Service DAOs
Note: Data in this section last updated July 3rd, 2022
What is a Service DAO?
Service DAOs are modern-day labor aggregators – similar to decentralized unions, consulting firms or talent agencies.
They are generally composed of freelancers from Web3-related fields, such as design, development, marketing, sales, operations and treasury management. Members collectively own the DAO and work is often compensated in stablecoins or the DAO’s native token.
Virtual talent platforms are not a new phenomenon. As the number of registered freelancers has ballooned to over 150, million several companies such as Upwork and Guru have launched.
These companies help freelancers find clients and then take a percentage of the profits. Using a virtual talent platform has several benefits: freelancers don’t have to spend time finding clients and employers get faster recruiting times, access to a global network of talent and cheaper labor.
Service DAOs retain all these benefits and add a few more, including:
Lower Fees: Commissions for many freelance matchmaking services can range between 20% to 40% of the work performed. ServiceDAOs can “cut out the middleman”, lowering costs for customers and increasing payouts to freelancers
Interoperability: A freelancer’s work history, namely his or her reputation or reviews on a specific platform, generally can’t be imported to another freelance service. ServiceDAOs have the potential to change this, allowing freelancers to share their reputation broadly
Ownership: Historically freelancers haven’t had any ownership stake in virtual talent platforms or the ability to change the parameters of the platform (e.g. fees, review moderation). Service DAOs change that, aligning incentives and increasing engagement
How do Service DAOs work?
To understand how Service DAOs work, let’s take a look at RaidGuild – a design, development and marketing agency focused on Web3 projects.
Clients who wish to hire RaidGuild must deposit 500 DAI and will have an initial call with an account manager (known internally as a “Cleric”) to discuss the project. If the initial call is successful, the client will submit funds in escrow, the account manager will assemble the appropriate team of subject matter experts and the “raid” will begin.
The team is primarily composed of developers, designers and marketers and has completed several projects to date. The DAO has completed several projects including a metrics dashboard for Aragon, front and backend for Stake On Me, community tracking for 1Up World and strategic consulting to help Senary Blockchain Ventures design a DAO.
RaidGuild Team Members on the Aragon Metrics Dashboard Project
RaidGuild currently offers clients the following services:
Consultations: Offers strategic consulting services, helping clients validate ideas and implement operational tactics to build, ship and grow their product
UX / UI Design: Designers provide consulting in user experience, feedback and testing
Full Stack Development: Engineers deliver both front and back-end development solutions for dApps.
Marketing: Members provide consulting in marketing, social media and growth hacking
As it grows, the DAO hopes to expand into related, non-technical fields and add expert writers, sales professionals, business development specialist, community managers, economists, treasury management experts, etc…
Who are the Key Players?
In addition to Raid Guild, other notable Service DAOs include Developer DAO, Braintrust and DxDAO.
Source: DeepDao as of 7.2.22
Note: The above list is not exhaustive. Although generally ranked by size, some smaller projects may be included for illustrative purposes. In addition, while DAOs often span multiple categories, they were only included once in the vertical that is believed to represent the best fit
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