Hi Matt, I'm glad to hear you are doing what you can to stay on Hive - the absence of optimal marketing has long been a massive hindrance to the value and growth of Hive generally, so I am always interested to make the most of any move in that direction.

As you may recall, I launched a proposal via @strategizer not so long ago that aimed to perform crucially needed market research in order to establish some baselines for future marketing drives, not only of Hive itself but also for the various dApps. In general, the dApp creators supported the idea and voted for it - but in the end it didn't get funded. Unfortunately, I found it very difficult to even get any feedback from some of the larger stakeholders.

As I recall, I didn't receive any comments or input from anyone at Splinterlands and although Aggroed just apologised to me for that yesterday, I would like to gain clarity and clear a few things up before voting on your proposal. I obviously want Hive and Splinterlands to thrive - especially since I worked for quite a while on marketing Splinterlands TV.

a. I found during my drive to promote @strategizer, that there is a massively obviously divide among Hive users when it comes to marketing. There are those who do not have any professional experience in the field and who think it's fine to just brainstorm and hope for the best.. and there are those who have learned from the extremely well established digital marketing industry norms that while experimentation is all well and good, it is necessary to operate within a framework that is grounded in the scientific method and that is prepared with some degree of research, in order to not waste the marketing budget.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the divide here is extreme to me and in some cases it is highly alarming that so much budget is being spent based on whims and vague concepts.
I know that you have said that you want to use the DHF funds to pay for an external marketing agency - however, the funds given to ignite marketing previously are a clear example of how this can actually lead to next to zero benefit. This is, to my mind, partially due to the complexity of web 3 and the willingness of agencies to take money regardless of whether they really know what they are doing or not. The best way to handle this is to ensure a continual process of close monitoring, analysis and refinement right throughout the marketing and growth process. I know from experience that many agencies are nowhere near cut out for this, yet to the untrained eye they seem very professional.
Can you provide me with any insights into how you intend to tackle these issues and also explain whether or not you are open to feedback from the Hive community on such high level decisions as which agency to use - or at least which priorities to focus on when picking one?

b. I don't know if you are aware, but Inleo's marketing proposal, which was funded a few months ago, was based on the idea that they would repay the funds if they didn't achieve certain growth goals - are you open to that kind of approach with your proposal?

c. I personally think that what Hive needs as a high priority is a rock solid on-boarding system that has professionally written educational text and videos built-in which leave no room for misunderstanding when new users approach Hive and try to orient and set up a presence. Are you open to developing this kind of feature set for Splinterlands and open sourcing it so that other dApps can also benefit and everyone can combine forces to grow the eco-system in multiple directions at once?

Thanks for your time Sir!