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Manufacture Manyfold Manifolders in the Maritime Metropolis

$600raised
$1,100valuation
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Project summary

For a city of its size, and especially for one with its percentage of tech-bros, Seattle has a tiny EA/Rationality community! What better way to increase both our (sEAttle) and Manifold's retention than to hook aspiring rationalists/altruists with a gambling addiction?

If this project is funded, I will commit to hosting at least bi-weekly, 2+ hour meetups about Manifold Markets for 3 months. At first I'll try to focus them towards creating/betting on markets, discussing interesting information presented by them, and fostering good natured competition. Additionally, like any good meetup, I'll ensure there are ample consumables freely available for attendees.

I will use funding received here to improve the quality/quantity of meetups in the series I will run. For example, if the minimum funding is exceeded then I will find a venue other than my house, or I will offer prizes for sEAttle specific tournaments, or I will invite market focused speakers, etc.

What are this project's goals and how will you achieve them?

  1. Create a core group of gamblers forecasters who attend periodical (likely bi-weekly to start) Manifold focused meetups.

  2. Improve the cohesion of the Seattle EA/Rationality community by offering a communal activity people want to participate in! (so far, our meetups are undirected 'socials' alongside a monthly book club).

  3. Improve the foothold of Manifold in a city outside of San Francisco! I don't see why we should let proof-niks have all the fun!

See the below "How will this funding be used" section for how I will achieve the above goals.

How will this funding be used?

I will use the given funding to get the meetup series off the ground. Given the time/personal property I plan to put into this project, receiving a token amount of funding here validates this is a worthwhile idea and makes it easier for me to justify creating.

Some of my initials plans for uses of funding over the minimum amount are:

  1. Tournaments! Sure, everyone likes winning fake money but you know what they like even better...

  2. Venue! Sure, I am a master of interior design, I have a warm and inviting home, etc, but not everyone wants to be surrounded by tech bros in Redmond (on the eastside of Seattle).

  3. Community! While I've yet to meet better people than Rats, at some point Manifold will have to. If I get further funding I could attempt to branch away from the ACX/Rat/EA specific groups and build a more general interest community.

  4. Speakers/Talks!  We all may already spend too much time on Manifold, but wouldn’t it be easier to justify to yourself if you also got to hear people give educational talks on market mechanics, economics, etc?  If I get further funding I will try and involve people who know what they’re doing.

Who is on your team and what's your track record on similar projects?

I currently plan on being responsible for running these events. I do expect enthusiastic support from a couple members of our community though who I will let comment if they feel like de-anonymizing themselves.

I have on and off hosted events for the sEAttle community; I got funding for them and ensured we had catered food, etc. I stopped hosting due to interpersonal issues with the group house we were hosting the events at.  I also spent a significant amount of time growing up volunteering at and organizing events within the local Grange.  

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails? (premortem)

I will define abject failure of this project as: less than 6 people regularly attend the meetup series.

I believe the most likely symptom of this project failing is I am unable to establish a core group of members outside of myself and the few other friends of mine I have managed to already. Causes for this could be

  1. Typical Mind Fallacy; maybe I assume people are more susceptible to enjoying this site than I am

  2. Negative Founder Effects; maybe I assume I am not as likable as I hope and have trouble with market penetration outside of the people close to me

  3. Failure to follow through; My partner's family has poor health and I am a consultant; maybe we need to move on short notice for one of those reasons (although if that is the case, I will personally ensure any investors are refunded/square).

What other funding are you or your project getting?

I am likely going to get food catered and paid for by the ACX/Rationality Meetups funding pool so not only am I getting people addicted to the dopamine of winning fake money, I am also causing them to associate that fake money with real, dopamine granting food!

I personally get funding for non-manifold related expenses through my employer 😛

offering $400
FoldyOfficial avatar

Manifold Markets

8 months ago

Final Evaluation Results

Valuations: 500, 300, 400

Median Valuation: 400.0

Tod Waddington: Good for building friendships around our product & very high-quality users. Funding could be replaced by a partner program referral $ bonus. It seems worthwhile to pay for a space to convert more EA/rationalist people onto manifold, and I'd happily give a higher valuation if there was a higher turnout, but for 10-20 people I think ~$500 is reasonable

Rachel: No update, no change.

Austin: No change in valuation since there haven't been any updates.

offering $400
FoldyOfficial avatar

Manifold Markets

10 months ago

January 15th Evaluation Results

Valuations: 250, 600, 400, 250, 300, 500, 400

Weighted Median Valuation: 400

Eliza: Five new users is good, go get more.

cc6: I think having regular in-person meetups is a creative idea and I think it's good to do it somewhere where there's not much popularity yet. Who knows, this could start a new trend in the area!

Isaac King: Similar to the London meetup but smaller. $400.

wasabipesto: Casual in-person meetups are fun, and I'm glad you got some new users! Prediction markets are a great tool, but I think you should be looking for something unique to really bring people in - local activities or politics, or tournaments about something important to your group. I think you'll have a better program if you include things more people care about than Manifold itself

Rachel: It sounds like the first meetup went really well and the second one was meh, so lets say those were worth 250 & 50, respectively. Agree that making them a regular thing would be better. Also, I'm just really glad this exists—hearing about it on demo day made me smile :)

SG: No comment

Austin: It’s cool to hear that 2 meetups have happened already, including a very well-attended pilot! As I mentioned on the stream, consistency/regularity/predictability is pretty important IMO in turning a meetup into A Thing, so I’d love to see what the feedback from Seattle Manifolders after a few more consistent gatherings.

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RobertCousineau avatar

Robert Cousineau

11 months ago

Our first meetup (December 20th) went wonderfully - we had 17 attendees, got manifold usernames/discords from most of them, and had a genuinely fun time. I believe there were 5 new users.

I got distracted over the holidays, so our second meetup (yesterday) was poorly advertised and got much lower attendance. I'm about to set up a weekly series though to both make up for the missed week, and to help make it more of a 'thing' (as David suggests below).

Stefanie has also been a wonderful help!

offering $400
FoldyOfficial avatar

Manifold Markets

11 months ago

December 15th Evaluation Results

Valuations: 350, 0, 167, 400, 400, 200

Median Valuation: 275

David Chee: First even organised which I think is worth around $350 as the first one is often the hardest!

If this continues as a weekly thing and turns into something like Austin's Taco Tuesday I think it would be worth a few thousand easily due to all the knock-on effects. How much of this value is to Manifold and prediction markets will be less clear.

Excited to see where this goes though! I think once they prove it becomes a reoccurring event with decent turn out with at least a couple of new people each time then the valuation will really soar.

SG: First meeting has yet to happen.

Rachel: Props for the name. The overall valuation is pretty consistent with my expectations. My understanding is that there has been one meetup so far, and 1000/6 = $167—though an update on how that went would be helpful.

Inga Wei: Yay for spreading community to non-SF cities!

Ian Philips: Glad you're hosting meetups! I'm guessing you get around ~50 people using Manifold and getting involved in the community. Hopefully y'all have fun as well, and make some new friends! Valuing 50 folks at $8 per capita. I'd value this higher, maybe $20 per capita if you were able to take notes/record peoples' experiences getting signed up.

Austin: Pretty excited for this! As the first meeting hasn’t yet happened, this valuation so far reflects the fact that many people seem to be looking forward to coming to the event; I expect this to go up once the meetings are happening regularly.

I’d be looking for attendance numbers, good reviews, and something like word-of-mouth growth (people organically deciding to invite their friends) as indications of runaway meetup success.

holds 50%
RobertCousineau avatar

Robert Cousineau

12 months ago

We're having our first meetup!

Bet on attendance here. Bet on attendee attributes here.

Thanks to everyone who helped fund it!

holds 5%
🐭

David Chee

12 months ago

I think the knock-on effects of these things can be disproportionately large. I don't personally care that much about growing the rationalists/EA's in one particular area, but do think this shows more promise than random Manifold-related tech projects that aren't really used by many people or a poor-quality podcast.

holds 2.5%
Anthony-Giovannetti avatar

Anthony Giovannetti

12 months ago

Eastsider myself, would be happy to attend the meetups if you can make them happen!