Attract ETH NFT Projects & Talent

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The planned solution has two components and deliverables.

1. A series of guides featuring rich interactive infographics and text.
2. On-demand, in-person, one on one consultancy sessions with NFT project creators and developers (to be conducted over video calls).

From experience, we have found that this is by far the most effective way to attract & onboard.

The sessions will be 2 hours in length each, and cover a range of topics, starting from subjects from the guides, but adapting and evolving them according to the needs of each project.

Over the course of the last year, we have already offered consultancy sessions to artists and projects, either preparing to launch on Cardano or entirely new to the ecosystem, successfully onboarding them.

The role of the guides that we plan to produce in tandem with the consultancy sessions is twofold:

1. As support materials that expand on the information the consultancy sessions will offer.
2. Serve as a marketing and promotional material to attract and onboard new projects to Cardano.

Just a few examples of subjects and themes to be covered by the guides:

• The fact that on Cardano NFTs are actual native tokens, which live on the blockchain at the same level as ADA, not in a smart contract that can be exploited, as we have seen happen repeatedly.
• The low energy consumption of the Cardano blockchain, which thus has a very low carbon footprint, making it much more environmentally friendly
• The incredibly low minting costs. 
• The very low transaction fees.
• The fact that, unlike ETH, Cardano does not experience failed transactions - worst case a tx results in a refund which requires minimal transaction fees.
• The vibrant and helpful developer community that can assist with technical problems if they were to emerge.
• The friendly and supportive nature of a large part of the Cardano NFT community.
• The huge potential for growth of the entire Cardano ecosystem, when compared to ETH. Becoming a part of the ecosystem now will almost surely make you an early adopter.
• The spirit of innovation and pioneering of the entire Cardano ecosystem that is also manifested in the NFT space.
• And many more.

The consultancy sessions will be on-demand and free of charge for interested projects. Each project will be able to book up to a maximum of 5 sessions over the course of its development.

We expect, on average, each project to book 2-3 sessions, our aim is to offer consultancy to 20-25 projects.

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

Our solution addresses the challenge’s definition of success directly: 

Projects who were either planning to or did launch on an EVM-based blockchain deploy in the Cardano ecosystem and can do so easily.

This is exactly what our main objective is with this proposal.

Our main focus will be on trying to attract yet unreleased, in development projects from ETH to Cardano. However, this will not mean that they will be our only target audience. As part of the initiative, we will also look to present the advantages of Cardano to already existent projects in the hopes that they will either look into bridging their existing NFT projects to Cardano when that becomes a technical possibility or choose to launch upcoming projects, spin-offs, or sequels on Cardano. (Imagine “BAYC 2” or “Punks Extended” on 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?

A lack of interest from projects to engage in exploring and considering Cardano as a viable blockchain to launch on.

We plan to address any such concerns or reservations that creators might have by approaching them, and generally the issue, in an authentic, honest and relatable way. By simply presenting that we too are artists and creators, who have found success on Cardano, the way we have achieved that success and that there is a long list of reasons why we see Cardano as being a superior platform in the long run.

Unlike other similar projects, we won’t have hidden agendas when consulting artists. For instance, we won’t be trying to onboard them to our specific marketplace. We’ll relate artist to artist.

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

We plan to start work on the project shortly after successful funding. 

Creating the guides and the initial marketing phase will take about a month, a month and a half.

It’s impossible to predict with accuracy the timeframe over which the consultancy sessions will take place, given their on-demand nature, but our estimate is between 2-3 months.

The implementation plan is as follows:

1. Market Research
2. Guides Drafting
3. Guides Design
4. Guides Publishing
5. Marketing
6. Consultancy Sessions (on-demand)
7. Results Analysis 
8. Analysis Compiling and Publishing
9. Presentation and Marketing of Successful Results

Deliverables for other Fund 9 and previous funds proposals.

Fund 9:

We are the project managers and market researchers for Phase 2 of the NFT Swap Infrastructure Templates project https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417999.

As estimated in the detailed plan for that project, we foresee our commitment to be of around 12hrs/week/person for the duration of the project, including Phase 1, which we estimate to complete by the end of 2022. As such if this project is funded there will only be a partial overlap.

NFT Film Distribution Dapp & Showcase

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/421355

If funded we will take on a project management and oversight role in the initiative and conduct the hiring process.

We estimate a required commitment of 5-7hrs/week/person.

Trybbles NFT AR Pets project divided into 3 proposals.

Prototyping & Tokenomics

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/422707  

World Building - Art & Assets

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/422762 

Development

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/422724

If funded we will take on a project management and oversight role in the initiative and conduct the hiring process.

We estimate a required commitment of 10hrs/week/person.

If all the projects that we have applied for in Fund 9 get funded, the timeframes for the other projects will only partially overlap with this project. We estimate the time commitment for the other projects for the periods of overlap to be around 25hrs/week/person, giving us ample time to execute on the deliverables of this project.

Previous Funds:

As core members of the NFT Guild we are involved in finalising the deliverables for the NFT Guild Fund 7 proposal https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/NFT-Alliance/384031-48088 . However this will have very little impact on our ability to deliver on this project, as the scope of the proposal is complete and the only deliverable left is the project close-out report.

The NFT Guild has several standards proposals funded in F8:

NFT-Guild: Standard for verification of NFTs

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/398372

NFT-Guild: NFT Royalty Standards

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/400204

The workload associated with the deliverables of these projects is distributed amongst the members of the NFT guild, and the time commitment required for us is of just several hours/week.

We are also the project managers and market researchers of the NFT Swap Infrastructure Templates project, the first phase of which was funded in Catalyst Fund 8 https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/397532 . 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Personnel Budget:

Guides Writing - 80 hours x $55/h 

Guides Design - 60 hours x $55/h

Marketing - 40 hours x $70/h

Consultancy - [50 x 2 hour sessions x 2 consultants/presenters] x $75/h

Results Analysis Compilation and Publication - 20 hours x $55/h

After Campaign Marketing (presentation of successful results) - 20 hours x $70/h

Total Personnel Budget: $28000

Fixed Costs:

Domain name, Web Hosting, Software - $600 

https://infogram.com/ Business subscription - $79/month (monthly billing) x 3 

Fixed Costs Total: $837

Total: $28837

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

Award-winning filmmakers, film and animation directors, app and game developers.

In 2021 they moved into the web3 economy granting new life to one of their projects in the form of an NFT collection on Cardano.

Anamaria Kövesdi

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anamaria-k%C3%B6vesdi-354649106/ 

Rares Kövesdi

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rares-k%C3%B6vesdi-551260106/ 

There is an entire range of reasons why we think that we are uniquely qualified to execute this project, support and onboard NFT projects and creators to Cardano:

• We have been exposed to all aspects of the NFT ecosystem on Cardano since before day 1 (March 1, 2021 - The Mary Hardfork).
• As artists and creators, we have launched two Cardano NFT projects: Trybbles, in May 2021, and Icons in September 2021. https://www.trybbles.com + https://www.newmindflow.com/works/icons 
• Authors of the first NFT launch on Cardano with a functional, compilable, smart contract in the metadata of the token, completely on-chain in collaboration with Quinn ( @mqp ), aka. TheAncientKraken. An NFT from the collection was the first one to be sold through a smart contract, minutes after the Alonzo HFC. It also was the first sale through a smart contract on Cardano to pay residuals (i.e. royalties) to artists on resales of their works. https://cardanoscan.io/transaction/34dd0b7ae56b65f4cda029d99cda8322684ec6339ac1c195c16458c1e5e94b96?tab=contracts 
• We are Fibo Genesis Artists and have unveiled our third Cardano NFT collection, with the launch of the Genesis Collection of the Emurgo marketplace, Fibo https://fibo.art/collection/21
• Core members of the Cardano NFT Guild since January 2022.
• Over the course of the last year, we have already offered consultancy sessions to artists and projects, either preparing to launch on Cardano or entirely new to the NFT ecosystem.
• As members of NFT-DAO (between late February - early June 2021), we have worked on trying to build a fair and open ecosystem for NFTs on Cardano.
• We have participated in a wide range of aspects of the Cardano ecosystem. For example, we have been involved with Project Catalyst since Fund 3, February 2021 in all roles.
• Member of multiple “gated access” communities in the Cardano NFT space.

As a result of all these factors and events, we have amassed a considerable amount of knowledge and experience about the Cardano NFT space, and the NFT ecosystem in general, which we are now ready to pass on and help attract and onboard new artists and projects from ETH to Cardano.

As mentioned we are core members of the NFT Guild ( https://www.nft-guild.io ), please consider checking out the guild’s other proposals:

NFT Community & Ecosystem (Fund 10 Challenge Setting)

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417910

NFT Swap Infrastructure Templates 2 (F9: Dapps, Products and Integrations)

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/417999 

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

If the project is successful and produces the desired results, we may return to Catalyst to fund more consultancy sessions.

[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 will be measuring 3 main KPIs for the project:

• Number of visits to the online guides.
• Number of 1 to 1, in person consultancy/mentoring sessions held.
• Number of projects onboarded to Cardano that migrated from EVM based blockchains.

Each deliverable, as detailed above will be recorded and submitted via the Catalyst Monthly Reporting form.

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

Success after 3 months:

Between 10 -15 projects show an interest in launching on Cardano and book free consultancy sessions to find out more about the process.

The guides reach an audience of several hundred readers.

Success after 6 months:

Between 20 - 25 projects show an interest in launching on Cardano and book free consultancy sessions to find out more about the process.

Between 5-10 different NFT projects and/or creators are successfully onboarded onto Cardano by either choosing to migrate to the platform or launching directly on Cardano.

The guides reach an audience of several thousand.

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

The Fund 8 version of this proposal was ranked third in the F8: The Great Migration (from Ethereum) challenge by CAs, with 7 CAs awarding it an average score of 4.62.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/399093 

The proposal was also highly approved by voters, an overwhelming majority of wallets that voted on the proposal, voted for it. Unfortunately the proposal missed being funded because of being slightly over the category budget (the first not to be funded).

This is a resubmission of the proposal, adjusted for Fund 9.