Diego Costa.
PaçocaCommunity, partnerships & operations / 2021–2024

Paçoca.

First employee.
A lot of firsts.

I joined to build the community. A year later, I moved into BD. As I took on more of the operation, I became COO.

My role

Community → Business Development → COO

1st
Employee
150+
dApps in the integration work
7
Blockchains
200+
Documentation pull requests

My scope spanned community, partnership execution, documentation and operations.

Official artwork celebrating two years of the Paçoca community.
Official artwork celebrating two years of the Paçoca community.

01 / Community

The first employee.
The person in the chat.

I joined Paçoca to build the community. For a long time, I was the only moderator.

I answered questions, helped users understand the DeFi product and made quick, useful responses a priority. The product knowledge came from being deeply involved in the space and in the conversations happening every day.

I also ran AMAs and community events, including trivia with prizes. As the community operation grew, I trained community managers on communication, response quality and how to help people.

Support shaped my understanding of the product.

Knowing what users asked, where they got stuck and how to explain the product became useful well beyond moderation.

The community footprint reached approximately 100,000 combined memberships across the global, Brazilian, French and Thai Telegram channels and the global Discord. This is an aggregate across channels, with possible overlap between members.

02 / Progression

The responsibility
grew with the work.

First employeeCommunity

User support, moderation, AMAs and community events.

After the first yearBusiness development

Integration terms, partner relationships and co-marketing.

As the scope expandedCOO

Oversight of the operation, people coordination and shared treasury responsibility.

I moved into business development after about a year in community. Later, as I was already overseeing much of the operation, I became COO.

It was a progression through responsibilities: first helping people use the product, then working with projects that could integrate with it, and eventually coordinating the operation around that work.

03 / Partnerships & integrations

An agreement had
to become an integration.

I negotiated integration and co-marketing terms with projects, defined requirements and priorities, coordinated implementation with our developers and carried out marketing activities around the partnerships.

The work covered more than 150 dApps across seven blockchains. My role connected the partner conversation to the implementation backlog and the marketing activity that followed.

01

Agree on the termsWork with the project on the integration and co-marketing scope.

02

Define & prioritizeTranslate the agreement into requirements and development priorities.

03

Follow implementationCoordinate the integration with the developers and track delivery.

04

Bring it to the communityCarry out the marketing activity around the partnership.

04 / Documentation

Make the product
understandable.

I maintained Paçoca’s GitBook, covering technical documentation and the product manual. It included contract addresses, code references, explanations of what the contracts did, product guides and project transparency information.

200+ documentation pull requests.

The GitBook brought contract-level information and product guidance into one place.

The documentation was another part of the same responsibility: understand the product well enough to explain it to a user, a partner or someone looking into how it worked.

05 / Operations & leadership

More scope.
Clear responsibilities.

As COO, I managed seven direct reports across BD and community: the BDM and six community managers. My training focused mostly on communication, response quality and soft skills, with basic commercial training as well.

I coordinated integration delivery and backlog priorities with three developers. They reported to the CEO, who was also the CTO.

Direct management7

BD & community reports

Delivery coordination3

Developers reporting to the CEO

Shared treasury responsibility

Alongside the CEO and CMO, I helped lead a US$1M multisig treasury. My responsibilities included approving payments, deciding allocations, executing transfers and tracking resources and investments.

What stayed with me

Product knowledge connected the different roles. It helped me support users, negotiate with partners, coordinate implementation and take responsibility for the wider operation.

Paçoca on X ↗