5 Hires You Need to Make Before Launching a Token Crowdsale
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do” — Steve Jobs.
Tech founders looking to launch a token sale would be wise to take the advice from the late Steve Jobs. To paraphrase the former Apple CEO, building a successful blockchain business requires a great degree of skill and expertise — and it’s unlikely you can do it all on your own.
If you’re looking to launch a token crowdsale to find supporters for your blockchain project, you need to consider filling a few gaps. Beyond product development, there are a number of key positions you should be looking to hire.
Here’s what to expect from each.
Chief Technology Officer
To attract contributors, you need a clear technical vision for your company. This is where the CTO comes in. This leadership role requires a high degree of technical competency, project development experience, and the ability to lead a team.
The CTO may be a savvy computer programmer or developer with experience in the blockchain space. They will be responsible for creating a white paper that outlines the technical details and roadmap of your project. More importantly, they will need to develop and drive technological innovation at your company, now and into the future.
Business Analyst
You may have a fantastic technical vision, but without a business strategy, it’s just that — a vision. That’s why it’s important to have someone on board who is capable of business forecasting and providing a crypto-economic audit for your project.
A business analyst will be crucial for you to take a strong, strategic approach to your token crowdsale. Hiring a candidate with an economics or business background — particularly if they have experience with cryptocurrency — is also useful when it comes to providing the nuts-and-bolts information about your company and token to contributors.
Marketing Director/Manager
Preparing for your token crowdsale requires a great degree of research and planning. You are essentially bringing your early-stage project to market — and to do this successfully, you need someone with marketing experience.
A marketing director works with executives to lead the marketing and communications strategy, which includes building out the marketing team. Depending on the size of the team, this person may also act as the marketing manager, and lead the day-to-day marketing activities, with a number of direct reports as their team grows.
Essentially, this person will live and breathe messaging, positioning, and marketing strategy. They will likely need to hire a few more key players in order to successfully implement the marketing plan for your token crowdsale.
Social Media Specialist
Building a community of supporters prior to launching your token crowdsale is key to your success. Social platforms such as Reddit, BitcoinTalk, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are hotbeds for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and advocates. These platforms are great place to rally engagement and find potential contributors to your project.
A social media specialist should know how to best utilize each platform, as well as analytics tools to measure engagement. A successful hire should be experienced in organic and paid social strategy, content management,reporting, and be creative, adaptable, and have excellent communication skills.
Public Relations Manager
Rounding out the marketing and communications teams should be someone in charge of investor relations and public relations. Token crowdsales can live or die based on whether or not anyone has heard of your project. PR can go a long way to help build credibility and competitively position your team as industry thought leaders within the field.
A PR manager will reach out to potential contributors, cryptocurrency influencers, and decision-makers. This may include pitching story ideas or profiles about your project or team to cryptocurrency or trade media, as well as mainstream media and industry groups, depending on your project.
It’s possible that the PR manager or marketing manager will dream up other creative strategies to gain publicity, such as experiential marketing and live events, bounties, competitions, award applications and more. While it’s possible to roll the PR position into the social media or marketing job description, it’s a good idea to hire an experienced PR professional specifically for the job, especially as you ramp up publicity closer to launch and need to field a lot of questions.
Growing Your Business for the Future
Finding the right people for your project is absolutely essential to your success, but don’t be tempted to drag out the process for too long. A recent study found that startups are most likely to succeed when technical founders quickly hire business people — that is, they look beyond their technical skills and concentrate on how they can grow their business.
A token crowdsale is essentially a way of finding supporters for your business to fuel growth. With Steve Jobs’ mentality, hiring a dynamic team of smart people will benefit your business well beyond launch.
If you’re interested in learning more about how you can simplify token crowdsales, sign up for the Rocket newsletter at rocket.etherparty.com. You’ll receive exclusive giveaways, helpful information, and early access to product updates.
