Case Study: Origami Launched Collab.Land’s DAO

Collab.Land's founders wanted to exit to their community by sharing both profits and control of their software. The massively successful software is used by communities to keep conversations private.

“Collab.Land’s vision was big,” said Matt Voska, Origami’s cofounder. “If they reached their goal, they’d instantly be one of the biggest DAOs in the world, and introduce their two million users to DAOs. But if the launch had technical problems or if their DAO’s structure failed to live up to the highest regulatory standards, it would leave a high-profile scar on our industry. That’s the kind of ambitious challenge we built Origami to take on.”

“Becoming a DAO has been the North Star for a long time,” said Anjali Young, Collab.Land’s cofounder. To get there, they hired Origami.

Collab.Land's Vision

Collab.Land is a token-gating tool that communities use to control access to their conversations and content. Many of the largest online communities rely on it, including Adidas and Bored Ape Yacht Club. In total, over two million members across more than 40,000 communities use Collab.Land.

The platform was co-founded by James Young, co-founder of the trailblazing Moloch DAO, whose mission was to fund public goods projects that improve the Ethereum ecosystem, and the co-creator of the Moloch framework, the collection of smart contracts that many DAOs use to create their on-chain organizations.

Collab.Land’s vision for their DAO was uniquely challenging. They weren’t starting from scratch. They had to convert their massive community—including 100 community partners—to the new infrastructure. They wanted to be true to their design principles which champion user experience. They also wanted to share profits with their community without violating SEC requirements or putting their members at financial risk.

The Build

The Origami team has built more industry-changing DAOs than anyone else. Past projects include Orange DAO (Y Combinator alumni), VC3 (Kaufman Fellows), and Constellation DAO (Techstars alumni). Our combination of experience, guidance, on-chain smart contracts, and DAO Operating System software is what made us the right partner for Collab.Land.

Revenue sharing with DAO members

Sharing revenue with users was one of the main challenges of the project. Due to strict securities laws, some DAOs have gotten themselves and their members in trouble with authorities. Proper DAO entity organization has always been a focus and strength of Origami and a key part of the Origami Framework.

For Collab.Land, we helped set up a Colorado Limited Cooperative Association (LCA) structure, also known as the co-op model. Instead of hiring members as employees or independent contractors, Collab.Land treats members like co-op shareholders, also known as patrons. Patrons have voting privileges and get a percentage of future profits while being shielded from liability.

Intuitive user experience

As for a welcoming user experience, Collab.Land wanted a straightforward process for their users to claim $COLLAB tokens and join the DAO. To accomplish that, Collab.Land built a validation site that ensured that only their eligible users received tokens.

Once a user was registered, Collab.Land issued $COLLAB tokens, which Origami’s token contract created. After receiving their tokens, users went through Origami’s onboarding process where they could mint their DAO Pass NFT and join the DAO’s governance process.

To eliminate the friction of forcing users to pay gas fees, Origami used Optimism, the layer 2 chain and Origami paid gas on behalf of users. Optimism reduces gas fees by using what’s called “optimistic rollups,” which roll up multiple transactions into a single transaction that’s settled on another blockchain and feeds the receipts back to the main Ethereum blockchain.

After joining the DAO, members have access to the Origami dashboard, which has everything they need to participate in the DAO.

And those who didn’t want to use the dashboard could add their email addresses and receive all relevant information in their inboxes.

By designing an intuitive front-end and streamlining the backend, Collab.Land and Origami created a unique balance between the needs of web2 and web3 users — a true web2.5 experience.

Result: Collab.Land's Successful Launch with Origami

After months of effort, Collab.Land’s DAO — with its $COLLAB token — was launched to the public, becoming one of the world’s largest DAOs overnight.

Within three days of the launch there were over 50,000 new token holders and more than 36,000 people claimed their DAO Pass. And the numbers kept growing. The DAO Pass allows members to govern how the software is run, while the token gives them ownership of the governance.

Equally important, their Discord community grew by 6,000% in 60 hours. That meant that more of their users were joining a community centered on improving Collab.Land.

The team capped off the launch at ETHDenver, where they took the stage with Origami founder, Ben Huh, and shared their learnings with the community.

The Collab.Land DAO is just the beginning. The company’s roadmap includes an app marketplace, API/SDK, and an analytics dashboard for its users. With the future of Collab.Land in the hands of its members, anything is possible.

Origami Empowers New DAO Builders

If you’re building a DAO, Origami is here to help.

Our mission is to bring a billion people to the self-governing world of DAOs.

Reach out today, Contact@joinOrigami.com

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