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Launching a Presale

This tutorial will guide you through the process of launching a token presale for your DAO. A presale allows your DAO to distribute tokens to early supporters and raise funds for your treasury.

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Understanding DAO Presales

The CreateDAO presale mechanism is designed with several key features:

1. Tiered Pricing: Prices increase as more tokens are sold, incentivizing early participation
2. Treasury Integration: All funds raised go directly to your DAO’s treasury
3. Governance Control: Only the DAO can create, pause, or withdraw from presales through proposals
4. Liquidity Protection: Built-in slippage protection for buyers and sellers
5. Transparent Mechanics: All presale parameters are visible on-chain

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Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• A DAO created using CreateDAO (see Creating a DAO)
• Tokens in your DAO’s treasury (these will be used for the presale)
• Staked tokens to create a proposal (minimum proposal stake)
• Access to dao.cafe for managing your DAO

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Step 1: Plan Your Presale

Before creating a proposal, determine the following parameters:

1. Token Amount: How many tokens to allocate to the presale
2. Initial Price: The starting price per token in ETH
3. Purpose: What the raised funds will be used for
4. Duration: How long you expect the presale to run (note: presales don’t have a time limit, but you can pause them through a proposal)

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Step 2: Create a Presale Proposal

1. Go to dao.cafe and connect your wallet
2. Navigate to your DAO’s dashboard
3. Click on the “Proposals” tab
4. Click “Create Proposal”
5. Select “Presale” as the proposal type
6. Fill in the following details:
   • Token Amount: The number of tokens to allocate to the presale
   • Initial Price: The starting price per token in ETH
   • Description: A detailed explanation of the presale purpose, token utility, and fund usage

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Step 3: Voting Period

1. Share the proposal with your community to encourage voting
2. The voting period lasts for the duration set in your DAO (default: 5 minutes for testing, typically 3-7 days for production DAOs)
3. For the proposal to pass, it needs:
   • Quorum: Enough total votes (default: 50% of total staked tokens)
   • Majority: More “For” votes than “Against” votes

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Step 4: Execute the Proposal

Once the proposal passes:

1. Navigate to your DAO’s dashboard
2. Click on the “Proposals” tab
3. Find the presale proposal with “Pending Execution” status
4. Click on the proposal to view its details
5. Click “Execute Proposal”
6. Confirm the transaction in your wallet

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Step 5: Monitor and Promote Your Presale

After execution, your presale is live:

1. Navigate to your DAO’s dashboard
2. Click on the “Presales” tab to view your active presale
3. Share the presale link with your community
4. Monitor key metrics:
   • Current tier and price
   • Tokens sold
   • ETH raised
   • Remaining tokens

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Presale Tiers Explained

The presale contract automatically manages price tiers:

1. Each tier contains 1/10th of the total presale tokens
2. The price increases by 25% for each tier
3. As tokens are purchased, the contract automatically moves to the next tier when the current tier is depleted

For example, with 100,000 tokens and an initial price of 0.001 ETH:

• Tier 1: 10,000 tokens at 0.001 ETH each
• Tier 2: 10,000 tokens at 0.00125 ETH each
• Tier 3: 10,000 tokens at 0.0015625 ETH each
• And so on…

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Step 6: Participating in the Presale

Participants can buy tokens from your presale:

1. Navigate to the presale page
2. Enter the amount of ETH to contribute
3. Click “Buy Tokens”
4. Confirm the transaction in the wallet

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Step 7: Managing the Presale

As the DAO, you have several management options:

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Pausing the Presale

If you need to temporarily stop the presale:

1. Create a “Presale Pause” proposal
2. Specify the presale contract address and set pause to true
3. After voting and execution, the presale will be paused

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Unpausing the Presale

To resume a paused presale:

1. Create a “Presale Pause” proposal
2. Specify the presale contract address and set pause to false
3. After voting and execution, the presale will resume

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Withdrawing Funds

To withdraw funds from the presale to the treasury:

1. Create a “Presale Withdraw” proposal
2. Specify the presale contract address
3. After voting and execution, all ETH and remaining tokens will be transferred to the treasury

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Best Practices

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Setting the Initial Price

To determine an appropriate initial price:

1. Consider the total valuation you want for your token
2. Factor in the total supply and the amount allocated to the presale
3. Research similar projects for benchmark pricing
4. Start conservatively – it’s better to sell out quickly than to have a stagnant presale

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Allocating Tokens

When deciding how many tokens to allocate:

1. Consider your tokenomics plan
2. Typical presales allocate 10-30% of the total supply
3. Ensure you retain enough tokens in the treasury for future needs
4. Consider creating multiple presale phases if needed

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Promoting Your Presale

Effective promotion strategies:

1. Create a detailed announcement with presale information
2. Provide clear instructions on how to participate
3. Highlight the token utility and DAO vision
4. Create a sense of urgency by emphasizing the tiered pricing
5. Share regular updates on presale progress

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Post-Presale Actions

After a successful presale:

1. Provide a summary of the results to your community
2. Create a proposal for using the raised funds
3. Consider creating liquidity pools on decentralized exchanges
4. Implement any promised features or developments

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Troubleshooting

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Presale Not Starting

If your presale doesn’t start after execution:

1. Verify that the proposal was successfully executed
2. Check that the treasury had enough tokens to allocate
3. Confirm the presale contract address is correct

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Low Participation

If your presale has low participation:

1. Review your marketing strategy
2. Consider if the initial price was set too high
3. Provide more information about token utility
4. Engage with your community to address concerns

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Technical Issues

If participants encounter technical issues:

1. Verify they’re connected to the correct network
2. Check if the presale is paused
3. Ensure they have enough ETH for the purchase plus gas fees
4. Verify slippage settings if using a wallet with custom settings

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Conclusion

Launching a presale is a powerful way to distribute tokens and raise funds for your DAO. By following this guide, you can create a transparent, fair, and effective token distribution mechanism that benefits both your DAO and its early supporters. For more information on managing your DAO after the presale, refer to the Managing a DAO tutorial.