As a result of several long-term changes and trends, today’s teams are far more diverse, dispersed, digital, and dynamic than those of the past — with frequent changes in membership as well. Whether we talk of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing safety protocols in workplaces, the adoption of teleconferencing and collaboration tools for doing business, or the virtualization of the workplace, all of these factors pose different challenges — as well as new opportunities — for teams and businesses working in today’s fast-paced and globalized marketplace.

At Freeda, we focus on team cohesion, collaboration, and integration, but it can be difficult to manage an exclusively remote workforce. However, with several “enabling conditions” that we have built into our corporate culture, we strive to make every day at Freeda fun, rewarding, and growth-oriented for all of our teams and partners.

Some of these factors include having a compelling vision and mission; a strong and supportive corporate structure; access to high-performance collaboration tools including VR technologies and metaverse development; and an openness that makes it easy to operate in a disparate environment across multiple geographies. At Freeda, our openness, transparency, collaboration, team focus, and support for one another are key values and critical components of the mission that we are all working together to achieve.

With trial and error, we have been able to hone our messaging, streamline our processes, build team and stakeholder buy-in, and break the “us versus them” mindset that has dragged down too many prominent businesses with lofty ambitions. Inspired by our early successes with our workers, partners, and teams, we even explored the possibility of becoming a community-managed company. The crystallization of this idea is how the Freeda DAO, a truly decentralized autonomous organization, was born.

It is not just a coincidence that the very principles that facilitate remote teams are very similar to those that lead to efficient and effective DAOs. An intrinsic feature of any DAO is the membership and participation of like-minded individuals — a huge advantage over other types of collaborative relationships and work arrangements. To put it simply, people have no incentive to become a Freeda DAO member unless they care about Freeda and its ecosystem. This is crucial and has proven to be a cornerstone of Freeda’s success both as a business idea as well as a collaborative community with a relentless focus on a set of shared values, ideals, goals, and aspirations.

At Freeda, we are now slowly transforming into a DAO and carefully choosing our path. We aim to build a sustainable, compliant, and community-owned product, and this journey will take place in three distinct yet sequential and interrelated steps.

Step 1:

The first step, which has been completed, involved putting together a team of professionals with deep expertise in strategic management, development, operations, design, finance, blockchain, project management, and business analysis. This team was focused on building, learning, and iterating until the perfect product-market fit was found. This process took us almost two years, but we have finally reached our goal and Step 1 is now complete. We completed this critical step in our journey without any external funding and have been able to build and launch the products we envisioned at the onset to bring about transformational changes in the market.

Step 2:

Step 2 is currently in progress. We are beginning to involve stakeholders, opening Discord server for our users, and engaging with the community to help us to take Freeda to the next level. We are looking for people who can help us to build our marketing strategy, manage our social networks, contribute with open-source development, and advise on mechanisms related to our DAO, the Freeda Blockchain, and Freeda NFTs. We are looking for like-minded individuals who are interested in building the most user-friendly web 3 native company out there. If this sounds like you, we invite you to consider a role with us!

Step 3:

The final step in our path toward becoming a self-sustaining, community-owned DAO is a token distribution. We call this “Exit to Community.”

Once this step is completed, Freeda will become a fully functional, community-owned-and-operated DAO, and the future development of the Freeda protocol and all platform products, services, and offerings will be in the hands of the community. While the core team may still participate in decision-making in an advisory or consulting role, the rules in place in our smart contracts and any modifications made to the platform based on a community vote will determine the future path of Freeda. Everything from new products, hires, fee changes, and marketing campaigns will be proposed and voted on by token holders.

To understand why community participation is so desirable in the first place and what can help bring about a shared mindset, consider the following:

1. DAOs are all about maximizing stakeholder value. In a DAO, the users and contributors are also the investors and owners.
2. DAOs give groups of people and organizations across the globe the means and incentives they need to pool resources in the pursuit of a greater goal. Theoretically, this gives them the ability to drive down marginal costs — the cost of each new unit they produce or every new user they accept. The DAO structure may also drive down labor costs by paying for many services as needed, with less friction and delays than a traditional organization.
3. With DAOs, users are owners, and every time someone else joins the DAO and/or uses the protocol, the user’s tokens theoretically become more valuable. Additionally, as the DAO becomes stronger and resilient and has more products and services built on top of it, this attracts more people to further join and build on the platform, creating a virtuous cycle of value creation.
4. Whenever a newcomer adopts a new, superior business model, incumbents do not mimic those improvements due to the damage they anticipate to their existing business. To the extent that the DAO model itself is advantageous in other ways, DAOs can build strong moats against their incumbent counterparts just by nature of being a DAO.

Coinbase, for example, will never be a DAO, and will likely never consider becoming one out of fear of losing its (centralized) first-mover advantage in the market — all at the expense of the many benefits of becoming a DAO.

1. Part of the reason that certain brands can charge higher prices for the same item is that people tie their identity to those brands. Similarly, people will tie their identity to the DAOs in which they’re contributing members and an owner. If you consider Bitcoin a DAO, think about all of the people whose identities are tied to owning Bitcoin. They are willing to market Bitcoin, consistently buy the dip, endorse everything Bitcoin and evangelize the Bitcoin cause — all for free.

We believe that the pace of innovation and adoption in the blockchain space will accelerate over the next 10 years and will soon eclipse $10 trillion in total value in crypto assets being traded globally every day.

Companies that understand this and marshal their resources accordingly will grow into new powerhouses. Freeda DAO is for the true believers of this new paradigm and they are the ones who will fuel the growth of the Freeda ecosystem. As the saying goes, the rising tide raises all boats, but companies, businesses, and projects must find themselves in the right waters to enjoy the benefits of the rising tide. That is what we hope to achieve with Freeda.

Join our Discord to continue the conversation.

Freeda Team