The crypto industry has had a wild ride in the past year. It has seen both incredible highs and devastating lows. After surviving a difficult bear market, it was time to celebrate by organising YAP Global’s second official offsite.
In July 2023, our team members from London, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Cape Town, Johannesburg, San Francisco, and San Diego all gathered in France at our very own Chateau de YAP.
What better way to start our crypto summer than in beautiful France?
Reflecting and Thinking Ahead
For this year’s offsite, we wanted to achieve the three following goals:
- Grow and build team culture – Strengthen the bonds of our global remote team
- Strategies to unlock growth for 2023/2024 – Set actionable goals that align with our values
- Boost PR quality and standards – Evaluate ways to elevate our work for our clients and for the crypto industry
To achieve these ambitious goals in our six days together, our rockstar operations team Niroshini De Silva and Becky Corbel prepared a jam-packed itinerary full of PR workshops, team-building activities, and amazing pastries.
Learning as a Team: A Deep Dive into Web3 & PR
One of the core values here at YAP is Elevate, where we are always striving to strengthen and grow one another. And to honour that value, our offsite incorporated a series of workshops that empowered the team to deliver high-quality PR to our clients.
To inspire and motivate, we reflected together on what YAP Global achieved in the past year as it solidified itself as the leading Web3 and crypto PR agency in the space. We also got to celebrate the achievements of YAP Global’s ventures, including The Context, YAP Cast, and our event services. But most importantly, one of my favourite things to do when we gather together is to set ambitious goals internally and for the business as we go forward.
Part of setting goals is dreaming big about who we want to work with, with our ‘Dream Client sessions. Everyone on the team participates by presenting a dream client of theirs to work with. We encourage the team to dream big and think outside of the box about projects from all corners of the crypto space in DeFi, DAOs, NFTs, Gaming, Metaverse, and beyond. Seeing where each team member’s interest lies gives our leadership team great food for thought for new business targets.
As an extra special treat, we had the privilege of having Makoto Inoue, a core developer at Ethereum Name Service (ENS) run an insightful ‘Ethereum Workshop” with us at Chateau de YAP. His refresher on the history of Ethereum emphasized the Ethereum ecosystem’s significant role in industry innovation, despite being considered ‘early’ by some. We also got practical as Makoto guided our ‘Yappers’ to create their own NFTs and ERC 20 Tokens. Heather (Jenn Fir) Jones, our Account Manager, even created a YAP token. Thank you, Makoto, for being our crypto sensei!
Karaoke, Memes, and Crepes: Bringing the YAP Gang all together
Since the last offsite, YAP has globally expanded and welcomed many new faces. So for many ‘Yappers’, this marked their first in-person meeting with co-workers they’ve closely collaborated with. The moment we all met, you could feel the enthusiasm and excitement from everyone in the room! Sam O’Donohoe ran a highly anticipated meme competition allowing us to delve deeper into each other’s personalities. Our team certainly has some killer meme-making skills!
Building a culture of recognition is equally as important as strengthening team bonds. We gave out funYAP Global awards, showing appreciation to our team but with a fun twist. While some of our ‘Yappers received awards for embodying YAP’s values: Care, Excellence, Integrity, Value, and Elevate, the rest of the team were recognised for the unique value they bring to the team!
The crypto wave is turbulent and unpredictable but having a supportive team makes such a big difference.
ETHCC[6]: A Web3 Celebration
We then headed to Paris as the official PR partners of EthCC[6] and brought the entire YAP Global team with us. It was a pivotal event because it was the first-ever crypto conference experience for many team members and ties closely with our vision of onboarding the next generation of Web3 communicators.
At the YAP Global booth, the team had a fantastic time connecting with Web3 professionals worldwide and spoke specifically about improving PR and marketing standards for the industry.
As PR partners of EthCC, we got to meet and reunite with our clients and provided on-the-ground support. A major YAP Global win was announcing the launch of our new marketing services during my talk Elevate Your PR Game, where I talked about 5 Web3 PR myths; and the Contextualised Connect, our side event, was also a huge hit as our crypto and journo friends from all over the world joined us for an evening of snacks and networking.
Once again, EthCC[6] proved to be an amazing experience as we had the chance to meet with old and new friends in person, provide on-the-ground PR support to our clients, and observe a thriving industry landscape. Working alongside the amazing EthCC team has been a privilege, and I’m eagerly looking forward to next year’s conference in Brussels, Belgium (a decision influenced by the upcoming Olympics in Paris. At least we have beer, mussels, and waffles to look forward to! )
Looking Ahead: What’s Next for YAP?
I’m very proud of the YAP Global team and what we achieved in the past year.
Since day one of YAP Global, we’ve been on a mission to onboard the next generation of crypto and Web3 communicators. Seeing the personal growth of each team member, as they expand their crypto knowledge and refine their PR skills during this offsite, I am now more confident that YAP Global is the leading crypto and web3 PR agency and is in the best shape as it continues to set standards for best PR practices in the industry.
Web3 PR is a team effort, and I’m glad to have found my dream team to do it with.
