GET July ’22 — Growing a Global Protocol
A Business Development Update.
For this blog we will be zeroing in on the topic of ‘biz dev’ as the cool kids call it. It’s been a little while since we (directly) touched on the ins and outs of growing the protocol and there is plenty to share, so we’re happy to get into it.
Where things stand
We are still wonderfully lucky to have a steady stream of incoming leads and all-round curiosity into our services from around the events industry. The NFT ticketing use case remains one of the most widely recognized solutions within the space.
Quick sidenote — but did you spot the coverage of GET integrator GUTS Tickets becoming ‘Preferred Supplier’ of the massive Ziggo Dome venue? If not, check it out:
With that said, it’s safe to say that it is still very much a developing market. One of the main points of critique we consistently hear from prospects who have spent time exploring the NFT ticketing landscape is that hardly anyone is able to facilitate serious events.
This is not a surprise to us: throughout the years we have faced many instances of folks underestimating the complexity of ticketing. Hell, we underestimated it ourselves when we embarked on this crazy mission 7 years ago. The truth is that in order to deliver a usable (and reliable!!!) service, there are a million different things to take into account. From load balancing the servers to payment integrations, to providing wireless internet on location to dealing with last-minute changes — oh, and let’s not forget refunds. Not to mention the countless fascinating edge cases that pop up from end users ‘in the field’ that you could simply not imagine.
Bottom line is that to really unlock the full potential of ticketing, it must be taken seriously.
Thankfully, this is only a matter of time. An exceptionally obvious match from our perspective has always been to facilitate the ticketing for NFT and blockchain focussed conferences. Although there are still way too many Web2-using organisations in the industry for our liking it’s safe to say that the collective awareness of usable NFT ticketing solution is growing.
This is certainly helped by a first wave of conferences opting to walk the walk, such as:
We are happy to see more of these events where the thought leaders and shot callers of the blockchain / Web3 space are exposed to viable NFT ticketing solutions.
Of course there are many more interesting clients from all areas being added to the roster regularly by all integrating partners in the GET ecosystem. One example is Mike Williams (Sorted Management) for example, who recently signed up with integrator GUTS Tickets for a show during Amsterdam Dance Event.
Oh, by the way…
Just in case you were curious; the GET Protocol ecosystem is expanding in bigger ways as well.
These last two months alone we have signed four new ‘white-label’ integrating partners.
As is always the case, they will be introduced to you when they are ready for it, in accordance with the organisation’s wishes and/or go to market strategy.
You should also know that as part of our onboarding process we show these integrators some channels and stats pertaining to community support and curiosity and we regularly hear positive feedback from integrators about the level of involvement seen from community members on an operational level. Your efforts do not go unnoticed.
Where things are headed
Besides the steady incoming interest, we are gathering an increasingly clear ‘lay of the land’ within the global event space. We are identifying more specific market & geographical opportunities that we will pro-actively be pursuing in the time to come.
An update from the Digital Twin — From Business Developer Simon
It has been a little quiet publicly regarding the ‘Digital Twin’, however BD (Biz Dev) is in many talks. There is a clear interest from two angles. On the one hand there is the end user, in this case the event organizers — often sport clubs. They mainly show an interest in NFT’s because of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Nonetheless, in the world of Football clubs, for example, there is a lot of cautiousness. Something often mentioned is the NFT campaign of Liverpool, which was met with mixed results. The people at clubs we talk to need to convince the board or MT about the ‘true utility’ of NFT’s. NOT as a direct cash cow but an investment in the future of community building. (Something we very much agree on.)
On the other hand we have the ticketing companies. Our contact list is expanding exponentially, between event organizers, museums, theme parks and sport clubs who are all asking about NFT’s.
Everyone is exploring the potential, and we happily sit down with all parties, not only educating them but also brainstorming on potential applications that fit in with their existing solutions and strategies.
Football and the Digital Twin
In April ’22 we registered at Reimagine Football, an innovation platform hosted by KPMG. Stakeholders, also panel, were the KNVB, AJAX, Johan Cruijff ArenA, UEFA and the City Football Group. The English Football Association was invited to learn more from this innovation platform called Reimagine Football. Topics covered during this edition were progression, sustainability and out of the box approaches.
We applied with our pitch regarding the Digital Twin in Football and made it to the final cut of 10 finalists. The UEFA and the FA especially showed interest in our product and we had some good conversations. As everyone knows, UEFA recently experienced a horrible Champions League final in France. The outcome of the investigation, guided by the France government, concluded that ticket fraud was one of the main causes of people with verified tickets not being able to enter the stadium. The problems during the Champions League, and subsequent final confirmed the path we are walking and it enhanced our drive.
Summarizing, although at times it may look a bit quiet on the Digital Twin side, it’s not. Companies who never showed any interest in ‘GET Protocol’ are now talking with us. There are lots of leads in the pipeline and a few very exciting ones that I expect to be announced later this year.
A good use-case is the best sales in the world. That’s why we are working hard on a variety of NFT utility cases in different verticals. For now, sticking a bit longer in our new focus area, sports. Heroes Den Bosch, the first Basketball club in the world distributing NFT tickets, has embraced innovation throughout the entire organization. They announced that fans can claim a free ticket in the GUTS ticketshop, which gives fans access to a live stream where the team has something prepared for them. Just to thank all the fans for the support this season. After watching the live stream fans can claim the Championship NFT season 2021–2021. A great use case that helps us explain the potential of digital collectibles to anyone interested.
The Business Development team also wants to thank the GET Protocol community. Not only for showing up at our super FOMO office party and drinking all of our booze, but also for the great leads you send to us. It is incredible how valuable these are and we do not take this for granted. That’s why I can’t emphasize enough that every lead is taken very seriously. Keep them coming!
A peek at the Integrator Dashboard
As part of the foundations of our V2 rollout, we introduced our ticketing partners (and the community!) to our new Integrator Dashboard which aims to be a one stop shop for handling all fuelling interactions necessary to utilise the protocol.
With another month in the books since that announcement, we thought it was only fitting to showcase the platform further to give everyone a better understanding of what the dashboard offers and how partners truly interact with GET in order to fuel their ticketing..
Overview
When entering the dashboard, ticketing partners are greeted by top-level statistics that present an overview of their NFT ticket mint history, fuel balance & the estimated time in which they’ll need to refill their GET in order to continue ticketing.
Whilst of course this estimate can never be 100% accurate due to the nature of variability with selling tickets, it provides our partners with ample leeway to keep their operations running smoothly.
Top Up Process
As the name suggests, the Top Up page allows ticketing partners to add GET to their dashboard in order to facilitate ticketing for their customers’ events.
Partners can top up their account via bank transfer and in the background GET Protocol handles all conversions (FIAT > Stables > $GET). The fuel in $GET that enters the system is then purely utilised for ticketing activity & cannot be transferred out of the system.
Simple as that, really! In the coming weeks we expect this revamped way of working to kick off, and we are thrilled to see it in action.
Lasting Connections Recap
As you may have seen over the last few months, we’ve hit the ground running with our post-event NFT Ticket usecases. The goal? To clearly demonstrate how NFT Tickets foster a lasting connection between fans and creators post-event.
With the infrastructure & capability to put NFT tickets in the hands of everyday people, partners that utilise GET Protocol have a unique opportunity to present one of the warmest introductions into Web3 for event attendees. The power of post-event experiences using NFTs as a community building tool cannot be understated & we believe in a world where fans can have more active & engaged rolls in an artist’s community.
As such we launched our showcase brand, ‘Lasting Connections’ as a way of not only exploring exciting Web3 pathways post-event, but how real life events through GET Protocol are making use of their post-event NFT Tickets.
With smart contract upgrades on the horizon — the pandora’s box of post-event connection is almost open and now is the time to showcase & educate around what’s possible. For those looking to dive deeper into what we’ve done & where we’re heading, check out our Lasting Connections blog & showcase site linked below.
Check out our MET AMS piece here with GUTS Tickets:
- Lasting Connections Blog — https://medium.com/get-protocol/lasting-connections-met-amsterdam-facff3539955
- Showcase Site — https://www.nft.get-protocol.io/met
Check out our Gucci Mane & Lupe Fiasco piece here with partner DeFy Tickets:
- Lasting Connections Blog — https://medium.com/get-protocol/lasting-connections-gucci-mane-lupe-fiasco-at-wild-acre-live-993722fa8d50
- Showcase Site — https://www.nft.get-protocol.io/gucci
For general showcasing of post-event NFT Tickets:
State of the DAO
The crown of the month for the DAO was the release of GET Protocol’s formal proposal structure in the form of our second voted on proposal. Building a DAO is a unique experience: We are essentially asking the world to watch as we build new structures into the business from the ground up. And not only to watch, but to participate, to vote, to discuss and critique — to have a voice in the very direction we take.
This month, we put up our first administrative vote — a vote around if we should buy a license to some tooling, and yet the discussion was still lively and active! As always, it’s quite humbling to watch a community form and begin to build itself into something more impactful. The proposal passed with just over 70% of the majority casting in favor, but it was not without discourse and discussion.
This particular proposal also offered us just the right platform to test an early bit of our formal Constitutional structure with the community as we launched the official template for proposal creation, marking the first bit of formal structure around the GET DAO and, though the step may seem small, lays the groundwork for some future innovations. It’s safe to say the state of the DAO has never been healthier and as we begin the long wane of Summer begetting Autumn we are encouraged around the strength of mind the GET community displays.
As a result of this vote, we will begin the process of implementing Karma into our underlying backend for how reputation across the DAO is calculated. Karma is an industry standard piece of DAO tooling for reputation calculation across voting properties and we look forward to diving deeper into this with the community as we build! We encourage everyone reading that hasn’t already checked it out to visit our Discord and take a look around if they could also see themselves being a part of this journey with us all.
The party don’t stop
We had a blast at the meetup earlier this month, and hope you did as well. To be very honest we don’t have a ton of memories, but luckily we have a massive pile of pictures from the photobooth!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this peak behind the curtains on the BD side of life. To stay in jargon, we can’t wait to show you what’s in the pipeline in the coming weeks!
If in the meantime you are interested in our ticketing infrastructure or services, please get in touch through our website. If you are interested in other components of the protocol such as the token, feel free to join our active Discord community.
