What Are the Most Common Mistakes When Creating a White Paper?

PRIMPY
PRIMPY Blog
Published in
5 min readJul 2, 2019

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The white paper term, that is being widely discussed today, is originated from the British expression “white book”. White books were formerly used for political reasons and were delivered to the Parliament by the British government.

However, the modern term “white paper” has no connection to political affairs. Well, it is still the official document, but it is used for the evaluation of a project, service or a product for the IEO (or the Initial Exchange Offering) requirements. More often, the projects that are related to the Blockchain and cryptocurrency take part in the IEO procedure. A white paper comprehensively describes a project, a product or a service to the potential investor so he could provide the objective evaluation of this particular project potential.

The world of the B2B approach actively uses the mentioned potential of a white paper. This tool is easy to distribute and has a high degree of reliability among investors, especially for the crypto industry.

Why White Papers Are Required For the IEO?

Before we start analyzing the errors and the consequences of the incorrectly made white papers, let’s look at the reasons why they are so important for the IEO and investors. In real life, only approximately 10% of the investors read white papers. Not much, right?

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

However, this percentage includes thought leaders and has an impact on the rest crypto-world. If these trendsetters decide that investments to a particular project are worth doing it, the rest market participants will follow them and contribute their financial resources as well.

From the other side, if these influential investors criticize the reviewed white paper, this might adversely affect the project development. So, the creation of an appropriate white paper is an important task, that should be assigned to a reliable technical writer with a strong background in the cryptocurrency area.

What Is the Criterion Of a Well-Prepared White Paper?

The first principle of a well-prepared white paper is that the information should be written in a simple and comprehensible manner. A white paper should contain both financial, commercial and technical aspects. As such information is quite complicated, the document should be perfectly-structured and divided into sections, units and logical paragraphs.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Moreover, some people have a well-developed visual perception, so using charts and graphs might come in handy and increase the chances of getting the development and investments for the project.

The document should be comprehensible from the first sentence, so when an investor reads it, he has no questions and he gets motivated to support the project. In accordance with that, the document should answer the list of the following questions:

  1. What actual problems are aimed to be resolved?
  2. What tools, approaches, and methodologies can be used for these resolutions?
  3. When and how the investments should be done to the product?
  4. Why the project, described in the white paper, uses tokens?
  5. Why these tokens are valuable for investors?
  6. How to distribute the collected funds during the ICO?

Also, a white paper translated into several languages should exist in advance as well in order not to spend a lot of time on communication tasks.

What Are the Most Commonly Encountered Mistakes When Creating a White Paper From Scratch?

So, let’s stop beating around the bush and learn the mistakes that should be avoided when creating white papers:

1. Don’t make your white paper to become overly promotional. Hopefully, a white paper is not a direct sales pitch. The first designation of the document is to aid the reader to obtain the idea of the project and become interested in it. So, don’t place the promotion of the product at the beginning, stressing the potential investor with the promo campaign. Pack it with value and establish a reliable connection in your white paper.

2. Avoid the low-quality research of the described subject. Always remember about being authoritative and don’t be afraid of the spent time, required for the qualitative analysis of the topic. Use only solid data and reliable evidence.

3. Neglecting the design is one of the biggest mistakes in a white paper creation. Even if the content is just perfect, but with the poor design of a white paper your project might be treated incorrectly.

4. Storytelling is not the proper choice for white paper writing style. Only facts and verified information should be included so to keep the readers be interested until the end of the document. Businessmen don’t waste time in vain for unnecessary information.

5. Don’t make it too abstract. Having no examples of the practical application of your project might lead to some pitfalls when the potential stakeholders get the initial ideas wrong as they are not disclosed on the practical level.

6. The bulky text is not readable and therefore might be irritating. Concrete explanations, direct conclusions may save and develop your business.

7. Non-responsive design: honestly speaking a lot of business affairs are being resolved using a smartphone. Take care of your potential investors and before offering them a white paper, verify your white paper mark-up in several commonly used browsers. The content should be adapted and displayed properly: a white paper is your calling card.

Well, now you know all the secrets of how a proper white paper shouldn’t and should be created. Not that easy as at first glance, is it? However, possible. The absence of the mistakes in a white paper doesn’t guarantee the success of your business, but the potential is promising!

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PRIMPY
PRIMPY Blog

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