Hello there everyone!
I’ve had a beautiful and challenging time working as the DAO’s first core contributor over the last 6 months, with a great amount of development in many areas.
I had a mandate on 3 main focuses:
- Improving the DAO, it’s core functions, and leading it on a path of robust decentralisation
- Building out external marketing tactics
- Figuring out how to improve our ecosystem and community flow
Let’s talk about each one:
1. Improving the DAO, it’s core functions, and leading it on a path of robust decentralisation
6 months ago, we had the ‘dMarketing’, later renamed to dLeaders. They were and continue to be integral to the decentralised running of the DAO. We went through many iterations of organisational models to improve the functioning of the group, including but not limited to:
- Structured working groups
- Ongoing Committees such as the Grants committee
- Utilising tools such as coordinape to offer a far distribution for some form of compensation
These tests had their pros and cons, and we rather quickly learned what is working, and what is not.
Over the previous 3 weeks we have had a strict focus on the why and where, as a DAO, we should be going. This included sessions on understanding the North Star as well as the roadmap for how to get there.
Ultimately, we are trending towards a fantastic decision to continually decentralise every manner of the technical and organisational stack.
There is still progress to be made on this front, but we’ve come a long way and the ability to pivot quickly alongside the dLeaders has been a luxury for me, personally.
2. Building out external marketing tactics
A large part of my mandate after I started, became marketing.
We tested out many strategies and tactics. Some small, such as layer3 competitions, some larger, such as our flagship ‘The Merge’ series, with Anthony Sassano and many esteemed guests, culminating in an epic discussion with leaders of Lido, RocketPool and Sassal.
Overall, all metrics from social to token awareness, point towards traction being gained at a quicker pace.
There is still a lot to do, still many people inside of crypto who should be using SSV but simply aren’t aware right now. This is going to continually change, based on my assumptions, especially after we hit technical milestones such as mainnet.
3. Figuring out how to improve our ecosystem and community flow
The core mandate that I came in on, and what you can read above in my proposal, ecosystem and community was what I thought I would find myself spending the most time on.
However, it became apparent that this would be tricky, and was best left to dedicated person(s) just focussing on the partnership aspect.
We worked to improve the Discord, core community, and instil energy via habitual calls, show n’ tells, case studies from grants, and more.
Ultimately, the community would not mould to our assumptions, and instead organically grew into language based discussion, along with specific use case discussion for validators and network partners.
For some time, we did see a rise in engagement, however that was likely due to what was happening on the markets, and not hardcore fans wanting to stay for the long game.
It must be noted, however, that this is just the start of what will be an incredibly long educational battle, likely relying on some sort of malfunction in ETH that clearly shows the need for SSV.
What’s next
Unfourtunately, this will be the end of my journey with the DAO, as we part ways.
This makes a lot of sense for a few reasons:
- The DAO is ontrack to building its North Star and developing towards those ends, that can happen without me quite easily
- The DAO still needs to learn how it will be sustainable in the long run, and without that, it doesn’t make sense to contract individuals such as myself without clear sustainability goals in mind
- SSV is picking up a name and running on its own, most efforts of mine are nowhere near as effective as they used to be, and will continue to diminish in marginal value
- The community will stay, and arguably should be, developer and validator centric, it doesn’t need ‘improvement’ nor in-organic growth. It’s doing just fine
- The biggest impact factor is completely to do with the technology and its milestones, that is what the industry is waiting for, and I simply cannot aide in that effort
Therefore, I must humbly ask to be removed from the payments schedule of the multi-sig, and the position I currently have, in favour of the points above. Confirming voluntary termination.
In SSV we trust,
Shad
