Common pitfalls for Web3 founders

I’m not sure where this obsession with marketing comes from. Most founders seem to think that they are excellent at product building and that they need help with marketing. In my experience it’s very much the opposite. Most founders simply aren’t obsessed enough with users. They don’t talk to users on a regular basis. They aren’t users of their own... See more

When you are finally ready to spend time on token design, it will seem like a daunting task. You wonder, “is there a playbook?”  The short answer is no, there is no playbook.  Tokens should absolutely be designed from first principles, according to the unique needs of your product.

Only after you’ve completely exhausted your personal network and your community should you consider using recruiting platforms like Alist, Triplebyte, Stackoverflow, coding schools, etc.

The truly Web3-native marketing strategy is tokens. And it's not just free token airdrops, but the mere fact of users owning your token. It's powerful beyond measure when used correctly.

But “go to market strategy” is the key word here. Again, most startups don’t even have a great product to go to the market with! If you use tokens as a user acquisition strategy without a great product, you are essentially wasting your marketing budget. And it’s a very expensive marketing strategy because the supply is limited and mistakes are irre... See more

In short, prioritize your product over your token.

team size is a vanity metric. It’s a useless metric to optimize for. In fact, more often than not a smaller team of A players can achieve more than a team 3 times larger of B players.

If an early-stage startup failed 5 years from now, it would not be because they sucked at marketing. It would be because they did not find product-market fit.

Don’t use an external PR/marketing agency. I now have a dozen data points from founders who have used one and shared their experience with me. There has not been a single success story. Do marketing in-house. Ask your investors to amplify your message and to connect you with the media.