your guide to web3 company building: start hereš
5 strategies for finding product-market fit in web3
by Jason Rosenthal
āProduct-market fitā is that seemingly magical moment when a startup finds a mass of customers that truly understands the business value of its product.Ā Sounds simple; and hearing founders tell their stories makes those journeys to finding product-market-fit look easy. But in reality, finding product-market fit is hard ā even with all the tools, processes, and best practices for finding product-market fit at our disposal today (from deep instrumentation of conversion funnels to sophisticated multivariate testing).
Web3 projects face a set of unique challenges here, because the playbooks are still being written, the underlying infrastructure is still developing, and other reasons. While some classic wisdom on product-market fit still applies, here are 5 strategies for finding product-market fit unique to web3 ā including designing in network effects at the start, and others.Ā
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ā¶ļø see also this talk with entrepreneur Ben Rubin (Meerkat, Houseparty, Here Not There) on the journey to product-market fit
Decentralization basics for startups: Why, what, how
by Miles Jennings
Whatās different about building in web3 compared to building a typical startup? Decentralization, for one thing. Decentralization matters because it's what allows us to democratize the internet by turning web3 systems into public infrastructure. This is a distinctly different model from the current internet, which is built around networks that accrue benefits only to the companies that run them.
At first glance, decentralization may appear to be counterproductive for startups, because these startups are seeding a playing field for other entrepreneurs to compete with them. But decentralization can also be the more economically rational decision: By delivering specific benefits (described in these posts), decentralization can also facilitate faster and stronger network growth. So even though startups pursuing decentralization give up ownership of an entire pie, they may end up with a slice of a much larger pieā¦Ā
If you agree on the benefits of decentralization ā the next question is how to organize and operationalize oneās decentralization efforts? This set of pieces briefly outlines the why, what, and how behind decentralization:
š read āwhy decentralization matters, for buildersā
š read ā3 ways to organize decentralization in your startupā
Pricing strategies for startups
with Maggie Hsu, Scott Duke Kominers, Jason Rosenthal, and Robert Hackett
Drawing on expertise from startups, big companies, and academia, our experts dive into insights from traditional and web2 companies and how to apply them to web3 businesses on our podcast. (They also share lessons learned from established companies like Tesla, Nvidia, and others.) The discussion covers unit economics and how to navigate pivots ā as well as things unique to web3, such as using on-chain data to inform pricing decisions.
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Competitive advantage in web3: Extending āPorterās Five Forcesā to the crypto industry
by Scott Duke Kominers
Competitive strategy is integral to any business. Itās especially relevant for platform businesses, because competition determines their ability to achieve network effects and scale.Ā But web3 fundamentally transforms the nature of this competition and collaboration ā which means we need to rethink the way firms establish their market position, achieve network effects, and capture value.
One of the best-known ways to think about such strategy is the Five Forces framework (introduced by Harvard Business Schoolās Michael Porter in 1979): It helps map the competitive landscape of an industry, thus showing where a companyās defensible advantages lie. But how is the Five Forces framework different in the context of web3? This post shares a quick primer on Porterās Five Forces framework, implications for competitive advantage, and nuances specific to web3.Ā
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š§listen also to this episode
Recent talks from our crypto startup acceleratorĀ
Now entering its 4th cohort, our CSX program ā the premier accelerator for early-stage companies building in or with crypto ā just wrapped its most recent Demo Day, in London. Industries in this cohort ranged from on-chain gaming to AI; fashion to food; DeSci to DeFi; and infrastructure for unlocking scalability, better cross-chain composability, connecting blockchains to the external world, and app-specific infrastructure.
For more on Demo Day London, see this recent coverage; and also check out the following threads on:Ā
10 truisms repeatedly shared with crypto builders
how group meetings and problem solving worked throughout the program
topics covered in the recent program.
And while the real value of the program is in the community, network, mentorship, and insights unique to each startup, see below for some talks we made public and that are relevant to all web3 company builders:
ā¶ļø Models for go-to-market [+ read also: āGo-to-Market in Web3: New Mindsets, Tactics, Metricsā]
ā¶ļø see also this talk with Shane Mac (XMTP) on the ātriumphs, trials, and invaluable lessons of being a founderā.
ā¦the tunnel
-- Sonal Chokshi, Stephanie Zinn, Tim Sullivan, Angel Gehr, Robert Hackett, Jonathan Ringen
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