Labs Budget - 2023-Q3

Labs Budget - 2023-Q3

Authors: @kempsterrrr , @mannyornothing , @Billyjitsu , @PSkinnerTech , @allWiseee , @kayprasla @jamiebones @drop_knowledge (everyone who has attended VIBES calls)

Supporting Steward(s): @Erik_Knobl

Support conversations: Agency, DDW, Academy, Mentorship

Summary

Labs budget for Q3 2023. Introduces a new partnerships model, including preferred revenue share with Sub-DAOs and updated roles and responsibilities in Labs.

Motivation

This proposal seeks to learn from last quarter and improve what weā€™re doing in the following ways:

  1. Bring the focus squarely back on the community > and partners and provide a consistent experience for Members.
  2. Establish a stable and scalable revenue model.
  3. Directly support the operations and growth of all Sub-DAOs by sharing partnerships revenue and ensuring all Sub-DAOs have the support of Labs in marketing, community engagement & partnerships.
  4. More clearly define roles in Labs, increasing responsibility, accountability, and rewards with a flat rate across roles, with room for more flexible working via bounties.

Last quarter Labs covered Community, Partnerships, Jobs and Operations and proposed some support for website development with Agency.

This structure has worked OK. It allowed the team to focus and work better together but did not serve or support the other Sub-DAOs. We propose positioning Labs as the ā€œcore teamā€ for the team that helps the entire DAO/Sub-DAOs, not just itself, succeed and grow together.

Scope of Work

Updated Partnerships Model & Community-Focused Experience

The Labs team has been working hard to figure out a new model that funds the DAO, allowing us to shift back to a more community-focused > partner-focused experience.

Preferred Partners

The foundation for this new model is ā€œPreferred Partnersā€.

The goal is to form longer-term partnerships (min 3 months) with trusted providers in the space for tooling/products/services our community needs: RPC, Wallet, Exchange, Infrastructure & Storage.

Rather than needing to host one of the events for individual partners, this approach allows us to host community events that elevate the education and impact of our Members whilst recommending preferred partners via CTAs to their services: YouTube/Luma descriptions, Emails, Community Documentation etc.

For this model to have maximum impact, weā€™re hoping to extend these partnerships across our Sub-DAOs - i.e. Academy uses the ā€œPreferred RPCā€ in their course, and Agency uses the ā€œPreferred RPCā€ in their projects (where possible). We all share in the revenue generated from the partnerships to fund operations and growth.

Weā€™ve opened conversations with Academy and Agency on these points and aim to find a solution that works well for everyone.

Hackathons, vibesIRL, Merch, Jobs and Fellowships

On top of this ongoing revenue from preferred partners, Labs will drive more revenue from these areas to further grow the DAO treasury and be able to pay more Contributors to help improve the Community experience and grow the DAO Treasury.

Merch, Fellowship and vibesIRL, were each previously delegated to other teams. Our experience in the last quarter showed us that this separation only made coordination harder for domains that are so core to the Member experience. Weā€™ve agreed with each team to bring this work back into the Labs team whilst we establish and scale this model.

Supporting the wider DAO / Other Sub-DAOs

A vital benefit of this updated model is more explicitly supporting other Sub-DAOs. We aim to do this in the following ways.

Revenue share from preferred partners

Where Sub-DAOs are happy to support the preferred partner model, weā€™ll share 10% of the revenue from each preferred partner. If we hit current targets, this would amount to $2,500/month to both Academy and Agency.

Marketing, Partnerships & Community Engagement

The Labs team would like to work with Academy and Agency to support the work theyā€™re doing directly. At the moment, we hope to see this playing out in the following ways, however, details pending conversations with the team and may evolve:

  1. Sub-DAOs have dedicated time/space within existing marketing/community events to promote what theyā€™re doing, seek/funnel contributors etc. (i.e. area on Town Hall, in the newsletter, Twitter Spaces etc.)
  2. The Labs partnership team will promote the services theyā€™re offering to the partners weā€™re already speaking with (Already discussing lining up paid partners for Academy and can do the same to create more inbound deal flow for Agency)
Sub-DAO Coordinator role

Weā€™ve also budgeted to fund a Sub-DAO Coordinator role for each Sub-DAO, which allocates $1,000 USDC per month to fund someone to handle essential functions of the Sub-DAO: meeting cadence, rewards allocation, and documentation.

Community-Driven Experience

The north star for this new model is an updated experience anchored in providing value for all Members, helping to increase their education and impact in the space.

We aim to achieve this in the following ways:

Regular Cadence of Community Events:

Weā€™re curating a regular cadence of community events we repeat each month anchored in providing value for Members. Some of the more solid ideas are:

  1. Builder sessions: regular slots each week where 1/2 Contributors will be paid to be available to provide help/support to any Member that brings along a technical/product/whatever problem.
  2. Regular, Community-driven Twitter Space Panels: Spaces around topics (for example, zk) where we invite experts in the space to discuss topics the community has signalled an interest in).
  3. VIBES: Contributors paid specifically to host VIBES each week as part of the community team

Weā€™re also considering a few other things, such as continuing the Wellness sessions with Emm and MVP/Feature demo sessions for Members to get feedback on what theyā€™re building from other members. Weā€™d LOVE to hear some ideas here for regular activities the community would like to see happen.

At the end of each month, we have a Hackathon, and at the end of the quarter, we run a fellowship program with partners like Press Start Cap x Developer DAO Fellowship.

Here is an image of what the average month might look like under this model:

NB - Weā€™re actively seeking feedback from the community on this experience. Please share any thoughts, feedback, wishes, and critiques.

CODE Rewards for every activity

CODE has been underutilised in the last quarter. We propose allocating CODE rewards, or rewards pools, to the most community activities that help us achieve our mission.

The goal here is to ā€œspendā€ CODE to incentivise and reward the things that make the community grow and more valuable for everyone, similar to how a DeFi protocol might issue yields to attract liquidity and make their protocol more useful for users.

Significantly, this will also help us recruit more members and further decentralise voting power in the DAO into the hands of Members.

More specific detail in the budget section below.

Domain of Operations & Team

This proposal delegates much of the DAOā€™s core experience to Labs, establishing them as the core team responsible for: Community Management, Partnerships, Marketing and DAO Growth Operations.

Our experience last quarter has further strengthened the view, at least in our eyes, that we need to increase accountability and responsibility for such fundamental functions and, in turn, reward those performing these roles more reasonably whilst still ensuring we provide flexibility to support a wider pool of contributors and an ability to experiment with the experience being created.

Team

Role Contributor Role Description
Community Lead BillyJitsu Link
Scholarship Lead iamsamcodes Link
Partnerships Lead mannyornothing Link
Content Lead Patrick Skinner Link
Growth Lead kempsterrrrr Link

The folks performing the roles above will be signers on the to-be set-up Labs treasury.

OKRs

VIBE
O1 Foster a fun and safe Member experience Owner
KR Consistent cadence of community events BillyJitsu
KR Solicit feedback from Members to improve their experience BillyJitsu
KR Organise vibesIRL event for Instanbul kempsterrrr
KR Release DAO merch store kempsterrrr
LEARN
O2 Provide DAO members with high-quality learning opportunities Owner
KR Weekly learning workshops with Members BillyJitsu
KR Monthly Twitter panels with industry experts Kempsterrrr
KR 2 Builder office hours a week to provide technical support to Member BillyJitsu
BUILD
O3 Support DAO members to elevate their impact on the world Owner
KR 1 mini hackathon per month Manny
KR 1 Fellowship program per quarter Dropknowledge
KR Jobs made available for members from 2 Venture Frens portfolios Dropknowledge
GOVERN
O4 Position the DAO structurally and financially for long-term success Owner
KR 5,000 USDC added to the treasury each month Manny
KR 2,500 USDC shared with both Agency and Academy each month Manny
KR 500 new members with sufficient CODE tokens to acces the server kempsterrrr
KR Distribute at least 75% of request Member rewards budget kempsterrrr

Budget Request (Including value returned to the DAO)

The full breakdown of the labā€™s budget can be found here - in CODE and USDC.

USDC

This budget makes Labs sustainable whilst returning 10% of revenue to the DAO and 10% of preferred partner revenue to both the Agency and Academy to help fund their operations.

While this model is being established and we transition back to Sub-DAOs having their SAFE independent of the DAO treasury, we request that funds in the DAO treasury provide the difference to cover contributor and infrastructure/tooling expenses for Labs, Agency and Academy.

The maximum potential cost assets to the DAO Treasury in USDC is $ 28,399.65/month - for all expenses listed in the budget breakdown here.

This cost assumes no revenue generated by Labs.

We aim to reach breakeven in the first month based on ongoing preferred partner conversations and a potential mini-hackathon for July. However, we may not reach breakeven until August.

If we donā€™t reach breakeven in July, the request from the treasury would be to cover the difference between revenue - expenses.

CODE

Our request for the $CODE budget has two parts.

Contributor rewards

Monthly contributor rewards are calculated using the following formula:

(Monthly reward in USDC / Flat hourly rate in USDC) * 15 CODE/hour

The baseline request for $CODE Contributor Rewards in Labs and for Agenyc, and Academyā€™s Sub-DAO Coordinators is therefore:

(Monthly Contributor Rewards in CODE / 50) * 15

($ 25,000.00 / 50) * 15 = 7,500 $CODE

Given there are two roles with a commissions structure - Partnership Lead and Venture Lead - we further request the CODE to cover the CODE rewards should both of these roles hit their full targets.

On target Partnership Lead commission - $1,500/month

Equivalent CODE reward - (1,500 / 50) * 15 = 450 CODE

On Target Venture Lead commission - $2,000

Equivalent CODE reward - (2,000 / 50) * 15 = 600 CODE

Total CODE request per month = 7,500 + 450 + 600 = 8,550 CODE

Total CODE Request for Q3 Contributors is = 25,650 CODE

Member Rewards

In the same way a DeFi Protocol uses yield to attract liquidity and encourage trading, weā€™d like to use code to incentivise and reward the activity that creates value for themselves, the DAO and the ecosystem (i.e. attending vibes, workshops, submitting to hackathons etc.).

Important second-order impacts of this are:

  1. Decentralise the DAO faster by allocating more $CODE to Members
  2. Grow DAO membership

Below is a breakdown of the CODE request to reward Members:

Activity CODE Rewards Model Month CODE Budget Season CODE Budget (Max)
VIBES 15 CODE per NFT Claim (max 50 per NFT) 3,000 12,000
Workshop Attendees 45 CODE per NFT Claim (max 50 per NFT) 4,500 18,000
Hackathon Project Submission 360 per verified submission (3 -hacks, avg 20 subs) 5,400 21,600
Discord Praise System 5000 Bounty Pool Per Month 375 1,500
Twitter Space Giveaway 5 Memberships (400 * 5 * 3) 6,000 24000
DevNTell attendee 15 CODE per attendee Kudos NFT Claim (max 50 per NFT) 3,000 12,000
DevNTell Speaker 400 CODE per speaker Kudos Claim 1,600 6,400
95,500

Weā€™d welcome other ideas for activities that should be incentivised and rewarded.

Important note - The calculations for Twitter space giveaways are based on the current requirement of 400 CODE to enter the server. Once this proposal is passed, the labsā€™ team would like to open a discussion with the DAO to significantly reduce this threshold and economic barrier for entry into the community.

Any change to this threshold would be reflected in the funds allocated for these giveaways. Assuming the DAO supports reducing down from 400 CODE, the labs team request permission to re-allocate that CODE to test other ways to reward Members.

Total CODE

The total CODE request, therefore, for Q3 is:

25,650 (Contributors) + 95,500 (Members) = 121,150 CODE

Drawbacks

  • There is a reasonable chance there will be a currently unknown USDC cost to the DAO Treasury depending on how quickly Labs can breakeven. That said, it should be low and once breakeven is reached this budget will directly grow the treasury and open up opportunities for the DAO to allocate those funds.
  • This proposal formally establishes Labs as the DAOā€™s core team with responsibility and accountability for community, marketing, partnerships, content and operations - a high level of trust is requested.
  • This budget does not currently account for Mentorship efforts. However, conversations with Piablo and co are ongoing to define a path where their work can be directly supported and better integrated into the wider Member experience.
  • Some of the roles defined still require further, and likely ongoing, definition, which leaves some uncertainty in the exact value they will create.
  • The CODE request is equivalent to 1% of our treasury.
  • Some conversations regarding how best to coordinate this new model between Sub-DAOs are ongoing which means some details are yet to be defined. Unknowns always present some risk but we know what they are and are actively collaborating with Agency an Academy to define them.
  • Our mechanisms for distributing the $CODE Member rewards are not fully defined after this news from Mintkudos.
5 Likes

A couple of quick notes:

  1. Massive thanks to everyone who has helped work towards this budget across teams. There has been lots of meaningful discussion with the DAOā€™s best interests first.
  2. There may be a few small changes to this proposal in the coming days, but nothing major and any changes will be highlighted. This assumes no significant will changes were made based on Member feedback.
2 Likes

Just to clarify: does this mean they will be the new signers of the treasury?

1 Like

No, sorry there are some missing gaps here regarding DAO treasury > Sub-DAO Treasury.

The immediate impact is - @stewards remain signers of the DAOs treasury. A new SAFE is opened up for Labs (Agency + Academy can use their existing ones) where all transactions are managed under this model, including the % share back to the DAO and other Sub-DAOs.

Need to determine signers of Labs SAFE - will clarify with the team and update.

There are a few drivers behind this:

  1. Separating income/expenses for each sub-dao from the main DAO (good for empowering sub-DAOs and easier reporting)
  2. Reducing bus factor on main treasury signers (much more reasonable to ask paid active contributors to process sigs/payments)
  3. Reduces risk on treasury as fewer transactions need to happen

Iā€™d also suggested we immediately allocate all request $CODE budget to Sub-DAOs on the passing of proposals, rather than month-by-month as we have previously done, reduce blockers and minimise the need for ongoing governance/engagement from Stewards - weā€™ve never managed to successfully produce and critique month reports for example, although am working on making this easier.

I appreciate all the work that has gone into the DAO as a whole to get us this far, and how you have diligently put this proposal together as almost a summary of that work, but then added to it+ with a view to the future.

10% goes back to the DAO treasury. I know the question is hypothetical, but what might that 10% be used for in the future? What sort of real-world value can it provide? Why 10% and not 20% for example if weā€™re talking about sustainability?

I would love to hear the thoughts of the ā€˜contributorsā€™ on the payroll as to how ā€˜theirā€™ reward fits into the model of the DAO as a whole regarding these percentages. And what sort of compromises they feel they face accepting these percentages e.g. in the context of short to mid term, and also mid to long term (please do interpret short, mid and long term in your own way, it would help give insight into how folks are thinking).

Disclaimer to readers, I work in Academy, so I stand to benefit directly from this proposal in its present form. Iā€™m more than open to discuss what sustainability and regeneration means me and how to achieve it, from my perspective.

2 Likes

This looks solid. Iā€™m interested in Scholarship Lead position. Have relevant experience receiving and distributing scholarship funds and organizing events online and IRL.

Couple of thoughts from the perspective of someone whoā€™s been mentoring 2 mentees in the mentorship program.

  • itā€™s great to have monthly mini-hacks as a call to action for my mentees when they have a project idea or are looking for teammates to help them build.
  • would +1 anything that makes it easier for my menteeā€™s to share and present their progress and receive feedback
  • would +1 code incentives for workshop attendees.
  • is there some mechanism for well-connected dao members to vouch for or recommend high-quality developers (or committed learners) to join the dao?
  • is there some sort of proof of project that people who participate in the hackathons get? So that can build reputation for shipping it?
  • Iā€™d like to lead more Teach Anything on a monthly basis. I hosted one for the first official Community Workshop, but would prefer to have these be size-capped and recorded, then uploaded to Youtube. They thrive on direct connection between attendees and teachers, which doesnā€™t work when streaming to Youtube.
  • I love the idea of having a revenue model around reliable solution providers, such as Thirdweb, and featuring them in the content of Academy and the hackathons. It gives us as a DAO alignment on a tech-stack and expertise that can later be valuable.
  • Iā€™d like to see more cross-pollination of initiatives, such as progress in Academy (or lack of it) triggering a call to action to join the mentorship program (as a mentee). Or presenting a workshop getting an automatic invitation to mentor in the mentorship program. Or for me to have an overview of all the topics and solutions in the academy program in the back of my mind, so I can recommend it to my mentees. As it is, I do my best to forward links to my mentees and friends about upcoming workshops etc.

Iā€™m Tippi Fifestarr on Discord. Also, still waiting on the CODE rewards for applying for the Press Start and recommending a friend who applied and was apparently interviewed.

Thanks, @Piablo :heart: Iā€™m equally grateful for our on-going conversations regarding the mentorship program and academy. This is a big team effort :hugs:

This is ultimately up to token holders submitting proposals to allocate funds. That said, imho we should introduce some guidance here to ensure the treasury grows over time (i.e. we donā€™t just spend it all) and we always have the funds to pay the Foundationā€™s yearly costs (currently ~$35k).

I suggested in here one thing Iā€™d to see happen with funds is buying back the CODE token from the open market. I also suggested in a few places that, once the treasury grows sufficiently to fund it, we run regular decentralised grant programs like ENS Small Grants where an amount of USDC is distributed to projects in a decentralised way where members submit ideas and other members vote on them.

These are just my ideas, though. I would love to see a discussion opened on this in another forum post.

Very valid question. We tried to balance the sustainability of the new model with the sustainability of the DAO and based on the calculations in the spreadsheet, tbh 10% just felt like the right number to strike that balance.

Which percentages are you referring to: DAO share, sharing with other Sub-DAOs, or both?

Personally, they donā€™t feel like compromises to me, felt like to me the right balance to ensure the sustainability of the DAO and the ability to support other Sub-DAOs.

Thanks :heart:

Thanks for putting yourself forward - I should have been clearer about the status of this position. After speaking with the DDW team who ran this program last quarter. As theyā€™re not applying for a budget moving forward, we agreed to bring that work into labs to be run by one of their team. This is TBD because conversation to confirm theyā€™re happy with the role hasnā€™t happened yet, as theyā€™ve been away. Should they not be happy with that the role (either description or practicalities - i.e. contract), then weā€™d open this up.

We have a lot of work to do to introduce a more structured and fairways of choosing contributors. Right now, itā€™s very much been a social method between existing contributors, but as the teams grow, I would love to see an application and interview process established for each role. Sadly, weā€™re not there yet, and I apologise if that feels frustrating or unfair.

Assuming this model is successful I hope over time it will significantly increase the opportunities for Members to become contributors with meaningful and well-rewarded roles either in Labs, Academy, Agency, Mentorship or anything else created in the future.

ā€“

@imnote.eth - thanks a bunch for your perspective on mentorship.

Not currently. Be interested to know more about how youā€™d see something like this working, maybe a post on another thread to open a discussion around the possibility.

Weā€™ll be issuing NFTs to everyone who submits to the hackathon using https://mintkudos.xyz/

@Billyjitsu is stewarding a budget for holding dedicated time in the calendar to support members on whatever theyā€™re struggling with. the intention is 1 hour, twice a week, where someone will be there to help folks out. I believe he has someone in mind for this already, but worth reaching out to him directly.

Over time as the model grows weā€™re expecting to grow the team to offer many more of these kinds of valuable opportunities for Members to get more value from their membership and become paid contributors to deliver such ideas.

Totally agree regarding need for a sustainable revenue model around every thing we do. Many DAOs have struggled to figure this out and it would be a huge achievement for everyone if we can do that here.

Weā€™re working with the academy team atm to line up some ā€œpaid partnersā€ to host course content on V2 of the platform - either written by them and maintain by us , or they fund someone in the DAO to create the course - the latter if it happens might be another amazing way for Members to become contributors and really create value for the DAO and be paid well for it. Very much TBD.

One thing weā€™re trying to avoid though is locking the DAO down to a specific tech stack which is why weā€™re not pursuing a preferred L2 for example, or only being an Ethereum DAO as we feel that is limiting what builders can create. However seeing a protocol on academy would be a-ma-zing - and still leaves members with the choice of how to build.

With the preferred providers, weā€™ve tried to identify things that are necessary to build in the space: (wallet, exchange, RPC, Storage etc) but agnostic to the underlying L1/L2/whatever.

This is one of the core goals of the new model - coordinating the different sub-daos/teams to create a more streamlined and connected member experience that funnels folks through each opportunity in the DAO. We have a standing Coordination call each Thursday at 3p m UTC and the intention of this space is to coordinate between groups so everyone is supporting each other - please come long.

Some opportunities for coordination Iā€™d love to see are:

  1. Mentors leading cohorts through academy tracks
  2. Mentors leading a team of juniors through a hackathon
  3. Regular twitter space highlight builders in the DAO, whether thatā€™s a project in Agency, a hackathon team who submitted, or just a member doing cool stuff.

Think itā€™s worth sharing a slide from the updated (but still WIP) partner deck which feels like a nice visualisation of the Member journey in the DAOā€¦

Really appreciate all the feedback :handshake:

Iā€™ll follow up with @drop_knowledge about the status of the CODE rewards youā€™re missing - sorry about that :pray:

1 Like

Great work @kempsterrrr and team! One request iā€™d like to make to the CODE rewards is an allocation for DevNTell attendees and speakers. The attendees can follow the same model as the VIBES attendees (15 CODE per claimed Kudos up to a max of 50); however, Iā€™d like to also reward people who come on as a speaker with a membership level amount of CODE which at the moment is 400. So breakdown with those additions would look like the following:

Activity CODE Rewards Model Month CODE Budget Season CODE Budget (Max)
VIBES 15 CODE per NFT Claim (max 50 per NFT) 3,000 12,000
Workshop Attendees 45 CODE per NFT Claim (max 50 per NFT) 4,500 18,000
Hackathon Project Submission 360 per verified submission (3 -hacks, avg 20 subs) 5,400 21,600
Discord Praise System 5000 Bounty Pool Per Month 375 1,500
Twitter Space Giveaway 5 Memberships (400 * 5 * 3) 6,000 24000
DevNTell attendee 15 CODE per attendee Kudos NFT Claim (max 50 per NFT) 3,000 12,000
DevNTell Speaker 400 CODE per speaker Kudos Claim 1,600 6,400
95,500

Follow up to this would be how do we organize the distribution of the rewards and is there a process in place that we follow to coalesce all the address-to-code-reward pairs into a master list?

2 Likes

ahhhhhh my bad @Narb - these rewards should have been on there so will update it tomorrow .:pray:

Those numbers seem sensible to me :slight_smile:

ā€“

On a connected note - Mintkudos today announced theyā€™re sunsetting the current version of their project which means we need to figure out a new distribution mechanism for NFT rewards. Weā€™re speaking with @thatguyintech and the team (they also built DeForm which we use for token-gated forms) about solving for this and weā€™ll explore other options tooā€¦

Whilst this means we no longer have a pre-determined model for issuing some of the Member Rewards requested in this budget, we still believe distributing the $CODE to reward and incentivise members in this way is vital so we still request the budget and will work on an alternative distribution mechanism.

2 Likes

Looking forward to chatting next week to catch up on on next steps that we can help with!! Definitely want to see this initiative succeed.

2 Likes

Updated proposal to include DevNTell Rewards as request by @Narb taking Member Reward up from ~ 75k to ~ 120k in $CODE

I also added the following acknowledgement of uncertainty around how we allocate Member rewards:

@stewards - we need further comment on this proposal in order to elevate to a vote. Those who have not commented are @drop_knowledge @rubinovitz @Colin4ward @ntindle

Hope is to elevate this to a vote this afternoon once the mandatory 5 days has passed however we need your comments to make this happen.

All my questions and concerns have been answered in the above. I fully support this budget. Ready to move to snapshot.

I like:

  1. the explicit intention to prioritize members ^
  1. the (theoretical) simplicity and stability of these types of partnerships ^
  1. connecting incentives (in thoughtful/tasteful ways) ^
  1. bringing more explicit accountability to these areas ^ the maximally decentralized approach to these areas havenā€™t panned out as well as they could.
  1. that the Labs team is clearly identifying some of the value the DAO can provide to sub-daos ^
  1. explicit accountability and reward for sub-dao operations ^ uncertain if the dollar amount is right-sized and if it places a hard-cap on the number of sub-daos
  1. predictable events and rewarded participation ^

a few questions came to mind while reading ā€“ maybe this proposal doesnā€™t need to answer all of them. how do we ensure:

A) we work with partners that are high quality and aligned with D_Dā€™s mission and values?
B) the DAO finds an equilibrium between number of partners and number of sub-daos?
C) a healthy big-picture/long term CODE distribution strategy?
D) that Leads are accountable?
E) that the DAO can put all-star contributors and leaders to good use?

requests:

  • can Leads be tasked with writing the documentation for their role? turnover is a fact of life and a resilient org needs to share its processes and learnings. (the playbooks are a good reference point.)
  • can you or @mannyornothing clarify latest thinking on D_D Jobs? the only related OKR i see is related to @drop_knowledge / Venture portfolio. does the job board and twitter spaces, etc. factor into this proposal?
  • can you also clarify how Merch, Vibes IRL, (any other appropriate initiatives) factor into the value flow or OKRs? these are interesting in that they feel like sub-sub-daos, but maybe iā€™m overthinking it.

an observation:

  • it seems like latest iteration has much more modest revenue expectations/capability that past seasons. is that actually the case? totally understandable to revise expectations given market realities. also brings to mind web3con as a big revenue generator and wondering where that would fit in if it were to make a comeback. would that be a sub-dao or possibly an initiative from within Labs?

tl;dr - from my perspective, the intent here feels like a very healthy iteration and ā€œsafe enough to tryā€ given itā€™s scoped to Q3.

Thanks for answering my questions @kempsterrrr

I still believe that 10% back to the DAO is way too little. Itā€™s not a figure that says ā€œregeneration/sustainabilityā€ to me. It give so little wriggle room, and leaves us always scraping the bottom of the barrel to ensure infrastructure works, that we have reserves for unanticipated timesā€¦ and that new people can be rewarded => when they first show up, i.e. we have more chance of keeping them with that positive energy they usually bring when they arrive.

I see our DAO contribution concept like taxes. I hear folks saying that taxes are bad. For me, tax isnā€™t a bad thing, itā€™s only a technology after all. Itā€™s only when itā€™s mismanaged, or deliberately benefits ā€˜the havesā€™ is it bad for any community/society.

We have a chance to change that and we should grasp the chance to boost our reserves, and prove that it works for regeneration and sustainability. We are a non-hierarchical organisation after all.

In summary, once again, good work on all these iterations and thanks for all the continued effort.

I fully support this proposal. I believe that this quarter will be about experimentation and tracking what is working and not working on in this new model. With it only being akin to Q3, I think that itā€™s a step in the right direction.

It doesnā€™t place a formal hard gap but introduces a soft one based on funds available - i.e. we as a DAO need to think pragmatically about what we support and donā€™t. I view this as a good thing. Spinning up workstreams/teams in many other DAOs is a big ask and happens infrequently. Experimentation is good, lack of focus and thinly shared resources not su much.

A lot of trust here in all honesty, as a team weā€™re focused on finding high-quality preferred partners - do you have ideas about how this could be better?

Not exactly sure what you mean but weā€™ve tried to find that here in so much that the preferred partners can be a non-intrusive part of the Member experience, adding to it, rather than taking it over. Only where it makes sense to integrate partners will we do so.

For academy and agency, whilst moving so is likely a good thing atm, assuming weā€™re happy with the quality of content on Academy and work in Agency, I donā€™t really see a limit here.

Still experimenting here in all honestly, high-level vision is in place but numbers and models to support it not so much. Do you have anything in mind youā€™d like to see?

Some involvement from the community here would be a great thing :slight_smile:

rRght now accountability is amongst the team day-to-day and to the DAO quarter-by-qaurter - Iā€™d like to see some rules and structure put in place here but havenā€™t got to it. Maybe something for the Sub-DAO Coordination to work out?

Weā€™re hoping to expand the team as the model prooves out - so welcome in more Contributors 100% although I think we should be very cautious and pragmatic about trying to encourage people to become Contributors to the DAO at this stage. Typically, a tiny % of people who voice an interest in doing so end up doing so - which is fine. Iā€™d rather focus on funneling the 99% of folks who are here as Members to the opportunities provided for them such as workshops, hackathons, fellowships

can Leads be tasked with writing the documentation for their role?

100% - this is explicitly added in some of the JDā€™s and will be part of every leads role

Given we canā€™t get crypto payment rails for Pallet (as cayman) activating jobs customers was tough, right now weā€™re hoping to roll it into the Venture Frens model. New idea and will see how this goes.

These should have associated OKRs, and oversight on our part - I will add these today. The primary goal this quarter is just to get these things happening. The Sub-DAOs we have the less seems to happen as the coordination challenges is much harder - there is some discussion to be had here but I think tightening up this definition and setting a high-bar for new sub-daoā€™s would be the right move.

Weā€™re likely to miss-target for month 1 with the status of current conversations - 2 preferred providers close to closing for Wallet and RPC, others very early stages. Mini-hackathon for July doesnā€™t seem like itā€™s happening, so weā€™re focused on building a pipeline for these so we can be planning months in advance.

Would love to see web3con happen again, however, it has had many cold restarts etc., and if weā€™re to do it Iā€™d like to see someone lead it with a salary (ideally as part of labs) to make happen - @Rahat pinged me the other day on this and need to get back to him.

Iā€™d personally prefer to see us get vibesIRL going and then use the profit from this to fund web3con push as this is a much harder lift and requires a lot more people to make it happen thus more $$$$.

Hear you on this - my view is whilst weā€™re proving out the model, a low % is fine. My view is there are too many people who have put too much effort in for too little reward already, the higher this % is the harder it is to reward those people in a meaningful way.

Would encourage a long-term view. If the low % now means we can secure and importantly hold on to good contributors who can make this model work, then Iā€™d much rather the DAO see 10% of a lot of money vs say 30% of nothing/very little

I fully support a regenerative model, that is the point of this return.

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Love this is a potential path to sustainability.

Love this if subDAOs are excited about it

Love that weā€™ll have a reliable slate of events and that weā€™re paying facilitators (should increase quality + vibes + itā€™s just the right thing to do)

Iā€™ve always been skeptical of this as as blanket statement TBH and would love more details. E.g. paying someone to attend a call != them contributing positively to the DAO. I do like how you specify the code rewards model, but I still donā€™t think people should be paid just for attending things. Attending things doesnā€™t inherently add value.

[[ Disclaimer: Super late getting to this proposal. Iā€™ve not read any of the comments. ]]

Sounds calm in theory, but Iā€™m not sure how many founders, directors etc attend the DAOā€™s Town Halls or Twitter Spaces. And so if Agency are exploring various pathways within the DAO, to feed into its pipeline (specifically inbounds) ā€” then Iā€™m a little skeptical at this juncture, that Agency will see much success within those formats. Iā€™m not opposed to them, but Iā€™m considering the broader contexts and weighing them up against any potential time constraints.

Utilizing THā€™s + Twitter Spaces as potential recruitment spaces, can make some sense. And then just in terms of visibility for builders both within and outside of the DAO, looking to move their projects along. Supplementary pathways however, not primary.

I think the Open Space that @Gordo set up, serves as a more suitable primary recruitment pathway; since itā€™s geared solely towards Agency. But absent of increased engagement across Developer DAO (and subsequently engagement in the THā€™s and Twitter Spaces), Agency may need to do more thinking around fostering a steady and more organic inbound deal flow.

Sounds decent. Iā€™ve been fulfilling these duties for the past season ā€” so Iā€™m not opposed to a monthly payment for this work, if the funds are available.

Good shout. Worth the investment.

Reiterating my thoughts on this topic (as shared in various places):

The overarching aim (outside of just more evolved revenue streams for Developer DAO and its sub-DAOā€™s) is ultimately to pull the $CODE token into circulation and utility. At an initial level: that is one part perception (i.e. how it is spoken of, how and where it is being mentioned), and then one part distribution (ensuring it gets into as many hands/wallets as possible, and is being circulated in ecosystems outside of just Developer DAO).

Iā€™m presuming that in the early stages, ā€˜utilityā€™ will look like distributing the token more through hackathons, competitions, giveaways, rewards for some work in the DAO etc (as has been shared above). If a token is only held by a subset of people, then it limits its circulation and thus utility.

Following on from this, is the use of the token within other communities and protocols. Not simply a token swap, but used to reward people and groups in various ways within communities outside of just Developer DAO. So if another protocol is running a hackathon and part of the rewards available are $CODE tokens ā€” then not only is it being distributed more, but the perception around it begins to shift from being seen as a token locked within a specific context (i.e. just within Developer DAO) ā‡Ø to being a token that has value and application outside of just that. Money is simply a consensus of value ā€” it is completely arbitrary. Value is ascribed, it is not inherent. And as such, itā€™s in everyoneā€™s best interest to ascribe the right kind of value to the $CODE token.

Thereā€™s no women listed. I have no context for why thatā€™s the case; but itā€™s my view that efforts should always be made to attract more women into web3 (and the DAO as a byproduct). And those who express an interest in (or show they have the capability to step into) some of the aforementioned roles, should be empowered and supported in meaningful ways. A meaningfully diverse operational team is a net positive for any DAO.

Is Developer DAO is returning to the format that I argued for, back in February (i.e. prior to the start of Season 2)? Will there no longer be 2-3 Community Managers within DD Labs?

Iā€™m not sure if Iā€™ve misread, but can you elaborate on this? Iā€™m aligned with the premise in theory, but Iā€™m keen to get some clarity around some of the approaches that will be taken, to achieve this. Is it the Town Halls, Twitter Spaces, Hackathons etc? Or do you have something else in mind, in service of this?

This is good. Long overdue.

Also a good shout. Good work.

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I proposed this as I felt incentivising community participation does == participating in the DAO and thus should be rewarded a small amount for doing so. The idea is getting folks together to build community and create opportunities for value to be created, vs. trying to be super granular on what is or is not value.

The intention is to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible to shine a light on what the agency is doing. I agree, this is unlikely to cause a significant immediate impact (particularly on inbound leads for work) but Iā€™d hope such efforts would compound over time.

If Agency is not part of those spaces we lose that opportunity. We are noticing more and more (particularly after the success of hackathons and the fellowship) more investors, protocol reps etc. attending the Town Halls.

Agreed - Iā€™d love to see us promoting this space in the Town Halls we can funnel folks towards the opportunity. As for Organic deal flow, awareness is the start of achieving that IMO and hopefully, the town-halls as well as more prominence in the newsletter and some dedicated marketing support from Labs could help here.

@mannyornothing is also keen to push to bring work into the agency - Maybe a call is best to figure this out?

A lead for some paid work was already shared in the chat - @Gordo didnā€™t feel it was work agency would want to do but would be interested to get your/others perspectives as well.

Totally agree. The 1st stage weā€™re seeing is a socially based experiment to figure out the right incentives and rewards in the DAO. Once weā€™ve got a good enough sense of the rewards and incentivises the intention would be to then introduce utility based on token holdings.

For example , in the future this could look like the following:

  • x number of CODE tokens need to participate in a hackathon
  • y number of tokens needed to apply for a Fellowship Program
  • z number of projects needed to spin up a team to work in agency

Can also see a world where we introduce staking to further the utility. For example, you stake the token requirement to participate in a Hackathon/Fellowship/Agency, and then if you submit/complete the fellowship or Agency project, you earn a yield. If you drop out maybe you are slashed.

We believe though itā€™s better (and tbh necessary) to keep things open whilst weā€™re testing and figuring out what works and what doesnā€™t, before putting things on-chain.

Regarding rewarding folks outside the DAO - been riffing on this also so glad you brought it up.

The goal with these CODE allocations is to a) attract and recruit builders, b) rewards and incentivise them to create more value - I agree that doesnā€™t need to be limited to DAO Members and could see a world for example where we issue CODE to everyone who submits to ETH Global hacks (we can get their wallet addresses from the ETH GLobal website)

:point_up: this would allow us to welcome in certified builders in the same way the CODE rewards for all verified D_D hackathon submission are now. What do you think?

Discussed with the DDW womenā€™s team about their intentions next season and theyā€™d decided not to submit a proposal. Instead, we have now brought Sam into labs to work with Billy on community, initially taking over the Scholarship& Travel work handled last season/quarter by Scarlet.

She was not mentioned in the proposal as she was away, and we hadnā€™t had a chance to speak directly with Sam at that point. Weā€™re just ironing out here role and will update the JD when completed.

Experience last quarter was clear, underpaying multiple people to collectively do 1 role was much less effective than more reasonable paying one person to do that role. @Billyjitsu went over and beyond his $1k last quarter so weā€™ve reallocated the funds to him to lead community and the intention is to grow a team around him as funds allows. This is starting with bounties payable to a few members for hosting dedicated spaces as well as Sam leading the scholarship work (we hope her roles evolves into CM).

Good q - exactly as youā€™ve suggested this will be achieved via the CODE Rewards: Hackathon subs/winners, workshop attendees, giveaways etc.

Our aim is to welcome in > 500 folks this season via these paths.

EDIT - @luan opened up the discussion for reducing the CODE requirement to join discord here.

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