[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.
Context
We believe that in the NFT ecosystem, there will always exist a need for direct p2p trading, allowing for more personal transactions, direct buying and selling, bartering, exchanging NFTs, and doing custom trades not limited to specific ADA values as forms of payment.
Because of that, we created Tent, a platform that allows 2 users to trade directly between them in a secure and trustless environment. This is great for 2 users already willing to trade, but we feel there is a piece missing: discoverability.
For 2 parties to connect and find a trade they are willing to trade, there exists no single place where everyone interested in trading certain NFTs for others can go, and most of these sorts of trades happen in specific project-related Discords, where one has to be constantly on the lookout.
Our solution: We want to create a single place where collectors can go to find and offers trading deals, selecting which NFTs they are willing to trade and for which NFTs they are willing to trade them for.
This is not to be confused with a smart contract-driven marketplace, where one would lock the assets and allow anyone to instantly purchase them. This platform is specifically to connect collectors willing to trade, allowing them to engage in a personal and direct conversation before engaging in a trade.
Of course, once an offer has been accepted and a trade has been agreed, the trade would happen and be facilitated using Trading Tent.
Implementation
This is the basic idea, and while we have rough sketches of the platform and the functionality required to create a smooth experience for collectors to connect with each other, we want to develop this platform respecting a strategic process based on the Design Thinking System, which is based on understanding the users and the specific needs, defining the problems that need to be solved, ideating and prototyping different solutions and finally testing and launching the solution.
As previously stated, with the development of Tent and the active community it has gathered, we already have a head start with a basic understanding of needs and use cases. Being collectors ourselves, we can also use ourselves as a base for building a platform we would love to use.
Naturally, though, we need to respect our team's usual strategy & design process to ensure the quality of the final product:
- Research & Planning
- Strategy & UX
- UI Design
- Development
- Testing
- Launch
This would ensure the development of a product actually built by users for users, taking into account the specific needs of collectors and people in the ecosystem.
[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
Our platform would remove the challenge of finding trades you are interested in taking and finding people who are willing to trade. It would give the collector and NFT community an easy-to-use and well-designed platform that allows to quickly filter and find whatever they might be interested in.
No more constantly being on the lookout throughout multiple Discord servers and communities, just a single place to discover and find amazing trade opportunities.
[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
Scope creeping and not allowing ourselves to deliver a perfectly functional product because of an ever-increasing list of features we want to implement. We need to have a clear and defined scope for what we will deliver so that we can deliver.
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.
1-Research & Planning (~2 weeks)
This is the first phase of the product development phase, where we will start researching the concepts we want to develop, creating a benchmark, and collecting references. It is also in this stage where we define the rough direction we want to take this project, establishing our ideal vision of the product we want to build.
2-Strategy & UX (~2 weeks)
In this stage, we start exploring the best and most efficient ways to achieve the vision we previously defined and to bring a product to the market. Once the strategic foundation is laid, we start thinking about the functionality, defining and designing the features, and the overall user flow of the product.
3-Visual & UI Design (~4-6 weeks)
Once the strategic and user experience has taken a clear form, we can start designing how the product will look and feel, taking into account best practices, accessibility, and other fundamental design rules. Good design is essential to push for mass adoption of the ecosystem, as the everyday user expectations for UI & UX are as high as ever thanks to the ubiquitousness of well-designed apps by multi-billion dollar companies.
Additionally, it is in this stage that the product's brand design will be finalized. While this will probably be closely related to Tent, we plan on giving the complete new ecosystem consisting of both the trading platform (Tent) and this new offer marketplace system (Unnamed) a new look and feel, either by building and refreshing Tent or by building a new look and feel (to be defined in the strategic planning phase).
4-Development (~4 weeks)
As the design phase ends, the development of the product begins. While most likely some back-end work will have already started in parallel to some of the previous stages, the bulk of the development will occur once everything is ready to hand off to the development team.
5-Close and Open Testing (~4 weeks)
By this stage of the product development cycle, we should have a functional product ready for live testing by real users. Usually, product releases begin with closed testing to gather data and feedback from users. Depending on the state of the product we might do both closed and open alphas and beta tests, leading up to a full release.
6-Launch
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.
The whole product design process, when done right, is a lengthy and time-consuming process, usually prohibitively expensive when done with traditional well-established agencies, costing upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Here is a breakdown of what it would cost our team to execute the whole process by themselves.
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Research, Planning & Strategy ($5,000)
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Branding Refresh/Overhaul ($6,000)
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UX & UI Design ($10,000)
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Front & Back End Development ($5,000)
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User Testing & Launch ($2,000)
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.
Sam Portillo: Strategy
Over 10 years of experience in design & business strategy. Has worked with the biggest brand in El Salvador and some Fortune 500 companies in the US.
Carlos Arnecke: Product Design
Over 10 years of experience in design and digital marketing.
Horia Schau: Lead Developer
Full-stack front-end, back-end, and Cardano Developer.
Roberto Burgos: Project Manager
Has a background in video and film production and management.
Fernando Pocasangre: Copywriting
Content Creation Expert
Defie Mazariego: Graphic Design & Illustration
Maria Martin: Front End Development Support
[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.
Currently, there are no concrete plans to come back for further funding for this specific product creation. Naturally, and as happens with most of our products and creations, we are constantly developing new ideas and trying to innovate, so we cannot discard the idea of coming back for a second round of funding to further develop the project.
[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?
According to the described timeline, we will be sharing constant updates regarding the design and the development process, probably even including external users to test and validate ideas.
[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?
With a successful launch of the platform, allowing users to freely discover and offer amazing trades they are interested in.
[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.
It's a new proposal.
