Hey everyone - we're back with another edition of our Concept Thursdays 👋

Today I'm going to show you 3 community building lessons I learned from JokeDAO.

I've been helping dozens of tokenized communities for over a year and a half now. But very few tokenized communities can achieve what JokeDAO has done in such a short time.

So I thought I'd analyze their strategy, and I ended up finding 3 interesting things they've put in place that I think have greatly contributed to their success.

After these hours of research, it's time to share my findings with you:

Takeaway #1: They Took A Hard Problem.. And Made It Fun.

Governance is not fun. Jokes are.

So JokeDAO decided to innovate in governance by organizing each week a contest called the Jokerace. In this contest, anyone can submit jokes on Thursdays and vote on them with $JOKE, the DAO currency, on Fridays between 12-1 pm ET.

jokedao (🃏,🃏) @jokedao_

"how does the jokerace work?" you get 1 vote every week for each $JOKE you hold. if you vote on the #2 joke, you'll win more $JOKE, proportionate to your votes. winner is minted as an nft with 20% to the joker, 20% to charity, and 20% to jokedao. jokenomicsNow that the joke is real, it’s time to get real about $JOKE.joke.mirror.xyz

May 12th 2022

2 Likes

The rules of this contest are simple.

If you're the one submitting the #2 most-voted joke, you get 20% from its NFTs sale. If you vote on the #2 most-voted joke, you win more $JOKE, which means more voting power for the next Jokeraces.

Each week, the DAO core team rewards 8625 $JOKE, or around 2500 $USD. Yes, you can get paid to write jokes on the internet.

That looks awesome.. but why would the #2 most voted joke win, not the 1st..?

Glad you ask!

What makes the Jokeraces so exciting and fun to watch is that two pieces make it challenging to win:

1. You have to vote on the #2 joke (not the #1st). If you give too many votes, you'll lose.

2. Your votes alone probably won't determine the winner, so you'll also lose by having too *few* votes.

And you start to understand the mechanisms.

You want to form teams but don't want a team too big to win - otherwise, the joke you vote for will finish 1st, and you'll all lose.

They're basically gamifying money while exploring the frontiers of online governance.

And this is a big takeaway from JokeDAO.

If you want your project to succeed, you need to make your project fun.

It can be a really ambitious problem you're trying to solve or something so specific very few people are interested in, but if you're making the whole experience fun, people will join anyway.

Takeaway #2: They Collaborated With A Wide Range Of Creators In The Space.

Beyond a simple joke contest, JokeDAO is actually a governance game engine allowing an emergent process for governance. They finally allow a more flexible governance system, one where decisions are truly brought and taken by the community and where everything is done on-chain.

Anyone can submit entries, vote on them, and coordinate, opening plenty of new possibilities for online governance.

To prove their case, they're partnering with multiple communities, creators, and companies in Web3, exploring the frontiers of what's possible.

They've, for example, recently collaborated with Packy McCormick, one of the most famous Web3 writers, allowing his community to vote on the topic of his next article.

jokedao (🃏,🃏) @jokedao_

our most exciting contest yet. decide what @packyM writes about next for his 142,000 readers. *anyone* can submit a topic before noon et today. voting for $NBESSAY holders runs today at noon - friday at noon et. JokeDAO 🃏 An open-source, collaborative decision-making platform.JokeDAO is an open-source, collaborative decision-making platform.jokedao.io

August 3rd 2022

2 Retweets14 Likes

Another successful collaboration they made recently was with Rehash, a Web3 podcast, where they allowed listeners to choose the next podcast speakers.

jokedao (🃏,🃏) @jokedao_

what would happen if conferences used @jokedao_ for attendees to pick speakers? if @rehashweb3's contest is any indication, over half of the winners would be non-male. this is the power of decentralization: more diverse communities expressing more diverse preferences.

August 17th 2022

6 Retweets33 Likes

The true power of JokeDAO is yet to be discovered, but we can already envision communities and creators using their tools for:

• Contests

• Games

• Giveaways

• Bounties

• Endorsements

• Grants

• Curation

• Community-driven decisions

• User-generated roadmaps

• More…

And this is my second takeaway. If you want to succeed in Web3, you need to collaborate with other communities and creators, helping them do things they couldn’t alone.

Takeaway #3: They *Truly* Leveraged Web3 Capabilities

They’ve built JokeDAO with the goal of creating something that would’ve been impossible in Web2.

Joke DAO developed a new model called the “continuous airdrops model”.

They create a new token each week and airdrop them to each members so they can vote on the best jokes.

This new model, made possible by the fact that all the actions are taken on Polygon (L2), completely reinvents how social tokens are used.

Jon Hillis (🏡,🤝) @JonathanHillis

On L2s, tokens have totally different use cases. When gas is ~free, tokens can be one-time use. For example, @jokedao_ airdrops a new token each week for voting in the joke race. Wallets that show all of your tokens are going to need to update their UI:

May 25th 2022

2 Retweets12 Likes

Any DAO can now say, "what features do you want us to build?" and let their community submit entries for the things they want to see.

Because JokeDAO came up with something "truly" revolutionizing and only possible leveraging Web3 capabilities, their tools became quickly adopted by many communities.

So if you create a tokenized community, make sure to build something that would be impossible in Web2.

That’s a wrap!

In one quick article, you learned 3 lessons that helped JokeDAO succeed.

Here's a quick recap:

1. Make your project fun.

2. Collaborate with other creators in the space.

3. Truly leverage Web3 capabilities.

I hope these tips are helpful as you continue your community-building journey!

PS: If you're interested in trying it, you can already go on JokeDAO, set up a contest, create a token, airdrop it through Coinvise, and start receiving entries directly from your community members.