Idea/Sentiment Check: Rootstock Participation in TABConf8 Conference

[Axia]

Hi everyone — I’d like to explore whether Rootstock should participate in TABConf in a focused, high-leverage way.

TABConf is an annual technical Bitcoin conference in Atlanta, GA. This October will be its 8th edition. I see this as a potential opportunity for Rootstock to:

• increase ecosystem visibility,
• deepen relationships with builders and partners,
• and expand awareness of Rootstock’s Bitcoin-native DeFi and builder programs.

Suggested participation scope

I’d like to evaluate one or more of the following:

• speaking / workshop presence
• builder activation (targeted side event, office hours, demos)
• community co-marketing (social + content before/after conference)
• sponsorship (right-sized tier; TabConf team has already expressed openness in collaboration)

Desired outcomes

• stronger awareness among Bitcoin-native developers
• qualified pipeline for grants, builders, and ecosystem partnerships
• a clear post-event report with leads, outcomes, learnings, and ROI

Ask to the community

• Do we see this as strategically valuable?
• Which participation format should be prioritized?
• What budget range, if any, would be appropriate?
• Who would be willing to help shape execution?

Note: This is an early-stage idea that will need to be vetted by the Rootstock Collective, which would ultimately need to approve any work and potential funding.

Relevant Links

Mission

TABConf | Instagram | Linktree

https://x.com/tabconf

[Eren_DAOplomats]

Thanks for bringing this to the forum early @Axia . Getting Rootstock in front of the right technical audience at TABConf is good for the overall ecosystem. Passive marketing rarely converts developers, so a workshop or targeted side event is where we’d like to see the effort concentrated. If you can provide a ballpark cost for those active participation slots, it would be easier to evaluate the ROI.

[ChronoTrigger]

Good points raised here, @Axia. I think this discussion is much needed. Before diving into format or budget though, I’d like to clarify what’s actually being proposed:

Is your idea for the Collective to fund this through the treasury? Or is this a coordination effort for people already attending? Or a coordination for some of us to attend? Or a coordination so that Rootstock Labs to cover initiative costs, given that ecosystem visibility and developer pipeline arguably sit within their scope?

I remember we’ve had similar conversations before around event sponsorship, and the conclusion was for not evaluating events individually, but that there should rather be an organized annyual strategy, coordinated with Rootstock Labs.

On the event itself, I agree with @Eren_DAOplomats. TABConf is technically substantive, the Builder Days and open-source schedule format attract serious developers rather than the typical conference retail crowd. A workshop or side event would attract much better than passive branding. Good fit for Rootstock’s audience.

I feel we need to define the “how we organize and fund this” question in order to confidently capitalize on these opportunities.

[Axia]

@ChronoTrigger

I remember we’ve had similar conversations before around event sponsorship, and the conclusion was for not evaluating events individually, but that there should rather be an organized annyual strategy, coordinated with Rootstock Labs.

I agree. We should create a strategy first because there are many possible conferences that Rootstock could participate in.

@ChronoTrigger

I feel we need to define the “how we organize and fund this” question in order to confidently capitalize on these opportunities.

For sure. Strategy first, then create an organization and funding plan.

[GoldenGatsby]

TabConf definitely a good conference to be at. I think its important to have technical people representing Rootstock on the ground there if this proposal moves ahead.

[DAOstar_gov]

Great target audience and conference type, @Axia ! We agree with @ChronoTrigger that we first need to have an events strategy (and objective) of what we’re trying to do. Then a budget is identified to execute on that strategy. I.e. we have to understand what we want to accomplish first before we create a budget vs. we’ve got x RIF to spend and here’s what events we want to participate in (the mistake that we believe other DAOs (like Arbitrum discovered with their events fund).

As a delegate that has 20+ years experience running events and conferences, we can tell you that sponsorships are usually very “vanilla” in terms of ROI for the sponsor - i.e. not a lot of “bang for your buck” unless, we create a very specfic goal (and we support the others comments here about participating in Builder Day), which we believe will have the most impact for Rootstock.

If we want to do this right and get the most out of an events strategy, then we need to identify what are our specific goals. Here are some starting discussion ideas:

• New grant applicants (from the Builder Day event) - general grants ideas created by grantee (i.e. increase the number of grants by x% from event).
• New grant applications (from Builder Day event) - but grants are specific to a RT identified strategic geo location, defi or trafi bridge focus - This goal would align to your comments regarding strategic goals and expansion of delegate participation. Almost like a pilot program to build and strengthen a RT ecosystem growth objective.
• Branding growth - this could be a sub-goal created by delegates at the event to promote specific RT events (Builder Day micro grant awards).

It may be early in the discussion, however, one of the ways we could advance these discussions while in parallel with this forum thread, is to spin up a short term (<30 day) working group of interested delegates to engage with all the delegates (proactive outreach and/or open office hours) to do some research of event opportunities, work with the RTLabs team regarding ecosystem priorities (DAO priorities vs. Labs priorities may be slightly different) and make some recommendations to the greater delegate community. We would be willing to contribute to this project.

[Tane]

Thanks @Axia for the sentiment check post for TABConf8 Conference grant opportunity and overall event grant related discussions. We believe we have a few good points to address from fellow delegates.

@Axia

qualified pipeline for grants, builders, and ecosystem partnerships

We think it’s a good outcome to look for. We have seen fewer quality grant proposals and need to establish some ways to attract quality developers into the Rootstock ecosystem.

@DAOstar_gov

spin up a short term (<30 day) working group of interested delegates to engage with all the delegates

As proposed by @DAOstar_gov, founding a short-term working group to discuss this matter and create a “strategy” on event related grants and grant participations sounds like a plan for next. Do you have any particular next steps in mind?