A recent history
Product perch here checking in again with update on our strategy discussions and some progress.
Kent left so we no longer host DAO wide strategy calls 
However, in our last strategy call, we aligned around a mental model for a Mission → strategy pipeline.
To assist the goals we just posted, I’ve been refining our Mission → strategy pipeline and have made one tiny breakthrough. Refresh your memory with this Figma where we discussed the strategy that the community voted on: CEXy DEX. Read the summary below, it sounds more like Shapeshift 2.0, so that’s what I’m gonna call it moving forward.
Shapeshift 2.0 (CEXy DEX) Summarized
The main focus of CEXy DEX is to improve financial self-sovereignty with web2-like speed and UX. Here are the key points:
- Seamless asset movement: Making swapping, bridging, or moving assets between any chain and any asset frictionless & transparent.
- Address tracking and PnL monitoring: Providing clean address tracking and comprehensive PnL tracking for better financial management.
- CEFI-like experience with DeFi-like permissionless access: Offering a centralized finance (CEFI)-like experience with the benefits of decentralized finance (DeFi) and permissionless access. We are also exploring the possibility of running a database for a limited time but always with decentralized fallbacks.
- Strategic addition of DeFi protocols: Adding strategic DeFi protocols and evaluating their traction. We will drop protocols that do not gain sufficient traction.
- Targeted marketing to active traders: Focusing on a subset of users, such as whales and dolphins, and explicitly marketing to them. We will also focus on active traders more broadly.
How we need to ship to get there
During our discussions, we realized that our operating model for shipping needed documentingFull left to right here under process. We also needed a model for adding functionality too:
Next
So, what is the change? We have added themes to the pipeline. Themes address a missing direction in our pipeline. Revised that looks like:
Mission > vision > strategy [ + themes] > Goals > Roadmap
Execution looks like:
Mission [no change] > vision [no change] > strategy [themes] > Goals (posted) > Roadmap (living documents approved)
THEMES are : A collection of features within an ecosystem that prioritize what to ship. It also includes flexibility for unplanned or unscoped tasks and cross quarter intiatives. Once you incorporate the portfolio of bets as a way of allocating resources, everything clicks.
They are
- Thor + more
- EVMs
- Traction and paying debts (the EVM
Thorchain Flywheel) - Layer 2 all in ( or governance vote
)
Q1 & Q2
Q3 & Q4 ( a little fuzzier)
Whole year
Themes help improve focus, make shipping easier, and unite mental models into the shipping process. This change is simpler and somewhat clearer. It also allows the community to understand why or why not a thing is prioritized with respect to their proposed ideas. Knowing where to build makes shipping easier and unites mental models into one flow.
Does it fit into a theme ? Add it to it’s respective place. Does it not? Ok then next quarter. Is it out of scope? Thats fine too.
Additionally, these are interchangeable and flexible! If we highlight something with traction or innovate in a new area or have extra bandwidth we can reduce timelines and ship faster.
Here is an example of interchanging the theme, might bring to a vote in fall Governance for some ranked choice shenanigans.
Onwards
As we move forward, we will be assembling/retro-ing our goals quarter on quarter to ensure they align with our themes (or iterate on which to change/swap out).
Let’s keep up the great work and continue making progress as a community!
Regarding the roadmap, there where five input sources (now four):
- Spreadsheet for high level (governance approved but living document)
- two notion boards (long form and mini specs; living documents)
- note: reduced to one! mini specs are now just another template on the product spec board.
- Canny
- We are constantly working on improving our response rate on Canny, even if the shipping process remains the same.
- Upvotes over 15 or so will get our attention but we want to generate more user engagement here. Especially outside of core contributors.
- Our week-to-week activities on GitHub, the market, feedback, culminating in the weekly release thread.