The ApeCoin DAO is voting on an Ape Improvement Proposal this week that aims to onboard thousands of people into the $Ape ecosystem via water, augmented reality, and gorilla marketing.
AIP-184 titled “Ape Water powered by ApeCoin - Updated Proposal Formatting” is an ecosystem fund allocation proposal written by Ape Beverages.
“Ape Beverages and the APE community are one in the same,” the company wrote in its proposal. “The can is a grandiose brand awareness and distribution tool to elevate the APE community, cryptocurrency ecosystem, and Web3 collective. Ape Water is the only beverage for the Web3 space and will take over as the beverage of choice for essentially all Web3 events and home offices. Ape Water’s “Smart Can” technology allows for our beverage to break into markets such as sporting events, festivals, and concerts. Ape Water powered by ApeCoin will be seen at hundreds of live events. Only the attendees will be able to access the unique experiences on the can, by going through ApeCoin branded features. Millions of bottled water is handed out each year at live events in the US. We plan to eradicate plastic consumption, by offering an infinitely more sustainable solution with the highest quality water. All while simultaneously promoting ApeCoin through interactive experiences off the can.”
In total, Ape Beverages is asking the DAO for $3.75 million USD so it can build a completely separate business outside of its core business model that will distribute 1 million $Ape powered augmented reality cans of water across the country.
Take a look at the company's steps to implement and its budget breakdown below:
To find out more about Ape Beverages and their AIP, the Bored Ape Gazette sat down with the company’s Co-CEO Itai Leffler and its Creative Director Elliot Pepich. Check out the Gazette’s interview below:
Tell me a bit about your Ape Water and Ape Beverages How did this all start?
Leffler: “My name is Itai Leffler and my background is working in the consumer space and I have an extensive background of building brands at scale. Then I partnered with Andrew and Elliot (Ape Water Team) to launch Ape Water. And we did this because we saw the writing on the wall in two different categories. One being sustainable beverages. Water in a can and then the web3 industry where we saw the web3 world coming to life while we were building this brand and we thought how do we get into this category; because we saw it as the future.”
When did Ape Water start?
Leffler: “We launched the company as an entity in January 2022 but we reestablished as a C-Corp in March and then we built the business with all the activations since then. We’ve just been able to lay our foundation and go through the rollercoaster of what’s been happening in the crypto space over the last few months and placate to the market and not try to push things to hard. And now with everything that Yuga’s been doing recently we truly feel that this the time to come and officially launch our brand into Web3."
So, is that why you decided now is the right time to launch your AIP?
Leffler: “We didn’t know when the AIP was going to come out. We were told by the community that there’s a grant that we could apply for. We thought, great. What we want to do is build ape beverages as an everyday retail brand at mass retail and through the subscription business. That’s our business, that's what we’ve put our capital towards. This AIP aims to create a separate division within our company that would act as the Red Bull style field team that would go and actually give out free cans at all the culturally relevant events. We thought that this would be an amazing way to put the Ape Coin DAO’s brand out into the masses. So we hand out 200,000 cans at a festival and there’s a unique QR code on it directing people to scan it for a prize and from there we would onboard people into the Ape ecosystem. We would basically enable the Ape community to extrapolate very quickly by using a very old mechanism or market, gorilla marketing."
So, to clarify, Ape Beverages has two businesses. One business is your subscription business that you previously raised money for. Then you have this AIP, and this is separate from your main business?
Leffler: “Correct. We were so excited by the opportunity we could do this. We had our CTO work backwards on the fundamentals on an AI game would cost to make and the AWS backend, to make this the kind of robust Pokémon style opportunity. We respectfully understand the high cost that we put out there. We just had no idea of what the level of expectation was from the community. We placated to what we knew would be really powerful and big. And we learned during Last week’s twitter space that we can go back to the drawing board and create a much more humble scaled approach to this…But this is not our core business. We're not using this as the funding to build ape beverages. We were proposing this to do something very unique.”
So, if this AIP doesn’t pass, Ape Water will still be around, and you’ll continue with your main business?
Leffler: "Correct. And just to round that up, we have big visions, and we feel that we can make some really big impact and we figured that ApeCoin could just benefit from that. And again, it is what it is. And Ape Beverages is not going anywhere based on this AIP."
In a sentence or two could you explain what your AIP is all about?
Leffler: “The AIP specifically is onboarding people in the real world and the masses into the ApeCoin DAO very lightly without a heavy push.”
Changing gears on you, during last week’s Web3 Exposed Twitter space there was a lot of talk about the Ape on the Ape Water can. Can you talk a bit about that.
Pepich: "Some people know this and some people don’t. The first Ape that is on the first edition can is owned by Luca Netz. The reason. We ended up having Luca’s IP was because we wanted to highlight Luca and his ape and everything that he’s doing to put out a positive impact into the world with Pudgy Penguins. So we see it (having someone’s ape on a can) as something people strive for. If you get your ape on a can of Ape Water, then you quote on quote “Made it.” We just wanted to pay homage to Luca and the positive impact that he’s putting out into the space."
Going back to the business, where do you see Ape Water a year from now?
Leffler: "Ape Water is in 5,000 households through subscriptions and at mass retailers across the country and we are at almost every crypto event and activation throughout the country."
Do you have anything else you’d like to add or say before $Ape holders go and vote on your AIP?
“We are doing this because we believe that our product is an incredible on ramping tool to the mass market and getting people on board and we are here forever. We are building a global brand. So we aren’t going anywhere, this is just a really fun way for us to work in the community, granted it's a lot of money we aren’t disregarding that, but it can be really fun and we can create a lot of awareness and hype for the DAO."
The window to vote on AIP-184 is currently open and $Ape holders will have until Wednesday March 29th to cast their coins.
At the time of this article’s publication, Ape Water’s AIP is underwater with the community with 85.38% of voters against it.
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