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AxLabs / grantshares

GrantShares Program 🌱
https://grantshares.io
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Let’s Rejoice (LR)- A dating app focused on connecting people of faith inside and outside of China #48

Open grantshares-dapp[bot] opened 1 year ago

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

Abstract

What would you like to do? Describe your project/idea in a few sentences. Please, be short and concise here! Brevity is key.

In an era of deteriorating China/Western relations and increasing fear of plague and pestilence, Let's Rejoice attempts to reverse the trends by providing a platform whereby individuals of faith can meet and socialize, with the goal of developing long-term friendships and relationships leading towards marriage. Payments within the system are prioritized for the NEO blockchain.

Proposal Information

Description

Relations between China and the West have deteriorated significantly in the past several years, with declining hopes of improving in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, cross-border travel between the West and China has dropped to nearly zero, further adding to the misery and isolation between peoples and countries.

At the same time, the sudden end of China's "Zero-Covid" policy has resulted in Covid-19 infections sky-rocketing in many parts of China (including here in Beijing). With cases growing exponentially higher, people are frightened to leave their homes, much less go out to socialize. Despite the ending of mandatory testing and lockdowns, overnight, entire cities and provinces have become ghost towns. This forecasts ominously from an economic and social perspective, leaving a vacuum within which single Chinese can naturally meet and interact, develop relationships, much less marry and start families. In other words, they cannot adequately hope or plan for a future.

Layered within these existential challenges is a heavily under- served population- the single, Chinese, faith-based woman (and to a lesser degree, man). It is a fact that China boasts one of the largest Christian populations in the entire world, with over 100MM who profess the faith. With their house of worship selection limited to the official "3-Self" churches or registered, international churches (which broadly excludes locals without passports from attending), the channels within which local believers can meet others in order to date are in short supply. Within these houses of worship, the majority of attendees are single women who would prefer to marry other believers. Yet even prior to the pandemic, many of them could not find a suitable mate in China, because of the lack of available Chinese men who are of the same faith.

Outside of China, there is a large pool of believing men who would like to find a way to connect with these women for the purposes of long-term relationship or marriage, but with all of the barriers that have been erected the past few years, the likelihood of this occurring has declined significantly.

This app aims to develop a platform whereby those of Faith from within and outside of China can socialize and date, leading to the goal of marriage.

App Details

Typically, most paid dating apps will offer two tiers of services: a free membership and premium (paid) tier.

Free membership typically has the following attributes:

Premium membership typically has the following attributes:

This app’s revenue generating model will be slightly different. First off, we are non-profit, so our purpose is not to make money. The free version of LR will generally allow all of the app’s privileges, though a premium version will also provide 3rd party verification of profiles- i.e. verification through our networks of the legitimacy of the profile and person in question, as well as facilitation of introductions or conversations between members. (Since this app will mostly spread via word of mouth and personal networks, it is highly likely that someone in our network can vouch for a member).

In addition, a donation/tithing component will be made available (especially for those who successfully use the app to make real-life connection).

Users will have the option to pay/donate in in NEO/GAS ( as the preferred channel) or other mediums (as the non-preferred channel).

*For the record- a webapp of this type would not be considered to violate any Chinese laws, since as both parties are already self-selected as ‘religious’, as such, no proselytization is taking place between parties. It is simply a cross-cultural dating app focused on people of faith. (Note that Chinese law currently prohibits proselytization of religion by foreigners to non-foreigners).

**As the app gains traction, we can potentially improve the premium (paid) interaction experience by utilizing Augmented Reality /3D- sound capabilities (we have local partners who are specialized in these areas).

Motivation

Why are you requesting funding? Is there anything that triggered your interest and would like to share with us?

I am an ABC (American-Born Chinese) residing in Beijing/ Shandong for nearly 12 years. I have consistently attended a variety of different church services (including registered 3-self and international churches), and met my wife (from Dongbei东北) through one of the Chinese churches. Within these houses of worship, it becomes apparent that there is a large imbalance between eligible single women and eligible single men.

We both know dozens of single, eligible women who cannot find spouses. We also know many single, eligible people outside of China who have a heart for China (i.e. foreigners). Based on our preliminary market research efforts, we already contacted several of our friends about this app, and many have enthusiastically requested to sign up for it once it launches.

My wife and I both have a heart for helping these sisters (and in a few cases, brothers) who would like to meet and connect with other brothers and sisters from all countries of the world, specifically for long-term, serious, marriage-oriented relationships.

On the Western side, I was born and raised in Silicon Valley (Fremont, California). I can attest to the fact that in areas of high concentrations of engineering talent, there is simply going to be a much higher ratio of single men to single women. However, because of career considerations, these men cannot simply pick up and move to areas with higher numbers of available women.

In places like Silicon Valley, the problem is seemingly the opposite of China- the houses of worship are full of smart, dedicated men, but there is a dearth of single, attractive believing females to go around.

Lastly, the pandemic has created a situation where positive interaction has declined considerably between between China and the West. Hence, having an app that can help to break down these barriers of negativity can help to improve an increasingly concerning situation.

Goals

What are the main goals, and why? How would you bring value to the community?

1) In an era of declining China/West relationships and spreading disease, develop an app that will improve communication between China and the West at the individual, personal level

2) Assist under-served populations within and outside of China (singles of faith who desire long-term relationships, marriage)

3) Drive awareness and adoption of NEO/ GAS globally

4) Increase participation / engagement amongst the NEO and non-NEO communities

5) Have fun while doing all the above

Deliverables & Roadmap

Specify deliverables in detail, including the following info for each:

Also, provide a roadmap overview for the deliverables.

Roadmap

Overview:

App will launch as a web application, due to the difficulty of listing apps on China store. This also ensures that the app is easily accessible to anyone. If the app is blocked in China for some reason, it can easily be accessed with a VPN. After sufficient traction is gained, we will add a React Native- based app and find a way to list it in the Chinese app stores.

Front-end key technologies: ReactJS/HTML/CSS/MUI/ responsive

Back-end key technologies: GraphQL, Auth0, neow3j (Java) for NEO smart contract, Render for deployment

Total days (~35)

Deliverables Verifiability

How would the community be able to verify that the promised deliverables (or milestones) were successfully achieved? For each deliverable/milestone, add supporting info on how it can be verified by the community.

1) Web app is successfully launched with features as described above

2) Marketing campaign is executed as emails are sent to communities in the US and abroad to attract users; publication is made in communities or forums of interest to our target audience; we message or 1-on-1 chat with our friends to join, (this would be a bit more difficult to verify as this will be done through our private networks, so not really a deliverable)

3) At least 15-30 new, real members join and create full profiles

Budget Plan

About You / Your Organization

Short-Bio

My name is Rob Liou. I was born and raised in the Silicon Valley in the US. I moved to China (Shengli Oilfield in Shandong Province) in 2011 after obtaining my MBA from the University of Michigan. I have been coding since 2019, and have been involved in the NEO community since 2017, including deploying a number of projects the past 2 years.

My wife Cissy is from HeilongJiang Province (Qiqihar) originally. She and I both have a heart for the unmarried single women of faith in China. She is experienced in design, outreach and administration. We met at a house of worship in Beijing in 2014 but did not start dating until 4 years later.

We had our first child (a son) last year.

Portfolio of Projects / Past Experience

Last year, after participating in the NEO Frontier Hackathon in 2021, I was invited to give a demo on the first day of DemoWeek. My project, DDR Store, was later enrolled in the NEO Ecoboost Incubator:

https://www.store.robliou.com

The structure of this project will be quite similar to DDR in that they are both considered ' exchanges', with one of the bigger changes being that I will re-build the entire front-end using MUI instead of Bootstrap. Using Material UI will make the design much more attractive to users. Also, my experience gained from being enrolled in the EcoBoost program should help me to design an even more effective product this time. We consider this to be a long-term undertaking.

I have also built other tooling for the community in the past, primarily in the area of analytics:

https://www.neo-reg.robliou.com

and forecasting:

https://www.neo-cycle.robliou.com.

Proposal Info :clipboard:

[ {
  "target_contract" : "0x6276c1e3a68280bc6c9c00df755fb691be1162ef",
  "method" : "releaseTokens",
  "params" : [ {
    "type" : "Hash160",
    "value" : "d2a4cff31913016155e38e474a2c06d08be276cf"
  }, {
    "type" : "Hash160",
    "value" : "b83c34adfaa1b364c79939142046b508d545256f"
  }, {
    "type" : "Integer",
    "value" : "50000000000"
  } ],
  "call_flags" : 15
} ]

👇 React with 👍 if you liked it, or 👎 if you think this proposal can be enhanced!

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

🚨 This proposal was edited by the proposer.

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

🚨 This proposal was edited by the proposer.

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

🚨 This proposal was edited by the proposer.

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

🚨 This proposal was edited by the proposer.

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

🚨 This proposal was edited by the proposer.

grantshares-dapp[bot] commented 1 year ago

🚨 This proposal was edited by the proposer.

ioannistsil commented 1 year ago

please NO better build a Defi

gsmachado commented 1 year ago

please NO better build a Defi

A DeFi based on dating?! 😄

ioannistsil commented 1 year ago

please NO better build a Defi

A DeFi based on dating?! smile

NO we need builder's who will build economic platforms for NEO , let leave dating apps for later

robliou commented 1 year ago

NO we need builder's who will build economic platforms for NEO , let leave dating apps for later

Don't the men in the NEO community need some (feminine) love too? :p

Joking aside, I'm still game to build the analytics dashboard and gamefied forecasting dApp (while doing this one on the side with my wife).

If I put the dashboard/ forecasting proposal on chain, do you think there would be enough support from the community to see it push through?

ioannistsil commented 1 year ago

NO we need builder's who will build economic platforms for NEO , let leave dating apps for later

Don't the men in the NEO community need some (feminine) love too? :p

Joking aside, I'm still game to build the analytics dashboard and gamefied forecasting dApp (while doing this one on the side with my wife).

If I put the dashboard/ forecasting proposal on chain, do you think there would be enough support from the community to see it push through?

the community need an analytic dashboard with on-chain metrics like https://www.nansen.ai/

jack9684 commented 1 year ago

I hope to introduce more foreign women to China, and Chinese bachelors will thank you. Please don't introduce Chinese women to foreigners and increase the number of Chinese bachelors.:)

------from Chinese bachelor

robliou commented 1 year ago

I hope to introduce more foreign women to China, and Chinese bachelors will thank you. Please don't introduce Chinese women to foreigners and increase the number of Chinese bachelors.:)

------from Chinese bachelor

Hi Jack! It's good to see your response here.

Yes, in fact, I do know a number of foreign women who have a 'heart' for China; some of them indeed did go on to marry Chinese bachelors (for privacy purposes, I will not share their data here, however). LR would definitely give local male Chinese believers the opportunity to network with foreign female believers as well; that is definitely in our plans and I think would be a great showcase for them to introduce themselves to the rest of the world. :)

Thanks for sharing!

hacfox commented 1 year ago

请不要更好地构建 Defi

基于约会的 DeFi？！😄

😄 The meaning can be understood, but not explained.

robliou commented 1 year ago

NO we need builder's who will build economic platforms for NEO , let leave dating apps for later

Don't the men in the NEO community need some (feminine) love too? :p Joking aside, I'm still game to build the analytics dashboard and gamefied forecasting dApp (while doing this one on the side with my wife). If I put the dashboard/ forecasting proposal on chain, do you think there would be enough support from the community to see it push through?

the community need an analytic dashboard with on-chain metrics like https://www.nansen.ai/

Hi, @ioannistsil , thanks for sending this link.

I checked it out, and was able to access the free tier. A couple of points:

1) The free tier doesn't really give you much of anything, besides some decent information on macro and exchange usage. I can see the amount of information I'd be able to access if I was a paying member (it's hidden), but just using their basic service costs $1200/ year.

2) For paid memberships, they seem to do a pretty comprehensive job of aggregating information into many different pools, which is nice and good. However, they don't seem to do much in the way of trend/price forecasting or other 'deep' analysis (i.e. cyclicality, regression, etc.). It looks like they leave that up to the user to do. On top of that, if you actually want to download their data as .csv file, that feature will run you $12,000 USD/year, which is crazy, unless you're a whale.

I'll dig some more into their free tier to see what else is interesting or worth emulating, but in the meantime, could you please list out some of the features that you would consider to be useful on a more NEO-centric dashboard? I'll see if I can integrate them into this project scope.

Also, given the scope of work this dashboard would entail, I wonder if it is still worth it to have the forecasting game as part of this project as well...? Hmm...

ioannistsil commented 1 year ago

NO we need builder's who will build economic platforms for NEO , let leave dating apps for later

Don't the men in the NEO community need some (feminine) love too? :p Joking aside, I'm still game to build the analytics dashboard and gamefied forecasting dApp (while doing this one on the side with my wife). If I put the dashboard/ forecasting proposal on chain, do you think there would be enough support from the community to see it push through?

the community need an analytic dashboard with on-chain metrics like https://www.nansen.ai/

Hi, @ioannistsil , thanks for sending this link.

I checked it out, and was able to access the free tier. A couple of points:

  1. The free tier doesn't really give you much of anything, besides some decent information on macro and exchange usage. I can see the amount of information I'd be able to access if I was a paying member (it's hidden), but just using their basic service costs $1200/ year.
  2. For paid memberships, they seem to do a pretty comprehensive job of aggregating information into many different pools, which is nice and good. However, they don't seem to do much in the way of trend/price forecasting or other 'deep' analysis (i.e. cyclicality, regression, etc.). It looks like they leave that up to the user to do. On top of that, if you actually want to download their data as .csv file, that feature will run you $12,000 USD/year, which is crazy, unless you're a whale.

I'll dig some more into their free tier to see what else is interesting or worth emulating, but in the meantime, could you please list out some of the features that you would consider to be useful on a more NEO-centric dashboard? I'll see if I can integrate them into this project scope.

Also, given the scope of work this dashboard would entail, I wonder if it is still worth it to have the forecasting game as part of this project as well...? Hmm...

it's an analytic platform and in my opinion NEO blockchain need this kind of tool so i would be happy if someone would build that.

csmuller commented 1 year ago

Hey @robliou, I like your intentions, but, I see an issue with the scope that Neo has in this project. It's very limited. I would rather expect a proposal that asks for a grant solely for the Neo integration part and not the whole dating app (which doesn't really have anything to do with Neo). Though, I see that you are a long term community member. So, the whole dating app could be viewed as a spin-off from the Neo community.

Is the 500 GAS used to cover the whole development costs?

mialbu commented 1 year ago

[...] plus assistance in obtaining and migrating my NEO that is still stuck on the N2 chain to the N3 chain (https://github.com/neo-project/neo/issues/195)

Hey @robliou, imo, the budget specification part with assisting in fixing the specified issue is a bit vague and not well measurable (Who would assist you exactly? In case of no success in obtaining your NEO tokens from N2, how much effort would suffice? And how could the effort be verified?). Even though, I think it would be great to fix this issue, I think it's better for GrantShares to leave the grant budget as a simple token payment that is measurable and easily verifiable.

robliou commented 1 year ago

Hi @csmuller ,

I appreciate your response!

I agree with you that the focus of the project is not NEO, the purpose of the app is to facilitate dating between believers around the world who have a heart for China, specifically those inside and outside of China. That said, NEO would be used primarily for handling in-app transactions, donations, etc, and the NEO blockchain would also be highlighted throughout the app as a sponsor.

Yes, I agree that looking at it as a spin-off from the NEO blockchain may be a more appropriate way of classifying the project. I think the other submission I have outstanding (advanced analytics dashboard for the NEO blockchain) would be considered to be more 'in-scope' for the types of projects you normally consider (though I think it requires some further editing and analysis). As such, to build this one out, I'm willing to request a smaller amount.

As for the 500 GAS, my initial request was for that amount (plus assistance in recovering my NEO stuck on the N2 chain), but if the latter request is going to cause some complication with this project's metrics, perhaps something like 1000 GAS or so may be sufficient for this project (including development costs)?

robliou commented 1 year ago

Hi @mialbu ,

Thank you for your comments!

Just to give some background on this request, basically, the NEO in question that is stuck on the N2 chain is located here:

The date of the last transaction coincides with the date that my Ledger wallet suddenly reset and I was subsequently unable to find my Ledger seed phrase.

There are 42 transactions in total; I can provide verification for all transfers between the ledger address and my wallet on the exchange from which the NEO was sent or received.

With regards to your questions, I'm wondering for those of us with assets still stuck on the N2 chain, what will eventually happen to those assets? Will they be burned, and never recovered (thus reducing the total size of the NEO pool)? Or, if we can provide sufficient proof of ownership, could the assets potentially be burned and then restored to us on the N3 chain (minus a fee of some sort)? Would the NEO council be able to vote on these actions?

Anyways, I agree with you that for this particular project, it's probably best to just have a fixed token payment that is based on goals that are measurable and easily verifiable. As per my note above to Claude, I will amend the project submission to remove mention of this particular request. That said, it would be good if someone could please shed light on these questions above.

Thanks again,

[...] plus assistance in obtaining and migrating my NEO that is still stuck on the N2 chain to the N3 chain (neo-project/neo#195)

Hey @robliou, imo, the budget specification part with assisting in fixing the specified issue is a bit vague and not well measurable (Who would assist you exactly? In case of no success in obtaining your NEO tokens from N2, how much effort would suffice? And how could the effort be verified?). Even though, I think it would be great to fix this issue, I think it's better for GrantShares to leave the grant budget as a simple token payment that is measurable and easily verifiable.

mialbu commented 1 year ago

With regards to your questions, I'm wondering for those of us with assets still stuck on the N2 chain, what will eventually happen to those assets? Will they be burned, and never recovered (thus reducing the total size of the NEO pool)? Or, if we can provide sufficient proof of ownership, could the assets potentially be burned and then restored to us on the N3 chain (minus a fee of some sort)? Would the NEO council be able to vote on these actions?

Unfortunately, I can't answer these questions.

Anyways, I agree with you that for this particular project, it's probably best to just have a fixed token payment that is based on goals that are measurable and easily verifiable.

Yes, I think this would make it easier for both parties.

DylanNNT commented 1 year ago

I can certainly appreciate the goal of connecting young singles of faith with one another in a time when Covid is still an issue and many are tepid to go out and socialize. However, I think the scope of this application is a bit outside of what GrantShares aims to do, which is to foster local Ne0/blockchain-oriented communities, development tools, educational materials, or (more chain-integrated) dApps. LR will utilize NEO or GAS, but it will be a tertiary use that successfully matched couples might use if they meet someone through the application.

Further, as the treasury funds are starting to dwindle, I'd really like to see more objective and measurable project milestones. Creating a platform that might force users to access it via VPN, with minimal prospect of being listed on an application marketplace is also another barrier for me. What happens when your private network is completely tapped, and LR can't attract any new users? Without new users accessing the platform (and tipping in NEO and GAS) there will be less people using the Neo network.

That said, I really hope there's a solution for your NEO stuck on Legacy, that's an unfortunate and frustrating situation.

robliou commented 1 year ago

Hi @DylanNNT,

I appreciate your thoughtful reply to this grant proposal.

I can understand why you have some reservations about this project being backed by NEO, and in some ways, I agree.

Regardless of whether this project is funded by NEO or not, you can say it is a passion project for me and my wife, as its something we've wanted to do for a long time. Having spent half my working life in Silicon Valley and half in China, we have a lot of friends who we believe can benefit from such an app. We even believe there's even a possibility that this app could go viral. As such, we will find time in our after-work hours to build this out (as a side project).

For now, I will focus my efforts on making the NEO dashboard/ gamified forecasting app that we discussed into a winner for the NEO community. Thanks again for your comments and support! :)