The fromTeal project

Udi h Bauman, , ,

The project combines 2 concepts/ideas:

  • 1st concept is Ikigai: the ideal of achieving your life’s purpose or reason for being (read more here)
    • It is commonly described as the combination of 4 conditions:
      1. You work on what you love
      2. You are good at what you’re doing
      3. The world needs what you’re doing
      4. The world pays you for what you’re doing
    • Many people achieve conditions 2-4, but not many achieve the 1st – work on what you love.
    • Ask yourself: if you won the lottery tomorrow, would you continue to work at the same place afterwards? If not, than you haven’t achieved the 1st condition
    • Why is the 1st condition so difficult?
      1. Many people start off their career doing one thing, but find out later that their passion is actually doing something else
      2. Many people are working on “bullshit jobs” that aren’t bringing any real value to anyone, but they keep doing it just because of the status game, social pressure or fear of change
      3. Many people do work in the profession they love, but deeply need the freedom to work on exactly what they love – to build things that are meaningful for them & allow them to express their creativity (fulfilling Maslow’s top need of self-actualization)
  • 2nd concept is Teal: an hypothesis of how organizations & employees can be 10-100x more productive, effective, successful & happy (learn more here)
    • It is based on 3 principles:
      1. Work should be done in purpose-driven teams, where everyone are trying to achieve some north-star purpose they’re all passionate about
      2. Work should be done in small self-managed teams, without any managers within or outside telling people what to do
      3. Everyone should be their real self at work, without putting on any mask or pretend
    • This sounds crazy & impossible but actually many people (especially engineers) already had a chance to see a proof that it actually works:
      1. Hackathons teams are usually x100 better than regular teams, just because they are following Teal
      2. Startup founding team are usually x100 better, until the point they get bigger & hierarchical (i.e., not Teal)
      3. Open-source projects & organizations do so much more with less resources, by practicing Teal
    • There are also companies showing how much Teal is effective, even too effective..
      1. Patagonia complaining that they’re making too much money
      2. Zappos turning down Amazon offers for billions of dollars because they’re so happy
      3. Burtzorg taking over Netherland healthcare & going global
      4. Morning star making almost all of US tomato based products
      5. Favi, Sun Hydraulics, Gore making best products in their categories for decades

fromTeal is trying to make as many people reach Ikigai, by leveraging the principles of Teal

  • It’s a blockchain-based community, marketplace & metaverse, that lets people create a team working on the thing they love
  • Once they work on what they love, they get help in achieving the 3 other Ikigai conditions
    • Being good at what they’re doing
    • Ensuring the world needs what they’re doing
    • Getting paid for what they’re doing
  • This is done by removing the constraints between the teams & achieving Ikigai:
    • Time & resources to become good at what they’re doing
      1. Find more team members driven by the same purpose & passion, & share the work with them
      2. Get knowledge & guidance from other teams doing the same thing
      3. Get investment from people who need or share the same purpose as the team
      4. Get feedback until they become really good in what they’re doing
    • Ensuring the world needs what they’re working on
      1. Find people who really need the solution
      2. Design the solution together with these people
    • Get paid for what they’re building
      1. Enable teams building the solution to directly interact with people using it & sell it without any middleman
      2. Facilitate the commerce in a way that ensures trust & security
  • How does fromTeal provide all that?
    • It’s a marketplace, based on a digital currency, for exchanging these goods:
      1. Team member referrals – get paid for referring someone to a team based on shared purpose
      2. Coaching sessions – get paid for providing knowledge & guidance based on relevant experience
      3. Feedback sessions – get paid for providing feedback on teams products or services
      4. Customer referrals – get paid for referring someone who needs what the team is building
      5. Virtual land & offices – get paid for selling metaverse locations for teams HQ
      6. Team created goods – get paid for building products & services for other teams
    • It’s a metaverse where teams form neighborhoods in a virtual city based on purpose – what they’re trying to change in the world
      1. Teams with similar purpose have their virtual HQ next to each other, allowing them to discover, learn from & help each other
      2. People who care about some purpose or have a need for it, can discover teams, join them to provide feedback or buy their products
      3. There’s a reason why certain cities are hubs for technology, research, art or commerce: having many similar companies/organizations close to each other, allows people to discover others in a similar situation, exchange ideas & create a network
      4. There’s a reason why stores of the same products are usually located in certain areas, close to each other – they want to learn from each other as well as get to the same customers
      5. Since all teams in a neighborhood are driven by the same purpose, they aren’t in a real competition – they care about the purpose just as much as being successful
    • It’s a community driven by the common goal of helping all members reach Ikigai
      1. Every team has a visual indicator of where it stands in the path to Ikigai, & what are their current needs, allowing other teams & people to help them
      2. The ownership of the community is by the community (DAO), so it provides grants to teams for building tools & solutions to help the community
    • It’s an experiment in using technology to enable new ways of working
      1. Using blockchain DAO’s for each team, to enable autonomy & self-management, fair equity & value sharing, decentralized decision making based on advice, role-based salaries &c
      2. Using new blockchain protocols to enable decentralized commerce & investing – no need for middleman platforms, managers or shareholders cutting a part in the value flow between teams & their customers. Customers buy products directly, & can also buy equity tokens & become part of the team.
      3. Using AI-based assistant devices to help each team manage its work, monitor progress & get recommendations & referrals across teams
      4. Using 3D metaverse to enable discovery & collaboration that is much more powerful than the page-based interface of websites & apps

Published by Udi h Bauman

I believe in the magic flute