DripDropz Cardano Mainstreet Suite

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Create a multichain payment rail system that enables merchants and consumers to diversify their existing payment options and reach untapped global markets and purchasing power.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

The DripDropz team has a proven record of deploying highly successful projects on Cardano, including BuffyBot, Tokhun NFT Market, and the DripDropz Token Distribution System. The team also represents major stakepools. Learn more at https://dripdropz.io/about-us/

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Emerging markets require an easy to use system that facilitates the transfer of funds between merchants and consumers. A properly designed, mobile native marketplace will enable merchants and consumers to easily conduct transactions with one another. Incentive models will be created to encourage both consumers and small businesses to utilise the system.

Tools to prevent fraud, comply with legal requirements, and ensure proper reporting will be built into the interface so that they are seamless. This requires access to a properly licensed money broker service, and our team has formed a strategic alliance with a major provider in this area to ensure that we will be in full compliance at launch.

This platform will be used to create novel market opportunities for businesses and consumers. The DripDropz team is uniquely suited to build and deploy this application and support mass adoption to the Cardano Ecosystem.

We will build a mobile on ramp payment system for consumers and small businesses. 

• Create a system that allows a small business to set acceptable tokens/currencies to receive for their goods. 
• Create an on ramp for consumers to easily identify, load a wallet, and shop in the marketplace. 
• Allow the merchant and customer to track the exchange of goods and services with one another. 

DripDropz is the premier native token distribution platform on the Cardano Blockchain. Our tools are designed for reliability, speed, and ease of use. Choosing a trusted name like DripDropz, users will know that they can depend on our platform for their business payment needs. DripDropz handles all of the aspects of token delivery and management allowing merchants to focus on building their business and community.

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

Our platform provides an intuitive onramp to facilitate mass adoption by end users who have no cryptocurrency or blockchain experience. Enabling easy access to Cardano and Cardano Native Assets for both buying and selling goods across a multichain environment. We enable merchants and consumers to diversify their existing payment options and reach untapped global markets and purchasing power. This directly addresses the key metric of increasing the number of dapps and products available for the community to use that help to enrich the ecosystem with new use cases. This new use case will drive new adoption through incentives and organic growth.

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

New blockchain regulations will be a major source of risk for the success of this project. We are working to mitigate this risk by working with regulators and staying abreast of current regulations.

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

The DripDropz team will specify, design, and build a mobile application in flutter that will provide an end-to-end marketplace for users with no cryptocurrency or blockchain experience. This MVP product will provide the following as a minimum feature set:

• Allow merchants to list physical or virtual products for sale.
• Provide a seamless onramp for new customers to fund wallets.
• Facilitate the completion of sales.
• Allow all users to withdraw proceeds to the appropriate account or wallet.
• Manage and track the results of sales for the merchant and customer.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The budget for this project will be entirely used for salaries for developers and support staff:

Full stack developer 6 months $60,000

Plutus developer 6 months $60,000

Flutter developer 6 months $60,000

UI/UX designer 6 months $48,000 

Project Manager 6 months $48,000

Quality Assurance Person 5 months $30,000

Technical Writer 3 months $20,000

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

The core DripDropz team includes 11 leading figures from the Cardano ecosystem.

Kyle Solomon - Co-Founder and CEO: An electrical engineer who began his career building and selling IoT and embedded systems at Intel. Kyle brings a wealth of business knowledge, technical savvy, and a passionate leadership drive to the team. Kyle is the creator of FROG Pool, Adosia, Spacecoins & JetChicken. 

Andrew Westberg - Co-Founder and Lead Developer: A full stack and mobile developer who retired from the world's leading retail chain to pursue full time blockchain development. He has contributed many core tools and improvements to Cardano, including Phyrhose, JorManager, cncli and PoolPerks. His infrastructure tools power the DripDropz network and ensure stable, fast, secure transactions with unparalleled efficiency.

Latheesan Kanesamoorthy - CTO: A senior software engineer and full stack developer. He has built many leading platforms in the Cardano space, including Tokhun's NFT minting and trading solution, Heidrun and the CIP-0027 royalty standard.

Anthony McDonough - CFO: A former R&D Design Engineer for projects with NASA, Lockheed Martin, Harris, Boeing and others. Anthony has worked in the cryptocurrency space for 10+ years, most recently as a partner in Bloom Pool and the creator of Crypt Keeper, a cold storage wallet solution. 

Adam Dean - Technical Consultant: Adam is at the forefront of native assets on the Cardano blockchain. As the creator of the Buffy Bot NFT drop system, Adam’s technology is responsible for delivering a large percentage of NFT projects on Cardano. He has been contributing to the industry for many years, including open source projects like Mercury (crypto centric shopping cart plugin for WooCommerce), and SPOCRA on-chain voting infrastructure.

Quinn Parkinson - Lead Plutus and Smart Contract Developer: Quinn graduated from the first Plutus training program and has written a considerable number of successful Plutus smart contracts. A functional programmer with exceptional mathematical strengths, Quinn has been instrumental in the construction of impactful initiatives such as on-chain voting, multimillion dollar NFT marketplace contracts, vesting contracts and many others.

Rick McCracken - Project Manager: a former Navy Communications specialist, is a vocal leader in the community. His YouTube channels boast a combined following of 20k+ users, hosting interviews with many of the industry's leading projects. Rick’s management style lends itself to effective collaboration. With a breadth of knowledge on regulatory compliance matters, Rick has championed risk management, onboarding of new projects and project development navigation for the team.

Chris Hockaday - Business Development: Chris comes from an industrial automation/manufacturing background and specialises in Lean Six Sigma methodology. Chris has been contributing to the cryptocurrency space since first working with the Verge Protocol team in 2015 when they rebranded from DogeCoinDark to VERGE, Adosia from 2017 and Tokhun from 2021 to present day. 

Lloyd Duhon - Communications Manager: Lloyd is a Veteran of the US Army. With over 30 years of technical entrepreneurial experience, his knowledge encompasses nearly every aspect of business management. Lloyd is one of the foremost technical writers in the space. From SEO to traffic analyses to programming, Lloyd is fluent in all elements of project navigation. He is the lead for Living Greens Urban Farm and has had a huge impact in several projects throughout the space.

Siddik Adamu - Core Developer: A junior full stack developer who has lent his talents to many critical elements of commerce being utilised by end users in the space today. He has written automated auction systems, policy management infrastructure and NFT sales tools, to name a few. Siddik is currently completing his masters degree in Artificial Intelligence.

Valentin Besson - UI/UX Developer: Valentin is a prescient artist and creator of user interfaces. He leads with a focus on creating the best possible user experience on any given platform. Val has contributed his toolset to Tokhun, one of the earliest NFT platforms on Cardano, which has been emulated time and time again. 

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

Yes. The Broker service will require some funds up front to begin our operation. After we have designed and deployed the application, we will require funds to complete those agreements. We will also ask for funds to support the marketing and technical requirements of the launch.

[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?

The team will use a combination of git and trello to manage the project's progress. The project manager will prepare and submit the monthly reports to Catalyst with percent completed on the milestones listed. 

The team currently meets regularly six (6) times per week across various teams. We regularly track relevant action items, tasks, needs and progress and we adapt as necessary.

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

The team will use a combination of git and trello to manage the project's progress. The project manager will prepare and submit the monthly reports to Catalyst with percent completed on the milestones listed. 

The team currently meets regularly six (6) times per week across various teams. We regularly track relevant action items, tasks, needs and progress and we adapt as necessary.

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

We will be successful when we have a beta mobile app with full testnet functionality of the above listed milestones.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG Goals

1 - End poverty in all its forms everywhere

SDG Subgoals

1.2 - By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

1.4 - By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

1.2.1 - Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age

1.2.2 - Proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions

1.4.1 - Proportion of population living in households with access to basic services

1.4.2 - Proportion of total adult population with secure tenure rights to land, (a) with legally recognized documentation, and (b) who perceive their rights to land as secure, by sex and type of tenure