PeopleTalk MVP in 2-3 Months: How You Can Help!

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Newsletter #003, Feb 8 2025
Contents:

• Key Updates

• How You Can Help

• MVP & Research

• Meet Some of the Team

• Volunteer Compensation

• Political Ideology (there isn’t one)

• Roundtables

Hey Peeps,

Video walkthrough of this week’s developments here (in case you’d prefer to watch than read or want some additonal color):

Needless to say, a whole lot can happen in a week.

If you’ve noticed Reddit quiet down a bit, don’t worry—it’s not a sign of slowing momentum. Quite the opposite. In fact, our community actually made it to the top 16% of Reddit before things piped down.

It’s just that the core conversation has moved to Discord (invite-only for now so we can stay agile while we get our early teams assembled).

Transparency remains key, so we’ll be making most (if not all) meeting recordings public to keep everyone in the loop. In fact, the first is linked up somewhere in this newsletter… 😉 

There’s so much happening that we can’t possibly fit it all here, so for the deeper dives and behind-the-scenes updates, check out our Substack regularly (we only push 1 of those publications to your email per week so as not to flood your inbox).

🔥 Key Updates at a Glance:

✅ How you can help us cover costs at either no cost to you or through a donation.

✅ MVP defined and estimated at a 2-3 month build (assuming our devs don’t get abducted by aliens).

✅ Core team assembled, and they are straight-up powerhouses.

✅ User research underway (we need more Creator insights—reach out if that’s you!).

✅ First pieces of the app are up—login, video feed, comments, likes.

✅ Innovative and fair compensation model being structured for volunteers.

✅ Roundtables launching soon to debate core features and governance.

🙋 How You Can Help

We know we’re on the right track when everyone and their grandmother is asking how to contribute to the project. We are so extremely grateful for you all. Because one of the most common comments is “I’m not a developer but…” or “I don’t know anything about building companies but…”

Just to be clear, our Crowd is the most critical part of this initiative. You are the key. Because in order to pull this off, we’re going to need numbers.

So, here’s how anyone can help (and it does help):

1. Click a button, help us cover costs. We’ve added values-aligned advertisements into our Beehiiv newsletters; every clickthrough from a unique user (meaning you can only click once per newsletter) earns us $1+. It’s a fantastic model that could really help us out at no cost to you!
   

2. Subscribe to our Substack. I was not initially going to turn on the option for paid subscriptions, but COMPLETELY UNPROMPTED, you all have pledged nearly $2,000 which could cover our server costs for a couple months. In other words, your contributions make a big difference.
   

3. Spread the word. TikTok is a great place to spread the word — in comments, in videos. You can forward our newsletter and Substack articles to friends and family. Ultimately, word-of-mouth will be the make-or-break for our crowdfunding campaign, which will deploy around the same time as the MVP.

There will also be a range of other opportunities:

1. Keep an eye out for “🙋🙋🙋”. You can skim the newsletter for opportunities by keeping an eye out for this emoji. We’ll use it to denote opportunities to get involved.
   

2. Connect us with more Creators. We’re building a small army here. If you are connected to a creator (or you ARE a creator) who is mission-alignged, submit here and we’ll get in touch with you.
   

3. Roundtables. Reddit is still how we’re vetting talent and surfacing expertise. Even though the core team is filling out, there are still opportunities to share your ideas on Reddit (we read everything). And if we see you have a lot of good ideas, we may pull you into our Roundtables — more information below.

So if just 12% of recipients click on this ad, it could cover our initial server costs:

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🏗 MVP & Research: We’re Laying the Groundwork

Our Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is clearly defined—though the design and UX team’s research may tweak things slightly. Development is pacing towards a 2-3 month timeline to get a working beta in our hands.

Expect a sleek UI/UX, in-app video editing, and a passable algorithm.

To keep costs down, we’ll be taking a phased approach to decentralization until crowdfunding (doing the build on Bluesky infrastructure means we’re on AWS until we have funding to be fully decentralized — but global decentralization is a key part of this roadmap and our promise to you).

Meanwhile, we’re conducting two types of research to make sure what we’re building actually serves people:

🔹 Kasarra’s Deep-Dive Research → Critical to inform our long-term roadmap. Think "What comes next after MVP?"

🔹 Creator Research → The design team is also surveying Creators to understand their needs. We’ve got a shortlist of folks we’re already talking to, but if you are a creator (or know one), we want you in the loop. Submit here. 

While the research unfolds, the dev team is laying the bones of the app. To date, we’ve got:
✔ A video feed that scrolls.
✔ Likes & comments working.
✔ Functional login.
✔ In-app video creation.

This is the beginning, but it’s happening fast.

Here was a meeting where Kasarra synthesized her findings for user research. TL;DR summary is here on our Substack.

 Meet Some of the Team

This early team is stacked. Since this is a volunteer project, we expect many people will come and go — jumping in to make a contribution and then folding back into the collective. So expect to see lots of faces, but here are some of the first.

Full bios are on the Substack and more team members will be featured soon.

UX/DESIGN

📐 Kasarra → UX researcher. Running workshops to surface key ideas for our product roadmap.

🖌️ Mafe, Xenia & Patrick → Designers deep in Creator and competitor research to make sure we build this right from Day 1.

TECH

You’ll see more of the developer team in coming weeks (there’s a small army assembling):

💡 Wrenbjor → Contributed base code he originally created in order to compete (or collaborate) with Skylight… before deciding to join the winning team. 😉

🖥️ Aaron, Thomas, Noah, Mark → Set up GitHub, integrated Wayne’s base code. Thomas is working on the in-app editor, Noah is fine-tuning smooth video feed scrolling.

STRATEGY

🎨 Katie Meade → Temp Design & Product Steward. Crushed the first comp set analysis. Force of nature in organizing Reddit, Discord, humans, and is assembling the design team before stepping away for a bit.

Please note, we’re looking for a world-class PM and Design Lead to fill her shoes. Probably as two separate volunteers.

🛡 Ally Madrone → Trust & Safety expert, deep insights into moderation and community protection.

💰 Kasey Lawrence → Financial Steward, leading fundraising strategy & compensation model structuring.

⚙️ Adam Young → Technical Steward, figuring out how to build this scalably and efficiently on ATProto.

💰 Compensation: An Experiment in Fairness

What’s better than building something groundbreaking? Building something groundbreaking while ensuring early contributors get fairly compensated. 

Enter: “Sweat Equity” (but not really) with a hard cap.

The Model (TL;DR):

✔ Early contributors earn compensation over time, once the platform is generating revenue.

✔ Once they hit a predetermined cap, they stop accumulating financial stake—so nobody is profiting indefinitely.

✔ Compensation is paid only as revenue allows, preventing financial strain on the project.

Why This Works:

✅ Rewards early contributors fairly for volunteer efforts.

✅ Prevents profit-driven extraction—after contributors hit their cap, revenue reinvests into the platform.

✅ Keeps the platform autonomous & sustainable in the long-term.

This approach is innovative but also inspired by various models—including an old system from Valve Software (shoutout to Aaron for that insight). We’re now fine-tuning the financial and legal logistics (special thanks to Kasey for leading this charge).

Questions We’re Solving Next:

📌 How do we track contributions fairly and transparently?

📌 What’s the best way to structure tiers of contribution?

📌 What are the financial and tax implications of this system?

Expect more details soon.

🏛 Political Ideology: Or, "What Even Is This?"

Ah, the million-dollar question: What are you?

If you ask the internet, you’ll get wildly different answers. Some are convinced this is a socialist experiment. Others say it's anarchist. Some argue it's a modified form of capitalism (Collective Value Creation was my favorite suggestion on that front — coined by Sam Rad, another blessing of a human being in our ecosystem). Everyone wants to claim it for their own ideology😜 

Honestly? I don’t care to slap a label on this. What does interest me is why people believe what they believe…and creating a space for all of it to be heard and held 😉 (re: the point of what we’re building here).

One thing is clear: this project is attracting people from across the political spectrum. Socialists, anarchists, libertarians, progressives, conservatives, centrists, and even the conscious capitalists are all here, vibing together. That’s rare in today’s hyper-polarized internet landscape.

What this tells me is that we’re onto something real. Something that transcends ideological boxes.

At its core, this is about building a platform that finally does what social media was always supposed to: empower the People.

🙋🙋🙋So in the spirit of one of our mantras, “out of the echo chambers and onto the bridges,” let’s have a conversation instead of arguing over labels: I would LOVE to have a few people from the collective co-author an article for Substack about this. 🙋🙋🙋

In other words, an article that showcases a variety of perspectives on what ideology you personally believe this movement aligns with. The socialist can write it from the socialist perspective. The conscious capitalist can write it from their perspective. The anarchist can scribble all over the page. (And you all get bylines!)

My sense is that we might have more in common than we think…

🎙 Roundtables: Deep Dives into Key Decisions

To harness all the incredible ideas floating around, and land on the optimal possible solutions, we’re launching Roundtables—structured discussions where experts debate, refine, and shape core aspects of the platform. These won’t be live at this point, but recordings will be posted after the fact for full transparency.

🔹 First Up: Incorporation & Governance → How should we legally structure this? DAO, co-op, nonprofit? What protects the mission and the People?

🔹 How to Get Involved: We’ve been pulling from Reddit discussions to identify key contributors—so if you’ve got expertise (especially in Web3 & blockchain), jump into the conversation. 🙋🙋🙋

That’s part of how we’re vetting talent and expertise for these discussions. So if you have great ideas, post them. We’re watching to pull in the right people for these conversations.

Future topics include monetization, platform incentives, moderation, and creatorhood. More details coming soon! 🚀

🚀 Wrapping Up

To recap:

✅ Your voices are more powerful than any marketing strategy.
✅ MVP defined (2-3 month build).
✅ Core team is 🔥🔥🔥
✅ User research ongoing (Creators, we need you!).
✅ App bones are in place (login, video feed, comments, likes working).
✅ Innovative compensation model in the works.
✅ Roundtable discussions kicking off soon.

We’re building this ship, and the momentum is only growing. More updates soon.

In service and solidarity,
Chiara Scuro
Steward