Cover photo

Penguin Crossing

Or how an idea becomes a prop

The past couple weeks have been a bit crazy. I have been distracted by penguins – the Pudgy kind. On July 5, Luca Netz, CEO of Pudgy Penguins, submitted a proposal to NounsDAO for a ⌐◨-◨ x Pudgy Penguins collab which I helped him put together and get through the Nouns prop process. And it kinda took over my world for two weeks.

From the outside looking in, the process may seem simple: you submit a prop; the Nouns holders vote on it; if it passes, you get whatever the ask is. But that’s like watching "How a Bill Becomes a Law" and thinking “oh, that seems easy enough.” But of course, it’s not. There’s so much nuance, dao politics and strategy that goes along with it.

And it takes sometimes months for it to go from idea to executed proposal. But it does start with an idea. And in this case, a fateful meeting.

How it started

Back in March, I met Luca at an Overpriced Jpegs Happy Hour – the first one actually – in Miami. Julian Holguin, CEO of Doodles, was the guest that Carly Reilly interviewed. It was an amazing event. And of course I was sporting ⌐◨-◨ and chatted briefly with Luca about a possible collab with Nouns. He already had an idea percolating! A few dm’s and months later, Luca circled back with a great idea inspired by his meetup with Klim from Big Shot Toy Works at the Licensing Show in Las Vegas. He was ready but didn’t know where to start.

Enter the Prop Concierge

And this is where my time and experience in the Nouns ecosystem came in handy. With a DAO – especially Nouns – there’s no one in charge of partnerships or collabs like a traditional business. There’s no biz development manager or a marketing department. You have to find someone within the ecosystem who can tell you where to go and what to do. A prop concierge if you will to help you with this crazy process.

We started with writing the prop. I gave him a template and an outline then he added the details of the idea. We refined it a bit. Then I threw it at my favorite nounish curmudgeon to review it and tear it apart to figure out what potential objections the prop might face. We revised it again and discussed some potential different directions but ended up with essentially Luca’s original idea of a special Pudgy Penguin high end collectible with Nouns glasses with some of the proceeds to go towards buying a Noun and having the Huddle join the DAO. This is not just any toy but a collectible drop on NTWRK with a digital experience built in. It would be similar to the Shark penguin drop which sold out in seconds.

There were numerous dm’s, emails and a couple calls to refine it. Then I found a sponsor to delegate two Nouns so that Luca could put the prop onchain (thanks Shan!). I got on a call with Luca as he submitted the prop to walk him through the process. As soon as it was submitted the bot alerts went out and the Nouniverse heard the news. It happens almost instantaneously so a proposer has to be ready when they hit that submit button.

The “wen” strategy

Deciding when to put the prop onchain for voting is dependent on a number of factors. We were writing the prop right before the 4th of July weekend in the US and I knew that we should wait until after but also had to take into account the timing of meetings, spaces and how to best wrangle Nouner attention.

So I knew that Wednesday July 5 would be the best option, knowing that The Lil Nouns Show had delayed to that date that week and was a show that Luca needed to be on and would be the best option for announcing the prop. So I got that scheduled in back channels but asked them not to announce it until the prop was onchain.

Why? Because I knew that as soon as this prop went onchain, there would be immediate attention and I wanted to capture that moment best we could. So the prop went on chain early afternoon and he was on spaces around 6 pm that evening. I also knew that the guest for TLNS was Zeneca and that would be an amazing audience for this announcement. (TLNS has a guest interview followed by a builder usually with an active prop – Zeneca was the guest; Luca was the builder). That team of Lils is fabulous -- highly recommend this space!

I also scheduled Luca for the Nouncil meeting the next morning. Both Lil Nouns (who hold 17 Nouns) and Nouncil (with 7 Nouns delegated) vote early so we needed to get in front of them first. This also allowed for an opportunity to jump start the excitement. And that’s exactly what happened. I love the Lils – they are mostly Builders and understood immediately how great this would be for Nouns. And Nouncil is a council of Nounish Builders – a perfect fit for an entrepreneur like Luca. And we were off to a good start.

I also made sure Luca knew which discords to jump into, tagged him appropriate channels and even gifted him a Lil Noun (igloo of course) for access to Lil Nouner private. I wanted to make sure he could communicate directly with voters and answer questions.

Don’t Panic (spoiler alert: I panicked a lil)

Then came some less than positive takes on the prop. I was expecting this – but not from Gremplin (although he seemed to come around). Or a couple others. This got a bit a nerve wracking.  The criticisms were fair. Just unexpected. And coming from someone who I have the upmost respect for hits harder. But Luca handled the criticism well -- better than I did. And a certain tweet helped calm my fears. And started a mini meme. I’m also pro pudgy (personally).

And since we had Noun O’ Clock already lined up for Friday, this was an opportunity to address those concerns. And he did it well. Even at 12:30 am – yup twitter spaces after midnight – because that show follows the Nouns auction around the clock. Is it crazy – yup. But Luca was a trooper. And that really showed he was dedicated to this prop.

This is all happening during the “pending phase” before voting opened. And the above mostly happened in the first 36 hours.

Now it’s up to the Voters

Understanding the voters in Nouns and their motivations is important when you write the prop but you really never know what’s going to happen until it does. What was pleasantly surprising was the excitement, not only from the Nouns side but from the Pudgy Penguin side! So many nounish penguin gifs!!! That gave a lot more visibility to the prop and brought some voters in that usually don’t vote.

Before putting up a prop, it’s good to analyze recent vote patterns, check delegations, and have an idea of where your likely FOR and AGAINST voters will come from. Sometimes you just don’t know. And sometimes you get pleasantly surprised by someone you put in the probably NO column (yes an actual column – spreadsheets help here).

Some voters have more influence than others, usually due to their thoughtful and well written reasons. Noun40 is usually one of those – I always take notice of his vote and reasons. And really appreciated the time he took to consider this prop. But it’s not always those with a lot of voting power that have influence. Onnnnnnnion and Wilson both have big influence with limited votes. Onnnnnnnion even had influence with 0 votes because of threads analyzing props. He’s a good one to watch.

With this prop we had quite a few surprise FOR votes that really helped (thanks POAP.eth!) but even as we came to the last day, by my count there were 80 likely AGAINST votes still hanging in the ether. Would they come in? A couple wallets I was watching had voted NO on props before and after prop 325 but seemed to skip that one. Hmmmmm.  My guess is this was in deference to Luca but I really don’t know for sure.

ZeroPod

In the midst of this, The Noun Square launched a new podcast and had Luca as the first guest. So I helped Toady Hawk with the interview and SuperTight Woody pushed out the edit with lightning speed to get it out before the vote ended. It's pretty awesome -- give a look!

The Governance Pool dilemma

And then just to add to the insane game theory that is NounsDAO, we had to deal with the new Governance Pool. This a new curveball that allows Nouners to delegate their Nouns to a pool and those votes can be bid on and essentially “bought” as for, against, or abstain votes.

When I first met with Luca about the prop I explained this new dynamic and advised him to just steer clear of this option. And he agreed immediately. It would have been a bad look for him to bid on those votes. And I’m on record against it so I wasn’t going to.

But there were 42 votes up for bid and a starting AGAINST bid was on the table. I was really hoping that these votes would not be a factor but there was no way to know for sure. There were a couple other Nouners ready to put in a bid but I really didn’t want them to have to.

Luckily, this worked out and those against votes weren’t enough to change the outcome. And we avoided the governance pool. But I was holding my breath refreshing the page until the time ran out.

Success!

The prop succeeded! “And there was much rejoicing.” This process is not easy, and if you are not familiar with it, it can seem really convoluted. We do really need to find a way to make it easier for those with amazing ideas to find a way through the process. But for now, it is what it is. With the Nouns Fork looming and tensions high, the prop process in Nouns will not get any easier any time soon.

And I don’t think it needs to be easy – just easier. I’m not exactly sure how to do that yet. But I’m working on it. This essay is part of that. There’s so many small nuances I can’t even capture here but it’s a good start. Hopefully, this gives you a bit of insight along with the How to Prop post (which I wrote while working on the Pudgy Penguins Prop--just couldn't tell you that at the time).

But please don’t @ me right now. I’m exhausted.  

Epilogue

There’s been a lot of surprises from this prop. I knew it would get a lot of attention – it was different from what we usually see and was fun – but I didn’t expect the level of attention it got within the overall NFT ecosystem. There were tweets, articles, newsletter posts, spaces talking about it from outside the Nouns ecosystem and we don’t see that often.

I knew the proliferation of ⌐◨-◨ would be amazing when the toy drop happens and the media that would come with it. I just didn’t anticipate how much proliferation would happen just from the prop itself.

AND the excitement from not only Nouns and Pudgy Penguins but from others who just like this idea of a true web3 collab. Exciting to say the least! It also has drove quite a few people to take a look at our governance – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And speaking of Ugly – I have to give a shoutout to my UglyDAO fam. This is a stressful process and they always help keep me grounded—they are my best cheerleaders and my best critics—and just provide a level of support that you don’t see in many organizations. It’s a special crew that just gets me. I can count on them like few others. They were in the background of all of this.

As well as a few others who helped early on in the process and right until the end. Don’t know what I would have done without those fabulous Aussies Jarmen and 87B0nes. Again – they cheer you on and tell you the real truth when you need to hear it.  We need more like them in the DAO. Preferably with those accents.

I can’t wait for this prop to actually come to life. This is merely the start. I can’t wait for this collectible to drop. It’s going to be quite a moment! But more so, I love watching Luca and the Pudgy Penguins team as they cook. They are really ones to watch. Don’t keep your eyes off them. And get ready for that drop – it’ll be here before you know it!

Oh and if you voted for the prop in Nouns or Lil Nouns, grab the commemorative POAP. And thanks!

{thanks subscribers and sorry for this 2 week hiatus -- blame the penguins while grabbing this collectible}

Skipper Lee drawing enhanced by Nounsai

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