nft-maker.io -> Full NFT platform

Goals:

• Expand nft-maker.io into a full-scale trading platform with the option to sell, buy & mint NFTs
• Switch to a completely decentralized model for trading & minting once smart contracts go live on the Cardano mainnet
• A complete redesign of nft-maker.io
• Complete rewriting of the nft-maker.io code to make it more scalable and expandable
• Allow for more file formats & more customizable NFTs (music, videos, 3d models)
• Integrate social features (liking, following artists, rankings, tags, etc.)

Timeline:
We're planning to have all the above-mentioned goals completed at the latest 2 months after smart contracts launch on the Cardano mainnet (so But we're a very fast and agile team and definitely aim for a launch date very close to the smart contracts launch.

1. The first big product launch will include a minimum viable version of the redesigned page, including a decentralized market place & support for the most important file formats. This will happen shortly after the launch of smart contracts on Cardano.
2. After that, we will deliver updates on a regular basis until all the above-mentioned features have been successfully been included on the page.
3. Once we've reached all goals of the proposal, we'll continue to gradually improve the page & scale it up to make it a real competitor to existing big NFT platforms on other blockchains. With the combination of the power of the Cardano blockchain & our development team, we're confident that we can create one of the strongest NFT sites on the market.

The team:
Developer: Patrick Tobler, founder of the BABEL stake pool, founder of nft-maker.io, computer science student, in the Cardano space since 2017.

• Website: https://www.tobler.io/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-tobler-6593b912b/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Padierfind
• Email: patrick@tobler.de

Designer: Fahim Popalzai, founder of nft-maker.io, Lead Designer at a successful startup.

• Website: https://fahim.design/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahimpopalzai/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/fahhh1m
• Email: fahim@popalzai.de

Product Designer: Peter Jaschkowske, the guy between Development & Design.

• Website: http://peterjaschkowske.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/P_Jaschkowske
• Email: peterjaschkowske@gmail.com

Technical Information:
We'll be utilizing a mix of traditional technologies that we feel very comfortable with and some new technologies for interacting with the Cardano blockchain & to stay on top of the current technological advancements:

• C# (Blazor) for the Webserver
• MongoDB for the Database
• HTML, Javascript & CSS for the Website
• Plutus for the Smart Contracts. We're also part of the Plutus Pioneer program.
• Python (Flask) for building a second layer and the API

Definition of Success:
After 3 months:

• A fully functioning web app where creators can easily create new NFTs for their visual art, music, videos & more.
• Using this web app creators can sell their NFTs on an auction-style marketplace via a completely decentralized model (smart contracts).
• Users are able to visit the page & discover new interesting NFTs, register an account, follow their favourite artists and finally buy NFTs from them directly via bidding into a smart contract.

After 6 months:

• Stable & growing userbase
• Specialized collection pages
• Partnerships with companies & artists
• Financially independent

After 12 months:

• One of the biggest NFT pages in the crypto space
• Innovation on NFTs as DRM solutions (e.g. only users who own a specific NFT can access a certain type of content - like an ebook for example)
• A plan for the tokenization of real-life objects into NFTs

Use of Funds:

• Pay founders for 4 months to allow them to work on the project full-time until it becomes financially independent: 4 months x 1.500$ x 3 founders = 18 000 $
• Server costs & other technical infrastructure = 2 000 $
• Marketing = 5 000 $
• Pay for legal requirements to set up a company = 2 000$
• Pay for freelance developers = 13 000$
• -> Total: 40 000$