gm DAOpunks. Welcome to Part 2 of The Full-Time DAO. A LinkedIn newsletter chronicling my 6-week journey through what I hope will be my complete transition to web3.
In last week's edition, we went over some surface-level information on what is web3, and what is is a DAO, which let me remind you again, stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (digital orgs),. I gave you an outline about the DAOpunks NFT community and how they are supporting me in this transition to Full-Time DAO.
Today, I wanna delve into my plan itself, and report on where my head is currently at and what progress I have made so far.
Let's start with the second one, a reality check on what's happening right now.
Reality check
Today as I write this newsletter, the crypto industry is neck deep into new levels of the bear market, most recently caused by what looks like the demise of not just another, but the second largest crypto exchange in the world - FTX, founded by a celebrated entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, who just apologized 3 times in a tweet thread that started with "I fucked up, and should have done better".
In the last 8 months, since I started contributing to DAOs and working in web3, the crypto markets have only continued to go progressively down hitting new lows every other day. As someone whose primary income is in the form of DAO governance tokens, I am not going to lie - this event has been a particularly difficult one to grapple with. While on a normal day, I do not look at the charts, and "continue to build in the bear", this crash and another all-time low have me questioning things. Is it going to get any better? Is it really worthwhile to continue to invest your career in web3 considering how fragile all of it seems to be, and the value of your time relative to the risks associated with working in this industry?
In the last many months since I've started working in web3, the markets have only continued to go progressively down with new lows every other day. Sometimes I wonder if it's me, did I do something? 🙇🏻♂️ Then I realize, no, it's SBF.
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Well, I am not going to attempt to answer that, because the state of the markets or the speculation is really not in my control. I am here for what the technology underlying all this enables, and to be part of and contribute to the way work happens on the internet. If Balaji Srinivasan's idea of The Network State is going to be a reality, I am here to not just buy a ticket to the Network State, but to read the book, understand what its about, be part of and contribute to the communities that are building on the idea, and identify my place in it all. I refuse to be taken down by what Sam Bankman Friend does with his intelligence, or Elon Musk with his tweets. I'll admit that while it's nice to transact in crypto, that's not what I am here for. I am here for what the technology unlocks and all the enthusiasm and creativity web3 has brought to the world. Web3 is a revolution and I am here for it.
Okay. <takes a breath>. <drinks water>. LFG.
Now that we've sort of separated crypto from web3, let's get back to talking about DAOs on The Full-Time DAO Newsletter. If you've read FTD part 1, you probably know that this series originated as a documentation of my journey in cohort 1 of the DAOpunks grants program.
The Proposed Plan
In the program, I have proposed to DAOpunks community that I'll be working on following 3 ideas around #SalmanNeedsAJob:
Launch a livestream series about DAOs (status: brainstorming phase)
Explore how I can use DAOpunks Digital License Agreement (status: had an initial discussion with livefast9986.eth about scope of using the DAOpunks NFT as IP, and have some ideas that I have started to work on)
Create a roadmap for @whoneedsajobdao (status: brainstorming phase)
I am going to delve into these in detail in the upcoming newsletters as I make further progress on them. Let me now tell you about what I have been working on over the last week.
New Priorities
Broadly, the project #SalmanNeedsAJob could really benefit from the following initiatives, which have otherwise been ignored for far too long. What are they:
Monetization: Sponsorship - Juicebox (web3 crowdfunding)
Brand Building & Channel Growth: Shortform videos from podcasts - Website
I have started working on them. Below are the motivation for working on it, and the status update.
What's the motivation behind focusing on these new priorities
Well, the answer is ETH India.
The ETH Conferences are one of the most prominent conferences in web3, and attracts builders, enthusiasts, and web3 brands to participate from across the world. I am going to be attending the events surrounding ETH India, and expect to be recording tons of interviews with operators in the space. I am considering partnering with one sponsor for the entire series. I believe through these interviews, there is a unique opportunity for me to provide value to web3 companies who are trying to reach the ETH India attendees. In light of the fact that the conference is less than 3 weeks away, now would be the time for me to work on securing the sponsorship. That said, regardless of whether or not I close a sponsor, I am going to be recording podcasts at ETH India like I always do, and in fact many of them.
Status Update
On the Sponsorship front
I have currently prepared an offering and I am running it by frens in the space for feedback and potential interests. Below is what the placement will look like (if you are reading this, I would love to get your suggestions / feedback that come to mind as you read these):
The logo of the sponsor will be placed throughout the video (like - sponsored by piedpiper.xyz)
I will give a shoutout at the start during the episode intro, saying - this series is sponsored by piedpiper.xyz
A 30s - 45s ad spot in the middle of the interview explaining the sponsored product which I'll speak about during the interview itself and showcase using screen overlays in the edit.
A dedicated interview with the sponsorer explaining the product in-depth. This will be added as a card on YouTube in each video in the series during the ad read.
Links to the product and the link to the dedicated YouTube video will be added in the description.
I am yet to figure out how much I should price it, but have some indications based on the discussions so far. If you have any feedback or you want to explore the partnership for your company, I am happy to connect and chat.
just had a chat with my wife. she has confirmed that she's gonna kick me out of the house if I don't get a sponsor for my videos. umm .. any ideas? ..
For reference, you can take a look at some of my past videos at web3 conferences on my channel.
Next step: Continue reaching out to frens for feedback, to potential leads, and the list of sponsors at ETH India. I absolutely want to see this through and have my first sponsor on the channel. This is going to add to the credibility as I launch the DAO livestream show as well.
What's this Juicebox thing
Juicebox is a web3 crowdfunding platform, which is essentially a no-code smart contract that you can set up to allow your subscribers/patrons to donate to you in crypto, and that you can program in sophisticated ways to do a bunch of things for the donor, as well as for your team. This was introduced to me by my mentor at BanklessDAO and fellow DAOpunk Ernest of Gaia, who is an ardent evangelist of the platform.
This week, I have gone through the platform along with Fine, who's a contributor in whoneedsajob community. We realized that there is still a lot of figuring out to do on how best to use the platfor for videos created on #SalmanNeedsAJob.
Next step: begin the conversation on the Juicebox discord server seeking consultation on setting up Juicebox campaign for the project.
Shortform Videos from Podcasts
It is no secret how effective shortform videos are almost on all platforms. So far, due to my limited bandwidth, I have never created shortform content out of my podcasts, but now with the grant from DAOpunks and the motivation to level up my project, I am seeking help from freelancers to begin working on the podcast. The idea is to create one or two YouTube shorts for all of my content going forward (and retroactively backwards), and use them across YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn video, Instagram Reels, and more importantly, Lenstube.
I have already made progress on this and I am about to finish working on the first YouTube shorts with a community member I met on the eDAO server.
Website: I wanna set up a website for #SalmanNeedsAJob, and begin to index my content on the web, establish an identity for the brand, and potentially provide value to the channel sponsor through a referral link in the website.
However, I don't feel very confident of being able to achieve this before ETH India. I would need to give this some thought and figure out what the next steps should be. If you have any ideas for me, please do pitch in.
Closing thoughts
This is more or less the status of what I have been upto, and what my priorities look like. Over the next weeks, I wanna do at least one DAO livestream before launching a show officially in order to test the waters and feed to the momentum. I would like that to be with DAOpunks itself, who have been doing such phenomenal work with the Grants Program, the Job board, and of course, their one-of-a-kind NFT collection.
Before closing this edition of the newsletter, I would like to share one video that I published this week about NFTs and career in web3, with Dheeraj Shah, an OG NFT collector from India.
Likewise, my upcoming video is a very interesting one - it's with the Head of Partnerships APAC of Unstoppable Domains. Stay tuned.
Thank you for reading. If you made it here, please let me know what you thought of the newsletter in the comments or dm.
