Web3 is on track to become the largest developer ecosystem in history. This is thanks to the unparalleled openness and composability of web3 and the easy to use emerging API’s.
Proactive tactics like thought leadership, inspiration, curation, distribution, grants, and hackathons are critical to fostering a healthy and thriving developer ecosystem while building a community. These tactics help create an environment that is productive open, inclusive, and innovative, encouraging developers to contribute, experiment, and learn.
Inspiration
Ideas are best formed through iteration. Often, half-baked ideas will emerge, but only after mixing and incubation you get to a clear use case. By providing instant insights and inspiration, you help new and current members in idea refinement. Inspired developers are more likely to come up with novel solutions to complex problems, leading to a more competitive and dynamic platform.
For example, Lens has an ideas document targeted to people interested in the space who are looking what to build. Explains emerging verticals in the ecosystem, gives concrete insights, ideas and,potential business models , as well as examples of other applications.
Thought leadership
Many developers may be interacting with web3 or the ecosystem for the first time. Thought leadership from someone who is close to the day-to-day developments of the ecosystem is highly valuable to both current members and new entrants. A platform that demonstrates thought leadership can attract more developers and users, establish trust, and gain a competitive advantage.
For example, I released a couple of articles that generated a lot of engagement and excitement. For instance, I noticed a surge of very similar social apps. At that point, I felt it was appropriate to make developers more aware of the complexities and challenges before diving into creating a competing social media app.
People needed more than just an explanation of the technical details; they needed to understand the concept behind it. This document discusses the history of optimistic UX and how it’s being used in the current era of blockchain technology.
Curation
Curation ensures an efficient and productive ecosystem by preventing duplication of work and remaining open to new exciting insights. An up-to-date source of truth removes friction for developers to do market research and makes it easier for them to identify gaps.
For example, Lens has a detailed Notion map with all apps and hackathons from the ecosystem. This document feeds the landing page and different public documents.
Distribution
As Peter Thiel said, “Distribution is king”. The best products won’t get noticed without proper distribution channels. As the ecosystem developer, you have the biggest means of distribution, and with great power comes great responsibility. You must on how you are going to offer distribution and set expectations with the projects early on.
For example, Lens has an established an objectively tiered system with clear criteria to ensure that the projects distributed through official channels were high quality and trustworthy.
Grants
Grants are one of many tools that encourage engagement and incentivize participation. While having a great platform is important, people still need to justify investing their time relative to other opportunities.
In my opinion, being the beginnings of an ecosystem, the ideal thesis while allocating grants is to maintain a healthy spread across the different web3 social verticals or use cases promoting diversification which fuels inspiration and experimentation.
Transparency
The core values of web3 are ownership and transparency. These can only be ensured thanks to cryptography and a public chain. Still, there is a lot of friction for accessing information. Having up-to-date comprehensive analytics about the ecosystem’s status is fundamental for proper guidance.
Lens has one of the most popular and trending dashboards in web3. Lens also made our database public. It is essential to practice transparency at all layers of the stack.
Developer Experience
A good developer experience is essential to attract and retain top talent in the blockchain industry. Good DX can help developers be more productive and efficient, leading to faster development and better quality code.
Lens has an easy-to-use, fast and reliable API to make the blockchain developer experience the best possible. Generated easy quick start and short videos explaining all the features. Also, offering fast support and regular calls is fundamental for a great developer experience.
Hackathons
Hackathons are an effective way to foster innovation and creativity among developers on a blockchain software platform. They lead to the creation of new and exciting applications and features that can enhance the platform’s functionality and attract more users.
Lens hosted many hackathons in cities like London 🇬🇧, Denver 🇺🇸, Bangalore 🇮🇳, Bogotá 🇨🇴, Buenos Aires 🇦🇷, Oxford 🎓 and Lisbon 🇵🇹. Lens has a Hackathons document with all relevant information for beginners.
Interoperability
Web3 enables interoperability among its chains and protocols through smart contracts and bridges. Frontends are approaching sufficient maturity, and we are already seeing experimentation between them in the form of APIs. Successfully guiding application-level interoperability is one of the challenges that excites me the most. Shaping and molding core infrastructure standards will be fundamental for successfully building a thriving ecosystem in web3.
It’s fascinating to see how frontends are allowing integrations like OxJuancito and wav3s teams who have documentation for other frontends to integrate on, like Lenster, Orb and Buttrfly.
Conclusion
As web3 technology evolves, the community will only become more significant. Guiding web3 ecosystems requires a cross disciplinary effort from all participants.
By showcasing a diverse range of options, we can foster healthy competition and innovation. Curation ensures efficiency and prevents duplication of work, while distribution ensures projects reach their target audience and receive the support they need.
Transparency is essential in a healthy web3 community. By being open about communications and providing comprehensive analytics, we can establish trust and create a level playing field for all involved.
By being more focused and inclusive, we can build better ecosystems that foster innovation and growth for the whole space.
To learn more about web3 technology, refer to my other posts. For more information, feel free to reach out on Twitter.
