Hi @lftherios, thanks for your questions. Answers in line below:
Yes, the formulation of the objective doesn’t fully reflect the way the work panned out in 2023. At the time of posting, we were a couple months post- the brand & org evolution. The “facilitate the formalization of DAO purpose, vision, and mission” objective was set to resolve the resulting conflicts that surfaced from those evolutions (e.g. the DAO was now funding two separate technologies, it didn’t make sense for the DAO to be called RadicleDAO if Radicle was just the code collab product etc…). The starting point was formalizing a purpose. We facilitated that process alongside the community.
With the a purpose in place, we began to define the Radworks’ “vision” (where we want to be) and “mission” (how we’re going to get there). In the process of doing so, it became clear we needed to first clarify the relationship between Radworks and its Orgs to better understand their funding needs, high-level goals, and long-term plans for sustainability. How can we craft a “vision and mission” for Radworks without defining the “vision & mission” for both Radicle and Drips? This realization drove all of the “strategy” work we detailed in the Foundation Org retrospective (see Governance/Challenges).
So, TL:DR; we didn’t define the vision & mission of Radworks because to do so, we needed to first support Radicle & Drips define their own visions to product-market fit. To do this, we helped develop the MoUs (Radicle & Drips) and facilitated multiple strategic discussions around sustainability & runway throughout the course of the year.
Now, this new stream of work picks back up where we left off. With a purpose, and a clearer picture of Radworks’ relationship to its Orgs, we are now in a better place to envision where we we see Radworks going next. To attempt to clarify what we mean by this, I’ll provide some more specific questions that we see this “vision document” answering:
- Do we envision Radworks funding censorship-resistant permissionless technologies outside of Radicle and Drips? If so, when? Under what conditions?
- For how long do we envision Drips & Radicle existing? What is required to be able to operate along that timeline? How is Radworks involved?
- For how long do we envision Radworks existing? What is required to be able to operate along that timeline?
- What impact do we want Radworks to have in the world?
Perhaps we can shift the language if the word “vision” is confusing. I’ll make a note to iterate on this objective specifically for the next version of this proposal.
A couple comments here:
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We are in agreement that focusing on Radicle & Drips PMF should be an ecosystem-wide priority for 2024. Perhaps it isn’t super clear due to being placed in the “Responsibilities” vs. “Objectives” section, but one of the Strategy Committee’s main priorities is to:
The Strategy Committee is taking on this work so we can 1) help the Orgs strategize on their individual paths to PMF and 2) hold the Orgs accountable to their GTM / adoption strategies. The reason we developed the MoUs alongside of the Orgs is to provide more definition and clarity to “what” PMF even is for Radicle and Drips respectively.
Instead of viewing this work as separate or sequential to the “sustainability modeling” referenced in this proposal, I actually consider it closely intertwined. Holding the Orgs accountable to their MoUs and validating their individual PMF is also validating a potential sustainability model for Radworks. The efforts go hand in hand.
What we want to avoid is coming down to the wire on runway with Orgs that haven’t found PMF and not having a plan of what to do next. I consider the sustainability modeling outlined in this proposal as proactive gameplanning for the future, so that once we have the right information from the Orgs at year’s end we immediately execute on the next stage of the “plan”.
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On the specific comments about “this work highly dependent on regulatory clarity, as the implementation feasibility of any sustainability model will be constrained by the regulatory guidance available.”, I definitely agree that there are potential sustainability models for Radworks that would require regulatory clarity to implement, however, much of this “sustainability modeling” will be actually focused on answering higher-level questions such as:
- What other organizations and funders are operating in the FOSS space? How are they funded and sustained?
- What is Radworks’ model for funding technologies? What does success look like?
- How can funding for Radicle & Drips be sustained in the long-term?
- How does funding for other purpose-aligned technologies look in the long-term?
The answers to these questions are not dependent on regulatory clarity but are relevant to any potential sustainability model that Radworks’ implements in the future.
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The budget for the strategy work is relatively in line to what you proposed. The Strategy Committee, who’s responsible for this work, consists of three individuals contributing an average of 1-2 days each a week. In cost and in time, this is as if we have one full-time senior executive tackling this work, which is reasonable considering the importance of the work.
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We can remove the objective for Q4 and keep the work focused on research & experimentation, I agree with the approach.
When you say “Given that this is not the first time that this initiative is proposed” are you referring to the Distribution of Influence workstream? If so, I will provide some context there:
Looking back to March 2022, when we defined our success metrics & goals for the The Next Phase of the RadicleDAO, we outlined the following:
If you refer to the Wrapping up the Org Design WG 🌅 post, you’ll see that we successfully completed #2 and #3 in 2023 with our “transition to the DAO” (see Transition to the DAO — list of all forum posts). The 2023 Org proposals marked the “final milestone” of this transition.
#1 and #4 were explored with the Distribution of Influence and Treasury Management workstreams (and the Distribution of Ownership workstream which successfully allocated 1M RAD to active contributors), but were deprioritized to ensure all energy was spent supporting the operational transition of all contributors to the DAO and navigating the resulting brand & org evolution. You can read more about how we’ve had to navigate #4 in the Foundation Org 2023 Retrospective.
Returning to the The Next Phase of the RadicleDAO post, we contextualized the governance resiliency problem as such:
We began tackling this problem with our DAO Tooling Workstream — researching potential tools for increasing governance participation, improving governance accessibility, and distributing influence/governing power — but obviously had to prioritize the operational transition and resulting rebrand as it directly impacted all other governance work. Regardless, this workstream still resulted in the:
- Move from Sybil to Boardroom/Tally for voting/proposal management
- First version of our Governance docs
- Exploration & testing of Otterspace, a badge protocol.
From there, we partnered with Apiary to generate a Insights Report on the Radworks community to understand what issues negatively impact comtributor’s ability to effectively participate in governance (full report here).
We learned that the community was:
- Overwhelmed by the sheer capacity of information
- Looking for consolidated documentation to facilitate onboarding
- Experiencing confusion and frustration due to the lack of explicit individual and group role descriptions
- Lacking understanding for how decisions were actually made
- Desiring for detailed rationalization and strategic communication of decisions.
- Concerned about legal risk and doubtful about the role of the RAD token in general
Most importantly, the general Radworks community expressed a desire to reduce our dependency on token voting and explore non-financialized forms of governance.
This report resulted in a couple of initiatives:
- A new organizational model adapted to the project’s brand evolution.
- Our Governance Improvements Proposal which introduced the version-controlled Governance Manual, monthly voting cycles, proposal templates and more.
- A revamp of our docs.radworks.xyz site, including clearer documentation on our organizational model and governance process.
- The formalization of the Radworks purpose alongside of the community.
Now, with a fresh foundation in place, we think it is time to revisit this objective and make substantial progress before year’s end to ensure the system is maturing & continuously decentralizing in parallel to the growth of Radicle & Drips.
We’ll have found success 1) if the deliverables outlined are completed and 2) we can provably say that decision-making power and influence has substantially decentralized away from original stakeholders to a larger set of active governance participants. What this means in practice:
- Org leads & contributors can abstain from voting on their own proposals (to reduce conflicts of interest) without potentially inducing governance gridlock
- Large whales can vote against each other without potentially inducing governance gridlock
- Delegated votable supply has increased
- Number of active governance participants has increased
- Rate of participation has increased
We are in the process of conducting a power/voting analysis of our current token distribution that will present us with quantitative metrics to use to evaluate our progress towards this objective in 2024.
I agree that the ecosystem’s marketing resources should be directed towards Drips and Radicle to support their GTM strategies. I see, however, much benefit in maintaining Radworks specific marketing initiatives vs. scoping down to “only amplification”. A strong brand presence for Radworks in relevant communities (e.g. Ethereum) strengthens the value proposition of both Radicle and Drips respectively. For example:
For Drips: Radworks hosts, sponsors, participates in Ethereum-based events to maintain its brand as a “legit DAO” in the Ethereum space. Participation in these events not only expands the pipeline of potential funders/users, but supports the legitimacy of Drips as a tool that’s built and used by a well-respected project in the space.
For Radicle: Radicle’s “crypto-adjacent beginnings” have diluted the perception of the brand in trad FOSS communities. Strategic content development that challenges anti-crypto narratives, presents alternative narratives, and uplifts Radworks as true advocate for FOSS can support better reception of Radicle in non-crypto circles.
For both, the Foundation’s plan to build a network of purpose-aligned individuals, organizations, and institutions and identify sponsorship opportunities strengthens the ecosystem as a whole by supporting those that can educate and push (technical and cultural) adoption of Radicle, Drips, and other FOSS technologies.
With your feedback in mind, I will restructure the marketing budget based on this feedback and take a more conservative approach focusing on “maintaining” marketing vs. “growing”.
I agree that Objective #1 & #2 are closely intertwined with the Strategy Committee’s sustainability modeling, and therefore is coupled with Drips & Radicle’s GTM strategies. I personally believe this work can (and should) happen in parallel. In an effort to dedicate more time & energy towards each Org’s success, we can push this objective back to Q3 but I maintain the stance that this work needs to start this year.
With this feedback in mind, I will be submitting a revised draft of the Foundation Org proposal before it moves into Formal Review. It will include the following:
- An updated roadmap for Strategy/Governance work that reflects a phased approach, with the more in-depth sustainability modeling and governance design work starting in the second-half of the year.
- A new budget that takes into account the feedback shared here.
Thanks for your comments — happy to discuss any of this on the proposal review call today.