Dear World, Meet Sanscubicle.
In 2016 we started an exploration into the Future of Work. Today we open up our K̶i̶m̶o̶n̶o̶ Field Notes. Don’t mind the hairy legs :p
We are DAO-nut makers. Sprinkled or Glazed?
At Sanscubicle we have been building a community of pretty rad service DAOs. Let’s meet them.
Launched in 2016, Lazy Eight is a distributed team of India’s illest’ creative minds. We call them Lazy Eight Principals. Till date: 330+ clients globally. Visit Lazy Eight.
HEC2M : Software Development DAO
Named after India’s first computer. HEC2M, is a team of India’s finest software engineering minds who have been helping brands build v1.0s since 2019. Till date: 150+ clients globally. Visit HEC2M
Dhasoo: Digital Marketing & Growth DAO
Launched in 2020, Dhasoo is a team of magical beans helping brands explode. Claim to fame: Helping Jack grow Beanstalk Inc. 5000% YoY. Visit Dhasoo
Allowing startups to cc legal@[theircompany].com on emails with the confidence of that neighbourhood Chihuahua since 2021. Visit Zgal
Our Taster Menu of the Future of Work Obscurium:
Pyramids are great … but only in Giza.
Our DAOs are flat and have two roles: Principals (ie. you are at the top of your game) and Associates (a top draft pick just lacin’ up). Our DAOs are designed to be top-heavy, ie. 90% Principals. 10% Associates.
How do you spell it … pseudo..what?
Since 2016, we have been pseudonymous. All our DAO members go by hex colour codes and not names. If you are a client, soon we might let you choose an accent through voice filters (we’re currently testing Klingon).
Gone Fishin’ since 2016.
On day 1 we decided to get a single room office for official paperwork. On day 2, we put up a “Gone Fishing” sign on the door and left. This was 6 years ago.
Zuck you had us at Meta.
Since our DAOs are fully distributed, we figured we’d create the warm fuzziness of proximity through pixels. Fortunately, we didn’t need consensus on doormats.
The 60 hour month.
We limit our DAO members to 60 hours a month. This allows them to spend some time with their grandmas, learn how to play the ukelele, work with other DAOs, or finally witness a wall of paint dry in person. Oh, and no one really works 8 hour days.
Bow to our bot overlords?
We are not grownups, in fact, we almost named this company Never Never Land. So in 2017 we built an AI bot to ‘mommy’ us, instead of calling it Wendy we named it ACHT (Automated Calculator of Honest Time spent — acronyms are cool duh). Not only does it measure effort input on tasks, it quotes Hasselhoff, reminds our DAO members to have Gatorade and Asprin after a night out, and wonders why Batman isn’t out fighting crime when one is working late nights.
Time is money…
Our second favorite quote by Ben Franklin after “God made beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy.” The equitable unit for each DAO member is their time. A few (very few) of us decided to not sleep through our ECON 001 classes back in college, so we decided to dynamically price a DAO’s hourly rate every quarter based on avg. utility of that DAO’s members. ACHT does all the heavy lifting, but we take the credit :p
The Principal’s 🧀
Our aim with each DAO is to try to make sure Principals are making ‘cheddah’. For their core comp, a Principal gets a % of what a client is billed. As of writing this article, the following is where each DAO stands for a fully utilised Principal at gross annual: (percentile as per data on Glassdoor for India).
- Lazy Eight : 93%
- HEC2M : 88%
- Dhasoo: 91%
- ZGal (currently too early).
Do note, these percentiles are based on core compensation for a fully utilised Principal (60 hours a month) and it does not include DAO Principal distributions. If we included that, it would have been like John Bernthal’s Punisher walking into a 1930s Western with a rocket launcher…unfair to the rest. More on the DAO Principal distributions later.
Ok Don Draper, pitch me..
We love Mother Dairy milk dispensers. A person puts in a coin and gets fresh milk. No one cares whether there is an actual live cow on the other end, even if the dispenser Moos.
By design, all of our DAOs are positioned simply as service brands. There are no mentions of DAOs, Web 3.0, etc on any of their websites. Why? Clients care about quality work, at a cost-efficient price with a process sooo smooth, Rick James would be jealous. So we oblige by keeping all the technology and associated “speak” in the background. Here is a quick example:
For Project-based engagements, ACHT uses comparable data from previous projects to spit out capped estimates at <10% deltas. This is the same for whether a client is a startup or a large enterprise. ie. If ACHT was the captain of Pequod, it probably would have never recognised Moby Dick.
Since all the cool kids have a fund these days…
We decided to launch one in 2021 (minus the Patagonia vests). We call this fund the Sanscubicle Principal Fund, as the name suggests our Principals are the LPs. Our Principals get to spend months working with clients, where they get team, product, and market insight. Occasionally they come across a startup / NGO that they love and would like to spend more time with and so as a collective we get down on one knee (invest). To learn more about our small but growing list of investments click here.
A Slice of the Pie.
“Put candles in a cake, it’s a birthday cake. Put candles in a pie, someone’s drunk in the kitchen” — Jim Gaffigan
Outside of the regular comp, we have profit sharing across all our DAOs. It’s fair and it’s the future. Since many of us are more right-brained, we decided to keep the math stupid simple.
[Lifetime hourly DAO input of a Principal] / [Lifetime hourly input of all DAO Principals] = Principal DAO %
[Principal DAO%] x [Profits/Fund ROI] = Principal’s DAO Distribution.
Since we are not evil, a Principal continues getting profit share/fund ROI even if they leave or take a sabbatical as long as their % stays above 0.5%.
A Principal’s DAO distribution currently is in Fiat (no, we haven’t found a coin memey-er than the Shiba-Inu, nor tokenomics that would make Adam Smith blush…yet :p). The Principal then has the option to use a % or all of it to re-invest, in turn increasing their Principal DAO% prior to the next distribution cycle.
Mirror mirror on the wall…
Ok, ACHT is definitely the fairest and (fairest) of them all. ACHT collects and assesses a ton of data. It calculates project estimates, Principal efficiency indexes, takes care of team comp…. but most importantly it keeps us humble through our Mission Control dashboards. To keep us humbler (is that a word?) we decided to push these Mission Control panels public.
Wordle was so last week…
This point has absolutely nothing to do with our exploration. Basically, the team thought we have the coolest 404 page in the world, so we had to add it here. Last month a Principal decided to spend their entire 60 hours trying to solve it. To give it a spin click here.
Gratitude.
Not too many folks these days can make it to the bottom of an article. So thank you, you spectacular superstar. Below you’ll find some useful links, if you wish to scroll further, we have a set of completely useless FAQs.
Relevant Links & Reading
Careers at Sanscubicle & Opportunities at our DAOs
Follow Sanscubicle on Twitter.
Subscribe to the Sanscubicle Newsletter.
*read: The History of Work
Contact
To say hello, or to send us flaming bags of dog poo NFTs
Sanscubicle Team: frontdesk@sanscubicle.com
FAQs, ABODU
(Answered by our drunk uncle).
What is a DAO?
A duck-filled BAO?
Who wrote the Copy?
GPS 3? I didn’t know Google Maps can also write.
Do you guys have a DAO coin?
No. But I have a stamp collection from 1938. Mr. Sharma said it’s worth a lot.
I’m from the media, can I interview you guys?
Yes, I’m available this Wednesday at 2:21 pm. Is it ok to bring my Sprite bottle filled with Coke and man medicine? No need to tell my wife about the Sprite bottle.
Are you guys buying NFTs, can I shill you my collection?
Beta, not NFTs. They take transfers in NEFTs, SWIFT and some new doggy coin.
Where will Sanscubicle be in 10 years?
They tell me that in a few years I will be able to launch and run my fluorescent Langot business without hiring a single full-time employee by simply speaking to a robot that isn’t my wife.
Who should know about Sanscubicle?
Mr. Balaji, Mr. J. Walker, Mr. Naval and of course Mr. Sharma.
Ok, can I go now? CID is on.
