👑 CROWN LETTER: DALE DOUGHERTY

Industry Chancellor, Lord Banyan of the Forge

First Maker of Let’s Make Bread

Board Candidate, Liana Banyan Corporation

Dear Mr. Dougherty,

You coined the word “makers.”

I’ve spent 47 years being one.

In sixth grade, I designed floating modular cities for a school project. The local newspaper ran a story with the headline “Wave of the Future.” I’ve been building systems in my head ever since — and now, finally, I’m building them for real.

I was a child of missionaries in Tanzania — we left on the last flight before Idi Amin’s invasion. Back in the States, my parents fostered children in our home when I was 8yrs old; for 5 years. We had no television until I was 13 in Montana, so I read a lot, tinkered with everything I could get my hands on, and got good at chess.

I’m 52 now. Father of eight. Army veteran. 21 years in I.T. And for the last nine years, I’ve been building a cooperative commerce platform called Liana Banyan — with fourteen charitable initiatives, 150+ innovations across 6 patent bags, and a manufacturing backbone called HexIsle that’s about to launch on Kickstarter.

One of those fourteen initiatives is called Let’s Make Bread. It’s a business incubator. And I need someone who understands what it means to empower makers to lead it.

That’s you.

WHY YOU

You didn’t just start a magazine. You started a movement.

Make: Magazine (2005). Maker Faire (2006). 200 events in 40 countries. 1.5 million attendees. White House Champion of Change. Introduced by President Obama as “an American innovator making significant contributions to the fields of education and business.”

But what caught my attention wasn’t the scale — it was the philosophy.

“It’s part of human nature to make things. It’s who we are at our best. We are all makers, but not everyone realizes they have the gift.”

That’s exactly what I believe. And that’s why I’ve spent nearly a decade building infrastructure to help makers — creators, inventors, artists, builders — turn their work into sustainable livelihoods. Admittedly I have a vested interest — I have 8 children who deserve a world where this is possible. And a world that deserves the same.

WHAT I’VE BUILT

Liana Banyan is a cooperative platform in which three commercial divisions — .com, .biz, and .net — drive sustained funding for the .org charitable initiatives. All the time, by design, sustainable beyond our lifetimes because of the infrastructure we build that operates far beyond us.

The economic principle is simple: Cost + 20%. Creators keep 83.3% of every transaction. The platform takes 16.7% to fund operations, and 100% of charitable funds go directly to the people doing the work. Helping each other help ourselves. Of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We have fourteen initiatives — everything from meal delivery (Let’s Make Dinner) to music licensing (JukeBox) to microloans (VSL) to protection systems (Defense Klaus). Each one is designed to benefit those who need it most and be sustainably charitable: communities fund them, communities run them, communities benefit.

Let’s Make Bread is the business incubation initiative. It’s designed to help makers:

• Turn ideas into prototypes
• Turn prototypes into products
• Turn products into businesses
• Turn businesses into cooperatives that give back

We’re not just teaching people to make things. We’re teaching them to build enterprises that sustain themselves and their communities.

THE 2nd SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Here’s what I believe:

The first Industrial Revolution centralized manufacturing. Factories. Assembly lines. Scale at the cost of craft.

The second one is supposed to decentralize it. 3D printers. CNC machines. Maker spaces. But so far, it’s been a promise without infrastructure.

HexIsle is my contribution to that infrastructure — a modular hydraulic gaming table system with 34 utility patents filed, designed to be manufactured at scale while remaining accessible to makers. It’s physical computing. It’s the Tereno Platform. It’s what happens when a maker spends 47 years thinking about how things fit together.

But HexIsle is just one product. Let’s Make Bread is the system that helps other makers do the same thing — turn their ideas into products, and their products into businesses.

I call it the 2nd Second Industrial Revolution. Not because I invented the concept — but because I’m building the rails. And it doesn’t take much — a community of 1,000 makes it work in any location.

WHAT I’M ASKING

I want you to lead Let’s Make Bread.

Not to run it day-to-day — you’ve got Make:Community to lead. But to guide it. To set the standards for what a maker-focused business incubator should look like. To help us build curriculum, vet mentors, and design the pathway from “I have an idea” to “I have a sustainable business.”

Every initiative in Liana Banyan operates as a council. The Crown is the First Seat — the leader, the tie-breaker, the voice on our Steering Committee. As the council grows with workers and members, they elect their own representative to the Board of Directors. In the early days, that representative would likely be you.

You’ve already built Maker Faire — a showcase. Let’s Make Bread is the next step: an incubator that turns showcase projects into sustainable enterprises.

WHAT YOU’D RECEIVE

THE CONNECTION

You wrote: “Makers have always existed. I am appropriately humbled when I meet someone who says they were a maker before maker was a thing.”

During my military service, I was designing irrigation control systems for foxholes, waterclocks and water collection methods; building bellows from waterproof bags — without cutting them so I could use them again. I wasn’t calling myself a maker, I was just solving problems with whatever I had.

Floating cities in sixth grade. Six forts: one under sand, a five-level treehouse in the huge cottonwood, one made completely of tires, a reconstructed calf housing complex, an actual igloo, and an ice-cave — all demolished along with my Lego creations on display at the library. So I decided to build something that would be difficult to destroy, and took architectural drafting to get started.

Modular game systems since 1978. 1,200+ Fusion 360 diagrams for HexIsle alone. A patent portfolio valued at $2.8M to $15.2M. And a platform designed to help other makers do what I’m doing.

You didn’t create the Maker Movement — you gave it a name and a home. Let’s Make Bread is the economic infrastructure that makes it sustainable.

You wouldn’t be leading an isolated project — you’d be part of an ecosystem of hundreds that lead thousands to benefit millions. Check out the structure and connections at the2ndsecond.com/The300.

INCLUDED WITH THIS LETTER

I’ve included four documents for your review:

1. The Considered Approach — An academic paper outlining the theoretical and economic foundations of Liana Banyan. This is the “why” behind the architecture.

2. Let’s Make Bread Business Plan — The operational blueprint for the initiative you’d be leading. This is the “how.”

3. The 300 Framework — The strategic allies structure you’d be joining. Shields, Spears, and Phalanx — and where you fit.

4. The Connected Keep — System-wide infrastructure showing how Let’s Make Bread connects to every other initiative. You wouldn’t be leading an isolated project.

Please read them. Check out the implementations at LianaBanyan.org and pick them apart. Tell me what breaks with the feedback tool or contact me directly by email or phone.

ONE MAKER TO ANOTHER

I don’t have the platform you have. I’m not famous. I’m not connected.

What I have is 47 years of thinking about how things fit together, nine years of building this platform, and a manufacturing backbone that’s about to prove the concept works.

If you think this model is sound, it’s validated. If you think it’s flawed, I want to know why — so I can fix it. And if you think it could work but needs someone who actually understands makers to shape it — that’s exactly what I’m offering.

The first Industrial Revolution built factories. The second one is supposed to empower makers. Let’s build the rails together.

IF NOT YOU

If your schedule will not permit, or you are committed to other concerns, or simply do not wish to — no problem. I understand completely.

But if you know someone in the maker movement who would be right for this, I would be grateful for the referral. The work matters more than any particular person doing it.

With respect for everything you’ve built,

Jonathan R. Jones Founder & Crewman #6 Liana Banyan Corporation

“Help Each Other Help Ourselves”

Founder@LianaBanyan.com 406-578-1232 lianabanyan.com

🏰 FOR THE KEEP! ⚔️

Enclosures:

• The Considered Approach (Academic Paper)
• Let’s Make Bread Business Plan
• The 300 Framework
• The Connected Keep