It’s 5:49 pm and it's been a busy day of prop-ing. Right now I have a prop I sponsored onchain up for vote in one DAO and two others that I’ve been helping with up for vote in two other DAOs. Plus three more on the way in three different DAOs. I’m going to guess that this experience is unfamiliar to most. And I don’t think until I just wrote that I fully realized the current craziness of my prop life.
There’s a lot that goes into putting a proposal together for a nounish DAO. The writing is the easy part. Understanding the process, the ecosystem, and even the tech can be much harder. (tip: use hackmd.io to write your props--makes for easier copy/paste to submit)
I have a lot of people who come to me to review what they’re working on and get some help for moving their proposals forward. Sometimes it’s easy because you can see the path forward. But most of the time it’s a giant crapshoot. You just put your best foot forward and hope that others will see the vision.
Getting the prop on chain is the goal, but it takes a lot of prep just to get to that point. It gets really interesting with folks who are already prominent in their own area of the space. I spend a lot of time prepping them about how this type of process is different than anything else they’ve ever gone through.
I had a call today with someone with an amazing idea. It hits all the right notes and is super exciting. But that doesn’t mean that it will necessarily pass. At any given moment the climate changes. And what may have passed even three weeks ago, may not today. So it’s a matter of making sure we can put it forward in the best light, and also create a campaign of sorts to share why members of the DAO should vote for it.
It’s a very humbling process. I’ve said on one more than one occasion that before you submit a prop there should a warning like they have with pharmaceutical ads: “may cause stress, anxiety, existential crisis, and questioning of all life choices,” and please make sure you hear that in the very soothing, announcer voice. It shouldn’t be this challenging, but yet it can be.
So at least on my end, I always try to make sure that whoever I’m working with is fully aware of all the different politics of the DAO and also that their expectations are not set too high. But even with all that prep, it still just doesn’t feel fun when you see that defeated badge pop up.
I really need to get the “Defeated” shop up on Shopify. Because I have a feeling a few people are gonna need this hat. Real soon.
Including me.
