Hi frens,
Here are some thoughts on how we can create more impact towards our mission of more coordination & reduction of coordination failures (sometimes we also call this “build & fund public goods”).
Framing
Gitcoin is in the DAO coordination space, and we’ve built a product suite that helps DAOs coordinate culture & capital.
We envision a world in which there is many many DAOs…
with many many community members each
The job of our software suite is to help coordinate these DAOS & knowledge workers.
One important part of this to understand is that not all knowledge workers are created equal: When DAOS want knowledge workers to join their DAO, they don’t want just ANY knowledge worker to join their DAO - they want knowledge workers who fit their values, working norms, skillsets, ambitions and other criteria.
One way we can think about this is as a funnel.
- Sourcing knowledge workers.
- Selecting the right knowledge workers.
- Selling them on your DAO.
- Onboarding them to your DAO.
- Retain them in your DAO.
Product Suite
The tools that we’ve built to do this are:
- Bounties - gig-based work for web3 projects.
- Hackathons - Build w the coolest web3 projects.
- Grants - Crowdfunding for Open Source.
- KERNEL - A web3-native, community centric accelerator.
- tip.party - a small, modular tool for engaging people for showing up.
- Quadratic Diplomacy - a decentralized tool for engaging contributors.
When you position these products along the funnel above, you can see how they complement each other, this is what it looks like:
How do we read this graphic?
- Bounties and Hackathons both help DAOs source, select, sell, onboard knowledge workers.
- KERNEL helps DAOs source, select, sell, onboard knowledge workers.
- Grants - helps DAOs onboard & retain knowledge workers to DAOs.
- tip.party - helps DAOs source + select knowledge workers who are highly engaged.
- Quadratic Diplomacy - helps DAOs onboard & retain knowledge workers to DAOs.
Hopefully as we deploy this product suite in the DAO ecosystem, we are able to help our partner DAOs better source, select, sell, onboard, and retain talent.
The view from a knowledge worker perspective…
Why do knowledge workers engage with these products? 250k people have signed up to Gitcoin thus far because the product suite gives them …
- … opportunities to earn.
- … opportunities to learn.
- … opportunities to connect with one another & prospective career opportunities.
Network Effects
I’m a big believer in network effects. The more DAOs that are in the Gitcoin network, the better the network is for community members of knowledge workers. The more knowledge workers are in the network, the better it is for the DAOs in the network.
As this flywheel spins, we’re able to create impact, pull more data, and create more legitimacy. This flywheel will eventually become a perpetual motion machine that reinforces itself.
Culture
I believe that culture is a high order bit we want to optimize for. Culture is very big deal in the crypto space, and I think that the future of public goods something is likely something that is hip moreso than some coercive & staid government entity.
The culture that I see within the DAO is mission-first, producing results, creates memes/vibes in community, but is somewhat chaordic + is still evolving heavily.
Results so far
Since its launch in November 2017 , Gitcoin has helped 42,814 funders reach an audience of 223,538 earners. Gitcoin has facilitated 1,143,518 complete transactions to 9,378 unique earners.
Feedback welcome.
End to end this is how I see the investments in product creating results to our mission. I’m open to feedback though!
Also note that I’m just one node in the Gitcoin network. If you see this differently, please fork this post and propose your own.
