Democratize Access to Decentraland for Renting, Marketing, and Hosting Events

by 0x46c02de46629a2babe7c9ba1d9ebf0804d4f99aa

Should the following Tier 3: up to $5,000 USD in MANA, 3 months vesting (1 month cliff) grant in the Platform Contributor category be approved?

Abstract

Nearly three months ago, we launched a website to create a gallery feed of all properties available to rent across major metaverses such as Decentraland.

The project – called https://rentparcel.io/ – received a great response so far - 70+ property posts, 2k+ post views in 20+ countries despite very little marketing. We were also able to successfully connect multiple tenants with landlords and were even instrumental in facilitating rentals worth hundreds of dollars!

We are now requesting your support to turn this project into a full-fledged peer-to-peer marketplace in order to make Decentraland super accessible to the average person for renting, advertising, hosting events, etc.

Grant size

5,000 USD

Beneficiary address

0x46c02dE46629a2bAbe7c9ba1D9EBF0804d4f99AA

Email address

asaxena1415@yahoo.com

Description

Based on our current website, land owners would submit their property posts along with a price and contact, and anyone interested would reach out to them and work the rental details out. We witnessed multiple potential tenants reaching out to us to learn more about the rental process as our website helped them connect with land owners. However, we also soon learned that Decentraland remains largely inaccessible to the average person looking to advertise, market their products, or celebrate/host events on it.

While we were able to make the lands more discoverable through our platform, the process of actually using the land remains much more complicated. Decentraland allows land owners to grant temporary edit permissions to another user for their land (https://docs.decentraland.org/market/land-manager/#give-permissions) but in order for the tenants to work with it, they need to be well-versed with deploying code to build something in DCL. The problem is that in many cases the tenants don’t really need these permissions and just want to connect and work with the land owner on how they plan to use the land.

Think of the following major use cases for example:

1. A production company wants to promote their upcoming film on someone’s land, they would like to directly ask the land owner to put up a poster or some other graphic on a particular asset on the land, for instance, a billboard. Or basically, any other company looking to advertise or market their product’s info on someone’s land.
2. A family wants to celebrate a birthday party or some other similar event in DCL, they want to use an existing parcel/estate without any changes and all they require is the land owner’s help to let them host the event.

Neither of these above cases require the involvement of a smart contract or any sort of transfer of ownership or other permissions, and the whole process can be worked out simply by connecting and communicating with potential tenants. And so, RentParcel will build a platform that will make it extremely simple to connect with land owners for anyone who’s trying to utilize Decentraland but doesn’t have any advanced knowledge of crypto, nfts, or the metaverse.

How is this happening currently?

Currently, if potential customers want to connect with land owners they do it largely through Discord, Telegram, Twitter, and other social media sources, which is mostly unorganized. There are also metaverse real estate agents and advertising firms that act as middlemen or brokers for facilitating ‘rentals’. Our vision is to democratize access to Decentraland land and create a level playing field in terms of opportunities for land owners. By building a peer-to-peer marketplace, we would be able to have a single dedicated space where anyone can connect with DCL land owners, use their land, leave reviews, and just help make the entire process more open, accessible, and transparent.

Specification

RentParcel will streamline the process of using someone’s land - we plan to model our website in the following manner:

1. For land owners: Land owners would go to our website and create a post for their property (wallet integration will not be mandatory) which will also include the price per day for using their land and the availability.

2. For customers (any person, entity, or organisation) looking to use DCL land for whatever their need is - renting, marketing, events, etc., would then browse through this website and select their property of interest and duration (for which they intend to use the land), and they will then request to communicate directly with the land owner.

The land owner will then get a notification that someone is interested in their land and it will be up to them to accept/reject the invite to initiate the conversation. Once the details such as price, duration, etc are finalized, RentParcel will let the land owner set a price and duration which would be then sent to the tenant customer to accept. The exact reason for using the land will be something that will be worked out between the two parties.

In addition, we will also include features that can be found on popularly existing marketplace like websites such as leaving reviews/ratings both for landlords and customers, searching, filtering on price, land type, size, etc.

We plan to use the requested funds for the following:

1. Accelerating the development of the project and creating informational content - we will hire more developers to expedite the completion of the project. We’ll also retain video editors to create educational content for both land owners and tenants on how to go about using space in DCL for hosting events or advertising.
2. Marketing - We will also retain an experienced and dedicated marketing personnel who would oversee search engine optimisation (SEO), design our online ads strategy, and handle social media engagement to help increase customer traction for the land owners.
3. Establishing Partnerships - We are currently focussed more on Decentraland and will work to partner with companies trying to bring experiences or replicating real world events in DCL by persuading them to use our platform so that land owners are benefited.

Personnel

Aditya - Software Engineer

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/saxena-aditya/

GitHub - https://github.com/aditya800

Tave - Software Engineer, Computer Science degree from New York University.

Both of us are full stack software engineers with experience working at Microsoft & Amazon, and will be putting up to $1K USD collectively out of our own pocket too for the project.

Roadmap and milestones

We plan to complete the project within 8-10 weeks, here are the goals we’re setting:

1. Week 1-5: Software development. Upgrade the RentParcel website to have a login and communication system for land owners and customers, as well as the other UI changes highlighted under specification.
2. Week 5-6: Onboard potential customers, focus on marketing, and establishing partnerships.
3. Week 6-8: Beta testing and launch website.

Follow the progress of the project on:

Discord: https://discord.gg/7vPBgAtwz5

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RentParcel

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO