Thought Experiment: DAO Strategy and Subtraction

[DisruptionJoe]

Great and timely post! Here are a few thoughts:

@ceresstation

Essential Intents

So okay, while embracing a subtraction mindset sounds great, doesn’t the DAO already have a clear purpose and essential intents? If so, how does all of this fit in?

1. The essential intents were originally set with the guidelines that these are SUPPOSED to be revisited and updated on a regular basis.

2. Essential Intents as a tool should be measurable and specific, which none of these are.

I do think they were great in helping us align to launch the protocols at a time when we were struggling to find cohesion. However, here are my suggestions from when we set them. I think we need to reassess ASAP and make them measurable as in my example here. (These likely aren’t what they should be anymore, but the measurability is a good example. Also, I believe we have a session for CSDO to begin the reassessment on the books for next week.)

@DisruptionJoe

To me, none of these are very good as essential intent because they are not clear and achievable. They are too high-level. Here are my suggestions for how we can use these intents to clearly move Gitcoin toward sustainability.

I would slightly change the buckets

Bucket 1 - Launch and grow the components of a successful Grants 2 flagship protocol

A successful grants 2.0 protocol is each of the components having been launched with well documented SDKs and clear growth metrics. The components include the fixed and modular components.

Fixed components include the grants registry, the identity registry, and the round manager (pool registry). The round manager is where communities can choose their own “funding stack” of modular components.

Standards, protocols, modular design, and composability all benefit evolutionary systems because it limits the design space so new builders can experiment where the most impact is available. A funding stack includes the user and grant moderation (regulation), the funding mechanism, and the discoverability of grants on the Gitcoin UI (only because it will be the only one at launch). These spaces are what will create the most innovative solutions.

Here are my essential intents for this objective.

• Launch the grants registry, user registry, and pool registry (3 binary goals)
  • If these are completed it means we hit our base goal of shipping a flagship product (Could clear up the wording to indicate actual usage, but I don’t think semantics are the issue here)
• Identify and set growth targets for each to use during season 15 (ie. 10k Passport non-sybil passport holders, 5000 grants on registry, $50 million in pooled funds)
  • Clear growth goals to be assigned to workstreams for accountability
• Identify and set growth targets for 1 click funding stack permutations available (ie. 12 funding stack permutations)
  • The value proposition is that GTC will catalyze an increase in the accessible experimentation surface for any community to fund their shared needs. Growing this experimentation surface can be measured by permutations available on the Gitcoin UI for easy use by any community.

Bucket 2 - Improve the sustainability of Gitcoin

The sustainability of Gitcoin requires capital contributors to continue seeing the velocity of GTC lower and innovative solutions shipped. This means the communication from contributors to stewards who control funding decisions is delivered in an effective way and that the contributors efforts are substantial.

To do this Gitcoin must create a portfolio diversification thesis, a value capture thesis, and the roadmaps and tools to implement them. Diversification is simple actions and tools which can be handles by a delegated authority with oversight. Roadmaps and implementation are simply design and engineering.

That said, here are my other essential intents:

• Have > 2 years of runway in stablecoins & runway time is INCREASING
  • An R(n) growth rate over 1 means sustainability
• Investments in Gitcoin built or used businesses & protocols > Gitcoin investments in non-gitcoin built or used businesses & protocols
  • Means we invest at least $100k in our own dogfooded solutions (ie workstreams become value capture factories)
• Improve steward satisfaction score from x to y
  • Implication of needed communication & process fixes around this role
• Improve contributor satisfaction score from a to b
  • Implication of needed improvements self scored by those in the role

@ceresstation

(6) Which requires an extitution (Gitcoin) that keeps supporting these examples over time, while slowly removing its own power (EI3)

Love this precise assessment. Setting roles and responsibilities for us to accelerate the success of others programs is overlooked imho. Attempting to generate service revenue before this pathway to success is clear would be a mistake.

@ceresstation

(3) Permissionless Self-Serve – manage every aspect of their own program, or use a 3rd party to do so. There will still be a small team that will handle urgent customer requests.

Do you see us servicing only Program Managers and not Donors, thus meaning a reduced need for a support team in the way we do it now? I’m assuming this means the program managers might support their own rounds.

@ceresstation

KPI: Gitcoin Grants Matching Pool Growth

Is this the total amount funded in all matching pools or only Gitcoin Program? Additionally, even if some rounds choose a different cadence, might we consider the natural participation rhythm to be quarterly?

So top level growth metric being total matching funds / quarter? or would you suggest another time unit for how we measure?

@ceresstation

And in that spirit, this document is clearly incomplete. What are the missing gaps necessary to allow the DAO to truly embody a subtraction mindset? What pieces of this document don’t seem to make sense? Please let this document be a starting point, not an end to a broader discussion.

I think use of revenue from services is a tricky thing. Once the DAO has revenue (other than protocol fees) the natural instinct will be to fund the work that brings the revenue, thus cutting out funding for public goods of the Gitcoin ecosystem.

Encouraging a subtraction mindset relies on 4 things:

1. DevRel focus. Subsidize and spend time assisting those who build applications (modules) on the protocol which increase the usability, experience, or efficiency of program managers. Make GPC & ecosystem developers the rockstars of the Gitcoin community!

2. Open Data focus. Create great interfaces & tutorials for analysts and data scientists to easily access open data. Help the community better understand which initial conditions of governing a common pool of funds creates truly positive sum outcomes.

3. Program Excellence. Showcase how a program can be run. Set clear timelines in shifting from Gitcoin led rounds to Gitcoin certified rounds. Continue to explore ways to build positive sum interactions between programs.

4. Distinguish Private & Public Goods. Find ways to create recurring revenue to support Gitcoin ecosystem’s public goods like protocol upgrades, anti-capture infrastructure, data reproducibility, etc. Understand that private businesses which are dependent on the protocol would fund these. Design a roadmap that shifts from only funding workstreams to aqueducts funding Gitcoin ecosystem public goods. (Bredth vs Depth)

Thanks a ton for pushing this conversation.