Web 3.0 and Offline Businesses

Over the last few months, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time going down the Web 3.0 rabbit hole. If you are looking to explore this space, the Naval, Chris Dixon podcast with Tim Ferriss is a great place to get started. There’s a lot to be excited about.

While there’s a lot of innovation happening in this space with DAOs, Defi, NFTs etc, most of it is focused on creating decentralised virtual entities. What excites me the most is the application of the concept of DAOs and decentralisation to smaller, offline businesses.

Take the example of a coffee shop. In the future, ownership of the coffee shop can be distributed via tokens across employees, customers, and the local community. All stakeholders will have skin in the game. They will be incentivised to help create a sustainable, differentiated business. The result of that could be transformational. The closest comparison to this kind of a DAO is co-ops. But, DAOs can distribute ownership to a diverse group of stakeholders, with different ways to incentivise each stakeholder group.

I can’t wait to own a piece of my local favourite coffee shop, restaurant and small business and support my local business ecosystem in a more meaningful way.