ZK Podcast is Hiring!!

So just jumping on the mic to share a quick update about the zero knowledge podcast. We have some great episodes planned, and the show will be returning at the beginning of February. Now, I think I was a bit ambitious in our end of year episode a few weeks ago when I said that we would be back by mid January. Yeah, it's mid January now, and we have just started our outreach to new guests, so I guess it will be at least two to three weeks before we have some episodes ready to air. But I'm very excited for what we have planned.

Now, the real reason I am here is to share that we are currently hiring the company that produces zero knowledge podcast as well as ZK Summit, and now ZK hack is looking to grow the team. And so if you happen to be looking for a new role, or just want to join in on what we are doing in this community, the next bit might be for you. There are two roles we're hiring for. One is fully community focused, and the other is working on the business side of things with me.

So over the last few months, during this break, I spent a lot of time thinking about what makes this show and all of the projects around it great. I also spent time talking to people like my co hosts and friends in our community about this. We chatted about what works, what doesn't, where we might be wasting time and where we are missing golden opportunities. The one thing I heard over and over again is that we aren't loud enough about the show and all the cool things we do between the ZK podcast and the ZK hack, we have hours of really interesting conversations. We have videos from conferences. We have our meetups, our hackathons, we have educational material ZK puzzles to hack on. We do study clubs and the ZK mesh newsletter and the ZK jobs fair and the jobs board and more, and we don't really shout about it, or we don't really make the connection for people about all of these things going on for the show. For example, when we release a new episode, we send off one tweet and maybe a clip, and that's about it. And that's a shame, because I think our stuff is good, and I don't mean to compare, but I think our stuff may even be a little better than some of the other stuff out there, and yet we aren't really talking about it, and I think that's because I just find so much of marketing so cringe, and I just don't want to add to the noise, but I think in being so quiet, we've also flown under the radar of people who could have become regular listeners, and we've kind of made ourselves a bit hard to find, or at least we've made it challenging for folks who are less familiar with us to see across all that we're doing. So one of the roles I'm looking for is a Community Marketing Manager for the show. This person should really speak the language of our community. I think we are all pretty allergic to cringey, attention grabby posts. So we need someone who can walk the fine line between informing in a compelling way without using cheap techniques and tactics. And it's not an easy thing to do. I think Gaylord on our team has done an excellent job on the ZK hack side of things, and now we need someone to bring this energy across even more channels. If you're thinking of applying, I really want you to already have a sense for how our community works, how people speak to each other, have a vision for which communities could be interested in these topics, and a bit of a sense for how we can bring those people into the fold in a way that feels authentic to what we've already built. The slight challenge here, and something that may limit the pool of candidates a bit further is that I want a candidate to have a technical understanding of Zk, at least to the level that I do, but ideally to a deeper level. I've posted details of this job in the show notes, and that links you to the full job post. So have a look. We've already received a couple really good applications, so if you did already send something in, we will be in touch soon.

So that's the marketing and community focused role. The truth is, we have an amazing team already, and the team manages and works on so many different channels and projects. It's been a blast doing this. It's genuinely never boring, but the approach we took that is like throwing something at the wall to see what sticks over and over again, has meant that many of our projects and activities feel fragmented and haven't really been given fuel to grow much past their initial experimental state. And I think we're at this stage, both in the history of this company, but also in the greater ZK ecosystem, where it's a good time for us to level up what we are doing. And so the second role I'm hiring for, and this is a bit more of a senior role, is for someone to work closely with me to build up this business. I'm calling the role the Strategic Growth lead. But the title may not exactly capture what I'm looking for. I'm looking for someone with experience running businesses to join us to make this operation stronger and like fortified financially sustainable through the ups and downs of the market at the moment, each of our events, each episode of the show, each season of the whiteboard sessions, it's like a little project of its own. But I want to unify this and get more regular long term deals going with our partners, so that we can a be better partners to them and also bring even more value to the people listening to the show, watching the whiteboard sessions, reading our newsletter and participating in our events. The goal here is to make the organization strong on the most practical level. It involves sponsorship sales and partnership deals, but it's also about finding cool new business ideas to explore, developing the channels we have, and finding ways in which the company can evolve. And I don't just want an idea person. I want to bring on someone with a track record of delivering on what is planned. We are a team of six people at the moment, and as is common to small teams, it's going to be very hands on. You get a front row seat to everything happening in Zk, as well as the adjacent technologies. They are set to change the way we work, shop, chat, vote and think about the world. If this sounds like the kind of challenge that you would be up for, and if you recognize the opportunity here to have an impact on our company, but also on the greater ZK space, I hope you'll contact us about the job. All right.