The Mistake Web3 Projects Make— Adoption Among Non-Crypto Users
the adoption rate is higher, but not really. What’s happening?
“Sometimes being early is equally profitable and bad at the same time”
What’s the current hype in crypto Twitter feed?
Many of you would answer the same. It is AI. The artificial intelligence concept embarked from the late 1940s. It took time for evolution to reach its current state.
So in what stage is crypto sectors now?
At one end, there is a significant cash flow in terms of trading volume in NFT marketplaces or DeFi apps and substantial growth in web2 brands establishing their own crypto/NFT platforms.
On the other end, many VCs, investors, and retail users are losing millions of dollars because of scams run by big brands like FTX, Luna, CoffeeZilla, etc.
We could witness a fine line between these brands. Though the projects appeal to wider audience of tech-savvy, crypto-friendly people, the non-crypto users are being bilked. Thereafter, lack of trust and uncertainty is what left in the table for the upcoming enthusiasts.
The Challenge All Crypto Companies Have
Let’s bring up Netflix as an example because they successfully solved an issue that’s shared by many crypto companies today.
You have two options when developing a crypto product.
Do you build a product for the market that exists today, or the market that you think will exist in five years?
It’s a very difficult part. The harsh truth about crypto is that, for as many winning moments as our industry has had, the users still aren’t here yet.
Today, Ethereum has just over 7M monthly active users. And that is assuming each address represents a unique user, which is certainly not the case.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, gained 100 million active users in two months.
Well, even when the Web3 solves many financial barriers, the UX problem still exists in crypto, which is not understandable by many.
The internet started out the same way. Before there were browsers and apps with slick UIs, the internet felt like foreign terrain accessible only to geeks, hackers, and technologists.
The fact that crypto users today are such a small, eclectic bunch has led many CEOs, product leads, and marketers to conclude that they should not be building products for today’s users.
Hence, the real opportunity lies in building products for people who haven’t onboarded into crypto yet.
Business Model Like Netflix
There is a saying in investing that being early is the same as being wrong. The same applies for shipping products.
The history of crypto is resonant with companies that thought they could ignore the needs of today’s consumers, opting to build products for what they thought “the rest of the world” would actually want.
This idea is related to the “institutions are coming” meme. Many companies in crypto today are juggling whether they are building products for crypto natives or institutions.
That has resulted in a bit of an identity crisis, which almost every company in crypto suffers from.
Companies building crypto products don’t want to disclose themselves to the institutional market that may be just around the corner, so they try to speak to both crypto natives and traditional hedge funds.
The result is an invisible drag on growth, as companies dilute their brand messaging by speaking out on both sides.
BUIDL While Serving
The solution is a product roadmap that takes into account the needs of the potential user today, the desires of the crypto user of tomorrow, and outlines a process for how we get from where we are to where we’re going.
That is exactly what Netflix did.
Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix, realized the potential for streaming years before the company launched its service.
But a constraint (bandwidth) prevented demand from his ideal customer (the streamer) from materializing.
So he just kept shipping DVDs and printing money.
Crypto companies are faced with the same scenario today.
The vast majority of capital (and thus demand for financial products) is held by institutions. But there is a barrier (regulation) that prevents them from entering the market with more freedom and liberty.
The different Web3 companies in this cycle are:
- Failure to create a long-term strategy
- Use crowdfunding to raise funds and vanish
- Not really serving the consumers in the market
These are few projects that make place in no man’s land that exists between institutional and retail use cases.
However, a small number of scalable companies will make the tough decision to “limit” their target audience and provide value.
Closing thoughts
The Web3 adoption will come to reality and accelerate only when ‘ChatGPT moment’ arrives in crypto. Needless to say, the visionary projects are already making good traction despite of market condition because of their true value add to the users. Let’s try to educate, build and better the ecosystem for the better future.
Successful bootstrapping is all about discipline & reiteration
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