Decentraland Studios (aka Verified Partners Registry) — Grant Renewal

by 0xd11a019a70986bd607cbc1c1f9ae221c78581f49 (Yemel)

Should the following $74,800 grant in the Platform category be approved?

Abstract

Grant renewal to maintain studios.decentraland.org. Previous grant proposal here.

We are the team that created and maintains Decentraland Studios (previously known as Verified Partners Registry). Our mission is to facilitate connections between brands and creators, and generate new business opportunities for them.

Over the past 7 months we onboarded 150+ studios and helped them create portfolios in our platform to show their capabilities to potential clients. We are looking to renew our grant to continue creating job opportunities for creators and to improve the visibility of their work.

Grant size

74,800 USD

Beneficiary address

0x256874B9FD26cBf11a4E2DE5CFFE5a877603044d

Email address

metaverse.studios@decentraland.org

Description

The first grant of this project had the objective of setting up the website, creating the verification processes to ensure that only qualified creators are listed in the registry, and building connections with the Decentraland creators.

This renewal has the main focus of creating business opportunities for the members of the registry. To accomplish this, we will work on three key areas of the business growth of Decentraland creators:

Streamlining Job Opportunities for Decentraland Creators

We are working on a feature through which brands can post job openings for Decentraland creators. Any brand can create a job indicating the type of project they want to develop (along with a description, skills needed, budget and timeline), and all Decentraland Studios will be able to apply. We expect this feature to remove friction for brands to hire Decentraland creators. The user flow for creating a job and applying to one will be similar to how Dribbble implemented it.

Lead generation

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. The ads campaign will direct users to our landing page collecting their emails in exchange for an onboarding guide. After that point, the leads will be followed up by emails introducing interesting content and calling them to start a new project (see point above).

Maintenance and improvement

We will continue onboarding and verifying studios to our platform while listening to our community and taking their feedback. Right now, we are looking to:

• Add search, filtering and sorting features to projects, studios and resources
• Keep improving the resource section, adding case studies and more scenes
• Keep updating the “Guide Into The Metaverse” and translating it to other languages
• Featuring projects to highlight skills and talent
• Having a dedicated section for Decentraland Studios in decentraland.org

We are looking to grow the following metrics:

• Visitors to our website
• Brands connecting with studios through our platform

Budget Specification

Salaries:

• $12,200 USD per month or a total of $48,800 USD
• Total Hours: ~360 monthly hours or ~90 weekly hours.

Marketing Budget:

• $200 USD per day, $6,000 USD per month or a total of $24,000 USD.
• Paid marketing campaigns at Instagram, Linkedin, Google, Twitter targeted to brand owners.

Operations:

• $500 USD per month or a total of $2,000 USD
• Subscriptions to Calendly, Typeform, Sendgrid, Digital Ocean, Plausible, Figma.

Personnel

• Alejandro Escoda — Operations and Communication Linkedin
• Francisco Crespi — Product and Design Linkedin
• Omar Bobrow — Software Development Linkedin
• Open Position — Performance Marketing (ad creation, budget placement, and monitoring)

This team has been successfully working together since December. We are opening a new strategic position to overview and manage the marketing budget. This position is key to generate business opportunities and reach to new brand owners and marketing agencies.

Roadmap and milestones

Month 1

• Set up Instagram and Linkedin ad campaigns.
• Design a content strategy to follow up leads with
• Design and development of Job Opportunities feature.
• Implement search and filtering of profiles, projects, and resources.
• Translate the Metaverse Guide to Spanish.

Month 2

• Set up Google and Twitter ad campaigns.
• Launch of Job Opportunities Flow.
• Improve visibility of Studios in Decentraland home.
• Translate the Metaverse Guide to Portuguese.

Month 3

• Evaluate alternative distribution channels (eg. Magazines, Blog, Reddit)
• New release of the Metaverse Guide with improved content.
• Improving the resources section of the site.

Month 4

• Review the results of the marketing campaigns.
• Featuring projects to highlight skills and talent.
• Propose a follow-up project roadmap based on the results.

This proposal is summarized due to technical limitations. To view it complete and vote on it, visit the DCL DAO Governance dApp