Grant Proposal - SmartInvoice.xyz

Moloch Rises
#1

Project Title

SmartInvoice.xyz

Description

Smart Invoice builds trust between payer and payee by creating a secure neutral channel for transferring money. The payer proves their commitment by locking money in the contract, and controls when it is released to the payee. No middle party, no leap of faith, and you don’t even have to use the word escrow if you don’t want to.

Several RaidGuild members built the current beta version of this tool for use internally in our DAO. Since that version, we have expanded its use for all of our client work and it has become an integral tool of our operations.

Our goal is to expand and improve upon the existing internal tool and create a tool of global utility that will facilitate workflow and ease of client/provider interactions for greater Web3 freelance community.

This proposal is to fund the necessary tasks to move Smart Invoice out of beta and make it more accessible to all freelancers and DAOs.

Manifesto/Vision

To improve the overall freelance experience in Web3, for both the freelancers and their clients.

To minimize the risk of hiring a Web3 freelancer online.

To have a safe and credible way to handle disputes without the burden of a formal written contract with an attorney and litigation.

To provide a trusted, common solution for the freelancer community.

To be a foundational pillar to onboarding talent from Web2 to Web3.

Problem

Smart Invoice does a decent job of fulfilling RaidGuild’s internal needs, but isn’t truly usable by independent freelancers.

  • Several bugs discovered in beta
  • Not easy to understand how to use - clients making mistakes
  • Core features missing to actually be usable by the greater freelance community
  • Isn’t perceived as “trustworthy” or “safe” because of current branding
  • Doesn’t appeal to the greater freelance community because it’s branded like RaidGuild is - mostly for men and gamers
  • Smart Invoice is a free tool, so RaidGuild has struggled funding the build-out to make it more widely accessible. Much of the current work has been done for free, and to get to the next iteration, we need to incentivize talent to prioritize working on this product instead of taking on more paid client work.
  • No revenue model - it’s a free tool. Though we have discussed TVL / Factoring as an option to maintain this free tool over time, once it gets traction.

Solution

Move Smart Invoice from a beta tool we use internally at RaidGuild to a full product that’s open to every freelancer.

  • Fix the bugs
  • Create better documentation
  • Build the common feature requests we keep getting
  • Rebrand and build out a legitimate site that looks like a real product and like what most Web2 freelancers are used to (and comfortable with)
  • Create a more inclusive product for freelancers of all walks of life
  • Create a self-sustainable revenue model to fund the team and contribute to future improvements

Product Features

Current features:

  • Each invoice is its own contract
  • Deposits may come from any address
  • Client can make deposits by milestone
  • Milestone payments can be variable in size
  • Custom arbitration can be set (LexDAO or any Ethereum Address)
  • Client can deposit more than the total amount (for gratuity)
  • Tokens accidentally sent directly to invoice can be recovered

Validation

Smart Invoice is currently used by RaidGuild for all contract work. We use our own version of it called SmartEscrow (https://smartescrow.raidguild.org/) that integrates with our existing DAO tooling.

Progress

We’ve come a long way with this free tool, but have stalled the past few months. Currently, there is no compensation for devs to continue working on the free public version. Funding will allow everyone proper incentive to accelerate building out the full product and make it a worthwhile tool for the Web3 community.

Differentiation (from other projects)

Most crypto escrow services charge a fee (1-3%) per transaction, don’t appear trustworthy (in other words, are probably scams), target large organizations, or are not built to accommodate the needs of small scale projects freelancers work on.

Smart Invoice is dedicated to be a free tool specifically for freelancers and their clients - regardless of project budget.

Team

We are a team of RaidGuild members and apprentices:

  • launchninja
  • plor
  • georgeh
  • tufnel_enterprises
  • willyb
  • spengrah

Grant Request $

Phase 1: $52,000
Phase 2: $30,000

Total: $82,000 USD

What the Funds Are For

Phase 1

Immediate Fixes Needed

  • Verify wallet before deposit
  • Standardize the metadata JSON
  • Support register and deposit in 1 transaction
  • Check arbitration costs to create a dispute
  • Updated documentation / help center

Common Feature Requests

  • Add support for adding new milestones
  • Add support for generating a PDF invoice
  • Add support for other tokens as payment

Future Sustainability

  • TVL / Factoring research report

Inclusivity Rebrand

  • Branding
  • Website Design & Development
  • Website Copywriting
  • Website SEO
  • Demo Video

Phase 2

Awareness / Marketing

  • Direct Outreach
  • Content Creation
  • Interviews / AMAs
  • Sponsorship
  • Search Engine Optimization

Maintenance / Support

  • User support
  • Ongoing bug fixes and testing

Help Requested

Getting the word out about this free tool, and connections to anyone who might be willing to mention it to their audience / community.

Additional Resources, Links, Portfolio

Live App: https://smartinvoice.xyz/
Documentation: What is Smart Invoice? | Smart Invoice FAQ
Website: https://www.raidguild.org/

Grant Proposal - SmartInvoice.xyz Top Up
#2

I’ve been wondering when someone would do this! It seems like it solves a very real problem in a sensible way.

What are the other crypto escrow services you mention?

Can you explain more about arbitration? Can Kleros help?

How will the project be sustainable? Do you foresee a possibility of charging a small fee for continued development and maintenance?

#3

Thank you! We see a lot of potential for Smart Invoice and would love to keep the project moving forward.

Here are a few of the crypto escrow services that rank well in Google:

There’s many more. However, the typical freelancer transitioning from web2 to web3 is probably Googling solutions and won’t necessarily get referred a trusted tool until they’ve been in the space longer. This is one of the main reasons we want to focus on SEO early on.

Arbitration is triggered by either the freelancer or the client locking funds held by their smart invoice. The lock triggers the arbitration provider (LexDAO as of right now) to review and resolve the dispute. Based on their review, the arbitration provider will determine which party should receive “x” amount of funds, and will send a transaction to smart invoice that transfers the appropriate amount to each party.

We have discussed building out more functionality around arbitration and bringing in additional arbiters, but decided to push that to “Phase 3”. An integration with Kleros is definitely something worth exploring further.

Sustainability for Smart Invoice is still being discussed. We really don’t want to charge a fee for the service and want to keep it as a free public good.

Sponsorships and grants would be an “easy” solution until we can reach broader adoption. There is potential for earning yield on funds sitting locked in escrow - though, there are many factors to consider and we don’t want to rush into this. Part of this proposal would fund a research report diving deeper into what’s possible with TVL / Factoring.

#4

Smart invoice is definitely critical Ethereum infra + 10 to this proposal :fire:

#5

Thank you. I wasn’t aware that there are so many crypto escrow services already. How is SmartInvoice unique or different from something like cryptoescroweb.com?

#6

Have you ever used the site you linked to in your comment? It doesn’t appear very trustworthy to me. There’s no demo of how the tool works, the social media icons don’t go anywhere, and the site wants to collect a lot of data to sign up before you can even see the tool. And from the options on the form, it doesn’t seem like this is focused on cryptocurrencies because there are a lot of traditional payment services linked on that form. Plus there is no mention of the fees they charge. And there’s no social proof or testimonials. As a freelancer, I would not use this tool. It seems like a scam.

Frankly, most crypto tools still look like scams to web2 contractors entering the web3 space.

RaidGuild started building SmartInvoice because there was no tool we trusted that could do what we wanted. And from our discussions with contractors in the web3 space, this is still a problem.

Right now, SmartInvoice could become the definitive escrow and invoicing tool for web3 contractors. And since we want to make this a public good, there would be no fee to use it. We just need help funding the team to build out a few more features and move the product out of beta.

#8

@launchninja.eth we’re down to help with Smartinvoice.xyz outreach and create content

https://beehouse.super.site/content-bounty

For free

DM me on Twitter if you got any questions @pooria_arab