Table Of Contents

1. Executive Summary

2. What is ARC?

3. The ARC Social Venture Studio

4. Why use NFTs to reimagine a private members’ club model?

5. How is ARC different from other NFT-based communities?

6. Our Community Strategy & ARC Social Venture Studio

7. ARC’s Future Goals

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1. Executive Summary

As a members-only community, ARC is connecting the most impactful and influential in the Global Asian Diaspora to contribute ideas, resources and networks towards a first-of-its-kind Social Venture Studio. Our long-term vision and shared purpose is to have our community be at the frontier of pushing the Web3 space in Asia forward through collective value creation via our Social Venture Studio.

If you are anyone who wants to connect with someone in Asia, ARC is the community to go to with the human connections you need. But we’re not stopping at connecting people. We are taking the next step to really look at how we can unleash the potential from these connections to create value.

The formation of the ARC Social Venture Studio is a way for us to channel these connections made into the creation of purposeful value. We will retain what makes private members’ clubs appealing by building a highly-connected, thriving community experience and layering it with NFTs to coordinate the interests of our members towards the projects that derive from the Social Venture Studio.

By tapping on NFTs as proof of membership, we have created a mechanism that incentivises members to engage in productive community engagements and contributions through turning our membership into a digital asset.

In this way, ARC is designed to be a long-term hold that rewards members in the long-term through the future collections and projects that come out from the ARC Social Venture Studio (vs flipping the membership NFT itself).

To ensure success for the community, we’re actively curating our members to create a diverse collective that is aligned with our ethos around ‘giving value to receive value’ and building the right infrastructure (ARC app and ARC Playgrounds) to facilitate them connecting and coming together to create value.

In the long-term, we see the ARC brand everywhere from digital products, consumer-packaged goods, to physical spaces and IRL experiences. We want our community to get to a state where self-organising is the natural state of things and members can come together to create projects that go everywhere, even (potentially!) the metaverse. Value creation is constantly happening and this value is equitably distributed based on members’ contributions to the community.

This is ARC. This is Community Rediscovered.

2. What is ARC?

The idea for ARC started about 4 years ago, when a group of us got together and spotted a gap in the market where a thriving and engaged digital community, one that cuts across Asia, did not yet exist.

As a region of huge diversity with different cultures, languages and stages of growth, overcoming challenges to get things done and unlocking opportunities in Asia largely comes down to the people you know.

With that as a key problem statement, we have set out to build ARC as a members-only community connecting the most impactful and influential in the Global Asian Diaspora. If you are anyone who wants to connect with someone in Asia, ARC is the community to go to with the human connections you need.

But beyond connecting people, we are actively looking at how we can unleash the potential from these connections to create value.

3. The ARC Social Venture Studio

The formation of the ARC Social Venture Studio is a way for us to channel these connections made into the creation of purposeful value. We will retain what makes private members’ clubs appealing by building a highly-connected, thriving community experience and layering it with NFTs to coordinate the interests of our members towards the projects that derive from the social venture studio.

The Social Venture Studio will use NFTs to coordinate an IP-based business model. We see it as a community-driven venture that will birth new ideas, new businesses and new IPs.

We will unleash the power of the community by connecting them and getting them to do things together. From co-creating our next NFT collection to Web3 advisory opportunities, to physical experiences that bring our members together, the possibilities are endless. We look forward to bringing these ideas to fruition together with our members.

Eventually, our long-term vision and shared purpose is to have our community be at the frontier of pushing the Web3 space in Asia forward through collective value creation via our Social Venture Studio.

4.Why use NFTs to reimagine a private members’ club model?

ARC’s membership model was originally based on a traditional recurring subscription, just like a typical private members’ club. But that business model does not have an in-built mechanic that incentivises members to connect with others to share their ideas, resources and networks; a critical step to success for the ARC Social Venture Studio.

Tapping on NFTs as proof of membership helps us solve this puzzle. Here’s how:

I. FROM VALUE EXTRACTION TO VALUE CREATION: By building NFTs into the model as a way to gate access, it changes the relationship between the people involved. Membership has now transformed into a digital asset for all parties involved. We can imagine our members not as customers (who would typically look to extract the most value they can out of their paid membership), but as fellow members, co-builders, and collaborators who are building and shaping ARC together with us. The value of ARC will increase via productive community connections and engagements and everyone has an incentive to make sure we succeed. Members of the community are now motivated to find ways to contribute and add value to the community.

II. FROM RESOURCE CONCENTRATION TO RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION:  In a Web2 world, access to connections and relevant networks are typically concentrated in the hands of a few. But through our model as a community-first product that is token-gated by NFTs and the availability of the different incentive structures that Web3 offers, members are incentivised to connect with others to share their ideas, expertise, time and resources (through different processes like networking, collaboration, co-creation etc) which allows us to spread that value more equitably amongst our members - a true community-led growth approach.

5.How is ARC different from other NFT-based communities?

I. ARC SOCIAL VENTURE STUDIO INCENTIVISES FOR LONG-TERM VALUE CREATION VS SHORT-TERM GAINS: In a space that is often driven by short-term greed vs long-term thinking, ARC was specifically designed to counter this current behaviour.

For NFT projects, the public is often required to grind for whitelists in order to earn themselves an opportunity to mint the project and flip it shortly after to yield monetary gains. In contrast, we want ARC members to find value in retaining their ARC Stellars NFT because of the long-term value they can gain from the community experience, the real-world utility offered plus the value of being part of a first-of-its-kind Social Venture Studio with a strong pipeline.

While we understand that flippers are a norm and perhaps even a feature for NFT projects; we strive to be different by creating a community that incentivises for long-term members that are willing to ride this ongoing journey with us.

II. THE ACQUISITION OF MEMBERS FROM WEB3 CURIOUS TO WEB3 NATIVES: Since our product is the community, the stronger our community, the stronger the product. And we firmly believe that there is strength in diversity.

To do that, we need to cast the net to include both Web3 natives and Web3 curious individuals. We believe it is a time of convergence between the 2 audiences and also between the token and NFT communities.

That is why our experience is designed to be user-friendly for people who’re not purely Web3 natives. While we could build ourselves like a DAO or house our community on a web app that is more in line with the current Web3 ethos, we felt that it would unnecessarily alienate individuals that might be able to add value to our community.

Ultimately, by onboarding more individuals who’re curious about Web3, we’re able to bring on more contributors to ARC with the skill sets and expertise that they bring and strengthen the community.

6. Our Approach to Community Building

Part 1: Curating & Connecting our Community

Part 2: Encouraging the community to create value together collectively with the ARC Social Venture Studio

PART 1. CURATING & CONNECTING OUR MEMBERS WITH THE ARC APP AND ARC PLAYGROUNDS

Since the success of ARC boils down to the value of human connections we are able to facilitate and enable, it is absolutely critical that members who are brought on are aligned with our community ethos of ‘giving value to receive value’.

We actively prioritise a community-first approach by bringing on people who’re contribution-centric, with the skills and expertise and willingness to participate and contribute.

When we first talked about a curation process for our members, (this was before any application meta), many in the NFT space felt that we were mad for doing what we did. While the Web3 ethos was this ideal around openness and permissionless access, we felt that this would not be in sync with what we’re building at ARC.

And so despite the protests we heard from the space, we created an application process that was used to help us understand if a potential member is ready to participate and contribute. Do they understand us and are willing to ride this journey with us? Are they open to forming diverse connections within the community? Are they passionate about building the community with us?

And more importantly, we use it to curate and authenticate members to ward off bad actors. All members who have been allowlisted will then be able to mint ARC Stellars, our highest-tier membership as well as our curation token.

This process helps us build a community that’s strong in its foundation - members are aligned with the larger purpose and values of ARC, and also builds a community that is diverse in skill sets, expertise and life experiences.

Upon curating these members, we then enable them to connect via the community infrastructure we have developed for the purposes of networking and co-creating value together.

Introducing ARC app and ARC Playgrounds.

With the ARC app, which is already accessible to ARC Stellars on both Apple and Google Play, we will now have a single, multi-functional safe space with features and content programming that will help Stellars connect with each other, engage in conversations and co-create.

ARC Playgrounds will be a network of physical locations that enable members to meet each other in real life. One thing we have heard repeatedly from members is how important meeting other members face-to-face is, to cementing the connections they have built online. Our first location would be in Singapore which will be conceptualised as a multi-destination lifestyle concept.

PART 2. ENABLING THIS COMMUNITY TO COLLECTIVELY CONTRIBUTE VALUE ORGANICALLY AND SUSTAINABLY WITH THE ARC SOCIAL VENTURE STUDIO

How do we define ‘value creation’?

To get our members to come together for value creation sustainably for the long-term, we need to incentivise our community members to do this from the ground-up (vs our core team driving and leading this permanently).

And there are 2 ways we are looking at this - intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

Intrinsic Motivations: Rewarding members who contribute coordinates the community towards a common goal. But to get people to stay and engage and contribute all the time, they need to enjoy spending time with the community. To do that, we want to encourage and facilitate the forming of expertise and interest-based subgroups within the community. Each subgroup will have their own set of leaders with immediate responsibilities and action tasks in order to drive and coordinate co-creation efforts.

Each subgroup will first define their own goals (defined by seasons) as well as rituals to build a strong sense of belonging and purpose in being a member of ARC. Certain subgroups we have prioritised for now include: Creatives, Builders, Legal and Moon Squad (Token and NFT).

Subgroups will also align and collaborate with each other on co-creation projects that require contributions across multiple disciplines work e.g. creative subgroup develops the website for our co-created project while the builders subgroup builds the website and the researchers/writers contribute the content.

Extrinsic Motivations: Give value to receive value → Members are rewarded for contributing value to the community.

I. ARC-initiated co-created projects (which gives value back to members for co-creating). This will be a virtuous cycle of projects coming out of ARC that continue to give value back to ARC members through long-term value trickle. E.g. ARC Stellars get to enjoy a free mint of our first co-created project while members who contribute more can be more vested long term as a full fledged member of projects. For bounty like contributors to the projects, incentivisation can be done via additional mints, or fiat/crypto payments.

II. Democratising access to co-creation opportunities with global brands and partners on projects that also provide utility and potential monetary benefits. Do note that this isn’t a dream, some of these partnerships have already been in place with many of these brand conversations starting from months ago. To date, ARC has been steadily and organically growing in brand value where global brands are regularly approaching us for a Web3 partnership.

III. Utility created by the community for the community where members are encouraged to collaborate with other members to create tools, content or other shared resources that would benefit themselves and the rest of the community e.g. merch, token-gated ARC online publications, analytical tools and sharing of assets owned by members for community use.

IV. Real-world utilities where contributors will get prioritised access to different benefits including ARC-exclusive experiences and more.

V. Prioritised access to whitelist giveaways and IRL drop

7. ARC’s Future Goals

As we build for the long-term, we are also actively mapping out the incremental milestones for the community’s success.

Immediate:

1. Build a strong community foundation through identifying, curating and connecting like-minded individuals who are aligned with ARC’s shared belief and purpose

2. Facilitate the creation of expertise and interest-based subgroups that will build a strong sense of belonging and purpose in being a member of ARC

3. Providing value to members in the community via a well designed community experience. E.g. the members within the community you can connect with, the vibes, our app experience (both in terms of exclusive content programming and features), IRL experiences etc.

Mid-term:

1. Co-creation with the community on projects that will result in value-trickle to members

2. Co-creation with the sub communities on projects that offer other forms of value in terms of utility e.g. analytical tools, community publications or even shared experiences like how ARC Playgrounds might be like

3. Explore other channels through which ARC community members can create value together as a community outside of developing NFT collections or token projects

   1. We believe that Web3 projects cannot just rely on hype and marketing to create value (those were the old days!)

   2. There is now a strong need for value-creating activities to come out of Web3 communities. Some of these activities are launching Web3 projects as a community, while others involve building viable businesses for real revenue coming in. WE HAVE A PLAN!

Long-term:

A sticky as fuck community. We want to see the ARC brand everywhere from digital products, consumer-packaged goods to physical spaces and IRL experiences. We want our community to get to a state where self-organising is the natural state of things and members can come together to create projects that go everywhere, even (potentially!) the metaverse. Value creation is constantly happening and this value is equitably distributed based on members’ contributions to the community. This is ARC. This is Community Rediscovered.