Announcing Deep Work (DEEP) Token
Enabling the transition of Deep Work from owner based studio and agency to a collective of the world’s best designers.
Deep Work is a collective made of some of the world’s best designers.
Our token will enable shared ownership of the collective.
Deep Work (DEEP), is a governance token for the community of designers to manage the collective.
Deep Work’s Mission
Our mission is provide high-quality design for impactful projects, work at a sustainable pace with inspiring people and create long-term compensation for all value creators.
We use tooling and structures similar to a DAO. Since we’re on a continuous journey to decentralisation, we use the term “collective” to describe the community running the organisation.
Key Facts
Deep Work (DEEP) is the collective’s native governance token which coordinates activity. Distributed to community members for active participation, such as completing work on client projects.
At launch, token holders can vote on distributing the collective’s profits or a treasury of DEEP tokens.
There is no token sale or investors. Deep Work has been bootstrapped through client work and founder commitments.
Details
- Deep Work (DEEP) on Etherscan
- Token Contract Address, Mainnet: 0x9be2C5836c98Bf29BFc9493D9Efd29beb499d7FD
- Name: Deep Work
- Ticker: DEEP
- Type: ERC-20
- Decimals: 18
- Total Supply: 100,000
About Deep Work
Deep Work provides radically better design for technical teams and founders. Our creative approach consists of a set of interactive workshops, high fidelity prototyping and user testing with a turnaround time of one to two weeks.
Deep Work’s Collective Structure
And what the token enables:
Deep Work earns revenue from clients for providing design services. After the project costs are paid, gross profits are allocated to a USDC treasury. The collective votes on how to allocate the profits in the USDC treasury.
This means the collective of designers can decide how to continue building the collective and allocating the profits to resources. Co-ordinating the mission.
This moves from an owner founder model, to a model where everyone who works in the studio decides what to do with the profits.
Initial Distribution
DEEP is issued by Deep Work Ltd, which is separate organisation to Deep Work Studio Limited.
DEEP has no financial value — it represents participation in the collective by designers and team members. There is no sale or investors.
Team Distribution
After working on a project, team members are allocated tokens. The token is distributed according to skill level or task, those with more knowledge or experience being awarded more tokens for higher voting rights in the direction of the studio. Long term contributors earn more tokens.
As the one’s who can make the highest impact for the future growth of the collective, the team members have the highest allocation of tokens.
You can earn tokens by working on a project — see the Quick Start Guide for an introduction. When invoicing or requesting payment for completed work, team members earn tokens by a multiplier of what they invoice depending on the role or skill level.
Founders and Deep Work Studio Limited
Whilst taking inspiration from fair launches we have allocated tokens to the founders of Deep Work and Deep Work Studio Limited. For two reasons:
Firstly, the founders of Deep Work have been building Deep Work for three years. Rather than a traditional exit (e.g. selling the company) we are creating the collective as an ‘exit to the community’. We’ve based the allocation on traditional startup IPOs and the amount of equity founders are left with after dilluation. Instead of investors, team members and community will be distributed the remaining allocation.
Secondly, Deep Work Studio Limited has a small allocation of tokens to continue building the collective and be able to to distribute tokens as it sees fit. We’re continueing to build interfaces and software which allows further control and decentralisation to the collective’s designers and community.
Treasury
The Treasury can be distributed as per governance votes. It is intended to last four years and this should be taken into consideration when raising a proposal. The allocation of 20% is intended to act as community incentives to grow the collective.
Airdrop
There is a retroactive allocation of tokens at launch. This was based on our V1 token launch, token claims since that date and any recent project contributions. We took a snapshot on Wednesday 22nd November 2021. Any future contributions and payment requests will go into the next token distribution.
Future Issuance
The team allocation has been calculated to distribute over roughly four years or 150 projects. This rate could significantly change, and is no way meant as a target.
Token circulation is expected to be distributed as per the above graph. As more projects are completed, more tokens will be issued. Once the initial token allocated is used, a governance proposal can be raised to issue more tokens for the team and treasury at no more than 10% and 5% of all tokens respectively. In the future the collective could vote to introduce a burn or similar mechanism.
Governance
Currently one token equals one vote on the following management areas of the collective:
USDC Treasury — Token holders can raise a proposal to distribute the funds in the USDC Treasury wallet.
Deep Treasury — Token holders can raise a proposal to distribute tokens in the DEEP Treasury wallet.
Payment and token distribution disputes — The collective can dispute token and project costs payment claims.
Future Governance — The plan is to decentralise all elements of the studio to governance. Future areas of governance (such as processes, project budgets, product offerings) will be decided by skill domains or weighted towards reputation earned through different skill levels and contribution.
Governance Process
Snapshot
Snapshot is a popular DAO tool and interface for very simple voting that allows holders to participate in governance without spending gas. Creating a proposal and voting are both free. Proposals and votes are signed messages, stored on IPFS. Signatures are easily verifiable online.
You can find Deep Work’s Snapshot page at: https://snapshot.org/#/deepworkstudio.eth
Anyone with at least 1 DEEP can raise a proposal. For a guide to raising a proposal and voting, please see our Docs.
Summary
Our plan at Deep Work has always been to scale and decentralise to a community of designers. Making sure that everyone who contributed to value creation gets a share of it. Rather than the traditional employment model (low equity if at all) or freelancing (limited value generation and scope as one person). The launch of Deep Work (DEEP) is another step forward in that direction.
If you would like to join the studio, here’s how to get started:
Join Deep Work:
Docs and quick start guide:
Website and Case Studies:
Resources
Full token details: https://docs.deepwork.studio/deep-work-token
Distribution details: https://docs.deepwork.studio/deep-work-token/distribution
Governance process: https://docs.deepwork.studio/deep-work-token/collective-governance
Deep Work’s Collective and Finance Structure: https://docs.deepwork.studio/background-and-introduction/structure-and-finances
Legal and Disclaimer
Deep Work (DEEP) token is intended as a governance token. The collective has a corporate structure (Deep Work Ltd) which manages client projects, team members and the token distribution. It is separate to Deep Work Studio Limited. Since externally to Deep Work the token can have financial value, receiving it might create legal and/or tax complications for participants. Participants are fully responsible for any legal and/or tax complications and waiver any responsibility for Deep Work. As such, the token is opt-in; only participants that have explicitly opted in will receive the token.
Thank you
To the everyone who has contributed to Deep Work and got us here today!
