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Fellowship in the Open: Building a Compassionate Future with DAO Power

December 17, 2025 Technology

I was sipping my cup of cacao this morning, staring at the I Ching reading on my screen—13, Fellowship with Men. The judgment hit me square: "FELLOWSHIP WITH MEN in the open." It felt like a nudge, a reminder of where I’ve been pouring my energy lately—building something bigger than myself, something grounded in community and compassion. If you’re curious, you can see the full reading or cast your own here: https://oracle.truesight.me/?reading=7-8-7-7-7-7. But for me, it sparked a reflection on where we’re at right now with our vision, our challenges, and the unique power of a DAO structure to make a dent in the world.

Let me break it down—our journey so far feels like we’ve moved past the early divergence and convergence phases. We’re now in a space of clarity, iterating on a vision that’s rooted in compassion. Here’s the core of it: we’re aiming to build a better world by tackling climate change—a problem causing immense suffering—through a solution that’s both practical and human. We want to crowdsource support for small-scale farmers restoring the Amazon rainforest, sell their cacao, and help regenerate 10,000 hectares of land to stabilize CO2 levels in our atmosphere. It’s ambitious, sure, but it’s the kind of ambition that feels right when you’re sipping cacao and thinking about the future.

Iterating on the Solution: Where We Focus Now

Right now, our core activities revolve around optimizing and scaling this solution. There are three big areas we’re iterating on:

At the DAO level, I’ve been thinking a lot about flexibility. As long as our logistics and financing infrastructure can support it, and the unit economics make sense, we should be open about how we achieve our goal of 4x growth by 2026—whether that’s through expanding SKUs or targeting new geographies. My personal constraints in logistics and finance are just that—mine. There’s no reason to let them bottleneck the DAO. If the DAO can handle deals independently, it should have the autonomy to move forward. That’s the beauty of this structure—it’s not about one person’s limits; it’s about collective potential.

Last Mover Advantage: Why Timing Matters

Here’s a thought that’s been simmering in my mind—there’s a lot of talk about first-mover advantage, but what about the last-mover advantage? When all the parameters are clear, stepping in at the right moment can be a game-changer. Michael Porter, in his 1996 Harvard Business Review article “What Is Strategy?” (you can read it here: https://sharedvalue.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/HBR-What-Is-Strategy.pdf), talks about aligning an entire system of activities to occupy a unique, defensible position in the market. It’s about making explicit trade-offs and creating barriers to imitation.

Apple did this masterfully with the iPod in 2001, displacing Sony’s dominance in portable music devices. They weren’t the first, but they were the last to get it right—after understanding exactly what consumers wanted (check out this piece for more: https://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/innovation-success-how-apple-ipod-broke-all-sonys-walkman-rules). For us, I think our strength lies in crowdsourcing—a unique advantage that’s hard for bigger players to replicate. We should actively seek out market opportunities where this strength gives us an edge and use them as building blocks for our foundation.

The DAO Edge: Social Capital and Discovery

One thing I’ve noticed over time—and somehow forgot to include in an earlier SWOT analysis—is the DAO’s uncanny ability to garner social capital. It’s a quiet strength, but a powerful one. Solving logistics challenges, for instance, often feels like a psychological puzzle. How do we use social proofing to flip the board? What are the corner pieces in this figurative Othello game that, once turned, will shift everything else into place?

Speaking of SWOT, let’s lay out where we stand with our DAO structure. I’ve been reflecting on how we need to play to our strengths and sidestep our weaknesses when mapping our activities to the environment (more on SWOT analysis here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOTanalysis).

DAO Strengths (Discovery at the Core):


  • Connecting to remote, obscure places—finding hidden gems others overlook.

  • Gathering insights across vast terrains—both literal and figurative.

  • Introducing new domains and market verticals through our network.

  • Leveraging spare capacity among DAO members—being flexible by mapping activities to available resources rather than the other way around.

  • Low to no fixed operating overheads—a lean machine.

DAO Weaknesses:


  • Inconsistent availability and reliability of critical resources on demand.

  • The “just-in-time” paradigm common in manufacturing doesn’t work for us.

  • We should avoid undertakings that require tightly coordinated efforts as a critical path.

Environmental Opportunities:


  • Post-COVID shifts in consumer demand creating structural gaps big brands haven’t yet filled.

  • Climate change driving awareness and demand shifts—another gap we can step into.

  • The AI revolution replacing human cognition with automation along critical paths.

Environmental Threats:


  • Uncertain U.S. tariff situations and geopolitical climates.

  • AI displacing jobs, potentially disrupting consumer spending power.

  • Climate change further impacting supply availability.

  • Manufacturers shifting away from cacao in snacks, dampening demand if they’re our target.

  • EUDR (European Union Deforestation Regulation) driving demand away from African supply to LATAM, possibly pricing us out or making our offering less differentiated.

  • EUDR also driving large-scale land purchases by Europeans, potentially disrupting our access to supply.

Strategic Prioritization: Following the Ansoff Model

Something I shared recently with a colleague, Kirsten Ritschel, was our approach to distribution expansion. It follows the Ansoff Marketing Model from a 1957 Harvard Business Review article (details here: https://www.smartinsights.com/marketing-planning/create-a-marketing-plan/ansoff-model/, and the original publication here: https://www.casrilanka.com/casl/images/stories/2017/2017pdfs/sabportal/coursematerial/strategiesfordiversification.pdf). Given our DAO’s inherent strengths and weaknesses, this prioritization makes sense:
  1. Market Penetration: Deepen our presence where we already are.
  2. Market Development: Expand into new geographies with existing products.
  3. Product Development: Innovate new offerings for current markets.
  4. Diversification: Explore entirely new products and markets.

It’s a roadmap that keeps us grounded in what we’re good at while pushing us to grow thoughtfully.

Reflections for the Day

Sitting here with my empty cup of cacao, I’m struck by how much of this comes back to fellowship—working in the open, building trust, and leveraging the collective. The DAO isn’t just a structure; it’s a way of thinking that amplifies social capital and discovery. But I’m curious—how do we keep balancing autonomy with alignment? How do we ensure that as we scale, we don’t lose the compassion at the core of our vision? And what about you—where do you see crowdsourcing creating unique advantages in your own world?