Dev-focused Learn-and-Earn Quests

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

StackUp is a new Learn-and-Earn platform that rewards developers with monetary incentives for completing quests and tasks that level up their skills and knowledge.

Different from hackathons, StackUp's tasks focus on small reward sums, given out to large groups of participants. The tasks are split into 3 types: Learning, Exploration, Practitioner, where each type fulfills a certain learning goal.

StackUp breaks the typical learning journey into smaller, bite-sized pieces (that we call quests), offering users real currency rewards for finishing each quest. This format of smaller exercises with incremental rewards, encourages learners to tackle more quests and learn more, as well as encourages them to follow through and finish the quest.

One key objective of these learning campaigns is for accomplished learners to be familiar and comfortable with the basics of Cardano, and will most likely feel comfortable and interested to pursue more advanced projects, learning pathways, and hackathons as well.

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

Broadly, the main challenge remains incentivizing developers to learn about Cardano and working through documentations. We want to create awesome experiences for developers to learn about the ecosystem and this will lead to increased adoption and productivity.

Our solution addresses two key challenges:

• developers new to web3 often feel lost and do not know how to progress in learning how to develop on a protocol
• learners typically quit halfway - due to lack of time, motivation, and difficulties/complexities faced when learning

By structuring the series of paid quests carefully, culminating in dApp building in the last quest in the campaign, we can induct developers into developing on Cardano in a guided manner, where they are constantly incentivized in bite-sized waves. Our Learn-and-Earn campaigns on StackUp have been successful in incentivizing developers to learn, through redesigning existing learning content, e.g., documentation, videos, etc., into fun quests.

This is a sister proposal to another proposal that we are submitting, i.e. an APAC-focused Cardano hackathon organized by our hackathon arm. Link: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/419112

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

Risk 1: Content quality gap

We have a team of experienced quest developers to develop quests in-house, and engage external developers to develop content for campaigns. Ideally, we will have a technical Cardano POC who can greenlight our content. We will also reach out to the Gimbalabs community and IOG Plutus and Atala PRISM teams.

Risk 2: Learners facing difficulties during the program

If the quest players find the quests too difficult, they may drop off the campaigns. We have a Discord channel that aids quest players during the entire campaign period, which will help players complete quests successfully. The Discord channel also helps in collecting real-time feedback that can be used to refine the quests. This has worked well in the past as Discord members were helping each other actively throughout the campaign.

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

Planning and preparation of campaigns - 10 -12 weeks

1. Scope out content and tasks for the developer onboarding journey together with Cardano
2. Planning, structuring, and creation of quest content on StackUp Platform
3. Preparation of reward structure for the campaign
4. Finalise campaign timeline and marketing plan

Quest player onboarding and campaign period - 3-4 weeks

1. Tasks will be made available and marketed to Cardano community, Web3 and non-blockchain developers
2. Developers will be able to participate in the campaign until the end date

Submissions assessment - 4 weeks

1. Submissions by quest players will be assessed by a team of quest reviewers

Payout to qualified quest players - variable

1. Rewards will be disbursed based on the completion of the onboarding process.
2. Rewards can also be tagged to quantifiable milestones during the course of campaign to incentivise developers to complete the campaign.

Reporting - 1 week

1. A report containing the quest statistics will be prepared for the Cardano POC for review

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Amount requested: US$110,000 in ada

Rewards Payout for Quest Completion: $30,000

• Targeting to reward each developer with USD $80-100 each assuming ALL quests provided are completed - at a likely rate of USD$10-15 per quest/activity

Content Curation and Refinement of available Cardano open-source & community resources: $25,000

• Team of 3 tasked with this section for 10-12 weeks
• Deep-dive ecosystem scan and consolidation of available learning resources
• Researching communities (e.g. Discord) for latent resources and crowdsourcing community knowledge and insights

Marketing of quests: $5,000

• Team of 1 for 4 weeks
• Reach out to Web2 developers in our emailing list
• Reach out to Web2 developers through social media

Planning, structuring, and creation of quest content on StackUp Platform: $25,000

• Team of 3 tasked with this section for 10 weeks
• Designing of quest assessments/projects
• Repackaging and refinement of curated content to provide guidance for quest assessment/projects
• Internal testing and review of assessments/projects

Assessment of quest submissions during each campaign: $10,000

• Team of 3 reviewing quest submissions for 2 weeks
• Assess submissions
• Fail invalid submissions

Processing of rewards to participants: $10,000

• Team of 2 executing reward payout for 4 weeks
• Troubleshoot failed payments
• Answer payment queries

Collation of statistics for reporting: $5,000

• Team of 1 to analyze statistics for 2 weeks
• Prepare a report for stakeholders in Cardano ecosystem

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

1x Leader (CEO)

• 2x entrepreneur
• Forbes 30 Under 30 in Finance
• Started the world's first government-backed blockchain accelerator
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/yimingng/

1x Program manager

• Ensures that the different members of the team are working seamlessly
• Troubleshoots issues experienced by internal and external stakeholders
• Liaises with client POC for updates

2x Content developer

• Studies the content by protocols
• Designs quest content and learning paths for quest participants
• Structures coherent learning experiences on StackUp

1x Quest manager

• Sets the quests up using the back-end content management system
• Ensures that the quests are prepared correctly in the right format

1x Community manager

• Manages the community on StackUp Discord channel
• Raises issues regarding campaign and quests to relevant stakeholders
• Engages the community regularly to ensure low drop-out rates

2x Submission reviewer

• Reviews submissions made by quest participants
• Ensures that there are no cheaters

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

We intend to return to Catalyst to fund additional Learn-and-Earn campaigns. In future runs, we can target a wider audience and involve a deeper scope in terms of technical implementation.

[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?

We aim to engage 1,500 Web2 developers in our campaign, and have a funnel of Web2 developers from our ecosystem such that there are 150 Web2 developers who have forked and created a dApp by the end of the campaign

We plan to design a campaign with at least 8 learning quests that acquaint developers with the Cardano ecosystem

• 4 knowledge-based quests
• 3 ecosystem-based quests
• 1 hands-on building quest

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

1. 1,500 High-quality participants in our Learn-and-Earn campaigns will know the Cardano ecosystem better, and are inspired to develop products on Cardano
2. Participants will also feel inspired and confident enough to participate in a Cardano-funded hackathon (assuming the hackathon proposal passes) - we aim to get 10 teams (10 x 2-4 individuals) to want to give Cardano hackathon a try

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

This is an entirely new proposal.