This is the first installment of a five-part series.
A Web3 #startup sounds fairly easy to launch and manage, but the roller coaster starts at about 4 weeks after TGE (Token Generation Event). The following are my personal #insights acquired from #knowledge and #experience working in the #Web3 field.
Your team is the most valuable asset
The value of the company is not only about the product by itself, but also about the people who create and run it. Take care of your people. You need to define roles and team structures to have your project run properly and smoothly. Don’t cut corners—spend time with the team to make sure they understand what you are building. People advocate for the success of your project everyday, they need to know the end-to-end product.
For example, there are venture capital firms such as Rainfall Ventures that invest primarily in the people behind the project more than the product itself. Kyle Sullivan, a partner at RV, described it very well in one of the calls we had.
Need a Dollar
“I need a dollar, dollar a dollar is what I need”
- I Need a Dollar, Aloe Blacc, 2010.
Closing the funding rounds is often the make or break for the true intentions of a start-up founder.
If you are looking to make a quick buck, I can tell you that it’s not there. As a founder, if you think you can get people's investment money and treat it like a regular job, then you are wrong. If anything, you should be the last person on the team to receive a paycheck while the project is still in the building phase. You do it for your vision and, if it succeeds, you can cut some of the coupons (money) when it generates income. People frequently believe that when they receive investor funds, they can use them just like their own personal funds. In fact, some accelerator funding prohibits the use of founders to pay themselves.
Don't expect people to fund your entire project
You need to be confident about your idea. An encouraging sign for a project is when you are using your own funds to kick off. This shows everyone that you trust your idea and you are all in it. There is nothing worse than showing your future investors that you don't believe in what you are building and just want to treat it like a regular job.
Competition check
You don’t want to launch something that somebody else is better at. The market is already oversaturated. If you intend to launch a copycat no. 18001 project with the same useless use cases but a different logo and project name, I advise you to quit immediately. In order to succeed, you need to have a competitive advantage.
This is the second installment of a five-part series.
Product check: validate your initial ideas
Creating a solution that no one wants and then creating demand for it sounds expensive and difficult. By validating your idea, you can figure out if your solution will lead to success. Additionally, in this uncertain market climate, having a clear pathway to monetization is a must. This can be done in multiple ways, starting with customer surveys, shark tanks, and Twitter spaces / AMAs on Telegram.
It will save you money and time, and it’s better to do it in the early stages of the project. It’s nothing compared to building a software solution, which could easily take a month for an MVP build.
Recommended places to validate your ideas:
https://twitter.com/ABGAasia - @Yaojia will run some calls for you where you will be able to receive your first feedback regarding your project ideas. A great place to be. Be prepared for different time zone calls.
Get yourself help
Have you ever hit a roadblock and can't move forward because you don't know how to move passed it? You have a whitepaper, a pitch deck, tokenomics, and a strategy, but, compared to your competitors, yours does not stand out. This is where accelerator and incubator programs come in handy. It’s important to find the right partner for that role because the ultimate goal is to be successful and sustainable. Many accelerator and incubator programs just want to sell you cheap marketing services and leave you on ice. A proper partner will not only help you polish what you already have but also be there for what you may be lacking—connections, such as venture capitalists, centralized exchanges, gaming guilds, DeFi solutions, or even manpower.
I can recommend four people I know who, in my opinion, are the best in business:
https://www.lucidblueventures.com - @Charlie Yechuan Hu is the man with all the connections you need. If somebody is unreachable, he will connect you with them. Very experienced and math-oriented person focusing on project success.
https://www.moonboundconsulting.com - @Tony Drummond can change anything into gold. You need a solution? He will deliver it to you. He is strongly oriented in battle-tested solutions that work even in a bear market.
https://www.cryptoinsider.network - @Richard Leitgeb will turn your weak spots into advantages. Together with @Tony Drummond (see above), he is offering high-ticket consulting for a fraction of the price through a membership model.
https://icavip.org - @Jason Hung is a man with a can-do attitude. Everything can be solved with the right approach and connections, which Jason has. Advisor on top-tier projects, always willing to help.
This is the third installment of a five-part series.
Live feedback & relations
Some startups focus so much on product development that they forget about plans of getting it out to people. Web3 is shifting really fast and people are not exactly patient. If you don’t share constant updates on your social media profiles, people will slowly leave your ship. Stop hiding in your local host bunker! You need feedback! By putting some details out to the public early, you will be able to shape your product based on what people expect from it. Deliver an MVP with fewer features in the short term compared to an MVP with more features after a year. Concentrate on 1-3 killer features that will hook people the first time they see them.
Target the right customer: the marketing plan
Have you ever seen projects that overpay influencers and celebrities to do promotions? They are well-funded, and the founders care less about ROI because, to begin with, they aren’t paying with their own money. That’s why, if you are interested in making your project successful, spending time learning about your audience is a must. Any CRM would be nice, it doesn’t need to be the most expensive one. Right now, pretty much any CRM has similar features to track your campaign and see if it works.
You can start with simple case studies and customer success stories. It will take a bit of your time, but trust me, it’s worth it. You will be able to define how to solve user problems. Go to places where Web3 users already are, like Twitter, Telegram, and Discord. If you can’t measure ROI, then leave it. It’s not worth it in a bear market. You will be wasting money on solutions that won’t add any value to your project.
First impression
Website, social media channels, and graphics you use must be high quality. The first impressions you make are the most important ones. Many people admit that they rarely read whitepapers, but if you make them feel special in the community, they will read your idea. Run an on-site blog with SEO-friendly plugins. Make sure your website is running lightning fast and your whitepaper is not 200 megabytes.
Selling your idea
It might seem funny, but a lot of entrepreneurs in Web3 focus too much on building the products that they completely forget about the selling part. Often, you can see a well-developed product, but there is no way to sell it because the product's design makes it unusable. Apart from getting funded, there must be a clear way to get the users to use the product you have built. If you are unable to sell it, the project will most likely fail. The product must be easily scalable, and there must be multiple defined ways of selling the product you have built out.
This is the fourth installment of a five-part series.
Tools: Airdrops
You've probably heard about airdrops, which give quick and good user acquisition numbers. If it’s properly executed, then you can expect high-quality users to join your project. But in most cases, the airdrops are executed poorly, and you can find bots, airdrop farmers, and so on, basically taking unfair advantage of airdrop allocations. As a result, you should never choose the cheapest option. I know two services that are doing the best job when it comes to fair airdrops, and the best part is that THEY ARE FREE!
https://superfine.org - @caldie you will be able to set up your airdrop just how you want it. If a user connects their wallet address to receive an airdrop, you can set basic filters, such as requiring the user's wallet portfolio to be more than $1, owning some NFTs, having actively traded trxs, and so on. A great tool to allow you to know everything about your users. Must-have option!
https://icetea.io - @Millie what could go wrong when you have two of the biggest launchpads - GameFi and RedKite. Their initial fan offering solution, where project tokens are awarded to real fans, works really well, especially when you have a large user base as IceTea Labs does. If you are looking for the biggest base, there is no other choice than IFO from IceTea Labs.
Community is the key to success
Web3 projects are no longer community-led, they are community-owned. The project will expand and grow, not because the market is trying to make everyone happy with their buy and sell orders, but because people will treat it like their personal business, trying their best to make it successful. Those are your people, the ones who will fight and defend you when the going gets tough. You are not allowed to let your community down, otherwise, the project without community will fail.
Tools and solutions worth mentioning:
https://idexo.com - @Greg Marlin - have you ever considered minting NFTs on Twitter? Here you go, you can do it with the Idexo solution. Now think about how many Web3 users are using Twitter? What if I tell you that they only need to write "/mint wallet address" as a reply to your tweet? One of the best Web3 solutions I've seen so far. But wait, there’s more. Greg isn’t just working on Twitter, it also works on Telegram, and he plans to expand to Discord and so on. If you plan to run NFT collection on a scale, talk to Greg.
This is the fifth installment of a five-part series.
https://gamesight.io - @Jose Tellez was the first to introduce me to a proper way of promoting games. Gamesight has all the connections to every single gaming-oriented influencer. Run a test campaign and see with whom you should advertise in order to get the best results. I don't see any other way for my game to be advertised in 2023. This tool is simply amazing. With the provided data, I’m able to select the right influencers for the best results. You often see some campaigns don’t work because the audience has different preferences. This is where Gamesight comes in handy, you have almost guaranteed numbers from your CP.
https://kommunitas.net - @Robby Jeo is offering something more than just a simple launchpad. An in-depth solution to support your project pre and post-TGE stages. Their verified KOLs will take project tokens in return for promoting your project. Kommunitas focuses on project success, and everyone on their team has the same objective.
https://banxa.com - @Ari Last - if you are looking for a seamless payment solution, talk to this guy. Multiple integrations with over 20 different payment options and what is the most important is the fact that you don’t need to switch to any website to complete the purchase or withdraw. You can purchase cryptocurrency with fiat and withdraw it, e.g., Bitcoin for fiat, in a matter of minutes.
https://trtblockchain.solutions - @IO the best place to get your community management done. starting from Discord and Telegram moderators to community building and engagement. Definitely, this service is worth mentioning because of their customer-centric approach.
Cheat sheet:
The case is that ideas don’t make any money. True investors don’t buy your ideas. They purchase precise execution of the plan to make your ideas a reality.
Polite code
Yes means maybe.
Maybe means no.
Relationships with your work partners matter a lot more than you might think. Cold mailing isn’t working, but a referral email from your partner is almost guaranteed success.
The truth is that unfortunately, pretty much 95% of Web3 projects fail 3–4 weeks after TGE, and they could easily avoid it if they stick to the plan and perform the points I listed above.
Please let me know your own thoughts. I'm happy to join the discussion below.
Alex
Jasper
Hui Xin
Aaron
Jixu
Catherine
Kikyo