The Agency’s mission is to explore how a DAO can offer professional services to other entities. This involves activating capital cycles to reinvest profits into the DAO’s community, achieved by professionally activating its members while staying yet in the DAO and not just by passing by.
These are the conclusions I’m bringing with me after these two years:
Season 2021 - 2022
- Development of the concept within the DAO, focusing on venture building.
Hypothesis:
Assemble a team of senior professionals from DAO members to offer services and collaboratively generate ventures. A portion of the profits will be reinvested.
Results:
- There was a high level of activity and numerous project proposals. The initial group generated many venture ideas, leading to significant momentum in acquiring grants.
- Establishing trust within a group of individuals who have not met face-to-face is challenging.
- Service Providing: Approximately 80% of project proposals were either impractical or lacked substance, while the remaining faced trust issues. There are complications in establishing effective enterprise business development relationships for service provision.
- Transitioned to a full venture builder model via grants to fund incubated early projects.
- The scarcity of entrepreneurial talent/mindset necessary for projects success and continuity becomes a problem in the venture building model.
Season 2022 - 2023
Focus on changes and simplifying the model.
- Shift focus to exclusively providing services until an optimal model for service provision is established. Develop a business development profile and funnel.
- Streamline Agency to the fundamentals of web service provision.
- Establish a well-defined relationship with the higher-level DAO, with clear incentives. Agency commits to returning 10% of revenue.
- Formulate a straightforward and focused service offering, clarifying the scope of work.
Agency Deck
Results:
- Engagement levels were low, compounded by unfavourable market conditions.
- A lack of complete transparency hindered clarity on necessary changes and iterations in order to fit the market niche needed, needs clarity and constant iteration towards find that market segment which Agency is the right spot.
- There is a need for a fully incentivized business development role to jumpstart the process, but the new budget constraints complicate offering a fixed amount for this position for next season.
- The current incentives are insufficient to activate the structure effectively due to a lack of economic, vision, trust, or interest motivations to collectively propel the initiative forward.
- Faced reality across the board of DAOs economics + incentives of collective actions in the market.
Tragedy of the commons
Reading these days: The Dawn of Everything
Q1 24 Proposal discussion
Posting this for ideas and discussion regarding the Q1 2024 Proposal and in order to make the most of the current situation.
Views:
The proposal should focus on effectively addressing the business development needs and identifying the market niche that works, along with communication strategies to move the project forward.
Service providing should be functional. It is a simple formula. The complexity and lack of incentives are found in the community aspect.
An Agency is not a business I would follow up individually myself (other options are more economically promising). If it must exist, it should be a collective action, serving the DAO and having proper incentives for all the agents that participate of it.
I think it yet make complete sense for Agency to exist within the DAO community’s composition and mission.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, folks.
Best