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The concept of DAO seemed a perfect fit for Gitcoin's aspirations, offering democratic decision-making environments, resilience against powerful attacks, and predictable, neutral operations. After long hours of research and discussion, the decision was made in December 2020 that Gitcoin needed to become a DAO.

The transformation of Gitcoin from a centralized entity to a DAO was no small feat. Unlike traditional corporations, where hierarchical structures dictate decision-making, the transition aimed to place the power of governance squarely in the hands of its members. Launching Gitcoin's next era of governance was the next logical step, ensuring that the community could genuinely shape Gitcoin's direction. We began to move our services onto a blockchain controlled by this same community, ensuring transparency and true decentralization.

Gitcoin DAO launched on May 25, 2021. This was the beginning of our journey of progressive decentralization. But it was a long road ahead, and we couldn't do it all overnight. We'd need the community to rewrite the stack's legal, governance, product, finance, and technology layers over the coming years. And they did. Looking back, this metamorphosis from Web2 paradigms to this new decentralized ethos was perhaps one of my proudest achievements. And while today I might not sit as Gitcoin's CEO, I've decentralized my power but also my stress. My role as a contributor fills me with pride, and it is nice to bat around ideas with other community members on a public forum, gov.gitcoin.co. Now I'd really like to pay it forward to you. One of my goals for this book (and its companion digital experience at howtodao.xyz) is to open the door to the better parts of the crypto world to you. Together, we'll learn the skills necessary to thrive in DAOs. Puncar and I will give you the starter kit. And we'll walk the rest of the path together.

PUNCAR

I grew up in a small town called Domazlice in the Czech Republic. My parents were entrepreneurs, and I was four years old when they first got into the hospitality business—starting a restaurant and later a cafe. Like a lot of small-business owners, my parents spent 150 percent of their time at work, which forced me to become more independent. When I was a little older, while all the other kids went home to watch TV after school, I would help out in the restaurant. Unlike a corporate job, everyone working for the family business seemed more connected to it. It wasn't just about getting a paycheck at the end of the month, and if someone wasn't pulling their weight, it immediately impacted everyone else. It was like a large family working toward a common goal. My father wasn't just running a business; he was passionate about what he wanted to achieve. He insisted on quality and that every customer needed to be satisfied. He was determined to bring better food, coffee, and wine to Domazlice so everyone could taste a piece of Italy. That was his goal: not to be a millionaire but to bring Italy to Domazlice. I went off to university on the other side of the country, and it was hard for me to remain physically involved with the family business. Instead, I thought I'd leverage what I was learning at college in order to support Dad remotely. I wanted to help the little family business innovate and embrace e-commerce, so I built a website and online shop and began expanding the operation into a wholesale business. We "open-sourced" our business model so that other coffee shops could recreate our success story in their own city, and many customers did. It wasn't like a franchise where you need to pay for the brand; it was more like sharing a working model in order to help other entrepreneurs succeed.

But I also wanted to explore the corporate world, so after I finished my master's degree, I landed a job in Prague with Ernst & Young, a huge multinational company that straddled accountancy, HR, tech, and financial-services consulting. I worked in the financial-services department as a UX designer and product manager, helping banks launch online platforms. At that time, in 2017, something interesting was happening in the cryptocurrency space. There was a

considerable amount of hype and speculation around what were known as initial coin offerings (ICOs), a type of fundraising mechanism in which a company or organization issues a new cryptocurrency to the public in exchange for funds. That year saw a significant increase in the number of companies and projects launching ICOs, as well as the sheer amount of funds raised through these offerings. Many were launched by start-ups looking to raise capital for their projects, but there were also a number of established companies and organizations entering the space, such as IBM, Microsoft, and JP Morgan, with many projects raising millions of dollars in just a matter of hours or days. The banks I was dealing with wanted to know whether they should be getting involved, and it was my job to educate them. Maybe the time isn't right now, I told them, but it will be in the future. The systems they were using needed to evolve to work in this brave new world. There needed to be proof of concept.

I knew I had more to contribute to EY's blockchain team on a global level, and by chance the company needed someone to work on product development and risk management from its offices in New York City. My then-girlfriend lived there at the time, and so it felt like the stars had aligned. I packed my bags and moved from the Czech Republic to the United States, where I worked on blockchain for one of the largest financial-services companies in the world for the

next three years. It was a great job, but I longed to get back into the kind of entrepreneurship I'd grown up with. It was in those small businesses and start-ups where the most innovation was happening, where new ideas formed, where everyone was committed and engaged.

Soon, I discovered my path back to innovation and community: DAOs.