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Earlier this month, Azuki partnered with content creators in the space to launch a Researcher in Residence program. This has piqued my interest as I haven’t seen this type of effort come from a consumer-facing web3 brand.
But first, what’s a residence program?
When my mind thinks about ‘X in Residence’, I immediately think of EIRs, or Entrepreneurs in Residence.
EIRs are typically temporary roles held in venture capital, private equity, or accelerators for accomplished entrepreneurs. These individuals provide the firm and their portfolio companies expertise in the form in a strategic and advisory capacity to support operations and growth.
Dem (Head of Community + Product Manager at Azuki) shared more details about the residency program they’re building, drawing inspiration from Google’s PhD fellowship program as well.
What does the program look like?
The researcher in residence role is not a full-time role and their efforts and research are independent from Azuki
The content that the researchers publish are publicly available
Chiru Labs (Azuki’s parent company) may request specific topics for research
There is an agreement of neutrality in research, and sometimes the conclusion may not reflect Azuki’s views. There is a separation between the work produced and the goals of the Azuki brand.
The program has launched with two Researchers in Residence so far, Elena and Wale. Both have made announcements with their partnership.
If you take a look at Elena and Wale’s Twitter, you can notice a few things over time:
Their output is consistent and focused
Their primary content channel is Twitter
They specialize in research and information-rich Twitter threads
Elena focuses on daily recaps of what has happened in web3. Eg: A thread on what happened yesterday in the space.
Wale focuses on case studies and top-of-mind topics in web3. Eg: A thread of his opinions and predictions regarding the marketplace royalties situation with Opensea and Blur.
As a result, both individuals have built dedicated Twitter followings looking for their insights and summaries on a regular basis, with Elena currently at 38k and Wale at 27k followers.
So why would Azuki want to create a Researcher in Residence program outside of getting additional third party insights about various web3 related topics?
Have you used Twitter before? If so, share or subscribe!
As we can tell, both Elena and Wale have Azuki profile pictures. Associating these two individuals and their content reflect upon the Azuki brand as well. In a way, this is an indirect form of influencer marketing, but one that is not a cheesy with #ad or #sponsoredpost.
It’s more natural and I would argue that there is a more impactful form of association happening.
Wale’s announcement also included a notable event. He changed his Twitter profile pic from a RTFKT Clone to Azuki. This is a big deal for anyone that associates their profile picture with their brand identity, especially if you have a lot of Twitter followers.
The Azuki team has consistently had a strong Twitter content presence, with each team member leaning into their voice.
Zagabond: Short, quotable, ‘mic drop’-esque lines
Cygaar: Technical case studies and smart contract audits
Dem: Azuki community content and memes
Me every Saturday: I won’t join the cursed Simpsons parade Me after 2 whiteclaws:
Locationtba: Grade A web3 shitposting. The thread below is brilliant, it’s not what you think it is 😂
With the addition of Elena and Wale, Azuki’s content mindshare increases and covers more bases.
As alluded to earlier, Azuki now has dedicated research partners. If they wanted to research or better understand a topic, they could tap Elena and/or Wale to help to help enrich their understanding or provide a different point of view.
It’s easy for teams to surround themselves in an echo (echo, echo, echo 😂) chamber. Working with different POVs can help those chambers echo a little less.
Creating this program not only directly helps the Azuki team and brand, but also the community as well. It shows that the team is actively looking to recognize, support, and partner with community members. Both Elena and Wale were already Azuki community members, so they not only understand the NFT and web3 space, but the Azuki community too.
Dem’s announcement thread provides some insight to how they’re integrating beyond Twitter:
What does this look like when put into a meme format?
Though it’s not the same residence format, there are other instances of this community curation and partnerships happening.
Floor: The NFT portfolio tracker app is aiming to be more than a hub for keeping tabs on your NFTs. They have been integrating a robust feed of content in the Discover tab of their app.
Christine Hall @christine_hall
MVHQ: One of the premier alpha groups has their own magazine, featuring content from the community.
Metaverse Headquarters @Metaverse_HQ
Though not the same, we also see a version of this existing in the form of financial grants. Individuals, teams, and companies can apply for grant funding to finance the development of projects an efforts utilizing a specific protocol/blockchain/company’s technology.
Blockchain Grants provide an overview of this ecosystem with over $10 billion and 1,897 projects funded 🤯 With the theme of residencies, we could consider this a version of developer in residence.
If I were to take this a step further (uh oh, TPan’s going off the rails), scholarships are a form of a residency program as well. Scholarship programs are typically focused on supporting underprivileged students, and share parallels. Students in Residence, anyone?
Bringing it back to web3, what if…
Sound created an artist in residence program?
Mirror created a writer in residence program?
Manifold, Opensea, or Blur created a creator in residence program?
Each residency program would require a unique set of considerations and parameters, but there could be something here 🤔
As you astute readers have probably noticed, I haven’t really talked about the title of this piece, Community in Residence. When we take a step back from the specific examples I’ve highlighted, the real opportunity at hand is partnering with the community to create a 1 + 1 = 3 outcome. For each company, brand, or effort, the angle and goals of empowering and partnering with the community is different.
If you find the right angle, there may be an opportunity to partner with the community in a new way.
Last week Manifold (a web3 creator platform) shared updates to their burn capabilities.
For those unfamiliar with how creators are using Manifold, learn more here and here.
TLDR on the thread:
The Burn-Redeem app has historically only supported ERC-1155 burns. Now ERC-721 can be burned as well
There is customizability on what can be burned:
All tokens
Specific token ID ranges (eg: 1 - 100)
Specific token IDs (eg: 1, 35, 582)
Additional features already exist on the smart contract and will soon be implemented into the Studio app
Multi-token burns
Paid burns
Airdrops
Burning external (non-Manifold) contract tokens
Cross-spec burning: Burn a 721 for a 1155 and vice versa
This feature set will continue to feed the innovative mechanics for creators on Manifold and beyond.
I look forward to seeing what comes next 😉
See you Thursday!
Collect this post as an NFT.
