D_D Labs Sub-DAO - Season 2

[DRAFT] D_D Labs - Season 2

Authors: v1: manny, kempsterrrr, Wikist, luan // v2: wolovim

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Summary

This proposal establishes D_D Labs as a Sub-DAO of Developer DAO. Because this proposal encapsulates much of the core experience and business model of the DAO, no new multisig is proposed and the DAO Stewards will retain governance of this Sub-DAO where appropriate.

Motivation

As discussed in Can we build a better game and DAO Governance Structure Upgrade, the current DAO Structures, both from an operational and a governance perspective, are not serving the majority of members effectively.

The member experience in S1 funneled members towards contributing to the DAO on an operational level, though few members had the time and context and few well-rewarded opportunities existed. This led to a sub-optimal experience, summarised in the image below.

D_D Labs seeks to address this fundamental problem in two ways:

  • It presents an updated member experience focused on the overwhelming majority of members who are here to participate casually.
  • It provides DAO contributors with more clearly defined responsibilities and rewards.

Scope of Work

On the passing of this proposal, D_D Labs will become an “Operational Layer” of the DAO, bringing together contributors across the DAO who are responsible for the primary business model and the member experience.

Objective

The primary objective of D_D Labs is to provide a member experience optimised for the “players" of our shared game. By that, we mean the vast majority of members who derive value from their membership without directly contributing to the DAO’s operations.

The updated member experience will focus on one persona: the web3 builder, including all types of folks who contribute to building value in web3: devs, designers, product people, marketers, writers, artists, founders, and so on.

This aligns with our mission to “accelerate the education and impact of a new wave of web3 builders” and simplifies the experience for everyone.

This new experience will be anchored to the DAOs updated OKRs for S2:

VIBE Foster a fun and safe member experience
LEARN Provide DAO members with high-quality learning opportunities
BUILD Support DAO members to elevate their impact on the world
GOVERN Position the DAO structurally and financially for long-term success

Domains of Operations, Team and OKRs

This proposal is broken into constituent teams: Community, Partnerships, Jobs, Agency, and Operations.

Community

Team

Community Managers (TBD via election), Onboarding Leads (@allWiseee, TBD via @allWiseee), Wellness Lead (Emm)

Description

The Community Team is responsible for ensuring a safe and enjoyable environment for members via live community events and asynchronous interactions. This reimagined community budget emphasises grassroots community events.

Proposed role definitions and budget: [DRAFT] Community Social Budget

OKRs

VIBE
O1 Foster a fun and safe Member experience Owner
KR Minimum of one social event per week CMs
KR Monthly Town Hall (final Friday of each calendar month) CMs
KR Host 2 Wellness Sessions per month Wellness Lead
KR Minimum of bi-weekly Onboarding Sessions Onboarding Leads
KR Draft and implement a Code of Conduct Community Team/Stewards
LEARN
O2 Provide DAO members with high-quality learning opportunities Owner
KR Minimum of one live streaming or study group facilitation per week CMs

Partnerships

Team

Partner Leads (@Colin4ward, @Bobbay), Fulfilment Coordinator Lead (@kayprasla), DevRel Team

Description

Partner Leads (PL) engage potential partners, close partner deals, manage accounts, and take briefs on content before appropriate hand-offs.

Fulfilment Coordinators (FC) communicate with partners and DAO members to ensure deliverables have champions, get scheduled, are completed and are marketed.

DevRel Team includes the members producing the deliverables associated with partnerships: blog posts, newsletter issues, DevNTell episodes, podcast episodes, Twitter Spaces, workshops, and so on.

OKRs

VIBE
O1 Foster a fun and safe Member experience Owner
KR Produce bi-weekly podcast episodes DevRel
LEARN
O2 Provide DAO members with high-quality learning opportunities Owner
KR Host a weekly workshop with partners DevRel
KR Publish a weekly educational blog post with partner DevRel
KR Host a weekly DevNTell with partner ad reads DevRel
KR Host two Twitter Spaces with partners per month DevRel
BUILD
O3 Support DAO members to elevate their impact on the world Owner
KR Publish a weekly newsletter issue highlighting opportunities DevRel
GOVERN
O4 Position the DAO structurally and financially for long-term success Owner
KR $40,000 in monthly partnerships revenue Partnerships
KR Well-documented partner-facing onboarding documentation Partnerships

D_D Jobs

Team

D_D Jobs Lead: @mannyornothing

Description

Priority support for Season partners, generating new revenue streams for D_D Jobs (direct subscriptions, referral fees), Marketing and curating job postings.

Responsibilities:

  • Curating the Talent Collective: reviewing/verifying credentials/experience
  • Priority hiring support to DAO Season Partners
  • Marketing: Twitter (including Spaces), Discord Events

OKRs

LEARN
O2 Provide DAO members with high-quality learning opportunities Owner
KR Host at least two Twitter Spaces per month with hiring managers D_D Jobs
BUILD
O3 Support DAO members to elevate their impact on the world Owner
KR 250 qualified members of Talent Collective D_D Jobs
GOVERN
O4 Position the DAO structurally and financially for long-term success Owner
KR $20,000 in revenue by end of Season 2 from Job Board D_D Jobs

Agency

Team

Agency Admins: @Gordo, @Erik_Knobl, @luan

Description

While D_D Agency provides services to organisations external to the DAO, this proposal includes Agency as the caretaker of Developer DAO’s website and brand assets.

Responsibilities:

  • Complete the design and development of the new DAO website
  • Create and maintain related brand assets

OKRs

GOVERN
O4 Position the DAO structurally and financially for long-term success Owner
KR Deliver and maintain the updated DAO website and related assets Agency

Operations

Team

Operations Lead: @kempsterrrr

Description

Coordinate D_D Labs, ensure accounting and legal needs are met for the Foundation itself, including Contributor agreements and agreements for the relationship between the DAO and its Sub-DAOs.

Responsibilities:

  • Accounting and bookkeeping: AR/AP, expenses
  • Financial reporting: Monthly Balance Sheet and P&L posted to the forum
  • Partner Agreements: Ensure contracts are agreed, understood, and in place with all of the DAOs partners
  • Contributor Agreements: Ensure agreements are in place with all Contributors paid directly from the Foundation’s Treasury.
  • Legal compliance: Liaise with Foundation Supervisor to ensure proposed Governance changes, Sub-DAO activities, and Member activities do not breach the laws related to the Foundation.
  • Process improvement: Ensure each contributor’s role and any processes relevant to their work are documented clearly.

OKRs

GOVERN
O4 Position the DAO structurally and financially for long-term success Owner
KR Create legal template agreement for Sub-DAOs with their entity for approvocal from Stewards Operations
KR All contributors have signed a contributor agreement with the Foundation Operations
KR All AC/AP Is tracked and finances are reported monthly to the forum Operations
KR 100% of submitted AP/AR processed on time (before the end of each month) Operations
KR All partner/sponsor contracts are prepared and delivered Operations
KR Liaise with Directors and maintain the good standing of the Foundation Operations

Budget Request

While the following items are labeled fixed costs, payment is not due if the deliverables are not completed. The intention behind labeling them fixed costs is that these tasks are available for completion regardless of the number of Season partners. If, for example, two out of four possible workshops are completed in a given month, then half of the workshop total is due that month.

Given that partnership and other deliverables were undertaken in good faith from the inception of Season 2, proposal-relevant work completed as of Feb 1 (Season 2 start date) may be billed upon this proposal’s passing.

Monthly Fixed Costs USD CODE
Fulfilment Coordination Ongoing onboarding/process improvement $2,000 600
Blog Ongoing editing of the blog $500 150
Twitter Spaces 2 per month $500 150
Newsletter 4 per month $1,000 300
Podcasts 2 per month $1,000 300
Workshops 4 per month $1,000 300
DevNTell 4 per month $1,000 300
Jobs Ongoing management of D_D Jobs $2,000 600
Community Community Mgmt, Onboarding, Wellness $6,400 1,920
Agency Deploy/maintain DAO website and assets $1,000 300
Ops Ongoing monthly $5,000 1,500
Total Monthly $21,400 6,420

The DAO’s partnership model rewards some roles based on the number of partners we’re engaged with, given that their workload increases with each additional partner. A standard partnership agreement (known as the “Fren” package) is $10k USD/mo.

Variable Costs (per Partner per Month) CODE (per partner)
Partner Lead (PL) 10.00% 300
Fulfilment Coordinator (FC) 10.00% 300
Partner Blog Bounties 5.50% 165

Given these figures, this budget is operating at a profit with three partners. (Break-even point at ~2.87 partners.) Note that this is not D_D’s complete financial picture. Not included here is any additional costs requested via other budgets or other potential revenue streams, including from D_D Jobs.

Legal Status

For Season 2, D_D Labs is expected to operate within The Developer DAO Foundation. Given that the activities in this budget are core to the DAO’s operations, Labs will operate without its own multisig, and the DAO Stewards will maintain final governance authority.

Drawbacks

  • Delegating these responsibilities to specific groups may restrict the number of folks who can contribute to help build the DAO’s member experience compared to a bounty or task-based system.
  • There is no explicit model or process for introducing new contributors to Labs roles. This will be left to the discretion of each team.
  • There are good questions to be asked about which initiatives ultimately belong within D_D Labs, and if this type of grouping is superior to individual budgets or any other paradigm. This concept is experimental and should be rigorously evaluated before it continues into Season 3.
2 Likes

If you wouldn’t mind taking a second look at the budget table, I would appreciate it. It isn’t clear to me in the moment how it’s functioning.

Can you elaborate on the terms “Fren” Monthly Sales Price and Break Even Fren Sales? Not everyone knows the meaning and the details of them.

EDIT: No $CODE request?

Proposals here regarding $CODE Rewards against USD Rewards - D_D Rewards Calculations - Google Sheets

This sheet is a template for calculating $CODE Rewards across the DAO.
USD/CODE 1
USD Hourly Rate ÂŁ 50.00
$CODE Reduction for USD Rewards 50%

The budget table is unclear for me and also no CODE token as budget?

1 Like

had a redo on the presentation of the budget section. hopefully more clear now; lmk if another view is preferable.

if it needs to be said explicitly: this proposal doesn’t account for the full DAO financial picture on its own. will lean on @kempsterrrr to provide a global view of finances via one of his apps if that’s what folks are looking for. maybe follow up in Discord if that needs talking out.

cc/ @Erik_Knobl @meowy

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Thanks. It’s more clear now.
Labs will not request a $CODE allocation?

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yes, intention is for CODE tokens to be included in the proposal to reward these contributors with governance weight as well. @kempsterrrr was advocating for a particular formula above; hoping to ‘finalize’ whatever the number or formula is in the next day or so.

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Would be ideal to have the snapshot vote on Wednesday, to have a definition on budgets next march 1.
A suggestion would be to implement 1 USD = 1 $CODE. Easy to track.

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I think that formula above is something we should explore in more detail after S2 Budgets are defined. For now, I propose the following formula:

Assuming a USD hourly rate of $50…

Total Monthly USD Reward / $50 hourly rate = number of hours

Numbers of hours X existing $CODE hourly rate = Code Reward

A worked example:

Contributor monthly rate = $5,000
Number of hours (rate / USD hourly rate = 5,000 / 50 = 100
CODE rewards (CODE rate X hours) = 100 * 15 = 1,500 $CODE /month

What do we think?

Keeps it the same for now and then suggest we can table a separate discussion for re-evaluating $CODE Rewards across the board once these budgets are finalised.

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Given the situation, this is hard to say, but if the calculations in this proposal remain the same, I cannot perform my role in S2. The time required to perform these tasks (far more than S1) is not equivalent to the return or the risk associated with ensuring we remain compliant, particularly when my name is on everything.

This doesn’t come close to covering living costs, and I won’t have enough time to generate significant funds from elsewhere at this rate. The minimum for me to be able to perform these roles is $5,000.

I appreciate this may not go down well, and seem unfair, but it is what it is, and I can’t put myself at risk like this. Happy to work on reducing this bus factor in S2 and generate funds for myself elsewhere but I’m not prepared to perform this role at that rate

Posted that on the wrong proposal, sorry, moving to [DRAFT] DAO Ops

1 Like
CODE Rewards
Fren Sales Price $ 10,000.00
Variable Costs
Partner Lead (PL) 10.00% 300.00
Fulfilment Coordinator (FC) 10.00% 300.00
Partner Blog Bounties 5.50% 165.00
$ 2,550.00
Fixed Costs
Fulfilment Coordination Ongoing improvements to onboarding/process $ 2,000.00 600.00
Blog Ongoing editing of the blog $ 500.00 150.00
Twitter Spaces 2 per month $ 500.00 150.00
Newsletter 4 per month $ 1,000.00 300.00
Podcasts 2 per month $ 1,000.00 300.00
Workshops 4 per month $ 1,000.00 300.00
DevNTell 4 per month $ 1,000.00 300.00
Jobs Ongoing management of D_D Jobs $ 2,000.00 600.00
Community Community Mgmt, Onboarding, Wellness $ 6,400.00 1,920.00
Agency Deploy/maintain DAO website and assets $ 1,000.00 300.00
Ops Ongoing monthly $ 5,000.00 1,500.00
Total Fixed Costs $ 21,400.00 6,420.00
Break Even Fren Sales 2.87

No changes to USD budgets, $CODE calculated using formula in previous comment:

1 Like

Expanding on what Kemp said above on code rewards in this proposal. I can only speak for DD Jobs as an example. I originally requested $4000 as my budget for the required work. I lowered my ask to $2000, so more of the $ could be allocated to community building. I would be nice for folks who are willing to lower there budget, could be rewarded the portion they are willing to not take in dollars they receive in code. In my example that would be 10,000 code per month.

2 Likes

I think this is a huge step in the right direction. It’s not perfect but I think it’s ready. Thank you for everyone who put so much work into getting it to this point. I’d like to see it elevated.

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I get where this is coming from but I think it’s on specious grounds given the somewhat arbitrary starting point. Worth considering for future budgets.

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My main point is that I see code rewards as a direct community building reward. The numbers on this proposal do not add up to any correlation in real world valuations and need to be adjusted.

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Does the Mentorship Programme fit into this picture?

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It does not. Happy to support you in creating a budget proposal, though :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I’m not sure I understood this proposal - is it about delegating the operational duties of the DAO (onboarding/running “things”) to D_D Labs?

Where does the DAO’s Governance fit here? Just supervising? Should there be any concerns about the overlap of DAO stewards and Labs team?

I know I’m most likely stirring things up with these questions, but why are we including things such as Jobs or Agency into the Labs? I get that they fit into the V/L/B/G experience, but wouldn’t they be better off as sub-DAOs themselves?

TIA.

2 Likes

appreciate the questions. will share a few thoughts, just speaking for myself. probably good to document some thoughts while still fresh too, for next time around. tl;dr – i view this budgeting exercise as one of many experiments to come.

smol context: original version of this proposal imagined a sub-dao with its own multisig and an intent to create a separate legal entity to make it easier to run IRL events and so on. that opened a can of worms about decision-making authority, who takes on liability, etc. in the interest of time/incremental progress, i suggested dumbing it down to be basically a group budget, still responsible to the Stewards for ultimate arbitration.

re: “Should there be any concerns about the overlap of DAO stewards and Labs team?”, its possible/likely we’ll run into at least one edge case this season, but i think much of the time it’ll be relatively straightforward. e.g., if one of the teams is responsible for four deliverables in a month, and only deliver two, Stewards can deny a full request and only pay out the two.

certainly there is trust put into each team to ‘own’ their domain. some roles aren’t as prescriptive as others and offer more flexibility. generally i see that as a feature, not a bug. regular budget cycles, and in some cases, elections, are hopefully a good way to keep people honest, accountable, and thinking long-term.

couple of advantages to this group budget approach that i’ve observed:

  • provides a more comprehensive look at dao activity and the ‘cost’ of trade-offs
  • included a wide range of voices from all around the dao during its creation
  • one instead of five proposals moving through governance

some downsides:

  • (to address one of your questions,) i don’t yet see a good ‘formula’ to definitively answer which activities should be included in this sub-dao
  • increased complexity – more time required to think through each component, and debate on one team can hold up the whole proposal
  • it’s not a complete picture of dao finances. a separate process still required to combine all proposals to view all trade-offs.

summary: i think this proposal is a valuable step forward for the dao, but my loosely held preference would be to trend toward smaller budgets/more sub-daos in future iterations. analogy: smaller the PR, better the review.

1 Like

These are great questions :slight_smile:

One clarification - Agency is only referenced here as they’ll be allocated $1k monthly to work on the DAOs website. They are forming their own sub-dao, see [DRAFT] Agency Sub-DAO

At a high level, I’d like to see more independent Sub-DAOs that can create value, with some of that being returned to the DAO so Members can re-allocate that value to support others to do so their own thing. Over the next few weeks/months, it will be interesting to see what makes sense to stay in Labs vs being spun out.

Regarding overlap between Stewards / Labs - I agree with @wolovim that we will likely encounter issues. his season which we’ll need to iron out. The Stewards role is quite a lot of effort and responsibility for (currently) very little reward, so it’s not surprising there is a big overlap. In an ideal world we’d reward everyone in a meaningful way but the treasury is just not large enough yet.

one out come of this budgeting process for me at least is reviewing how we’re calculating rewards both [DRAFT] Rewarding Contributions in $CODE and other assets.