Women DAO NOW! - Aditi Chopra

WOMEN DAO NOW! - ADITI CHOPRA

Participants:

JP ( Host)

Aditi Chopra ( Founder of Superwomen DAO)

00:22

JP

Ladies and gentlemen, since the room is already filling up, we don't have to wait for our customary room filling. I know that you are super excited to be here because we are talking to a person who's done something absolutely spectacular. Needless to say, you've heard of the Superwomen DAO. If you haven't already, then you're going to hear a lot more about it coming up on the show. So for everybody in the room, before we begin, I'd like to have a few announcements. The first one being, of course, views expressed on this program belong to that of the speaker and meant for educational purposes only. Please do not take any of this as financial advice.

01:01

JP

Second, in case we do get cut off, ladies and gentlemen, please note that we will rush back to the same place, the same room, as soon as possible. In case one of either myself or our guest today is unable to be heard, they will briefly drop off and log back in because, hey, that's how the only way at this point we know effectively fixes glitches when it comes to Twitter spaces, right? Finally, at the end of this program, we will open the room for questions that you may have for the speaker. So please don't be shy. You can either tweet in your questions that you want to have shared either directly to the speaker or AdLunam, Inc. And we will make sure that we ask those questions for you or give you the chance to ask them yourself. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, this is JP from AdLunam, Inc. bringing you everything about Web3..

01:54

JP

Speaking about Web3, today is a momentous day in the history of cryptocurrencies and more. We all know why that is. It's the day that the mergers happen. So let's give eat a lovely round of applause. Let's check those reaction buttons, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, I can see some of the hearts going. That's brilliant. Perfect. Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's welcome the founder of the Superwomen DAO and Moonshot Consulting. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Aditi Chopra. Aditi, how are you doing?

02:34

Aditi Chopra

I'm good. Thank you so much for that energy and a wonderful introduction JP.

02:39

JP

Fantastic. We were so glad to have you on that you agreed to come on the show and to host you today. There's so many questions that I'm certain a lot of us have inside the room. And the moment that we said, okay, Aditi is the person when were connected to speak about Superwomen DAO and all the initiatives that you're doing. Let's start at the beginning before I get ahead of myself with it, Aditi. Tell us, tell us a little about your background and what got you to the space that you are today.

03:11

Aditi Chopra

Got it. I was not trading really, but investing in crypto for a year or two now. But I was very much in the web two industry leading product and growth for a couple of fintech startups latest being Fanbay and after serendipitously getting into EF, which is a co-founder accelerator in VC form last year. I started working on a couple of ideas in the space of Web3 community at the intersection of Web3 community and women and then a little bit outside of it as well in the health space. And from there that venture really didn't pick up but learned a lot. And all this while I was consulting a lot of startups on community building. So sometime around September, what started happening is that we started getting a lot of requests from Web3 startups and companies for community consulting, marketing, strategy, all of that.

04:05

Aditi Chopra

It made sense because these companies were generally more open to experiment, do different types of initiatives and campaigns because they're not just looking at paid ads and performance marketing. The pay was good, the work was all remote, so I thought, okay, let's try this. And once I got into it full time, our firm started up picking projects. I realized, okay, these are interesting things and I started looking at various structures, you know, in the Web3 itself, metaverse. What do NFTs really mean? What kind of utilities do we have right now? Can we see later? And then DAO as a concept really emerged, which started making a lot of sense because I'd been operating in the community space for a while, so that's how I got in through my firm. The reason was very practical, very tangible, people reaching out to us and it just made sense as a better work opportunity, but now I'm full time into it and this year in May we started Superwomen again.

05:01

Aditi Chopra

That was not never really planned, but it just happened and I think we all saw the need and interest. So yeah.

05:08

JP

Okay, wow, that seems to be an exciting journey, right? Starting from the point at which you realize, hey, there's a demand for it and then you dove right into it. Right? But here's the thing, I'm curious about that moment, right, that point when the switch flipped and you knew that Web3 was the space to be, what was that for you?

05:34

Aditi Chopra

Yeah. So like I mentioned, right, I came from the community side of things. What was starting to happen that even when were building community, looking at marketing campaigns, there was always this thing that you have people in your community, you're doing a lot of things, but you're not really able to incentivize them for small daily actions. Right? That's where the first time I started thinking of, hey, it would be nice because were working on a couple of burn in on engine coins, virtual coins in any app like you would know how you have those reward points and stuff. So the idea was can we have some sort of real money incentives built into this? That hey people are buying into that community and they are acting on these smaller actions and they can be rewarded. So that's what was missing in the various community formats that existed then and that's what DAOs as a model could solve now they of course came with their own set of interesting problems and all of that which you're all I think collectively a lot of people are building into that.

06:33

Aditi Chopra

But that was my thing where I realized, okay this could be something where the interest remains the same, the action by the volunteers remains the same. We can but better incentivize and better and create better accountability in these structures. So that's where from the community the DAO move happened and overall sort of a Web3 switch really came into picture. The fundamentals were always there. I mean I do believe in, for me it's always a question of hey are we looking at decentralization or are we looking at more personalization? Right? Because the first conundrum that people will generally mention when they're talking of why Web3 is hey because banks are charging me to keep my old money. But the whole point of decentralization is do we just want to know and not reveal our information and do we want to be in control of our own money?

07:23

Aditi Chopra

But do we also need to know the information about others in the ecosystem, our peers? So that was a question between and it's still a question which I am working on trying to understand but it's a major curiosity and interest point for me between personalization and decentralization. So yeah that's where I knew okay this is a space which is going to keep my curiosity fed?

07:49

JP

Right, of course it's fantastic when you go through that process of discovery in such a niche and a young industry like Web3 is and that discovery is always these are moments of joy right, that your brain feels happy about. You suddenly realize that there's a sense of purpose attached to it and all that good stuff, right? For want of a better word. So I'm glad that you were able to discover that and look what you've turned it into. Right. So to expand a bit on this, why do you think I mean you've worked with communities before you started Superwomen DAO, right? But there is a claim that's made that a DAO works better than a community and I'm curious to understand and I'm certain everybody else in the audiences as well why that claim? Why the DAO as opposed to just a community?

08:51

Aditi Chopra

Got it. So there are several reasons right? Everyone can come in from their own problem and see is a DAO really solving them for that? So one thing is, historically, if you look at it, community building has been looked as something hey, it's a great customer support way, right? Because we cannot have people solving everyone's question. Let's have members of the community. Let's have those forums. That's how the big tech companies, Google and Apple, have built their community. It was like customer support and learning and understanding and FAQs and stuff. But what started happening is that people are not really actively participating because, one, there's no incentive structure in communities. Also if you look yes. It's not like, hey, I'm a part of a community, and you can create sort of an incentive structure where I do something and then you reward me for it.

09:37

Aditi Chopra

But the whole point is there. All of these things were done a lot more manually. So one thing that the DAO structure sort of improves, or at least in theory, because we yet to see a lot of practical examples of it, is with smart contracts, you can actually automate a lot of these things. Right? Because in a community, several actions are repetitive. Right. Members doing something. So I could be doing the same thing that you are doing. Somebody else could be doing it for someone else, right? So when you have smart contracts in place, you can actually automate it in a real good way. Second is tokenizing and gating it, right. That's always been a question. Hey, how do you gate your community and how do you justify it to the members that why was that person let in but not me? Right? So when you can create more tangible and gating models basis of hey.

10:24

Aditi Chopra

Okay. Reputation still hasn't really picked up that much. Once we have it right, we can actually gate communities and these DAOs in a way that, hey, this is your profile, like, and this is what we're looking at. This is how you can become a part of this community. Sometimes it's also if you're looking at very exclusive, you also would want to look at who's holding that NFT, who's really buying into those tokens and putting the skin in the game. So again, all of these models, first of all, did the community knowledge was going on, and somebody really needed to revise it with the whole DAO theory and concept, that really gets revised. So that's the second thing. Third thing is it's like I just personally feel people were waiting for a breather, but nobody was really bringing it out. And then DAOs just happened. And then there was a lot of hype and excitement around it, and then people were actually ready to look at it from a very different way.

11:17

Aditi Chopra

Right. That, yes, governance by people can really happen. It's not like it doesn't happen. There are foundations across the world. There are self help, cooperative societies where basically members who are doing the business are owners of the business. They all exist. But these business models never really picked up. But when you brought it in a way where, okay, crypto is involved, which is sort of a timing where everyone's excited about it and people do believe that. Hey, now, we do have a few examples where you have Uniswap, you have MakerDAO, you have BitDAO, where actually a lot of people are coming in together for decision making, which, again, was something that wasn't happening in communities. At some point, most of the communities had become a means of broadcasting that there are admins, there are people, and they're just sharing information. But that peer to peer exchange, that constant engagement and involvement of people in decision making would generally be there initially, but then would die down.

12:15

Aditi Chopra

But now with these DAO models where your contribution in a DAO is really dependent on how much you weigh in on proposals, how active you are, there are lock in periods involved, there's a profile creation, your reputation building happening for you independent on this. There's also a lot of very tangible and quick rewards to win. You were also becoming part of exclusive communities and stuff. So I think that looked more like a reality and gave people dream bigger like people have now dreamt of practice society and stuff which is basically a city DAO model where the entire city is a DAO and it's actually being built. So I think it's a mix of better incentivizing, putting the technology in place, revising and giving a refresher to theory of people coming together that we have and decision making of course.

13:05

JP

Certainly, I mean, it's clear to see that you are creating a DAOmocracy of sorts already with what you're doing, right?

13:16

Aditi Chopra

Yeah, I don't know how much of it you can call it a democracy because democracy is equal rights to everyone, right? But when you talk of a DAO and I say this from the experience of learning about it and really building it, right? I mean, if you asked me three months ago, I'd be like, yeah, yes, we want all of those amazing linear structures. Everyone should have equal voting rights. But then now that we're building part of supplement as an investment DAO, we came across this very interesting problem where we're like, hey, okay, we've got all of these members who can vote into this but now this is a very specific proposal and we want experts, people who really understand this space to vote onto the field. And then were like, okay, now everyone who holds a token may or may not be an expert but can vote into this which will actually also result into a little bit of skewness because you have people who are not experts on those things now coming in and being on something.

14:11

Aditi Chopra

So I mean, as a democracy, I think it's more like votes are sort of not fungible really. That would be the wrong word to say but it's more like everyone like from a billionaire to a person common person votes have equal rights. But here in doubt the voting and governance differs a little bit because we see a my ride types of proposals come in sometimes where you actually have to figure the weightage of votes by someone and then the proposals going to the right people as well. So, I mean, if all parameters are set equal, then yes, it's more of a democratic format, but otherwise it's a little different.

14:51

JP

Well, of course, even in a democracy, you're going to have to choose people that you are going to follow. And it doesn't mean that just because of just by virtue of voting, right. You would also look to leaders that may not have titles that you would follow, influencers, people, of course, whose decision you trust. And in this case, as you're mentioning, it would be to some degree the experts who are weighing in. Have I been able to encapsulate that properly?

15:24

Aditi Chopra

Yeah, no, absolutely. 100%, I think those thoughts are always there. And I mean, it's also a little bit early for us to also know how this thing will all pan out because right now we have a lot of things in theory, a lot of things in mental models and stuff, and then to see how it really happens in action, that would be there. Right now, I'm at that stage where my belief is, hey, DAOs are a great way to own things, right? Because owning is a certain action and then taking decisions on that as a community and as a group makes a lot of sense. But are they a great way to operate? That's something that I'm learning while I'm building Superwomen DAO.

16:09

JP

I'm glad you've said that because it is that learning, that insight that you're in a unique position not to forget, as compared to maybe people who are so far into the system, right. That becomes an extremely important point when it comes to sharing because that insight is fresh, it's new. You're looking at the data strand without having to consider what has been the situation from before. So yeah, on that thought, though, Aditi, while we are all for empowerment, I'm certain that there is challenges that you're facing with this particular model, right? And and you've shared, okay, some of the way that the system works. But tell us also about some of the ways that the challenges that you're facing at this point.

16:57

Aditi Chopra

So when you're building, you know, a DAO, which is not based on a use case but on sort of a gender trait, one important thing is, hey, we've got women from crypto of all types. They all have different types of requirements. Someone wants to get hired, someone wants to raise, someone wants to find collaborators and mentors. Someone just wants to be a part of a community so that they can discover events and activities and hackathons and stuff, right? But as a DAO at one point, you have to take that call that what is that offering? What is that ask that we are going to cater to. So that's one thing that how do you really solve for it? Like, do you create all of these sub verticals inside the DAO to solve for this? Or do you focus one thing, right? Because now that we're going global, right?

17:42

Aditi Chopra

Initially were based out of India and Southeast Asia, basically, but now we are like, okay, now the thing is that we've been really propagating and promoting the idea that it's so global and why aren't we doing it? So when we are looking at that's one of the challenges to figure out, hey, what's the right offering that we can look at and give and work on? Because when you're building a DAO, there are multiple things happening, right? You have to continuously grow your community of members in the DAO. You have to figure out the structure, hey, are we going to go with discord our discord community with sort of a governance bot or are we going to look at creating an account on a third party and then setting up our proposals there? Which, by the way, is the process that we've been doing so far or are we going to look at creating something native on a particular chain?

18:23

Aditi Chopra

So all of those questions. The third type is, hey, how does the legality of this work out? Because we're building it out of India, we're considering Dubai, we're considering Wyoming and just figuring out that in itself is something which there's very less knowledge available. There are very few people who really understand this and those who do as a DAO, which is very nascent. And instead you have to figure out, okay, how do the finances to pay them really work out? Because right now we have treasury sponsors, but we don't have like a sustainable long term source of money coming in. The other challenge is fundraising, right? Because you have to first. So my belief personally is that I don't want to be doing a token launch on day one, right? Because I have seen enough DAOs do that without even having an engaged community, without even having those believers, those contributors, people who will continuously take execution and grow the DAO and then no action really happens.

19:17

Aditi Chopra

And then the token dies and the DAO and the credibility dies a slow death. So unless you've done that, how do you really raise I mean, there are fewer, very fewer entities which can help you with grants, which can help you with mentorship, but yeah, there's still less of them. So I think that's a challenge for us right now because I would still say we are one of the early movers in this space, at least in the geography that we're operating in. So that's there the thing particular to the DAO is the engagement, right? Because so far the biggest thesis of being a DAO is like that, hey, it's collective decision making. But what if after a point, you see people not engaging on the proposals, which we are also starting to see in a little capacity. We do sometimes our proposals and sort of discussions on WhatsApp.

20:05

Aditi Chopra

Sometimes it's just basic chat and polls that we do it through. So, like I said, right now we are building on that technology, but otherwise also, the other day, I was talking to people from MetaCartel, BitDAO, for our own research and what we realized that this is a challenge. That even DAOs at that stage are facing where they're like, hey, now we've got a lot of people buy into our tokens, but they're not engaging on proposals. So basically it makes it that hey, now their understanding is that hey, I've bought into your token, I've basically invested into your DAO. Now you all act as the fund managers for me and give me the return. But then again, it is like what another centralized model where you're relying on a couple of people? So that's one of the biggest challenges. How do you get people to engage and act in the governance of a DAO continuously?

20:51

Aditi Chopra

Initially you will always see that hype and excitement but those continuous models are a bit of a challenge. So this is from the DAO side, couple of things. But even when you're building a women DAO, right, the idea first of all, the question that we ask is hey, do you even need a separate women community? Why do you need it? Second is do you need a DAO? Like whatever you're doing can be done in a community. So first of all, figuring out the right answers for those things, what we realized that I'm of the belief that hey, yeah, I mean, everyone can grow together. Everyone is growing together and Web3 is the most inclusive space so far that we've had in the tech. But what we realize that women being sort of minor by the virtue of less numbers, they have sort of their own inhibitions and the fact that they have lesser friends in high places.

21:37

Aditi Chopra

Which is true, because when you're doing a business, whatever space that may be, Web2, Web3, crypto, particularly businesses and products, I mean, your partners are going to be people. Your users are going to be people. So there's this disadvantage, fair disadvantage that women have where unfair disadvantage would be the right term, where women have is that they don't have enough people, right? Because the minority, enough friends at high places or people in community who can guide them when they want to start, when they're trying to transition switch to this space. So I think that was one of the challenges that still is there, getting people to believe that we're not here to solve a gender parity problem. We're just here to help a group of women who have the intent to get into Web3 and do better and then bring down their inhibitions by connecting them to other similar people.

22:37

Aditi Chopra

On the women's side, it's more of a messaging problem branding issue that we're trying to work on because we don't want to ever fall into that area. Hey. That we're trying to solve for the gender party problem, because it's not I mean, the problem cascades into Web3 from the bigger tech ecosystem. In the bigger tech ecosystem, it cascades from that. Hey, there are fewer women who are in the workspace itself, and then it cascades from education. So to what extent do you really look at this? So, yeah, that's there okay, this does.

23:07

JP

Okay. This does pose of course, an interesting, I wouldn't call it a dilemma, but it certainly is an interesting challenge to find a solution to. Right. I mean, at one point you're talking about a group that is statistically a minority, especially in the workplace, and yet at the same time there is the movement of empowerment. Right. In some ways it does become unfamiliar to them because it's not something that has generally the environment that they've been a part of before. So yes, this does force to be an interesting problem.

23:47

JP

But do you see that in exactly the same way, or do you see that maybe in different forms?

23:57

Aditi Chopra

Sorry, can you repeat the question again? The last part, I think I missed a little bit of it.

24:04

JP

Right. In terms of the unfamiliarity with an environment where you have this empowerment, the connectivity. Everybody is a stranger in this joint space. Is that something that you're seeing or are you seeing? For example, now that the group is coming together, there are some that have suddenly realized or found a purpose and they've really blossomed in this particular area.

24:27

Aditi Chopra

Oh, 100%. I mean, that's what's keeping us going, honestly. Right. The DAO does require a lot of work, and it's not like the contributors are all making money at this point. But what's keeping us going is the kind of impact that we are able to see on a daily basis. There were women who have known, who'd been struggling, who used to invest in crypto, but they wanted to move to the Web3 space as employees. But the switch wasn't very easy for them because they were not able to discover the right people and everything. But when they joined the community, they started attending these events. They found their own mentors, a couple of them, actually. So the first event that we did, which was just me trying to just host some women over to find female friends, girlfriends in the Web3 space on that very day, two founders actually got commitments for funding.

25:19

Aditi Chopra

One got funding commitment. She is building an off ramping solution. And one actually got a grant commitment on the first day itself. Right. Because I think where they came from, they had very strong stories. And then there were other women VCs who really wanted to hear them, and these were verbal commitments, but obviously those things went ahead. And now I can positively say that those positive outcomes came. The second thing is what I've generally seen, a lot of people don't have very big problem statements, but a lot of small questions where you're trying to learn about a completely new, different space, right? Someday is going to be, hey, what are ZK-rollups? Someday is going to be like, hey, what's sharding? Some days going to be like, hey, what's merge? Someday some people want to understand about different chains and protocols, right? That I am a Web2 developer.

26:03

Aditi Chopra

Why should I study Cosmos ecosystem or why should I study Cardano ecosystem or anything like that? So I think when you have that community where you're actually able to ask these questions and continuously ask them and get them answered, it's a very important factor in you making that switch, getting that confidence and actually blossoming, right? We have seen women who got information about various hackathons and events from the community went ahead and participated. They actually won. They started their own projects. So this whole journey we have seen for actually more than a couple of women in the last four months and having that community, which they can just turn up to whenever they have the slightest of questions, right? Because now this community is based on this idea that, hey, you don't have to feel those inhibitions that you generally seen in a group of people where you're the minority because you're all of you women, all of you come with similar, not same, but similar sort of work experiences.

27:00

Aditi Chopra

So that's the kind of impact that we've seen that a lot of women have become more vocal. They've actually transformed their curiosity into questions which they've asked in the community and acted on them. A lot of learning, a lot of partnerships, a lot of people have discovered what they're calling in Web3 could because this is a made massive space and to have those mentors who can sort of a little bit of handhold you and guide you that, hey, this is where you come from. This is what your thesis is. This is probably the ecosystem protocol L1 chain that you first explore.

27:39

JP

Well, that's brilliant because more than anything, I mean, more than finding the information, you're able to create that connection handhold and create that opportunity for those that would want to find it but were maybe too afraid to or didn't know how. Hats off to you and Superwomen down on that. Good stuff.

28:08

Aditi Chopra

Thank you so much JP. I would say it's a very interesting experiment for all of us contributors here because we are like, hey, what is there to lose early, right? It could be a hit or a miss, but if it's a hit, it will be a very big hit because we'll be solving a major problem for a lot of women like us. And all of us have faced some have faced like in a milder way in. A very lesser insanity. I would say I come with that privilege. Some have faced it in a much bigger ways and it's like, hey, even if it's a miss, we've all got our jobs, everyone's doing something and it's more like a side project hustle at least at this point that we all have. And if you're enjoying it and the best part that's coming out of it in Web3, how they say, right, that you don't just learn first and do later.

28:53

Aditi Chopra

There's no sequence to it. Things run parallel. You learn, you do, you learn, you do. And I think I'm learning so much because of this because I'm doing this right. There are times when I'm like, hey, okay, someone's asked this question in the community. Now someone has to answer. If nobody's answered, I'm going to have to be the one for other contributors. The thing has been here, we've got to post some content today to engage. But then we have to read, we have to learn, we have to interview people to be able to put out credible things. So I think because of those action steps we are actually studying, learning, collaborating as well apart from our own objectives.

29:29

JP

It's interesting that you mentioned it that way because I'm seeing that you've been able to create something in a very short span of time that is successful. And as they said, with great success comes great competition. As you're seeing this evolve into something that's stronger, do you see more DAOs? I mean, they don't necessarily have to compete, but do you see more DAOs of similar natures springing up in different locations either across the ecosystem? I'm not going to limit it to just one geography or a planet, but one geography or a place, but certainly across. Are you noticing that coming up as a movement?

30:16

Aditi Chopra

100%, I would say instead of actual DAOs DAOs really coming up. A lot of would be DAOs communities who will probably have like I mean I would still say that, hey, are we a DAO? Maybe not. Are we a community? Maybe not. We are also somewhere in between, right? Most companies are in the Web2.5 space. So I think a lot of communities who plan to become a DAO someday are really coming up. They're coming up with the mission and the vision of being a DAO and then they're figuring out their own way to get there because not necessarily every community has to absorb 100% of all features of a DAO, right? You know how they say progressive, decentralization? I mean the merge just happened today. I have still this belief that, hey, we did go from sort of a more decentralized model to a little bit more centralized one.

31:07

Aditi Chopra

But then of course it has its own perks and things will tell us how they pan out. So I think a lot of such structures are coming up. Similar structures with similar objectives are really coming up. But I don't see that as a competition, right? Because right now, like I mentioned, Superwomen's is not really a money making entity. It's not really something where we're going and wanting to raise, where a competition or where other people moving faster can really impact us. And the third most important thing is, like I was saying about the offerings initially, right, what we realized was that, okay, maybe we keep doing the community building activity. We don't become creators of education or pathways and stuff because there are people who've done a much better job than us. We become the curators. And that's our strategy for onboarding more women into it.

31:56

Aditi Chopra

But when we say of our actual offering, and I mean, I'm going to tell you within three months we reach there because right now there's a lot of research and customer development happening, is to become an investment DAO, right, where we have a stellar community of women who are, of course learning, finding mentorship and everything. But scouting and evaluating an early project is one of the functions of those DAO members. So with that offering, what we realize that if it works out, we will not be competing with these other communities of women across whatever geographies they pop up in. We will actually be collaborating and working with them because they will be coming early in the funnel where they're trying to where they're educating women, where they're finding their mentors, where they're giving them projects, bounties ways to earn all of those things, right? We will be coming where some of these women choose to become founders, choose to build something, and then they're looking at that zero to one company building expertise and those investments in terms of grants and funding.

32:54

Aditi Chopra

So definitely this is coming up. And even why I personally think that Superwomen was able to grow at the speed that it was able to grow is not entirely 100% because of our efforts. It's because it was a latent need, which I think a lot of women were realizing, but they weren't able to find those solutions. So when they saw a solution, they were like, hey, I'm going to grab this with both my hands.

33:19

Aditi Chopra

That's what's happening. It's happening in all geographies. And I'm loving this. I mean, I would tell you that the type of partnership pipeline that we have created for the rest of the year, for us, it's crazy. We're sort of going very ambitious with it. Also looking at sort of a women only conference and hackathon. But why not? Again, the whole thing boils down to what's there to lose? Nothing, really.

33:44

JP

Well, more power to you on that and more power to Superwomen DAO, that's for sure. Right? I know I really am going to ask for a pass to this conference in some way or form. But if it's women only, then I'll still ask for a pass.

34:03

Aditi Chopra

I'm sure we can figure out a way to get you in some session or the other.

34:12

JP

Okay, super. So here's the next part, right, since you mentioned that, of course, geographies do come into the picture and you do have an ambitious expansion plan to empower more people across more spaces, right? At this point, what are some of the more challenging environments that you've tried to get Superwomen DAO started in? And what was it unique, that space or those spaces that you can share with us today?

34:44

Aditi Chopra

Sure, so I'll pick it up as a listicle. So first is when we look at geographies at environments, right when we started, it was just me. So a lot of women from Bangalore india, right, because we didn't have any such community existing. And you know, that the Web3 in the crypto space, it's thriving in India and especially in Bangalore, people are going Web3 bonkers here. So geography wasn't really a thing. We were able to find like a lot of women, were getting a lot more women wanting to join the DAO than even the- Because it was just basically me and another member from my own firm, other intern who was helping me out with it at that point. So that wasn't a challenge. But then a lot of members of the DAO traveled, they found other members in Dubai and Singapore and all of those Southeast Asia and a little bit of MENA.

35:38

Aditi Chopra

What we started realizing that first of all, we need to create those very global and standard code of conducts because it's a very silly problem. But I'll tell you, in the community, a lot of women because primarily initial couple of members, a lot of members actually were Indian, they would just randomly talk in Hindi sometime. That's when we realized, hey, yes, nobody really talks about peer to peer communication in DAOs at this point, but that was a big challenge because of which I got multiple requests from people, a couple of people left, even the community that hey, the conversation just spring out of a common medium of instruction and that's there. So that was something which vernacularity, which was something which we would have never realized even. So that was there. The second thing was looking at education, because particularly right now at this point, education in Web3 is very technical.

36:30

Aditi Chopra

I mean, of course, I do keep getting a lot of requests in terms of hey, is there a community playbook for Web3, is there a marketing playbook for Web3? But on a broad macro level, it still do a lot with education and tech. So that's when were trying to figure out, were like, okay, how does this work? Because a lot of similar DAOs that we'd seen, they acted as a community wing for a bigger protocol or an L1, right. You would see Superteam DAO, which works with Solana and only with Solana in India. They're seeing a lot of success because they can work on those set of rules because they're deriving those from Solana. There are a couple of other DAOs who are working with individual protocols. We were not doing that. We were protocol independent basically. So they're trying to figure out education and partnerships in such an independent environment where you're working with different people for every other initiative that was a little bit challenging and also something which were like, hey, is this even sustainable for that matter?

37:24

Aditi Chopra

So that was another thing, I think apart from that, honestly, so far I personally have felt that legality. I mean, when you come at looking at the DAO structure, legal structuring and then the financial structuring, treasury management and all of those things, but I would still say that's not an environmental challenge as such. It's more of a regulation and knowledge challenge which we are trying to solve, I think like everybody else. Apart from that, I would generally say that this space has been a lot more warmer. We haven't seen a lot of kickbacks from people itself. We've seen a lot of questions coming in, but not from people. We haven't faced any legal or geographical or demographical or even mission vision or offering based challenges as such because most of the time when we put this out, people are interested, men and women directly to join men to propagate it and join in as allies.

38:18

Aditi Chopra

So that's such a good problem to have that we don't have enough problems to solve at this point. Oh my God, I'm sounding too optimistic for myself at this point.

38:30

JP

No, optimism is certainly the way forward. It gives you hope. Where there's hope, there's light. Thus set to zero. Okay, so this is interesting. I mean, yes, vernaculars is vernacular cultural references. These are certainly some things that are one of the grassroots issues when it comes to developing communities, DAOs in this case across various geographies. And yes, that contextual reference is always going to be a primary point. So I'm glad you shared that with us because sometimes we tend to forget that and sometimes we just have no realization. For those of you that are budding DAO Makers in the process, those that are community builders in the room do remember that this is an absolute gem when it comes to building your community. And thank you Aditi, for sharing that with us today.

39:26

Aditi Chopra

Hey JP, I'm so sorry. I think I missed a little bit. I don't know if that's my internet. Can you just repeat the last part?

39:33

JP

Sure. Okay, so I was letting the community know. And for those of you that may have not heard it the first time, what I was saying was it's the gem that Aditi just shared. When it comes to vernacular, that is speaking in a regional language in a certain geography, getting them to understand certain cultural references that you might want to introduce into your communities. These are some of the key challenges that community builders face, that DAO builders will face, because it's really about creating that connection. And the quicker you can get to that, the better. So, Aditi, once again, thank you for sharing that gem with us.

40:16

Aditi Chopra

Yeah, no, absolutely. A lot of localization, when you're trying to move that to a globalization thing, not just language, they're going to be a lot of things. What kind of Web3 products are active? Like the kind of DeFi products that may be active and people are using it? Even exchanges, SEXs and DEXs for that matter, in India are going to be different from those that are being used in Dubai, are going to be different. Those are going to be used in the US. Or the Europe. So just having that local understanding of I mean, that's what community is really about, right? Where are your people really hanging out? What are your people really doing? What are they not doing because they find it difficult. So I think those fundamentals, they are the same, exactly the same for one to solve in a DAO as well.

40:58

JP

Absolutely. Speaking of these avenues, these areas, right. I'm curious to understand, you obviously look for people who can lead in a particular space. What are some of the qualities that you would look for champions to develop in these new geographies and new localities or new groups that you might want to form? What are some of the qualities you look for in leaders in that space? I'm just curious to learn.

41:28

Aditi Chopra

Got it. Honestly, my belief is that leadership really comes from a place of empathy and execution, right? Empathy in a way that are you really able to connect because you're a community builder? To be able to solve that problem, you really have to understand what the problem is in the first place because you don't want to solve the problem that you think is a problem, those kind of things. So now, when we look at that between and like I said, I've led teams, product and growth teams before as well, so there was I was hiring. So one thing which I think is more pertinent in Web3 is how open are they to changes and experiments and things changing very quickly because first of all, the space is moving very quickly, right? Today, yesterday, were working on a very different model. Today, the consensus model is very different, right?

42:22

Aditi Chopra

So them, do they have the tenacity to really experiment, realize that, okay, this didn't work out quickly move, right? Because the speed is of essence, a speed of execution, speed of understanding and speed of moving on, right? Not just sticking to it. That okay, we experimented, we tried, we did sort of an A/B, maybe we did a multivariate testing as well. But if it didn't work, we look at something else, right? Because when you're building in this space, things are going to change. And we are all at that stage where it's more execution, it's more experiments in terms of execution than laying like very long rails as such. So that's one thing that if you want to be a leader, you have to be open to quick changes and experiments. Second thing is what I've generally seen, and this is very personal, not generalizing here, is a lot of you all would have also observed young people doing really well in this space and coming out because I think a lot of unlearning is not being done by established people, right?

43:20

Aditi Chopra

There are a lot of senior folks that I've personally met from Web2, and I would love to have them as the part of the DAO, but I think somewhere or the other, their thoughts don't align. And instead of really questioning, I think a little bit of bottling it up is happening where they're not really asking this. Hey, why this & that? But they're actually coming up with conclusions on that. That hey, this won't work. So I think when you're really trying to be a leader, even if you've been very established in Web2, I think you will have to open up in Web3 because it's a completely new crowd. I have seen, and this is so funny, I've seen some senior we season founders who are like, hey, we cannot go to these events and stuff because college crowd students and stuff like that.

44:04

Aditi Chopra

And I'm like, where else? You're not going to meet them in your actual environment, in your habitat. You will have to come out of your comfort zone. So I think that's another thing, looking at leader, third thing which I generally think is a little bit of multitasking is really important, right? Because like we all know Web3 is not just about a product anymore. Like build it and they'll come. It's about hey, you have to have a community, then you have to have a product because you cannot just sustain a community on a storytelling basis for very long, right? You sold them an idea. You got them to believe into something. Now you offer them and give them something. Now you've given them something, get them to believe, get them to act, get them to give your feedback on it. So I think that thing where if you're trying to be a leader in the Web3 space, being able to actually create a little bit of that personal brand positively and healthily shill yourself, be able to tell out a story.

45:00

Aditi Chopra

Actually also delve a little bit into no-code is really important because I think a lot of structures were very well established in Web2. But right now we are at also the initial point in the technology architecture. Quickly and when I say, like I said, speed of experiments actually comes from being able to quickly use no-code products. Those are some of the things that I would say would be important for anyone to be a leader. And then there's overall fundamental right that coming into this space. You don't have to be maxis, you also don't have to be pessimist, but you have to come in with an open mind that what are the possibilities? Because nobody really knows right now. You cannot be that person who just constantly goes out and lives in with a tunnel vision that hey, this is what it is, because that's not the case one day and things will just change.

45:51

Aditi Chopra

A very open sort of a thinking thought process.

45:56

JP

I like that. I think you've really unearthed a particular point, especially when it comes to this aspect of leadership, right? You have to be open to experimentation. What used to be is not what's going to be. And you have to be able to have that open mind to be able to pivot very quickly in this particular point in time. And certainly experiment and learn. Experiment and learn. And I don't know if I said it before, but experiment and learn. That's certainly something that's a huge takeaway when it comes to this.

46:29

Aditi Chopra

Absolutely. Thank you.

46:32

JP

You're welcome Aditi. I guess the next burning question that pops into my mind is that you have a Superwomen DAO, you have an Avengers, are we going to see a movie soon or of some sorts.

46:46

Aditi Chopra

100% and it's going to be bigger than the Amazon. I already have character arcs and plots in mind, the kind of problems we're going to solve because the beauty about these superhero movies is that there's no limit to imagination. And I think right now Web3 is also somewhat delving in the same space. So yeah, just watch out for that. It is going to be there.

47:18

JP

Well, I'm certain of course you're going to have something because you've shared with us that people had asked about a vision. What's your vision for Superwomen DAO? Where do you see it in the entire scheme of things? I'm not going to ask you 5 years from now, whatever, but at whichever point, where do you see it? Where do you see it going?

47:41

Aditi Chopra

into some of the stats. So in: 2020

48:28

Aditi Chopra

In: 2021

49:16

Aditi Chopra

So the vision is that whenever a woman thinks of really building something, she thinks of this community that, hey, yes, I know of this one woman founder community, which helps you with the zero to one expertise, which helps you with the mentorship, which also helps you with that emotional support that you need as a woman founder right. To be there, like how you're building and then create that very cozy nest, how a lot of people, early founders that you would look at think of Y Combinator that, hey, okay, we are finding something. We have to be part of Y Combinator, a lot of Web3 crypto startups, think of a16z or Paradigm Capital that we want to raise from those folks, but we just don't want to be the funding entity. We want to be that community. When a woman thinks of building, she thinks of us that, hey, I have to be a part of this.

50:03

Aditi Chopra

And the second thing is, if we are able to work out the investment DAO objective really well and put together the right partnership pipelines and maybe even a fund, we would also want to be that first entity that women founders think of when they're looking to raise. And if we can figure out a discounted allocation model, I mean, wouldn't say I'm any finance with yours, but the idea is, can we work with all of these VC partners and people with funds who really want to discover these early women projects but are not able to. So we become that community, and can we figure out a discounted allocation model for these projects to really blitzcale the growth of women founders and women led projects? So that's the vision, and yeah.

50:49

JP

Well, I'm certainly seeing you guys already realizing that vision in what you've shared over this last power hour on the show. So, yeah, I feel pretty confident that this is something that's going to move. And I know to all of you in the room who are going to support Superwomen DAO, give us a reaction right now. I'm going to start I'm going to lead the way and I'm going to start with that right there. Okay? I know more of you are feeling shy, but hey, speak more to Superwomen DAO. You'll get to learn more about what they're doing. You expand it to your network. This is certainly a movement that should eat the world just like Crypto does, right? Aditi, that being said, I got to ask you, what's your personal philosophy that you would like to share with the listeners, the audience today?

51:40

Aditi Chopra

Sure. I'm the kind of person who's been very risk averse, right. And then operating in the wet three space, there are a lot of mini shocks that I keep getting every day. So one thing is work on those little fusion challenges where, hey, how can I really mitigate my risk averseness but not have to become too ballsy or too gutsy for my own appetite? So one thing that I ensured was that before making this leap of faith where I'm building something which I don't know for how long, it may not really pay because the contributors and all involved, right. So I always wanted to have this one automated business which is now my firm. I never really planned on it, but when it started and when we saw how it's growing, we realized that, okay, this can be automated, there can be processes and playbooks that we can create.

52:32

Aditi Chopra

So my philosophy is that once you take that out of your mind, right, your mind can really be very flexible and relaxed to actually work on a lot of bigger projects. Right. Why sometimes we see a lot of students being able to work on interesting projects and stuff is because at the back of their mind, they're not really thinking about, hey, how I'm going to feed myself and how my wealth is really going to grow or the creation is going to happen because they have it sorted out. They're in college right now. Nobody's expecting them to do that. So having that clarity of mind, I think is one philosophy which I have really relied on and worked throughout that my firm exists. And I do spend a couple of hours every day on making sure that we are doing right by all the projects that we have.

53:17

Aditi Chopra

We're actually creating the kind of impact that we promise and then that gives me a lot of leeway to really work on interesting things. So that's how I believe in mitigating the risk averse nature. Instead of just bothering yourself, stressing yourself, and then constantly thinking of, hey, I'll take this leap. Hey, I'll take this leap, all sort of things.

53:38

JP

Understood. And I think that's a very sound model to follow is millionaires do this all the time. They never just stick to either a one income stream or have just one interest. Right. There's always a variety. There's always a diversity that keeps you that people need to understand is a great way for you to build a foundation so that you have the freedom to explore, to experiment, and of course, it's something we can all empathize with. So Aditi, thank you for sharing all these thoughts with us on diving into crypto. It's been a complete learning experience, and it's exciting to see the vision of Superwomen DAO unfold, even in its present form. So more power to you, more power to Superwomen DAO and all women in the room, and all the men in the room as well. Let's give them a, like, look them up, follow what it is that they're doing and spread the word.

54:35

JP

This is certainly a movement that should be propagated something that's empowering, right? Yeah. So let's do that. Okay. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, I'm certain that some of you have questions that you would like to ask our speaker. It's very simple. All you do is hit the button, say, raise your hand, or hit the mic and request to speak. And we will give you that opportunity. If you can't do that or you feel that you would like to send in a question either via DM to AdLunam, Inc. please feel free. Go ahead or tweet that in to AdLunam, Inc. or Superwomen DAO.

55:13

Aditi Chopra

Yes, feel free, guys. I mean, we're all learning here.

55:18

JP

Okay, I see that Toshar has raised his hand. So if I would request our host, if he can give just a second, maybe I can do that. Let me just see if I can do that. Requested. And there we go. Okay, Toshar I'm approving your request to speak. As soon as the mic comes on, you can go ahead and ask you a question. Yes, you are.

55:53

Toshar

Im so proud of you. Can't say anything more than that.

55:56

Toshar

But I just had this one small question. When you were doing a Superwomen DAO, what were the major problems which you faced and what are the current problems that you're facing right now? And you're like, I want solution of this problem as soon as possible. I am interested in.

56:17

Aditi Chopra

Honestly, Toshar, thank you so much for the kind words, first of all. Second thing is, there's not one problem. There's not even two. There are multiple, right? There's like a notion dock of problems that I have arranged in the order of urgency and everything. One problem that we are definitely trying to figure out is, hey, how do we really and where do we really host the community? Right? Because our community is spread across telegram, WhatsApp channels and Discord and figuring out we want to keep them. And we have local chapters, right? Because there's a lot of hyper local things happening in Web3 space, right? We chapters for Dubai. There's an event happening right now in Dubai as we speak, our launch event. And then there's chapter in India. There's one chapter in Singapore. So figuring out, hey, how do you really manage it on a global level and on a hyper local level?

57:06

Aditi Chopra

Both right. So having the right roadmap for community engagement, for DAO engagement, and for member value adding for those things is something which is at the top of my mind right now. That's what we've been also discussing, a few of us, that hey, what it really means, what kind of value would be offered in these chapters, what kind of value is offered in the overall community in two months time when we really look at launching tokens and stuff what's those exclusive other things that we are going to give our members? How are we going to create that Token economy, really inside the DAO itself? So that's one pertinent question, and there are lots of small questions that come as a part of this. Apart from that, honestly, a lot of things which would at first be a problem are not really the case for me because, like I said, bread and butter is sorted out with the firm.

57:58

Aditi Chopra

We've got some treasury sponsors to work on, things to look at events. The ecosystem itself is very supportive. If I today go out and read someone that, hey, I'm stuck at this point, can you please give me 30 minutes of your time? And people would do that happily. So I think the ecosystemic challenges are very less now. It's more of the builder challenge that we have to figure out. And that's an interesting space to be in.

58:20

JP

Okay, all right, fine. Thank you for that. Aditi, I've got time for just one more question. Doomsday has raised his hand. So, Doomsday, I'm approving your request to speak the moment the mic comes on. Go ahead. In the meantime, I've got one question that's also come in. Aditi, the question is- just a second. Let me see if I got Doomsday up there. Hang on. Right. Okay. Doomsday, if you can unmute yourself, go ahead, ask your question. Sure. And then I'll take the last one before we close the show. Go ahead.

58:55

Doomsday

I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. First off, I want to say what a pleasure it's been listening to you, how well educated you are in the space and the presence that you bring. I love women in the space. I think you guys get a bad name. I love what you're doing. My name is Doomsday for a reason. Because of Superman. I follow Superman things as well. Doomsday, we're trying to do a DAO. I think you're phenomenal. I'd love to get a DM from you, have a chat off the space, love to work with women in the space. Love what you're doing that's outside for me. Thanks, guys.

59:43

Aditi Chopra

Thank you for those kind words and definitely going to hit you up and we will have a chatter. Yeah.

59:52

JP

Awesome. Okay, we are at the final leg, but I'm going to throw in one more question in which has come from the Idam and says what do you think about the future of women in the industry? I know you've answered that broadly but your personal thought very briefly at the before we close the show..

:: 00:13

Aditi Chopra

I really think the future of women in the industry is going to be when we don't ask that question anymore and the question really becomes hey, what's the future of people really in this industry? Are we going to be overtaken by cryptographic boss or something? The question really doesn't exist. But I mean tangibly speaking, see the one thing is that a lot of problems which existed for women in terms of hey, because are getting solved by Web3 because of its remote culture, because of its very global nature, because of the tremendous amount of new opportunities that are available. Right. Also the fact that I've always believed community marketing growth, those are the kind of skills which you can pick up faster than technical skills if you are someone who is a tad bit extrovert and ambivalent who generally has people skills and is ready to put in the hard work.

:: 01:02

Aditi Chopra

Right? So I think a lot of women where they were not really able to look at education, like prolonged education, probably even after school or something like that, or after college or took career breaks and stuff, it gives a lot of easy entries. It gives lots of warm entries to women to make a comeback, to look at all of these interesting things and also look at very interesting problems. Work in a global, remote environment. I don't know, I don't want to speak of anonymity at this point because I have very mixed reviews on the whole pseudo anonymous culture in the Web3 right now. But some women did pointed it out that being able to work anonymously is also something that we look forward to and that's very interesting. But yeah, it's something that I was told, I personally have no thoughts on it. So that's where women will go and then women will I mean already those who are contributing, they're all contributing in equal capacities.

:: 01:56

Aditi Chopra

It's just that the quality is already there. We will see more of quantity in terms of women into the space.

:: 02:05

JP

Certainly, all right, Aditi, thank you so much for sharing these gems and insight. I hope you've had as much fun on the show as I have.

:: 02:13

Aditi Chopra

Oh, 100%, you have been a very warm and fantastic host and so is AdLunam. I wish been in putting all of this together.

:: 02:22

JP

Thank you. It's been a pleasure hosting you. And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to Diving Into Crypto. We'll be here again at the same time next week with more insights for you. More speakers, more people, movers, shakers candlestick makers from the Web3 space when you can tune into our show. Our sister show, which is The Future of NFTs, is hosted by a co-founder, Nadja Bester, which is on Tuesdays at exactly the same time. So ladies and gentlemen wish you a wonderful day. Celebrate this moment in history with the merge. Cheers.

:: 03:02