Level Up Your Collaboration: Lessons from Ryan, Optimism's Chief Growth Officer

What's Optimism's secret to becoming the fastest growing L2? Collaboration.

Decentralized projects require lots of input and collaboration. Unsure of how to get everyone building towards the same north star? You're not alone.

Today, we're diving into collaboration strategies with Ryan Wyatt, Chief Growth Officer at Optimism, one of the fastest growing L2s on Etherum. From YouTube to Polygon to Optimism, Ryan's insights are pure gold for anyone looking to level up their Web3 game.

Why Collaboration Matters

Projects that embrace collaboration among developers, token holders, and app users are the best at driving adoption, building community, and standing out in the crowded market. Projects that can’t foster collaboration, can’t grow.

Let's address some typical missteps:

• Lack of clear communication: Failing to articulate your project's vision and roadmap can lead to confusion.

• Short-term thinking: Reacting to market trends without a long-term strategy can be detrimental.

These approaches often fail because they don't create sustainable value or community engagement.

Ryan Wyatt's Growth Playbook

Ryan shared some strategies that have been game-changers in his career. Here's a practical breakdown:

1. Foster a Culture of Candor and Empathy through Clear Communication

   • Articulate your project's vision and roadmap clearly

   • Use writing as a tool for alignment within your team and with partners

   • Encourage open, honest communication within your team

   • Balance candor with high emotional intelligence

2. Balance Short-term and Long-term Goals

   • Plan for immediate needs while keeping an eye on future developments

   • Be prepared to pivot when necessary, but maintain a consistent vision

   • Map out short-term customer needs against long-term product vision

   • Be prepared to say no to immediate opportunities that don't align with long-term goals

Here's how they’ve tactically made this happen:

At Optimism, they implement a writing culture inspired by Amazon. Team members write detailed documents to align on strategies, give feedback on plans, and to foster better collaboration across the organization. Ryan says, "What I've found is the team, the ability to get aligned by writing is incredible." It's not just about avoiding miscommunication – it creates a shared vision and excitement.

This sounds like great advice for writers, but does it work?
As Ryan puts it, "It really almost serves as like a rallying cry... I get really fired up after we're done with that and we've gone back and forth." Not only that, but it helps cut back on meetings and gets business and technical colleagues on the same page. So why aren’t more people doing it? Writing may seem tedious, but Ryan recommended using ChatGPT or Claude to help improve your writing skills over time.

Time to crack open your decentralized google docs and start sharing!

Your Next Steps

Ready to level up your Web3 growth strategy? Here's where to start:

1. Implement a writing culture in your team for better alignment, use tools like Claude.ai or ChatGPT to strengthen your writing skills.

2. Set clear a clear long-term vision and ensure in your writing that all options consider their impact. Share these plans internally and with the community on a regular basis.

3. Consider how existing systems, like grants, could be altered to better serve your community needs. Like Optimism’s use of retroactive funding for contributions instead of pre-funding. Build for what your community needs, even if other protocols do it differently.

Listen to Learn More

Want to learn more details about how Ryan has successfully grown Optimism? Listen to our conversation on Chainmakers Podcast:

• How Ryan balances the needs of app chains and platform developers

• The role of governance in creating a sustainable ecosystem

• How retroactive public goods funding is changing grant making in Web3

Whether you’re building from the ground up or improving an existing project, consider Ryan's advice about your team and community culture to hone your focus and grow as a collective.

Keep building,

Brittany & Raffi