Zima Red ep 119: Yury Lifshits - SuperDAO: The “Shopify” for DAOs
Primer: Yury Lifshits has always been about community. As a mathematician, his favourite branch of mathematics was Graph Theory. As an entrepreneur, he started 4 companies centering around community. Now, he is building SuperDAO, a no code generator that helps DAOs and communities to flourish.
Background
Born in Russia to a family of mathematicians
Won a couple of gold medals in the International Math Olympiad
Did a PhD in computer science at the age of 23
Was teaching grad level courses in Byzantine Fault Agreements and Zero Knowledge proofs before Bitcoin was invented
Moved to United States. Was a scientist at Caltech and Yahoo
Started 4 companies. All of them were about community:
Co-working company
Bootcamps company
Education ventures
Openland — direct competitor to Discord
Why Are His Companies All Focused On Communities?
As a mathematician, his favourite branch of maths was Graph Theory
“So even back in mathematics, I used the mathematics that was more social.”
- Yury Lifshits
His biggest scientific achievement was a study of why and how news go viral
Thought Process Around Launching Openland
The idea came more from his co-founder than himself
His co-founder was building messengers his entire life
Openland went through Y Combinator
Had to learn to answer questions in a single sentence
Rediscovering Crypto
Was trying to sell Openland because it was not doing well
Learned that crypto companies wanted to buy Openland as a messenger
Did a business study of the future of Web3 platforms and NFTs and the research all points towards DAOs
The DAO tooling space is still wide open, without any clear market leader
SuperDAO
“We are a no code generator for smart contracts for DAOs.”
- Yury Lifshits
Had a competitive ideation process:
Generated ideas and getting his smart friends to rank them
Rejected the worst ideas
Repeated this a number of times
The Shopify for DAOs always ended up as the top ranked idea
SuperDAO provides help with smart contracts and interfaces
Their smart contracts are upgradable, extendable, and modular
They provide a DAO workspace that works with third party smart contracts
Within a week of talking to them, DAO creators can go-to-market:
Distribute founding contributor NFTs
Selling NFTs to early adopters
Introduce a token that is locked against trading
Add modules for governance, treasury, token-gated community resources, etc.
Their User Base
2 types of DAOs:
Operating DAOs — already introduced their token or NFT collection and have a blockchain presence
Formation stage DAOs — have an idea, writing their roadmap, but not yet on-chain
They primarily work with formation stage DAOs
Looking for decisive DAO creators
Advantages Of DAOs
A DAO is a way to start an organization
Has 3 advantages:
Fundraising — get better valuations and raise money directly from future customers
Growth — giving people NFT or token-based ownership so that they will advocate for you
Employment — Enables employment across countries at scale
SuperDAO’s Defensibility
Thinks in terms of chapters
First chapter: easiest to start by advising
Have advised hundreds of DAOs
Conducted DAO workshops multiple times a week
Mid chapter: a few months down the road. Trying to build network effects/ecosystem around SuperDAO
Will integrate other DAO toolings with SuperDAO smart contracts
Eventually, will become one of the largest DAO investors in the world
Is SuperDAO A DAO Or A Corporation?
Is both a DAO and a corporation:
Have an on-chain smart contract used for testing purposes
Have a Delaware C Corp for employment, fiat banking, and receiving investment
Will build a separate legal entity/foundation to issue tokens
Main Issues With DAOs Today
Time to market
Most of the time, DAOs are figuring out what to do
SuperDAO is creating a standard to address these pain points
DAOs And The US Regulatory Environment
Can take advantage of the currently underregulated area
As time progresses, regulators will attempt to regulate and figure things out
Why Do We Need DAOs When We Have LLCs And Corporations?
There’s a limit of 500 shareholders for private companies
It’s not fully recognized how a single company can employ people from 100 different countries
The current system is very nation-minded and does not accommodate the above points
When Will DAOs Become Mainstream?
DAO tooling is not good enough
Need half a year for things to get better
Thinks that DAOs will breakout in September 2022, similar to how NFTs did previously
SuperDAO In 10 Years
Like to see several million DAOs in the world
DAOs to enable 100 million people to find employment
More economic prosperity for everyone
Any Subsector Within The DAO Space That He Is Excited About?
Investment DAOs — it enables the middle class to participate in early stage investments
Investing in larger companies means that most of the upside is already gone
The middle class dream has shifted from entrepreneurship to early stage investments
“Investment becomes a big part of the social fabric of the country, of the earth.”
- Yury Lifshits
Increasing democratization of investment
Alliance DAO
He is a member of Alliance DAO
Alliance DAO is an accelerator for DAOs and Web3 projects
It’s a well run program by a passionate team
It’s a small program — 30 companies per class, 3 classes per year
Thoughts On The Current Market Environment
Have a talent migration to Web3
There’s a lot of excitement
Single Favourite DAO
Alliance DAO
Not a DAO, but the CryptoKitties NFT collection for pioneering things
Most Controversial Thought On DAOs
DAOs should not be decentralized
There are 2 generations of DAOs:
DAOs that are decentralized and autonomous. They would pass the test by the securities commission and be classified as non-securities. Everything is coded on-chain and it could run without anyone in the middle
They don’t need full decentralization and the product is not yet ready. Hence, they need a core team to build the product and progressively decentralize the DAO
If He Could Improve One Thing In The Space
Legalize DAOs to employ people from any country
DAO Ecosystem In 3 Years
There will be 2-3 DAO ecosystems that consist of their own app stores, investor networks, contributor networks, toolings, etc.
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.