---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'DAOhaus Platform Strategy Worksession #1'
tags: [magesmiths]

---

---
tags: magesmiths
---

# DAOhaus Platform Strategy Worksession #1

[DAOhaus Manifesto v2.0.0](https://daohaus.mirror.xyz/0NEWxKEKAhR2lDpSaG9aTPTv0Xwo1uynTetajbvurnw)

## Rules of engagement for today

Simplified version of Jord's proposed [gavel approach](https://hackmd.io/kO8pPsaDQfq7hc0ggOCeaw)

### Disagreements
- Disagreement and debate is encouraged
- Since we share many core values within the context of DAOhaus, disagreement on the best way to express those values is healthy and likely necessary to enable DAOhaus to fulfill its promise
- If we reach a *deadlock*, we make a plan for a time or process by which to break the deadlock, and then we move on

### Note-taking
- We need at least 1 person taking notes
- The note-taker should flag any *decisions* or *deadlocks* and record them on the github wiki (exact location TBD)


## Introduction & Prompt

### Marketplace or "Protocol"?

#### Marketplace
- Core DAO tools remain free
- DAOhaus seeks sustainability by accruing value from activity around the edges
    - Fees from boost/app marketplace
    - Marketplace curation via HAUS token
    - Yeeter / CCO fees
    - etc

| Benefits | Drawbacks |
| --- | --- |
| Using a DAO remains free | Revenue may be harder to earn |
| Strong network effects, once achieved | Cold start problem |
| ? | Minimum sustainable DAOhaus size is quite large |
| ? | Fewer options for sustainable composability |
| ? | Potentially creates funky incentives for us | 

**Open Questions**
- How does the marketplace mechanism function?

#### "Protocol"
- X% of funds in all DAOs goes to UberHaus
- Parameter set by UberHaus governance

| Benefits | Drawbacks |
| --- | --- |
| Revenue is clear & clean | DAOs would no longer be fully free  |
| Creates flexibility and incentives for us to support maximum composability | Potentially creates incentives for competitive forks |
| Quicker path to revenue or potential revenue | May be challenging to implement correctly  |
| Less reliant on minimum size for viability | ? |
| Gives us more options for how to build now |  |
| Marketplace can happen on top | |

**Open Questions**
- How is the X% collected?

## Discussion

* Ven: central value flow would be helpful
    * focus on something central, one element
* Ceres: how do we compete effectively with other solutions w/ central fee?
* Dekan: is it too early to be considering this? until we have more traction? until DAO market has more traction?
* Jord: seen enthusiasm for protocols with sustainability, users are willing to pay if rates are "fair"
    * +1 to letting UH manage
* Dekan: do we need to consider our definition of sustainable? 10 year horizon vs exit?
* What is our defintion of sustainability?
* What are our goals?
* Travis: should we diverge in the discussion?
    * What are the additional benefits and drawbacks of a marketplace?
    * What are the additional benefits and drawbacks of a protocol?
    * Are there other options outside of a protocol or marketplace?
* Ceres definition of sustainability: enough revenue where we don't need to go out and ask for money to sustain our ops (eg ~$100k DAI per month , ~$1.2MM / year)
* Spencer: are we comfortable with these tradeoffs
* E2T: is it possible these are two different DAOs to pursue?
    * Both require a completely different approach 
to finance, operations, product and marketing
* Jord: signal to the community that we're pursuing sustainability is important
* Ceres: do we have an estimate of how much we could collect from protocol approach? 
    * Ven: yes, we have value flows, we can do some back of envelope math
* Confirmed that protocol is only possible through V3 
    * base level assumption existing v2 daos will migrate to v3
* **Are we comfortable charging to summon DAOs**?
* We should consult with community to assess sentiment
* **Dekan**: a lot of this conversation relates to product branding. currently we brand as "summon your first DAO" -- looking at GnosisSafe's branding they market it as being the "standard"
    * rebranding image going into v3 to being a "public good for the future" is different than how we currently are branding and positioning ourselves
    - this is referring to what folks see from the outside looking in -- our storytelling.
- **Ven**: we can refine and focus on our narrative in the upcoming workstream to rework our site and branding
    - Gitcoin model: Collecting donations largely and have a healthy treasury to fund public goods -- is this where we'd want to get to? Being able to use treasury to benefit users and our ecosystem
- **Plor**: less comfortable with protocol approach as we may be "building moats" -- more comfortable "capturing value where value is created" similar to the way that the Yeeter could be structured (fees on use)
- **How does this create moats?**
- Plor: At protocol level it becomes more forkable so we'd be moving a bit toward lock in which seems against open source and community model
    - **Spencer**: This is likely true for both models; question is "what is being forked?"
    - Protocol: threat of fork is at the contract level
    - Marketplace: threat of fork is at the interface level
    - Both can be forked -- so question is around what do we want to support? Support a burgeoning marketplace (and if not doing protocol fees) we need to then make more difficult to fork our app
    - Challenges to both approaches, which is why this is an important question -- need to decide comfort level with both possibilities
    - **High level: What should DAOhaus be? This changes if we're comfortable with different things**
    - **E2T**: "Moat is the community" -- way to protect what we build is to have a community around it as this is the "key diffentiator in all of these protocols"
- **UI369**: Build a plan including community feedback, different funding models, possibility of donations, marketplace.  Payroll companies. 
- **Jord**: is this scope conversation (marketplace vs. protocol) vital to us reaching some sort of conclusion on our model?
    - Subreddit [bread on tree lol](https://www.reddit.com/r/BreadStapledToTrees/) -- 300K person subreddit where people post photos of bread nailed to a tree. This wasn't in purvey of Reddit to guide how this emerged; they provided the tools for how the community can emerge
    - Focus our scope on things *we can control* and when we give something over to a community the result will be something *far beyond us* and this is a good thing
    - **TW**: This may not necessarily be a good thing; can go both ways
    - **Jord**: Accepting that if we give folks freedom that they will build things that we're limited to control
    - **TW**: Relates to previous conversation about the *Manifesto* which didn't involve everyone, but is guiding light for the community that we refer back to. 
    - **TW**: Syncronicities among circles/forking of circles/DAOhaus: fundamental level there are founding values and principles that align our groups of builders. Principles/values informing our product are sourced *from somewhere* and being *distilled into something specific* -- what we build and who we build it for
        - Is our platform really something that is put forth for anyone to do anything, or should we get explicit in articulating *what* is being built in an *intentional way* for specific groups to be empowered to do specific things?
- **helle**: If we have a fee we'd need to make sure that we're creating something that has the value that folks return to it -- and what is being created is still nebulous
    - Who is our customer?
    - What problem are we solving?
    - How do we capture value?
- **BorrowLucid**: Is there an open source license where we could specify the intention of the fork? 
    - Certain licenses have more restriction around what folks need/should do with the software
- **Ven**: We've been building for a long time, so may be hard for someone to fork and be as immediately relevant
- **Dekan**: We *do* want folks to build on our standards and fork us and grow -- this adds value
    - **E2T**: ...and it brings more folks into the ecosystem and community. Sushiswap didn't put Uniswap out of business
    - **Dekan**: ...at end of day we're still the ones with the most experience
- **Jord**: value in narrowing focus (re: **helle** point about fees and value provided) -- when folks see DAOhaus they generally want an idea of who we are, what's our plan, and where we're going
    - **Dekan**: agree, but on the Magesmiths level -- on the Haus level should be more flexible
    - **E2T**: this is an important aspect of the organizational structure conversation
    - **Dekan**: Conversations are valuable, but may be needing to have someone owning and having agency to take a direction on (product approach)
- **UI369**: Lots of levers in the notes; lots of ways that things can be configured (including community feedback). Different funding models and approaches. Configurable? Modular?   
    - What if we fundraised every year, and then used that amount to determine our fees for the next year? What if we have a set burn rate for the year and agree to turn anything gained above that into rewards for HAUS holders? 
    - **Ven**: Complex coordination game, but there is an overlap of incentives that we have to balance, but this is a hard design challenge. Focused workstream on this; not a single person taking the lead
    - **Dekan**: re: feedback; way folks see us from the outside is different than what we're doing on the inside. we're failing in this aspect -- we should solitic strategic feedback from the community about *why* others are able to raise so much more than we can
        - What are we missing here?
    - **Jord**: Missing a lot of feedback from the community
    - **Dekan**: Syndicate and Dharma had model to sell out from the start; this wasn't our approach
- **Jord**: re: UI369 -- Different levers and switches. Question is important because this has a bearing on our identity as a platform (what switches and levers will be available to us). Different approaches -> different attitudes and feelings. Can leverage smaller items, but how we interface with solutions changes and is likely not a fully binary outcome even though we're having a discussion where it's presented as more binary
- **Ven**: About balancing incentives -- being aware that certain approaches may create misaligned incentives. Important and pivotal that all stakeholders are represented in the coordination game that's designed
    - **Spencer**: Has huge impacts on the incentives we're creating for ourselves
    - **Ven**: Retain focus on building value for the end user

### What are some incentives that we want individually or collectively?

- **UI369**: Different ways that this can be modeled through token mechanisms and composability. Fundraising + fees where we set based on what we'd need to make up and extra can be used to create token holder incentives
- **Jord**: Having to raise frequently has a cost to the community; should weigh pros and cons as there is an extractive cost where we're taking $ in exchange for HAUS and there is an expectation of value increase. incentive for us where we're pushing for that return of value and toward next raise. sometimes this is a good incentive and sometimes it is extractive. taking the extraction up front (as a fee) has other incentives
- **TW**: Incentive is cultural. building product with pragmatic market fit with $ at stake and financial value flowing in ecosystem, but this isn't what motivates some folks. DAOhaus is **people-first** in focus to an almost irrational way and provides freedom to **think and act differently** on decisions -- as far as incentives go, we'd want to caution against removing this **radicality** entirely
- **Ven**: Care most about people being able to self-organize, and the tools we provide for this are incredible and wants whoever wants to contribute to this culturally (and through building these tools) should be aligned with our cultural values. if not, it's an instant failure as **community and culture are where the value is and it's the unforkable portion**, but want/need regeneration so that we can continue to provide the value
-  **Dekan**: Create tools and infrastructure for us (and others) to create as many things as needed to do the cultural things that they find valuable and where everyone can make money doing this (including those who supported us) -- incentive is to **just make everyone happy**
-  **Jord**: Having trouble visualizing how either model has too much of a bearing on empoweirng folks to build
-  **Dekan**: Could be a fee model but would have to be introduced after we've built everything and would need to be the standard as others would fork to create the free version (free DAOhaus and paid DAOhaus and folks choose) -- paid one may have better support and maintanence. first need the standards in place
-  **Spencer**: Question not *when* we implement sustainability model, it's are we *closed off* to any sustainability model as this impacts what we build
-  **Dekan**: we **rugpull those creating closed ecosystems** and beat the narrative that a "DAO is a cap table" -- we provide the tools where anyone can create a Syndicate (so this is how we neo-rugpull Syndicate)
-  **Jord**: "Free" sometimes is the highest cost of all. When platforms are free there are often perverse incentives down the road (such as web2 social networks). Vague ideas about monetization (especially when investors are involved) can lead down paths that we may not have wanted
-  **E2T**: we haven't talked about a B2B model; why does Syndicate or SuperDAO have to build their own thing? They can integrate what we've created and we could find a way to monetize this
-  **Dekan**: This is the Redhat example (B2B in Linux ecosystem). Would be another path for folks in the DAO to monetize how they see fit
-  **Plor**: Lots of funds going to retroactive public goods, so we may want to avoid mechanisms that disqualify us from these streams
-  **Ven**: Plugging into existing public goods infrastructure is another possibility (Gitcoin public goods ImpactDAO initiative -- we're not in there and we should be
    -  *Eight Forms of Capital* - Gregory Landua
-  **UI369** Adding in "Permaculture principles"

### Where are we deadlocked? Where do we go from here?

- This session generated more questions than answers
- **Spencer**: Does it makes sense to have a small group of people to go through notes and pick out the core topics, distribute it, and schedule a followup conversation?
    - **Jord**: Pick out some of the questions from here and see which are variables that we'd need to resolve to answer some of the larger questions?
- **Spencer**: Should talk to folks in the DAOhaus community (including those not in Warcamp that are stakeholders such as CCO contributors and HAUS holders)
- Identify a list of folks to talk to

#### Next Steps

- Small group goes through notes and pulls out key topics and set up a conversation
- Folks should reach out to anyone with connections to DAOhaus stakeholders outside of Warcamp who would have impactful input and report back
    - Generate talking points for these conversations so that there is consistency among the feedback
- Meet by end of week
    - summarize notes / conclusions / questions / take-aways from the previous discussion ==> post the summary to the forum
    - Discussion process post-mortem / structure for next session
    - discussion guide: break down topics into smaller questions


## Summary

Here is a quick summary of some of the major questions that surfaced during the conversation and notes. Hold off on answering the questions themselves, as we'll prepare a better format for that. Before Tuesday, please let us know any other major questions that we didn't capture or you think should be asked.

View the [full notes from full conversation](https://hackmd.io/@daohaus/SyuZ8v1I9)

Some options that were discussed:
- Protocol Fee
    - ex. flat % fee
- Marketplace Fees
    - ex. fees through 3rd parties
- Public Goods Funding
    - Retroactive 
    - Quadratic funding
- B2B Partnerships/Deals
    - ex. larger partnerships and services
- Continuous/Periodic Raises
    - current method
- Subscription fee
- Donation (opt-in)
- Mixed bag of many options 

_These questions are specific to the scope of DAOhaus and any potential value accrual mechanism(s)_

#### Questions

What is our definition of sustainable?

Would our product be better if we were more sustainable?

Does adding a fee compromise some of our other value accrual mechanisms (such as public goods funding, receiving donations, etc)

What about DAOhaus **must** remain exclusively a public good?

Are we still a 'Public Good' if we charge fees?

What are some good examples of organizations/projects that use sustainable mechanisms that leave a major component as a public good?

Is it too early to be considering revenue/sustainability? Should we wait until there is more traction? What happens if we don't consider revenue/sustainability at this point?

Are we comfortable charging for basic access to daos like summoning a dao, or using the interface?

If so, should we prioritize access to contracts or the frontend?

How might we determine, and measure, sentiment of users around introducing a fee?

Is warcamp's role to propose a solution and/or enact a solution?

Should UberHaus manage any revenue/sustainability decisions?

Is our goal sustainability or maximum profit? 

Is the signal that we are committed to sustainability important to the community, both internal and external?

Are we okay creating barriers to entry via some fee if it leads to sustainability?

How does introducing a central fee impact our ability to compete effectively with other solutions?

Should we try to disrupt those creating closed ecosystems?

What are the risks associated with taking exclusively a Marketplace approach?

What are the risks associated with taking exclusively a Protocol fee?

What are the risks of taking exclusively a Public Goods Funding approach?

What are the risks of taking exclusively a B2B approach?

What are the risks of Continuous/Periodic Raises (our current method)?

How important is simplicity vs complexity in the revenue/sustainability strategy we implement?

What is the impact of using many models together, and what impact would each would have on the others?

What is the impact of getting forked (Risks/Benefits)?

---

_Shredded questions_

Which type of user are we building for?

Is DAOhaus a public good, private good, or a combo of both?













