A New Type of Roadmap

our thought process behind making a roadmap in this style.

We decided to make a roadmap that is packed with something big happening as often as every week. Everything we're doing is all on the map (for the most part).

But we decided not to reveal when & what exactly these milestones on the roadmap will be.

We believe this is the best way to continue to grow our community & brand.

Let me explain why.

The Paradox of “The NFT Roadmap”.

Why do people want a roadmap?

The simple answer for most people is - reasons to buy/sell the project.

Let's be 100% real here. Yes, people look at the roadmap to see if the team has interesting ideas, what the future of the project will be, etc.

But at the end of the day, most people just want to form a conclusion that can be synthesized into "Bullish (buy/hold)" or "Bearish (sell/avoid)"

But the problem is...

There's no "right" way to do an NFT Roadmap.

There are some projects with no roadmaps, others with roadmaps that span 5 years, and some that are completely community/DAO driven.

The dirty secret is - most projects don't actually work directly off their roadmap. The roadmap is purely something to share with the community to give them a sense of what you're building.

Why don't teams work off their roadmaps?

Well, because the space changes so fucking fast - if you want your project to remain relevant you have to be able to adapt to changing times.

In a lot of ways, on the day-to-day execution the roadmap is useless. But the roadmap is great for aligning long-term visions between the team and the holders.

As we were trying to figure out how to do a new roadmap to update our holders on the future of DeGods - we analyzed the current popular models for how projects do their roadmaps.

Pros & Cons of 2 Most Roadmap Structures

1. "The Precise Roadmap" explains exactly what the team will do.

Pros:

• The community knows exactly what's going to happen.

• The community can hold the team accountable on the proposed goals.

• Specific times for people to sell into the "news" because of hype (let's be real lol.)

Cons:

• There's little/no excitement when things get completed (because people already know)

• Other teams can steal your ideas before you even launch them.

• The market can change - and sticking to a detailed roadmap makes it difficult to adjust.

2. "The Hype Roadmap" that is mysterious and vague.

Pros:

• The team can be flexible to adapt and still be fast at shipping.

• There is an emphasis on community & driving hype.

• It's a lot of fun.

Cons:

• The community gets anxious because they don't know what's going on.

• The community can't hold the team accountable.

• The community is over-reliant on blind trust of the team.

• This can get very confusing for your holders to keep up with what's happening.

No existing roadmap structures made sense for DeGods.

All of our success has come from having unique ideas that provide value to our holders - and executing on it at a fast pace. This is what has always made us special.

We don't want our community to be confused or anxious when they're holding a DeGod.

We don't want people to feel like there’s no clear direction for the project / reason to hold.

We also don't want to detail everything we're going to do & prematurely kill the hype for the cool shit coming up.

We went back to first principles to solve these problems to figure out...

What the best way to make a roadmap that's right for DeGods?

We love providing as much value as humanly possible to our holders.

But the most exciting things we've done with DeGods weren't part of a roadmap before we launched them.

They were all from listening to our holders, then surprising them with something they might not know they want yet...

• Doing a DeGodsWeek was not in our initial roadmap. We just surprised people and said this week is DeGodsWeek. Nobody was expecting it.

• Removing the PHBT was purely an executive decision. But it was swift & sudden. Nobody was expecting it.

• Creating $DUST was not in a roadmap, we scoped everything out, then launched the first "white-paper" to the community. Nobody was expecting it.

• Creating DeadGods was an idea the team had together sitting in a room trying to figure out what to do next with DeGods. Nobody was expecting it.

Each of these have proven to be crucial to the success of DeGods.

Each of them had a wondrous feeling of surprise and delight to them.

Each of these were also executed extremely well.

Why is the roadmap just art? Why no words?

We believe it's the smartest way to do a roadmap for DeGods (and potentially for other blue-chips too).

Roadmap 3.33 allows for us to build hype & still maintain an element of surprise & wonder when we launch something cool.

For example, we can create hype by alluding to a piece of the map. Then when we finally drop that product/airdrop/art piece... and it will still be a surprise. If we detailed out what we were doing - we wouldn't be able to do that.

To tie everything together:

We want you to be confident that we are building long-term for DeGods.

To prove it to you, we spent weeks planning out the next 3-6 months for DeGods and shared it with you in the form of an expansive visual roadmap.

We also want keep doing what got us here - provide insane value to you as a holder when you're not expecting it.

We want you to prove to you that we will constantly deliver value to you by surprising and delighting you as often as we can.

If we don't - then floor your fucking DeGod because we have failed.

If we do - you're very, very welcome.

The Most Common Concerns

What I hope to convey to the DeGod holders is - when you hold a DeGod, we don’t want you to ever feel stressed. We will still be extremely active on Discord & Twitter. We will still give progress updates and keep you informed. So don’t worry about that.

But, we refuse to lose the magic of surprising you with the utterly unexpected.

Maybe if this was 2021, I would tell everyone all the crazy shit we have planned. You know I love to leak shit. But I've learned that it's not the smart thing to do.

There's a reason Yuga Labs doesn't tell people about what they're doing. They just dropped $APE Coin on their holders with 1-day notice. I'm not alluding to us doing an airdrop like that - but you get what I'm saying.

The key to making surprises sustainable is if our community isn't stressing out about the "next thing Frank does". We don't need to be "saved" by Frank anymore. We have a fucking army.

We have a 31 person team (11 people full-time) working around the clock literally to help give DeGod holders more value. When something comes out, it'll be cool. If it's not, fine we'll fix it or move on to the next thing.

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I've said this from day one: If we really want to be one of the biggest NFT projects in the world... we can't be constantly "searching" for validation externally. We are enough.

It was hard for a lot of people to see when we were at a 4 SOL floor price. But hopefully today, it's easier for you to see this. We are enough. We always have been

Closing Thoughts

This roadmap is a symbol of the new direction we will be taking with DeGods as a brand & organization.

We’re cleaning things up & getting laser focused.

From now on, we aim to make everything we do map back to our core values & goals.

This is to provide you clarity on why we are doing what we’re doing.

Everyone that works full-time on DeGods is reminded of these core values & goals everyday.

No excuses.

Values:

• Our holders are gods. We work to make them happy.

• No egos.

• The best idea wins every time.

• Don’t ask “why”. Ask “why not”?

• Don’t build something, unless you believe it will break the internet.

• Make everything fun.

• Growth = Life

Goals:

• Foster a community of the smartest, coolest, most wholesome degenerates on any blockchain.

• Prioritize giving real value to DeGod holders (no bullshit).

• Focus on winning the short term, so we can dominate in the long term. Become the biggest NFT brand in the world.

These goals/values probably sound cheesy. I know.

But these have been our values & goals from the very fucking beginning.

They are what got us here. They are what make us DeGods.

We aren't changing just because we got big. We're doubling down on what got us here & cutting out the bullshit. At least that's what we're trying to do. We could will be better.

Sincerely,

Frank (33.3%)