Preamble

After my last article, I received a lot of questions about DAO onboarding.

On Twitter it seems really easy– join a DAO, show up, wait for a task to be assigned to you, and await a reward.

But is it actually that easy? Let’s explore.

I joined a DAO quite some time ago, long before it was quasi-mainstream and before DAOs were even offering compensation! Back then, most people joined a DAO because they believed in the project or protocol underpinning the DAO and wanted to help.

To shed light on how onboarding works in a DAO today and some of the highlights and lowlights of the experience, I will kick-start a series of interviews with a few different DAOs. In this article, I will deep-dive into the onboarding process of a DeFi protocol and DAO, Yearn Finance by interviewing Farrahmay, an HR core contributor at Yearn.

Let’s start

There are several ways to join a DAO:

• The DAO/project posts a job position in a public forum: You work on a bounty, a member of the DAO notices you, and offers you an opportunity to join.
• You identify a project or workstream related to the DAO’s work on your own, a member of the DAO notices you and offers you remuneration and an opportunity to join.
• You join the Telegram and/or Discord of the DAO, introduce yourself and you say you want to join the dao

By no means a scientific analysis but from my vantage point, it appears option 3 is the most popular route (but not necessarily the best one 😆).

It is important to note that joining a DAO and contributing to a DAO are not the same thing. Contributing to a DAO means you are adding value and working at the DAO in some way, shape, or form.

I interviewed, farrahmay, a contributor at Yearn Finance DAO to better understand– what should a new contributor keep in mind when they make the decision to join a DAO?`

Answer:

Before committing to joining and contributing to a DAO, I would recommend you take the time to research different DAOs, understand their mission and values, and then find the DAO(s) that align with your goals, interests, and skill-sets. It may be tempting to try to join as many DAOs as possible, however this can quickly backfire as it becomes harder to meaningfully contribute and extract value. Once you find a DAO that speaks to you, you can apply for a role on a job board, complete a bounty, or join a Telegram or Discord community.

At Yearn, we have an onboarding working group that consists of contributors from different teams. Members of this group will reach out to individuals that recently joined our contributor community to better understand their goals and interests in joining the DAO, share more information about Yearn, and guide the contributor through their first few weeks at Yearn. We will try to pair new contributors with members of the team(s) they are looking to join, so they have a transparent view into the work the team is owning and the contributor experience at the DAO.

During the first few weeks of a contributor’s journey at a DAO, the onboarding team will focus on two key areas:

• Ensuring the contributor understands our DAO’s mission and purpose
• Supporting the contributor as they identify how to add value and identify a deliverable/first project they can sink their teeth into. We believe ‘learning by doing’ is one of the best ways to onboard a new contributor.

Question:

Given the influx of new people to web3 everyday, I imagine there might be an outpouring of new contributors across channels like Discord, Telegram and Twitter. What does Yearn do to set up contributors for success?

Answer:

It is important for DAOs to make their mission and goals crystal clear. At Yearn, the team developed the Blue Pill, a manifesto that maps Yearn’s origin story, mission, values, and principles. Yearn Finance’s docs pages also map out the DAO’s vision and products.

A clear purpose attracts people who are the right fit for the community, while also filtering out those who aren’t. DAOs shouldn’t aim to be everything for everyone. Instead, it is important to understand what drives the DAO and grow the community in accordance with those values and ideals.

Outside of a clear mission and purpose, contributors need to understand how to add value and become involved. At Yearn, new members will join our contributors forums in Telegram, join different teams, and increase their level of familiarity through working on projects, tasks and/or other deliverables.

It is essential that a DAO ensures that ways to contribute and expectations are clear and there are resources and tools to support contributors through this process.

Question:

Onboarding can mean different things to different DAOs. How do you define DAO onboarding? Does Yearn have a formal onboarding plan for new contributors?

Answer:

I define onboarding as the process for engaging new contributors. It is important for DAOs to invest in a strong and organized onboarding program so that new contributors enter the DAO with a good understanding of the DAO, the culture, their role(s) and how they can effectively contribute and add value. ‍The DAOs with the best and most effective onboarding programs enable new contributors to begin contributing to the DAO quickly, reduce contributor turnover, and increase retention.

At yearn, I have worked on building an onboarding process that takes into account the 4 Cs of onboarding–compliance, clarification, culture, and connection.

Compliance is the lowest level and involves learning the basic rules, tooling, processes, methodologies, and raison d’etre of the DAO.

Clarification ensures that new contributors understand how they can add value. In a DAO, you normally aren’t assigned a specific role or responsibility. It is up to you to identify a team or project that suits your skill sets and interests.

At Yearn, a member of the onboarding team works with you to identify a team or series of teams that are a good fit and help connect with the right github board, notion pages, or team members to help you identify a good first project or workstream to help you start contributing.

Culture is when we explain the norms for the DAO. At Yearn we accomplish this by giving new contributors an overview of the DAO, describing how things work, and explaining how they fit within and impact the larger organization. We do this through informal and formal methods like community calls, readings, groups discussions among others.

Connection is the highest level, wherein a new contributor develops relationships with the other members of the DAO and begins to feel like part of the team.

At Yearn, the onboarding team introduces them to a ‘launch buddy’, a member of the DAO that they can reach out to with questions and to talk to. We also encourage new contributors to reach out to as many other contributors in the DAO as possible! We also have informal social groups to help new contributors bridge the gap between them and other contributors.

Developing connections as a new contributor can be the trickiest of the 4 Cs, but arguably the most important. Small talk especially through mediums like Discord or Telegram can be very hard, but establishing relationships with other team members ensures contributors feel invested in their work and establish good connections with the rest of the team.

Whether or not onboarding is successful essentially boils down to two main areas. First, it is imperative that a contributor is motivated to become integrated within the DAO. DAOs are not a perfect working environment. They can be frustrating, confusing, and rife with ambiguity. Nonetheless, it is important to persist through some of the challenges as the upside can be incredibly rewarding.

Second of all, it depends on how the DAOs facilitates The Four C’s, whereby the new contributor understands how they can contribute, has confidence in their ability to contribute, understands the DAO’s culture and mission, and becomes socially integrated into the organization.

Question:

What should contributors do to make sure they are successful when joining a DAO?

Answer:

Each person who joins a DAO will have varying levels of Web3, DeFi, engineering, DAO knowledge and familiarity. Successfully contributing in a DAO requires one to be a self-starter and not be afraid to speak up and ask questions.

It is essential for contributors to reach out to team members and be diligent and innovative in identifying projects, deliverables and tasks for them to participate in a DAO. Self-management can be one of the hardest concepts for new contributors. You no longer have a manager that is going to tell you what to do or how to do it. It is up to you to proactively learn, define your own role and identify how you want to add value.

Question:

The first wave of contributors joining a DAO were less concerned about compensation, but instead focused on building the framework and foundations of a DAO. As new waves of contributors join, compensation is a critical factor to ensure individuals feel rewarded and can commit the time needed to help the DAO grow long term. Yearn uses Coordinape to reward its members for their contributions. Can you share more information on how Yearn Finance uses Coordinape and any pros/cons of the tool?

Answer:

Coordinape is a tool for DAOs to incentivize, reward, and leverage their community contributors. It helps DAOs to scale and provides transparency on where resources and contributions are being allocated towards. Coordinape helps solve for DAO remuneration by easily allocating funds and rewarding community contributors who are active and supporting Yearn. Yearn aligns to a proof of work model. This means that individuals that are aligned to Yearn’s mission and whose skillset/background aligns with the needs of the DAO join Yearn. They complete a set deliverable or project and then are eligible to be added to Coordinape. The time it takes to be added to Coordinape varies contributor to contributor. Some contributors are able to complete a high value-add deliverable or project within a week, others will work on an issue a few hours a week for several weeks before it is completed. I would recommend that contributors come in with a plan regarding whether they want to contribute part time or full time, and work to identify their first deliverable to accelerate being added into Coordinape. At Yearn, the launch buddy and onboarding team are meant to support the contributor as they are navigating DAO compensation.

Question:

Coordinape has a feature to vouch people, so all members have the option to add someone. This feature is amazing for decentralization, but the more members a circle has, the more this feature can be gamed, and members can vouch for their friends. What is Yearn doing to avoid this ? Some members may be involved for a few months, and then leave the DAO or just be less active for a few months (for any reason !). In a utopian world, members should clearly report this to other members in order to receive less rewards, or would even opt-out, so they are not rewarded when they didn’t work during some times. But is it really the case ?

Answer:

Any tool can be gamed, and Coordinape is no exception.

Thanks a lot to Farrahmay for her time and those very nice and helpful answers !