5 EthCC Takeaways on Establishing Token Engineering at Your Startup
This year’s EthCC conference will go down in history for the rapidly-evolving token engineering discipline. For the first time, Token Engineering Academy hosted an entire stage day dedicated exclusively to sharing the latest developments in the space. The day’s program focused on a maker perspective: showcasing how token design, verification, and optimization can be put into practice.
One of the panels that best captured the essence of this focus was “Establishing Token Engineering at your Startup,” featuring speakers Tom Mellan, Research Scientist at CryptoEconLab, and Lukasz Szymanski, Founder of Tokenomia.pro, moderated by Angela Kreitenweis, Founder of Token Engineering Academy.
Together, the group discussed the different approaches and ways startups can establish their token engineering practices. We’re sharing the five top takeaways in the article below. Check them out and share them with the startup founders in your network! Watch the full EthCC Token Engineering Track playlist on YouTube for further learnings and observations.
When deciding between hiring an external team or building an internal one for a startup’s token engineering needs, the answer is: it depends.
Lukasz and Tom agreed that there are several factors for startups to consider when evaluating next steps from a token engineering perspective. Generally, teams need to consider their knowledge of token engineering to inform what they’re looking for. Lukasz’s experience has been that most projects don’t know what they want to achieve at first glance, which is why Tokenomia.pro has included a discovery phase as a part of their packages offered to new clients, while other teams like CryptoEconLab require teams to clearly articulate their idea of utility and what they are trying to maximize in a project. Startup teams must also consider their progress in finding product-market fit to secure funding, as undertaking token engineering projects — internally or externally — can be costly. For teams still working on these aspects, Lukasz recommends engaging an external token engineering services provider who can transfer the project knowledge to your internal team once you have the resources to embark on building an internal team. Tom agreed that for research teams with the budget, the preferred way is to build a team from scratch, assuming that you already have staff knowledgeable about the space.
There is no “one size fits all” approach to establishing token engineering projects
Every startup’s token engineering project set-up and execution will look different. External service providers like Tokenomia.pro and CryptoEconLab have developed phases to establish token engineering project collaborations. Lukasz shared that Tokenomia.pro takes a 3-step approach, focusing first on a discovery phase, where the system requirements are discussed and outlined in a model design document, followed by a modeling stage dedicated to testing assumptions and verifying modeling outcomes, before the third and final step of running simulations to answer the questions raised in the developed model design document in the first phase. He mentioned that while this is the approach they usually take, projects must always be ready because they may have to switch between phases if they want to test more assumptions or take the simulations further, which requires additional estimates and testing.
Tom shared that project scopes vary from internal to external advisory projects. Founded as a Protocol Labs research arm, CryptoEconLab serves both projects in their internal Filecoin ecosystem and external customers. Their approach includes steps such as sourcing and meeting clients, followed by client onboarding, due diligence, and project scoping. Following this, the team comes up with a pricing proposal. Once approved, a project can take anywhere from one to six months and be enacted under a permanent retainer structure or shorter-term engagements.
Avoid underestimating the scope and timeline of your first token engineering project — both with external service teams and internal teams
Since token engineering and its many associated fields are still rapidly emerging, it’s not uncommon for teams and service providers to underestimate projects’ scopes and timelines. This is especially common for projects focused on hiring and developing an internal token engineering team with experts who have a lot of potential but lack experience in this young field.
Balance technological knowledge with communication skills when hiring a token engineering team
Modeling and simulation skills are not enough when it comes to hiring token engineering talent. The super skill is communication. According to Lukasz, today’s token engineers need to be able to translate the complexity of the discipline to a potential client in “human language.” While it’s critical to find talent that can understand the projects’ technical mechanisms, he suggests focusing on talent that can both understand the technicalities and translate them effectively to the receiving parties.
Dedicate time to get familiar with the typical token engineering process and tool stack.
Token engineering work stands apart from software development and product design. Any founding team must grasp the token design process, involving discovery, design, and deployment phases. Familiarizing oneself with the token design process and tech stack is essential for two reasons. First, the efforts of token engineers must align with a project’s strategy, legal requirements, product roadmap, and smart contract development. Second, token engineering doesn’t happen in isolation. Instead, it must be integrated into a project’s roadmap. TE Academy’s TE Fundamentals course provides a great way to learn and understand the token engineering process. It is regularly recommended for crypto projects as a reference point when steering the process and collaborating with token engineering experts.
Tokenomia.pro is a leading web3 token engineering consulting firm dedicated to helping businesses design, develop, and optimize token-based systems for the decentralized world. Their multidisciplinary team of experts combines knowledge in computer science, economics, game theory, and complex systems to create sustainable and robust token economies tailored to their clients’ unique needs. Subscribe to their newsletter and follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn.
CryptoEconLab is a collective of economic research scientists unlocking crypto’s economic challenges. Their team is focused on fostering exponential growth for premier ecosystems, protocols, foundations, and DAOs through economic research, design, and modeling solutions. Follow them on Twitter and LinkedIn to learn more.
Sign up to #TEWeeklyReads and follow TE Academy on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Medium for more token engineering thought leadership content and events with leading partners in the space like CryptoEconLab and Tokenomia.pro.
