Growth Hacking: The Holy Grail for Web3 Startups | BeWater Growth Hacker Camp II
Author: @Sun Peng
🔷 Overview:
The BeWater Growth Camp II will be held in Singapore on September 20–21.
In Web3, you’re either growing or dying. This sentiment holds true, much like how every cycle sees a complete reshuffle of the top 100 projects by market cap, with new narratives driving explosive growth.
2024 is no exception, even though only 8 months have passed.
This year, TON’s TVL soared past $770 million, growing over 5,600% in just six months, up from $13.51 million seven months ago.
EigenLayer’s TVL also exceeded $20 billion, becoming the second-largest DeFi protocol after Lido. At the start of the year, its TVL was just $1.3 billion, reflecting a nearly 1,400% increase in six months.
Solana’s TVL surpassed $5.6 billion, up from $1.4 billion at the beginning of the year, a growth of over 300% in half a year.
And this year, Matr1x Fire has gone viral and gained widespread attention. This game grew 1,200x in just a month and a half, starting from only 510 daily active users in early February.
This year, while “every project can launch a chain” became a running joke, Caldera emerged as the fastest-growing ecosystem, boasting over 60 rollups, 1.7 million independent wallets, and more than $1 billion in TVL.
And indeed, this year, Monad embraced community and meme culture. Its openness and inclusivity helped it gather over 63,000 community members and 12,000 memes even before its mainnet launch.
🔷 Integrating Growth Hacking into Web3
The aspiration to become a growth hacker is widespread, but few know how.
In Web3, there is no shortage of creative concepts or cutting-edge technologies. For instance, while numerous teams envisioned bringing Move to the EVM, only Movement has managed to achieve measurable success. The distinctive characteristics of Web3 mean that many teams focus heavily on technical development without embedding their products into a larger technological narrative or lack the understanding and capacity to develop business models, growth strategies, and go-to-market frameworks.
Reflecting on the histories of Bitcoin and Ethereum — be it as global digital currency or the “world computer” — it becomes evident that as crypto moves toward mainstream adoption, the imperative for growth becomes undeniable.
We must reconsider what “growth” truly signifies in this context. What constitutes genuine Web3 growth?
From the advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s to the introduction of the “growth hacking” concept by Sean Ellis in 2010, more than a decade of experimentation and iteration has produced world-class unicorns such as Dropbox, Facebook, Slack, Airbnb, LinkedIn, and WeChat. Now, with 15 years of development, crypto remains on the forefront of technological innovation, underscoring the urgent need for a growth hacking model tailored specifically for Web3.
Our position is that only by aligning exceptional products with superior marketing can we effectively cross the chasm into mainstream markets. Building on the success of our first Growth Hacker Camp last year, we aim to continue supporting developers and startup teams. In collaboration with TechFlow, BeWater will host the second Growth Hacker Camp in Singapore on September 20–21. This event will incorporate real-time insights and the practical experiences of numerous global growth leaders to examine the fundamentals of Web3 growth and deliver the most impactful strategies.
🔷 Marketing: Analyzing Successful Strategies
Drawing on observations from the past six months, we have invited mentors from leading projects and venture capital firms, including Monad, EigenLayer, TON, Solana, Matr1x, StepN, Caldera, BNB Chain, Dragonfly, ABCDE, SevenX, OKX Ventures, and Hashkey Capital. They will share their expertise and lead discussions on four key themes: personal branding and influence, marketing strategy, community culture and organic growth, and the acquisition and retention of Web2 users.
🔷 “Marketing Yourself is the Easiest Way to Prove You Understand Marketing”
We believe that in the Web3 world, which emphasizes personal sovereignty, leveraging your unique strengths, identifying your position, expressing yourself, and maximizing your potential is the first step toward achieving growth.
At the event, Gala, Director of Ecosystem Development at BNB Chain; FC, Co-founder of SevenX Ventures; and a guest speaker from Korea will deliver focused talks on personal positioning, individual growth, personal branding, and Web3 growth.
🔷 “Marketing is Strategy”
Beyond individual growth, a key mission of Web3 is to achieve mainstream adoption — transitioning from marketing to individuals to marketing to the masses. In this process, products require a growth strategy to progress step-by-step from 0 to 1, and eventually to 10. So, how do you steer the growth flywheel? How do you craft an effective growth strategy?
To address these questions, Du Jun, Co-founder of ABCDE and CEO of Sinohope; Kenny, APAC Team at TON Foundation; Gajesh, Software Engineer at EigenLayer; Adam Jin, Advisor at Solana Foundation; and Saku, Co-founder and CEO of Matr1x, will share their diverse experiences on the various components of marketing strategy.
🔷 “In the World of Marketing, No Company is Too Big To Fail.”
Without a doubt, in designing a marketing strategy, we must also avoid “picking up pennies while losing dollars.” Past experience shows that growth hackers who focus solely on short-term user acquisition often risk losing user trust; without a solid foundation, growth can easily stagnate or even reverse. For Web2 users, who have often experienced exploitation by large Web2 companies, gaining their trust, engaging them, and retaining them is critical for Web3’s path to mainstream adoption. Bitcoin, as the earliest meme, built the foundation of decentralized consensus in the crypto world. Today, what kind of meme culture do we need to drive organic community growth?
To address these questions, BMAN, Co-founder of ABCDE; Tom Schmidt, General Partner at Dragonfly; SungMo, APAC Lead at Monad Labs; Sunny He, Partner of Venture Investment at HashKey Capital; along with representatives from StepN and the CEO of Caldera, Matt Katz will engage in an in-depth discussion on Web2 user acquisition and retention, community culture, and organic growth.
🐟 “I Would Rather Create the Future Than Fix the Past.” — A Message to Growth Hackers.
🎫 Application for Participation
The BeWater Growth Hacker Camp II is now open for registration. Interested participants are invited to register and send their resume along with their most accomplished work to the email address provided below. Join us alongside dozens of global growth leaders, focusing on growth methodologies, harnessing collective wisdom, and exploring the core of marketing!
✅Registration link: https://lu.ma/2t81ydxt
📮Email: crypto@bewater.xyz
🤝 Telegram: https://t.me/+852ykGQEzI1jY2Rh📅Event Agenda:
The BeWater Growth Hacker Camp II will be held from September 20–21.
🐟About BeWater Venture Studio
BeWater Venture Studio is a tech-driven venture studio backed by investors like ABCDE Capital and OKX Ventures. Our mission is to become the leading technology-focused crypto incubator in the APAC region.
Our team has deep expertise in fields such as AI, ZK, infrastructure, and the Bitcoin ecosystem. We bring extensive experience in economic model design, market expansion, brand building, and community growth. We are dedicated to working alongside founders to create the next generation of impactful crypto solutions.
More Details: 🔍 BeWater Twitter | 🌍BeWater Official Website
