Description
We want to augment our team of contributors to transform our organization from throwing one global pizza party each year to ongoing giving for the public good. The vision of MolochDAO aligns with the values and mission of PizzaDAO, as we act globally to promote discourse around public goods in Web3 and to further the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem by onboarding new users. Pizza is a ubiquitous tangible good. As such, we use it as a tool to give everyday citizens from all walks of life a Web3 experience for all their senses.
Building a diverse community that enables individuals to find togetherness in Web3 is important to us. Supporting Web3 community gatherings with pizza helps our whole ecosystem to achieve this goal. By supporting our vision of onboarding local communities to Web3, MolochDAO advances its mission of making the Ethereum infrastructure accessible as a public good.
Vision
PizzaDAO educates and supports pizzerias around the world on how to use crypto to empower their businesses while giving back to their communities. It is not by accident that communities have formed around pizzerias as inclusive social spaces all over the world. MolochDAO introduced an extensible, accessible, and secure DAO-framework to meet the evolving needs of communities. At our Pizza Parties we often see technical talent speaking of Moloch, while the pizzerias only deliver the pizza. Our vision is to reverse this trend. This means we want the technical audiences to support pizzerias in making their businesses more resilient by improving their tooling and having access to liquidity through tokenization.
We believe that small businesses are an integral part of local communities and that the members of those communities understand the value of those small businesses better than anyone. Therefore, we want to develop open source technology that meets the specific needs of small and medium-sized pizzerias. To guide this mission, we follow these five principles that define our vision.
- We believe markets can be positive sum and enrich communities.
- We honor memes as powerful vessels for raising awareness.
- We value artists as important members of our community.
- We leverage digital scarcity to bring analog plenty.
- We advocate for equal inclusion of all pizza toppings (yes, even pineapple).
Problem
During the last cycle institutions and funds have been pushing the narrative of “onboarding the next 100 million users to crypto” to shape their thesis for the upcoming cycle. Meanwhile, applications or protocols that are being built seldom apply these principles to the products they ship. PizzaDAO was founded to give new entrants and citizens from all walks of life a reason to engage with crypto ecosystems (and guide them along the way).
“Crypto” is often perceived as abstract, remote, and detached from everyday life. Buying a pizza with crypto, getting it for free (funded by crypto), or receiving funding to feed your students, changes this perception. More broadly, we are facing an increasingly unequal world, where financial literacy determines the economic fate of the individual. This knowledge is as much concentrated as capital itself, therefore, PizzaDAO engages with underrepresented communities to share knowledge and reward learning with pizza.
Solution
As a first step towards a long-term sustainable solution to inequitable user onboarding to Web3, PizzaDAO has celebrated two annual Bitcoin Pizza Days in 2021 and 2022. We plan to celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day in 2023 and beyond, however, a single annual global event is not enough. We have expanded our charitable giving to support smaller events throughout the year. This allows us to connect to local pizzerias and communities, as well as to large and medium-sized suppliers in the pizza sector.
To develop a public good that connects knowledge, people, and pizza, we need to build our organization. We are currently establishing channels which can sustain our core mission of bringing the internet, cryptocurrency, and pizza as global phenomena together. Our operation then solves information asymmetries in local populations by making crypto tangible and powering pizzerias with cryptocurrency.
Product Features
We have chosen NFT-based marketing as our vector to establish relationships with pizzerias and communities worldwide. Together with the communities and owners of pizzerias, we are creating demand for an open source business suite for the pizza industry. By orchestrating 314 international artists to design 10,000 generative pizzas, we funded the charitable giving of pizzas as tangible public good of Web3.
Since the first Bitcoin Pizza Day in 2021 we have refined our governance structure to make Pizza Parties that are accessible to anyone. Today, organizing Pizza Parties in a participatory and fun way helps us to refine our product vision and build our community of pizza and Web3 enthusiasts.
This community supports us in compiling a database of pizza knowledge and market data, which enables us to build an open source franchise for Public Good Pizza (PGP). We envision this technology-enabled network to allow pizzeria owners to streamline their operations, request consultancy, fund community gatherings, or deepen their liquidity.
Specifically, we envision a software suite that combines messaging, accessing liquidity, as well as order and supply-chain management, with basic payment functionalities. It should have the capability of being flexibly deployed as local instance or in a cloud environment to abstract from the complexity while respecting pizzerias’ digital sovereignty.
Validation
Bitcoin Pizza Day has become a de facto public holiday in Web3. Together as a community we have, on Bitcoin Pizza Day alone, onboarded hundreds of people to cryptocurrencies and built relationships with over 400 pizzerias. Since the inception of PizzaDAO, we have given away pizza in over 75 countries and spent a grand total of over $500,000 USD on said pizza, as well as donating pizza to social impact organizations around the globe. Most importantly, however, we have onboarded thousands of small business owners and individuals to crypto in our first 22 months.
Our activities have previously been financed through the charitable sale of generative art in the form of NFTs. Our dream of a global pizza party and our pizza box and pizza NFTs were so popular that we initially raised over $1M USD in Ether (ETH). However, throwing the world’s largest pizza party only happens once a year. Therefore, we have already partnered with NFT.NYC, DCentral Miami, NFT Paris, NFT Sydney, ETHDenver, SXSW, NFTLA, and many smaller events, to foster a network of stakeholders within Web3 that drive user onboarding through Pizza Parties on an ongoing basis.
We already have sustained demand for ongoing pizza support for local Web3 community events, whose organizers come to our Discord to submit proposals for pizza funding to our PizzaDAO voters. At these events, local Web3 enthusiasts learn and engage with each other to develop the future of the Web3 ecosystem.
Recent Events Supported
- November 2022 - Manila, Pobcrawl at Draper Startup House Manila
- December 2022 - New Dehli, India , DAZE: Art and Chill.
- December 2022 - Costa Rica, Solidity Testing with Foundry 101
Market presence
Through our stakeholders, we have established a permanent representation through local community leaders in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Portugal, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ghana, China, South Korea, Japan, Pakistan, Australia, and more.
Pizza Industry
PizzaDAO has become serious competition in international pizza baking contests, ranking second place in the Neapolitan Team Tandem competition at the 2022 World Pizza Games in Las Vegas. We believe that for onboarding users to web3 through pizza, we must understand the pizza trade thoroughly. Winning at world class contests as a DAO validates this approach. We have built great visibility for the brand PizzaDAO, which is exemplified by the recognition of PizzaDAO by leading non-profit organizations in the pizza industry, the World Pizza Champions and Slice Out Hunger. After having forged these powerful relationships, we are now sustaining our presence as a household name in pizzerias of many major cities from Accra to Paris to Vancouver.
Progress
PizzaDAO has transformed its operation from an event-based business model to an ongoing pizza marketing and crypto-onboarding organization. We have reached many developer communities within Web3, but also brought many novices into the ecosystem. Giving away pizza and organizing pizza events requires an organizational structure that allows continuous presence in key markets as well as expansion to new markets. To this end, we seek symbolic backing by partners like MolochDAO, who want to see their vision of digital public infrastructure spread and acted upon.
Our impact to date
- Over 160,000 slices served
- Over 400 pizzerias supported
- Presence in 75+ countries
- over $500,000 USD of pizza given away
- Thousands of people onboarded to web3
PizzaDAO’s highlights
PizzaDAO raised $1M USD to spend specifically on public good pizza (PGP). It established the NFT brand Rare Pizzas, which received Web3-wide recognition and generated revenue of 300+ ETH that has been spent on PGP. Bitcoin Pizza Day fueled PizzaDAO’s expansion and introduced a benchmark for success, while serving as a central objective for the organization. In short, we have grown our market-presence by 25% on a YTD-basis, are present in over 75 countries with over 400 pizza affiliates, and have talent marketing channels in 17 key regions or 20+ major cities.
- January 2021 - PizzaDAO founded
- February 2021 - Rare Pizzas NFT
- March 2021 - Rare Pizzas Box Sale raises 300 ETH
- May 22, 2021 - Bitcoin Pizza Day #1 in 60+ countries with USD >300k given in pizza
- Spring 2022 - Event sponsorship, fundraising, shop onboarding, and party planning
- March 2022 - 2nd place in Neapolitan Team Tandem at the World Pizza Games
- May 22, 2022 - Bitcoin Pizza Day #2 participation grew by 25%
- August 2022 - 400 pizzerias onboarded to PizzaDAO
- October 2022 - Kickoff organizational structuring of core team
Roadmap
- December 2023 - Launch of sponsorship strategy for Web3 companies/employers
- January 2023 - Sponsorships for Bitcoin Pizza Day 2023 become available
- February 2023 - ETHDenver PGP onboarding event
- May 22, 2023 - Bitcoin Pizza Day #3
- July 2023 - Market study for pizzeria needs is published
- October 2023 - Launch of pizzeria affiliated program Public Good Pizza (PGP)
Differentiation
PizzaDAO is a user-facing, community-oriented organization that requires funding to ensure its longevity for sustainably onboarding talent to Web3. We have a strong track record of raising funding for Bitcoin Pizza Day, which will be hosted by communities all over the world for the third time in 2023.
We are focused on fostering crypto adoption by small and medium-sized enterprises outside of Web3 because we believe that for Web3 to succeed we must focus both on technical talent acquisition efforts and on education of the broader community. Thus, PizzaDAO delivers tangible results through providing pizza as a public good.
Our engagements with pizzerias around the globe give us access to sector-specific data on pizza operations. The community-building activities we support have generated trust and forged long-lasting relationships. Furthering the idea of Moloch, speaking to our over 400 member organisations in the pizza industry enables us to build a meaningful product that is accessible and challenges incumbent SaaS solutions developed by large corporate conglomerates.
Team
Our team came together on February 18th, 2021 to agree on our manifesto and mission. Since then, we have gathered a community of thousands of aligned members and built a team of eight core contributors who ensure the long-term functioning of our organization:
Crispy, Operations - Twitter
Crispy holds an international business degree and now pursues her passion for working with diverse and talented global teams. Together they optimize business operations and manage projects. In Web3 she is focused on growing NFT projects where she leads teams with a no-nonsense approach.
Ruben Suau, LATAM Lead - LinkedIn
The event manager and producer leads PizzaDAO’s presence in Latin America. Ruben is a savvy growth marketer, who has organized events IRL for over 20 years. He also has combined experience of over four years in growing Metaverse communities and a large local network of supporters in Chile.
Darko Ristevski, Artist Relations - Twitter, Gallery
The digital artist, living in North Macedonia, is known for crypto and generative art which revolves around chaos to escape linear thinking. His work has been featured at events such as Art Basel Miami and NFT London.
Shaun R. Smith, Communications - Twitter
The 2007 Canisius College graduate owns a full-service marketing agency serving national brands and nonprofit organizations including pizzerias and NFT projects. His landscape photography, minted as NFTs, was featured multiple times at NFT NYC. He also supports freshmen through his Vizthum Scholarship Fund, $7,000 to date.
Brandon, Design - Twitter, Website
Brandon has been working with large consumer brands for over fifteen years, such as Universal Studios, Citi Bank, and Nike. He is now helping legacy brands transition to Web3.
Matt Wilhelm, Lead Developer - Twitter, Github
Matt has a passion for mobile development and over fifteen years of experience in writing applications for web and Windows.
John May, Developer - Twitter, Github
John has been working in Web3 for nearly a decade. He has won multiple hackathons and worked on various products, most recently contributing to the Nifty’s marketplace, Cosmos ecosystem projects, and others.
Anthony Shafer, Lead Artist - Twitter, Github
Anthony is a career digital artist, with experience working on major motion pictures including the Harry Potter series and the Star Wars prequels, who is now full-time in Web3. He is also a co-founder of frogland.io
Grant Request
We ask for $3,990 USD to increase the resilience of our organization by growing our team of collaborators, who will be tasked with developing an ongoing sponsorship program with large ecosystem and infrastructure actors in Web3. By providing us with the grant, MolochDAO delivers on its vision to support Ethereum in “protecting and nurturing our material public goods”.
What we will use the funds for
As one of the most important software framework advancements in the DAO space, we take MolochDAO as an example for introducing the idea of usable Web3 products to everyday citizens. We have a functioning network and access to expertise that can support us in building our mission. We do not have to rely on the availability of MolochDAO’s members. Our grant request is better understood as a symbolic endorsement that enables us to follow our mission by hiring talent that helps us implementing the vision PizzaDAO shares with MolochDAO: usable and secure open source software over Ethereum.
Help Requested
The MolochDAO framework has proven to be a versatile tool for Web3-native communities, but applying it to small business is still uncharted territory. We would like to explore the use cases of MolochDAOs for pizzerias together with your product owners and software architects. We would also be curious to learn how better to facilitate our pipeline for attendees of our events to find roles in the ecosystem.
Additional Resources
For further information please reach out to snax#6922 via our Discord or email (snax@rarepizzas.com), visit rarepizzas.com, or see our activity on twitter at @PizzaDAO.