From Payment defaulting by client to freelancers withdrawing from work delivery, The gig market suffers a lot of trust issues.
RevereLabs is an effort to manage gig projects and its payment system using the security and transparency of blockchain.
We are introducing No-code Smart-Contract based Escrow system
A much-needed solution for the thriving gig economy powered by blockchain.
Our primary decision with respect to the market was deciding our domain, wherein we chose to target the Indian Gig market specifically. To be able to tap into such a unique market, we had to understand how it really works.
The core team of RevereLabs having worked as freelancers in the Indian market themselves for a decent time, We noticed that Word of Mouth system is how things unfold India, people hop on to gather Jobs/Projects based on references and trust.
This tells us that just a listing platform as a solutions cannot be complete solution.
We have realized that the problem can be catered into three major domains:
- Listing📃
- Payment and Product Management💸
- Validation of Work done🤝
Sticking to a Payment and Product management system and becoming a needed tool for Freelancers is what we are aiming for in the initial stages, soon making our way into the Listing and Validation domain as and when we develop the community to ensure the smooth functioning of the same, with the aim of becoming a one-stop platform 3-5 years down the line.
The reason for the above path is attributed to the very nature of problems, Both validation and Listing, especially Word of Mouth based, need active communities and models like Social Commerce to support them.
We introduce a No-code Smart-Contract based Escrow system:
- No-code: As the freelancer or client, the complete power lies in your hands, customize the flexible templates as per your needs with just a few clicks and no prerequisites about coding.
- Smart-Contract: Smart Contracts are a bunch of code deployed on the blockchain. As the popular saying goes — anything that goes on the blockchain, stays on the blockchain. They guarantee a fund-release if and when the gig is completed, or a refund to client in case the gig isn’t completed.
- Escrow system: An Escrow is a legal entity that acts like a judge between the two parties. Is the escrow reliable? When they’re humans - maybe not. But when they’re pieces of code - 100%.
- Staking: - The trust is further enforced using a staking system, both freelancers and clients have the option to stake their token/money, to gain a competitive advantage at the risk of losing the staked amount in case of defaulting on payments or project delivery respectively.
- Milestones: - Why get paid when the whole work’s done? Some gigs could go on for months. This is where milestones can help. Parties can mutually decide milestones (or stages of work). This ensures continuous payment to the freelancer, and a proper estimate of latter’s quality to the client.
- Non Fungible Certificates: -A common problem among freelancers is the non-certification model of the current gig economy. Freelancers don’t have any proof for their work (compare it with internships). RevereLabs introduces NFT badging for reviews received from clients, which are un-fakable, blockchain-secured tokens of recognition of their work.
To ensure that we are in touch with ground realities, we made it one of our primary tasks to ensure to talk to as many freelancers and clients as possible to be able to dive into the root of the existing systems. We are also talking to a lot of chains to get the idea built with collaboration. For the most part, we noticed a need for such a no-code smart-contract-based escrow system which helped us validate our idea, and constructive criticism which helped us polish the areas where we lack.💪
We do want to reach out more to the community to understand the space more and learn more about various verticals that can be generated.
- Our dev team is working on developing our website which is being updated at http://www.reverelabs.org/
- We’re developing a Figma prototype to showcase and reiterate over the idea.
- We have plans to start a community, beginning with discord to keep live and active communication with initial supporters of the idea, and later harness the power of the Network Effect to complement the growth of RevereLabs and the community is a symbiotic relationship.
We have in-detailed analyzed the existing competition with aim of getting deeper insights into how the market functions with respect to such mechanisms. There have been numerous similar products, neither of which has developed into a mature end-product. Having competitors all around the world, was further validation for us to understand the need we identified was real, and we are taking specific care to avoid the mistakes and flaws we notice in already existing products.
We believe that our processes and our willingness to take things one step further would help us achieve our goals.👌
Immediate Competitors
Long term Competitors
Today is the age where transparency and data security are highly valued in all fields. Blockchain, with its decentralization, puts the power in the hands of the users; transparency is something that is majorly lacking from the existing incumbents. Example: Upwork is Completely client-oriented; Not only is the power taken, but also the freelancer is devoid of essential transparency, which is something that blockchain guarantees, furthermore, RevereLabs has put forward mechanisms to ensure, not only the freelancer but also the client is increasingly ensured work security (Explained later)
This enables us to establish a model wherein we can harness the power of blockchain to fulfill our CSR (Corporate social responsibility) by giving control and transparency in the hands of the people who so much deserve it. Furthermore, the Incorporation of blockchain enables us to increase the flexibility of our service multiple times, and the amalgamation of NFTs and Tokenization always possesses the power to change the socio-economic dynamics of social platforms in a way that former web2-based incumbents may dare not even think about.
Similar to the model of Huddle01, where we see how the introduction of blockchain could revolutionize a field formerly captured by their respective web2 incumbents (Zoom), and subsequently, how readily people shift to web3 alternatives as a part of ensuring the promise of trust, privacy, and transparency, not to mention the immense flexibility in the use case of Huddle01 with their tokenization and NFTs.
The proposed service is, for sure, extremely beneficial to the freelancer as the staked amount provides security for their work. To cater to the client’s needs, it’s been one of our prime areas of concern to ensure that the client doesn’t end up being the one who is duped. To ensure the same, prior to the client staking their money share, we add a layer prior to it, considering that money is something a lot of freelancers might not have; they have to thus, complete a sample (exact percent can be mutually decided) of the task to showcase their interest and future commitment, similar to how Requests for Proposals (RFP) work. After the successful completion of the same, the client is then required to stake the milestone-based amount necessary for the work to resume, and thus the project unfolds like a cradle between the freelancer and client, respectively doing the job and ensuring timely payment to ensure no biases are created, and trust is provided at each step taken.
The introduction of blockchain technology opens the doors for revenue generation via tokenomics too. The main revenue scheme revolves around the following three pillars:
→ 1-4% Commission per transaction cost taken equally from freelancer and client.
→ 0% fee for the transaction using native token, hence appreciating the value of the token
→ Money lending in case of inability of the client to stake money.
→ Fellowship with States DAO