[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Sequential Squares is an innovative approach to a truly independent blockchain song release format that facilitates equity in collaboration by releasing production stems and demos alongside the song itself.

NFT minting platforms on Cardano don't have particularly robust features for music, so the process can become complicated and expensive. Most platforms that do cater to music specifically act more like labels or agencies. There is not an open source platform that allows musicians to self-publish affordably.

Sequential Squares would like to develop a suite of NFT music publishing tools to host open source so musicians can easily and affordably self-publish their content. Most of the funding from Catalyst will go toward developing a basic platform that Sequential Squares' parent company, Metapproach Industries Inc., can maintain at negligible cost. The first online home of this tool set will be ADAO, our partners in DAO management. These tools can implement a number of simple features to offer immense value to musicians and their fans. With the requested funding we intend to:

• empower musicians to self-publish with an open source music NFT publishing platform that includes comprehensive metadata standards and the ability to attach additional bonus items such as art, videos, 3D assets, etc.
• foster collaboration with NFT protocols for project files and stems that clearly establish distribution rights and expectations for remixed materials.
• develop an open source Web3 music player to query wallets, policies, etc., for music files and load them into playlists.

Beyond the scope of this Catalyst fund, Metapproach would like to add more free features to the open source publishing platform, including a basic interface for remixing stem files via sequencing that allows users to collaborate on remixes together. With enough interest, Metapproach may want to develop enhanced paid upgrades for this product like effects plugins, patches, loops, etc. Ultimately, Metapproach would like to turn Sequential Squares into a NFT marketplace that caters to music and uses the open source tools from this proposal in an onboard minting service, which can be enhanced by subscription features. If there is enough demand on the publishing side, Sequential Squares can also offer enhanced royalty distribution services that help musicians manage royalties across distribution networks (i.e. streaming services), as well as maintain complex royalty models that can automate equity back to collaborators, producers, performers, or collectors. There is also a lot of noteworthy potential that music NFTs can provide regarding token-gated access to live streamed events, as well as token-gated fan perks including in-person meetups and physical item drops, all of which Sequential Squares & Metapproach are interested in exploring down the road!

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Music publishing products are lacking in the NFT space overall, especially on Cardano, but it is particularly hard to find open source options for NFT music publishing. A free tool to help musicians distribute their content globally could be a game changer for so many talented people. Cardano provides the technology needed to offer meaningful features to everyone in the digital supply chain. This would not only be a boon to the Cardano ecosystem, but to musicians struggling to keep up with a changing industry. With the pace at which global economies are becoming more engrained with the digital world, humanity needs decentralized mechanisms to preserve the arts and their proliferation. The dying corporate music industry has already done enough damage to musicians in this regard, so now is the time to use the technology available to provide independent artists with the tools they need to succeed.

The Cardano blockchain already provides an extremely sustainable infrastructure for this sort of distribution model, with immense versatility in smart contract options and royalty mechanisms; it's the music industry that could benefit from adopting more sustainable practices. By offering basic music distribution services, Sequential Squares can help self-published musicians who are adept at promoting themselves reach a broader audience. The addition of innovative add-on features, starting with the ability to attach other digital assets to the music NFTs, will allow musicians to offer their fans more value collecting music. Over time, as features are added to this platform and other inspired products evolve the concept, a community of digital music fans can emerge. Ideally the market that emerges from this technology will organically cultivate an ecosystem where fair prices and quality content are encouraged, but ultimately this will be mostly determined by the fans voting with their wallets.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

We will be able to track activity by observing the number of users creating NFTs on the platform, as well as the number of users buying music NFTs, average spending, average total music NFTs people buy on Cardano vs. other chains vs. legacy distribution models, etc. Once funded, a 3-5 day research campaign will be held to establish a baseline for these metrics. Sequential Squares will update these data at the end of the 6-month Catalyst campaign, then Metapproach will commit to continuing to collect data and publish metrics for at least another year in 6-month intervals. We believe this platform has the potential to become a very popular way to publish music on Cardano, but we also hope it inspires other platforms to setup more easy & affordable products that help artists with digital content distribution. Cardano's features and its overall ethos contain everything needed to facilitate a digital artistic revolution!

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

The team of 4 developing this software is looking for minimal resources to be able to commit 5-10 hours per week each over six months to slowly building out this very simple solution. Supplemental income is required to take on new projects, so the projects the community wants to see funded will get the most attention.

At that rate, we can set monthly milestones to track our progress:

1. It should take a month from funding to organize the project on an efficient development timeline.
2. Establishing a strong marketing infrastructure and presence should take about two months from funding.
3. Halfway through, at three months, we should have the smart contracts and metadata protocols organized.
4. During the fourth month of development we should be able to provide a tech demo of the minting service.
5. After five months, the basic minting platform should be ready to launch with support for songs, stems, and albums.
6. The last deliverable at the end of six months will be a basic browser-based NFT music player.

We are hoping to fully sustain six months of runway to cultivate value in our umbrella's fundraising endeavors, while publishing valuable open source tools to the Cardano ecosystem. This goal would be completely realized with optimal conditions for total success if our DAOs ❤ Cardano Catalyst Fund 10 proposal - Proto Automata - is also funded. If Sequential Squares is the only proposal Metapproach is granted funding for, however, we will have no problem meeting the minimum outputs laid out in this proposal.

Beyond Catalyst, Metapproach will continue to upgrade the open source publishing tools, making it even easier for artists to manage more complex distribution models for their music, and adding engaging features for fans to interact with.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Our team has experience developing successful products in the blockchain and music industries including Unbounded.Earth, Adagotchi, ADAO, Pronoia Festivals, Sirius Frequency Studios, and more. All team members are already doxxed from other projects, all with at least over a year of experience working on Cardano-based products. We all bring a unique skillset as well as a unique perspective on the value blockchain technology brings to the wide world of product development.

Sterling (X) has a BS in Music Production, where he learned a great deal about music publishing and distribution rights. He has studied & performed with a variety of instruments for over 25 years and produced for almost 20; Sterling has also been involved with live events at almost every level for more than 20 years. Justin (Crex) is also a professionally trained musician and music producer. The two work together periodically in the studio, as well as backstage at fantastic live events.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

We want to make it easier for musicians to publish their content on Cardano first and foremost, but there are still a host of features we can add into this product to bring more attention to it. The main goal in this Catalyst Fund 10 proposal is to provide an innovative framework for an open source music publishing platform that can grow over time. This will be proven by the launch of the platform at the end of the 6-month Catalyst campaign, at which point X and Crex will be releasing a song to showcase Sequential Squares' capabilities.

Other major project goals should be considered complete upon the following conditions:

• Smart contracts and metadata are organized, tested, and ready to deploy.
• Minting service is fully functional with fillable metadata templates that properly tag different types of audio assets.
• A basic browser-based NFT music player is developed and functional.

Beyond the scope of this Catalyst proposal, Sequential Squares hopes to generate the funding to develop more innovative features into the platform. One of the more ambitious features we're workshopping is a browser-based remix platform that will allow stem NFT holders to remix their favorite songs without having to learn how to use any complex music production software! We also hope to develop token-gated access to live streamed events as well as other token-gated fan perks including in-person meetups and physical item drops.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Sequential Squares Catalyst Milestones Over 6 Months

1 - Organizing Project Management

• Month 1
• Success = demo project management board and show projected timelines

2 - Organizing Marketing Avenues

• Months 1-2
• Success = demo marketing management systems and show campaigns

3 - Smart Contracts & Metadata Protocols Established

• Months 1-3
• Success = demo smart contract & metadata tests

4 - Minting Service Tech Demo

• Months 1-4
• Success = demo barebones minting platform concept

5 - Minting Service Launch Test (Deliverable)

• Months 4-5
• Success = deploy minting service at ADAO and demo test mint

6 - NFT Music Player (Deliverable)

• Months 1-6

• Success = successful launch of open source NFT music player & functionality demo

  [CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

MINTING SERVICE DELIVERABLE OUTCOMES:

1 - Basic NFT Music Publishing Platform

• The ability to attach links to music files (with instruction on using verified services like Pinata/IPFS)
• Autofill metadata templates
• Policy configuration interface
• Virtually free minting
• The ability to release stem packages that mint individually and in bundles
• Remix-friendly distribution rights options
• Typically unlimited policies

2 - Basic Royalty Distribution Options

• Some limited royalty distribution options (much more complex options can be developed over time) to make it easier for collaborators to split royalties
• Options for attached distribution rights that generate legal contracts which embed into the metadata
• Options for royalty models with holder perks

WEB-BASED NFT MUSIC PLAYER DELIVERABLE OUTCOMES

• Functional web music player
• Wallet sync with music player
• Wallet query for music files
• Playlist organization features

The overall outcome of developing and releasing this software suite open source will be a better framework for musicians wanting to publish on Cardano.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The requested funds for this project will pay 3 team members - the producer, developer, and marketing director - $1,500/each per month for 6 months to build this product. That's a total of:

$27,000

- or -

₳93,104

(observing ₳1 @ $0.29)

Being such a lean project, no paid management services should be required. Social media will be managed from the parent corporation's social media management software and Plaky should be a perfectly adequate project management board for Sequential Squares.

It is an entirely custom software solution and it requires zero overhead to develop. The team behind Sequential Squares is extremely capable of delivering a lean and agile project rollout, and they are comfortable building this product with limited resources because of the value it will add both to their Web3 enterprise and to the Cardano ecosystem overall. We hope our DAOs ❤ Cardano Catalyst Fund 10 proposal - Proto Automata - and other fundraising efforts beyond the Cardano ecosystem should secure all of the time needed from our legal advisor to oversee logistics with distribution & royalty smart contracts, but if Sequential Squares is the only project we can secure funding for during the 6-month timeline we will reallocate some of the budget to cover our advisor's time.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Sterling Bond (X / Xeperu) -

Producer @ Proto Automata & CEO @ Metapproach Industries Inc., Owner of Unbounded.Earth

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/sterlingbond/>

Dominick Garey (dagwell) -

Blockchain Dev @ Proto Automata & CTO @ Metapproach; Adagotchi; The Silk Toad

<https://github.com/dgarey>

Matthew Bowen (Tha_BDOGE_Father) -

DAO Operations @ Proto Autoamta & CGO @ Metapproach; ADAO; Deep Chain; Summon

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewkbowen/>

Justin Dean (crexthemage) -

Marketing Director @ Proto Automata & CMO @ Metapproach

<https://twitter.com/crexthemage>

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

₳93,104 - currently about $27,000 USD - is a very low budget to develop such a useful product in 6 months. The team is interested in developing this product because of the vast growth potential it has to empower musicians and encourage the collection of music NFTs on Cardano on a much larger scale, as well as the value it can bring to other Metapproach products. With this small budget the team can develop a MVP that can generate the revenue required for future developments. Before we see the true demand, we have to build the product, so part of the low ask for a slower development timeline is testing the demand from the ecosystem based on Catalyst response, followed by response to the initial product launch.

Ideally Sequential Squares will be funded alongside the Proto Automata Catalyst Fund 10 proposal, securing 6 months of comfortable full-time focus from this team to innovative incredibly value open source tools for the Cardano ecosystem.