Hey @universalpunx First of all. This is a very thoughtful

post, with all the highlighting etc. I appreciate the effort reading about the successes of @upturnOS [upturn.live].

RE hackathon + grants + my skills etc:
- Hackthon [Sep 2022]
I received this awards in the F.A.M.E bounty. I think we nailed the brief and only received positive response for doing so. I had already been very active in the LUKSO community and the concept was obviously something I saw that we needed [and still do]. The Judges likely thought the same.

I had a smart contract dev working with me, so basically brought LSP experience to 1 dev here.

- Grant March 2023
Work started in May 23 post team building

There's a little more to unpack here.
I was awarded the grant I applied for.
The grant was contracted as a ~6 month build. Divided. into monthly build milestones.

We again worked with contractors for FE, BE, SC Development, these devs are still a part of the project. We unfortunately had to part ways with the original SC dev from the hackathon.

The dApp was completed ~November 2023

It is an LSP7 Generator and Music player.

I want to glaze over the site design [which took AGES] front end development [which took even longer to perfect] and the development of the music player + backend.

This took SOOOO much time, I can't even describe to you the pain, blood, sweat, late nights, and tears it took to get it to where we wanted it. Anyway... back to LUKSO tings.

I'm not sure how across the LSP updates you were during that time [around UP launch etc Nov 2023], however post the build and milestone agreement ending there were multiple [from memory 2 or 3] updates to the LSP7 shipped by LUKSO. This means although we were ready to launch around November 2023, we still were awaiting a finalised LSP7 contract. Each update our SC dev completed I paid for personally or via MINT PASS Sales [wasn't cheap].

Yes MINT PASS revenue went to dApp development also.

This brought us to maybe March 2023.

We were working with LUKSO devs on crosschecking the work done by our devs, and the LUKSO devs were providing assistance, support, and guidance along the. way.

@0xYamen thankfully pulled me aside at one point and had some very powerful words to say about the quality of the LSP7 implementation and the logic of its script.

This resulted in us having to re-write the ENTIRE LSP7 implementation, this was completed by ANOTHER dev, who is an absolute wizard. This was a costly exercise however it was worth every penny.
An attempt at perfection, and to ensure the safety of the dApp and our users. We have spared no expense in this build and have taken guidance from LUKSO all along the way. Which is available to any builder, mind you.

So to tally it there's now 3x SC devs who have more LUKSO experience. This is what grants are for right? Network effect.

We also added new features, like the addition of Token Logo, Token Description, the separation of the ability to burn tokens and adding burn fees on transactions [BurnOnTransfer], and the ability to add a "reward" on transactions, which we call creator fees.

Additionally we also build a VPS alert system, to alert us when the server is down, and we implemented a CI/CD system to save costs moving forward as we launch more dApps and features.

All of this costs money.

There is a million things and probably 500-600 hours of work in between. these major milestones and vetting devs + other contractors that are unaccounted for here. Taking advice from our advisors, negotiating, budgeting.

You know what it takes to build something.
I understand your site is a simple landing page [hoodiecartel.com] + your project is likely a copy pasta NFT/PFP project and you may not have built any complex infrastructure before... however, you need to know it takes AGES, a lot of experimentation and learning. Going back and trying again, and again. Taking PROFESSIONAL advice is something that is costly not only financially, but time and energy wise... relaying all this information between 10 great minds is difficult.

Bro don’t listen to these fuckin bitches Will just complain about absolutely everything as much as possible You don’t owe anyone any explanation, you have your stuff sorted with the awardees

he is the awardee, not the lukso team

ignore the beta haters and build on 💪

this doesnt explain anything, why does the team who you know constantly give you grants? "im not a builder and keep hiring people to build it wrong so i need more money" is exactly the problem I have. core team even built a npm package for exactly what your offering. the dev time for your project is ONE DAY. so core lukso team is incompetent and doesn't know that? they're happily to continue to fund something that already exists?