During my AMA yesterday, I outlined the roles a validator needs to perform. It's something I've been thinking about for a while. As an individual validator, it's a challenge to perform all these well.
My struggle has been to expand into a team that includes members who can focus on each roles. Through my own experience, these are the functions a validator needs to perform.
The Function
1 - Keep the node running well
A validator needs someone with DevOps skills to keep their validator running well. Well means performant, available and secure.
2 - Community building, marketing and outreach
A validator needs someone with community building and/or marketing skills to make the validator known to the network community, to attract delegations.
3 - Finance
A validator needs someone with financial skills to do things like model returns, manage cashflow and handle taxes.
These are the critical functions that validators need to perform. The challenge to an individual validator to is two-fold.
The Challenge
i - How can a single person perform all these functions?
ii - How can a validator scale a team to perform these functions, when bootstrapping to maintain independence?
These are the questions I'm trying to figure out now.
For example, I spend most of my time making sure the Chainflow validators are running well. This leaves little time for community building and finance.
My growing sense is that figuring out the challenge listed above is key to building a sustainable validator operation.
P.S. - Your delegations keep smaller validators like me in the game, while also supporting stake decentralization. You can learn more about my validators and delegating to them here.