Author: Bo Brustkern (Bo | Bankless DAO 
#7210)
Date: 29 December 2021
Reviewed by: frogmonkee
Document on Discord: Season 2 - December ‘21 - Survey of Guest & L1 & L2 contributors
Previous Surveys
TLDR;
- We measured the community’s satisfaction with BanklessDAO and achieved a cNPS of 68
- We asked four qualitative questions of the community and drew the following conclusions:
- Our greatest assets are our positive vibe, the talented people we have gathered in community, and the opportunities such a community provides for its contributors.
- Contributors appear to be drawn to BanklessDAO because it provides a warm, encouraging cuture where they can be surrounded by exceptionally high quality individuals producing meaningful work.
- Our greatest concern is that new contributors are confused by the high level of activity and apparent disorganization of our discord and other systems.
- We suggest:
- We must reduce or eliminate the elements of our community that cause our contributors to feel overwhelmed.
- Our focus should be in the areas of leadership, governance, compensation, coordination and onboarding.
Community Net Promoter Score Summary
We once again achieved a cNPS of 68, which is outstanding in my view.
A total of 238 Guest, L1 and L2 members responded, with an incredibly low number (5) showing up as Detractors. This month we added Guest Pass contributors to the survey, which was a tremendous addition (we had 98 Guest Pass respondents!).
We have achieved this exact cNPS of 68 two months in a row. Our findings indicate that there is a slight improvement in cNPS as contributors move from Guest Pass (cNPS=65) to Level One (cNPS=67) and Level Two (cNPS=73). I’ll reiterate what I said in last month’s synthesis, that this is a highly satisfactory quantitative result.
This is just one view of the health of the DAO. Included in the survey were four questions beyond the standard NPS-style quantitative question, which provided a wealth of qualitative information to analyze a complex and evolving organization.
Quantitative Results:
Sources:
Unattributed NPS scoring sheet source is here
Confidential GUEST PASS responses here (only Bo & Frog have access)
Confidential LEVEL ONE responses here (only Bo & Frog have access)
Confidential LEVEL TWO responses here (only Bo & Frog have access)
Synthesis Scratch Pad here
Qualitative Questions
The following is a synthesis of the responses we received from the 238 respondents to our survey. Note that NO questions were required — all were voluntary — and we had a 92% participation rate.
Qual Q1: What’s the primary reason you gave this score?
Promoters (score of 9-10 out of 10)
166 of 238 survey responses were Promoters.
The most common response (54) from this cohort of Promoters cited the bDAO community and/or the vibe of bDAO.
- One standout comment among Guest Pass contributors was “BanklessDAO has been an extremely positive experience for me. Most people have been encouraging, supporting, and I feel like I’ve found an amazing place.”
- A Level One contributor said “Best DAO on the planet, with the best community and consistent, positive vibe.”
- A Level Two contributor added, “Passion of core contributors and constant striving to make the DAO better.”
The next most common response among Promoters was that the bDAO provided bountiful opportunities and meaningful work (25 citations). “It’s a hive booming with ideas and possibilities,” said one L3.
Next came learning (18 citations), followed by quality of execution (14 citations).
Many others cited the impact that they had experienced personally through the bDAO, including this beauty from a Guest Pass contributor: “The DAO has change the direction of my life” (14 citations).
Finally, others cited the mission/vision (11 citations) and quality onboarding (9 citations) as reasons for giving the bDAO high marks.
Despite more than 100 highly enthusiastic comments, many Promoters still acknowledged that the bDAO can be overwhelming, and is “not for everyone” (8+ citations).
Passives (score of 7-8 out of 10)
67 of 238 survey responsese were Passives.
The Passive cohort were positively disposed to the friendly vibe and great community (17 citations), as well as the ample learning opportunities (10 citations).
However, a large number of respondents mentioned that the bDAO was simply overwhelming (12 citations, 8 of which were Guest Pass contributors). Still others reported that bDAO was not for everyone (8 citations), and it is difficult to get invovled (6 citations).
Finally, there was one noteworthy response about an inconsistent culture across the DAO, “and in places it can be a bumpy ride.”
Detractors (score of 6 or below out of 10)
5 of 238 survey responses were Detractors
The few Detractors were uniformly concerned about the confusion caused by bDAO’s Discord server.
Synthesis
Once again we find that our greatest assets are our positive vibe, the talented people we have gathered in community, and the opportunities such a community provides for its contributors.
We also see the recurring theme of confusion, particularly among new contributors.
In order to maintain a high NPS, we will need to reduce or eliminate the elements of our community that cause our contributors to feel overwhelmed.
Qual Q2: What has been our biggest success so far during Season 2?
The vast majority of Bankless DAO contributors cited specific products or project developments as our biggest successes of the season. In order of frequency, the top products & projects cited were:
- DAOpunks (13 mentions)
- Bankless Academy + mobile app (12 mentions)
- DEGEN (11 mentions)
- International Media Nodes (8 mentions)
- Newsletters (6 general mentions)
- Legal newsletter (8 specific mentions)
- The Rug (5 specific mentions)
Beyond specific products and projects, there were several themes that contributors cited, including an interesting three-way tie between growth, management, and collaboration. Below I cite each theme followed by particularly insightful quotes:
Growth of the DAO. (27 mentions)
“The growth of the community has been good, and many teams are able to form their own DAOs now.”
“Many guest pass members are heavily active.”
Management of the DAO. (27 mentions)
“The insight to slow down and create more focus leading into Season 3. Preparing for the future is more important than short term success.”
“Orderly and serious.”
“Proactive efforts to improve processes.”
Team Spirit, Onboarding, and Collaboration. (26 mentions)
“Making this a place where people from all walks of life can come together to work on projects, get paid and make a difference. Without discrimination, unnecessary complication and with a great deal of flexibility and self sovereignity. This season has been really amazing for me and I am really thankful for the amazing people I get to work with here.”
Tokenomics & Liquidity Improvements. (11 mentions)
“$BANK on polygon.”
Publicity. (7 mentions)
“Generally raising awareness… serving as the Grand Central Station for the rest of the metaverse.”
Revenue generation. (5 mentions)
“BUIDLing and shipping products.”
“$156K revenue in November.”
Other votes for our most meaningful successes included figuring out compensation, increasing rates of participation, adaptation to fast rtes of change, and cross-DAO collaboration.
Qual Q3: What has been our biggest failure so far during Season 2?
While keeping in mind that the vast majority of our contributors are exceptionally enthusiastic about BanklessDAO, we must also consider the areas where we may be failing to live up to our own high standards. Analyzing the data, we find the following:
Governance failures were mentioned 36 times — primarily by L1 and L2 contributors — while onboarding concerns were mentioned 25 times — primarily by Guest Pass contributors. The lack of equitable compensation was just as big of a concern, with 25 mentions, 15 of which came from L2 contributors.
Other failures cited were lack of organization (16 mentions), HR churn (8 mentions), various specific guild failures (7 mentions), lack of token liquidity (6 mentions), coordination failures (5 mentions) and a lack of work-fun-balance (3 mentions).
Qual Q4: What do you believe should be the highest priority in Season 3?
We now arrive at our final question in the survey as we turn our attention to Season 3, asking the question, “what should we focus on next?” Answers fell into a few predictable themes, which I summarize below:
Prioritize operational efficiency, coordination & organization. (33 mentions)
“A unified DAO-wide effort to test out new operational frameworks to improve our working efficiency/communication.”
”Take signals from how we are performing, and use those signals to orient to what we should be focusing on.”
Prioritize advancements in governance & leadership. (31 mentions)
”More mature models around how we orient strategically,”
“We are growing fast, and we need a structure to sustain this growth and keep us organized. I like the 3 level structure that Index Coop put together.”
Prioritize a better onboarding experience. (30 mentions)
“Making onboarding easier, and improving stickiness.”
“Properly onboarding and capturing the energy from new people and placing them in the good hands of a senior member in the DAO.”
Prioritize developing equitable compensation. (20 mentions)
“Professionalize our pay.”
“Incentive-driven remuneration.”
Prioritize growth of BanklessDAO. (16 mentions)
“Speaking from the translators guild, BanklessDAO should expand to the countries with the highest crypto adoption as already researched by other members if we want to have a wider cover across the world.”
Prioritize revenue. (14 mentions)
“On-chain revenue!”
“On-chain revenue!”
Prioritize culture. (13 mentions)
“Making sure it stays fun to work here.”
“Be less political, more human.”
“Reduce duplicity.”
Other priorities:
Marketing (9 mentions)
Tokenomics & Liquidity (7 mentions)
Talent retention (5 mentions)
Education (5 mentions)
Policing (2 mentions)
…and of course, “FREE DEGEN!”
Synthesis
Contributors appear to be drawn to BanklessDAO because it provides a warm, encouraging cuture where they can be surrounded by exceptionally high quality individuals producing meaningful work.
These same contributors are highly appreciative of the many successes that we have made in our short time together as a DAO. And yet we have a tremendous amount of work ahead of us, primarily in the areas of leadership, governance, compensation, coordination and onboarding.
Clearly we need to advance in many areas at once, but the community feels quite strongly that three priorities stand out above the rest as we move into Season 3:
- improving operational efficiency, coordination & organization
- improving our governance & leadership across the board
- improving the onboarding experience
Our future success will rely on the degree to which we can move these three major rocks while also going about our day-to-day work that our creativity has led us to undertake.
Appendix: background articles and discussions of Net Promoter Scores:
Wikipedia discussion of NPS
Lattice discussion of eNPS