SCF #8
Answerly
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Earn crypto by answering questions

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Products & Services

Main product - Answerly

Website - https://www.answerly.app
Incorporation doc - https://www.docdroid.net/7PtQX96/certificate-of-incorporation-answerly-inc-pdf
Pitch deck - https://docdro.id/roraZvL

 

What is it?

Answely is a Q/A platform thats similar to Quora but it also rewards the users in Answerly tokens (built on Stellar blockchain) for posting high-quality answers. Moreover, we also make sure to keep out spammers and marketers who usually game Q/A websites for their own benefits.

 

How do we use Stellar?

1. Answerly's native token ($ANSR) is built on Stellar blockchain and its currently tradable on Lobstr exchange.

2. Every ""Best Answer"" reward will be saved on the blockchain along with a shortlink to the question in the memo field. This process is designed to be fully automatic and everyone is able to verify the rewards for the answers posted on Answerly.

3. We have already discussed this with Lobstr team earlier this year and they will help us in implementing a solution where the users doesn't require to issue a trustline to claim his rewards. As soon as the user requests withdrawal, an email will be sent to his address, allowing him to automatically issue trustline for Answerly token, and keeping the remaining balance on his Stellar wallet. The user is free to trade or hold his Answerly tokens.

 

Is there a utility for Answerly tokens?

Yup. Answerly tokens can be used for 2 purposes:

 

1. Pro membership:

Pro membership unlocks some exciting features on Answerly such as:

-Messaging
-Analytics
-Pro-membership tag
-Integrated P2P exchange on Answerly that will also the users to easily trade Stellar and Stellar based assets with no 3rd parties involved.

Payment for Pro-membersip will be made in $ANSR

Although we've built most of these features discussed under Pro-membership, we plan to launch these by the end of 2021.

 

2. Self-serving ads:

If you browse through Answerly, you will notice that each question is divided under different tags (we call them topics). As an advertiser, you can easily choose the tags where you want to advertize. Your ads will only be shown to highly-targeted audience that are already interested in those topics. Payment for advertising will be made in $ANSR.

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Goals

Acquiring more users and keeping them engaged on the platform.

To get there, we request a budget of  
$
*
  to:

We are seeking funds that would last us for the next 18 months. By that time, Answerly should self-sustain itself through revenues generated from the platform.

Goal 1: Complete the remaining development - Mobile app, Answerly Pro features, Integrated P2P exchange.
Goal 2: Start Answerly video series on Youtube
Goal 3: Improve SEO and SMM
Goal 4: Market making for Answerly token on Stellar decentralized exchange
Goal 5: Covering additional expenses: Hosting, Plagiarism check api, buying Answerly.com domain and migrating the website from Answerly.app to Answerly.com

Additional information

PROBLEM & SOLUTION

Here are a few problems with existing Q/A platforms that we aim to solve.

Problem 1: Biased and promotional answers Existing Q/A platforms are dominated by online marketers who are only looking to drive targeted traffic to their website or services. This leads to low quality and misleading answers.

Problem 2: Plagiarised content
A large percentage of answers on existing Q/A platforms are copied from different blogs and websites.

Problem 3: No rewards for contributors
The contributors on existing Q/A platforms are not compensated for their efforts while the platforms themself make millions of dollars from ad revenues.

Solutions

Solution 1: Biased and promotional answers
We have developed an algorithm that automatically selects the best answer based on factors such as length, keywords, relevancy, sentence structure, grammar, etc. Moreover, the users can also rate the answers for their quality and the information that it offers. Users can also report misleading and promotional answers. These steps would ensure that the answers posted on Answerly are of the highest quality.

Solution 2: Plagiarised content
Unlike other Q/A platforms, we have integrated a plagiarism checker that scans every answer at the time of submission. Any answer that's less than 80% unique will automatically be rejected - thus, keeping Answerly clean from plagiarised content.

Solution 3: Contributor rewards
Answerly pays its users in Answerly tokens ($ANSR) for posting high-quality answers. The users get paid every time their answer is chosen as the ""Best Answer"". The best answers will be selected automatically through an algorithm that we discussed in Solution 1.

TARGET MARKET

Here are 2 sets of audience that we are targeting.

- Content writers: Content writers who are currently involved in freelance writing and blogging.

- Crypto enthusiasts: People who are new to the cryptocurrency market and are looking for ways to earn online.


Strategy

I have been into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for over 8 years. During this time, I've built skills to rank websites on Google for the keywords I'm aiming for. I mainly do guest posting on high-authority websites in tech/crypto/earn-online/business niches.

We have also experimented with Instagram shoutouts on relevant IG profiles with high amount of active audience. During this experiment, we brough over 50 targeted users on Answerly for the cost of $20. Average cost per user acquistion ranges from ($0.3-$0.35)

REVENUE MODEL

Answerly has 2 primary revenue streams and 1 secondary.

Primary revenue streams:

1. Self-serving ads (paid in Answerly tokens): Questions on Answerly are categorized under 3-5 different topics/tags. This allows us to super-target every question for ads. For instance:

Q. What is the best cryptocurrency wallet to store Bitcoin?
Tags: Cryptocurrency, Wallet, Bitcoin

From an advertising point of view - This could be an ideal page to advertise any mobile or desktop based crypto wallet (example: Trust, Guarda, Jaxx etc..)
So the advertiser just selects the list of tags and Answerly display ads on relevant questions (that have the highest percentage of tag-similarity).

Client pays for the ads in Answerly tokens (built on Stellar).

We plan to offer free advertising to our potential advertisers during the first few months. This will also us to understand more about the placement of ads, whether to go for CPM or CPC model, and most importantly - the price. Our aim is to outperform our competitors in terms of pricing and ad conversion.

2. Answerly Pro: Answerly Pro consists of added features such as:

- User messaging
- Analytics
- P2P exchange for Answerly and Stellar based assets
- Membership tag

The price for Answerly-pro will be $10/month (in Answerly tokens)

Secondary revenue stream:

1. Youtube channel: We plan to start a channel for Answerly on YT where we will create interesting videos on topics like (tech, science, space, etc - videos that are similar to ""What if"" channel). In the first 20-30 seconds of each video, we will give a quick intro to Answerly and Stellar blockchain. These videos will be monetized for youtube ads so any cost incurred in creating those videos would automatically be covered through the revenues generated from YT. On top of that, any extra revenues that are generated through YT will be utilized for paid guest posting (for improving SEO) and buying shoutouts for Answerly through IG.

 

MARKET RESEARCH

It's difficult to accurately determine the market size of Q/A platforms so we extracted some data from Quora.

Quora:
Visits - 558 million monthly visitors
Top countries: USA, India, UK, Canada, Australia
Valuation (as of 2019): $2 Billion
Unique visitors: 300 million
Biggest traffic source: Search engine

Quora is currently dominating the online Q/A market. It's also important to note that the platform is ranked as the #87 biggest website (based on traffic) in Aug 2021 and this ranking is improving over time.

Considering the features that we've implemented on Answerly, it's safe to say that Answerly is a much better option than Quora for the following reasons:

- Users get paid for contributing
- We keep Answerly free from plagiarism and spam
- Answerly also support polls
- Answerly is the first blockchain-based Q/A platform

Assuming we get the required financial support from Stellar Foundation, we are confident to take a significant market share within the next 3 years. Besides SEO, we also plan to launch a series of 10-15 mins videos on Youtube on interesting topics in the tech and science niche (similar to the "What If" channel). Each video will start with 30 seconds introduction of Answerly and Stellar blockchain. These videos will be monetized on YT and would practically give us thousands of dollars of free marketing because the costs for creating these videos will be covered by the Youtube revenue itself.

THREATS & OPPORTUNITIES

Below, we have highlighted some of the strengths, weaknesses, oppurtunities, and threats of Answerly.

Strength:
-Pays for contributing
-First blockchain-based Q/A platform
-Well-researched and plagiarism-free answers

Weaknesses:
-New to the Q/A space
-Less number of users
-Not everyone is familiar with how cryptocurrencies work

Oppurtunities:
-Answerly is one of the few platforms that allow users to earn online. This is a pretty big oppurtunity because its relatively easy to bring users on such platforms.
-Crypto market is on the rise and we believe that this is the perfect time to familiarize crypto newbies to Answerly and the Stellar blockchain.
-Quora or Yahoo answer would never allow users to earn by answering questions because they'll need to re-adjust their entire revenue model to compete. In terms of revenue, Quora only made around ~18 million dollars through ads in 2020 despite being valued over 2 billion dollars. This alone proves that they're struggling with scaling their earnings.

Risks:
-The concept behind Answerly is pretty simple and its just a matter of time before anyone decides to replicate this concept on blockchain. To overcome this threat, Answerly has to gain quick exposure and build its credability.
-The price of Answerly token also plays a great role for the success of Answerly. Although we currently don't have any funds for market making, we plan to set aside ~$10K (from the total funds) to set up an impressive order book for Answerly token on SDex.

COMPETITION

Main competitors:

- Quora: Biggest online Q/A platform. Mostly used by marketers.

- Reddit: Reddit has a subreddit ""askreddit"", which is pretty similar to any Q/A platform.

- Yahoo answers: Second most popular Q/A platform thats mostly dominated by teens and is known for trolling.

- Publish0x: Medium.com alternative that rewards in crypto. Not very popular.

 

MARKETING & SALES

Main marketing channels:

Search engine: I've been into SEO/SMM for more than 8 years. Throughout this time, I've worked with hundreds of clients to help them rank their websites better on the search engines. When talking about SEO, I mainly focus on guest posting on high authority websites in similar niches.

Instagram: I also have experience with driving traffic from Instagram through shoutouts. We conducted an experiment in April 2021 for Answerly, and the cost per user acquistion from Instagram was ~$0.3.

Youtube: We plan to start a channel for Answerly on YT where we will create interesting videos on topics like (tech, science, space, etc - videos that are similar to ""What if"" channel). In the first 20-30 seconds of each video, we will give a quick intro to Answerly and Stellar blockchain. These videos will be monetized for youtube ads so any cost incurred in creating those videos would automatically be covered through the revenues generated from YT. On top of that, any extra revenues that are generated through YT will be utilized for paid guest posting (for improving SEO) and buying shoutouts for Answerly through IG."

RESOURCES & RELATIONSHIPS

Its not officially confirmed at this point, but earlier this year we discussed a solution with Lobstr that would allow the users to conveniently withdraw Answerly tokens without having to set up a trustline. Here's how it going to work:

The user withdraws his earnings (minimum withdrawal of 10 ANSR tokens ~ 50 XLM) and adds his email address. A withdrawal link will be sent to his email that would allow him to claim his earnings on Lobstr wallet. Upon the user's first withdrawal, 1.5 XLM (~0.3 ANSR) worth of Answerly tokens will be automatically sold on the Sdex which will be utilized for issuing trustline for Answerly token and wallet creation. The remaining balance of 9.7 ANSR will be added to the user's stellar wallet.

Pitch deck
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Deliverables
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Goals in depth

  1. ‍Complete the remaining development: Currently we are just a team of 2 people working on Answerly. In order to successfully complete the upcoming tasks, we need funds to hire a total of 8 employess for Social media marketing, Development, Content writing, Designing, etc. This would cost us around $5000 per month. (5000x18 = $90,000).
  2. Answerly videos on YT: Total 200 videos (~$125 per video) = $25000.
  3. SEO & SMM: $7,500 for guest posting on high-authority websites. This would help us to improve answerly ranking on the search engines. $7,500 for instagram shoutouts.
  4. Additional expenses: Salaries for the core team, hosting costs, plagiarism api cost, buying answerly.com domain name - Everything for $10,000
  5. Market making for Answerly token on Sdex $10,000

Development: Assuming we have enough funds for hiring, our goal is to complete the remaining features of the web platform within the next 4 months. Once we're through the web development (which is already 80% complete), our goal is to start working on the mobile apps and release them by the end of the 1st quarter of 2022.



SEO/SMM: We will initially focus on guest posting on high-authority niche-relevant websites. After the release of mobile apps, we'll start buying shoutouts on Instagram. We experimented with IG shoutouts and the average cost per user acquisition was ~$0.3



Answerly Youtube channel: The idea is to create a source of free marketing. We've extracted a list of a few hundred interesting topics that receive an enormous amount of monthly searches on Youtube. We will create 12-15 mins videos on each of those topics and every video will start with a 30-second intro to Answerly and Stellar blockchain. This would not only help us gain exposure but will also become a free source of marketing because the money that we utilize in creating these videos would automatically be paid-off by through Youtube ad revenues itself.



Market making: We realize the importance of market-making. Since Answerly tokens would play a key role in the success of Answerly, it's necessary to stabilize the price to make it reasonable enough for the users. Thus, we will spend $10,000 to set up an impressive order book on Stellar decentralized exchange.



Additional expenses: These include hosting costs, plagiarism API cost, core-team salaries (for me and my co-founder), and domain costs. We plan to migrate the website from Answerly.app to Answerly.com to make it more brandable.

Team

Raza Rizvi - CEO and Co-founder
Twitter - @iamrazarizvi
Bio - Self-taught Python programmer and a digital marketing expert (SEO/SMM). I completed my double bachelor's degree in Finance and Marketing in 2014. Building and hustling since 2013. Also managing a few small online businesses to cover the development costs for Answerly.

Zain Haider - Co-founder
Twitter - @izainhaider
Bio - PHP developer and SEO specialist. He completed his bachelor's degree in computer science in 2017. Works in a digital marketing agency during the day and works on Answerly at night.

ANSWERLY INC.

File number: 7992468 (State of Delaware)