How did you and your team get started?

MixiP empowers emerging-market media businesses with inexpensive cross-border payments and blockchain-based IP management. Our platform simplifies complex tasks like payments, contracts, ownership, and royalties, integrating essential tools for media projects and creative rights. Our journey started with a passion for practical solutions in the global creative space. Drawing from my production and photography background, I saw the need to streamline our industry's financial and legal aspects into one unified platform.

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During an impactful Airbnb production, destiny united my partners—Jonathan Giesen and Maria Dayton—who had built distributed networks for visual journalists in the Middle East, Africa, and East Asia. Driven by our shared vision, we designed MixiP to to seamlessly integrate into business workflows at brands, publishers, and advertising agencies, and to support creators everywhere, fostering equal opportunities, rights protection, and just compensation.

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We're committed to building a universal tool for the creative industry to nurture co-creation, collaboration, and limitless creative freedom.

What did you build during the SCF Startup Camp on Stellar/Soroban?

During the SCF Startup Camp on Stellar/Soroban, we successfully deployed our initial code base, enabling us to generate a Contract ID (C-ID) and implement self-executing Soroban smart contracts. This allowed us to execute payments according to the terms of legal contracts. Additionally, we made significant progress refining our UI demo in Figma and conducted live environment testing with five potential customers, gaining valuable insights and feedback.

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What was your experience like?

We decided to submit our project after our previous application to the Stellar Community Fund was declined. The SCF team encouraged us to give the Startup Camp a shot, and we thought, let’s do this. We were thrilled when we got accepted!

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The whole experience was absolutely amazing. Those five days were intense; I won't lie. We pushed ourselves to the limit, diving into Soroban and coding like crazy, but the experience also brought together our business's strategic, design, and development teams in an incredible way. The supportive environment provided by SCF, DFS Labs, mentors, and facilitators was phenomenal. Additionally, receiving thoughtful feedback from Stellar's engineering team was invaluable. The friendly competition among the participating teams further fueled our drive for success.

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Memorable moments

The anticipation and excitement of the first day, filled with nervous energy.
Meeting our facilitators and delivering a fast, quick pitch, receiving valuable feedback.
Engaging with the supportive engineering team at Stellar, who deeply understood our problem-solving objectives and provided insightful suggestions for leveraging Stellar and Soroban.
The intense final two days, where we worked tirelessly on our code, rushed to complete our UI Figma Demos, reached out to users for testing, and ultimately crossed the finish line as a team.
The exhilarating experience of user testing, followed by the intense 24-hour period of preparing pitches and demos. The sense of accomplishment and pride upon successfully presenting our final pitches and demos.

Lessons learned

Seek feedback: Embrace feedback from facilitators, mentors, and the engineering team at Stellar. They offer valuable insights and suggestions.
Leverage Soroban: Explore and leverage the capabilities of Soroban smart contracts to automate and streamline your business logic.
Collaborative mindset: Foster collaboration between strategic, design, and development teams to create a solid foundation for your project's success during the Startup Camp.
Fast iterations: Rapidly iterate and refine your code, UI demos, and project ideas.
Understand user needs: Conduct user testing to gain insights and ensure your product meets the needs of your target audience.
Pitch with confidence: Craft a compelling pitch that highlights the unique value proposition of your project and its potential impact.

Next steps

Words of wisdom for future teams

Just do it! If you're excited about building something using Stellar and Soroban, this is the place to be. You won't find a more supportive and experienced team to help you refine your product, grow your business, and connect you with the entire SCF ecosystem.

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Of course, be ready to block off five full days of your life. Trust me, you'll be fully immersed in the experience. Just give your family and friends a heads up that you'll be basically checked out for a week and go for it.

Disclaimer: The SCF Startup Camp finalists (collectively, “SCF Finalists”) are selected based on set criteria and are assessed by a selection panel composed of employees of Stellar Development Foundation (“SDF”) and DFS Lab (“DFS Lab”), as well as community members selected by SDF and/or DFS Lab to participate on such selection panel (collectively, “Panel Members”). While the Panel Members have sought to evaluate SCF Finalists as part of the SCF Startup Camp, none of SDF, DFS Lab, or the Panel Members makes any claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the submissions made by such SCF Finalists. No warranty of any kind, implied, expressed, or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of third party rights, title, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose is given by SDF, DFS Lab, or any Panel Member. Reference to any specific commercial product, process, or service does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by SDF or DFS Lab. Nothing herein should be construed as financial, legal, or investment advice. If you choose to interact with any SCF Startup Camp Finalist, you should ensure you understand the technology, the assets, and that you are aware of the risks involved in such operations.

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