Project Catalyst... for Musicians

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

DEMU ‘Inc’ is a Cardano-based incubator that funds music projects. We will build a developing network of single SPOs to support smaller pool operators and the further decentralization of Cardano.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

I've worked in music for 20 yrs+, as an indy artist, then w/ major labels (Universal, Sony, etc) b4 working for Kanye's Yeezy. Founded DEMU, a music protocol being built on Cardano to automate music royalty payments. We've assembled a team of 10 core members & 15 contributors.

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

We are building a Music Incubator on Cardano. This incubator will be funded by a stake pool model which aggregates small Stake Pool Operators into a “Pool of Pools” to fund artists. Artist proposals, similar to Catalyst proposals, will directly fund the creation of music, backed by votes from our SPO delegators in a "decentralized A&R" (an A&R is basically a talent scout for the record label) model to promote artists and their repertoire. In return, artists will reward delegates with exclusive rewards for the valuable support given to them. 

Our hypothesis is that a mission drive stakepool network will gather support of music lovers and indie music fans . We would also like to draw attention to how popular multi-pool SPOs are reducing the decentralization of Cardano by concentrating delegation away from single pool operators . While researching the state of play, we discovered how single SPOs struggle to attract delegation and mint regular blocks. Our promotion of single SPOs is done alongside the work of Rhys Morgan of Stoic Pool, who was funded by Catalyst for StakingDAO, a platform that solves the problem I’m describing. Our team decided that instead of creating our own stake pool that competes with others, we would work with StakingDAO to create a “Pool of Pools”, where smaller/single SPOs could come together and we would funnel all of our delegators evenly to them.

Delegators will hold the power of the music A&R. Only these people decide which artists are supported with funding, their vote weighted by how much they’ve staked with our pools. It will be up to the artists to decide how to reward their voting delegation with prizes made exclusively for those who voted for them.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Imagine if every record label in the world ran a stake pool? Imagine if record label A&Rs didn't have to guess what will play with listeners?

The idea that a community of fans can support the careers of artists is the big vision we are trying to validate. The bigger picture is that all artists can become their own record labels, and run their own stake pools, and their fans can delegate to them. In return, delegating fans can select the artists who get funded on the record label. Or if the artist runs their own label, then delegators may have some decision-making ability.

We must prove this business model first. Your vote represents your support of this vision: one that supports the further decentralization, utility and adoption of Cardano.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

While the risks of launching our incubator is near nil, as we're actively preparing for our launch at the time of writing this proposal, there will be some risks with delivering on the intent of the proposal. Getting the word out to musicians and delegators about our Music Incubator will be the biggest risk for the success of this program.

Technical risk: [Rhys's project might encounter difficulty or schedule delay] - including a contingency fund to help cover direct engineering costs they may encounter.

Why would delegators want to stake? Aside from the popular idea of supporting talented artists so that we can help them avoid signing bad deals with record labels, will artists be able to craft rewards compelling enough to forgo staking rewards delegators would otherwise receive.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

By the time you read this proposal, the website should already be up and running. You will be able to stake to our stake pool, and earn voting rights to fund artist proposals.

Our plan starts with a single stake pool, to prove there is interest from the community for this idea. Then we will incrementally add more single SPOs to our "Pool of Pools", as we attract more delegators. We will create a waiting list for any single SPOs who would like to participate.

Every month, we will take the pool of funds accumulated, and distribute it to the artists with the most votes received on their music proposal. A % of this fund will go towards all of the single SPOs who make up our "Pool of Pools". This % will start at 10% but can be changed with a vote by the community of delegators.

We've already been speaking with prominent musicians within the Cardano community who will write up proposals for funding.

On our website homepage, we will list the number of artists funded, how many delegators single SPOs attracted, and total amount of funds distributed.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Phase 1

Develop the voting tools + artist proposal and voting mechanic for a working Proof of Concept.

$10000 to Cardano AIM (Phil K and team)

UI/UX design for:

voting tools + artist proposal page $3000

Landing page $2400

Total: $5400

Social Media Marketing across Twitter + Discord to start

Community Manager $3000

Marketing Consultant $2000

Total: $5000

(Note: After we run out of funds, we will use the funds generated by the pool to pay these people to maintain our social media presence.)

Seed funding for musicians (while we attract delegators to our initial SPO)

$5000

Contingency fund to cover any additional direct development costs for StakingDAO

$5000

Total - $30400

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

We’ve identified the three main parts of our Music Incubator MVP. The artist proposal site, this “Pool of Pools” concept, and the voter tool. For these three things I reached out to members of the Cardano community already building these tools, to implement them into this DEMU Incubator idea. 

For the DEMU Inc voter tool, we’ve recruited the Cardano AIM team. They are the developers behind many of the Project Catalyst community's tools including the popular community voter-tool companion to the official IO voter-app. They are developing an open source (under the Apache 2.0 license) wallet connect, epoch staked voting power mechanism and have been consulting on the implementation path of this project. DEMU has granted execution of this development and is excited to be collaborating with AIM on this project.

For our "Pool of Pools" staking mechanic, we've recruited Rhys Morgan of Stoic Pool, who has been funded to deliver his StakingDAO project. It is designed to help decentralized staking.

For its design, we’ve recruited UI/UX expert & popular Youtuber on the subject, Michal Malewicz of Hype4.com Design Agency.

These are the main players who will take part in the building of our Music Incubator, but there are many more contributors well-known in the Cardano community playing valuable roles in the background.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

It is not likely that we will return to Catalyst in a later round to request further funding for this concept. This F9 proposal is to recoup our initial investment to build our DEMU Incubator, as well as cover any costs with the development during our launch phase. Our goal is to make this project self-sustainable relatively quickly. Therefore, asking for additional funding will not be necessary.

If we struggle to get traction early, perhaps we return to Catalyst to fund the on-chain voting mechanic. But again, we hope to be self-sustainable with this program by then.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Development of this is well underway and a PoC will likely be available for early testing during the progress of Fund 9. Success of the progress of this project can therefore be measured by its existence and useability. 

Success will be measured by:

1. Number of delegators staking to our "Pool of Pools"
2. Number of artists whose projects we support with funding
3. Amount of $ distributed per artists
4. Number of single SPOs participating in our "Pool of Pools"
5. Amount of money raised per single SPO in our "Pool of Pools".

These are numbers that are easily collected and will be displayed on the DEMU Incubator website for all to see and assess the success of our program.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

1. More delegation for small SPOs.
2. More exposure for new artists, and direct financial support for them.
3. Easier access to new music, and less gatekeeping for listeners.
4. More Record Labels represented on Cardano.
5. Increased decentralization of Cardano.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is a new project.  

The DEMU team was funded in F8 to build a music platform, with a different scope of impact. https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/396558

While the core team is hard at work on this project, which will take months to build fully, it made sense to introduce DEMU with something that was actionable on Day 1. "Stake with our pool of Pools and support your favorite artists with your vote in exchange for cool rewards".

This is how the idea of the DEMU Incubator was born. Since the DEMU protocol is all supporting artists with better music distribution capability, it made sense to help support the artists earlier on in their journey as well. At the content creation stage. So while the core team is hard at work on the protocol, we've spun up a side team to work on this project that we will be introducing in the coming days. Your support will mean the world to the artists.