Yaad Labs + Anvil + Agrow Labs: TripHut's Mainnet Deployment

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Jaymeon Jones

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

5

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

We will deploy to Cardano mainnet, an MVP of a Travel Club managed by smart contracts that sustainably sends its members on free or discounted vacations using community resources and partnerships.

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.”

No dependencies outside of the project team.

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

Both the on chain code and the off chain code are open source. We use the MIT open source license and our repo can be seen in the "relevant links" section.

For ease of reference: https://github.com/yaadlabs

[METADATA] Horizons

DAO

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

Introduction

Travel & Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world, as it contributes towards 10.3% of global GDP and employs roughly 300 million people (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2021). We believe that the industry presents a large opportunity for Cardano to gain mass adoption, not only because of the industry's size but also because of the level of consumer interest in the sector.

That being said, accessibility to travel is a problem. At the very peak of travel in 2019, only 18.9% of the world’s population travelled abroad (Statista, 2022); and if we were to use America as the marker, who are largely considered to be among the most well-travelled citizens, only four in ten U.S natives planned a trip locally or otherwise in 2019 (AAA Travel Survey, 2019).

If we were to provide a solution that boasts being able to send people on free &/or discounted vacations, what would that do for real world interest in, and adoption for Cardano?

A lot!

How will the Travel Club Work?

We intend to contribute to the solution of accessible travel by using three models:

Model A/Travel Grants - From the Travel Club's economic activities (NFT/membership sales, tourist board sponsorships & a small mining facility) the DAO will allocate a portion of the earnings towards travel bursaries. Bursaries are distributed via a smart contract that executes decisions based on a relative majority vote from the community. The idea here is that successful applicants get an all expenses paid vacation of up to the ADA equivalent of $1800 USD. This model is very unique and offers the project the kind of marketing leverage needed to get the mainstream travel media & community's attention.

Winners are chosen once a month.

Model B/Community Owned Property - After establishing proof of concept, the idea is to allocate funds from utility token sales, to acquire or build an Air BNB that is both self sustaining (as rooms will be sold to travelers outside the community) and member-rewarding, as there will be dedicated accommodation, set up for member use (for free or at a discount).

The intention is also to optimize the model so that rooms sold or rented to the wider public can cover expenses and allow for member-allotted accommodation to remain free, or at worst, discounted. Additionally, the average occupancy rate is approximately 70%; and so with proper planning, that unused room space can also be given to the community as well.

Model C/Third Party Partnerships - This is the model that scales. The intent is to partner with third parties internationally to pass off their owned experiences (think restaurants, hotels & attractions) at a discount to our members through token gated "e-vouchers". The relationship is formed on the premise that they get marketing value (exposure to our community to help sell unsold inventory) and that this happens only on the basis that the community gets the best rates. This scales well - proven by other active and profitable organisations like Guztazos.

Who will the project engage?

Our stakeholders are as follows:

Members (Phase 1 & 2) - Persons that purchase a travel pass and/or a utility token (To comprise of mostly the Cardano NFT & wider Cardano Community in the short run)

Members (Phase 3) - Persons that purchase a travel pass and/or a utility token (To comprise of mostly persons from the broader travel community, outside of Cardano, in the medium to long term)

Customers - Persons who want to book our experiences (non-members)

Project Partners - Persons who own experiences and are willing to share in the mission of affordable travel

Keen to note though is that the scope of this grant proposal will fund Cardano Mainnet deployment which will get us through the first two phases of TripHut's road map.

How will we demonstrate impact?

• Membership sales
• Community size
• DAO Participation
• Solution Sentiment

Conclusion

With this plan, we can achieve a first-of-its-kind, token-gated travel club, that is self sustaining, community led, and contributes to accessible travel and ultimately, real world adoption for Cardano!

Keen to note too is that our solution is open source and would provide a reasonably safe alternative for developers and project owners to leverage for their own DAO's, without having to commit the same amount of time and resources we have.

References

Edmonds, E. (2019). AAA: Nearly 100 Million Americans Will Embark on Family Vacations this Year: Retrieved from: https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/03/100-million-americans-will-embark-on-family-vacations/

Statista. (2022). Number of international tourist arrivals worldwide from 1951 to 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/209334/total-number-of-nternational-tourist-arrivals/

World Travel & Tourism Council. (2021). Global Economic Impact & Trends. Retrieved from:https://wttc.org/Portals/0/Documents/Reports/2021/Global%20Economic%20Impact%20and%20Trends%202021.pdf

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

Broadly speaking our solution will:

• Contribute to the body of open source work around DAO's on Cardano
• Provide another opportunity to demonstrate what DAOs on Cardano look like
• Provide the community with another unique D'App to use
• Generate positive media attention for Cardano and bring more users with said positive media attention

We will measure impact by tracking:

• Membership sales
• Community size
• DAO Participation
• Solution Sentiment

Apart from the usual channels that Project Catalyst provides like the open milestone modules, public closeout report and impact surveys - outputs can be observed in our community channels on X and Discord; and when they are technical, they can be observed in our public repo.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

We know our solution is feasible as we have been working on the prototype which anyone can reference in the links we included as part of this proposal. After some revision and final tweaks to the code to make it safer and more scalable, we will be in a good position to deploy to mainnet. We have very experienced developers working on this project including well recognized community members from Anvil and Agrow Labs who are demonstrably capable of building DAOs on Cardano.

The community can also reference the delivery of our last two proposals which are searchable by the name "Jaymeon Jones" to get a sense of proof of patterns and be able to trust that we can deliver. This proposal is actually the natural follow up to our last two submissions.

It would be keen to note also that a part from the first tranche, Catalyst does not release funds unless specific milestones are met, which should help to further alleviate concerns over any mismanagement of ADA.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Phase 1 - Smart Contract Audit Fixes and Enhancements (2 months)

• Fix the audit finding "ID-501 Multiple Fundings".
• Fix the audit finding “ID-502 Upgrade Proposal Spending”.
• Fix the audit finding “ID-503 Arbitrary Upgrade Minter Policy”.
• Fix the audit finding ID-504 “Unspendable UTxO”.
• Fix the audit finding ID-401 “Insufficient UTxO Assets”.
• Fix the audit finding ID-301 “Token Dust Attack”.
• Fix the audit finding ID-302 “Illegitimate Staking Rewards”.
• Fix the audit finding ID-303 “Spam Proposals”.
• Address informational audit findings ID-101 to ID-105.
• Constrain the handling of treasury withdrawals.
• Implement collection of fees.
• Implement authentication of proposal creation.
• Optimize scripts.
• Update transaction builder.
• Implement transaction chaining.
• Integrate with the new transaction builder API
• Display an interim voting count (optional)
• Deploy scripts to mainnet.
• Deploy mainnet environment.

Phase 2 - Revamp Frontend (1 month)

• Create Proposal
• Implement friendly errors to show what is missing
• Block the button if the wallet is not connected / missing the required NFT / has already created one for the selected period
• View all proposals
• Vote on proposal
• Show what tokens can be used and their voting power
• Show current voting period (like Season in video games)
• Guides and Documentations to help newcomers
• Implement Anvil Weld as the wallet selector
• Form to upload videos and link it with the proposal

Phase 3 - Create an Admin panel (1 month)

• Activate next voting period
• Manage SC, Policies and etc. having a dashboard to see the whole system.
• Get simple metrics, how many voters, how many proposals, new users, user retention and so on.

Phase 4 - Create close out report and video as per Project Catalyst guidelines (1 month)

• Deploy TripHut's public facing platform that interacts with the DAO on-chain scripts deployed on the Cardano mainnet.
• Submit a report and video of successful launch

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Jaymeon Jones - Project Management

Education: MSc in Management Studies with a focus in Marketing - Distinction

BSc in Marketing & Economics

Certifications in Digital Marketing, Social Media & Content Marketing

Experience: Ten years of experience in Marketing, Project Management & Product Development with most of it in Finance & Membership based products

Accolades: JN Groups Marketer of the Year

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymeon-jones-8a55968b/

Randy Burrell - Technical Lead

Education: BSc in Computer Science

Experience: Over Nine years of experience as an Engineer

Accolades: Held roles as VP of Engineering & Lead Engineer for several International Web 3 companies

https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyburrell/

Anvil - Lead Development Partner

https://ada-anvil.io/

Agrow Labs - Auditor

https://www.agrowlabs.co/

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

Milestone 1: Smart Contract Audit Fixes and Enhancements

• 279 developer hours: 30,000 USD

Milestone 2: Revamp Frontend

• 160 developer hours: 17,200 USD

Milestone 3: Create Admin Panel

• 160 developer hours: 17,200 USD

Final Milestone: TripHut mainnet launch

• Project Management & Administration: 0 USD

Subtotal:

• Development Costs = 64,400 USD
• Project Management & Administration = 0 USD

Total: 64,400 USD/181,257.06 ADA

NB

Developer Rate - 107.5 USD per hour

Project Manager Rate - 0 USD per hour

The rate used is 1 ADA = $0.36 (USD).

The balance of 31,257.06 ADA will be paid for "out of pocket"

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

The cost of each line item is in alignment with Industry Standards:

An average blockchain developer costs between $80 USD to $100 USD.

https://arc.dev/freelance-developer-rates/blockchain

We believe this project represents value for money as the value proposition and the partners we have and are in talks with securing, will bring organic/earned media value that far exceeds the spend.

A lot of the costs affiliated with the project have also been waived, discounted and paid for out of pocket.