DAOs are more of a game-changer than any of us realize
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Greetings all,
In this week’s episode of Ventures, my guests Angela Angelovska-Wilson, Mike Anderson, 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.
DAOs are changing the game (even more than the hype)
So apparently DAOs and DAO Tooling were the main topics that basically everyone was talking about at ETH Denver last month. Still, only a small percentage of our global community even knows that ETH Denver is a thing, let alone the details of how DAOs, DeFi, and/or NFTs work. Web3/Crypto is still a VERY small community.
Still, seeing what’s playing out right in front of us in BanyanDAO is incredibly encouraging. In this week’s podcast, Mike, Angela, and I were able address the three major topics that are essential (governance, legal, and incentives).
The utopian dream of “everything just magically happens” when a ton of smart people are in a room isn’t reality. There needs to be leaders. Those leaders need to coordinate with each other. They also need to cast vision, set strategy, implement tactics to get things done, and communicate effectively to their teams.
What’s fascinating in a DAO - BanyanDAO specifically - is the power of everyone working in a giving economy. Yesterday we “summoned a DAO” on DAOHaus, recorded the meeting, ran into a classic set of hiccups (we got through ‘em), and produced this DAO on DAOHaus with a nominal treasury to start. In that same meeting, my brother Tony submitted this public proposal to be our first new member AND to register for our April 29, 2022 training day event to level up Web2 product managers into Web3. (For details about how to do this yourself, and to learn a ton more about BanyanDAO, check out the BanyanDAO FAQ).
Also, you should check out Angela’s LinkedIn bio to get a sense for why it was such an honor to have her join us for this episode. Her background in crypto law & compliance, working in DC, and working operationally within Web3 companies she has co-founded brings an incredible amount of wisdom to the conversation (thank you, Angela! 🙏). Fun fact, she is the person who originally pointed me to Alexandra Sims’ PhD thesis on DAOs, which I wrote up summary/reflections on here.
Finally, while of course financial incentives are extremely important (and we get into details in the episode), there are plenty of other incentives that are driving people to participate in DAOs. These include being part of a community, learning new skills, learning Web3 in practice, and joining teams to build products/services in Web3 to make the world a better place, etc…
I can’t overemphasize enough how much of a big deal this is. The power of being able to bring people together to collectively work toward a vision for a better world, while being able to use token models (along with coins pegged to fiat currency) as compensation….this is incredible. We are just seeing the start of what is possible here. Please feel free to come join us in BanyanDAO’s Discord server and learn/build/explore Web3 together.
Have a great rest of your week!
~Will