DAO leadership and decentralized team building

Transcript

gmgm welcome to web3 Academy a place for entrepreneurs Business Leaders and creators to explore and learn how to use web3 to transform business models and build thriving communities I'm Jade bird and as always I'm joined by my co-host Kyle reedhead what's up Kai hey friends today's doer Spotlight we're talking with Steph Allen Sugg did I say that right Alan Sugg I think I think so Steph will tell us on the show yeah she will uh she's the media lead from seed Club okay seed Club is one of the leaders in the space uh who are running accelerators for Dows they're pretty incredible and we'll talk a lot about what seed Club is up to but the purpose of this episode is talk about doubt

leadership and decentralized team building so we're gonna obviously talk about C Club as I mentioned we're going to talk about some new words that we've learned internet native organization or is it Dao we don't really know uh some real examples of coordination challenges that exist in a decentralized team and how to navigate those and the importance of vision storytelling and operations and Leadership this is an important one for all Dow members and also just leaders in any type of organization yeah this one really excited me because of how real Steph got she told real stories From The Trenches which I don't think we get enough of that and we'll get enough vulnerability from leaders saying hey here's here's she gave a story of what happened when they made a

mistake and how they navigated that and we all can relate to that and it's so nice to hear some a leader be so vulnerable and yeah Steph had so many great insights to share all right but before we get into this episode if you enjoy our content and you would like to support us subscribing to our podcast or our YouTube channel is an easy zero cost way to do so so if you're on YouTube hit the like button and if you have any questions or thoughts for us please leave a comment we really do read them all and we're always trying to improve our content for you but before we get into Today's Show let's just take a minute to hear from our lovely lovely sponsor the future of social media is here and that future lives in web3 on

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need recurring Revenue you need unlocked at web3 Academy We Believe nft memberships are the future of business and community and that's why we decided to build on unlock learn more at unlock Dash protocol.com today we have Steph olinsug joining us Steph is the media Steward at seed club and not a think boy she just plays one on the internet Steph welcome to the show so happy to have you with us today oh thanks for having me I'm stuck to be here all right well I get a brief intro but you can obviously give much more context about your background uh why don't you

just start by telling us how did you initially fall down the rabbit hole so yeah I'm media Steward at a Etsy club and um yeah you know I to be honest I I onboarded to web3 just uh over a year ago and some you know for some folks still fairly new but I think I think also you know I feel like I feel like crypt the crypto uh timeline is like how you age in dog years you know it's like it's like your dog is like a year old but like actually they're seven years old so um I think there's some folks who yeah who are onboarding now and sort of you know see see folks who have onboarded last fall is like yeah it's like Elders or something which is just so funny to

me but um yeah so onboarded onboarded last fall and you know my to be to be frank I was a little bit um uh avoidant of the of the crypto space of web3 for a while my partner had been just you know going off about web3 for for a minute and finally you know I I've been like waving him off and just like you know I don't have time for this like I'm um I was running my own uh Boutique branding studio and and so just definitely had my my hands full on that front uh but yeah he you know he was like he's like I really think you should you should check out web3 I think you should just like listen to listen to some podcasts or um just like find your find your way

here and so I um I actually I actually listened to the a16z episode on nfts uh the day that Jack Dorsey announced he was leaving Twitter and it I actually it actually took Jack Dorsey leaving Twitter for me to start paying attention because I was like all right this like you know yeah exactly like like folks have been asking him to leave Twitter for a while and this is what finally got him to leave so okay what like there's something here um I can't tell if that's like an embarrassing story or an interesting story but I think it's I I think it's funny um but just the role that Jack Dorsey has played in like my my web free Journey but anyway listens to the uh episode on nfts by a16z uh it was the original one they posted last year and

um you know at the time it was when crypto punks were sort of popping off and like yeah you know nfts were were you know having their big moment in the spotlight and uh and yeah and I and I just like had immediate legibility around this thing they were talking about called douse um maybe you've heard of them and yeah I like it just it just made so much sense to me you know my background is in it isn't branding isn't design um has been in content creation and social media management um but always at the intersection of um coordinating around shared values and missions so I've done a lot of work but in corporate of course but then for non-profits and think tanks and Grassroots orgs and so there's just a lot of a lot of legibility there and I

feel like if I look if I look back in my my recent and also not so recent past I'm like oh I think I've actually attempted to start it out just like didn't have the technology to do it uh and so yeah it just immediately immediately legible um so I set up I set up a Twitter account crypto honey again sort of playing on this idea of crypto punks and just you know started like poking around crypto Twitter found myself in a couple discords and then um yeah and ended up at Sea clubs like in the right place at the right time as I like to say and yeah you know here I am this many months later uh yeah media media stewardess Club so I feel like people ask that question and you know like they're like hoping for some sort of road map for other folks to

follow you know I just I just like jumped on Twitter and like listened to a podcast and just started talking to people and here I am you know that's exactly how it works I'm really curious though what do you mean that you you tried to start a dab before you just another technology I gotta like I gotta hear the story on this yeah I mean it's it's yeah I feel like it's not as juicy as maybe it sounds but you know basically you know fundamentally was attempting to create a form of like decentralized meaning making and decentralized uh decision making with a shared group of people and I've throughout my life I've I've been in roles where I've been um either you know instigated things or LED things or founded things and almost

reluctant reluctantly have like persisted as the sort of like leader and coordinator of those things and have always wanted to have more just like uh collaboration this idea of like multiplayer collaboration has been really resonating with me lately and it just it's just it's just not possible uh with you know without without token technology and and you know folks just like don't feel the same level of stake um and they and they continue to they just like kind of continue would continue to sort of look to me for for answers and I'd always be like well what do you think like I like there's an opportunity here for us to do this together and um so yeah so I think yeah without there's like no like real exciting specifics about the the shape of what that was but like fundamentally

that's like how I've tried to design a lot of my a lot of my work and collaboration in the past interesting well I think you know one of the the reasons that we actually got to the podcast is Steph and I were talking on Twitter uh funny enough and uh and Steph mentioned this idea of uh you know wanting to talk about and discuss Dow leadership and decentralized team building is something you've been exploring a lot so I'm really excited to dive into that I think first though let's kind of revert back a little bit you mentioned you're at seed Club why don't we talk a little bit about sea Club right now because it's uh I mean I love what sea Club is doing and so I want to explore that a little bit further but why don't you just walk us through what seed Club is

um and like how this how kind of works on what you guys are doing yes so C Club you know we're we're Adele We are um internet native accelerator it's kind of this language we're trying on um you know our primary our Flagship um product or experience you could you could you could call it is is our accelerator so right now we're going through our fifth cohort and we have 16 incredible uh incredible projects incredible early earliest stage communities and um yeah you know the accelerator program is it's it's 12 weeks of um you know incredibly insightful programming led by the top web3 thinkers Dow Builders and operators in the space a bunch of our alumni

um and the cohort culminates in this thing called demo day which is which I definitely have to I have to mention um because it's on December 16th and even though it feels far away it's gonna it's like gonna be here before we know it and um and demo days is like the most exciting uh part of the year for for the team because we just the energy of demo day hearing the projects talk about their or how far they've come in those 12 weeks watching them essentially launch sort of like introduce their Call to Adventure for the community and to the communities uh just just the most exciting thing for us um so that's like that's like our primary or sort of like I just gotta say I've been to demo day before and it is the most fun I've ever had in Discord I've been the most fun

it's it is a blast there was people playing music the chat is going off like going off it is it's a it's a really powerful if you are building a community right now if you're listening this podcast and you're building me you need to go to demo day even if you're not interested in the Dows you just need to see the way this event is run because it's the best community event I've ever seen in Discord it's awesome I know I mean yeah I mean Jay thank you and I I totally agree and I think I mean to your point yeah I I just like jumping off of that I think you know at Sea club right we have this this sort of like legible um accessible experience called the

accelerator right and and um you know accessible but also highly curated um and also I think that this experience of demo day that you're talking about really captures like what we're actually trying to do at Sea club which is um showcase the way in which this technology enables the the formation the creation of new kinds of organizations new kinds of experiences um and and yeah you know to your point like it's a demo day it's in Discord like how could how could that be how could that be anything exciting but yeah there's just there's just something about um about what happens when you bring groups of people together who have a shared interest in building and understanding new culture and building that new culture and then you pair it up

with with an ownership layer with tokens and I think that that's really what we're what we're striving for at C Club it's like what happens when we do that and I feel like we are just like at the very beginning of that Journey both in C club and then also as a space um and so yeah that's that's to me that's the most exciting thing about being at C Club is we have access to um this entire like ecosystem this entire network of again really high Insight Builders and operators and we're able to you know test out uh these these experiments of coordination as we're both you know teaching and stewarding and and also you know receiving that receiving that that wisdom and that knowledge at the same time so yeah I just love that you that you were there

and again I can't wait I can't wait for this year uh for this this cohorts uh demo day it's gonna be so fun is there a specific type of Dow that's in C because it all Dows first of all I guess is my first question you said projects I don't know what exactly that means uh but is it is it accelerator specifically for Dallas it is it like are you trying to curate a specific type or what's that like process like to get a Disney Club I love this question because one of the things that one of the projects that I've been I've been leading at C Club is um the development of our our point of view our POV just to like really really solidify what that is like what is you know what what is our culture adventure and how do we communicate that both you

know with within the experience of C Club but then also visually linguistically um through every touch point that is c-club um and this word you know Dao has has just been such a source of of tension for me because I think it's it is it's a word that is really it is really legible you know it's it's what it's what I think retail folks in web 2 hear and like can kind of it's like kind of what pulls them in but it's so unspecific and like a dow you know there is no there is no like functional way to recognize a doubt other than to say you know we're a Dao and Dallas can look many different ways so um one of the the words or the phrase that we're we're trying on it at C Club is this idea of an Internet native

organization which can which encompasses like a you know a dow a tokenized community a meta label Squad a guild whatever you want to call it but essentially what we're referring to is this this new type of this novel type of company or organization that that tokens enable the creation of and and really what that is is just like groups of people coming together and creating meaning um around around a shared a shared a shared Mission so yeah again Dao tokenized Community meta label whatever it is um but but it but to answer your question directly at you know at C club we look for um projects uh that that that really align with this idea that that ownership is the fundamental value proposition of

whether Community ownership is a fundamental value proposition and that that now you know in web 2 you you would participate in platforms you would create content for platforms you would you know engage in all of these actions and interactions bringing value to these platforms on the internet bringing value to these networks but we had no way to have ownership over um you know both Financial ownership but really brand ownership and and have that that persistent like cultural value continue you know to be tied to that in a meaningful way and in a memorialized way so um yes so when we're going through the application process when we're stewarding projects through the

accelerator we really drive this idea home that it should be every you know everything ultimately you know Progressive over time right there's many different ways this can look uh but the thing that we're driving towards is community ownership uh push push further and further out to the edges the internet native organization I think that's a much better name than doubt because I was sitting on the couch yesterday I'm at my parents place right now and I was like my parents were asking what I was doing I was on a meeting kind of late and they were like what are you doing and I was like I was like do you really want to know what I was up to and they're like like yeah and I was like okay have you ever heard of a doubt yeah here we go and she was like what and I was like a decentralized

autonomous organization and my mom just like turned and walked away yes literally just like I don't know what the hell you're talking about Kyle yeah well I mean yeah to your point like this I think this phrase internet native organization just really captures like what is actually here right that like something that that found that like is founded on the Internet is founded digitally like um and then it it's an organization it's a new type of entity it's a novel type of entity that's that's enabled by tokens so yeah it's I I yeah I totally agree with you so you've got 16 daos projects internet native organizations companies internet strangers companies whatever we want to call exactly in the program right now what's the fast forward us to December

16th I'm assuming this is you've been through one cohort already so this is your second cohort I think that you've been through in the last year so what's the takeaway typically or the result for these Dows what do they go away with uh feeling different or what have they learned or what's the uh yeah yeah so I think there's two I think there's two answers to this question so one is this like real sort of functional answer that you know over over the course of the 12 weeks previously the cohorts were um eight weeks long but now we have we've extended it to 12 weeks to include just like more spaciousness for actual building and integrating the learnings that folks have during the during the cohort

um and so you know functionally the uh teams come in um you know a lot of times we see them just sort of like kind of a little bit at Sea just like knowing that they that they're yeah that like okay we're here we understand that like tokens are important and that Community is important and um but we can't quite figure out like what is a sustainable value creation model um how do we how do we incentivize our community to stay and create um sort of these like fundamental questions that you know I think are still very challenging to answer at the end but uh but after the after the the programming the ideas you come to demo day and you're able to to sort of have just like a clearer sense of like what that is for you right so for some folks um so so like I have a few projects that

I'm working really closely with and obviously working with them on media so for some of them it looks like okay we're launching our media Network on demo day and here's how you can participate in it here you as a community member in this in the style in this internet native organization here's how you can participate in in this Call to Adventure and um and then for some it is actually launching a token on demo day uh so there so there's like these like functional um very very like uh obvious ways in which they're changed but I think that the more the more interesting part to me is to it goes beyond demo day it's like the sort of the persistence that happens afterwards so you you know they're they're connected to um our our like robust um uh network of collaborators first and foremost like that happens right away in

the in the accelerator you know you're you're tapped into um folks who have just had you know way more experience building both in the space but then also maybe you know doing doing startups or going through uh like founding things and in web 2 but then have come into to web through with that Insight um but then but then post demo day they're tapped into our alumni Network they they're they're um funneled into what's currently called our cultivation uh you know working group or cultivation um Potter or squat or whatever you want to call it and um you know they they're that that support it persists over time and so for me the most exciting part is to watch these um to watch these teams evolve and mature and then have to you know come

come back or come back and say okay now we've had this question how do we how do we do this how do we scale this how do we how do we move through this tension and um that that to me is the most um persistent value proposition of C Club in my opinion it's just that that that persistent um sort of support that that you get after going through the accelerator what are you guys noticing I mean you've had a lot of of really high-end like uh Dows that are that are doing really really well jump is a friend of the show uh we have Jeff on all the time uh we love jump and both I think Jay and I are both part of jump as well uh so you've had some incredible guys that are going through but obviously we still all have

our problems and I'm just curious what are you noticing are the like most common problems that Dows are currently having today is there anything that stands out yeah something that stands out I mean there's a few themes um yeah the three that come to mind are I think I think there's a a um attention around Focus so you know and and I'm I'm sure like you all is as Builders as entrepreneurs can relate to this that the space is moving so fast there's just so many exciting new insights and it can be really hard to um yeah yeah like you just you just want to be able to grab all of them all at once and go and pursue all these things

all at once and and so I think that's a consistency a consistent theme is like focus and then also just simplifying um you know we and again there's something I can really relate to just like the the desire like um the like web3 urge to like constantly over complicate things and just make things really big and Grand and like really you can just like okay just start with a newsletter just send a newsletter like let's start there um and then and you know and build over time um so that we need to token gate at first though come on come on exactly road map like and then yeah and then like yeah this is all this and and like those things are really critical right but I think I think like start you know just just start just just do this whole thing um and and then yeah

I think you know this the market conditions for sure right like that's that and and the consistent or the um persistent sort of legal ambiguity that continues to just be a source of anxiety for folks um again as I'm sure you can relate to um but for me the piece that I find the greatest connection uh with with projects around is yeah it's like how do you how do you how do you how do you lead in a decentralized uh organization how do you how do you actually create meaningful outputs that align with your POV at scale whatever that scale looks like right because like if the three of us were to do something together like even this podcast like that's pretty simple because there were three people

we have you know we have an understanding what we're doing here but as you start to scale that out you add in one person you have four okay now you have six now you have ten and it just gets you know more and more complicated over time and especially as you have um especially as there's greater sort of um like surface area between the sort of core idea and then the the margins or the or the outskirts which is where we want to be pushing that value and it's where we want to be pushing that um that that agency uh but but it but it becomes more and more challenging the further out you get so I think that that continues to be uh continues to be a source of tension and I think to me is the most exciting design space right like all this all these conversations

around coordination and governance like that's really what we're talking about yeah I know when we first launched or when our community first launched a web through Academy Dao we had it just like kind of open anyone could join in and participate and like learn and and it was great it was fun but the problem was it just knew people kept coming and coming and coming like oh my God like there is no leader there is no structure there is no team because it's just it's just Mayhem all the time and so we actually had to close it down and like let some people kind of fall out those who were like not super into it and now we have like this kind of smaller team there's clear well we're working on kind of clear roles clear leaders clear structure and it's just been like a

breath of fresh air once we got to that point we're not even fully there but like as we get to that point I guess it's a better way to say it um so yeah I think that this is a massive problem now as we mentioned you were talking about sort of Dow leadership and decentralized team building um which I love the sounds of this I know our listeners are going to love the sounds of this and I want to dive into that I'm curious where's the best place to start like you've been thinking a lot about this you've been writing a lot about this which is really cool um so so so just give us kind of your like your framework or what you've been thinking about because I know you've been mauling this stuff over for a while yeah I I mean I well first I appreciate

I appreci sharing of three Academy I just I feel like for any folks building in the space for a meaningful amount of time it's just so resonant like you know where you just see that happen over and over again and um and and a consistent theme is like you know smaller more intimate um is is really is really where that that sort of um is really where the juice is and where you should where we can like have more Innovation even if it's slower um I mean in some ways it might not even be right it's it's it's when you have less people right it's and more intimacy and more connection but um yeah where to start I mean I think so I I guess I guess I have a story I've been

um really attached to for the last few weeks so you know a media team media team Steward um we're we're a new working group the media working group we um spun out from the community like bucket or working group at the beginning of Q3 of this year so that's back in July I was a brand new steward of that group so um not not my first time like you know leading leading teams or coordinating groups of people around things but it definitely you know still sort of cutting my teeth at this this brand new thing that we're all trying to do together and um yeah so you know the thing that I have been really proud of with the media team is you know brand new brand new working group in July we onboarded a new

contributor in August so now we're a team of four and um at the beginning of Q4 so like three weeks ago um I we we have these recurring weekly sayings you know I think you know very sort of traditional way to to coordinate and um and we had you know a specific way of running that meeting and after after doing that for about a quarter um we were exploring this brand new initiative um this brand new media initiative at Sea club and I'm I'm being pulled into to lead that initiative and um which which meant that I had to sort of free up my my capacity to really dive in there and made the decision sort of with the team but also a little bit like okay like I'm gonna you know I'm gonna trust and this is gonna be like a

version of a trust fall for all of us is I stepped away from those weekly media syncs so the three the three media team members just run those things solo now and you know we I think it was after the first uh the first week of me not being there maybe the second week we um had to launch the brand new season of the the C Club podcast which is now called building at the edges the episode was with Marty Bell of pool Suite really fabulous episode um if anyone hasn't listened to it um and yeah so we were we had to launch this this episode and you know it required coordination from all three folks in the media team so we've got our you know creative director designer who is uh actually creating the you know the jpegs as he likes to call them the

digital assets um the visual assets and then we have our podcast producer who like you know literally produces a show uploads it to the RSS feed um pushes it live to our site and then we have our person who leads social and publicity who then distributes it out to Twitter and um and various other places too so you know it's this real sort of coordinated effort and we realized that the episode card the jpeg was missing a space for the episode title and you know we we realized this I think it was at I don't know like 9 A.M 9 30 a.m and um we're like okay we can't we can't we can't publish this card without the title there's also some like missing you

know some things are a little bit wrong on here and so the four of us got into what I lovingly call our public scuffle on Discord and I I hope that the teams listening to this I know that they're they're probably laughing because they're probably tired of me referring it to like this but um but yeah the truth is we all came in and and we were all representing our various parts of the work stream right that like you know our designers like I'm you know he's he's pissed off because how many times has he just been asking for what copy you know yes you know and and I'm like 100 you're right like this is this is like both my bad and it's like a failure of our process and like we can we have we use great learnings to pull from here and how we can how we can do this

different next time and we gotta publish we got to publish today so what are we gonna do and and then same thing like our social persons like I gotta publish by 10 30 a.m because that's our best engagement time you know and then our Productions person it's just we're all coming in with just our like our little various corners and um we managed to work our way through it uh you know I our designer happened to be AFK I because I'm uh you know previously a designer I was able to pull into Photoshop and illustrator and fix up the card and um that means that we push it out and um there was also my uh our purposely person she's probably gonna be embarrassed and saying this there was a typo in the Tweet which is like if any yeah so you know you know that Vibe

right it's and I just I was like look do not let the story all you the amount of times that I have like you know uh tagged the wrong person like linked to a Google doc instead of a like the podcast episode you know just like this it just happens um so we had to we had to then uh like you know delete and retweet and um so you know on on net on Surface you could say that was a disaster Steph you stepped away from the media team weekly saying this you know this this didn't go well this publishing didn't go well that episode blew all of our stats out of the water so we had the most um the most let me get this right was it most downloads in the first seven days for the whole year the most uh the most

downloads and daily active listens um on on launch day for the whole year the top the most um yeah and both on launch day and then also at large so I just you know yeah I like popped in popped into our Discord and I was like y'all this is look at what happened and so but then okay but so that so that's one part of the second the second part of the story is um that that the next week I um dropped into oh yeah and I I congratulations I was like you guys congratulations on Surviving our first public scuffle like this is not going to be the first this is not the first this is not gonna be the last you all know it um this was this wasn't the first and it's not really gonna be the last either

but um so I I dropped into our media weekly sync uh the next the next week and right as I dropped in um our publicity uh lead she was leading the team through a retro of what happened and I just like sat back and let them let everyone like share what was the worst part what was the you know the best part of the week and the thing that everyone said was the worst part was the way in which they were trying to have their specific work streams needs met and it just like was coming up against friction right which is that makes a lot of sense and the best part everyone said was that was the team was was the way in which we were were able to say the thing directly to each other to have Clarity to have it be frustrating to feel like you know to

feel unclear where we were going to land but then ultimately we landed it and yeah and I I just to me I'm like that is that is success like that that is a definition of decentralized team building right there like we got the thing out meaningfully on time a little bit you know fumbled a little bit here and there but the team came through and was like okay we've we know what we have to do to change this and now we were iterating on those work systems or those those work um uh workflows and uh yeah so long story but I'm sure it can be I'm sure there's like feelings of relatability in there for some folks oh absolutely I think Jay and I haven't been building an agency together for the last what three years now it's been and uh and I think the hardest part as a

leader is to I think you call it trust fall but it's to just let go right and to put that trust in your team and let them kind of run with it uh and every time you do it it's the guess there may be some problems like you like you had but like that's what allows you to continue to grow it allows your your team members to continue to grow and so like ultimately you need that and every time you let something go to someone else in the team it's like this compounding effect as every one of the team levels up right uh so I think that's just so important it's just a great it's a great story to be honest and I think it leads me to a sentence that I read in one of your articles called leadership exists in the tension between Vision storytelling and

operations how we navigate this tension is the heartbeat of an or of organizational culture I thought that was a really really interesting thing uh and I'd love for you to sort of break those three things down when we're talking leadership here he said the tension between Vision storytelling operations we just sort of broke down operations and kind of what that's like um but walk us through that kind of you're thinking there on this on this sentence that you wrote yeah and and I mean if we can I think that story was is a useful sort of backdrop for thinking about this um this line because you know what what is so so to to when you're in a position of of leadership you know you have to have you have to have some Vision you should have

conviction for that Vision um which is great right it's and what what if if you're not able to align the team or align your people around that Vision then what's the point right then you've been then you're you're gonna you're gonna come up against um you know you're not going to be able to facilitate this specific Vision that you have um and and also we can we can broaden that out and maybe we can even say Collective Vision so let's call it with the media team as a whole right let's say we have this Vision we have an understanding of what our media strategy is and what it should be um and then how we tell the story both of what that strategy is and also how we have um succeeded at that strategy how we have learned within the challenges of that strategy that's critical for us to

maintain our um our our place of trust within an organization so we can even call it on a you know on a one on a one-to-one um layer like you know and Jay like you two are building a studio and you know maybe maybe you two have a vision um and maybe you're trying to bring your bring this team along with that vision and maybe at some point um Kyle like you have an idea that that bumps up against Jays um and what you know there's a there's a version where um you're able to break through that by by just like showcasing this this narrative this storytelling around why this matters and to demonstrate your conviction for why this matters and and then J for J to sort of like trust fall into that to see how you have you have like felt this conviction for this thing

um and and I see that I see that on a one-to-one um layer I see it within teams and I also see it in the way in which like within a strategic planning process or within a quarterly print planning process like this also showed up for us at um uh you know at Sea Club as well just like okay here's here's here's the media team Vision uh and I need to I need to sort of like sell this community sell this Dow or or tell the story to the Dow about like why this Vision matters and why it's worth um allocating resources too and why it's worth um allocating capacity to and if I'm not able to effectively communicate and tell that story I might I won't get those resources which has happened right um so and then and then right then you get into the operation side of it right

can you actually then execute on that vision and so that's like it just like creates this like flywheel of of trust that's just like really critical for decentralized team building the other thing that you talked about uh in this article which was a fantastic article we'll link to it in the show notes uh and I love your point and Kyle and I never disagree by the way that that absolutely never happens totally um [Music] we got things in slack that we were disagreeing on currently I love it I love it so uh but you talked about when you talked about and then you talked about Vision you talked about the the importance of or the challenge of vision for leadership and I think you

particularly were quite vulnerable in the way that you addressed and you maybe even said this earlier in the episode that uh when you step into these leadership positions when you started that first non-dao uh you weren't even sure if you wanted to be the leader maybe and I think that that is one of the biggest challenges that leaders have particularly in Dows where you can be given leadership quite quickly right you you show up and there's there's roles available and you just kind of fall into that role and you need this when you talk about Vision you need to have this ability to sort of like be able to tell the vision but then also like blindly trust it blindly might be the wrong word but like believe in it

right this like faith and particularly right now when we're moving so fast and things are changing so fast you know it's there is no we're not we don't have these Visions based upon these like you know decade old playbooks that we're like oh yeah I know this Vision will work don't worry I've seen it done before right I read in a book whatever we're more in this state of like you know just belief right and so I'm just curious how do you how do you battle that or how have you seen other Dow leaders battle with staying true to a vision even when you yourself maybe are a little bit uneasy or unsure because we all have those moments of Doubt even when your token goes down 70 in like a couple months right yeah right

I mean I think you're asking the like most fundamental question of both leadership but then I think also within the Dao space too within within web3 and uh yeah so the the word that was coming up for me when you were asking that question is um conviction and I think I think I said this word earlier too but I I just I'm thinking I'm just realizing more and more there's like the power of conviction both for myself but then also within within my team members and and also within other other leadership that if I you know if I see someone have conviction and they can communicate to me why that conviction matters I'm just like you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna go for it let's let's try this on like f around and find out you know like let's see

what happens and like let's let's yeah like like lfg and um but but and you know and I think I think there's a version of that that can be experienced like flippant but I think having actually having conviction and being able to communicate why that matters is not flipping like it takes real like it takes real intentionality and you can tell when someone doesn't have conviction the way that um you know just again thinking about branding and marketing like you can tell when a brand is like faking it um like you you can tell when someone actually has conviction and and so I and you know I think about the way in which we find attachment to people and the way in which we find our partners and like there's a sense of like you don't know actually how this is gonna end right but

you see there is this like sense of shared conviction this like sense of shared Vision that there's something here and we're we're like are building toward it there's chemistry around this thing like let's you know let's let's see where this goes um and and you know another another word too that I think has um has been critical for us at C club and I also see as being critical for um creating enduring Dows or Internet native communities uh internet of organizations is strategy um and and you know you can have you can have this sort of end point in mind and I feel like sometimes that end point is very clear that that vision is very clear it's like high contrast the clarity is there and then sometimes it just like disappears I don't know if you

ever experienced that but that happens to me all the time um maybe maybe I shouldn't say that on on a podcast but no but like it does I feel like it I don't know where we're going yeah literally like I just I'm like oh I just you know you wake up and you just like you have this utter Clarity and you like you know okay this is this is the plan I see where we have to go and then like minutes later you're like oh it's gone like okay like check in with me in a couple hours but I think that the the role of strategy is really critical there because that's something that you can establish when you have that sense of clarity and that's something that that can be both um Evergreen but also resilient that you can like you can you can return to your

strategy in those moments of of when you have a lack of clarity and you know that those that strategy was established when that Vision felt really clear and then when you regain the sense of um the sense of clarity on that Vision or when you have a new insight that maybe complicates that Vision you can then you can then like within the resilience of your strategy like adjust or or maybe even refine or go deeper on certain things um yeah so I think I think those two things like conviction and strategy just like continually come up for me within that you you said the word decentralized team building a couple times can you just Define what that means for me or for us like I just I need to know exactly what you're referring to when you say this yeah totally um and do I actually have a full fully

formed definition of this I'm gonna I'm gonna try it on you know because I think there is something yeah there is something there right because like team building in a centralized in a centralized way incorporated or or however you want to Define it um I think I think we have a false experience of what that looks like that um that there you know there's there is a sense of like here is here is here is who makes a decision here's how those decisions are made um and and there's a there's a sense of um of like accountability or responsibility or for lack of a better way to say it there's someone to blame um I think and I think we're always looking for who to blame um just to be very blunt right and I think in other ways we use that we talk about ownership we talk about

responsibility but ultimately we're often just like who do we blame um and and I think this idea of decentralized team building and also you know being in the crypto face it's just totally complicates that idea and you know I think some folks are like immutability like we you know everything is traceable and I'm like yeah but the majority of our coordination actually happens off chain like us right now you know like there's like the felt experience of being here and exchanging ideas and um and and so within within the centralized team building it's like you we all have this like shared responsibility like the responsibility that the sort of ownership you know blame I hate that word and but but I think it I think people can understand what that means it's it's sort of it's shared it's it's distributed

um and I think that's a really challenging thing for us um to you know I think it's really hard when you can't just point to one thing you know thinking about the media um that our our public school on the media team it's like we can't just point to one you know it was a it was a culmination of many of assumptions that I made of other other people made miscommunications here and there and um and and that happens over time and and to me that is like that is like what decentralized team building is it's like us us realizing that we have Collective responsibility here Collective ownership um and it's it's yeah it's it's something that just it's a new experience I think for us Steph I love what you said about this

concept of decentralized or sorry of collective responsibility uh really I feel like that's such a key part of decentralized um team building how do you cultivate Collective shared responsibility in a decentralized team yeah I love this question because I can I can I can like give two like fairly concrete examples of how this was played out in the media team as one example so um our podcast producer you know continually was having a idea this we call them issues on our weekly sync that was like what is our what is our annual podcast Cadence and it just you know just was one of these questions we

just kept deprioritizing because there were other more urgent things finally I was like feeling bad that we hadn't addressed this question because you know that's it was clearly a source of um just like anxiety and interest for him and and finally I was like you know what like pitch me what do you think you know like like I think I think there's a version where we just we just sort of um we forget that we have a point of view and we just like need to be reminded that like no okay what do you think let's talk about it like like and this is someone who I think is is really um stretching their legs within like operational like workflow and and it was fabulous to see what he returned with the following week it was this like figma board this big Jam board that like

was yeah it just like there was Post-its and I was just like and and you know planned out the year and I was like great like like you know like this is this is amazing um and that's one example and then another example around this idea of collective responsibility um is I I you know there were there was some um teammates who were uh just like weren't really clicking around something and I was and I was watching it happen uh um weeks and um and and then each each one of them separately in our in our one-to-one check-in just like you know was checking in with me about about the specific thing and I was like you know what I think I think what how you guys just need to connect like I like I you know I can't I can't solve this for for y'all

um and and so they did they just set up a one-to-one and you know I I don't know what happened in that meeting but all I know is that they they both came out or just had a great understanding of what to do next so um I think that that component of of that like that's what I think of when I think of collective responsibility is like um there's a version of this where I you know in in web 2 or in in a traditional corporate environment like like sit two team members down you know or whatever yeah Steph I love what I love what you said about uh the the corporate versus the Dow way to create Collective responsibility um and yeah maybe they're different but there is lessons to be learned from both in the end Collective responsibility comes from giving it to each other by

you know in a meeting saying you want ownership of this go for it take it and then see see what lands and also it comes from forcing people to have tough conversations and to yes to to identify the problems and to learn to grow together and so it's uh you know we might throw out some of the web to corporate things sometimes but I think we're a little bit dismissive there's a lot to be learned from you know Decades of organizational structure and culture building that have come before us uh okay I'm gonna lead us into a quick speed around here we've only got about five minutes left let's do it uh have a little bit of fun with you okay first question what's a token in could be nft or fungible you'll never sell

so I have um I have a I have a leisurist a pull sweet leaderist uh that's that's currently part micro my profile picture and I you know the reason why I'll never sell it is because I think pool Suite is one of those brands that if I tried to explain to someone why this brand was important or what this brand does it's like nearly impossible and I really I I just like the way in which they have engaged in just like multi-layered experiences and they talk about this on the podcast episode with Jess um and the way in which they're thinking about how to continue to create brand value and just like new ways for for Brands and for people and communities to

create that value together um yeah I just I just I'm just like there's there's something here it's weird it's weird it's like kind of Punky but not Punky and um yeah just it just like speaks to this like you know my my like 16 year old self who's like writing on zanga and reading nylon magazine and like and just like no one understands me and um and also like they're they're fabulous they're fabulous avatars and like oh I wish I wish actually like like this is actually how I experience myself and my body so yeah they've really they've really tapped into the culture of yes of web3 and and I would say they're they're their pfp is one of the most popular when they launched their pfp what was that like a month ago or something like

that uh it it's probably one of have been one of the most popular ones I've seen amongst crypto Twitter and amongst leaders in the space so that's awesome that you have one of those okay uh I mean I've got to ask what's a project you're excited about it does not have to be a seed called Dao but I feel like that might set you up for a current project that you're working with in the cohort yeah so this yeah like no lie I am so excited about the symmetrical Fair agency Dao and they're they're one of the projects that I'm working with in C club by I more and more I'm just like you know I'm a millennial I'm I'm 33 I think Kyle you and I shared about our our experiences of being of being in our 30s and yeah I just I have so much faith

and excitement for Gen Z I'm just like and then just the the the the Gen Z folks that I'm in deep collaboration with I just learned so much from on a regular basis and I participated in the symmetricals fireside chat last week um which was a 45 minute Twitter space and 15 minute Zoom session for members and I'm just like they asked me some of the smartest questions to the point where I was like okay how am I actually going to answer this um and yeah I just it just like gives me so much hope for where the space is going and like I I actually I actually really don't I don't believe that like our generation is really what's going to build the next most like culturally enduring thing I really believe it's

going to be gen z um so yeah the symmetrical go check them out Steph and I actually first bonded over the word dang because I guess that she was an 80s baby because she used the word dang that was like yeah dang like oh dang that's so I'm like oh oh dang like to add that to the web 3 dictionary yeah do it do it okay last question uh if you had a billboard that a billion people were going to see what would you write on it oh my God how do I end billboard

billion people we're gonna see oh man I feel like this should be the filter that everyone should run their tweets through before they tweet which I don't do so um oh man um I wish we had a billion followers and we could do that um I don't know it sounds terrifying to be honest billion people everybody gets asked this question on the spot so there's no there's no nobody has prep for this oh man I'm I'm like vacillating between like wanting to say something witty and funny but then also just like I don't know like what's inspirational yeah it's like oh like I don't know like something that Seth Godin would say

um also aging myself there um or just attend demo day oh my God the C Club crew would be so happy if that's what I said right now attend demo day December 16th Discord um yeah I think ah there's something what would it say I yeah there's something there's something alive for me recently about risk um just like take the risk like I think I might even just say that just like take the risk take the risk own the consequences you know I think I think there's so much possibility I love that take the risk yeah well done it just

takes time and then you get it well done it was good that was really good really really good all right give us a quick as we wrap up here uh we both have a meeting to go to but quickly where can people find you where can people find C Club through one attend demo day will you give us the quick uh the quick chill here for us totally so I'm on Twitter and on farcaster please find me on forecaster it's my favorite one of my actually one of my other favorite projects uh crypto honey and honey spelled h-u-n-3-y um and C Club is at C Club HQ on Twitter find us there subscribe to our newsletter um and you will definitely be hearing about demo day if you subscribe to the newsletter or follow us on Twitter and

we hope to see you there including you both for sure can't wait thanks so much for joining the show stuff it was just a pleasure yeah thanks guys I really have a good one everybody thanks so much for listening thank you for listening to web3 Academy we hope this helps you along your web 3 journey and if it does please share this episode And subscribe so you don't miss the next one nothing in this podcast was Financial advice crypto and web 3 can be risky you can literally lose it all in fact if you invest on account of what we say you probably will lose it all so don't do that in all honesty the point of this podcast is to remove the noise of markets and price and focus on utility and implementation anyway so you should not take any of this as Financial advice

thank you friends and see you in the next one