ZuWell

Progress

Proof of Retreat: Vietnam

Beginnings

Discussion w/ Booga on how he started looking for the venue.

Booga scouted the village first: Important things: Outside of the big city, in acceptable distance to the city. My intention was 3 months. Some people were coming for a month. The first month was full, 3rd month less than 50% occupancy (also I stopped pushing). I didn’t have time to sell the retreat and I didn’t want to shill hard. Also it was an experiment for me.

Also infrastructure in terms of food, drinks. So we can go out and not be in the same space all the time.

Sport activities: Kitesurfing was the reason I choose south of Vietnam, so we can have extra activity. I’ve experienced spaces without special sports activities: It gives a theme, sport, and experience, which is important to me. If you work you need to be active. + Kitesurfing is speciality of this region. Mui Ne is world-famous for kitesurfing. There are other famous kitesurfing spots but far away from the main city/airport.

There’s nature to explore. There are sand dunes (tourim attraction), 2h driving there’s a lot of nature to explore. I was also looking for a location that can potentially be scalable. What if 20ppl registered? I wanted to be prepared.

What wasn’t my intention was that new ideas will form within the space, on how to improve local environmment as well.

There is no sofa, you can’t lie down, etc. I can see that.

You want your experience to be memorable. To explore culture code of the location.

I was inspired to create Proof of Retreat after ZuConnect. But I feel we need playbook of values/outcomes.

My baseline was: Co-living, co-working, co-chilling space:

I wanted bathroom for every room. This allows coliving for very different people.

Coworking: We’re 50% there. 3 more desks would be great.

Co-chilling: Beach, sunset, view on the sea, garden.

Knowledge sharing:

First month I was pushing people to share.

I feel like I should facilitate more.

Possible hack: In the registration form check intention and what kind of valuable knowledge they want to share, workshop to host, etc.

Help from Ducky:

I knew about village, I knew that price/quality is great, location was cool. Ducky helped found different leasing agents. We found a good match.

I paid in advance for 2 months + $400. 1.8k/month, 5.4k total for 3 months.

She came to the villa to make videos, how it should look like

She helped me assemble Notion too (FAQ, budgeting, residence guidebook, tourist guide etc.)

Location 🟢

Access to nature: 🟢 Sea. Beach. Sand dunes. A lot of trees.

Heritage: 🔴

Sports: 🟢 Kitesurfing, windsurfing, paragliding, golf, tennis.

Clean air: 🟢 Clean air, you can see the stars.

Noise: 🟢 You can hear crickets and wind.

Safety: 🟢 Feel very safe. Security at the village gates. Also the region is very safe

Access to viewpoints: 🟢 At least 3, also can be seen from the villa!

Food: 🟡🟢 Healthy seafood accessible with 5-10min motorbike ride. There’s international cousine, in a tourism location. Food infra is good with diversity so it doesn’t get boring. There’s Indian, Mexican, Korean, etc.

Travel/attraction: 🟡 Hiking, sand dunes, market, beach, temples...

Sustainable: ??? ⚪️🟡 (Example: Simple lifecycle assessment...)

Exercise facilities: 🟡🟢 Gym in the hotel (paid!), beach outdoor exercise equipment (free), tennis court, running around the beach track...

Access to art, nightlife, culture: In Saigon 🔴🟡 (potentially combine w/ heritage). Music festival happening 30min drive away. 3h from Saigon access to weekend activities, nightlife, etc.

Venue (General, housing) 🟢

Cost: 🟢 Very affordable, great ROI

Indoor natural light: 🟢 A lot of light, very bright

Indoor airflow: 🟢 You can open all windows and doors. Every room has access to balcony.

Soundproofing and acoustics: 🟢

Quality artificial lighting: 🟡→🟢 (Added improvements: like portable LED lights

Suggestions: Add portable LED lights.

Sustainable: ??? ⚪️🟡

Accessibility: 🔴 People with accessibility issues would need help getting into the house

No mold or toxic materials: 🟢 (could be merged with clean indoor air)

Beds: 🟢 comfortable rooms

People choosing the room based on the date of TX on chain.

Bathrooms: 🟢 Toilet/shower In every room!

Insects: 🟡 Mosquitoes, ants, bugs, and occasional spiders can appear in the house! However they are no dangerous and don’t disrupt our flow. We use electric mosquito repellents to keep mosquitos away.

Suggestion: Mosquito repellent (implemented) Pest control.

Cleanliness: 🟡 Have a cleaning 1-2x/week ($100/month cost, included)

Suggestion: Put out house rules (Cleaner, clean after ourselves, don’t leave food out, trash bag always to be emptied before the night.)

Venue (Work and meeting spaces) 🟡

Internet connection: 🟡 49 Mbps. Works mostly stably. In a few occasions needed to restart the router. No lost calls because of the internet.

Productive spaces: 🟡 (1 large coworking table + 1 standing desk, but missing 2 additional tables for proper coworking so every member can work.)

Chillout: 🟡 (there’s a chillout room, but furniture is not there. We got hammocs)

Suggestion: Buy hammocs, 1 standing desk. Have pillows

Seating arrangements: 🟡 Sofa, different char types.

Impact 🟡

Impact (general) 🟡

Proof of Polination: Specifically for Zuzalu. (Created at the village from scratch)

World is Home (Created at the village from scratch)

1 million dollar luggage

Impact to local community (Beyond contributing to local economy): 🔴🟡

Chess / Art / Techno expanded: Hub that connects web3 tech with local community in a physical space. (Came out of the pop up camp - ideation stage)

Ledger Satoshi: Video guide with NFT elements: Tour guide for everyone who traveled in Vietnam. (ideation stage)

Suggestions: Meetup, local workshop in a school, Techno/Chess/Art events, start hubs, etc.

Retro

What can we do better

Add Furniture

Working space - Want to make it more cool and comfortable, add standing desks

Improve chill space

Improve communication w/ external world by communicating better

Organize better knowledge sharing

Ask people in the sign up form to propose their workshops or how will they contribute to the space/community

Scout for local Zuzalians to join the camp

Clarify values for the next camp, in sync w/ Zuzalu values. (it was my goal for this camp too, but didn’t happen)

Maybe there might be clear goal for people to come.

TODO

Consider expanding sections (like airflow etc) to housing and work/meeting spaces separately

Add photos/notion pages of each project developed in the Pop-up village

Ask people who lived in Proof of Retreat to give their feedback

What they liked, impressed, got emotions

What could be done betters

Any photos they have could be collected

Grumpy score

Feedback from Abu (w/ photos of space etc)

Review location playbooks from Zuzalu. (Consider joining efforts)

Look at Excel sheet - calendar

Narrow the scope

Ask Chance for feedback

Other comments

Include:

Gathering space for everyone, run workshop.

Is there projector, mics, speakers, etc.

Feedback

Zuzagora - no work done by team besides their grant application. Theres also existing work being done in this same area like the Zuzalu playbook, Network State Forum, and New Nations Wiki. 25% of their budget is for traveling which shouldnt be necessary if their tool actually worked. Their product also feels like a classic example of “could have been a spreadsheet not a blockchain”

Idea: Go somewhere for 2 months to reset a habit. Can habits help toward wellbeing?

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.