The Developer Marketplace (Rebrand)

Build a platform for entrepreneurs to post problems blockchain can solve for them and let developers pick which of those to solve.

I don't have any experience building on blockchain which is exactly the point of this proposal. We need to connect the ideas with the skills

Introduction:

The vast majority of people are sitting on the sidelines because they either don't know how to build out their own idea or they simply don't have any ideas themselves. If we can facilitate the cooperation of these two types of people, we could potentially bring in all of those individuals on the sidelines.The more people we have building the better. However, this won't just be a platform for finding developers; it will also be a platform for crowdsourcing problems through public posts. Example Posts:

"Hey, I work with personal data and pay a lot per month to maintain it. I think blockchain could be a big boost. If you can figure out how to implement this, please reach out to me with your proposal on how to build it and how much money you would be willing to build it for. If I like your idea, we can start right away and you can work remotely!"

"Hey, I work with personal data and pay a lot per month to maintain it. I think blockchain could be a big boost. However, I'm struggling with (insert problem). I have 1,000 ADA in a smart contract with the ID 1234567 (so you can verify). The smart contract only allows the funds to go to a developer on this platform. If your solution works, the smart contract will send you the rewards. Please reach out with your proposed solution."

This model of crowdsourced problem solving has already been tested and has been extremely successful. InnoCentive is a platform that allows researchers to post their problems and the "problem solvers" (anyone) can propose a solution. If the solution gets picked, the problem solver gets paid a reward. InnoCentive boasts an 80% success rate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InnoCentive), compared to the 20% success rate of the internal research departments of pharmaceutical companies (https://www.innocentive.com/). Other platforms, like Quora and Slack, have very similar models and are also very successful. It is much easier to ask users what they need than to try to anticipate problems to solve. Cardano really needs the availability of this approach.

Main Competitors:

Platforms that match entrepreneur with developers already exist, however, none of them are built on a scalable blockchain. This simple fact is what will allow The Developer Marketplace to outcompete them. For example, the biggest competitor to this platform is UpWork. It is the largest free-lance marketplace in the world with 12 million free-lancers and 5 million entrepreneurs. Three million job posts are made annually with a combined worth of $1 billion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upwork). There is very clear demand for this utility.

But depsite UpWork's impressive numbers, it has a fatal business flaw: it doesn't use blockchain as the backbone. This has a serious draw-back: UpWork is forced to use the legacy fiat system. This has two consequences. The first is that UpWork, while claiming to be a global platform, actually isn't global. The legacy fiat system doesn't actually reach every corner of the globe. It is still very difficult to get fiat into developing countries. The second consequence (and more important one) is that using the legacy fiat system forces UpWork to pay massive operational expenses in order to comply with the regulations such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and having reserves to handle delayed settlements. These regulatory expenses are arguably a significant part of UpWork's total budget. Because of these expenses, UpWork has to take a 20% cut from all jobs created through its platform. This is a steep barrier to entry for smaller developers.

By using Cardano as the backbone, The Developer Marketplace can utilize the money transfer mechanism of Cardano and its Prism utility for KYC. That means the Developer Marketplace would have a fraction of the expenses that UpWork and the other platforms currently have. The concept of the Developer Marketplace isn't new, using Cardano is simply a much better business model.

The basics of how it would work:

1. In order to harness the anti-censorship of Cardano, the posts will need to be posted to the blockchain. The posts would be contained inside of smart contracts that can be removed (closed) when they expire. That means there will be a minimum transaction fee for posts, although a very small one. The dapp would use ADA for all payments.

2. There will be two account types: entrepreneurs and dapp developers. Developer accounts will have a profile that describes their skills and experience (see #11). Both accounts will have contact information and user ratings associated with them (again, see #11). Eventually, Prism will handle the verifications of these profiles.

3. When an entrepreneur makes a post, he will need to send the fee funds to a dedicated smart contract wallet. This smart contract will host the post for the duration of its lifespan. He can pay more than the designated minimum fee to make sure it is posted towards the top of the list on the platform (see #4). The people willing to pay more will usually align with how important the problem is (relative to the entrepreneur). That smart contract will immediately send a pre-defined portion to the platform's wallet. There will be enough left in the smart contract's wallet to pay for the closing of the contract when it is time (again, see #4). The platform's wallet will be used to pay operational costs.

4. The platform will be a front-end website that queries all smart contracts of this type on the blockchain and will display the posts within them. The platform only needs to look back the past year, not the entire blockchain. The posts would be ordered based on recency and urgency. An example ranking algorithm is:

(2,592,000 - t) + ((paid - mintee)/5)(2,592,000 - t) = VALUE

Here t is time in seconds, paid is the actual amount paid, and the minfee is the minimum fee for posting from the platform. This fee will be higher than the minimum transaction fee on Cardano so that the platform can pay for operating expenses. The posts will be ordered from the highest VALUE to the lowest VALUE. This is exactly the way a developer would like to see them ordered. Once VALUE reaches zero, the post will be removed from the platform/blockchain. If a person pays just the minimum transaction fee, VALUE will reach zero in 30 days. For every 5 ADA paid above the minimum fee, another month is added to the post's lifespan in addition to an earlier position in the order.

6. For job posts, there would at most be the lifetime of the post for developers to bid on a project (entrepreneurs can choose a bid before the time is up and ignore all others). The fact that the post is no longer available stops new developers from finding it and bidding. The entrepreneur picks what she thinks is the best bid and either hires the developer and starts the endeavor or she collaborates with the developer on a treasury proposal for funds.

7. For crowdsourced problems like in the second post, the 1,000 ADA would be deposited into a smart contract. If nobody submits a response by the time the post expires (which will be a pre-defined time), the deposit is returned to the originating wallet and the contract would close. This is the only scenario where funds are returned to the originating wallet. If developers do submit answers, the poster selects the developer with the most useful answer and the smart contract sends a small percentage to the platform's wallet and then the rest of the ADA to the selected developer's wallet. To dis-incentivize the poster from trying to recover the funds by waiting out the post, the smart contract will know how many developers answered the post. If more than zero developers (so any) answer the post and the time runs out, the smart contract sends the funds to the platform's wallet instead. In addition, the user who posted the problem will have his account tagged so that other users can see that he did not reward the solution. This will allow the crowd to police the crowdsourcing so that it stays honest and effective. Solved posts will remain on the blockchain (or server) so that future people with the same problem can reference the solution.

8. If someone posts a crowdsourced problem that they believe is novel but other people do not, developers can mark this post as "not novel" and point the questioner to the original. If enough developers mark the post as "not novel" (3-5 might be enough), the post could be taken down from the blockchain; the smart contract can do this itself.

9. In the case that an entrepreneur has a confidential project proposal in mind, they can reach out to developers directly instead of publicly posting the idea to the blockchain. In addition++, the entrepreneur can pay an additional fee to get access to an NDA feature that can be stored (encrypted) on the blockchain.++

10. When posts are made, the poster can tag it with labels such as: web design, server security, blockchain integration, etc. Then developers can search for key words that would get matched against the words used by entrepreneurs to tag their posts. This would be more fair than having pre-defined tags. This makes it easier for a security developer to find work as compared to having to look through all 10,000 posts. The posts would still be sorted from highest to lowest VALUE.

11. The developers' accounts will have user ratings (similar to Amazon Seller). This allows the developers to build up their reputation. No degrees or certifications will be required for developers but there will be a place dedicated to them in the profile. Due to the way the platform works, developers only get paid if they solve a problem or win a bid by having a good plan. Non-certified developers can have good ideas, too. This is a self-reinforcing meritocracy. In fact, a developer with a degree can deliberately charge a little more on her bid because she is a less risky employee than a developer without a degree. It would then be up to the entrepreneur to spend more for a developer with a degree or spend less and take the risk with a developer without a degree. Entrepreneurs can decide for themselves if a certification matters. Eventualy, Prism will be used to verify all degrees and certificates declared.

12. The platform will not enforce any problem or bid format. If an entrepreneur posts a poorly worded problem, the bids they recieve will reflect that. Then if they go ahead with one of the bids, the endeavor will likely fail resulting in a loss for the entrepreneur. This is already enough of an incentive for an entrepreneur to explain the problem well. Likewise, if a bid is poorly explained, the bidder will likely not get hired. The desire to have an income is enough of an incentive for bidders to submit quality bids. Any filter the platform enforces will create a centralized bottleneck. It is better to let the market do the enforcing.

13. The platform will not be responsible for deciding when a developer deserves to get paid. The platform is only meant to connect entrepreneurs with developers. The rest of the business is meant to be conducted off the platform. However, the user ratings for both accounts are there to enforce good cooperation. For example, if an entrepreneur refuses to pay the developer for her work, she can explain the situation on the entrepreneur's rating. Thus, even though she may not be made whole, other developers can know to stay away from that entrepreneur. In other words, users can get ostracized by the community for bad behavior. This is another situation where the community can police itself. Prism verification can be used to prevent an ostracized member from creating a new account under a different name.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP):

1. A basic web domain with the two account types.

2. Smart Contract posting to the blockchain and reading the posts on the smart contracts.

Sources of Revenue:

1. Extra Fee per Post: above what the Cardano transaction fee is. This extra fee can be very small due to how cheap it is to post to Cardano. The Urgency amount paid will automatically go to the platform.

2. Money Back Guarantee: When a crowdsourcing problem is posted to the platform, a cut of the payout could go to the platform for paying operational costs. So in the 1,000 ADA example, the platform could take 10% and the rest goes to the developer with the best response. This could be true even if the funds are going to Cardano's treasury. In the case that no body responds, the poster would still get the full deposit back. This would require a lot of crowdsourcing for the cashflow to be meaningful.

3. Stake Pool Delegation (Not Required): Delegating to the platform's pool would be like receiving donations. Any one would be able to use the platform even if they don't pay. The use of the money would be transparent. This probably won't be a meaningful amount until there are a few tens of thousands of users.

4. Non-used funds in the platform's wallet can be delegated.

Roadmap:

Pre-Release

Stage 1 (2-3 months): Hire either Emurgo or IOHK developers to build the basic web domain with the two accounts.

Stage 2 (2-3 months): Build the smart contract functionality. By partnering with IOHK or Emurgo, this platform can be released with Gougen.

Post-Release

Stage 3 (2-3 months): Strategic marketing to Haskell and plutus developers as well as entrepreneurs in the community.

Stage 4 (2-3 months): Digital NDA functionality added and marketing to developers for other blockchains (Cardano benefits either way).

Stage 5 (3-6 months): Heavy marketing to entrepreneurs and developers on other platforms (like UpWork). This requires easy conversion between ADA and fiat (or goods), otherwise this will cause friction for adopting the platform.

(See Marketing Strategy below for more details.)

3 Year Budget - $250k: Some things are deliberately over-estimated; the prices are in USD but the equivalent will be paid in ADA when possible

1. 2 developers (who double as support in the beginning) at $70,000/yr = $140,000/yr paid in ADA

2. Upfront Cost of Website = at most $10,000 paid in USD

3. Monthly Cost of Website

-----1. Dedicated Server Hardware = $700/month = $8,400/yr paid in USD

-----2. Domain Name (separate from server host) = $15/yr paid in USD

-----3. SSL Certificates = $500/yr paid in USD

4. Security and Backup Features (not just on server)= $5,000/yr paid in both USD and ADA

5. Strategic Marketing = $20,000/yr paid in both USD and ADA

Sub-Total per Year = $183,915 -----keep reading to see why this being a large chunk is actually not an issue

Immediately upon receiving funds (I am assuming the funds are in ADA), $70k will be converted to USD. The remainder will be delegated to provide an extra source of cashflow and possibly benefit form ADA's price appreciation. ADA's price will likely only collapse if the world experiences a Global Depression. However, the governments and central banks are trying to do everything to keep inflation going. This makes the most likely scenario that of stagflation (if not hyperinflation). By having the long-term funds in ADA, its purchasing power can be protected, if not increased. The funds will be converted to USD as needed. Doing this, the initial $250k can likely be stretched to $350k-$400k.

By the end of the first year, we should have 4 sources of cashflow: the extra fees, the money back guarantee, the non-required stake pool, and the delegated start-up funds. This should be enough for the platform to scrape by for the next few years with the remaining $70k (the initial $250k minus the Sub-Total per Year) as a cushion.

Marketing Strategy:

Stage 3 - of Roadmap

1. No marketing will be done until after the platform is released with Gougen.

2. After the release, marketing will be targeted to Haskell developers (since Plutus is basically Haskell). We can do small scale marketing by going to Haskell and blockchain meetups and strategically posting the ads on certain sites (possibly iohk.io, if allowed).

3. Ideally, Charles Hoskinson would mention the platform on his AMA's and interviews when he talks about Voltaire. In addition, it would be great if IOHK developers mentioned it to their friends. These two alone could be a huge marketing boost.

4. If the platform works, the community should organically grow from here. Strategic marketing will continue until the "word-of-mouth" gains momentum.

5. A small portion of marketing will be dedicated to developers on other blockchains. Cardano benefits from these developers using the platform even if the project isn't meant for Cardano.

Potential Impact:

This situation where entrepreneurs don't have the skills to build out their own ideas and developers not having any ideas of their own is generating friction that is retarding the adoption of Cardano. Another major source of friction is getting stuck on a novel problem. The crowdsourcing ability of this platform could facilitate problem solving within the community as it begins exploring new frontiers of blockchain integration. If these frictions are eliminated, adoption could get a significant boost. This platform eliminates both types of friction. By connecting entrepreneurs with the ides to developers with the skills, these individuals can be brought into the space from the sidelines. There are absolutely no constraints on where or what to build. The best part is that this can be up and running for Gougen's release which is exactly when this platform will be needed the most. Eventually I would like to use the profits to educated the community and fund other projects similar to how Binance funds startups and research. If even a fraction of the about 20 million people on UpWork transition to this platform, that means hundreds of thousands of developers and entrepreneurs joining the space (not to mention their part of the $1 billion). Finally, without needing to charge a 20% fee, the barrier to entry for smaller developers would virtually disappear which means even more users entering the Cardano ecosystem. This is a perfect idea for the Fund1 Challenge.