Will Little @wclittle Subscribe

Managing Director at Prota Ventures.
I'm a bioengineer-turned-software-developer and venture builder/investor. Learn more about me professionally on LinkedIn, personally here, and check out the podcast I host, Ventures.

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Topic:   Blockchains
 Will Little

Mar 29, 2022
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3 DAOs BanyanDAO

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Voting, governance, and lessons from history :: with Dr. Alexandra Sims

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Dr. Alexandra Sims (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-sims-833a8123/) and I talk about various academic and practical operational nuances of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Alex wrote her PhD thesis last year on DAOs (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3971228), and in this episode we talk about the various types of DAOs, jurisdiction issues, voting and governance mechanisms, and advice for new on-chain organizations forming today to learn lessons from previous DAOs and traditional decentralized organizations that existed long before blockchains.
Will Little

Mar 23, 2022
Blockchains Sociology Ventures Podcast Web3 DAOs

Leadership via storytelling in DAOs and traditional organizations :: with Jesse Bryan

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Jesse Bryan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessebryan/) and I discuss the power of storytelling when leading an organization of people. This conversation dives into not only how a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) can reinforce vision and mission with story, but also how traditional corporations can (and should) conduct themselves when interacting with customers. We talk about how a Commodity + Story = Product, how to keep the main thing the main thing, how stories + status are the two pedals of moving an organization forward cohesively, and how/why to tell stories in conversational language as a business.
Will Little

Mar 15, 2022
Blockchains Product Management Web3 DAOs BanyanDAO

Three reasons why I'm excited about BanyanDAO's April 29, 2022 Training Day event for leveling-up into Web3 product management

BanyanDAO is a new Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) devoted to promoting human flourishing by growing a community of entrepreneurial leaders. We are a group of 150+ people, most of whom have never met each other in real life (IRL), coming together to - initially - host a Training Day event on April 29, 2022 to help people level-up from Web2 into Web3 product architecture, design, and management.

Will Little

Mar 9, 2022
Blockchains Sociology Web3

My hope for Web3 social media

Last November (2021), Solana Ventures and Alexis Ohanian announced a $100M initiative for Web3 social media. Alexis also led an $18m round recently into Rainbow App, which plans to ramp up its social media efforts. Overall, there seems to be a rush toward recreating Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, etc. in Web3. But let’s step back for a moment. Is this a good thing? Do we really need an exact replica of existing social media platforms, but owned and governed by “the people”? Will that fix the fundamental problems?

Will Little

Mar 8, 2022
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3

Play-to-Earn, building in Web3, and the Arena.gl story :: with Chase Thompson

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Chase Thompson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chasejthompson/) and I talk about the Play-to-Earn space, how to build in Web3 as a product manager and entrepreneur, and his story building https://arena.gl. We dive into topics such as Web3 gaming, token models, DAOs, NFTs, the types of games that can be played on Arena, the next waves in Web3 that are coming for entrepreneurs to take advantage of, and how to practically dive into Web3 to learn more and start building.
Will Little

Mar 1, 2022
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3PMDAO Web3 DAOs

Governance, legal, and incentive structures for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) :: with Angela Angelovska-Wilson and Mike Anderson

In this episode of Ventures, my guests Angela Angelovska-Wilson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-angelovska-wilson-38600a1/), Mike Anderson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeandersonjr/), and I discuss three major issues with DAOs: (1) operational governance structures, (2) legal and jurisdiction issues, and (3) various types of incentives for founders and participants in DAOs. For informational purposes only, we talk specifically about our experience launching BanyanDAO (https://www.banyandao.xyz/), how Angela advises DAOs from a legal perspective given her background and extensive professional experience in the space, and how DAOs design incentive models. More than just financial incentives (which are, of course, important), DAOs should clearly communicate with their communities about the unique opportunity of learning/building together as a scaled and decentralized team from the start.

Will Little

Feb 23, 2022
Blockchains Will's General Newsletter Web3

Data sovereignty, identity, and Web3 101

Will's General Newsletter (Weekly) :: Feb 22, 2022
Will Little

Feb 22, 2022
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3

The evolution of identity and data sovereignty in Web1, Web2, and Web3 :: with David Harding and Solomon Cates

In this episode of Ventures, my guests David Harding (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveh003/), Solomon Cates (https://www.linkedin.com/in/solcates/), and I discuss all-things identity and data sovereignty leading up to - and within - the present Web3 era. We tee-up a framework to think about identity verification and data warehousing, cryptocurrencies vs. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), Identity Assurance Levels (IALs), Presentation Attack Detection (PAD), and how to think about building Web3 applications with a realistic hybrid of both centralized and decentralized identity verification and control services.
Will Little

Feb 15, 2022
Blockchains Will's General Newsletter Web3PMDAO Web3 Metaverse DAOs

Back to the fundamentals of people, metaverses, and DAOs

Will's General Newsletter (Weekly) :: Feb 15, 2022
Will Little

Feb 8, 2022
Blockchains Ventures Podcast Web3PMDAO Web3 DAOs

Introducing BanyanDAO: Training and supporting Web3 product leaders to promote human flourishing :: with Priya Baveja, Jake Varghese, and Mike Anderson

In this episode of Ventures, my guests Priya Baveja (https://www.linkedin.com/in/priya-baveja/), Mike Anderson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeandersonjr/), Jake Varghese (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-varghese-498335/) and I (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wclittle/) talk about Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure, governance, incentives, and participation. We are a subset of founders currently launching BanyanDAO (https://banyandao.xyz/), which is growing a community of Web3 entrepreneurial leaders to promote human flourishing. Our first training event - to level up Web2 product managers into Web3 - will be in April 2022 (exact dates TBA). For more details and to participate, join us in our Discord server (https://discord.gg/bYnxySgw34) and follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/BanyanDAO).
Will Little

Feb 2, 2022
Blockchains Will's General Newsletter Web3 DAOs

Unlearning racism, merging DAOs, and thoughts about compensating DAO participants

Will's General Newsletter (Weekly) :: Feb 1, 2022
Will Little

Jan 26, 2022
Health Science Blockchains Will's General Newsletter Web3 DAOs

Startup accounting & finance, DAO & Web3 summary notes, and mental & physical health

Will's General Newsletter (Weekly) :: Jan 25, 2022
Will Little

Jan 23, 2022
Blockchains Web3

Ryan Selkis' Crypto Theses for 2022: Brief summary and reflections

Over the holidays I had a chance to sit down and carefully reread Ryan Selkis’ (https://twitter.com/twobitidiot) Crypto Theses for 2022 (https://messari.io/pdf/messari-report-crypto-theses-for-2022.pdf). Regarding Web3, Balaji Srinivasan said of this PDF: “If you understand everything in here, you are up to speed.” While I certainly agree, this 165 page paper is not for the faint of heart. Ryan covers narratives and investment themes, people to watch, thoughts on Bitcoin, American crypto policy, market infrastructure, NFTs, Web3 plumbing, DeFi 2.0, Ethereum layers & bridges, and DAOs. I’ve been reasonably following and investing in this space for 5+ years, and I still had to read many sections multiple times to wrap my head around it. Overall, I’m super impressed with the thoroughness of the document. He wrote this up in Oct/Nov 2021 and many of the predictions/theses have already become reality just a few months later.

Will Little

Jan 23, 2022
Blockchains Web3 DAOs

Alexandra Sims' PhD Thesis on DAOs: Brief Summary and Reflections

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), enabled in the past decade by blockchain technology to manage transparent treasuries and governance, have considerable promise to accelerate human coordination to accomplish important goals in the coming decade and beyond. New “no code / low code” solutions for creating and maintaining DAOs have facilitated a rapid growth in both interest and experimentation with new DAO structures. I was recently referred to Alexandra Sims’ PhD Thesis on DAOs: Governance, Dispute Resolution and Regulation (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3971228, published May 31, 2021), and I was delighted to read it over the holidays. While I won’t pretend to fully represent the work presented by Dr. Sims (and instead refer you to the PDF linked above), in this article I will attempt to share a brief summary of its content and my own personal reflections.

Will Little

Jan 19, 2022
Blockchains Will's General Newsletter Web3 DAOs

DAOs: Logistics, Definitions, Reflections, and - yes - their NFTs

Will's General Newsletter (Weekly) :: Jan 18, 2022