A hack for your NFT project to go viral using Google Docs

How we used Google Docs to grow virally

Who this post is for: Entrepreneurs that are in the early stages of building their Blockchain or NFT project.

What you will learn: A step-by-step guide to getting your early adopters to proactively recommend your project to their friends.

Our results: On average, each Discord member that participated in our challenge shared our White Paper with 4 of their friends.

Step 1: Seed your Discord

We have found that the best way to seed your Discord is by contacting your personal network.

The best way to email your personal network

How to download your contacts from LinkedIn

The easiest way to gather your personal and professional contacts is by going to LinkedIn and exporting your connections.

Add them to any email solution provider. I personally use Mailchimp, but there are tons in the market, and they all pretty much do the same thing.

Important: Don’t spam your network

There is a fine line between a useful, helpful email and a spammy-feeling email that is trying to sell you something.

In my experience, I have found that a friendly, personal update email is the best way to reengage your network (especially if you haven’t emailed them in a while), while also getting your message across.

For inspiration, check out the email that I sent.

Step 2: Use Google Docs to write a meaty White Paper

Our White Paper is over 50 pages and took us two weeks to write.

Some tips for writing a White Paper

1. Mission, Vision, and Values: “It doesn’t matter how hard you row — if you’re not rowing in the right direction, you’ll never get to your destination.” Be very clear about your Mission, Vision, and Values — place it right at the beginning of the White Paper. People understand that you don’t yet have a product; therefore, the White Paper needs to resonate deeply with people and generate excitement about the future you’re creating. A clearly defined Mission, Vision, and Values will accomplish this.
2. Get into the weeds: Because you don’t yet have a product, it’s important to get into the nitty-gritty about your product in the White Paper. Detail absolutely everything. It’s ok if you have to change things later; in fact, it should be encouraged. You can later makes these updates through Patches.
3. Presentation is key: The design and presentation of the White Paper is critically important. Color palettes, images, and styling helps to communicate that the White Paper is more than just an idea, but something real and professional.
4. It’s a living document: Make it clear that your White Paper is not final; rather, it’s a living, breathing document that will evolve as the product grows and as the community provides feedback. This is key, as you want to make your early community and early adopters feel like they’re a part of the product.

Why Google Docs?

I’ve seen many White Papers use GitBook, so we started off in GitBook as well; however, GitBook was missing a key feature that I know we wanted for our White Paper: open comments to all.

As you’ll see below in Step 3, the open comments was key in getting our community to proactively share the White Paper with their friends.

Step 3: Create a challenge

Ok, by now you’ve seeded your Discord and written a meaty White Paper. It’s time to get people to not only fully read it, but more importantly, get their friends to read it as well.

We accomplished this by creating a challenge on our Discord.

Challenge 2: Help us improve the White Paper

Here are the details of the challenge:

1. Read the White Paper
2. Tag a friend through a comment
3. Win a reward

Why commenting on Google Docs works

How to tag a friend on Google Docs with a comment

Commenting works because it’s incredibly easy to tag your contacts. When you tag them, they get an email. Simple is that.

I wrote this because I’ve read many well-written White Papers that aren’t taking full advantage of the ability to spread through word of mouth.

Try it out and let me know if it works for you.