You're absolutely right that the money is in the details. I have seen a lot of programs fail on Steem, and often it's because the details weren't right and it made it easier for bad actors to wipe out the program's resources.
At the rates we pay, we usually have a little STEEM left over after our leased delegations. We did start out putting everything into the leases, but we have since toned it down. Now we have target multiples (e.g. for every 1 share in a pool, we target 2-3 SP) and if we have STEEM left over after every pool meets its target, the rest is powered up. The targets are a little higher for the top pools to encourage people to increase their shares and move up into the higher pools.
It's good you are able to start putting a little towards long term voting power vs all leased. Really like that you have put so much thought into all of this...so many miss that the details are key!
BTW, just posted a contest that will reward at least one sponsorship. It's actually a contest designed to give me direction on future contests where I hope to give away 2 sponsorships per week. Let me know your thoughts if you get a minute. If you are busy I totally get it, but if you have a chance your time and thoughts will be appreciated.
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I resteemed your contest post. I love the idea of splitting into separate contest tiers for plankton and minnows, although it might be a challenge to get a good contestant pool in both tiers.
I don't usually enter contests because I'm way too busy, but I think they're a great part of the ecosystem. That's one reason that I like to resteem contests that support our program, along with providing a regular list in one of my updates. Since I don't really enter contests, I don't have the best insight into what contests will motivate quality content.
Have you reviewed the contests that are out there? You could try to find an unfilled niche for your contest to support. Or you could identify what the most popular contests are and do something similar. It just depends on what direction you want to go and whether you prefer to build a close community around your contests or to grow quickly and have lots of entrants every week.
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The either or that you proposed, copy vs fill a niche, is why I decided to offer a contest to see what my followers what to see out of a contest. We will see what everyone comes up with.
Thank you for the resteem. Hopefully that will give me a few extra entries to choose from.
If only 1 plankton submits an entry they will win, if that happens for 3 weeks in a row that same person will just get 3 sponsored spots. It's not what I'd like to happen, but as this is new to me I know it may not succeed. We will see.
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When we did our contest for our logo and profile banner, we were looking to get a minimum of five entries. For the logo we had enough in the first week, for the banner we extended for a few days until we had enough entries. As it turned out, the winning entry for the banner came during the extension period. But we were clear up front that the contests would extend if there weren't enough entries. (:
I think a big part of success on Steem (and in life) is flexibility. You try something, you evaluate the results, you adjust as needed to keep moving toward your goals.
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