Become The Best Contributor In Any DAO
How to make it to core team of almost any DAO
In this post:
WTF is MetaGame
How to become the best contributor in any DAO (& get an NFT)
ETHDenver Raid
This Friday’s townhall
Wait, WTF is MetaGame?
MetaGame is the connective tissue for the DAO space helping people learn about DAOs, earn their first DAO tokens, start DAOs, find contributors & promote their DAO.
Long term, MetaGame is a massive online coordination game - a mash-up of an educational, social and freelancing platform and an MMO-RPG, using Web3 to build a new game of life and stick it to Moloch.
If you’re interested, join us or watch this video 👀
Introduction
This playbook is teaching DAO beginners how to become the best DAO contributor in any DAO they join - written by peth, Jeremy & Jennifer.
Joining a DAO, you'll quickly notice the 90-9-1 rule, where 90% of people are lurkers, 9% are somewhat active & 1% lead the way. Another thing you'll soon notice is that the vast majority of people will only proclaim they want to contribute or ask "how can I contribute" - then never do it.
Your goal here is to make it to that 1%.
This post goes through:
Joining & getting context in a DAO
Adding value in little ways
Figuring out the needs & adapting
Becoming autonomous & leading
Embracing chaos & blooming
Requirements:
Time & patience
Rewards:
Achievement NFT
Becoming the most respected in any DAO
Note: If you need help finding a DAO to join, or want to earn some Seeds for completing this quest, consider completing this alongside joining a DAO.
Join a DAO & acclimatize
Show up
First things first: show up.
When you decide you like a DAO & want to be a part of it - you should actively show up. Introduce yourself, then keep on reappearing, consistently. Even if you never make a direct contribution to the project, simply showing up over and over again, will signal you care - and that makes you a member.
Besides being considered a member who cares, you will most likely also get an understanding of what the DAO is like and what kind of contributions are needed to further its goals.
“There's something beautiful about the way people can sort of show up, and be upskilled.”
Immerse yourself
When joining a DAO, the most important thing is to immerse yourself & feel the vibe.
You will need full context before knowing:
Whether you want to be a part of this DAO at all
What this DAO needs or struggles with
What you can do to support it
The worst thing you can do is join & immediately go like "YOU GUYS SHOULD DO THIS". Instead, ask many questions about the DAO. Don't be ashamed to ask anything you don't understand about the DAO. Then attend the community call & ask more.
Some of the questions to ask:
Is there a roadmap?
What are you currently working on?
What do you need help with?
What do you think is the biggest problem here?
Activate
In a lot of DAOs, you join using a token or an NFT. That makes you a member, but not a contributor. Best DAO members are contributors - active members.
So, be proactive. Even if you don’t have time to complete tasks, you should at the very least be reporting bugs you experience & problems you notice. Share your 2 cents on proposals, share your feedback on other people’s work & make other contributions that don’t require a lot of time.
Most people don’t report bugs & issues, they just go around them. Likewise, most people don’t give crucial feedback on proposals & they don’t review things. These are some of the easiest ways to add value.
Providing feedback is 100x more valuable than voting - but this means staying on top of things & participating in the discussions. Likewise, you should also be encouraging others to participate in otherwise, which improves the general discourse.
Since most proposal discussion threads have 0 discussion, you will soon be liked.
In short:
Report issues - don't expect the DAO is aware of all problems
Give feedback - people hate crickets; give feedback & be loved
Find a buddy (optional)
It might make sense to find a contributor who’s been with the project for a while, meet them & try helping them. This will help you gain full context faster and also make it easier for you to start feeling the connection - a sense of belonging in the community.
Survey & Summarize
If you want to make any coworker love you, summarize the discussions in a few bullet points - especially if you're tagging someone & want their feedback.
But in general - summarizing the calls is one of the most useful things you can do, if nobody else is doing it already. Simply attend the call, and take notes:
Short bullet points of most important things mentioned & any conclusions made
Another few bullet points for actionable next steps "things that should be done"
Bonus: If you do this regularly, you can create little weekly or monthly reports, highlighting everything that happened inside the DAO. Less active members find this incredibly valuable. You may even want to start a newsletter.
If all of the questions you asked in the previous task & the calls that you attended haven't surfaced the things that need to be done - start being more direct.
Something most DAOs struggle with is figuring out the needs & pain points of their users. Startups know this, but DAOs haven't mastered it yet - user interviews. You should be reaching out to members to survey their needs & wants, their pain points.
You should be doing that with existing members as well as newcomers. With newcomers, you can also ask them what made them interested in the project & you can help them get onboarded.
In short:
Survey existing members & newcomers for needs & pain points
Summarize calls & any findings you make
Use the findings to share them & come up with things to do
To complete this quest - tell us what DAO you joined & what you found out!
Rise up!
Align yourself
One of the most important things is to make sure that your personal goals are aligned with the goals of the DAO. If they’re not, you will either make yourself look like an extractooor, or simply not enjoy your time there.
It may prove beneficial to do things you don’t enjoy doing, to begin with. Either to acclimatise yourself, to prove your value or make some $ - if it's otherwise not possible.
This will also help you understand the culture of the DAO & give you insight into what the DAO actually needs - opening an opportunity for you to later propose something you’re more passionate about.
Propose (optional)
Most DAOs don't require you to actually propose before being able to contribute, but you will likely need to propose at some point if you want to get paid.
We highly recommend people to start making a few contributions before asking for $.
Anyhow - all of the above should give you a good idea on what needs to be done. Next step is to think about what's the minimum viable solution for this problem, and not over-engineer it.
It doesn't need to be fancy or cool, it needs to:
Be as simple to implement as it can be
Solve the problem as elegantly as possible
Don't be a perfectionist & keep the pareto principle in mind, but do strive to always deliver highest quality work that you reasonably can without wasting time.
There are 2 other things you should keep in mind:
Don't propose the DAO does things you aren't willing to take charge of
Be mindful of your existing commitments, even if its super exciting
We all have ideas & DAOs have hundreds of ideas - what's lacking are the people to execute them. Idea on its own isn't worth shit most of the time. Sometimes is.
Likewise, be careful not to commit to something you can't do. And if it turns out you can't do something - the most important thing is to come clean instead of ghosting.
In short:
Keep it simple
Don't propose things you aren't willing to lead
Be mindful of your commitments
Do the things
When it comes to traits, the number one thing is reliability. It doesn't matter whether you're doing something big and important, or something trivial - what matters is that you finish what you started.
Do you do the things that you said you will do? Are you reliable? If the answer is yes, you have already set yourself apart from 99% of other “contributors” - because most people joining a DAO start by asking “How can I help?”, and then never follow through on tasks they’ve accepted.
If you said you’ll do something - do it. If you can’t do it for whatever reason, report back - do not ghost.
Always remember: underpromise & overdeliver.
It's easy to say things, but not so easy to do things. DAO operators are thus used to people claiming they will do things & then not doing them. It's much better if you don't make any promises, but just randomly pop-up with contributions.
So, surprise them by actually doing the thing! This, more than anything, will make you cherished.
Be autonomous
In a way, DAO contributors need to act like startup founders - they need to really understand the DAO’s mission, and care about the initiatives. They also need to take charge & try to solve problems, instead of waiting for others to tell them what to do.
On the other hand - they also need to operate like freelancers. As opposed to startup founders, DAO contributors cannot act as authoritative dictators, cannot be shouting orders. All they can do is take ownership & lead the way by doing the work. In DAOs especially, people follow people who do the work, not people who shout orders.
If you aren't used to being autonomous - that's no surprise. School taught you to not be autonomous & most jobs teach you to listen instead of being autonomous. In DAOs, its kind of the other way around. Read about these autonomous people for some inspiration.
Be like water
To summarize all of the above - you need to get into the flow of things. You need to learn about the DAO, its mission & its needs. You need to fill the cracks. You need to take initiative & lead the way, but also need to understand the politics of working with other people, on an equal footing.
So - be adaptive, like water. Learn how this DAO breathes, flow through it and find your flow. Change your tactics & tasks based on what works & what’s needed.
Everyone wants to do what they feel like doing - but the most valuable contributors are the ones who do what needs to be done. If you can master listening & becoming adaptive to the needs of the DAO, you become a linchpin.
Lead
If you flow the fastest, you lead. You flow fastest by finding the best ways to create value for the DAO & fill the gaps. Being the top contributor in a DAO automatically makes you a lead - people like you, people look up to you & people follow you.
And before you go “WHAT?! I thought DAOs don’t have leaders!” - think again. The most successful DAOs aren’t leaderless, they’re leaderful. It’s just that our definition & vision of leadership has been poisoned by authoritarian leaders that shout orders & direct people like pawns.
Leadership in DAOs is fluid, meritocratic (stems from contributing), and doesn’t necessarily carry any formal authority - simply other equals deciding to follow.
To complete this quest - tell us what you did!
Stay alive
Don’t burn out
“When I started working online freelancing, it was like, fuck yeah, I decide my own terms, when to work or not. I’m my own boss. Then I realized I was a pretty bad boss.“
When you’re working from home, especially if you’re working on something you enjoy doing - your work seeps into your life. It becomes hard to separate & balance work time from leisure time.
DAOs are another level - often working with people from across the globe and communicating through telegram & discord, it becomes really hard to turn off. There are always DMs & questions to answer.
So you either force yourself to disconnect & touch grass regularly, or risk burning out.
Embrace chaos
DAOs are chaotic. In order to have stability, you may need to find it IRL, by relying on your family, spouse, peers and other aspects of your personal life that are stable.
You may also join a DAO that’s more established - those tend to be less chaotic. They may also have project managers that simplify things for you & give you clear expectations, vs making you figure everything out on your own.
Ultimately, it's up to you to figure out how much chaos you’re willing to accept & how you’ll balance it.
Bloom!
“Not a big fan of the metaphor of burning out. I think we’d be in a better place if we recognize that this is much more similar to blooming. That after a plant flowers by exerting enormous amounts of energy to blossom & bear fruit - there’s a period of decay.”
Don’t let the fear of burning out keep you from blooming!
Like most startups, your DAO may have sprinting periods. It’s completely normal to push yourself through these periods, reach a goal, then experience a period of exhaustion. It’s okay to do something that is impossible otherwise, to overextend yourself, then take time off to recover.
This is how we grow.
Conclusion
Here's what we went through:
Show up - don't join as a lurker, become an active member
Immerse yourself - ask many questions & get full context
Find a buddy (optional) - befriend an existing member
Survey & summarize - go deeper, survey issues & summarize discussions
Align yourself - make sure your personal desires are aligned with DAO's goals
Do the things - underpromise & overdeliver, report back & never ghost
Be autonomous - don't wait for others to tell you what to do
Activate - stay an active member, report issues & give feedback to people
Be like water - get into the flow & become adaptive to DAO's needs
Lead - by doing the things & being autonomous, you automatically lead
Don't burn out - remember to go touch grass
Embrace chaos - keep in mind that DAOs are kind of chaotic in nature
Bloom - push yourself when there's a sprint or a deadline, then rest
Crypto is mostly made up of speculators. But DAOs need participation more than anything. Being an active participant that tries to create value, takes time. But it also makes you respected in the community, and that scales across communities.
Even if you can't earn in the DAO you're currently a member of, you will learn valuable things & gain reputation - which will open other opportunities for you down the road.
If you only leave with one conclusion - it should be this: do what you say you'll do.
Wish you all the best in your DAOing! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to @petheth on twitter or telegram.
To complete this quest - let us know how it all went! What has your DAO journey been like? Also consider taking this questline.
Doing it? 👀
This post is a micro course, you can complete it here & get an achievement NFT.
ETHDenver?!
Planning on going to ETHDenver? Join this telegram group!
Also consider joining the MetaGame raid & earn $20 for each referral.
🐙 Onwards!
Finally! Join us this Friday for another great townhall.
Much love ❤️,
peth