Link Start, the new social media

[IMPACT]

As a point of reference, this projects MVP can be thought of in two parts. One as a career recruitment application for Web3 specifically. Two, as a hub for accessing and posting to social media tools such as Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Reddit, and others.

The first and most important part of this application is its function as a recruitment tool for the Web3 space.

There are many different recruiter websites already; LinkedIn, Indeed, Career Builder, etc. but these existing recruiter sites address multiple established industries. There are also many different “Web3” based recruiter webpages that have sprung up within the last year, with postings such as “CEO of DAO needed”, “Lead Blockchain Developer”, “VP of Treasury” and many more bogus job postings. From my perspective the most legitimate of these web pages is web3.career but it only serves as a forwarding site for job postings to other career pages some of which are out of date.

There is no main player in this space and none of them address the issues I and many others have had to navigate such as:

1. How do I find developers that are available who either come with recommendations from trusted sources or are vetted in some way?

2. How do I learn to code, where do I start, or what coding languages should I know for different projects?

3. What other roles are needed in the space besides being a developer?

4. What exists in this new world how do I see all of them at one time and how can I keep up to date with everything that’s occurring is a reasonable way?

There are people eager to learn who don’t know where to start and there are people eager for talent but can’t find it, this solution aims to bridge that gap.

The second portion of this application aims to be a solution to managing the myriad of applications and web pages many people in the space utilize to discover new information about and stay up to date on the world of blockchain.

Out of a test group of 51 people, 50% said they were looking for work in the space, 80% said they had over 10 different tools or webpages that they used to track their favorite project or learn about new ones and 39.1% said they had extreme difficulties finding work related to their skillset.

The data from this test group, although it is small helps to illustrate the demand for structure in this space. This application can provided that structure by serving as a hub/ aggregator for all the webpages and applications we use for the crypto space. This will be in the form of a customizable dashboard where you can drag and drop your favorite tools into one page so that it is customized for your needs. This would also allow you to post on your social media's of choice and utilize them as you normally do without having to switch between applications or webpages. This addresses the issues pulled from the data above by giving people one application which they can use for accessing multiple applications or webpages in a convenient and manageable format. My dashboard for example might have:

Twitter, Discord, and Telegram in its first section followed by CoinMarketCal, CoinMarketCap, and a news channel of my choice. It can also be visualized as the Apple widgets on an iPhone but inside of one app. It wont be used as a forwarding tool but as a hub to use all the tools from.

The big question and desire is, How do we bring more users to Cardano?

KPI's:

These would be my two KPI's

1. Deciding on how viable producing this application as a DAPP is.

2. Producing a user base and narrowing down on weekly to month onboarded users to determine the viability of the project.

DAPP Structure:

I would like to build this application as a DAPP on the Cardano blockchain and incentivize staking on the platform by rewarding users for their watch time which would be increased due to their usage of the dashboard which connects to traditional Web2 application.

The overall revenue structure as of now is based off businesses and consumers staking ADA in order to access different features of the application while keeping publishing algorithms fair and consistent.

There are two different staking structures one for consumers and one for businesses looking to advertise or have priority messaging/advertising on the platform.

For general consumers the structure would be gamified. For example the more ADA you stake the more perks or access to unique feature you would receive such as animated banners or profiles.

For businesses focused on recruitment or advertising, staking fees would be higher and there would be a randomized shuffles in terms of advertising priority. There would be set limits on how much ADA and entity could stake and a smart contract would determine where messaging was pushed out to so that consumer data is protected and governed by a smart contract. Depending on the click through rate or levels of user interactions on a post only so much ADA would be reallocated back to these businesses and the rest would be distributed to its users as staking rewards.

For now this is just a concept, it need to be thought through more.

The largest risk is being able to produce a viable revenue structure through a smart contract without tracking consumer data.

The main mitigation tactics which could address these issues immediately would be:

1. Build this product as a Web2 service to gauge market adoption of this product and while doing so provide these revenue structures:

- Monthly memberships for premium account upgrades which would allow for private messaging and for email connections requests only.

- Buy me a coffee; iffy but has worked for some project

- Track consumer data but give consumers an invoice of their data every month so they know whats being tracked and allow them to opt out after the first week. Premium members would be able to opt out of data collection at purchase of membership.

- Paying for priority advertising and job posting for specific positions

There are many route to go with but the research need to be done first.

[FEASIBILITY]

Roadmap:

1. Produce an alpha product which will be built using React.js and hosted on a cloud server

2. Beta test the product with 600 users and measure users interactions with the application through heat maps to measure application development priorities

3. Release a Web2 version and measure consumer data

4. If the product is viable focus on a DAPP version with a focus on staking structure and smart contract features

5. Repeat testing processes but with DAPP version of Link Start (the application)

6. Complete deliverables and present to the Cardano community for further funding

$4,000 - Full product development on Web2 for a mobile and web based application + web hosting and data storage.

$3,000- Marketing and data management to grow a 2,000+ user base outside the Cardano community

$5,000 - DAPP development/ prototype

$17,000- Full DAPP Deployment ready for release and close

$34,000- Marketing campaign across all social mediums stretched out over 4-5 months

- Influencer marketing

- Publishing

- Advertisements

- Events if possible

These are guesstimates based of prior experience

As of now I am submitting this proposal myself but I have the interest of the Developer DAO from the Harmony chain, NFT-DAO from Cardano and MUKN, and the Colorado State University computer science department to help me build this product.

[AUDITABILITY]

1. Get a quote for the Web2 version of product

2. Contract out or onboard developer's to this project after receiving quote

2. Produce a beta tester group of 600 and track product performance for 4 months.

3. Increase the user base to 2,000 4 months after the initial launch of the Web 2 product and measure viability of solution.

4. If product is viable based on consumer usage begin development on DAPP structure

5. Get a quote for the DAPP version

6. Produce final deliverable and data to present to the Cardano community for further funding and development

If by Q2,2023 This project had a working DAPP ready for stress testing and was able to be presented to the Catalyst fund to further consideration. I would consider that a success.

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