Project name: BabelDAO
Author name and contact info (please provide a reliable point of contact for the project.): Handuo, handuo@server31.io
L2 recipient address: 0xaE65D09E6d626fe7eeA35618DaA349055a57118e
Which Voting Cycle are you applying for?: Cycle 11
I confirm that I have read the landing pages for the Builders and Growth Experiments Sub-Committees and that I have determined my proposal is best suited to be reviewed by the Growth Experiments Sub-Committee: [Yes/No]: Yes
I understand that Growth Experiments grants are subject to a “no sale rule,” as explained in this post , and I have read the terms of the rule: [Yes/No]: Yes
Project Details
What are you building?:
We are a DAO that creates story universes. Starting with our debut project “Babel”, we are building a new way for stories to be created, owned, and monetized collaboratively.
Why do you believe what you are building is going to succeed?:
- People love what we do: Both our community members and creative professionals love what we do. Our members contribute to the project because they love the story and concept. An Oscar-nominated animation studio is developing our story into an animated series. Our offline immersive experience is been shown in multiple well-known galleries and has hosted thousands of audience with a lot of natural traffic.
- We are fast growing: We built our community to its current size in 4 months.
- Our track is fast growing: There were no similar projects to ours in Web3 when we first started. In the past 1 month, three projects that do what we do (Shibuya.xyz, StoryCo, Straider) have raised 6M USD in each Seed round. Our track is emerging and we believe that we have all it takes to be a major player in it.
- Collaborative Fiction has a strong history: What we create is not reinventing the wheel but harvesting some long-existing crafts. Many of the most influential stories in human history are collaboratively created (i.e. the Holy Bible). The SCP foundation as one of the most successful IPs in the past decades is also collaboratively created by many.
- We solve an actual problem: Collaborative fiction projects often harvest tons of creativity from many people but can’t monetize due to copyright complexity. We solve this problem by having the DAO own the entire IP and reward the creators with the DAO’s native token and governance rights.
How many users does your project have currently? Please include how you arrived at this estimate:
We currently have 9.2k+ Discord members, 12k+ Twitter followers, 110+ Core Contributors (holders of our Tree or Author badge), and 40k+ SBTs minted
How will receiving a grant enable you to further the mission of maximizing the number of users interacting with Optimism? Please include a step-by-step flow of how you imagine this grant can lead to a greater number of user interactions with Optimism:
We will be using this grant to build our publishing platform and attract users to it. Optimism will be the token that powers our publishing platform that users use to purchase creative pieces (as NFTs) and tip other creators for their work. In a way, we are like a Mirror.xyz for stories world-building.
With the details below, we will first use a portion of the grant on building and optimize the platform’s experience. Then we’ll be onboarding the first 1,000 users to use our platform and Optimism. As we do that, we’ll be attracting users from existing collaborative fiction projects (i.e. SCP foundation has 3M active users) and writing groups (i.e. R/Writing). With this grant, we believe we can onboard 10k+ previously non-Web3 users to Optimism before the end of the year.
Tell us about the users you plan to target with this grant. Include any defining characteristics that will help you identify and target them:
We are targeting the millions of fiction writers who are underrepresented and are not able to monetize their writing. They want two things: Readers + Some financial rewards
We are getting them from several places: Existing Collaborative Fiction Projects, Existing Publishing Platforms (i.e. Wattpad)), Fan Fiction Groups (i.e. AO3), Reddit & Facebook writing groups.
The writers are very active communicators. A Discord with them can never be cold.
How would these users interact with Optimism? For how long?:
They’ll be earning and tipping each other OP and our native token $BABEL on our publishing platform. $BABEL, currently on testnet, will launch on Optimism if we receive this grant. We plan to be the Web3 SCP foundation(started in 2007). With OP powering a creator economy for true creators who are not in this for speculation, this can go as long as decades because a collaborative story universe can be ever-expanding.
Provide us with links to any of the following for the project:
- Deck
- Website: https://www.babeldao.co
- Twitter: twitter.com/BabelUniverse
- Discord/Discourse/Community: BabelDAO
- Whitepaper: Opening - Babel Universe Whitepaper
- Publishing Platform MVP
Do you have any metrics on the project currently? (TVL, transactions, volume, unique addresses, etc. Optimism metrics preferred; please link to public sources such as Dune Analytics, etc.):
Our core contributor conversion rate is around 1.5% - aka 1.5 people work more than 30hrs for the DAO (or pay $300+) in every 100 people who follow our project.
Our Discord retention rate is around 73.5% - Out of 12600+ people who joined our Discord in the past four months, 9200+ stayed.
Our original short story has been translated into 15 different languages by our members.
Our members have written around 50 new stories based on our original story and recorded the original story into audiobooks.
Who are your competitors, and are they on Optimism?:
They are: https://story.co/ https://strider.xyz/ https://www.shibuya.xyz/
They are not on Optimism.
Team
Who are your founders?:
Handuo, Co-Founder, CEO, www.handuozhang.com
Media artist, filmmaker, MA in Digital Narratives. Multiple artworks and films of his are shown in well-known galleries and film festivals around the globe. The original creator of the Babel Universe, the BabelDAO SBT System, and the Babel Universe Creator Economy.
JJ, Co-Founder, CMO, https://www.linkedin.com/in/msjingjingzheng/
15+ years of marketing and BD experience. Helped various renowned brands such as TusStar to launch and expand in the North American market. Worked as an account director at FKA.agency, one of Alberta’s largest AAAA ad agencies, and project manager with the Alberta Government.
What makes your team well-suited to carry out the project described in this proposal?
We are a team of experienced creatives, developers, and marketing specialists who are in this project primarily for its vision. We developed the project to its current scale with zero funding and will keep on developing it. This project is our child. Are we the best parents in the world? Maybe not. We have a lot to learn. But we are ready to grow up with our child and evolve ourselves as we go.
Is this your first Web3 project?:
Yes, but our lead developer has been building blockchain games since 2016. Our consultant has been in the blockchain space since 2012, being a board member in the foundation that issued USDT, and built the very first DEX. Handuo entered the crypto space from an academic angle (Cypherpunk Manifesto). That’s how the short story described Metaverse & Gamefi before they emerged.
Grant Request
What is the size of the grant request? (250k OP max): 200k OP
How do you justify the size of the grant?: We use this grant to build our product and onboard the first 10k real users.
Roadmap and Distribution Plan
Describe in discrete steps how you will successfully implement your grant plan:
- Publishing platform MVP testing with the existing community member
- Content marketing + Iterating the publishing platform according to user feedback
- Publishing platform Beta Launch
- Public launch of the publishing platform + Advertisement marketing
How will the OP tokens be distributed? lease include % allocated to different initiatives such as user rewards/marketing/liquidity mining. Please also include a justification as to why each of these initiatives align with the problem statement this proposal is solving. Distribution should not include the sale of any tokens by the grantee or the use of tokens for compensation, protocol expenses, etc. See the no sale rule here ):
- 40% - Marketing (To acquire our initial users from projects such as the SCP foundation, r/Writing, fanfiction.net, Wattpad, etc.)
- 50% - Publishing Platform Early-adoptor Incentive (We will be using OP to power our creator economy - a system like Coordinape (https://coordinape.com/). We plan to allocate 10k OP every month for 10 months to be “tipped” by our core contributors to the very good pieces created on our platform. A piece needs to go through a reviewer to be published in the first place. Then our core contributors, who know our story very well, will reward them based on their artistic & entertainment qualities. That also brings new creators into our community because they will see how his piece is welcomed. We are confident to say that the receivers of these OP are hand-picked long-term users because speculators won’t be able to pass through all these steps.)
- 10% - Community Events & Competition Rewards etc.
Please provide benchmark milestones for this project. These milestones should guide the Optimism community on the progress of your project throughout your work on the project. Do not use distribution of the grant itself as a milestone:
- For step 1 we need a running MVP that is approved by our community members. (Our 110+ Core-Contributors)
- For step 2 we need to acquire the first 100 new users (who use the publishing platform to create stories without additional education from us). This step can be measured with the number of new stories published on our platform.
- For step 3 we need a running Beta version that is approved by the first 100 new users.
- For step 4 we will acquire 1,000 new users who like the platform enough to spread the word about it. This will bring the 10k new users we promised.
Please define critical milestones for this project. Critical milestones are meant to show good-faith efforts to accomplish the project. Non-completion of these milestones could lead to revocation of remaining grant rewards. Do not use distribution of the grant itself as a milestone:
Step 3 is the most critical of the four milestones and it is probably the most difficult one to accomplish. Because it requires natural traffic to a product that is still a sketch. If we successfully find the first 100 real users to use our product, it won’t be too difficult to expand to 1,000, 10k, or more.
If the OP tokens are for direct distribution to users, why will incentivized users and liquidity on Optimism remain after incentives dry up?:
Only 10% of the budget will be used on pure incentives (token/cash-reward). We plan to attract users with our product (story+publishing platform) which will bring us long-term active users like other collaborative fiction projects accomplish. Ps, Collaborative fiction creators are naturally active and very creative. The SCP foundation Discord, although only has 2k members, is one of the most active Discord we’ve ever seen. And by communicating around a fictional universe in their collective imagination, they build a strong consensus in a very pure form that is volatility-free.
Please provide any additional information that will facilitate accountability (smart contract addresses relevant to the proposal, relevant organizational wallet addresses, etc.): N/A
Optimism Relationship
Does your project solve a problem for the Optimism ecosystem? If so how?:
Yes, we’re going to bring in a large group of users to Optimism who are not in this for speculation. They can only get a hold of OP if they know our project very well, write a good piece, and get brought into our community. They will not only be educated about OP but experience the fun of being creative. With a community of people who get it, we believe the new users we onboard will stick.
Why will this solution be a source of growth for the Optimism ecosystem?:
We are bringing new non-Web3 users (the millions of collaborative fiction creators & readers) to the Optimism ecosystem.
Is your project Optimism Native?: It can be. We can debut launch our native token $BABEL on Optimism.
Confirmations
I understand that I will be required to provide additional KYC information to the Optimism Foundation to receive this grant: [Yes/No]: Yes
I understand that I will be expected to following the public grant reporting requirements outlined here: [Yes/No]: Yes
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