GetPaid is a marketplace and community platform that connects creators, traders, and freelancers in Africa with global digital opportunities. The GetPaid platform exists out of a community platform and wallet app to receive and withdraw funds to mobile money/banks in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania as well as blockchain payments in USDc and XLM.

With the previous application, we requested a budget to scale our product and reach more creators, traders, freelancers in Africa. Five months ahead we are heading towards the right direction and have the following update on our goals:

Goal 1: Grow the GetPaid community and encourage collaboration → over 7000 people applied for gigs, nearly 1250 users signed up and there are over 600 members in the community platform.

Goal 2: Open up access to participate in the NFTs economy → We have been actively promoting Litemint to our community and how to mint and trade a NFT.

Goal 3: Research and implement additional features and tools that could be useful to GetPaid users. → We implemented a digital course selling feature for experts within our community to sell digital courses to fellow community members in need of knowledge.

Goal 4: Support access to additional tokens → USDc went live, in addition we also support various payin methods (SEPA, card and other blockchains such as Ethereum) for USDc

Goal 5: Reach 5 million USD sales by Q2 2022 → With one month to go we are on our way to tick this goal off as well.

While ticking off our goals and working closely with our users, we noticed that (digital) opportunities to earn, are broader than just gigs (small / short jobs) and NFTs, our initial focus. There are also opportunities in medium and long term freelancing, gaming, e-commerce / NFT, airdrop, yield earning, bounty hunting etc. There are many existing platforms providing those types of opportunities, however a survey among our users showed that they are either not aware of the existence of these platforms or they have used these platforms and lacked good payouts options for people in Africa.

We had the following takeaways:

1. We should not limit ourself to just gigs and take a broader approach in pushing digital opportunities to our community. However a broader approach loses focus. This made us rethink our approach and we came to the conclusion that instead of attracting gig providers ourselves, as we did previously with the focus on gigs, we should rather curate a broader range of opportunities from existing platforms.
2. To become the preferred wallet of choice for payouts to African users on these platforms.

Both fit well in GetPaid current product proposition and gives creators, traders and freelancers even more access to global opportunities and financial inclusion in the global digital economy. Both solutions go well together, sharing opportunities can be an incentive for platforms that enable payouts to our wallet, as it creates extra traffic to their platform.

Essentially our overal goal is having more freelancing, gaming, e-commerce / NFT, yield earning, airdrops and bounty hunting platforms support a Stellar network connection which can be used for payouts/payins and interoperability. This will benefit not only GetPaid, but the entire Stellar network. We identified the following technology that helps these platforms to enable a connection with the Stellar network:

• Direct integration: Stellar Wallet SDK and Stellar SEP standards
• Connectors: WalletConnect
• Fiat: SEPA / ACH payins

Part of these platforms are supporting crypto payouts already. This is already usable and beneficial, GetPaid is set up to receive these payouts by having XLM and USDc as assets in the GetPaid app. However a large part of those platforms are not supporting any of the above, meaning there are no or limited payouts options for African users. This part of the platforms we are looking to target and therefore we are requesting funding.

GetPaid has been in production since early 2021, since then GetPaid reached over 10,000 people through gigs, our community channel and app. We are active in the East African countries Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.

GetPaid Wallet

The GetPaid wallet is a web-based application that allows freelancers, creators and traders to earn. They can access services such as; receive payment in the form of cryptocurrency and fiat from all over the world as well as trade with crypto exchanges, whereby users are able to exchange cryptocurrencies for TZS in Tanzania, RWF in Rwanda, and KES in Kenya.

GetPaid Community Platform

This is our own community platform and a Telegram group for conversation. Through the community platform, community members will be able to get access opportunities in two fields: earning opportunities (e.g  gigs, cryptocurrency, airdrops, competitions, yield options, etc) and learning opportunities (e.g. scholarships and courses). Community members can also connect, discuss and have conversations through our Telegram channel. The GetPaid Telegram channel has over 600 active members and is a place for sharing quick updates and connecting among GetPaid community members.

Events

We hosted many online events in the last 6 months. In March 2022 we did the first physical event in Dar es Salaam for the closest members in our community group based in Tanzania. The event was a great success, a video of the event can be found here.

Problem

Marketplace platforms (freelancing, gaming, e-commerce / NFT, airdrop, yield earning and bounty hunting) that have African users are having limited or no infrastructure to payout because traditional payment infrastructure in Africa is broken (e.g. PayPal) or expensive (e.g. Payoneer). Moving the crypto-friendly payout options (e.g. Twitter with Stripe USDc payouts) is happening, however on a slow paced and not yet on the Stellar network.

Solution

To facilitate payouts on the Stellar network, the right infrastructure to receive these types of payments needs to be in place. This infrastructure is what the GetPaid platform is built on and can provide to those platform, a wallet to connect with platforms and collect payments. This can happen through a direct integration through Stellar Wallet SDK and Stellar SEP standards, Connectors like WalletConnect or fiat payins through SEPA / ACH.

Usage of Stellar

GetPaid as a platform is built on top of the Stellar network and provides users with a Stellar wallet. For each creator, trader and freelancer that registers with GetPaid, a Stellar wallet is created. Getting paid into this account works through Stellar's XLM and USDC and Fiat options SEPA and card. Once the XLM or USDc is received, an user has the option to hold the funds or cash-out into their local currency to their local bank or mobile money account. At the moment GetPaid supports these types of payin / payout in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania utilizing ClickPesa anchor services through SEP-6, SEP-9, SEP-10 and SEP-12.

To facilitate payouts from platforms to GetPaid we looking to utilize Stellar through three connections:

• Wallet SDK and Stellar SEP standards
• Connectors: e.g. WalletConnect  
• Fiat through SEPA / ACH payins whereby there is conversion to Stellar USDc (sUSDc)

Target market

The market we are targeting are global freelancing, gaming, e-commerce / NFT, airdrop, yield earning and bounty hunting marketplace platforms that are innovative enough to start with payouts to the (Stellar) blockchains.

Revenue model

Payouts to GetPaid will increase the transaction value and sales which benefits GetPaid’s revenue. GetPaid has three revenue streams:

• Earn on transfers
• Yield on wallets
• A percentage on sales courses

Pricing strategy

The pricing strategy GetPaid is affordable pricing, at the same time sustainable and enabling us to grow ourselves as a business.

Sales forecast and financial plan

Find here a simplified financial plan with profit & loss projection (including use of capital), cash flow projection, and a break-even calculation.

Industry and market research

Below are a couple of examples of marketplace platforms  in various categories out of the shortlisted list with 250 platforms.

• Freelancing - Upwork, Freelancer.com, PeoplePerHour, TrueLancer, Pompcryptojobs, FreelanceForCoins
• Gaming - CryptoPop, CropBytes, Bitcoin Bounce
• E-commerce / NFTs - OpenBazaar, Litemint, OpenSea, Foundation
• Airdrop - Airdropalert
• Yield earning - Lobstr, Aqru
• Bounty hunting - Bounty0X, Gitcoin Bounties

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About 96.4% of these platforms do not have the capability to payout to the Stellar network.

SWAT

• Strengths
• Team has strong understand of Stellar, network and technology.
• Experience in the global digital economy.

• Weaknesses
• Young brand, not globally recognized
• No direct sales / business development team in place yet

• Threats
• Stricter global upcoming regulations for cryptocurrency tokens.
• The technical integration that needs to be done can be discourage marketplace platforms.

• Opportunities
• Most commonly used marketplace platforms are now adapting to the use of cryptocurrency (ie. Twitter and Stripe) this is increasing awareness of the use of cryptocurrency in the region.
• Worldwide demand for digital workers is rapidly growing, there is a serious shortage of good talent in the world.

Competition

Competitors are other blockchains (wallets) to connect and payout to such as Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Avalanche and Fiat payout methods such as PayPal, Payoneer and Skrill.

Marketing and sales

Direct sales / Business development is done by business developers / sales personnel. No explicit marketing (campaigns) will be done apart from information and documentation provision on our website.

Resources and relationships

GetPaid will work as much as possible with Stellar Ecosystem players, infrastructure providers and exchanges.

• ‍App
• Community Channel
• Twitter