Applicant name: Tomislav Mamić
Twitter: @tomislavmamic
Linkedin: Tomislav Mamić
Applicant Summary:
I joined Ethereum communty in 2017 by organising local meetups. Meetups evolved into a BlockSplit conference - OG blockchain event that ran until last year. In my work on BlockSplit, I was particularly focused on making sure we are at the edge of knowledge and technology and exploring narratives, usecases and market opportunities.
One of such opportunities was partnering with cities to help them use Ethereum to improve their public goods funding. This led me to Muqa - municipal quadratic funding initiative. We relied on Allo protocol, and built a custom frontend that makes it easy for citizens to get an Ethereum account, purchase tokens and donate to city’s projects.
I recognise this as a great opportunity for Ethereum to onboard regular citizens, neighbours and institutions like cities. Also, working with governments is a natural next step for Gitcoin in its quest to grow the GMV and serve more users.
I believe I have the knowledge and understanding which will be the key for getting Gitcoin ahead:
- experience building on the existing Gitcoin’s stack
- knowledge of the public goods funding market landscape
- raising matching pools
- selling Gitcoin
- owning relationships with institutions like cities and UNDP
- running (as an operator and a steward) a Gitcoin Community round (Desci Community Round)
- have led multiple organisations from non-profitability to profitability
Why I want to become a Gitcoin delegate:
This would be my first professional delegate role. The main reason why I haven’t taken any prior delegate roles is that I’ve never been that interested in participating in management of any DAO. I was more occupied by running my own projects or experimenting. However this led me to Gitcoin. I see Gitcoin’s role as a key piece of the puzzle in Ethereum’s breakout to the masses. Gitcoin has the track record, technology, community mindshare and strong DAO which all position it well for being the partner of choice for those that allocate billions of dollars for public goods projects in the real world. I can see this clearly. However, having worked with Gitcoin’s tech stack and product line, I see a lot of bloat and mismatch between Gitcoin’s offering and what is actually needed. I want to make sure Gitcoin doesn’t fumble this opportunity. Instead of chasing latest web3 narratives, I believe Gitcoin should chart its own path toward users and growth, and I believe I can help.
Also, I want to emphasise that I don’t want to be involved in day to day management of Gitcoin. I’d like to continue running experiments with Muqa (relying or not on Gitcoin’s technology), but make sure that if we do hit a gold vein, there is a clear downstream path for the unlocked market opportunity to Ethereum through Gitcoin.
Involvement in Gitcoin Grants community or prior initiatives:
I was an operator and a steward of the GG20 Decentralized Science Round. Prior that my project was a grantee in previous Desci round. My involvement in Gitcoin community has grown since, and I have been regularly participating in this forum, particularly in discussions about the future of Gitcoin, which is visible from my profile stats.
Prior experience in either Grants or Delegate Programs, respectively:
I have been participating as a grantee in dozens of different grant programs in web3 and outside of it over the years. Most relevant experience was the involvement of organising Decentralized Science Round and the experience of organising an upcoming participatory budgeting round in partnership with city of Split.
Any anticipated conflicts of interest:
I manage Muqa, which is a user of Allo protocol (and hopefully GG23). As long as we are able and it makes sense, we will continue evolving our custom frontend to make it better fit for our user’s needs, and continue using Gitcoin’s products and services. Everything we build and create is and will remain open source and Gitcoin will be free to use it as anyone else.
I see that we are doing experiments which are not on Gitcoin’s roadmap in the short run, but might be in the long run. Anyways, our work is directly beneficial to Gitcoin, even if it ends up being just another dead end, at least we’ll know what doesn’t work. However, we are not married to using just Gitcoin, as we already work on new experiments where it might not make sense to use Gitcoin.
If any COI arises over time, I believe it’s best to address it in time, either by publicly expressing it, refraining from participating in certain decisions, or stepping down from the delegate position.