#202: What a DAO is and why it might transform business…

Changing The Story with Lana Dingwall

What if there was a way to retain the autonomy, creativity, freedom and innovation of entrepreneurship, but also have the community, structure and support of others that we sometimes miss when running a business by ourselves?

This is what has me so intrigued with DAOs - decentralized, autonomous, organizations. Think of a startup business meeting a community driven project, meeting a bunch of self motivated people coming together to share resources to make money and achieve a goal.

They aren’t a new concept, in fact they first popped up in the 80s but because of limitations in banking, trusting each other with money and location limits they didn’t really catch fire. Enter blockchain technology, the internet, and things like zoom and now we have an opportunity to reshape how we work with each other, get paid and create change in whatever area interests us.

I sort of fell into working as a contributor with a DAO (Blu3DAO) simply because its mission aligned with mine (helping people make more money while having a greater impact) and was enjoying the community centric nature of what I was experiencing. Next thing I know I’m a governor (think board of directors), a contributor (think freelancer), my partner and I were given the power and funding to pick 35 strangers (and 3 people we met in Denver) to bring to Rio, Brazil. Once there those strangers quickly became friends and we helped many of them start their own DAOs and projects (NFTs etc) and helped secure funding for them to launch.

The best part was that no one there knew that I run my own coaching and consulting business (expect my partner Kate of course), but people kept telling me how good I was at coaching and consulting. LOL the power of doing what you love, and knowing you love it no matter what environment you’re in.

It’s one of the reasons I’m excited about the potential of DAOs. For many of us, we love what we do and we never want to be in a position where someone else is telling us what we need to do or how to do it, but we still miss getting to create with others.

DAOs are designed to reward self motivated, innovative, action takers. There is no CEO or ‘person in charge’. There might be leaders and core team members but they are simply people who have more responsibility on whatever goal your DAO is working towards - but that doesn't mean they have more power or authority - it does mean though they can have a greater impact on the project.

Being a serial entrepreneur, I know that some of the ideas and projects I want to bring to life will require me to work with others, but I also know that I don’t want to be a ‘CEO’. I want collaborators, co conspirators, not employees. DAOs are the first time I’ve felt that I could create those larger projects without having to do it alone, and without having to be the bottleneck CEO that is responsible for everything. Working with my amazing business partner for Astrid Park has taught me a lot about how nice it is to have a teammate.

It’s also worth mentioning that people often work in different DAOs, or like me, have whole other businesses that they run. The space is designed for cross pollination, it encourages people to be creative and do their own thing and you choose to work together because you have shared goals, not because you ‘need a job’.

If you’re interested in learning more, have questions (or concerns), as always feel free to hit reply. I also dive into this topic more on this week’s podcast episode. Check it out here.

Entrepreneurship for me has always been about innovation, expression, bringing ideas to life and getting to choose what and how I spend my time. If you’re the same, DAOs might be something fun to look into, even if it’s just to learn.

Keep being awesome my friend!