Coordination Summit | Silent Existential Threats & Urgent Calls to Action: DAOs and Governance

[Applause] [Music] we are ready for our next talk and this is going to be an exciting one we're going to talk about some urgent calcium actions on how do we think about the evolution of dao's communities and governance in what three and want to welcome our speaker parker um to uh get us started and uh appreciate you waiting welcome hi um super happy to be here i have something to screen share today um amazing cool great um starting off with a quick intro um super happy to be here today i'm parker um i'm very involved uh in the crypto space across a few different contexts um i'm on the founding team of boys club which is a social club community in dao working to welcome women and non-binary individuals into web3 you can check us out on twitter at boysclub crypto um i'm also working as an early stage investor um in crypto startups at fintech collective on their t5 fund um and specifically work there with our founders um one-on-one to help them build skill and design their communities so everything from um pre-launch to um even like communities and protocols later on abdow is helping them rethink their governance structures uh et cetera um so today what am i going to be talking about i have a lot of thoughts um and feelings and ideas around how we can be doing better um in sort of the frameworks and assumptions that we um are approaching daoist community and governance around um so this is going to be pretty high level um and whether we only have um about 30 minutes here um i don't know if we have a timer but um for the mods definitely let me know um when we get to like 10 minutes if i if that's okay with you um to kick things off um i wanted to talk about dows great thanks um so dallas have gotten huge right like we're seeing new taos spun up every day um we're seeing web 2 companies want to make dows at least i'm seeing this and in my work as a vc also um you know a lot of like founders will pitch their startup we'll picture the product um and mention um that they're also creating about um this to me is sometimes like a little bit of a a jarring statement because downs are such a huge project right like they're almost like starting a second um startup i think if you're doing it right um and so dao is as a concept have gotten huge even though they're so new but they're still failing massively in several ways right they're failing to get off the ground we're seeing classic coordination failures um low participation low engagement um and even when success is found downs are imploding right um you know we could point to uh some of makerow's recent struggles um with governance i don't think maker is a failure but they are facing struggles so big established chaos that are sort of the name of the game even are um encountering like a lot of a lot of issues um and so where are we really going wrong here i think there's a few things that i'd like to draw our attention to here today um i think a lot of uh a lot of doubt building or sort of thinking around down building that i'm seeing today focus on outcome um rather than need or rather than demand um so we're seeing a lot of people um that want to spin up dallas that have ideas for dallas but don't have the actual community or participants um to start with um we're also seeing um a lack of intrinsically motivated participants within daos right so we're seeing a lot of taos that have um a lot of members a lot of participants um but not a lot of participation and a lot of engagement especially long term um and then we're seeing a lot of uh out of the box composition right so um lots of tooling startups um that are just like easily spin up your own dowels um no hate on that but i think there is um a little bit of lack of like nuance um instead of the in some of the jobs that are being created right so not fully thinking through um all of the design pieces um that that make up it out and that will will uh greatly affect how the doubt operates in the future um or maybe not even knowing what those pieces are really um that that need um that need a lot of thoughtful consideration um so what are some things that we could do or some frameworks we could use to try to approach um some of these issues that i just mentioned um i think first um validating demand right start episode one product one on one same for dollars same for community building um i'm i'm a firm believer that communities should come before the dao um once again we're seeing a lot of people who want to create taos um and are looking to find the community to fit into the doubt after i don't think that works i think you need a community that um that a dao will only only bring value to right so um another important thing here right would be asking why are we even creating it out um do we need a dow for this use case or for this community um or is the motivation to create one maybe um motivated by um a bid for relevancy right trying to stay relevant or trying to follow the buzz um this is a hard question to answer and it takes a lot of i don't think you can even answer it like right away like takes a lot of thoughtful consideration writing um talking to other people to really understand like why do we need a doubt why are we doing this um for boys club um we're creating a dow uh to enhance what's already working really well within boys club right um which is a lot of participation a lot of different ideas a lot of different segments and pockets of our community that want to spin up different things so the dao structure which we're still iterating on we're still taking very very slowly um the dow structure though allows us to um super efficiently um or at least more efficiently than before uh streamline um ideas from the idea stage into actual execution um and allows us to make sure that there is there's not as much uh imbalance of power or say in the dictation of where the community goes in the future optimizing for sustainability over speed would be a second one again i think we're seeing a lot of out-of-the-box solutions um people that promise you know use this toolkit spin up your dow in a few days in a week we'll get everything set up um i think that dow should take a very slow approach um i'm very bullish on experimentation and iteration and also research um so when uh boys club was founded um i immediately knew like the dow aspect is what i wanted to kind of focus on um and it's been like eight or nine months since then the dow is not done um and i was expecting this to be maybe like a three to four month process um but after three or four months i was not even done with the research phase of like the process of dow building um and this is because i wanted to really you know there's so much information about how there's so many different ways to create them we also don't have a current body of literature um formalized body of literature around taos and dow building um so there's a lot of like uh like personal initiative research that you have to do um and i think like sustainability is really important right so when you think about your community um and how to build a doubt that's sustainable for them um i think it's best to really take it slow right test and iterate these processes before you decide to implement them um it doesn't iterate many different persons before you decided uh to implement them um with this comes like a willingness to look beyond traditional methods um out-of-the-box solutions and maybe people who um when you need to build your towel with them in a week um might suggest the most traditional or like widely accepted methods um for um participation uh participation streams for governance design um for token a model or to genomic model um i strongly believe that like every dao is different and needs a different thing just like every person has different preferences in personal taste personal style in what works best for them and what's best for them in health and in in their diet and in their workout routine dow's are similarly different and communities are similar literally different and need different things um so yeah like i sort of think about dow building in a very like nerdy way like almost kind of like a science experiment like there's all these different variables um and all these different things that have to fit together in factors that influence each other um to uh to drive the outcome of the of the experiment um and there's many different like things that you have to like sort of fine tune within that experiment um to make it right um moving on to dow governance um lots of thoughts here i'm going to give a very high level overview um so i think like the current mental model of governance and taos generally in the space today um is token or coin voting so this would be like um when i buy a token um for example i have governance rights is how it works in um taos like maker otherwise where um there's no kind of opt-in to governance it's just like when you have it open you are automatically eligible to participate um i think like we're also seeing a lot of proven failures with this system though right so like even metallic like recently published um a piece against uh token voting and sort of providing some alternative ideas around it but it's still um the most widely accepted and thought of um governance mechanism in this space today at least as i see it um so i'm seeing recently like a lot of rejection of doubts and a lot of rejection of um doubt governance you know a lot of people on crypto twitter saying dabs don't work doubts don't work as a business model they're a failure it's proven and i'm like no guys like token voting is um maybe not proven failure but not working right and that's the thing that's the similarity across these taos that you're pointing to as examples right um so i think we have an urgent call to action to explore other kinds of um governance mechanisms and you know really focus uh more resources on um experimentation research um and just like iteration on alternative and emerging forms of governance um one i'm really excited about is uh conviction voting which is sort of a mechanism of staking your vote um gaining more uh gaining more power over time or weight over time um and you know i think we need governance mechanisms that really capture more of the dynamic nature of humans so like a snapshot voting uh proposal works right but um information new information is revealed over time ten minutes okay thank you new information is revealed over time human change over time their opinion changed over time um so that should be able in my opinion to be reflected within governance decisions um and i'm like where's the disconnect right like there's actually a lot of really great um peer-reviewed research academic research on emergent forms of governance and on some of the um ways in which um current mechanisms of governance uh are failing um but these don't have widespread attention in crypto um so there is this disconnect and i'm wondering like how can we work um to begin to not only continue exploring alternate mechanisms of governance um but also like begin to change and shift the mental models um of governance um within the crypto community to um see governance as this plethora of options and also has this completely um unexplored and open design space that still exists rather than accepting governance and dow governance as something that's failing currently um so i could get into community it's something i could talk about a lot i have lots of vlogs here as well but um i guess like i don't know if the chat is open i do want to pause and like open to any questions uh so far um is that possible oh we'll uh we'll source in anything that comes in from from the attendees but in the meantime i kind of continue uh with the rest of the slides awesome great um community like a very nebulous word um and one that's there a lot so um community is not fluff let's like let's get this straight community it's crucial especially in crypto right um in a bear market in tough times um what is holding your protocol up right if you have a token um you need that price up right and so like your community is going to be the one powering that but i think community goes way beyond just financial incentive as well like um there's a lot of big brain energy entering the uh crypto community space and i think we're really beginning to see um how sticky community is and like community if done right can be a an absolute leverage um for every aspect of your business and every aspect of what you're building right these are your evangelists these are these are owners these are people that will be contributing in the future and providing you feedback um but i think too many in this space currently um mistake community for marketing and i think sometimes you need it is marketing and that's great um and there is some crossover right um but it's not always marketing and i think it's a fatal flaw to to view communities marketing um here's why i also think it's kind of cringe here's why um marketing is all about uh capturing users right and getting your brand out there and like community inherently um if it's successful will work as a marketing engine um but if you treat community like marketing when you're first trying to think about how to build it and how to sustain it um it's never going to work because um you're going to need to see community as an ecosystem right it's evolving um and it's ground up um so you need like a sustainable foundation um in order to build a community that in turn can be a marketing engine for you um and i think there's like a a several sub process here which i'll just briefly sort of walk through and how i think about community building um both at boys club and um when i'm working with um some of my portfolio companies at finjet collective so i think the first step is defining what you are like what is your candy about and also like what is it not about um what do you stand for what do you not stand for i think getting as niche as possible here is really helpful um once you understand what you're all about what your community is all about um and what you want people to get from it and take away from it and learn from it um you need to attract those members um so like top of funnel awareness right um and once you have sort of like had those first community members trickle in um you want to activate them sorry this should say activate um so start finding ways to get them comfortable get them involved have them injured themselves um make sure they have all the resources they need to succeed and be able to navigate the community and all the things that it provides um and then you'll start to see people who like actively want to get more involved um maybe a little pigeon with ideas maybe they'll have feedback um maybe they'll come to you one-on-one um and you want to like harness that power because that is like magical energy and there is like a special window of time that you need to capture that energy within so then involving them right giving them more responsibility maybe azure community skills um they can take notes on community calls they can um jump in to moderate um finding ways to to give them more responsibility and finally um giving them responsibility and opportunity um for ownership um so enabling ownership um and i think like i guess to close out this sort of high-level segment here um a lot of uh companies that i work with um when we start working together immediately say like we want to optimize for ownership and building our community um but i think one thing that's too often overlooked is like all the steps um that it takes to set up ownership and it's almost like that meme of like the guy with the domino and like the many dominoes um like you need to first um know what your community is about then attract those numbers then activate them then involve them um to enable um sustainable ownership in my experiences um so yeah i think that's pretty much it for me um but and if if there are any questions happy to answer them um i can go deeper into any of these subjects um but yeah i'm at parker j-a-y-p on twitter if you want to chat follow me yummy i'm around um yeah and super happy to be here pretty much you guys are happy thanks parker no that was that was very insightful and uh and also uh a little bit spicy i think uh it's just some uh some good uh direct and actionable things uh that we can talk about uh maybe my kind of first question would be um i i think um or rather how do you differentiate between like knowing what to do and sort of how do we get there we kind of uh talked about a lot of things that you've seen firsthand not work um as well as either people think or you yourself uh thought they would is is this largely a mindset thing is this largely a tooling issue is this largely something that we have to kind of instill at the beginning like at what point of the process of a lifetime of a member joining a community do these things need to be addressed and sort of how would you gonna think about um backtracking and implementing where these things should be uh actually put in yeah that's a great question so obviously i take a very method methodological approach to community building and i i don't think that's like bad and i think like sometimes people are a little bit shy to take like kind of a almost like strategic approach but i do think you know there are like ways to activate candy and it's not necessarily like extractive um i think just like keeping these things in mind throughout the process i think it is sort of a framework and i wouldn't say mindset but more of a framework um that they can be reevaluated over time so like at any point in the process right even if you already have a community and you've had one for two years and never even thought about this you can still sort of walk through this and think through this and um look for like the sort of user journey or pipeline within your community um and i don't think it's a one-size-fits-all approach like the way that um you know certain communities might uh work to attract their members or like define what they're about might be different from others and that's okay but it's sort of like the general idea and just like hitting those steps making sure they're accounted for um that i think is important does that answer your question i know it definitely does and and maybe um one kind of other follow-up would be uh do you think there are not do you think i guess what are some examples that others should uh shamelessly steal from like who do you have have you seen has done a really good job at and implementing some of the changes that you proposed uh in addition to obviously kind of a view but uh what are some of like the nice ways to kind of understand if this is working in practice and kind of contrasting with the alternatives sure that's a great question i think there are a lot of um great communities out there that are each you know doing uh like have strengths in different ways i don't think there's anyone that's nailed this down perfectly and that also is just inherent to the fact that communities are ever changing and their their needs are ever changing um i i really admire um you know some of the the work actually done by um a woman not in the web 3 not in the western space um but named priyanka parker so i read i read her book the art of gathering which actually focuses on like in real life events and greenie building in real life um and i i love the way that she um broke down almost like the art of the literally the art of gathering and and bringing people together um in a very thoughtful and strategic way and like she almost the way that i talked about dabbled in community building as an experiment like i saw her view gathering as an experiment so she like lays out like all these different um almost like experience that she's done about um you know the the amount of people that you bring in and what kind of atmosphere that creates um intention setting explicitly before the event um how to make people feel comfortable like like methodologies literally um that she is that she is like refined and composed and put together in different ways um so like that that thinking i really love um and yeah like i mean there again like so many great communities out there mochi mochi dog game has done a great job of world building i think that's also that's something i should have put in this presentation but world building is like an essential aspect of community in my mind and um moji has done like a beautiful like illustrated magical job of that um govern the governing community is great um aaron stefan are great they're constantly iterating like we're working with them and they're constantly coming to us with feedback questions like um i love like the thoughtful and like long-term approach that they take um yeah so many communities that i could i could gosh about but um yeah right now we have another question from the audience uh which is uh what are your thoughts on uh proven corporate structure and kind of do you think if somebody found a way to easily merge those kind of proven ways to uh to behave or operate at scale uh what kind of data formations like would that actually make things easier or do you kind of you know reject some of those existing things that's your question um okay so i guess to answer that i'll say first of all um i'm taking my own opinion here with a grain of salt um there's actually a book that i'm that i just ordered on amazon to read about this um and it goes over this uh like thing called like the teal structure um that i've read about uh in rook protocols um let's see if i can put this in the chat i really loved um the way that i was reading this and i loved the way that they were thinking about uh i just put it in the chat um community building so like they they think about it as almost very similar to orca protocol love orca love the oracle community as by the way as well um but like modular and um delegated decision making but they borrow at least within protocols documentation this corporate kind of uh method of like the teal structure i i need to read more about it which is why i ordered the book that they sented it from but um i think it could work i mean it sounded actually when i read i was like this sounds a lot like what we're doing in boys club i didn't even know that this existed right um so i don't know it could work um i think like like there are proven things that work in corporate structures um i personally have been more involved in like this startup kind of world so i i don't really come from that experience but um i yeah i mean why not i guess but again i think every every gallon is different like i don't think the corporate structure would be the best for everyone absolutely and uh our last question which uh interestingly comes from our next speaker and that is do you think tokens help uh with community building no i don't i think it's really concerning um when people think that it does so let me just quickly explain my thinking here um i think it's a fail flawed to to use a community sorry i think it's a fatal flaw to use a token as a way to try to to bolster either marketing um brand awareness relevancy um brand exposure or community building and like community activity um i am of the personal belief not reflective of my organization boys club or like my firm but a personal belief that you should wait as long as you can to launch a token um i think like finding product market fit really hard building a successful sustainable active community really hard um launching a token really hard and that should come after you've found product market fit and after you have a community and like that's because the token relies on those other things as well so like to set the token up for success like you need to have the most solid foundation possible um and i think we've seen like across the board also like there's examples of this right like communities and projects and and protocols and companies that launch a token like when they're first starting out or launch a token to help the product um are usually like literally just go on coin america gap and like look through you know um so no i don't think i don't think tokens help community building but i do think like if there is a successful sustainable strong community and a token is launched those should work to reinforce each other as a flywheel so like they can help each other but from like visual incentives yeah awesome well um thank you so much for that amazing talk and and going into all those questions um really appreciate taking the time and uh with that we are ready for our next speaker thank you guys so much um have a great day you too