, set a new standard for content creation in the web3 space, and become massively accessible and consumable to new audiences.
Together in April 2023, they applied for the Gitcoin Beta Web3 Community and Education round, through which they raised ~$535 USD, and which recently went live again as part of Gitcoin’s GG18 round on Optimism: Gitcoin | Explorer.
Team
Ava Cavaglione - Host
Bio - Ava is the co-founder of Konkrete, a decentralized lending protocol that brings high performing yield from real estate to DeFi, and also leads research with Kleros on RWA (real world assets). Prior to working in web3, Ava had an entrepreneurial web2 background co-founding a B2B SaaS company in Proptech. Ava has an extensive real estate investment and operational management background having worked for Temasek (the Singaporean Sovereign Fund) in the asset management and investment team, where she worked on the consolidation of a $1bn portfolio across the UK.
Work on The Deep - Content Creator and Host.
Responsible for the content and structure of interviews, Ava is in charge of everything related to educational content aimed at facilitating understanding of protocol operations. She mainly handles the preparatory phase, which aims to determine the approaches to take with protocols as well as the substantive topics to address during interviews. She serves as the host of shows with the founders and founding teams of protocols. Her mission is to create high-quality content that will provide viewers with the tools they need to advance in their DeFi journey.
https://twitter.com/0xAvacava
Elizabeth Stuart-Morris - Producer
Bio - Elizabeth is an angel investor with Red Beard Ventures , Hustle Fund, Outshine Ventures, and runs her own web3 deal-flow to a community of private angels. She is a strategic advisor for business strategy, revenue models, and creative partnerships in the web3 space, and has been consulted by DeFi projects like PoolTogether, KineteX, Elk Finance and Savvy DeFi. Elizabeth is currently working on web3 communication for DeFi projects with Mailchain, an source end-to-end encrypted open source protocol. Elizabeth avidly pulse checks subcultures in the web3 space in order to find creative trends and to acquire a macro perspective to produce captivating content for web3. Prior to working in web3, initially in business development and partnerships roles, Elizabeth was a producer for unscripted, short and feature film content in Canada and represented key stakeholders as a film delegate at festivals all over North America and Europe.
Work on The Deep - Culture and Business Strategy. Work with local fixers and crews to capture quality content, manage on-site production execution and culture, manage the edit and curated final content and deliverables, and build the sponsorship subscription model pipeline and partnerships. Eventually she will work on the tokenized content layer and agreements for protocols to use the Deep model for paid production services.
https://twitter.com/esm_iam
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethstuartmorris/
Grant Amount Requested
$10k USD
What it will be used for?
Funds received will go towards the pre-production, production, post-production, and marketing costs for the first season of the show (parts 1-4) which requires a 2-3 day shoot in which we interview 3 founding teams and founders of 3 different protocols in-person before a global web3 conference.
The Deep is looking to secure $20k USD in total funding for our first season of production:
48% of which goes towards paying women (editor, camera person, sound person, production assistant, co-founders, marketer and designer)
23% of cost is equipment (camera, tripod, lighting, sound equipment rentals)
16% venue (insurance, cost of rental, craft)
13% marketing (social media ads)
Funds received through the Meta Gamma Delta grant will make a significant impact on our ability to gain momentum and receive additional support from sponsors or other ecosystem grants as needed in order to execute the show in the way we envision!
Additional Documents/Resources
We are currently live as a part of Gitcoin’s GG18 round on Optimism:
How did you hear about MGD’s Funding program?
Through the ethers of the ecosystem we’ve known of Meta Gamma Delta as one of the OG womxn in web3 communities and appreciate its work paving the way!