The Combination of SAAS and DAO Is Written on the Occasion of In-Depth Cooperation Between MAPDAO and PermaDAO
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Author：Spike @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Translator: Xiaosong HU@ Contributor of PermaDAO
Reviewer: John Khor @ Contributor of PermaDAO
The Combination of SAAS and DAO Is Written on the Occasion of In-Depth Cooperation Between MAPDAO and PermaDAO
For a long time, SaaS (Software as a Service) has been limited to traditional Internet service platforms, such as offices, EDA, or the intelligent transformation of large factories and mines, and has rarely penetrated into the Web3 field.
On the one hand, the development of various fields of Web3 is still in its early stages, and public development tools and business complexity have not yet created such a large-scale demand; on the other hand, tools such as a DAO are difficult to be included in the general SaaS system, although there are many DAO Tools, but generally limited to voting, governance, and other levels, and cannot fully cover all aspects of DAO's daily business.
According to a report by Deloitte, the global SaaS market has reached the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, and its development has shown a "general first, then vertical" pattern.
Moreover, with the popularization and development of cloud computing, the current SaaS cloud migration has become a mainstream trend. It can be said that cloud computing and SaaS have increasingly become a twin relationship of infrastructure and presentation. Users only need to connect the terminal to the network locally. Subsequently, office work, security protection, and any business needs can be processed through the cloud, and you only need to send instructions and receive results locally.
Therefore, the SaaS discussed in this article can be expressed as following: "SaaS (Software as a Service) is a software delivery model in which users access and use software applications through the Internet without the need to purchase, install and maintain the software themselves. SaaS providers deliver software that is deployed on a cloud server and provides services to users through the Internet. Users only need to pay a subscription fee to use the software's functions and services.”
For a long time, SaaS has been used in many aspects, typically as follows:
Enterprise Collaboration Tools
Enterprise collaboration tools are an important application area of SaaS. It provides a centralized management and collaboration platform, allowing team members to easily share files, collaboratively edit documents, arrange meetings, etc. For example, Slack is a well-known enterprise collaboration tool that provides real-time chat, file sharing, project management and other functions to help team members collaborate more efficiently.
Customer Relationship Management
SaaS is also widely used in the field of customer relationship management (CRM). CRM software helps companies manage customer information, track sales opportunities, provide customer support, etc. Salesforce is a well-known CRM software provider. It provides a complete set of CRM solutions, including sales, marketing and customer service modules, to help companies improve sales and customer satisfaction.
Human Resource Management
SaaS is also widely used in the field of human resource management (HRM). HRM software helps companies manage employee information, recruitment processes, performance evaluations, etc. For example, Workday is a well-known HRM software provider. It provides a comprehensive set of human resource management solutions, including personnel management, compensation and benefits, training and development modules, to help companies improve the efficiency of human resource management.
If it were to focus on the Web3 market, then the most suitable direction for SaaS is to provide management tools for DAOs. Unlike DeFi or the strong financial attributes of public chains, DAO tools have a high fault tolerance rate and do not have high requirements for anonymity. It is more suitable to adapt to traditional development tools to achieve higher operational efficiency.
The traditional DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is an organizational form based on blockchain technology, which achieves decentralized decision-making and management through smart contracts and cryptocurrency. Members of the DAO can decide the organization's affairs through voting without the need for a centralized authority.
If you imagine a SaaS DAO, combining SaaS and DAO can create a new organizational form, namely "SaaS DAO". In SaaS DAO, the software provider can hand over the use rights and decision-making rights of the software to the users, making the users become co-owners and managers of the software. Users can decide the functions, upgrades and development direction of the software by voting, thereby achieving a more democratic and decentralized software development and management process.
You can imagine its operation process. In this tool, users can decide the development priority of new features of Permaswap by voting. Here is an example voting decision process:
Users submit proposals: Users can submit proposals for new features and explain their importance and implementation methods.
Voting begins: All users can participate in voting to express support or opposition to different proposals.
End of voting: After the voting time arrives, the system will calculate the number of votes for each proposal.
Results announced: The system will announce the proposal with the most votes and announce that the feature will be developed.
Development and implementation: The development team will start developing new features based on the proposal with the most votes.
Online release: After the new function is developed, it will be tested in the system and released online.
Through such a voting decision-making process, SaaS DAO can better meet user needs, provide new features that meet user expectations, and also enhance users' sense of participation and belonging to the DAO.
Furthermore, token economics can be embedded into it. The current DAO problems focus on the binding of voting rights and tokens, which can easily cause the voices of large investors or whales to crush retail investors, but a more complex voting mechanism is not as simple and easy as voting by tokens, so if SaaS is introduced, users can gain access to the software by holding tokens and participate in the development and improvement of the software.
Not only that, users can also vote to decide on software functions, interface design, bug fixes and other matters. Each user's voting weight is proportional to the number of tokens they hold. At the same time, users can also obtain revenue sharing from the platform by holding tokens. This sharing mechanism can encourage users to actively participate in the development and operation of the platform. In this way, the combination of SaaS and DAO can achieve more democratic, transparent and fair software services, allowing users to truly become the masters of software services and jointly participate in software development and decision-making.
Similarities between SAAS and DAO
SaaS and DAO have some things in common in their decentralized nature.
First, they all adopt a distributed network architecture. SaaS is usually based on cloud computing, with software services deployed on multiple servers and provided to users through the network. For example, AWS cloud services operate 42 availability zones in 16 geographical regions around the world. DAO is based on blockchain technology, which disperses decision-making and management power to various nodes in the network. This distributed architecture makes both SaaS and DAO highly scalable and fault-tolerant.
Secondly, both parties have a certain degree of openness and transparency. From a product perspective, SaaS usually provides an open API interface, allowing users to customize and integrate according to their own needs. DAO achieves transparency in decision-making and funds through smart contracts and public blockchain accounting. For example, PermaDAO provides completely open and transparent financial distribution records, and DAO-guild-individual three-level finances can be viewed and recorded.
Finally, both SaaS and DAOs emphasize the concept of user participation and sharing. SaaS enables users to easily use and enjoy software services by providing user-friendly interfaces and functions. DAO realizes the democratization of decision-making and the concept of sharing economy through the voting and participation of currency holders.
In essence, SaaS black-boxes the processing of information and data. Users do not need to consider internal processing processes, but only need to focus on the business needs of their own work. DAO puts internal processes on the chain and makes them completely open. Transparency eliminates the influence of centralization.
Taking PermaDAO as an example, a typical DAO usually consists of the following elements:
Code and smart contracts: The operation and decision-making of DAO are executed and managed by code and smart contracts. These codes and smart contracts stipulate the rules and processes of the organization, including member joining and exit, voting decisions, fund management, etc. (Currently, PermaDAO is not fully on-chain, but everPay has been used to permanently record incentive distribution)
Member participation: Members of a DAO can be anyone, and they can participate in the organization's decision-making process by holding DAO tokens or other forms of voting rights. Members can propose proposals, vote, supervise implementation, etc.
Autonomy and transparency: The operation of a DAO is decentralized, without the control and intervention of centralized entities. All decisions and executions are open and transparent and can be viewed and verified by anyone.
Fund management: DAO usually has its own fund pool, and members can vote to decide how to use the funds, such as investing in projects, paying members, etc.
SaaS DAO can be summarized into the following key points:
Based on existing network products: SaaS DAO is an on-chain delivery and management model based on existing network software and hardware infrastructure. For example, cloud computing provides powerful computing and storage capabilities, while PermaDAO provides mature operational capabilities. You only need to adapt the two to use it out of the box to meet your own special needs.
DAO as a service: PermaDAO provides content, management, activities, and product promotion as services to users. Users do not need to purchase additional services but pay for usage through cooperation, buyout, and subscription. For example, MAPDAO can later flexibly select the required functions and scale based on actual needs to determine its own expenditure costs.
No installation and maintenance required: SaaS DAO applications do not need to be installed and maintained locally on the user’s premises. Users only need to access Notion and a browser to use existing PermaDAO services anytime, anywhere, and with everPay, workload recording and token distribution can be completed with one click.
In summary, PermaDAO promotes itself as a service and can achieve the following functions:
One-click startup: The existing DAO basic tools are all complete. The third-party platform does not need to consider the complexity of building from the bottom. It can exist directly as a sub-DAO of PermaDAO, but it can maintain complete independence. The accounts of both parties are interoperable, but the workload can be reduced. Calculate separately, or display separate scenarios on the front end. With the public nature of the blockchain, you don’t have to worry about centralized control;
Process Management: PermaDAO can be used to improve process management. In the future, by connecting and decoupling various aspects of process distribution, and using smart contracts to automate and optimize the process, the efficiency and transparency of process distribution can be improved. For example, by using PermaDAO, the writing, distribution and dissemination effect of any article can be tracked and verified in real time, long-term dynamic monitoring can be achieved, and incentives can be distributed according to the workload.
Secondary communication platform: PermaDAO can be used to create a decentralized social media platform. Take the Product Publicity Association as an example. It has established a professional PR organization system and is responsible for the promotion and operation of articles. When the article has high social influence, both the author and the PR can receive corresponding rewards.
Voting and decision-making: PermaDAO can be used for decentralized voting and decision-making. In the future, a fair and transparent decision-making process can be achieved through the use of smart contracts and the voting rights of token holders. It is conceivable that any PermaDAO can be used to manage a community fund, and token holders can vote on how to distribute funds.
After the Cooperation Between MAPDAO and PermaDAO
MAP is a cross-chain interoperability protocol. In order to achieve a true decentralized blueprint, MAPDAO will be launched as the final decentralized operation plan. At present, how to efficiently organize such things as personnel deposition, content production and front and back-end page display requires the assistance of specialized tools.
In addition to Discord and WeChat groups, MAPDAO also needs Notion to store its own historical data and related documents. In addition, it also needs automated incentive distribution tools to reduce manual errors.
After long-term practice, PermaDAO has formed a complete ecological service system with everPay as the core and workload accumulation around Notion.
Any user who joins needs to "on board", that is, bind his or her notion account and everPay address to match the individual and account system and facilitate subsequent incentive distribution;
After joining, you can choose multiple guilds such as content, product promotion, translation, development, etc., and perform tasks according to your own areas of expertise. The value of the tasks is open and transparent, and you can also view historical ledger records;
In addition to the above core functions, PermaDAO has also developed many tools to facilitate third-party DAOs to choose to access, such as Arseeding, which is used to permanently save personal data and DAO incentive data to the Arweave network. everPay and Permaswap provide efficient DeFi tools to facilitate third-party DAOs. The three-party DAO connects its own tokens and currently supports multiple token formats such as ERC-20, PST and everPay native.
In the vision, the tools provided by PermaDAO will be used as public goods for everyone to use. Among them, it is worth noting that third-party DAOs do not need to worry about the erosion of their independence. In essence, the services provided by PermaDAO are to promote the growth of Arweave's data and usage.
As the underlying infrastructure serving the blockchain ecosystem, Arweave's vision is to become the Library of Alexandria in the Web3 era. As a permanent storage infrastructure, it is not only for DAOs, but also various applications including public chains, L2, DeFi and NFT. All products can be connected to Arweave as a backup for network data.
We believe that the addition of MAPDAO is PermaDAO’s first step towards SaaS. After more than a year of development, PermaDAO has nearly 200 active users, maintaining Arweave’s visibility in the Asian market.
Conclusion
In the last quarter of 2023, PermaDAO will gradually become open, not only as an underlying storage facility, but also to embrace different types of ecology, work together to expand and strengthen the data growth of different use cases in Web3, and maintain the mature concepts of Web2. With an open mind, let what is on the chain go up the chain, and what is off the chain go back down the chain.
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