Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Research:Why-And-How-It-Can-Work: Difference between revisions

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 * '''Track records & decentralized, consent-based data''' — parties can consult or require the other's track record, shared only by mutual agreement within [[Gov/en/Portal:R&D/Innovations:Rings Of Trust|Rings of Trust]], building trust gradually without centralised surveillance.
 * '''Community signals''' — declared interests, User Group membership, volunteering history and Miles Credits use give a richer, more human picture than a star rating.
+----
+----
+= Preventing the Cold Start Effect =
+''A legitimate question — and WikiDeal's answer through dogfooding.''
+== Arriving at the right moment ==
+Beyond any single mechanism, one lever matters above all: '''arriving at the right moment'''. Timing is itself part of why the approach can work.
+== The cold start effect — and why it is not a dead end ==
+Any platform that depends on its users faces the well-known '''cold start effect''': the service is only valuable once enough people use it, yet people only join once it is valuable.
+WikiDeal does not deny this challenge. Its answer is simple: '''Wikipedia faced exactly the same problem''' — and overcame it. The same path is possible here, on one condition: '''dogfooding''' — using and growing the platform from within, starting with a concrete, well-chosen first use case.
+== Focusing on a first use case: babysitting ==
+The strategy may evolve together with the steering committee, within the framework of this prototype experiment aimed at raising '''one million''' Swiss francs. It is likely that efforts will '''focus on a single use case''' to begin with.
+Preliminary studies showed that one of the easiest use cases is to enter a '''lightly occupied market'''. On both legal and market grounds, '''babysitting''' stood out as the most workable starting point, because it:
+* '''speaks to every kind of audience''' and is immediately easy to understand;
+* is '''legally straightforward''';
+* can '''extend naturally to personal services at large''' — notably the much-under-recognised informal caregivers (“proches aidants”);
+* can be '''deployed internationally''' with equivalent good practices.
+Personal services in the broad sense open up many options — for example people on '''mixed housing-and-life contracts''': individuals with limited means who, having lost a partner, still have the physical capacity to care for an older person; people in migrant situations; and many others.
+== A two-tranche funding plan ==
+The one-million call for support is divided into '''two tranches''':
+* '''First tranche — roughly CHF 200,000–250,000''' — to deploy a '''base technology''' designed to maximise '''user autonomy'''.
+Inside this base technology sits a '''dedicated AI''' (WikiDeal Internal AI). When someone arrives with a babysitting contract template from their own country, the AI '''automatically analyses it against the rules it has been given, and transforms it''' — so that a person does '''not need to be a lawyer''' to contribute ideas.
+A built-in '''safeguard alert''' makes the limits clear, for example:
+<blockquote>''“As long as no lawyer has validated it, this contract template is not necessarily guaranteed — you use it at your own risk.”''
+</blockquote>
+== The chicken-and-egg problem ==
+The cold start effect takes a concrete form here: a '''chicken-and-egg problem'''. To run pilot experiments, WikiDeal needs '''user communities'''. But for the delegates and representatives of those communities to trust the platform enough to take part, they need '''clearer rules of the game''' and '''more finished examples''' — and there is always the fear of ''who dares to go first''.
+The counter-example is Wikipedia itself: its user groups started '''organically''', with one, two or three people creating a small structure among themselves, which then grew. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive — WikiDeal deliberately '''combines''' them:
+* a '''from-scratch''' approach (building a community from the ground up);
+* a '''migration''' approach (existing communities bringing their practices in).
+== How the two funding tranches address it ==
+'''First tranche (~CHF 200,000–250,000) — pure dogfooding.''' At this stage there is neither from-scratch recruitment of outside groups nor migration. WikiDeal simply '''builds its own community''', using the attraction of the '''bonding curve''' and '''participatory funding''' as the lever — the mechanism that de-privatises the venture and keeps it from becoming a private company, so that it can theoretically be deployed at large scale. This first tranche is the '''sole dogfooding experiment'''.
+'''Second tranche (~CHF 800,000) — opening up through calls.''' The remaining funds finance '''open calls''', clearly open to '''any kind of community'''. Spheres of activity will be defined — and, very probably, WikiDeal will '''deliberately avoid attacking very mature markets head-on''', such as short-term housing (Airbnb-type) or taxi transport (Uber-type). It will not offer immediate alternatives in markets that are already broadly established.
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