Burn Notice
This post is to get some comments and discussion around the proposed solutions to our required burn reduction over the next 3 months.
Current Burn: 137k/mo
Required: 70k/mo
Introduction
Over the last few weeks, as a community we have had to come to terms with the new reality, that our budget is much less than it was last quarter. There have been a lot of surveys, meetings and discussions to hone in on potential solutions. These are Important to help us align but I think we are all feeling the fatigue of this general org change. For the most part, these sessions showed that the DAOs current priority and goal is to ship the product.
Unfortunately, with the next cycle starting on the 1st, we do not have the time to deliberate further.
We need to make the short term adjustments to realize this goal. Really this is in line with a leaner strategy in general. Build community > build product > got to market > then growth
Four highlighted short term solutions:
Global Slash - cut everyone’s stable pay by around 60-70% and supplement with our token. There is no way to sugar coat this, this kind of cut will require some people to lower commitment and/or abandon work in progress. This is especially true for people that have gone ‘all in’ on daohaus, making it their primary commitment and source of income.
Surgical cuts - Prioritize the shipping of v3 product and the builders necessary to make it happen, ask for voluntary self slashing to the point where they can continue to prioritize current work streams without losing commitment. Asking the bare minimum they can receive in stables without breaking their will. This prioritizes the v3 product team.
DAO RFPs - All compensation is moved into monthly or quarterly budget requests, a pitch/demo day is time boxed to review proposals, warcamp members signal support for initiatives and review outcomes on a schedule. This is a large governance change, and requires overhead to manage the change and new processes. Potential distraction, time funds/investment, we may not have the time to dive right into this.
Do nothing - unfortunately this means we burn through our runway in less than 2 months, nothing gets shipped. Everything is left half done and when/if it gets finished is unknown
this section is for context and more into the proposed focus over the next 3 months, as laid out by @earth2travis
Call to Arms
Runway allows more time to pivot. We do not have that luxury right now. To navigate this sea requires all hands on deck with the singular goal of surviving this storm.
At this point in time we are a technology organization. Our app is the core of our community. Our culture is second to none but building these tools is what brings us together. Without our app we are good conversations and some pretty slick albeit complicated processes.
Above all what is most important is our relationships. The bonds we have formed within our DAO and with the larger ecosystem.
But the world is testing these connections.
- With politics
- With disease
- With war
- And with a global financial crises that may be the worst we will see in our lifetimes
In February we raised the ETH equivalent of $2M USD. That was going to allow us to pay the bills and grow our team for a year. With the recent changes in the market we might not make it to fall.
This is a test of our resilience. How we react today will determine if we have a future together.
We are currently building some amazing technology. The version 3 updates of the Moloch contracts provided us an opportunity. A chance to take everything we have learned and start from scratch.
Our vision is building a box of composable tools. To provide the decentralized infrastructure and libraries allowing developers to build and communities to assemble the parts that are meaningful to them.
We are our first customer. We are eating our dog food. We are using these tools to create version 3 of the DAOhaus App.
Progress may appear slow. This is a result of the care we are putting into the structure behind the screen. The attention we have spent was just preparing for flight. Now it is time for liftoff.
The process is in place and the tooling is almost ready to rock. We have assembled one of the strongest teams in Web3. Features should start flying out of the factory soon™️.
We are already paying way below market rates for our caliber of talent. Most are willing to forego the opportunity cost of gainful employment in hopes of fulfilling our vision. An across the board cut would slow us down and not address the root causes of the issues we currently face. We would risk delivery and desertion while only treating symptoms.
We need focus and we need stablecoins. We have sketched out a budget to carry the Magesmiths to MCON. Our projections include a 47% reduction in wxDAI burn. But do not account for the tokens required to continue funding Paladins, Rangers and Alchemists.
In those two months Magesmiths will release the beta versions of
- Contracts, Subgraphs and a Decentralized Infrastructure
- Utility, Feature and Component Libraries
- Summoner, Hub and Core-UI Applications
This will have our products ready to share with the world by September. This should also provide the excitement required to secure additional funding and allow time for the market to adjust.
At that point our focus will change to a go-to-market strategy in Q4. This is when we start preparing for the future with a clear message about who we are and what we offer.
- Developer relations
- Raising a fund for grants
- Spinoffs for days
This is a future where we have the process and tools in place to widely experiment with meme-driven development. Where we can pick what we want to work on a put a small team together to go all in. And have a fund of grants to financially support our exploration.
Warcamp is going to battle. But we also need to hold down the fort. To keep the HAUS in order we still need:
- Funding pipeline
- Knowledge sharing
- Community management
- Social media
We cannot diminish the importance of these activities. But we have to be real about their prioritization. They all depend on us having best of class software in the market. And without commitment and focus we risk our technology and the future of this community.
Exploring is never easy. Startups are messy. The so-called super cycle led us to get comfortable. We have an opportunity to respond to the current situation. To take this test and set an example of how resilient the future of work can be.