The Missing Pieces for Polkadot

Background

This year has taken me down the rabbit hole into how Polkadot works. It started with the Polkadot Blockchain Academy (PBA) in Hong Kong in January, which was a five-week intensive introduction to the fundamentals of blockchain and Polkadot. The PBA inspired me to contribute to Polkadot, which I did by taking a three-month term as one of the first Decentralized Voices, where I reviewed every single one of the hundreds of governance proposals in detail from March through May. And most recently, the journey has taken me to the position of Head Ambassador, where there has been an open mandate to define the ambassador program as well as bring new adoption to Polkadot.

Since becoming Head Ambassador just under two months ago, I have been going down the rabbit hole of Polkadot in order to better understand what we need to be successful as an ecosystem. Initially this started as an examination of ecosystem needs around business development (BD), where I started BD working groups to better coordinate the decentralized teams working on Polkadot adoption and to be effective myself in moving BD forward. However, I realized quickly that BD doesn’t work in a vacuum – marketing, strategy, vision, product, technology and culture are all facets that need to work together to find success. At this point, I feel like I have turned the corner on exploration and am ready to work towards building the ecosystem that we need to meet upcoming challenges. I hope to start to expand on what that means here, and I hope these ideas can inspire purpose and action for the ambassador program as well as the larger ecosystem.

I have identified three areas that I consider the “missing pieces” for Polkadot to achieve the adoption it should have. The items come from my observations of the ecosystem over the past year, as well as conversations with people in the ecosystem. They are:

1. Leadership means focusing on people
2. Strategy is about being different
3. Embrace decentralization

Leadership means focusing on people

It’s difficult to think of the human side of building in crypto. Polkadot is famously “the best technology” and blockchain is frequently associated with ideas like “code is law” that, (only) on the surface, seems to negate the relevance of the human side of things. Coupled with the fact that we are natively remote and communicate over the internet, it can be easy to dissociate the people from the accounts we interact with.

This makes it easy to forget that crypto and blockchain (and web3 and decentralized computing) are being built to be a more fair foundation for society i.e. “for the people.” On a global scale blockchain is at a very early stage of adoption, and Polkadot is a small part of that. What has been collectively built so far is only a tiny fraction of what will be needed to be built for Polkadot to make a dent in regular peoples’ lives. Gav frequently references a 10 year journey, and this is the timescale that we need to keep in mind when we think about building Polkadot.

The key aspect that Polkadot needs to be successful moving forward has to do with people and human capital, not technology, and to make this happen there are two key responsibilities of leaders (generically) in the Polkadot ecosystem:

1. Communicate the forward-looking vision
2. Create the environment where people can thrive

Communicate the forward-looking vision

Most believers in Polkadot do see a vision that represents true web3 values, but lately we have let it sink below the surface, especially as the relative market cap of Polkadot has declined. Today the ecosystem is in a state where more attention is paid to the present (e.g. “what should we spend money on”) and the past (“what crazy things have we spent money on”), rather than on the future. When the present and past overtake the future, we get into a game of assigning blame rather than focusing on the challenges ahead. Leaders need to recognize that the vision has been muddied and take responsibility to continuously re-assert our North Star.

In the words of John Doerr, we need to create “missionaries not mercenaries.” This is sneakily hard in crypto, because so much of crypto today enables the opposite – the tokenization of time/attention/assets creates a culture of granular reward for contributions, which can be a trap that can focus individuals on the reward rather than the goal.

We do have technical leadership, as evidenced by Gav’s vision, Parity’s technical direction, JAM and the decentralized teams that are solving important problems, but we need to communicate the “Why” of Polkadot to a much broader audience and ensure the idea resonates. Polkadot’s success over a ten year horizon is not going to be because of just the technology - it will come about because we successfully compete in the marketplace of ideas, and we convince people that the vision of Polkadot is worth participating in. Ideas are more powerful than VC funding or bag pumping, and this is where Polkadot can, should and will prevail.

Create the environment where people can thrive

We need to not only bring in skilled and talented people, but we need to make sure they contribute their best work to Polkadot. This means creating the right environment and culture that lets ingenuity and hard work take hold. We do have to think about ethics and fairness, and think about how we balance the needs of different stakeholders in the network. But we should never forget that we need to work together in the ecosystem, respect each other, behave with integrity and work to focus each other on the future.

An interesting example of the degree to which we might create the right environment comes directly in the Fellowship Manifesto, which is a founding document speaking to how to ensure decentralization (e.g. resilience) of the protocol. From section 2.3.2: “If Members cannot afford the time, equipment, accommodation, sustenance, dependents, and leisure activities which life demands, then dedicating themselves to Polkadot becomes unsustainable or unrealistic.” Even in this seemingly technical organization-focused document, we see unexpected examples of how the culture and environment of people should be taken into consideration for Polkadot to achieve its goals.

Success in the market and in the grander scheme of real-world adoption will come from the heroic efforts of many people – in fact many people who haven’t yet joined the ecosystem – and it’s the job of leaders in Polkadot to foster an environment where these contributors can be welcomed and supported. For leaders, this involves ensuring the vision can flow outward via communication pathways and the environment leads to execution.

Strategy is about being different

We should take some time to think about what “strategy” is. Strategy is a choice to do something different than the rest of the market, with the goal of eventually outperforming the market. Strategy is not about trying to do everything. Actually it’s the opposite - it’s an explicit choice of what to do and what NOT to do. If choosing what NOT to do is not in the conversation, then we are not having a credible strategy conversation. We are confronted with limited resources, so we need to choose how to use them.

Strategy is also different from budgeting. Strategy helps to inform our budget, and to some degree a budget may constrain what strategic possibilities are available, but largely they are different topics.

Today, as a decentralized network, we are not having a conversation about strategy and the choices we want to make as a network. If we can articulate a strategy, then we can focus our resources in a direction, and this can a) help us make decisions in OpenGov, and b) help decentralized actors to understand how to contribute themselves to moving the network forward, whether that is with technical proposals, marketing, ambassador activities, etc.

Some additional key points to help shape the strategy conversation follow.

It’s important to focus on differences

One key aspect of strategy is that we should focus not on how similar we are to other blockchain ecosystems, but how and where we are different. A great phrase that captures how we need to think of strategy is that we need to create a “vector of differentiation.” It’s not about creating a point in time where we happen to be better than other options, but it’s about creating a different direction that is magnified over time. We are actually already on this path, given the decentralized multi-chain ecosystem infrastructure that we have built, the new aspects of Polkadot 2.0, and arguably this differentiation is increased with the direction of JAM as decentralized general compute.

Given the technical roadmap has us already heading in this direction, we need to embrace it more as an ecosystem and bring the message outwards to find users that appreciate Polkadot for its differences. Customers that don’t appreciate Polkadot for its differences will not be sticky.

If we allow ourselves to be defined by other blockchains, then we will always be chasing them. This is a “red ocean” in strategy terms. Instead, we need to define our own playing field that speaks to the strengths and differentiation we already have, and use this to find market adoption.

The strategy depends on the customer

The second key aspect is to realize that a conversation about adoption requires an understanding of the customer and their needs. Currently in our strategy discussion 1, we have various categories (Developer Experience, User Experience, Public Perception, BD Infrastructure, Liquidity & Capital Rails, etc.). But actually, the relative weights of these categories may change if we go after different customer segments.

For instance, take the following potential customer segments: Retail, DeFi power users, Enterprise, Institutional, Gaming, Government (not necessarily mutually exclusive).

Attracting a retail use case to build on Polkadot may require liquidity and users, because the retail service benefits from the network effect of activity that is already present on the chain. But, a hypothetical enterprise use case may not require that, if the enterprise brings its own users but just needs secure blockchain infrastructure. So not all strategic possibilities are “equal” once you take the potential customer in mind.

At the same time we figure out where we might want to allocate resources, we should think about the return on investment, which takes into account the difficulties of customer acquisition, which is based on the characteristics of each customer segment. For example, within the category of “Developer Experience” there might be some projects that accelerate us towards our strategic goal, and others that have no impact. We need to have strategy conversations that take the short, medium and long term goals into mind.

Strategy and execution are always linked

A classic shortcoming in business is to define a strategy that is too out of touch with the reality of execution. A strategy needs to be: a) understood, b) believed and c) executable. We operate in a decentralized environment, which comes with its own challenges for all of these aspects of consensus and decision-making. We need to allow for iteration and learning as we go.

Embrace Decentralization

I believe since “The Decentralization” that started around Q4 of 2023 (and before), we’ve been on a one-way path to becoming a decentralized organization. This is a purposeful move that is directly due to the fact that decentralization is a key component of resilience, which is a key goal of the design of the protocol. This had led to a lot of turmoil as teams were disbanded and reformed as more independent units. Nobody is used to working in this kind of environment, because it has never existed before in our professional lives.

We’re no longer in a place where there is a C-Suite that can be replaced if they don’t perform, and it doesn’t make sense to either try to claw this structure back, or set up a similar structure in its place. In order for us to find success, we need to first embrace the decentralization, and then figure out how to achieve success in our goals. What follows are just some of the ideas of how to become successful as a decentralized organization. Keep in mind that “the book” has not been written yet (though we can get some good examples from the Starfish and Spider 3).

If you see something, do something In a centralized hierarchical structure, there is always someone to tell you what to do, and to guide you on the path, according to the organization’s history and needs. This is not true in a decentralized organization. If you recognize that something is missing from Polkadot, you should try to do something about it:

• You might do it yourself
• You might socialize the idea and get others on board, i.e. form a working group
• You might start a bounty that is assigned funding to tackle a problem
• You might find the right person to contribute and find the way to help them get started
• You can find and encourage the people who you see stepping up
• You can help to design the system to make it easier for others to step up
• At the same time, the easiest thing to do is to complain or blame others for things that are not happening. Please try to avoid that, because in a decentralized organization, nobody is to blame and everyone is to blame.

Over-communicate & promote understanding

Globalized remote work across cultures is prone to misunderstandings and miscommunications, yet this is the native state of a global decentralized organization. We need to have tolerance for differences and a buffer for understanding. We have to account for the learning process that is needed to work together with people that have different backgrounds and communication styles. When tempers flare, forgiveness can go a long way.

Write history together

We are on a long journey together that ties together not just technology, but a new way of working together. There is a trifecta of new challenges to solve - building a blockchain for the world, building a permissionless decentralized computer for the world, and building a decentralized organization to make it happen. LFG!

What can I do?

Thank you for making it to the end!

A lot of what is here is meant for the leaders of the ecosystem. Not just the existing leaders of the companies and protocols, but you, the future leaders of Polkadot.

As a decentralized ecosystem there are many ways to step up and participate, and anyone can contribute:

1. Participate in governance - Join a voting group like The Kus 4 and discuss governance with the community, or just vote by yourself in OpenGov
2. Participate in BD - Join the Open Ecosystem BD Working Group 6, or bring opportunities to Polkadot yourself and get rewarded 5
3. Help define the strategy - Participate in Alice and Bob’s BASED Budgeting Strategy Discussion
4. Code for Polkadot - Fix bugs, join a product team or start a new project
5. Join the Ambassador Program - the program will open up soon to new candidates

Finally, this is a call to action – we need leaders of the ecosystem to permissionlessly step up and address the most pressing issues so we can focus forward:

• Clarify the vision and articulate it to a non-technical audience
• Create an environment that attracts the talent needed to accelerate Polkadot
• Articulate a strategy that meets short, medium and long term needs
• Experiment and learn how to effectively drive forward a decentralized organization
• Feel free to reach out on TG (@replghost), or discuss here