Why Communities Work & 2022 predictions
Size and Goals is all it is.
Happy Holidays to everyone and enjoy this weeks piece. Let me stress, this is an opinion piece. Please send feedback on your thoughts!
I have been doing a lot of perusing around the web 3 ecosystem and discords and had some thoughts on community and community building.
Tweet me or DM me your opinions on this piece and what your thoughts are. Twitter is below…
This year NFT projects largely had 4,000-10,000 piece collections. This means around 4,000-10,000 members in a discord. One server I am in has around 400 people in it. With only 400 people, it is still very hard to stay up to date on all of your messages. Especially when there are multiple messages sent every 10 minutes.
It would be a full time job to keep up with all your communities, so it turns into noise.
Beyond this, some communities are just constantly shouting, “DELIST”, or “LIST AT 100 FLOOR”, among many other things. If you’re looking to join a community, these are not the ones. They just provide more noise.
Beyond NFT’s, you have DAO’s that have started to pop up everywhere. Some NFT projects have one, where they contribute money to other projects. Or a group of people on the internet decided they should make one to buy the Constituion. One of these is obviously better than the other. Packy McCormick even stated on the Acquired podcast that he believes 8 out of 10 DAOs will fail.
All this to say, there is a lot of noise in these communities.
Communities are the powerhouse of web 3, yet a lot are inefficient and don't provide value for it's members due to all this noise.
However, I think there are two factors that can contribute to the success of a community. The size of the community’s goal, and the size of the community itself.
You know, at first I tried to use the Pareto Efficency graph to help visualize this. Then I realized it was just a lot easier to make my own chart. Here is my Community Value & Efficiency graph I made.
Let’s walk through this graph.
First, Bored Ape Yacht Club. As the most exclusive NFT collection, they have a great community that has driven outstanding FOMO, but they aren’t exactly working toward a single goal. They are an outlier here. What has driven them to success is the idea of network science and taste makers. More on that here.
Second, we have @linksDAO (⛳️ , ⛳️ ) a new DAO I am a part of where we are going to buy and operate a golf course. We have around 4223 members in the discord, a pretty good # for the goal we are seeking to accomplish in my opinion.
Third, Gambling Apes. This 10,000 pfp (profile photo) set out to build the first casino on the metaverse. The hook here is that a portion of the profits is redistrubuted back to the NFT holders. Real utility! This week, the casino officially launched. Saddened to have sold my ape for 0.5 eth, but still rooting for this project.
Finally, as we all know, we have Constitution DAO. A group of 17,000+ with a massive goal to buy the US Constitution. This project came to a special point where a community becomes a cultural movement, not a place many have gone since r/wallstreetbets.
Looking forward into 2022.
We have established what I think builds a great community, a large goal and a equally sized audience. If Constitution DAO had, 1000 people, it would not have been heard of. If LinksDAO only had 100 people interested, it probably wouldn’t happen.
Looking forward, I think we will see a few things happen in 2022.
First, I think this red area will start to fill in.
This area will be comprised of a bunch of small, like-minded groups setting out to accomplish smaller goals than these bigger projects. It will be groups under 100, investing together, building together, or discovering together.
Second, I think 10,000 is way too big of a group to build a true community. Now, I know it’s not truly 10,000 because some people may hold 30 NFT’s in the collection, but if we estimate the community at 6,000-8,000 that is still very large. Think about the clubs or fraternity you were in during high school or college. The clubs I am in have no more than 35 people, my business fraternity has right around 100. I think that is the sweet spot, right around 100. In terms of Web 3 communities, it would be nice to know over 75% of the people you are investing with, and have the opportunity to grab a drink and have a real chat with at least 25%. With 100 people, that becomes a little more possible
This further provides evidence toward my first claim, where these smaller groups will start to emerge. NFT’s with under 5000 pieces or DAO’s that have a concentrated interest that 50 people love will serve as great communities in the next year. With that said, we will still see some massive goals and massive projects that could be on the level of Constitution DAO, but only time will tell.
Unfortunately, I also think we will enter a market where utility and goal oriented groups are rewarded. This means that many shilling (people just trying to flip) and pfp (profile photo) projects will go to 0. In order to succeed, you will have a clear goal (LinksDAO) or real utility (Gambling Apes). Around 50% of projects out there right now may not be around next year.
I’m excited as ever for the next year, and Cleary Optimistic.
Feel free to tell me my theory is wrong, or you have a better idea. I love thought provoking conversations. DM me on twitter or tag me in a post.
Happy Holidays.
Special thanks to Grace W for yet another phenomenal editing job.