Membership for the Nest DAO

During Aragon Network Vote 3, AGP-70 was approved with large majority. The Nest DAO will therefore be deployed in the coming days and the process to apply for Nest grants will be updated accordingly.

Keeping it simple

Under this new policy, the Aragon Association will facilitate the submission of Nest proposals by Nest applicants, as well as their review by the Aragon community.

Members of the Nest DAO will have the final word over the selection of grantees.

In order to do so, the Aragon Association is coordinating a community effort to determine and implement the best governance settings using an Aragon DAO.

Applications for Nest DAO membership are now open

Anyone can apply to the Nest DAO provided that she/he can justify some added value in picking teams.

Please express your interest in becoming a Nest DAO member replying to this forum post. Provide a short explanation on why your membership is relevant.

The Aragon Association will select the first set of members. After inception, members will have the permission to grant new memberships themselves.

The Aragon Association will keep the authority to offboard and burn membership tokens unless decided otherwise by Nest DAO members.

Participation in the Nest DAO is currently not compensated. Anyone who is not participating in grant selection will likely be off-boarded.

A few examples of expertises we are looking for

  • Technical ability to review and judge Nest applicant’s PoC and Github repos quality
  • Understanding of Aragon’s ecosystem of apps and technologies
  • Understanding of Aragon user needs
  • Significant knowledge on the broader crypto ecosystem and technologies

@Aaron @burrrata @danielconstantin @stellarmagnet @Quazia @DanielS @danielconstantin @sohkai @light @luis @jorge @lkngtn @cemfdagdelen @osarrouy @Schwartz10 @johnkelleher @mikec @gabi @stefanobernardi @bingen @facuspagnuolo

An Aragon Working Group will be created for coordination.

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Thanks for taking action on this @LouisGrx.
I support this initiative fully for two main reasons:

  1. Grants DAOs proved capable of rallying communities and creating transparent process
  2. I strongly believe the ecosystem players need to have much more integrated relationships. Allowing Flock teams to have a say in the Nest grants is an effective way of achieving that.

I would love to take part in such DAO. I can justify my membership through my close interest with the general ecosystem, my active engagement with on boarding projects to use the available tools of the Aragon ecosystem, my interest in Aragon strategy & long term goals and finally my excitement about Aragon dogfooding its own infrastructure to upgrade its own processes.

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Thanks @LouisGrx! I’d love to participate in this DAO because:

  • I’ve been involved in the project for a long time and know the ecosystem well
  • I’m a product person and I love trying products out, and I also have a dev background so can judge the technical details of their implementation
  • I love dealing with the Aragon community and welcoming new people to it!
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Hey @LouisGrx id also like join

  • I have been an Aragon community member for a number of years. I also think it’s important to have some contribution outside the flock/nest teams
  • I understand the Aragon stack
  • I also have knowledge with all the mainnet apps and most of the apps under development
  • I follow and have good knowledge of the broader ecosystem
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@LouisGrx Really excited about this! Thanks for taking initiative to make it happen :slight_smile:

I’m very excited about the idea of contributing because:

  • I’ve spent a lot of time learning about traditional startup/VC models, and a decentralized model that supports open source innovation of the commons while also accruing value to the core platform (thus enabling even more open source innovation) is really exciting!
  • I spend lots of time researching the broader crypto space, particularly around incentive alignment and human coordination
  • I’ve spent quite a bit of time learning about the Aragon community, tech stack, and pain points that need solutions

Questions:

  • Will communications primarily happen async (forum or chat group) or will there be regular meetings/calls?
  • Is there an expected time commitment?
  • Is there a plan to bring incentives into play? For example, VCs and angels support their investments because they are incentivized to maximize their return on said investments. I’m here because I think Aragon and DAOs are awesome (personal interests/curiosities), but at this time I literally have 0 skin in the game (ANT tokens). This feels like a weak model because in the limit only A1 or whales have real incentives to do deep due diligence and analysis. This echos my wiki frustrations that there’s a lot of people who could/should be contributing a lot more value to the platform, but but aren’t
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Thank you all for your submissions. Don’t hesistate to forward this post to other community members who could be interested in joining.

To answer your questions @burrrata,

  • It is up to the preferences of the Nest DAO members. I think a call every 3/weeks for example is a great idea.
  • There is no expected time commitment. The minimum involvement necessary is to form an opinion on proposals that go to ballot. This can involve having a discusssion with other members. We could imagine that if we want to undertake larger projects, members would be compensated in one way or another. Happy to discuss more.
  • That’s a good point. Some compensation in ANT could potentially make things sexier and align everyone.
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I would be happy to participate.

  • I have been involved in the project for some time and have strong opinions on what it’s priorities and directions should be.
  • I have participated in the nest process from both a advisor perspective and as a grantee with Dandelion
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Thanks for answering all those questions! :slight_smile:

3 more questions:

  • In addition to a weekly call, would there be a forum category for open discussions on Nest related projects and questions? Seems like that would make it a lot easier for the community to engage with the Nest DAO members. As is, lots of people DM me asking random questions, but A) those questions should be asked on a public forum so that they’re searchable and future community members can find them, and B) they should be asked to a core team focused on that topic vs random community members. This echos my thoughts on community documentation where it seems like most of the real action in the ecosystem is happening via DMs vs open public channels, which does not scale
  • Would creating an ANT incentive program be something we could start working on now? I see this as aligning incentives between project curators (this group) and project outcomes (grantees) so that there’s an incentive for Nest members to provide ongoing support to projects beyond due diligence and initial funding. (The da0 seems to be moving in this direction as well)). Is that something that is a priority or more of a “nice to have” wait and see item?
  • What is the core goal of the Nest program and this group? I imagine it is to drive value to the ANT token via products and services that support the Aragon ecosystem. Where “value” is defined by price of the ANT token as well as furthering the goals outlined in the Aragon manifesto (unstoppable organizations, self sovereign communities, collaboration > competition, free and open to all). Is this a correct assumption and/or are there other goals for this group?
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I would love to be a member of the Nest DAO:

  • I have been a member of the Aragon community since February 2018 and have gone through the process of being awarded three grants (1 Nest; 2x Flock), hence this brings forth valuable insights
  • As a product lead in a Flock team, I feel I have a pretty strong understanding of the needs of the Aragon project
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A forum tag is something that was originally proposed by @light as part of the working group communication tooling. We could definitely do that. Btw if you are interested in kickstarting the Nest WG and tooling I’m happy to work on that with you.

I’m pretty sure using bonding curves in the future would do a better job than ANT at aligning two specific entities (ex: Nest DAO curators and Nest grantees). This is one example of things we could research and discuss in the Nest WG.

But to address present concerns, i’d be eager to investigate potential ANT compensations/incentivizations schemes for Nest DAO members (another thing we can chat about once we’re done with the membership process)

Just like any entity in the Network we would be pursuing the goals detailed in the Aragon Manifesto. More concretely, we’ve seen in the past that Nest is a key piece of the Aragon ecosystem. It powers both product and organizational development. So one goal of this working group will be to successfully transition Nest into a community governed program. Another objective will be to make Nest a bigger, more lively and more professional program. Nest has a huge potential and this WG will make sure it is fully exploited to fulfill Aragon’s mission.

Let me know if you are willing to help on implementing the Nest WG. Would be a good way to push some of your ideas forward.

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@LouisGrx thanks for keep pushing this initiative forward. Will be great to keep experiment with even more decentralization on the community.

I’ll like to join, my main contributions will be:

  • Review and judge Nest PoC

  • Review applications from a community member and Nest grantee perspective

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Thank you for the post and prompt @LouisGrx
I’m very interested in joining the Nest DAO for the following reasons:

  • Have been involved in the Aragon and larger DAO ecosystem for some time interacting with a multitude of projects
  • Wish to contribute to further decentralization of the Aragon Network
  • Contribute insights on valuation methods for Fundraising campaigns and strategic roadmap

I’m excited to see where this goes :eagle:

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This sounds exciting. I’m in!

What’s the best way to get started?

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Hey,

Great to hear.

We’ll leave a bit more time for people to signal their interest for membership. Next week we can:

  • invite people in the Rinkeby Nest DAO for testing settings and apps,
  • create the WG chat,
  • prepare an agenda for the first call and find a date.
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I would also very much like to be invovled, for the following reasons:

  • I think it’s good to have some more diversity within the Nest DAO due to potential conflicts of interest that may arise from having an excessive representation of Flock and Nest team members

  • I have a decent amount of experience in evaluating projects and teams, having worked in Venture Capital since 2013. I’ve invested in over 50 early phase startups (angel/seed) with the most recent exit being sold to Kraken for over $100m.

  • I love deep dives into new products, testing them out and supporting founders through introductions to other people in the ecosystem that can be of assistance - irrespective of whether or not I end up investing in the team.

  • I’m fully committed to the ecosystem, organising Eth Lisbon and Lisbon Blockchain Week

  • I’m building an expert network application that sits on top of Aragon OS, so familiar with the Aragon ecosystem, network of apps and tools. The expert network may also turn out to be useful in the future for conducting due diligence on startups and products applying for NEST grants.

  • I’m fully committed to breaking the traditional VC equity model through the implementation of a decentralised suite of applications, creating improved systems for capital raising, knowledge acquisition and dissemination.

Most importantly, I want to help Aragon effectuate their long-term vision. Given my background, contributing what I know to Nest DAO is probably the single best way of doing so.

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I would also love to participate.

  • I have been reviewing a lot of Nest projects from the technical perspective before it was handed over to the Aragon Association.
  • I think the Nest is a key feature that sets Aragon project aside. I don’t want to mention any one in particular, not to forget any of them, but awesome Nest projects in the past prove how valuable it is.
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@joeycharlesworth Sounds like you have some great experience in the space and could bring a valuable perspective to the team. Discourse shows that this is your first time posting here. Why Aragon? Why now?

Thanks @burrrata

Unless I have something important to say and I’ve got reasonable proof to back up my opinions, I tend to be more on the introvert side of the spectrum - forums are noisy enough as it is. I have however been active in Rocket Chat and have spent a considerable amount of time researching other DAO creation and operation platforms such as Colony - all with their own learning curves and time commitments.

Why Aragon? Why now?

  • I recently flew to Berlin with the primary objective of getting to know more of the Aragon community. I’ve now met several of the team members from A1, Flock and Nest teams. There are some exceptionally talented individuals within the community, but more importantly I feel like we align in terms of shared values. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that this Aragon community is still relatively small, that Aragon is in many ways still in “chaotic startup mode”, finding out what works and what doesn’t. For me, this is the most exciting phase to be involved in the growth of an organisation.

  • I’ve literally spent years thinking about how to make venture capital more efficient and remove it’s unfair biases - and there are many, across all functions: Deal Sourcing, Venture Scout networks, Due Diligence, Investment Committee decision making, Portfolio Reporting, Portfolio Support, Follow-on or double-down financing decisions, Value-add services such as Recruitment, Leadership training, BD services etc or Exit planning: M&A/Acquisitions/Secondary Markets.

  • I’ve made countless mistakes when investing in startups (as well as from not investing in startups I had the opportunity to invest in) and I’d like to share these as well the learning iteration process with Aragon.

  • I’m building my company around the premise that each of the services that VCs provide can be unbundled - something I call “Venture as a Service”. Unbundling these services is however a huge undertaking and the modular design approach of the Aragon platform lends itself well to different parties creating various apps to unbundle the VC (vs say Colony, where building such apps is considerably more challenging due to its monolithic architecture). The fundraising app developed by Aragon Black which I’m a huge fan of is one such example and a foundational pillar here for this broader vision of decentralised capital allocation. That said, I also believe that several major adoption challenges lie ahead to avoid the pitfalls of precedent fundraising models.

  • On a longer-term perspective, I would also say that VCs are simply not required. Capital is becoming a commodity (on this note, I highly recommend a book called “World after Capital by Albert Wenger). The way VCs compete and try to differentiate is therefore through so called value-added services or by trying to build their own platforms (i wrote an article on this here). But each of these services can be disintermediated to specialists, hence i don’t see the need long-term for VCs. Decentralised models provide a much more transparent and efficient alternative to fair capital allocation and knowledge curation (at least for projects that align with a community ethos).

  • Peter Levine (from A16Z) sums up my thoughts well on this matter: “If I created a Venture Fund, I would create a firm with virtual services, not too different from the a16z model, but without employing people. So I would get CPOs, Engineering Talent, Marketing people who wanted to be involved with the venture fund and provide services. The reach in that case may be greater than the reach we currently have. You would create a network of people who could help companies without necessarily hiring them. They would get shares, have the privilege of investing with the venture firm, maybe get a little carry…that would be cool!”. This is much easier to do under a decentralised model, using tokens as equity, automated vesting contracts, expert networks etc.

  • In addition to deciding which Nest proposals to back, it’s likely in my opinion that the learnings from Nest DAO will evolve into something much bigger - a decentralised venture firm on Aragon.

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Also interested to join the Nest WG

@joeycharlesworth Thanks for the detailed reply! I also love World After Capital. Albert and the rest of the USV team are awesome :slight_smile: Also, ditto your sentiments on improving capital allocation and support for startups/projects. Really excited to hear more of your thoughts, jam on ideas, and see your vision for Aragon’s evolution.

On the other hand… I have a few concerns. While the forums are noisy, but they’re an essential part of the community. You can’t fight for freedom without addressing difficult or controversial topics. Furthermore, Aragon is a community. It’s impossible to understand any community, and it’s values, without first engaging in that community and contributing to open discussions. While it sounds like you have a domain expertise in the venture space, I’d like to see you engage more on the Aragon forum to understand our culture, pain points, and goals before jumping straight into a role that has power and influence over who does and does not get to build out their ideas. With the (more) decentralized model of the Nest DAO this is less of an issue because any individual is just one voice among many, but still…

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