There are a lot of moving parts to consider when preparing for a crowdsale, and since the crowdfunding landscape is rapidly changing, you need to make sure you launch your ICO before it gets too complex.
The process is easy and clear if you have the budget and team to do the necessary R&D and find the right consultants and advisors — or maybe you’re a blockchain expert/developer yourself and know enough to architect the whole thing.
Whitepaper
If all you have is an idea, then start by drafting it into a whitepaper.
This includes:
- Fundamentals of your idea: concept and basis.
- Market overview: what problem it solves and how it fits in the current market.
- Usage of blockchain technology: how it will be utilized throughout your project (include formulas, technical explanations, drawings, and screens if possible.)
- Economics of the project: why will your token gain value over the time.
Not all whitepapers are the same. Browse through the examples of successful ICOs and you will see that there is no one right way to go about it. You just want to make sure that your whitepaper is closer to a business plan than to an essay.
One important thing to remember: an ICO is in no way similar to an IPO. Ensure that you aren’t planning to sell shares during your ICO, don’t offer dividends, and never guarantee a profit. Think of it this way — an ICO is a presale for early access to your project, so your whitepaper should be appealing to the end users, not the investors, who by definition will be expecting a return on their investment. Forget about the word “ investment” and substitute it with “contribution” throughout your whitepaper, this will save on legal fees in the future.
A whitepaper can be used to expand a team ( we covered the importance of the team’s credibility in a previous post) of and recruit co-founders. Many wonderful projects have grown out of an initial idea that brought doers together. It will be much easier to bring people on board if your idea is already on paper.
Website
A website is basically a single location to keep all the materials you have prepared for the ICO.
The most important thing is to create a good first impression by portraying your basic idea to the end users before hitting them with complex explanations and materials. In practice many successful ICOs has been represented by beautifully animated concepts of blockchains merging with their platform.
Alternatively, you can put together a video explanation. This will suggest the right questions to ask and provide answers on how your platform works.
All the other important elements can be added as you develop them:
- Team member and advisor profiles with clickable/verifiable links to their social media presence.
- A roadmap of progress.
- Your whitepaper.
- Press coverage: links to articles that mention your company.
- Links to communication channels: Telegram, Slack, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin.
- A GitHub repository.
- Announcements: ICO countdown, terms and conditions for participation in a crowdsale, etc.
This list in not all encompassing, there are no must haves, but you need to earn credibility through your presentation to make a project successful.
Smart Contract
A smart contract is the core element of an ICO. In technical terms, a smart contract is the program that conducts the crowdsale. You and your contributors use that program to create rules that regulate the time, the amount of money to be raised, the distribution of tokens, and the usage of the funds collected.
Carefully auditing a publicly available smart contracts prior to participating in an ICO gives the pledgers assurance that everything is going to happen according to the plan outlined, and increases confidence in the team and the project.
You can outsource contract creation to a third party or get it developed in house if you have Ethereum developers, but in both cases you need to make sure that the contract is thoroughly tested and audited before the deployment date.
Alternatively, you can use the Waves platform to launch your ICO. Keep in mind, you won’t be able to use this if you are a U.S. citizen or if you plan to have contributors from the United States. Also make sure that you understand all the functionality downsides of using a Waves token versus an Ethereum token on your platform.
Marketing Campaign
Marketing in the crypto world is different from marketing in any other business. It has its unique target audience and uses particular channels for advertising. If you are considering hiring an agency, make sure they specialize in crypto marketing and have at least one ICO campaign in their portfolio.
Press
Any business can benefit from positive press mentionings and it is crucial to earn them if you are preparing for an ICO. Here is the list of media outlets that write about blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and crowdsale:
Within these outlets, find the contributors and editors who cover the topics your company fits within and pitch them your subject. An important thing to remember is that, before spamming the contributor, make sure your topic ties into what they are writing about. It’s worth mentioning their previous articles and spotlighting the high points of the company’s recent news and achievements. Don’t pitch the company — pitch the story.
Bounty Campaign
Another important part of marketing in a blockchain environment is a bounty campaign. Don’t listen to anyone who says it’s not important to have one. We recently went to a presentation of the LA based Crypto PR agency. Their answer on whether they plan bounty campaigns was, “No, this should only be done if your token is weak.” This sounded like a total disqualifier and it showed us that the company doesn’t understand what pre-ICO marketing is.
A bounty campaign is a rewards program for the early evangelists of your project. They will help you spread the word like no Forbes article can. They will also help translate your material into other languages, share your details with thousand of friends, help you with press coverage, and in the end they will be among your first contributors.
According to our own statistics, 40% of bounty campaign participants will end up buying your tokens. Don’t ignore this, no matter how confident you are, if you run a bounty campaign prior to your crowdsale it will increase your success by at least 50%.
Analyze the companies in your niche to better understand what elements suit your bounty campaign, and what activities should be rewarded to bring the best ROI.
We are happy to help you with any of these four components mentioned above. Leave us a comment or send an email and we will answer all of your questions, even if they are not ICO related 😉
Sincerely,
ROI ExpressTeam
LAteam@roiexpress.com
Originally published at bigbreak101.com on September 22, 2017.
