Proposal: Purple strategy refresh.

Context: Every successful organization periodically evaluates its mission, values, vision, growth priorities, and strategic initiatives to accomplish them. Purple launched in 2023 with a strong vision to proliferate and expand the Farcaster protocol and ecosystem by funding small grants via Prop House and larger on-chain proposals. Both the Purple and Farcaster communities have grown significantly over the last few quarters. It is time to refine the strategy, considering the promising growth.

What: A core working group consisting of Purple members Cameron Armstrong (@Cameron), Colin Johnson (@cojo.eth), Chris Carella (@ccarella), Ben Ersing (@0xBenErsing.eth), and one additional member to be voted on by the community, will draft a revised high-level strategic plan for the DAO. The plan will include Mission, Values, Vision, Governance Operating Model, 3-5 strategic priorities/objectives, and 1 core and 2-3 supplemental key performance metrics to track progress against our goals. Like Brian Armstrong’s recent “Startups I Would Build Today” article, we will also draft an illustrative list of initiatives/projects that we think would be most beneficial for members of the DAO to pursue. They will be suggestions to spur conversation and further community ideation.

The output of this entire exercise will not be binding or Constitutional in nature. It will provide additional guidance and structure for the DAO as it embarks on its next growth phase. The plan will balance strategic structure with fluidity to allow innovation to surface and flourish within a decentralized organization.

We recognize and acknowledge the challenges inherent to crafting and ratifying a strategy that members of a distributed organization can agree on. As such, we view this process as an experiment in itself: one that will produce both process-oriented and content-specific output and learnings. It is our hope that in addition to directly benefiting the Purple community, the learnings and approach might also benefit others working to optimize DAO governance and direction.

The drafting team will periodically hold live-streams via Unlonely during which time Purple members can review the progress being made, ask questions and provide input mid-workstream.

A draft of the revised strategy will be made publicly available for DAO member comments and revisions. All DAO member inputs will be thoughtfully considered, and many will be incorporated. A final draft of the strategy will be put to a community vote before ratification. If the strategy is not approved by the community, the core working group will work with community members to refine the strategy and align on a path forward.

Team Selection: The drafting team was carefully selected based on the following process and qualifications. In order to operate as efficiently as possible, we decided to keep the drafting team to 4 people; expecting that while the drafting team would do the heavy lifting and be accountable for producing a final output, the entire community will be involved in the strategy formulation process and proposal approval.

Process

1. A public call to action / request for expressions of interest to participate was posted on the Purple Channel on Warpcast on numerous occasions over a period of 5+ weeks (see here and here). A total of 14 individuals expressed interest in contributing to the process in some way.

2. Individuals were considered on the basis of the following criteria: a. Current, active member of Purple

b. Depth and breadth of work experience relevant to strategy formulation and / or DAO governance / management

c. Availability to commit ~3 hours per week for 10-12 weeks starting as soon as the proposal is approved by the community

3. All individuals selected have made verbal commitments of their ability to dedicate this time. Team Qualifications

[TBD]

• The final team member will be selected via PropHouse lottery vote
• Minimum 20 votes

Cameron Armstrong (ENS: realcameron.eth | LinkedIn)

• Founder, VF Protocol
• Strategy Council, ServeDAO
• Finance Development Leadership Program, Amazon
• Leadership Instructor, Officer Candidate School, U.S. Army
• Education: Virginia Military Institute & Harvard Business School

Colin Johnson (ENS: cojo.eth | LinkedIn)

• Co-Founder & CEO, Freeport
• Marketing Lead, Apple Cash
• Senior Manager, American Express
• Education: Princeton

Chris Carella (ENS: ccarella.eth | LinkedIn)

• Head of Product, CharmVerse
• Venture Partner, Five Four Ventures
• Education: SUNY and Dartmouth

Ben Ersing (ENS: 0xBenErsing.eth | LinkedIn)

• Principal, Cobalt Ventures
• Manager, CVS Health & CVS Health Ventures
• Associate, Palladium Strategy Consulting & Transaction Advisory
• Education: Washington & Lee University and New York University

How:

1. The core working group will convene, align on the tactical plan to refresh the strategy, and agree on individual responsibilities and timelines.

2. Tasks will include, but not necessarily limited to: 2.1. 5-7 key stakeholder and subject matter expert interviews. Notes will be captured and anonymized. Any Purple DAO member will have access to them. (Duration: 2 weeks, depending on availability)

2.2. High-level desk research on latest DAO management and growth best practices, and the web3 social ecosystem. (Duration: 2 weeks, depending on availability)

2.3. Strategy drafting (Duration: 2 weeks)

2.4. Public socialization and revisions capture period (Duration: 2 weeks)

2.5. Proposal Submission & Community Vote (Duration: 2 weeks)

2.6. Plan Acceptance and/or Revisions & Resubmission (Duration: 0 – 2 weeks, depending on revisions required) When: ● Start: 1 week after community approval of this Proposal ● End: 10-12 weeks from start

Impact:

1. Content - the strategic plan itself will provide a framework to help guide future DAO efforts, facilitating even more intentional resource allocation and greater impact.

2. Process - as the first of many refined strategies in the years to come, the approach we take to drafting, refining, and gaining consensus on and then beginning to implement the strategy will be as important to Purple's evolution as the strategy itself.

Resource Ask: 5 ETH total. 4 ETH of which will be divided evenly among core drafting team members as an honorarium for their time, and ~1 ETH will be used for miscellaneous costs (i.e., design work, Fiverr data gathering, analysis, etc.). Receipts will be kept and made available to the community.

Rationale: In order to align incentives and accountability, we find that some amount of monetary compensation is important to ensuring a top-tier quality output. 5 ETH is the amount allocated to most funding proposals to date. While it will not come close to compensating participants for the market value of their time, it will ensure greater focus and dedication to the committed outcomes.