gm frens. Welcome to part 3 of the Full-Time DAO Newsletter. A 6-week newsletter making me increasingly question my life choices, as I continue to document my journey venturing into making a living working in web3. Before that, let me take a step back and reflect on what working in web3, especially DAOs, are like.
What does it really mean to go full-time DAO? Sounds fancy, sure. But is it though? Let's answer that.
While I am all for contributing to DAOs, and I am happy to vouch for the communities I am part of, it is undeniable that the Full-Time DAO dream isn't an easy pursuit and perhaps not even feasible for most people. However, it is also a fact that now is as good a time as any to work towards going full-time DAO.
In today's newsletter, I am going to suggest some arguments against full-time DAO, and of course, in the latter half, give my DAOpunks weekly report on where I stand in the journey (feel free to skip straight to that if that's what you're here for - it's in the "Why am I telling you all this" section).
So, how about some DAOlemma's then .. 🍦😋
9
Yesterday, on Nov 18, BanklessDAO launched the 3rd edition of the Writers Cohort. It's a 4-week cohort-based writing program that is open to all bDAO members for free. The program has raving reviews from past participants and is known to help clarify your thinking, improve your writing, and push you to publish articles every week. The program is also known to have some members not be able to deliver on the expectation to publish 4 weekly articles, and at times give up much sooner. While this maybe a common trait in all such programs, I mention it because I am attributing the reason to the 100 other things you will find DAO contributors to be working on, and understandably fail to commit to a voluntary deliverable like this.
Do I wanna join the Writers Cohort? - hell yeah. But do I have the time to take up another new commitment at the moment? Well I am not happy to admit it, but the answer is a no.
Maybe this time round I can go above 1 publication.
Similarly, a couple of months back, I missed out on another cohort-based program called a Governance Accelerator Cohort, which had I taken, I would really benefit from, however, had to pass given the time commitment needed to see that through.
One might wonder what seems to be the hold-up here. What is going on in my life that I am having to pass on what looks like extremely valuable skill-building opportunities? Well, this is the time I tell you about the things I am working on - not going to type it from scratch, but through sharing screenshots of an elaborate introduction message on a discord server not too far away.
While these messages make me look cool, sure why not, what I am actually trying to convey to you is that - a lot is going on for a lot of people in the space, frens. It's crazy, and it's amazing! And burnout, how real is that?
Well, very much turns out. Burnout in DAOs are so real that there are case studies of high performing contributors giving up on DAO life or taking a break due to it. There are web3 projects and DAOs as well providing aid for this, might I say potential epidemic (nope, went too far).
Here's the thing - DAOs are too interesting, and if you wanna get involved in any aspects of it, YOU CAN. And while that is great, and exactly what I love about DAOs, it is also what leads to a situation where you are biting off more than you can chew, and that's the DAOlemma many of us find ourselves faced with today.
Moving on to next DAOlemma ..
A couple of days back, I asked a question on twitter:
which lead to insight on an array of DAOlemmas from some powerhouse contributors. Here are some:
on contributor pay and earning in governance tokens ..
on working part-time x 3
and a word of caution ..
Health, work life balance, etc
What else?
Everything mentioned above are challenges on the pursuit to full-time DAO. How about at the beginnings of the journey? What are the challenges then? In DAOpunks cohort 1 applications, one of the applicants Sprinklesforwinners outlines her experience onboarding herself into web3, and how she made her way into DAOs:
"This is my second attempt at going web3 full time. The first time, I became so lost and discouraged that I gave up. A few months after returning to the day to day monotony, I remained unhappy, which lead me to again consider web3 opportunities. I am sure others have a similar path. Redefining determination as my personal goal, I completely immersed myself within the DAOs, I organically landed at banklessDAO. I have completely immersed myself within the DAO, in some areas being a disruptive force. I have experienced blockers obstacles and hurdles, however constructively pushed through these barriers to pursue the goal(s) of the project"
How interesting that she pushed through and finds herself able to inspire others to do it as well.
Why am I telling you all this?
because I think it's interesting. DAOs are new to most people on the planet. Every day, there's probably somebody who's joining a discord server lurking through the #getinvolved channels and making a choice whether to ever return to the server.
Then there are others who are a little too deep in the journey, conviced that this is the path for them, but struggling to make it.
And there are those, who are leading the way, kickstarting decentralized teams and projects, pushing the boundaries of what's possible and showing us how to DAO.
Where is all this information captured? Answer: All over the place.
I hope to pick up some of the bits and pieces of that and find meaning and structure as I present it to you on fulltimedao.com. Well, that's kind of my update for this week. So, subscribe, and stay tuned my frens.
Before I close, few other things I achieved this week:
In the last newsletter, I spoke about my monetization efforts - there has been progress. I have begun communication on sponsorship with a few people and projects. The interest in sponsoring my content is positive, but nothing has materialized yet. I am as well considering going purely a Juicebox route for the ETH India series to explore a web3 native way to fund the project.
Apart from that, I have submitted a grant proposal to Push Protocol, for a content partnership on the ETH India series, although the timelines for pushing a forum proposal and a snapshot are against me on this, still keeping my fingers crossed.
As you can see, I have setup the domain - fulltimedao.com, secured the ENS, the .xyz domain, and some social handles, and created the salmanneedajob at fulltimedao.com email. The website as well on paragraph.xyz is live and kicking which I am excited about (paid for the custom domain using crypto, woohoo #gobankless). Have started brainstorming on what I intend to do with the project, a lot of which you can read on the DAOpunks grants proposal.
I will be using my DAOpunks Anon 236 as a mascot for Full-Time DAO because the DAOpunks Digital Asset Ownership License allows that. Super exciting and a check on one of my commitments on my DAOpunks grants proposal!
Apart from that, I'd say it's life as usual. Hosted a twitter space on @0xTPH yesterday about building a successful NFT project (thereby delaying the publishing of this newsletter). I minted the historic SBF vs. Erik Voorhees debate podcast NFT from BanklessHQ and essentially got into a telegram group with Ryan and David. Unbelievable. Nothing more to add and I just hope to be able to justify in the future all of the work I am doing right now.
[also interviewed for a job, but we'll have to see how that goes]
The next couple of weeks is going to be busy as I'll be traveling to Bangalore, India, for the ETH India conference. Hope to be able to keep up with this newsletter and stay accountable.
All right, gm to you thank you for reading my dear frens.