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By the numbers. Featuring Arbitrum, Uniswap, ZKsync and more
TallyKYI and the institutional era of DeFi: building the foundation for trust
A collaboration between Tally and Bluprynt to bring institutional-grade compliance to token launches.
TallyDAO Governance: Challenges, Ideas and Tools
This article was originally published on Medium on May 14th, 2022. It has been republished here with minor updates for clarity.Guest post by Jan Ole Ernst and Simon Sällström of the Oxford Blockchain Society. Jan is pursuing a PhD in Quantum Physics and Simon is pursing an MPhil in Economics.Governance philosophy and challengesDAO’s have profoundly shaken up the web3 landscape, since making headlines in 2016 when funds where drained in the first and original DAO — essentially a decentralized ...
TallyTally wrapped 2025
By the numbers. Featuring Arbitrum, Uniswap, ZKsync and more
TallyKYI and the institutional era of DeFi: building the foundation for trust
A collaboration between Tally and Bluprynt to bring institutional-grade compliance to token launches.
TallyDAO Governance: Challenges, Ideas and Tools
This article was originally published on Medium on May 14th, 2022. It has been republished here with minor updates for clarity.Guest post by Jan Ole Ernst and Simon Sällström of the Oxford Blockchain Society. Jan is pursuing a PhD in Quantum Physics and Simon is pursing an MPhil in Economics.Governance philosophy and challengesDAO’s have profoundly shaken up the web3 landscape, since making headlines in 2016 when funds where drained in the first and original DAO — essentially a decentralized ...
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Fostering and growing an active contributor community is crucial to DAO success, but it’s not easy to do. In web3, the development of DAO onboarding experiences is still in its infancy. So far, the most accessible entry points to web3 have been NFTs and PFP projects. Community begins to become established through Discord servers, Telegram group chats, or IRL meetups — avenues that are easy for those new to web3 to understand and participate in.
But developing a deeper understanding of web3 inevitably requires interaction with the DAO ecosystem. Moreover, many people new to web3 are interested in DAOs and want to contribute, but they might struggle to navigate workflows or find opportunities, and over time, there’s little incentive for them to remain invested in the goals of a DAO.
These dynamics also play a part in the conversation on governance, low voting turnout on proposals, and creating a vibrant community that comprises people who feel they are having a tangible impact and can see the results of their work.
More experimentation and analysis needs to go into the DAO onboarding and contribution process. Why do some people successfully become core contributors or highly active community members, and why do others send one introduction message and never participate again? These questions can’t be answered by simply saying one person had more time, or worked harder, because while these reasons can factor into individual cases, broadly, DAOs still struggle with having active contributors beyond their core team.
One way to frame the DAO onboarding process is through the concept of the marketing funnel and customer journey. These concepts don’t necessarily encompass the web3 ethos in how they’re used as part of traditional corporations’ marketing strategy, but I think the structure offers useful insight into how we might construct a DAO contribution funnel.
Fostering and growing an active contributor community is crucial to DAO success, but it’s not easy to do. In web3, the development of DAO onboarding experiences is still in its infancy. So far, the most accessible entry points to web3 have been NFTs and PFP projects. Community begins to become established through Discord servers, Telegram group chats, or IRL meetups — avenues that are easy for those new to web3 to understand and participate in.
But developing a deeper understanding of web3 inevitably requires interaction with the DAO ecosystem. Moreover, many people new to web3 are interested in DAOs and want to contribute, but they might struggle to navigate workflows or find opportunities, and over time, there’s little incentive for them to remain invested in the goals of a DAO.
These dynamics also play a part in the conversation on governance, low voting turnout on proposals, and creating a vibrant community that comprises people who feel they are having a tangible impact and can see the results of their work.
More experimentation and analysis needs to go into the DAO onboarding and contribution process. Why do some people successfully become core contributors or highly active community members, and why do others send one introduction message and never participate again? These questions can’t be answered by simply saying one person had more time, or worked harder, because while these reasons can factor into individual cases, broadly, DAOs still struggle with having active contributors beyond their core team.
One way to frame the DAO onboarding process is through the concept of the marketing funnel and customer journey. These concepts don’t necessarily encompass the web3 ethos in how they’re used as part of traditional corporations’ marketing strategy, but I think the structure offers useful insight into how we might construct a DAO contribution funnel.
Let’s start by exploring the traditional marketing funnel.
The marketing funnel has an inverted triangle structure with five layers: awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy. In an ideal world from a marketing perspective, each potential customer goes through all the stages of the funnel, interacting and creating trust with the brand until they feel comfortable advocating for it to others.
As an example of how the marketing funnel plays out in practice, let’s say a person is scrolling through their Instagram feed, and they come across an ad for a new video game console recently released by an indie gaming brand. They are interested in gaming products, which is why the ad popped up in their feed in the first place, so this new release from a brand they’ve never heard of catches their attention. This is the awareness part of the funnel.
A few weeks later, they begin considering upgrading to a new console. Maybe their existing one has become slow or out of date, or there’s games they can only play on a new console. In the past, they went with the newest version of their existing console by default, but as they’ve now seen the ad, the indie brand’s console is now under consideration. There’s a few reasons why someone might decide to make a purchase and go to the conversion stage, but for this example, let’s say that during their research, the person watches a glowing review on the brand from a YouTuber they follow.
After making their purchase, they’re enrolled in a loyalty program to receive updates and discounts, and as they’re happy with their console they begin casually mentioning it to friends and family. Over time, they interact more with the brand’s social media and access special offerings through the loyalty program, which motivates them to continue purchasing consoles from the same brand. These actions encompass the loyalty and advocacy stages of the funnel.
There are three key aspects of this marketing funnel that are worth pointing out. First, traversing through the funnel is known as a customer journey, an end to end process that requires consistent investment from both the brand and customer.
Second, the shape of the funnel indicates that as each stage progresses, less people continue on the journey. In non-web3 spaces, that’s expected, and most companies optimize their marketing to identify people who are most likely to make a purchase and end up as advocates for the brand.
Third, understanding the percentage of people who are making it through each stage provides a lot of information on the success of a marketing campaign and where its specific weaknesses might be. If the biggest drop-off in the funnel is from consideration to conversion, for example, the main issue with the campaign is likely not that no one knows about the brand. The issue is probably that there aren’t enough influencing factors at the consideration stage to push someone to make a purchase. In this case, the brand might decide to change up their sales process to better compare themselves to competitors, offer improved product demos, or update their website to provide more details about differentiated features.
Essentially, thinking about the customer journey in terms of stages allows for precise identification of the marketing issues that a brand is facing.
So how do these concepts apply to a DAO contribution funnel?
My proposal for a DAO contribution funnel also has an inverted triangle structure with 5 layers: awareness, interest, joining, onboarding, and post onboarding / contribution.
The details of each stage are outlined below:
Awareness
The awareness stage of DAO contribution involves people who were previously unfamiliar with the DAO becoming familiar with it. This might be through word of mouth, social media channels, or other means, but it’s a crucial first stage for building out a contributor community. Awareness can encompass multiple levels — someone might only recognize the name but not know anything else, others might be very familiar with the goals and initiatives of the DAO. In general, having a more developed public-facing media and social arm helps to create a better understanding of a DAO for non-members.
Interest
The interest stage is where commitments, however small, begin to form. Most DAOs have some sort of application or expression of interest process. Going through the effort of submitting an application shows some level of commitment early on in the funnel. Alternatively, a mechanism such as requiring tokens to participate in a DAO would require an upfront financial investment as proof of commitment.
Joining
The joining stage happens after acceptance into the DAO. This likely involves a token-gated community platform, with Discord being the most popular option at the moment, and any other steps to become a member of the DAO.
Onboarding
Onboarding looks different for each individual DAO, but the process typically involves some background on the structure of the DAO, overarching goals, and potential work streams. Some DAOs utilize seasonal or cohort based onboarding and others onboard as people apply. Onboarding is typically a defined process, so new members’ formal onboarding experience will last a preset amount of time.
Post-Onboarding / Contribution
The post-onboarding and contribution phase involves any efforts by a DAO to connect new members to work streams or bounties, and begin seeing contributions.
Understanding the road to contribution as a funnel made up of separate stages can help core teams identify areas in a new member’s journey that need more support. From an overarching perspective, similar to the ways we might analyze a marketing funnel and customer journey, if a certain stage sees a larger percentage of drop-off, that might suggest a specific weakness in how a DAO is operating.
For example, if the large majority of accepted applicants at the interest stage successfully join the DAO but only half engage in any kind of onboarding process, that could suggest that better vetting needs to happen early on to assess people’s commitment, or that the onboarding process is unclear or inaccessible in some way. This kind of dynamic can manifest in situations that have synchronous onboarding sessions for cohorts without proper asynchronous support or support for a variety of time zones. If a new member is unable to easily engage with onboarding, they’re not likely to continue down the funnel.
The identification of specific groups of new members also helps with this analysis. We can use the funnel to create groups that can more accurately represent how people are interacting with the DAO and act accordingly to improve the onboarding process.
For example, the groups that sit between the interest and joined stage might include:
Interested and joined: these people submitted an application, were accepted, and made it into the Discord
Interested and didn’t join: these people submitted an application, were accepted, and never joined the Discord
When DAOs experience a lack of participation and contribution, a gut reaction can sometimes be to look at the earliest parts of the funnel. They might think they need to develop a better way of assessing applicants, or reach out to different communities to attract the right kind of talent.
But I believe the groups with the highest potential for active contributors sit lower in the funnel. People who finished onboarding but never contributed after are prime examples of untapped potential. If they went through the onboarding process, that shows an interest and commitment on their part. A lack of contribution might be due to difficulties finding suitable work streams or coordinating with existing team members. In these cases, providing individual support to these people in the post-onboarding stage can create the investment and knowledge needed to empower this group to contribute. Similarly, people who began onboarding but didn’t complete it could also be good potential contributors.
Too often, Discords (or any other platforms for DAOs communication) can be filled with hundreds or thousands of people who don’t interact at all. Some of these people may never contribute for a variety of reasons such as a lack of time or interest, and that’s okay. But finding people, especially those new to web3, who just need a little extra support to become active participants in the community is worth it. In the long term, as people become more invested in the DAOs they contribute to, they become advocates for its success, bringing in connections and ideas that help propel initiatives forward. Utilizing the DAO contribution funnel as a framework empowers the continued development of a vibrant contributor community.
As best practices for DAOs have continued to develop, it’s become clear that incentivizing contribution remains a key issue for many DAOs. For a variety of reasons, current onboarding structures aren’t working as well as they could. By using the marketing funnel as a framework for mapping out the contributor’s journey in a DAO, core teams can better understand why new members don’t end up contributing and how to improve their processes to cultivate action-oriented and successful contributor communities.
Let’s start by exploring the traditional marketing funnel.
The marketing funnel has an inverted triangle structure with five layers: awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy. In an ideal world from a marketing perspective, each potential customer goes through all the stages of the funnel, interacting and creating trust with the brand until they feel comfortable advocating for it to others.
As an example of how the marketing funnel plays out in practice, let’s say a person is scrolling through their Instagram feed, and they come across an ad for a new video game console recently released by an indie gaming brand. They are interested in gaming products, which is why the ad popped up in their feed in the first place, so this new release from a brand they’ve never heard of catches their attention. This is the awareness part of the funnel.
A few weeks later, they begin considering upgrading to a new console. Maybe their existing one has become slow or out of date, or there’s games they can only play on a new console. In the past, they went with the newest version of their existing console by default, but as they’ve now seen the ad, the indie brand’s console is now under consideration. There’s a few reasons why someone might decide to make a purchase and go to the conversion stage, but for this example, let’s say that during their research, the person watches a glowing review on the brand from a YouTuber they follow.
After making their purchase, they’re enrolled in a loyalty program to receive updates and discounts, and as they’re happy with their console they begin casually mentioning it to friends and family. Over time, they interact more with the brand’s social media and access special offerings through the loyalty program, which motivates them to continue purchasing consoles from the same brand. These actions encompass the loyalty and advocacy stages of the funnel.
There are three key aspects of this marketing funnel that are worth pointing out. First, traversing through the funnel is known as a customer journey, an end to end process that requires consistent investment from both the brand and customer.
Second, the shape of the funnel indicates that as each stage progresses, less people continue on the journey. In non-web3 spaces, that’s expected, and most companies optimize their marketing to identify people who are most likely to make a purchase and end up as advocates for the brand.
Third, understanding the percentage of people who are making it through each stage provides a lot of information on the success of a marketing campaign and where its specific weaknesses might be. If the biggest drop-off in the funnel is from consideration to conversion, for example, the main issue with the campaign is likely not that no one knows about the brand. The issue is probably that there aren’t enough influencing factors at the consideration stage to push someone to make a purchase. In this case, the brand might decide to change up their sales process to better compare themselves to competitors, offer improved product demos, or update their website to provide more details about differentiated features.
Essentially, thinking about the customer journey in terms of stages allows for precise identification of the marketing issues that a brand is facing.
So how do these concepts apply to a DAO contribution funnel?
My proposal for a DAO contribution funnel also has an inverted triangle structure with 5 layers: awareness, interest, joining, onboarding, and post onboarding / contribution.
The details of each stage are outlined below:
Awareness
The awareness stage of DAO contribution involves people who were previously unfamiliar with the DAO becoming familiar with it. This might be through word of mouth, social media channels, or other means, but it’s a crucial first stage for building out a contributor community. Awareness can encompass multiple levels — someone might only recognize the name but not know anything else, others might be very familiar with the goals and initiatives of the DAO. In general, having a more developed public-facing media and social arm helps to create a better understanding of a DAO for non-members.
Interest
The interest stage is where commitments, however small, begin to form. Most DAOs have some sort of application or expression of interest process. Going through the effort of submitting an application shows some level of commitment early on in the funnel. Alternatively, a mechanism such as requiring tokens to participate in a DAO would require an upfront financial investment as proof of commitment.
Joining
The joining stage happens after acceptance into the DAO. This likely involves a token-gated community platform, with Discord being the most popular option at the moment, and any other steps to become a member of the DAO.
Onboarding
Onboarding looks different for each individual DAO, but the process typically involves some background on the structure of the DAO, overarching goals, and potential work streams. Some DAOs utilize seasonal or cohort based onboarding and others onboard as people apply. Onboarding is typically a defined process, so new members’ formal onboarding experience will last a preset amount of time.
Post-Onboarding / Contribution
The post-onboarding and contribution phase involves any efforts by a DAO to connect new members to work streams or bounties, and begin seeing contributions.
Understanding the road to contribution as a funnel made up of separate stages can help core teams identify areas in a new member’s journey that need more support. From an overarching perspective, similar to the ways we might analyze a marketing funnel and customer journey, if a certain stage sees a larger percentage of drop-off, that might suggest a specific weakness in how a DAO is operating.
For example, if the large majority of accepted applicants at the interest stage successfully join the DAO but only half engage in any kind of onboarding process, that could suggest that better vetting needs to happen early on to assess people’s commitment, or that the onboarding process is unclear or inaccessible in some way. This kind of dynamic can manifest in situations that have synchronous onboarding sessions for cohorts without proper asynchronous support or support for a variety of time zones. If a new member is unable to easily engage with onboarding, they’re not likely to continue down the funnel.
The identification of specific groups of new members also helps with this analysis. We can use the funnel to create groups that can more accurately represent how people are interacting with the DAO and act accordingly to improve the onboarding process.
For example, the groups that sit between the interest and joined stage might include:
Interested and joined: these people submitted an application, were accepted, and made it into the Discord
Interested and didn’t join: these people submitted an application, were accepted, and never joined the Discord
When DAOs experience a lack of participation and contribution, a gut reaction can sometimes be to look at the earliest parts of the funnel. They might think they need to develop a better way of assessing applicants, or reach out to different communities to attract the right kind of talent.
But I believe the groups with the highest potential for active contributors sit lower in the funnel. People who finished onboarding but never contributed after are prime examples of untapped potential. If they went through the onboarding process, that shows an interest and commitment on their part. A lack of contribution might be due to difficulties finding suitable work streams or coordinating with existing team members. In these cases, providing individual support to these people in the post-onboarding stage can create the investment and knowledge needed to empower this group to contribute. Similarly, people who began onboarding but didn’t complete it could also be good potential contributors.
Too often, Discords (or any other platforms for DAOs communication) can be filled with hundreds or thousands of people who don’t interact at all. Some of these people may never contribute for a variety of reasons such as a lack of time or interest, and that’s okay. But finding people, especially those new to web3, who just need a little extra support to become active participants in the community is worth it. In the long term, as people become more invested in the DAOs they contribute to, they become advocates for its success, bringing in connections and ideas that help propel initiatives forward. Utilizing the DAO contribution funnel as a framework empowers the continued development of a vibrant contributor community.
As best practices for DAOs have continued to develop, it’s become clear that incentivizing contribution remains a key issue for many DAOs. For a variety of reasons, current onboarding structures aren’t working as well as they could. By using the marketing funnel as a framework for mapping out the contributor’s journey in a DAO, core teams can better understand why new members don’t end up contributing and how to improve their processes to cultivate action-oriented and successful contributor communities.
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