[DAO:ece89d1] Decentraland Studios — Grant Renewal

Governance
1

by 0x9942c18de1b386d77828f79e4ebe4ed60bcd3fce (Crespi)

Should the following $34,620 grant in the Platform category be approved?

Abstract

We are seeking a grant renewal for Decentraland Studios. Our mission is to create job opportunities for Decentraland creators by developing and maintaining Decentraland Studios, a platform where creators can showcase their skills and apply for commercial projects exclusively available to them. You can check our previous grant proposals here (July 2022) and here (March 2023) to read our latest updates.

Grant size

34,620 USD in DAI

Project duration

3 months

Beneficiary address

0x256874B9FD26cBf11a4E2DE5CFFE5a877603044d

Email address

studios@decentraland.org

Description

This initiative will keep Decentraland Studios running and enhance the user experience for our community and brands looking to bring their vision to Decentraland. During our last grant, we launched the Jobs feature, which listed 14+ new commercial projects for our community, and drove 20.000+ unique visitors to our platform.

For this grant, our main goals are:

1. Maintain platform operations:

We will ensure a smooth operation by addressing user inquiries, onboarding new studios, and staying connected with Decentraland’s ecosystem. This includes but is not limited to overseeing studios.decentraland.org, Discord, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

2. Enhance User Experience:

2.1 Improvements to Jobs feature:
Nowadays, brands (aka “customers” in this proposal) are unable to see their projects after they post them to our platform. Also, communication between studios and brands happens exclusively via email. Even though our MVP was intended to work like this, we are aware of its limitations:

  • Brands can’t directly manage their projects, especially if they post more than one project simultaneously
  • Brands have a hard time tracking their communication with each studio that offers to collaborate with them

Because of this, we will develop a dashboard for potential clients to monitor and manage the job opportunities they create and a messaging system that will facilitate communication between studios and brands. These two features will allow brands to easily manage and keep track of their project’s status. By improving the brands’ experience in our platform we are looking to make them returning users, thus growing the number of job opportunities for studios.

2.2 Improvements to resources, projects and studio profiles

We will improve the UI for Resources making them easier to understand before opening them on GitHub. We will add filter and sorting functionalities to the projects view, allowing users to find projects that are relevant to them. We will also improve the studios’ profiles to better showcase their skills and talent. This includes adding a messaging system so that users can contact studios easily.

3. Generate leads:

Create performance marketing campaigns in web2 platforms such as Linkedin, Twitter, Google, and Instagram targeted to brand owners and marketers interested in building a presence in the Metaverse. We are not requesting a budget for this task, as we still have a ~15.000 DAI surplus from our previous grant which we will use for the same purpose.

4. Discover market needs:

By accurately addressing brands’ pain points and needs, we anticipate more job opportunities for Decentraland creators. To accomplish this, we propose a brief product discovery and user research cycle, involving interviews with brands. This research will provide valuable insights into their preferences, challenges, and desired features, shaping our future development decisions and feature enhancements.

Check the financial report of our previous grant here.

Roadmap and milestones

Continuous tasks:

  • Moderate job posts, onboard new studios, maintain social media channels, and engage with our community and potential customers.

Month 1:

  • Design a login and dashboard for brands. Design a messaging system for each project to facilitate communication between studios and brands. Introduce filtering and sorting options for projects.
  • Begin development on the login interface and dashboard. Enhance search capabilities for improved user experience. Optimize the performance of the resources section.

Month 2:

  • Update studios’ profiles to showcase their work and capabilities more effectively. Design a messaging system for each studio profile. Design an automated email system for efficient surveying and communication with studios and brands. Enhance the resources detail page to create a more informative experience. Initiate product discovery activities.
  • Launch the login interface and dashboard features. Develop messaging system. Implement updates to studios’ profiles.

Month 3:

  • Conduct product discovery activities, including interviews and analysis. Present the results of product discovery to the community. Design automated reports of new job listings.
  • Deploy messaging system. Implement automated polls to gather data about job listings and user preferences. Create automated reports of new job listings for studios. Enhance the display and details page for resources.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

2 Likes
2

This initiative has a big future, web 3.0 work marketplace. :space_invader: :sparkles:

1 Like
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Thank you for your kind words @web3nit! This is exactly what we’re working towards.

2 Likes
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How many total project leads have been generated by Decentraland Studios and the Verified Partners Registry since its creation a year ago? According to the updates it appears to be 500+ projects. How many of the submitted projects resulted in completed projects in DCL? How many people have received payed work via this initiative? What’s the return on this investment? What’s the ROI for the ad spends in Meta, LinkedIn, and Instagram?

It’s a good website. The promotional materials I have seen are quite professional looking. I understand we are in a down market and companies aren’t spending what they used to. Has this effort lead to money spent on and in DCL? If so how much?

$74,800 July 2022 Grant
$49,200 March 2023 Grant
$34,620 July 2023 Prop

$158,620 Total

5

How many jobs has been created and filled through the website? Can you create a space inside DCL where people can post the projects that need jobs as well as allowing builders to respond to those opportunities as well. I think something like this should be accessible in world as well as out of world. It is the metaverse and people should be able to do as much there as they can IRL.
Do you have to sign up first in order to see what jobs are available? I dont think you should have to and found no way around that.
There should be coordinates listed for the photos and descriptions that are shown on the website so people can check them out as well.
Thank you.

6

Hello @AwedJob these are all good questions, which we think about regularly and try to answer ourselves as well. In an effort to be transparent I’ll go through these one by one:

How many total project leads have been generated by Decentraland Studios and the Verified Partners Registry since its creation a year ago?

There are two ways we can measure the amount of project leads generated by our platform. Potential clients can land on our website, read the profile of any studio (like this one), and contact them directly. Even though this scenario would count as a project lead, we’re unable to calculate how many project leads start like this, as each studio manages their leads privately, and doesn’t share that information openly, which is reasonable.

Another way to count project leads is through our Jobs platform, where potential clients post project openings for studios to apply. We released this feature two months ago, and we have seen 16 complete project leads, which in total have received ~152 applications from different studios on our platform.

We’re aware that this information is key to understanding the impact of our efforts. Because of this, our new proposal aims to solve this problem. In month 2 of our roadmap, we mention “Design an automated email system for efficient surveying and communication with studios and brands.”. These surveys will collect data on how many projects are effectively done through our platform.

According to the updates it appears to be 500+ projects. How many of the submitted projects resulted in completed projects in DCL?

This is correct, though it is important to note that these 500+ refer to projects that studios have submitted to their profiles on our platform like this example. Most of them are projects that studios have done before joining our platform. We manually check that all of these projects took place in Decentraland.

How many people have received payed work via this initiative? What’s the return on this investment?

As I mentioned in the answer to your first question, we currently don’t have this information. Our mission is to create job opportunities, so we do not have the means or the necessity to track the details of closed deals or the exact monetary value obtained through our platform. However, we have been receiving good feedback from our studios, and we can assure you that they are actively using our platform.

What’s the ROI for the ad spends in Meta, LinkedIn, and Instagram?

This project, and the ads we run, don’t have a lineal ROI we can calculate. As I mentioned, we currently don’t have visibility of how many studios close deals with brands through our platform (though we’re working on it). However, it’s important for you to know the following:

  • We’re working on a marketing report that details our ad strategy and the results we got over the past four months. We don’t have it ready yet, but stay tuned to our previous grant where we will publish it as part of our final report.
  • Ultimately, it is important to remember that we are working to establish a platform that will continue working mostly autonomously even when we stop actively expanding it. So any investment the community makes in Decentraland Studios will continue generating returns for the community long after our team stops developing features.

Has this effort lead to money spent on and in DCL? If so how much?

Throughout our last two grants, we have received feedback from multiple studios who have mentioned being reached through our platform and successfully sealing deals. We respect the privacy and sensitivity of closed deals, including exact monetary details, so we don’t actively ask studios about this information.

I hope my answers were clear. If you have any questions feel free to continue the conversation here or reach out to us directly. For a more comprehensive understanding of our progress, spending, and achievements, we recommend reviewing the previous grants and reports, where you can find more detailed information.

Best

7

Hi @Existential14, thanks for taking a look at out proposal. I’ll do my best to answer your questions below

How many jobs has been created and filled through the website?

Since we launched the Jobs platform, more than 16 projects offering work to verified studios have been created through our website. While we don’t have specific figures on the numbers, we believe in respecting the privacy and sensitivity of closed deals, including exact monetary details.

Can you create a space inside DCL where people can post the projects that need jobs as well as allowing builders to respond to those opportunities as well. I think something like this should be accessible in world as well as out of world. It is the metaverse and people should be able to do as much there as they can IRL.

A feature like this one falls outside of our area of expertise. To build something like this, we would need to request a bigger budget to either have someone new on our team or to partner with a studio that can build this with us. It is a potential next step we are considering. However, our primary focus remains on building an efficient and comprehensive platform to streamline project leads for studios. So far, our best bet continues to be a web environment.

Do you have to sign up first in order to see what jobs are available? I dont think you should have to and found no way around that.

In terms of job visibility, signing up is necessary to access and view available jobs on our platform. This prevents anyone on the internet to be able to take job opportunities from studios that are mainly dedicated to Decentraland. This mechanism also ensures that clients receive high-quality proposals and maintains fairness for our verified studios. If you are interested in joining the list of Decentraland verified studios, you can sign up at any time and begin the verification process.

There should be coordinates listed for the photos and descriptions that are shown on the website so people can check them out as well.

This sounds interesting! It is not as simple as it sounds since most projects posted to our platform are temporal. Whatever is built in any coordinates will probably change or be replaced, so we can’t guarantee that the projects posted on our platform are always visible in-world. This is a great idea though, and we’ll consider it. If you’d like to help us give form to this idea and discuss it further, reach out to us directly.

Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions!

1 Like
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For the coordinates just put a disclaimer that current build may be different but it could possibly 1.lead people into DCL and that builds location regardless of what is there if they wanted to check it out. 2. If it is there, show proof.

1 Like
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Thanks for this initiative! Happy to vote “yes” and see how it develops.

1 Like
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@Ev_P thank you for your support!

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While this is an important initiative and well developed, I think @AwedJob’s questions are very valid and the response unfortunately doesn’t provide many clear details.

Sixteen jobs for 100+ verified partners isn’t ideal. On another hand all the listed creators have to complete a series of tests to prove their abilities and rank higher on the page. This setup makes sense, I just want to highlight the amount of collective time and money that has gone into the project compared to the current results.

I would love to see the Jobs platform succeed and be the go-to building page, but I’d like to know what we can do to improve on the results. The Generate Leads and Discover Market Needs parts of the proposal seem similar to before so it would be good to know how they can produce better results this time around.

12

Hello @Kat,

Thank you for recognizing the importance of our platform for the studios.

Regarding the number of jobs created for all the verified studios, we understand that the current figure of 16 jobs might not meet ideal expectations. However, it’s important to note that the Jobs platform has been live for only 2 months. In the previous months and grants, we mainly focused on onboarding studios, creating a verification process, and building the website to provide exposure and showcase our creators.

We share the same goal of making the Jobs platform a successful and popular destination for bringing opportunities to the studios, and we are committed to achieving better results. Our team is dedicated to fine-tuning our marketing strategies(the marketing report will be posted in the final update) and delivering the features listed in this proposal.

As we approach the last renewal for this project, our primary focus is on developing a fully efficient platform that will include some key features that will help to collect automated data about how the listing processes are evolving. Once achieved, we aim to transition into a low-maintenance mode while continuing to support the platform’s success.

Thank you again for your valuable feedback!

13

How many job opportunities has this endeavor created? Does your definition of “project lead” encompass “job opportunities”? If so, 16 is the answer? Or is 152 applications the answer? You don’t know how many people have gotten paid jobs as a result of this project. You could anonymize the information. Wanting to respect the privacy of the people registered in the service is admirable. However, if they get work because of your efforts, I think it’s essential that you are able to know this has happened. To remain ignorant of these statistics is irresponsible.

The 500+ projects were mostly completed by studios before coming into contact with this project. So, this information is independent of anything your team has done. You are merely aggregating it.

You don’t know how effective your ad buys have been. You are working on it. I suggest you get your information together and resubmit a new proposal when you do.

I’m not in the registry. I deemed it not worth the trouble. Having gone through the preliminary process others determined that I was not an event planner. Verification is a good thing except when it holds back qualified people. By the time of my review I had scheduled guests, coordinated locations, and conducted interviews with creators for a weekly streamed show in Decentraland for something like 20 or 30 weeks. I’m still doing this work and the show is in its 65 consecutive week.

I have worked and continue to work in DCL without any assistance from this project. It is a good idea but I feel can be better executed. Key Performance Indicators should be reconsidered. The application and verification process ought to be revamped and made more representative.

Vote: NO

1 Like
14

Hello @AwedJob

Thank you for sharing your feedback and concerns about the project. Let me address your questions and comments below:

How many job opportunities has this endeavor created? Does your definition of “project lead” encompass “job opportunities”? If so, 16 is the answer? Or is 152 applications the answer?

Since the deployment of Jobs, we have seen 16 project leads, representing clients posting opportunities. These projects have received a total of 171 applications from various studios. Additionally, our site currently enjoys a monthly traffic of 12,000 unique visitors.

While we continue to gather more data, we are committed to maintaining a smooth and user-friendly process for posting projects. To achieve this, we consciously avoid implementing measures that could create friction. For example, we don’t restrict conversations from shifting to another platform, force potential clients to sign agreements, or impose other limitations. Instead, we depend on the feedback provided by studios and clients to track when a deal gets done.

Our aim is to be fair and inclusive, allowing every studio, regardless of size or popularity, to have access to job postings on our platform.

You don’t know how many people have gotten paid jobs as a result of this project. You could anonymize the information. Wanting to respect the privacy of the people registered in the service is admirable. However, if they get work because of your efforts, I think it’s essential that you are able to know this has happened. To remain ignorant of these statistics is irresponsible.

Your point about the importance of knowing how many people have gotten paid jobs through our efforts is well taken. We agree that it’s essential to have a better understanding of the impact of our project. In our new proposal, we aim to address this by developing an automated system for surveying and communicating with studios and brands, but we have to take into account that it won’t be bulletproof if studios or clients don’t feel like answering, the information will be missed. If it works as we hope, this will help us collect valuable data on completed projects and the number of people receiving paid work.

The 500+ projects were mostly completed by studios before coming into contact with this project. So, this information is independent of anything your team has done. You are merely aggregating it.

Some of these +500 projects were completed before the creation of our platform and some others were created afterward. We are not stating that these projects were created as a result of Decentraland Studios. The main goal of having published all these projects is to have a unique place to showcase the work of each studio and open the door to potential clients to get to know about the variety of projects that could be created on Decentraland. We aim to provide a comprehensive showcase of studios’ projects to demonstrate their capabilities to potential clients. However, we are actively working to improve the data and visibility of projects done specifically through our platform.

You don’t know how effective your ad buys have been. You are working on it. I suggest you get your information together and resubmit a new proposal when you do.

The hired marketing studio is working on a final report that will detail our ad strategy and the results obtained over the past months. We will ensure that this information is available for the community.

I’m not in the registry. I deemed it not worth the trouble. Having gone through the preliminary process others determined that I was not an event planner. Verification is a good thing except when it holds back qualified people. By the time of my review, I had scheduled guests, coordinated locations, and conducted interviews with creators for a weekly streamed show in Decentraland for something like 20 or 30 weeks. I’m still doing this work, and the show is in its 65 consecutive weeks.

We appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns about the verification process that has been improved since we started. We apologize if the initial process did not accurately reflect your area of expertise. We encourage you to explore the available categories on our platform to see if there is one that better represents the services you offer.

Our goal with the verification process is to ensure that the studios listed on our platform can genuinely provide the services they claim. We believe this approach enhances the credibility of our platform and ensures that the tags and categories used to represent studios’ capabilities are meaningful and accurate. For example, we are currently running a survey, with the help of some community members, to conduct research and include a new category, CM.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and we look forward to continuing our engagement with you to enhance our project. If you are open to it, we would be happy to schedule a meeting to discuss these matters further. We’ll work to address these concerns in our ongoing efforts to improve the platform.

1 Like
15

Decentraland Studios — Grant Renewal

This proposal is now in status: PASSED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 71% 5,224,300 VP (145 votes)
  • No 12% 930,549 VP (14 votes)
  • Abstain 17% 1,348,801 VP (11 votes)
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Decentraland Studios — Grant Renewal

This proposal has been ENACTED by a DAO Committee Member (0x88013d7ed946dd8292268a6ff69165a97a89a639)

Vesting Contract Addresses: 0x774f958fc8928A9d6572f086FDEaE73fa583D251