Metaverse Jobs & Gigs

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

One of the main hopes of any metaverse is that businesses will build on their platform and so attract new consumers who want to explore their creations. We regularly see headlines in mainstream media about brands entering and building in a metaverse, but once executed the end products are little more than a hallow display with some light, preset interactions. The whole experience often feels superficial and, when checking out existing metaverses (e.g., Decentraland and Sandbox), a lot of areas are completely dead. What it is missing is the human touch.

When we go to a bar, we do not go in order to pay for drinks that we can more cheaply consume at home. We go because the environment encourages us to socialize with friends and make new ones. The bartender not only acts as another person to socialize with, but also anchors the entire bar experience. The bartender is a representative of the business, and they play a role in establishing the environment that attracts customers who want to participate in it. When examining this setup, the drinks themselves are less important, it is the social dynamic that is created that is of added value.

The same can be said when you go to a theme park, such as Disneyland. There are plenty of areas to explore, but the cast members, mascots and performers are what really sell the experience.

A typical non-playable character (NPC) in a game can only say and do what the developer has programmed. Much of what we do in real life involves personalized social interactions. Our thesis is that by adding people in roles themed after the environment, we can elevate social experiences by allowing them to dynamically react to players in different contexts.

We will develop the software to manage the work, payments and overall experience.

Future Fest has the baseline infrastructure to support a multiplayer experience. Additional features are required in order to create a proper flow for workers to get in and perform their duties.

(Video explainer)

The features that will make this project work are:

• Special user accounts
• Unique avatars
• Voice chat
• Worker and manager dashboard
• Cryptocurrency payout

Initial jobs will include:

• Performers
• Help desk assistants
• Mascots
• Bartender

We want to ensure people who work in these positions are adequately compensated. Workers will receive a fair wage and will be able to earn additional tips from users for outstanding service.

While initially this service will be integrated into the Future Fest system, we fully intend to expand the product over time, so that other teams building on Cardano can utilize and integrate it into their own products in the future.

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

We want to drive adoption on Cardano by providing high-quality experiences. If we can provide the ability for people to work across metaverses, we will enable more people to not only participate in this new economy, but also make it more enjoyable and socially rewarding for the people playing in it.

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

Legal issues will be the greatest challenge for this proposal. We need to ensure that our integration complies with the laws in the jurisdictions where we deploy. Our strategy is to release in one region at a time. The first region will be the United States and we will expand as we receive approval. 

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

Each sprint will run for two weeks. We aim to complete this proposal in six sprints. Each bullet point represents the competition of a major feature.

Responsible Parties:

Future Fest [FF]

DevBuddy [DB]

ADA Anvil [AA]

Imani Partners [IP]

Sprint #1:

• UI/UX designs [FF]
• Backend architecture [FF]
• Voice chat [FF]

Sprint #2:

• Special user accounts [FF]

Sprint #3:

• Worker dashboard [FF] / [AA]
• Manager dashboard [FF] / [AA]

Sprint #4:

• Unique avatars [FF] / [DB]
• First job archetype [FF] / [DB]
• Cryptocurrency payout [AA]

Sprint #5:

• Legal compliance [IP]

Sprint #6:

• Event showcase [FF]

Estimated event showcase: December 15, 2022 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Development: $60,000

• UI/UX designs: $5,000 = rate of $40/hour x 125 hours
• Frontend development: $10,000 = rate of $50/hour x 200 hours
• Backend development: $10,000 = rate of $50/hour x 200 hours
• Unity development: $25,000 = rate of $40/hour x 625 hours
• DApp development: $10,000 = rate of $50/hour x 200 hours

Marketing: $10,000

• Content creation
• Campaign
• Worker outreach

Legal - $30,000

• Adequate corporate governance
• Contract Law
• Labor Law
• Consumer Law (including but not limited to an information pack for recruits)
• Campaign
• Any other related legal/tax issue

Total Budget: $100,000

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

Steven Yang

Steven comes from a software development background working at Fortune 50 media companies. He also has led several technical teams in creating projects in emerging technologies.

[Responsibility: Backend Development]

Kevin Mowers

Kevin has virtual reality experience specializing in interactive user immersion and system design. His work ranges in industries from media experiences to eCommerce.

[Responsibility: Unity Development]

Matthew Sears

Matthew has led the product for multiple creative platforms. He also has extensive experience in ideation, storytelling, design, development and implementation of virtual experiences.

[Responsibility: UI/UX Development]

Pablo Canales

Pablo’s experience in Business Affairs comes from working with TV studios, along with major music labels. That experience is complimented by his graduate degree in Music Industry Administration. Also an NFT evangelist.

[Responsibility: Marketing/Onboarding]

Jimmy Sambuo

Jimmy has spent the last decade building and maintaining systems for Fortune 500 companies. He has experience in various systems including web, mobile, cloud, and gaming.

[Responsibility: Frontend/Backend Development]

Wyatt Thornbury / DevBuddy

Extensive background in systems and virtual reality game development.

[Responsibility: Unity Development]

Ada Anvil is a team of six experienced Cardano developers. The team has more than 25 years’ combined experience in software development and programming, and has a record of developing state-of-art infrastructure for Cardano projects.

[Responsibility: Frontend/Backend Development/ DApp Development]

Imani Partners is led by Izzat-Begum Rajan and is a strategic, financial, tax and legal advisory firm. Imani Partners already provides assistance with legal and tax compliance to ventures in the Cardano ecosystem. 

[Responsibility: Legal]

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

If this proposal is successful, we will not need additional Project Catalyst funding.

[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?

Future Fest will publish public blog posts whenever a major milestone is achieved. Future Fest events will include features from these milestones, which will enable the public to test them.

We will share how many people are using our system to work during the course of an event, as well as the total number of attendees and time spent in the respective metaverse. This will be tracked using our analytics platform, Mixpanel.

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

We want people to spend meaningful time inside Cardano metaverses. We want to see companies create more interesting and social metaverse experiences. Most importantly, we want to create a new way for people to earn a side or full income from working in Cardano metaverses.

We want this service to be adopted by other metaverse projects besides our own.

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

New proposal