From Basketball Dreams to Reality: The Playbook for Community Building and Onboarding

Imagine a global community where ex-NBA players rub shoulders with retail professionals from Nike, where students brainstorm alongside seasoned sports agents, and where crypto degens chat with die-hard basketball fans.

It's a mosaic of diverse perspectives, united by a shared passion for the game.

Krause House is a community with an simple goal: to own and operate an NBA team through the power of collective engagement. As you dive into this interview, you'll see how Krause House is onboarding sports fans into web3.

Krause House isn't just about cheering on from the sidelines, it’s about having skin in the game.

Let’s dive in ↓

What’s the mission of Krause House?

Mario: Our mission is so simple - to own and operate an NBA team as a community. So, that one-liner attracts a lot of different sports fans, business folks. Just to rattle off the industry professions people are coming from, we have everywhere from students to ex-NBA players, ex-NBA agents, people that work at retail at Nike, for example, people that work at Coinbase. All these different kinds of places around the world as part of our community that bring different perspectives. So it's super fascinating, but a large percentage is non-web3, and we're their first touch point to creating a wallet, helping them go through that learning journey of how do I vote and how do I participate in governance? It's quite fascinating, and I'm happy to be onboarding a lot of folks to web3.

So at Krause House, I would say over 75% of the folks that are in our community this is their first touch point to web3.

How do you simplify onboarding for web3 newcomers?

Mario: Yeah, that's a great question because the hardest part is creating a wallet. So to answer your question, to reduce the friction, there's two options. The custodial and non-custodial, one option provides more flexibility, one is much easier for folks. So we generally provide those options to folks for entering web3. Some people don't want to create a wallet, they just want to learn about our community, and we're very open about having people join our community chat forum, which is Discord. Within the platform, we have people in there just talking ball. So those are the ways we kind of onboard folks.

How do you foster diverse engagement within your community, acknowledging that different members contribute in various ways?

Mario: The best way to put it is choose your own adventure as a community member. If I'm part of his basketball community, it doesn't mean you have to vote or talk all the time. We have folks for example, that they're so integral to our community. They don't even chat in Discord, and the value and the way they want to be part of the community is talking to our lead capital and NBA liaison team and talking with them and making introductions to NBA teams, which is the highest-order of tasks that anyone can do. They figured out what they want to do and add value to the community.

Then we have other folks that are in the Philippines. They just want to post memes about LeBron James or something like that in Discord and the memes channel. Bring the vibes; you know what I mean? So everything in between, we have some people vote, some people don't, some people just want to chat about a proposal and deliberate about it, but they don't vote. So there's a spot for everyone and how they want to add value.

How did your community's involvement and the strategic use of networking channels play a role in seizing the opportunity around the Phoenix Suns ownership?

Mario: There was an unexpected sale last year that emerged around the Phoenix Suns. The majority holder was transitioning out, so that opened up an opportunity for Krause House. As soon as there was news that the Phoenix Suns had an opportunity for new owners to step in and a shuffling of cap table, our team that was focused on looking at these deals put blast on Twitter. We blasted on Discord, reached out to everyone's connections — family, friends, everyone that knew somebody, and we got close to NBA insiders from everywhere.

All these kinds of folks were in the mix. So our leadership team got into connecting with Bob Iger's team. Ultimately, the deal didn't go through because Bob returned to CEO of Disney. But there was other opportunities through our connections. That process was fascinating because it demonstrated the power of the internet, our community, and the power of 1, 2, 3-degree connections.

How do you approach simplifying complex web3 concepts for a wider audience?

Mario: I love abstracting a lot of the terminology because I think about tech history, going back to the early 2000’s and studying the 90’s, 80’s and seeing what were people calling things then. They might be calling stuff literally by the native technology, but I think using relatable terms holds the test of time. For example with NFT, something I like to say — that's our community membership. For governance tokens, I like to say that's your voting power. So little switches like that.

Some might say it's semantics, but to a kid that's a big basketball fan that makes it easy for them to understand. So I like to abstract the complexity for them to understand the big picture.

How does delegation enhance the efficiency of decision-making and operation within your community?

Mario: That's an important question because DAOs can often impede speed if you don't put in the right systems. So a system that has actually helped improve speed and ensure that you have the right people and expertise is delegation.

I gave an example of the basketball analytics person right? Who proved and through reputation and doing a lot of work up front before kind of making a proposal like, "Hey, I wanna be the basketball analytics guy for the team". He went through a process of almost a few months to a year doing scouting reports and stuff, just tossing to the Discord, getting everyone's opinions.

We emailed it to the head coach, and he was like “wow this is fantastic”. Then he put a proposal, and that proposal passed. That's a good example where it's like — “okay we're delegating that power to him now”. Same parallel can apply to the core team. So there's delegation on that front where there's a group within Krause House and their focus is meeting with NBA owners, making those pitches, making those connections, and figuring out the value levers for adding value to those teams and getting a deal done.

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To Join Krause House checkout their Membership here.

Lore is the ownership platform. Lore helps groups spin up a shared vault, pool resources, co-purchase NFTs, and use them together in a simple, safe, one-stop-shop platform. With co-ownership, collectives can access NFTs they couldn’t before, crowdfund creative projects and even play web3 games together.

If you’d like to share community-building insights with us, reach out on Twitter to join the Shared Stakes show.