The Life of a Crypto Founder
Plus, startups need enterprise sales, here’s why — and why now
IN THIS EDITION:
Why crypto startups need enterprise sales
Going to market in Asia, with notes from Korea Blockchain Week
Underrated ideas, following vs. deciding what’s interesting; from cultural deserts to finding what you’re looking for… on computers
THE ARGUMENT
Crypto startups need enterprise sales, here’s why — and why now
Jason Rosenthal
“The best products sell themselves” has been a long-lived fallacy in tech. Even the most viral products can only get so far on their own before they need a boost to expand further.
Large enterprises in particular are prone to roadblocks like internal organizational politics, existing tech to replace or integrate with, or trouble spreading beyond a few early adopter-types. The only way to break through and sell to large enterprises is to have a robust sales function that can navigate these organizations.
While some founders might miss the insiders-only dynamic of early crypto sales, the current market shift — where traditional institutions are interested in crypto industry products (beyond stablecoin adoption) — signals a larger opportunity. But this shift also means that crypto founders must embrace enterprise sales, and sooner than later. Here’s what you need to know.
THE INTERVIEW
5 questions on crypto and policy with Miles Jennings
from Politico
What’s one underrated big idea?
Really good regulation can unlock innovation. The crypto industry gets a lot of headlines that portray it as trying to fight all regulation, but in reality the industry has mostly been focused on fighting bad regulation…
What has surprised you the most this year?
How fast the tide has turned. Twelve months ago, entrepreneurs were regularly asking: How do we leave the United States? And now they’re asking the exact opposite question: How do we stay here, how do we return? That’s a product of a bunch of different pieces that are all coming together. At the state level, you have Wyoming’s legal entity structure that is providing a home for projects to deploy their technology, keep it in the United States. We’re seeing the SEC launch Project Crypto that is going to do an enormous amount to move our capital markets on chain. It just highlights the lack of a constructive approach that the SEC took during the last administration. All of these options were perfectly available to that administration.
What’s a technology you think is overhyped?
I would say the casino side of the industry — memecoins are certainly one category. We’ve seen a lot of good products launched, but also a fixation on really speculative products that are very noisy. Those products tend to not be very durable. What really matters when it comes to blockchain technology is that it empowers individuals over middlemen…
How a16z crypto’s Arianna Simpson has navigated the ‘blockchain rollercoaster’
(in Fortune)
When Arianna Simpson was 22 years old, she plowed her savings into Bitcoin. She had left her college job and traveled with a friend through Zimbabwe, witnessing firsthand the consequences of hyperinflation. When she returned, she became enamored with the idea of crypto as a potential salve…
Now a general partner, Simpson’s approach has been to target founders, rather than just thematic areas, understanding that the best builders will be drawn to the most promising technology at the moment, whether it’s stablecoins or the intersection of crypto and AI. “It’s more about following the trends of entrepreneurs than it is unilaterally trying to decide what’s interesting,” she says.
NEWS AND UPDATES
‘The best books of the year so far’
These are “the most captivating, notable, brilliant, surprising, absorbing, weird, thought-provoking, and talked-about reads”, according to The New Yorker — and one of those picks is Antimimetics by Nadia Asparouhova, published by The Dark Forest Collective — the book is “gestural and shaggy, a generative and fun read”, the editors share:
…ideas spread through the world not because of their virtue, as we once hoped, but because of their catchiness. Some bad ideas (“climate change is a myth,” “we should have a CEO as a monarch”) spread widely, because they have something like the quality of a meme. Some good ideas, on the other hand, have the quality of a “self-keeping secret,” or “antimeme.” “Our inability to make progress on consequential topics can be at least partly explained by the underlying antimemetic qualities that they share — meaning that it is strangely difficult to keep the idea top of mind”, she [Asparouhova] writes.
We previously covered this book on our web3 with a16z podcast — both in conversation with the author, and among a16z crypto editors discussing our favorite books of the year so far (as well as technology for reading books). Here’s a snippet from the conversation on how “cultural deserts” lead people to computers:
Around the world: Korea, Singapore, and beyond
Some field notes from Korea Blockchain Week
Jay Drain, Guy Wuollet, and Liz Harkavy
Founders have a great opportunity to spend time in Korea, get to know the culture and consumers, and make their products available there.
Since Korea is very supportive of Korean-native businesses (c.f. the ubiquity of Naver over Google Maps), having a presence on the ground and making an effort to align with the local ecosystem is important to successfully launch products there.
There is currently also less talk about the technology behind the underlying protocols — and more focus on legitimacy coming from partnerships and local product launches.
Giveaways — swag, collectibles, tokens, etc. — are tremendously popular in Korea as well: Every booth at Korea Blockchain Week events was oriented around a giveaway or raffle, and attendees all very patiently queued for these. (Korean crypto users similarly expect airdrops.)
The intersection between the crypto industry and broader culture was reflected at Korea Blockchain Week as well, with k-pop stars, sports players, directors of KPop Demon Hunters, etc. attending events. Korea has the 2nd most-paid ChatGPT subs in the world behind only the U.S. — and more broadly culturally, has: the #1 YouTube video of all time, #1 boyband, #1 rated movie, #1 most viral soundtrack, and #1 show on Netflix. read more
Going to market in Asia?
— a16z crypto editorial team
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