Onboarding

The goal of a strong DAO onboarding flow is to familiarize new members with the mission of the DAO, connect them with ways they can get involved, and familiarize them with processes like governance, community calls, and voting. A good onboarding flow is like a ladder and the goal to shorten the distance between steps. A DAO should ideally have a pathway from new member to core contributor.

Example onboarding ladder:

• Hear about a DAO on Twitter
• Find the website
• Join the Discord Server
• Read the Welcome Message
• Select Emojis that correspond to skills and contribution areas (for example, design, dev, marketing)
• Post an introduction
• Meet other DAO members
• Take on a bounty
• Join and work on a project
  

It's key to design the onboarding flow around the end goal. In some DAOs like Friends With Benefits, the community itself is the goal and fostering an engaged membership base that attends events and knows each other is the objective. In other DAOs, the end goal of an onboarding process is soliciting financial contributions or harnessing talent to join project teams. After a clear goal is defined, the onboarding flow can be optimized around it. Each step can be measured to discover where there is dropoff, for example, if lots of people find the website but don't join the Discord server, perhaps the link is expired.

Welcome Message

A Welcome Message is an important chance explain to someone how the DAO works, ask them to get involved, and get them to engage. It's a great place to point out the mission and goals of the DAO, organize important links and resources, answer frequently asked questions, and provide a call to action (for example asking them post an Introduction and select Reaction Roles).

Introductions

Everyone loves to talk about themselves, and an Introduction Channel is a great way to ask people to introduce themselves. Some of the most effective DAO community managers will warmly welcome new members who post in the Introductions channel, commenting on their introduction posts and connecting them with likeminded people in the community.

Reaction Roles

Reaction Roles allow people to select skills and interests and get assigned specific roles in the chat app Discord. New members who select Reaction Roles join a talent pool of human capital, and when a DAO member organizes a new project they can notify everyone with the role to give them the opportunity to join if it fits their interests. Best of all, it's a lightweight ask of new members and can often be included at the end of a Welcome Message.

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