How to launch an ICO without spending a dime

Published in

Game of Life

6 min readJun 5, 2018

About half a year back the FairWin team began the preparation for its ICO. At that time we did not quite know what it was and how to go about it, we had only heard, that companies raised tens of millions of investment dollars with just an idea, White Paper and a beautiful site.

Our team did not have ICO experts, therefore we had to blaze the trail for ourselves. We faced fakes, communicated with advisers, looked for firms offering turnkey solutions for ICOs, responded to tens of messages with advertising and cooperation offers. To put it briefly, we have passed at least five of the seven circles of hell named “ICO”, and this is what we have learned.

As I have already told you, at first we did not know how to launch an ICO at all. And, of course, the first thing that we began to do was looking at how this problem was solved by others. We made a similar site, White Paper, started a blog, social media pages, got acquainted with the community and tried to draw attention to the project.

Only a few details remained — involving people in our social media and making Forbes, CoinTelegraph and a couple of medium-sized cryptocurrency editions to write about us — and waiting for our ICO to gather millions of dollars.

When we started to contact magazines and send press releases, we were in for the first shock — placing an article about an ICO costs not two, not three, but ten times more than a usual article. As soon as you say that your team develops something on blockchain, the price for any services connected with the advancement of your project flies up ten times.

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The prices in the ICO market at the beginning of 2018 were not simply inflated — they were through the foor. In January, 2018 the approximate cost of an ICO started at 2 million dollars. This sum included social media and BitcoinTalk activity, blogging, sending messages to investors, publishing a project on trackers, dispatching press releases, carrying out a bounty program, etc.

Probably, fortunately for us — after the January fall in Bitcoin price, this market began to change. It all began with the ban on advertising cryptocurrencies and ICOs both by Google and Facebook (here is where these guys that offered promotion were especially greedy). Since then it has become clear that old marketing tools do not work anymore and it is no use hyping as before.

In short, we began to advance the project on our own, not buying advertising AT ALL. And this is the advice on how to advertise a project without having to waste a penny.

1. Google!

People who have already successfully launched ICOs share their experience in blogs, publishing instructions and advice for those who are only going to do it. Yes, sometimes advice that they give has already become outdated. But nobody is insured from mistakes. Besides, it is not certain that an adviser that you have employed for 100500 dollars will not give you the same lame advice. In general, if you do not know something, google and read it. Medium is a perfect platform where you can find answers to all ICO-related questions from real experts in this sphere.

2. Get published on trackers but do not take their ratings in earnest

Following the lead of other ICOs, we began to get listed on trackers. At first we were registered on free platforms, but then other trackers started to post the information about FairWin on their sites and give our project very low marks.

The tracker rank can be raised by adding more information about the project or verifying team members. If you still have a low rating, do not worry. As a rule, all trackers offer a package deal for the advancement of ICOs on their sites. If you buy nothing, your rating remains low, at best — hardly above average.

3. Keep a blog

Also, think about the readers, the usual people first. It is not interesting for them to read about the advantages of an ICO, especially if you tell about them in a boring way. Write beautifully and on interesting subjects related to your project. If an article is good, small news platforms connected with cryptocurrencies can repost it.

4. Bounty

I can not give unequivocal advice on whether it is necessary to launch a bounty campaign or not. As a rule, bounty campaigns attract people who do not give a damn about your project, they simply want to earn tokens. These are professional bounty hunters. They will keep the appearance of activity in your social media, but do not expect them to draw attention of the community and the more so of investors to your project.

Running a bounty content campaign is not the best idea. People will not create high quality or unique content for tokens. So do not expect this from the participants of a bounty campaign. Spamming is the best they can do. However, there are hunters who really do something interesting for your project, but most likely it means that this person likes your idea and believes in its success. Such bounty participants are very few and they should be valued because they are your community.

5. Communicate

Answer all the questions which you are asked in social media, make comments on the publications of bloggers who write about things connected with your project. Get to know the preferences of your potential consumers, ask them to evaluate what you do, be it game animation or a technology that you use. You can receive good advice and draw attention to your product.

6. Do not buy advertising

The matter is not just in unfairly high prices for the ICO marketing and that the majority of advertising offers are sent by fakes. When you buy promotion, it is visible. The cryptocurrency market is built by enthusiasts and fans who are ready to invest in good ideas. Top cryptoinfulencers will not promote your project if they do not believe in its success. Remember it when talking to a next youtuber offering you to make an ICO review for 0,5 BTC. Most likely, it is not his channel and even if it is, you will notice it at once by the poor quality of content.

P.S. It is not certain that these pieces of advice will help your project to launch an ICO successfully. After all, the FairWin token sale will begin only on July, 7th, and the hardest times are still ahead for us. Nevertheless, I hope that this article was useful to you.

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