We have developed a no-code website-building application integrated with the NEAR ecosystem. We are in the final stages of development, focusing on bug fixing, workflow optimization, AI bots for site styles, and web4 hosting. However, we are currently facing capital issues and are seeking a short-term solution to reach launch and sustainability.
I have recently begun building partially in public at twitter(dot)com/olliechapman. This will be the best place for updates in the short term.
Work So Far
Arium was gratefully kickstarted with a HG grant. Since then, we have built the base product with a number of features.
Mission
Arium aims to bridge the gap between web2 and web3, introducing new users to the NEAR ecosystem. Our goal is to create an intuitive web app with web3 features, eliminating boring link-in-bio sites.
Website Builder
Our website builder is 95% complete, enabling users to create interactive link-in-bio sites using a tile system.
Tiles can be text, media, or widgets.
Customizable grid layouts and site styles for enhanced flexibility.
Multiple pages, site collaborators, basic stats, analytics, and custom domains are supported.
NEAR Integrations
Users can link their NEAR wallets to their accounts, enabling access to NEAR widgets. Currently, users can display NEAR NFTs as tiles, verified daily for ownership. We are also exploring integrations such as a NEAR guestbook and micro donations.
I will post an image on my twitter today to demonstrate this.
Next Steps
We aim to launch soon, but require further work to address bugs and improve usability based on early feedback. Approximately $10K worth of work is needed to reach this stage. We plan to conduct a closed beta with whitelisted NFT projects before opening up to more users.
Web4 Hosting
We are planning to integrate web4 hosting with NEAR, allowing users to host their sites directly on the platform. This requires an estimated investment of $15K for implementation and optimization.
Long-Term Microverse Vision
Our long-term vision is to integrate a browser-based micro-metaverse system within the application. Users would have personalized 3D rooms with customizable designs and scriptable objects linked to NEAR Smart Contracts. This concept is currently in the ideation phase.
Short-Term Capital
We have thought of a few different ways to address our capital issue at the moment. Our preference would be a combination of bootstrapping (what we have been doing the past few months) & grants (our earlier development work). In terms of grants, this could look like a few different ways.
To address our capital needs, we propose a combination of bootstrapping and grants. We prefer the following grant options:
MVP launch ($10K)
MVP with Web4 hosting ($25K)
MVP with Web4 hosting & microverse exploration ($100K)
Obviously, we’d prefer option 3 so we can start work on the micro-metaverse system as soon as possible, however, this may not be feasible. Alternative capital-raising strategies are being considered as well.
My name is Oleksandr Khomin. I am the founder of Coaty World and a member of the Human Guild DAO.
Thank you so much for your proposal, we are currently reviewing it.
Based on the provided information I have a few questions. Could you please provide us with detailed answers?
Could you show us a demo of the job you have done so far?
Could you provide us with a more detailed cost breakdown for the previous grant and how you are going to spend the new one?
There are software engineers in HG DAO including the founder of web4 - Vlad. Could you please explain to us why implementing the web4 deploying feature was estimated at $15K?
$15K for implementation and optimization.
What are you going to optimize?
4. How many team members do you have on board and how much time have you spent on the project? How much time do you need to accomplish each phase of the project: MVP, web4, Microverse.
5. Could you elaborate on the Microverse idea, I want to understand how it will work and what users will get.
6. Why the current 95% of the project cannot be considered MVP? And what are the other 5% you need to do?
Thanks for responding. Here are some notes on the questions you’ve asked. Happy to jump on a call (although I’m in Aus and time differences are a pain) to explain anything further. Also if you want access to the platform as is, send me a DM on Twitter and I’ll flick you a link
Could you show us a demo of the job you have done so far?
I’m happy to try organise a time to give a proper demo & walkthrough. In the meantime, here is a short video I just recorded: youtu(dot)be/cYs6WwIgRQA
Could you provide us with a more detailed cost breakdown for the previous grant and how you are going to spend the new one?
The biggest expense by far has been development costs. This accounts for most of the previous grant, where I swapped NEAR directly for Development hours in July 2022. We originally started with 2 part-time (~80hrs per month) developers, one tech-lead (~40hrs per month), and one product manager (myself). Monthly burn for dev then was around $7,500 (the tech-lead is a business partner so his cost was greatly reduced). We originally thought the project would take around 9 months of work, but unfortunatley this was off by around 3-6 months, so we decided to slim the team at the begining of the year & drop one of the part-time devs & eliminate the small allowance for myself (of which I am now supplimenting the project). So monthly burn is now around ~$4,500. Outside of development, there have been a few other expenses but nothing worth noting too much (AWS, laptop, a few small SaaS tools, etc).
The new grant would similarly mostly go towards development for the next few months to push us over the line to launch. With the grant, we would re-hire our previous PT dev, who is more specialised at frontend development. There may be a small amount allocated to marketing activities too, although I’d prefer grassroot marketing.
There are software engineers in HG DAO including the founder of web4 - Vlad. Could you please explain to us why implementing the web4 deploying feature was estimated at $15K?
Early estimates are between 2-3 months of work for web4 integration. This would involve upskilling or hiring someone dedicated to this aspect of the platform. Activities include: Integration Analysis (2 weeks), Understand the resources to be published & site structure between Arium and Web4 deployment (1-2 weeks), smart contract related development and integration (2 weeks), Arium site related editor, wallet, smart contract development and integration (2-3 weeks), Deployment in vercel(dev, prod) near testnet and mainnet (1-2 weeks), Testing (1 week), Risk buffer (3 weeks).
What are you going to optimize?
Optimizing at the moment is mostly fixing bugs & making sure the system is stable for users. We have conducted a small amount of user testing, and feedback is mostly positive other than both the numerous bugs in the system and the on-boarding. We would like to address both before opening to the public. Regarding on-boarding, we have worked on a new an improved flow that integrates with our recent change of having site styles (designs), so the users will be able to either select a style or generate one via ChatGpt, and then select the site layout. The current estimate is 2-3 months before we will be in a stage to release to the public in beta, during which we will continue to put in front of users to test & optimise.
How many team members do you have on board and how much time have you spent on the project? How much time do you need to accomplish each phase of the project: MVP, web4, Microverse.
As stated above, we are currently a small team of 3, and we are around 1 year into development. In an ideal world, we’d all be ft on the project with additional resources for speed of development, but all in time. “MVP” was probably the wrong word to use, because that is where we are now. A better term would probably be “Public Release”, in which we estimate 2-3 months. Web4 activities would shortly follow, and would take a similar amount of time. Microverse (more details below) is still in ideation, however we think a working MVP could be achieved within 12 months. Please note that the microverse is still in early stages, however it is our long-term goal. The concepts we have now are prone to change.
Could you elaborate on the Microverse idea, I want to understand how it will work and what users will get.
Arium Worlds (microverse), as we have been calling it, is the long-term vision for Arium, with the goal of becoming the “link-in-bio metaverse”. The platform will be designed so users can create simple 3d spaces using a library of models & templates. Within these spaces, users could completely customise the look & feel of the area, as well as write scripts on top of objects. This is where the NEAR integration would come into play, where eventlisteners could be attached to objects that then call a smartcontract. For instance, a 3d notebook could be clicked, this would trigger a user input to appear on the screen, and a button that then calls a smartcontract to sign a guestbook and store it on NEAR. Another example would be a 3d picture frame that calls an NFT contract. When the user clicks it, the frame could display another random NFT from the contract. Both of these are fairly simple examples, but our goal would be both to design this in a very simple manner, as well as to develop it to be a sandbox so users can create more complex & interacte areas.
I’ve started pulling together a short deck here: pitch(dot)com/public/da72f861-b5c2-40f2-bb3d-bf9ced687be1
Integration within Arium Sites would invole these areas being a tile on the users websites. When the visitors clicks the tile, it would “warp” them into the world / microverse.
Please note that I am painting a long-term picture, where the end goal is quite ambitious and will take a significant amount of resources to achieve. Funding for this, though, would kick start the project & position us better to explore alternative long-term capital (funnel via Arium Sites or VC funding).
Why the current 95% of the project cannot be considered MVP? And what are the other 5% you need to do?
As stated above, we would actually be in MVP now. We are actively testing the platform with a number of friends and family to see where areas need improving etc. The last 5% is the optimising & on-boarding that we’d like to fix before we release to the public in beta. We are planning to collaborate with NEAR projects to whitelist beta members.
