Inspiration
Books are a crucial social good and have an outsized impact on our development, individually and collectively.
Although reading is vital for the intellect to flourish, it is hard progressing and stay motivated, and find what to read next based on your needs and make a real learning experience out of it. The vast majority of people will soon be reading the same top-selling books, as determined by Amazon. One mega-retailer will have unprecedented control over what everyone reads.
Independent bookstores are a unique and almost indispensable community resource. They act as an engine for local economic growth. As a catalyst for new writers and readers. As a focal point for community life. But they are dying, and if nothing slows its momentum, Amazon will control nearly 80% of the U.S. consumer book market by 2025, killing even more local bookstores.
At the same time, new technology emerged – blockchain became the backbone tech of decentralization. We envision a book market where all participants benefit from a format-agnostic and decentralized catalog of books in the form of SFTs, making the book industry more efficient and reading books a rewarding experience. Whenever someone sees a book, she thinks of Leio for Booke because she wants to get the most out of reading it: more fun and wisdom.
We are building a decentralized catalog of books in the form of SFTs enabling decentralized apps to act on top of it. Booke is a blockchain protocol for a decentralized book catalog and DAO of book industry participants managing it. Leio is the first dapp created for this protocol.
Our roadmap is to create the no-backend iOS MVP to achieve the problem-solution fit and then create a blockchain-based dapp utilizing token economics and DAO.
What it does
Thanks to the Booke catalog, book market institutions can improve efficiency and benefit from an open, format-agnostic, and decentralized book catalog. The Leio dapp, on the other hand, allows consumers to take control of their reading life, find what to read next, and make a rewording read-to-earn experience of it.
Leio for Booke decentralized books catalog increases bookstores' revenue, lets authors know and connect with readers, and delivers readers community, curation, and convening (3C, Ryan Raffaelli, Reinventing Retail: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores, Harvard Business School) along with reading tracking, book tracking, and learning progress tracking – helping them stay motivated and progressing, thanks to the read-to-earn incentive utilizing token economics.
Eventually, users will be able to get book recommendations based on the learning they are pursuing now, not just the best seller's lists. Purchasing books enhanced with SFTs will allow them to receive quizzes with rewards, summaries, and author's office hours tickets. They can time their reading sessions and stay motivated.
Authors and bookstores can grow their audience efficiently. Connect with other authors, bookstores, and active readers who will buy and consume their books, and generate buzz. They can make subscribing to their email list irresistible by offering a unique read-to-earn experience.
Publishers and distributors become part of a book distribution that benefits all book market participants without giving one entity a competitive advantage. They can join the decentralized book catalog and bring more growth and vitality to local communities, bookstores, and the book industry.
How we built it
We are building the proposed solution following the customer development methodology and framework. We have achieved the problem-solution fit for the consumer market and created Leio – the iOS, no-backend app as an MVP used by tens of thousands of users.
As the next step, we want to make Leio a dapp on the Internet Computer utilizing the DFINITY Canister SDK and Motoko programming language. We consider IC the best technology and ecosystem to create sophisticated semi-fungible tokens and DAOs to achieve the three milestones:
DAO of bookstores and readers managing a reading companion allowing reading, book, and learning progress tracking integrated with an e-commerce platform for books and SFTs, each representing access to the bookstore's events, loyalty programs, and book recommendations, with all proceeds distributed among the bookstores based on a customer location or choice;
DAO of authors and readers managing decentralized market of book supplements in the form of SFTs, each representing quizzes with rewards, summaries, as well as author's book recommendations along with office hours;
DAO of book industry participants managing a decentralized distribution platform featuring a decentralized catalog and inventory of books in the form of SFTs featuring open, irrevocable API for dapps created by book distributors, logistics companies, and third-party developers, including format-agnostic book readers developers.
Challenges we ran into
IC is a novel technology still lacking fundamental features. The IC canisters have limited storage, and there is no raw HTTP access to IC canisters. Furthermore, most payment solutions supporting cryptocurrencies utilize EVM rather than IC and WASM.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Despite Leio being a no-backend MVP, it got significant initial traction and received many enthusiastic reviews. It allowed us to validate crucial assumptions and stay confident about the product roadmap. Regarding the idea of closing the gap between print and digital, no other technology like Booke in the world aims to combine both materials. Booke is considered a breakthrough innovation by L'Atelier BNP Paribas and reviewed by Springwise as one of the world's most promising new business ideas.
What we learned
IC is a breakthrough technology, allowing enterprise-grit software to be built entirely on blockchain. Despite existing constraints, like no support for the HTTP requests, we figured out that we can utilize the IC-specific RPC interface from a webview and in the future regular HTTP requests – there is a proposal to allow raw HTTP access to IC canisters. The certified variables are a powerful tool for us to create more advanced and sophisticated NFTs and STFs. Also, we learned about a mature payment platform planning support for WASM. It would be a significant benefit for us to build an e-commerce platform on IC.
What's next for Leio for Booke
The next step is introducing two new features that require making Leio a dapp on IC. The first is a read-to-earn experience based on token economics. And the second is e-commerce governed by the DAO of bookstores and readers, allowing users to buy the books through the app with all the proceeds distributed among local bookstores based on a customer location or choice.
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