Proposals Mentors Marketplace - 2

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Proposals Mentors Marketplace, aims to produce a solution to that problem, by connecting people, Proposers, Mentors and Collaborators can interact to maximize the impact of the proposals.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Alex, Yoram & Phil are active community members, CAs, vCAs, Plutus Pioneer, Atala Prism Pioneer & successful proposers, participating in several initiatives and communities to make Catalyst better for all.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

PMM proposes to add a system and methods to facilitate funded proposal, planning, team building, strategy design and execution, by enabling funded proposers to find help among skilled members of the Cardano's community that are willing to mentor projects and proposers. Working towards the achievement of outstanding results, value and increase the chances creating amazing, impactful and lovable products and outcomes.

Complementing and furthering the successfully funded Fund 6 and Fund 7 Proposals Mentors Marketplace and F7 New Members Engagement that joined our platform, this second phase proposal seeks to continuing adding new functionality to the platform and to enhance its capabilities after launching our first release in July (all three previous proposals are now completed)

Catalyst Proposal LifeCycle

After our Discovery phase, we have identified three main stages of the Proposal Journey:

1. When a proposer enters the Cardano's Ecosystem and the Catalyst Project and wants to understand how she/he can be part of it, wether she/he has an idea for a proposal or not.
2. When a proposer wants to create a proposal and realize her/his idea, applying to a Catalyst Fund round.
3. When a proposer got her/his proposal funded and needs to deliver on the promises.

Our 1st phase, F6 funded proposal - Proposals Mentor Marketplace - aims to solve Stage 2 of the Proposal LifeCycle, and it is on track to deliver on that goal, after successful completion of the MVP1, which launched in May 2022 as a closed beta, to further test the system. 

Our funded F7 continuation proposal, enhanced our backend, data model and build the proper CI/CD infrastructure to be able to produce continuous learning and improvements, following our LEAN approach to generate value.

Also our funded F7 New members onboarding proposal, extended our model to cover Stages 1 and 3 of the Proposal LifeCyle, adding the TASKs entity and the Collaborators role to the marketplace.

This proposal intends to provide continuation and new enhancements to PMM, with three main objectives:

• Incorporate new possibilities to the formalization of agreements between the participants, allowing to register more details and even attach a wallet for the payments. As this is a key element to make the platform more appealing and of value to all parties. (Exploring and paving the way for a potential embedded smartcontract).

• Produce a reports section, with key performance metrics and statistics aimed for all parties to understand their efforts, their results and general KPIs to further improve their goal. We will also incorporate a Guidance section, with some metrics about past funds to be used as guidance on how to produce better proposals and testimonies on how to overcome main issues and roadblocks in Catalyst projects.

• We will produce a second UX phase, to understand if the user personas, needs and pains detected are properly solved by the platform and also which ones are not yet covered, so we can plan to add them to the marketplace.

Our Platform (PMM - Proposals Mentors Marketplace)

This platform was planned as a unique directory of ranked mentors and new members collaborators, that offer their help to proposal building, promotion and execution. Mentor, Proposer and Collaborator profile and success metrics are visible in the platform, with certain key attributes that help the proposer to select/be matched to the relevant mentors and collaborators who can help bring their ideas to become reality.

Mentors and Collaborators will be able to monetize their advice and help, should they desire and agree this with proposers. By agreeing with the proposers during the application process, a sort of 'coming together' to agreement. We see that this could be in the form of pre-funding payment, post funding payment, equity interest or some mix or other in kind payment. The platform will help facilitate the agreement process.

In this initial stage we are experimenting with this open option to learn what are the different monetization needs from the community. Now the platform could leverage smart contracts or detailed agreements to help with the transparency, good will and monetization of the efforts and the marketplace itself, and maybe helping also Cardano's to send and track funding for proposals.

Our current State

At the time of these proposal writing, we are recruiting mentors from existing and well known Catalyst community members, such as Victor, Dzhuliana, Ninh, Ayax and also the proposers. We are starting our public usage of the platform aim in Africa for Funded proposers of previous funds, and new proposers in F10.

We also need to get a domain and connect it to our deployment, so it is easier to promote and attract members.

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

Project Catalyst's funding process is funding significantly more proposals each fund. In order to continue to grow, a principal aim of the ecosystem is to reach outside the existing pool of proposers and encourage and engage entrepreneurs, developers and idea generators. We aim to help guide these enthusiasts to reach towards Cardano's long term goal of impacting 1 Billion people.

During Fund6 around 151 proposals were funded, 269 in F7 and 367 in Fund8. With the success of Catalyst and the available Funds in each funding round ($12.8M) the number of funded proposals will likely continue to increase.

Even though each proposal is being given feedback, assessed and finally voted, that is not the end rather the start of the journey to deliver real value. Delivering on intention, even for experienced proposers is not always easy. Hurdles and unexpected complex situations are often encountered.

Having a pool of dedicated, skilled and knowledgeable mentors that can continue to offer benefits to the proposers, community and ecosystem. By having access to highly skilled and seasoned mentors, proposers can have access to the wealth of experience to deliver on intention.

So giving that brief, our proposal helps the Challenge main objective of Novel and viable applications and products get built on top of Cardano attracting users. Integrations manage to pull in more adoption. And it is considered as it is a Marketplace.

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

RISK1: Not able to Recruit Mentors

MITIGATION:

This tool's first goal is to serve the Catalyst Community, our Discovery showed that there are many members of the community willing to perform as Mentors (both Pro bono and Paid) so our current hypothesis is that recruiting mentors to the platform is doable, aiming at the purpose we all believe in, fostering a larger community and a thriving ecosystem. At this stage, with some effort, thru the Catalyst Discord and Telegram channels, and our own personal relationships, some of them already joined, and we are confident that more will follow. After the public presentation of PMM at the TH we will reach enough people that will jump in.

RISK2: Not able to Recruit Proposers

MITIGATION:

Recruiting proposers imposes a tougher challenge, as per the immense information that a new comer faces when entering the ecosystem, is not that easy to stand out. We will try several approaches to achieve that, including: 

- Presentations at the TownHalls (Catalyst, Africa, Eastern and the upcoming Latam), Swarm sessions, AfterTown Breakouts, Ideafest. 

- We plan also to make agreements with the Accelerators and Mentors program within the Challenge to make coordinated efforts to leverage the platform for their mentoring efforts or as a staged process from-to Catalyst (e.g. Seedstars, Entreprenerdy and others whom we been interacting)

- Then we have our early adopters' mentors which are active community members, that are usually go to persons for new proposers seeking for help, they could be incentivized to bring those proposers to the platform and use it as a way to facilitate and formalize their agreements.

- And finally after building some initial momentum, we will be able to show the community how much better possibilities you have on getting your proposal funded, if you use the platform and its mentors, creating a viral type of adoption.

RISK3: Not much engagement at the Platform

MITIGATION:

Regarding the FIT between the proposer's proposal and the mentor, we found many insights during our Discovery phase on Why and How this shall happen. Agreements will play a key part on making this experience great for everyone, that's why they are key for this phase.

The platform also considers a Ranking system, created by the community's opinion after each mentoring and collaboration opportunity ends, Proposers, Mentors and Collaborators will be building their reputation, based on this ranking, helping future proposers to see the history of a certain mentor and help her/him decide on wether that mentor is a good match for the proposal, maximizing the interest and usage of the patform.

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

The total phase will last 3 months.

Week1

Team assigned within 1 week after funding is provided.

Week2

Extended functional design and detailed user stories

Review and approval of the Design.

New Prototype designing in Figma

Week 3

Development and UX corrections

Week 4

First MVP on detailed agreements delivered

Week 5

Bug fixing

Continuing development of the detailed Agreements

Week 6

Productive MVP on detailed agreements delivered

Week 7

Bug Fixing

New UX phase started - interviews and analysis of existing engagemtns

New report section designing

Week 8

Development of the new reports

UX interviews and analysis

Week 9

Development of the new reports

UX documenting journeys and user personas

Week 10

Delivering of the first MVP of the reports section

Review and approval of the UX insights.

Week 11

Bug fixing

Final corrections

Week 12

Release delivered after 3rd month.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Costs structure

1 PM (30%) - 3 months - USD 1.000 per month = USD 3.000

1 UX (30%) - 3 months - USD 1.000 per month = USD 3.000

2 Developers - 3 months - USD 4000 per month each = USD 24.000

3 Founders/Project Leader fees, USD 2.000 each = USD 6.000

Infrastructure and other platforms costs, USD 1000.

• Netlify USD 500 (6 months, to be able to maintain the operation)
• Neo4J USD 390 (6 months, to be able to maintain the operation)
• Domain USD 37 (2 years)

Roundup, incidentals, fees, etc: USD 73

TOTAL : USD 37,000

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

• Alex has 20+ years of experience building Digital Products and Companies. He has a dual background, on one side a Solutions Architect and Developer (Cloud, Blockchain, C#, .NET, Java, Angular, DevOps) and on the other side a Company Builder and Advisor, building high performance teams to deliver Products that customers love (Customer Development, Agileism, Lean, Design Thinking). Alex is also a professor and public speaker, helping to build common knowledge around the Digital Transformation, Exponential Organizations and Abundance. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apestchanker/ 

• Within Cardano, Alex is an active community member, helping now to build the LATAM ecosystem, performed as Community Advisor in F6, 7 and 8 and as Veteran CA in F7 and 8, with high ratings on his assessments and funded proposer in F6, 7 and 8. He performed also as Challenge Team for the F7 Grow Latam, Grow Cardano and leads the LATAM Cardano Community with active connections with many other communities such as Swarm, Wada and Eastern TownHall.

• Phil has a business and design background. Is a founder of Cardano AIM and has already successfully funded proposals in funds 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 which include: Community tools (https://cardanocataly.st/en/tools), Community Landing Page (https://cardanocataly.st/ ), Incentivized Voters Survey (https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Incentivized-Voter-Survey-AIM/369554-48088 ), Proposal Framework Tool (https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Proposal-Framework-Tool-AIM/369300-48088 ) and others.

• Yoram has 20+ years of business experience working with technology companies (strategy, partnerships, investors). In the last years, Yoram is focused on combining impact and business. 4 years ago he left his comfort zone and worked for 2 years for an NGO Earthworm.org focusing on sustainable business models across agriculture supply chains. Yoram also constantly works with starts as an advisor and mentor i.e. GivingWay.com. https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoram-ben-zvi-446836/

• Within Catalyst, Yoram is an active community member, CA, proposer, and very active with Cardano4Climate

* AIM:

Phil, Alex, and Yoram are part of Cardano AIM (Assembly Inspiring Masses) which brings together active Catalyst Community members to design and build tools that support the community. Some examples: include the popular voter-tool (https://cardanocataly.st/voter-tool/#/), the Community Advisor Tools (CA and vCA-tools) (https://cardanocataly.st/ca-tool/#/ & https://cardanocataly.st/vca-tool/#/)) as well as the Community Landing Page (https://cardanocataly.st/). AIM continues to focus on developing the best services and tools for the benefit of the Cardano community.

We have an active Project Management and UX team that is currently working on the platform and can continue leading the efforts in next phases.

Our Development team is composed of 4 developers that are working in the platform since the very beginning, with expertise in React, GraphQl and GrandStack where the platform was built.

The Cardano AIM (Assembly of Inspired Masses) is a community guild of builders, creators and doers. They will be providing expert advisory, help to promote the tool and support to be able to better integrate our tool with the existing ecosystem.

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

Yes we will be returning, as currently this platform is only aimed at the Catalyst community, providing the service for free, there is no other source of income besides Catalyst funding.

We are creating a business model that can charge a small fee per pay agreements, but that can be functional only after completing this phase. If so, we will look probably for a last proposal in F10 to maintain the project going, and start testing that possible source of income.

[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?

Outcomes metrics:

These can be measured by engagement fund to fund:

Number of mentors actively on the platform

Number of proposals onboarded through the platform

Number of successful proposals mentored through the platform

Number of agreements registered in the platform

Quality of mentored proposals, as assessed by CAs, after mentoring via the platform

After this phase is delivered we aim to reach the following project Outcomes KPIs (to prove the deliverance of value)

• 30 mentors onboarded and active on the platform.
• 80 proposers onboarded and active on the platform.
• +30 new proposals mentored in the platform, submitted in F10.
• +30 new agreements registered in the platform, during F10 fund.
• 70% of the PMM mentored proposals with ratings above 4.1

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

Our definition of done, our Return on Intention of this specific project is to be able to introduce PMM as a key platform for the Catalyst community, creating awareness about Mentorship and Collaboration as key factors to produce better proposals, with higher chances of being voted, and realize on their promises and become successful projects.

By focusing on our community we will be able to help people that could benefit more out of this type of help, while creating a great experiment to learn more about what Proposers need most and which type of mentoring methods and collaboration will help the most to satisfy those needs, so we can continue our iterations and efforts to create more value and impact to the Cardano ecosystem and all its receivers of value.

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

F6 - Proposals Mentors Marketplace ( https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/369749-48088 ) - Completed

F6 - Ideafest presentation (Look for 1:14:01)

F7 - Easy engage new members ( https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/381856 ) - Completed

F7 - Proposals Mentors Marketplace - Cont (https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/382926) - Completed

F8 - Mentoring Africa to Success - (https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/400070) - In progress

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

SDG subgoals:

17.16 Enhance the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology, and financial resources, to support the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in all countries, in particular developing countries

17.9 Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the Sustainable Development Goals, including through North-South, South-South, and triangular cooperation

9.a Facilitate sustainable and resilient infrastructure development in developing countries through enhanced financial, technological, and technical support to African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing States

#proposertoolsdg