The Game of Web3 Onboarding Thrones
"If they come, you will build it."
Welcome to Immersion — your gateway to the new Exponential Age. Written with love for the multiverse creators, AR/VR architects, blockchain developers, crypto investors and web3 visionaries of the world.
Time is opportunity, so let's dive in.
Web3 x Onboarding.
[•] What's the hottest trend in crypto today, you ask? Is it DeFi? DApps? NFTs? ZK-rollups? All of them are great answers, but there is another area of interest that has attracted an inordinate amount of attention by new projects, even when not explicitly stated: onboarding new users and helping them make the jump from web2 to web3.
Communities in web3: “If they come, you will build it.”
A frequent problem encountered by products and startups generally as they grow is the misconception that “if you build it, they will come.” Many great companies led by ultra-smart builders ended up in the graveyard of technological innovation exactly because they were too focused on the great tech they were developing and paid too little attention to their end-users and beachhead market. This is why the concepts of Go-To-Market (GTM) and Product-Market-Fit (PMF) became such important driving forces of growth-enabling strategies during the web1 and web2 eras. It is not enough for a company to build a great product or service. It has to bring it effectively to the market as well.
Much of the web3 space today inverts this old adage, turning it on its head and rephrasing it as “if they come, you will build it.” The focus has now shifted towards building up the community aspect and enabling the funnel of new users from the get-go, even before an idea has reached a product-ready form. The critical aspect of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has given way to that of a Minimum Viable Community (MVC). “Hype” is the base layer of the new growth locomotive.
While this strategy can often be quite haphazard (and has led to many projects shooting up to the stars and blowing up like fireworks shortly thereafter), I think there are two interesting, non-obvious lessons to be drawn from it.
The focus on community helps partially solve the "chicken-and-egg” problem of network effects, often prevalent in online platforms. While allowing users to obtain an early stake in a pool of tokenized assets definitely helps crypto projects grow, many web3 communities today have grown quickly without having to necessarily rely on such a promise to their members. This is because many users appreciate the intentional coalescence of likeminded people with common interests that they typically find in these communities, as well as the decentralized nature of their interactions in them.
Bringing in knowledgeable and super interested users very early on can help improve the product (and team) itself. Initial power-users do not only act as champions of the community, inside and outside of it; they also bring a wealth of knowledge and deep interest in the space, which can often translate into quick product improvements thanks to their suggestions and contributions. Some of them become eager test users (even when projects are in super early alpha versions), others turn into dependable open-source contributors on an ad-hoc basis, while few also end up joining these teams full-time. DAO-based tools (mostly through Discord) have really helped on this front.
This is why community growth has become so important, with new projects paying 6-figure salaries for discord management experts and social media meme-lords. But harnessing the power of communities and creating the right vibes for decentralized socialization is only part of the equation — the part that speaks chiefly to those already initiated in web3. Another key component is catering to the increasing number of “newbies” interested in the space, making it easy for them to enter and finding ways to iteratively induct them to a mode of thinking that has already become second nature to more sophisticated users.
Web3 onboarding: “Dear new cryptonauts, allow us to onboard you.”
"Web3 onboarding” has become a dominant catch-all phrase for a combination of marketing, community and growth efforts in the space and a critical part of the new user acquisition funnel. It has become a vital and explicit strategic goal for projects aiming to become the foundational entry points for new users in crypto (including large companies, such as Binance and Coinbase), as well as an implicit secondary objective for many protocols building their own ecosystems and startups working on the infrastructure level.
This makes perfect sense. People interested in participating in web3 need to get familiar with the idiosyncratic logic of the space. On top of that, time in crypto seems to move much faster than in many other industries. People are quickly thrown into a mess of new terms, systems and protocols that are in constant flux. New projects are popping up every day and older ones disappearing overnight. The kingly protocols of today are the jester bygones of tomorrow.
For new users (creators and fans alike), this typically means having to learn an unfamiliar crypto-oriented lingo and blockchain-based modus operandi quickly, both of which can seem very esoteric at first. For developers and builders of new projects, this extends to becoming immersed in high-level cryptographic primers, new programming rulebooks and continuously-changing development toolkits.
The more that people learn and the faster they become crypto natives, the deeper they will dive into the web3 rabbit hole.
Top projects working at the intersection of web3 x onboarding.
Having touched on the community aspect and the importance of onboarding in web3, let us now turn our eye to some interesting projects in the domain. These range from startups working on web3 credentialization, curation of content and developer on-ramps, to Learn-to-Earn (L2E) and Play-to-Earn (P2E) projects, DAOs focused on web3 learning, as well as crypto education platforms.
This list is only indicative of the promising work done today in the space and is by no means exhaustive. However, it should serve as a good starting point for anyone eager to learn more about the range of tools and applications being developed.
There are 8 projects that I particularly like (flagged with a ⭐ in the list above):
The Game of Web3 Onboarding Thrones (minus the Red Wedding)
While competition is picking up between projects trying to become the new entry point for web3, the symbiotic relationship of many of them and their common goal of increasing the number of users (and volume of activities) for everyone in the space ensures that there is a lot of room for cooperation as well.
Most users do not just use one of these products when trying to immerse themselves in web3, but a combination of them. This is exactly why partnerships between them, as well as with established infrastructure/protocol players, are so common. Everyone gains by a greater pool of experienced web3 aficionados and cryptonauts. New users win too, as they have more options to choose from and leverage for their learning.
A "winner-take-all” strategy might be hard to prevail today, but that does not mean it will not emerge in the near future, as one of these players — or, even a new one — ends up creating a seamless, comprehensive, fun and overly gamified onboarding experience for new users.
Until then, it will be very interesting to see how the space evolves!
Media Watch Post.
TIME featured Ethereum's co-founder Vitalik Buterin on its cover. WAPO writes that Ukraine is a big moment for crypto, but not for the reasons its’ promoters think. Business Insider had one reporter buy a cartoon pig NFT on OpenSea. CNET says that the Metaverse will be a multi-platform mess. CNBC writes that Britain will reveal crypto regulation plans in coming weeks, but crypto firms face being booted from the UK as a key deadline approaches. Bloomberg argues that Web3 will take several years to go mainstream. Yahoo reports that a crypto “Robin Hood” stole $50M they say will be donated to charity, but the victims just want their money back. NYT claims that everyone has crypto FOMO, but questions whether crypto belongs in everyone's portfolio. Fortune writes about the upcoming merge in Ethereum. MIT Technology Review talks about Ethereum switching to PoS.
Hidden Gems.
3️⃣ Web3 is centralized (and inefficient). A(nother) critique on Web3 arguing that it is in fact not only as centralized as Web2, but also a worse version of it. What say you?
3️⃣ The Prosumer Metaverse. Vassilis Tziokas wrote a very interesting post on web3 tech and enterprise blockchain frameworks, demystifying the "prosumer metaverse."
3️⃣ Creating a lasting Growth strategy for Web3. Great post by Matias Honorato unpacking current Web2 growth models and how they can be applied in Web3.
⛓️ Crypto in the EU. EU MEPs agreed on draft new rules to boost benefits and curb threats of crypto assets. Fun fact: they particularly call out the video game industry.
⛓️ 11 tips to avoid Crypto Startup Legal Pitfalls. Lindsay X. Lin (Counsel & Partner at Dragonfly Capital) breaks down the noise around crypto law with some great advice.
👨👨👦👦 DAOs and Decentralized Legal Structures - 101. Superb deep-dive by Leo Lucisano at Decentral Park Capital on the legal aspects of DAO-making.
👨👨👦👦 Can we do better this time? George Zarkadakis explores how DAOs can be augmented to become a more widely adopted governance layer for the Metaverse.
👨👨👦👦 Disclosure NFTs, DAOs and DIDs. Prof. Chris Brummer introduces some new concepts for building out disclosure delivery systems native to the crypto ecosystem.
🔮 Narrative and Metaverse. A spectacular essay on the metaverse, language, symbolic meaning and narrative building in Ben Hunt's Epsilon Theory.
🎮 3️⃣ Examination of web3 gaming 'guilds. A quick overview of how web3 gaming guilds work today and how they should work, by Derek Lau.
📕 An intro to on-chain fundamental analysis. Great overview by Christine Kim on the many ways on-chain data can be used for fundamental analysis of crypto assets.
📕 Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. The OECD published a public consultation document concerning a new global tax transparency framework for crypto assets.
📕 IOSCO DeFi Report. Very interesting report on what the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) thinks about the DeFi space.
Top Finds.
★ [Blockchain] Sui (permissionless Layer 1 blockchain); Polyweave (APIs for Contextual Blockchain Data)
★ [Web3] Ice Vision (visual transaction analysis tool); White Room (digital archive for fashion collectors); Huddle01 (web3 native zoom for DAOs)
★ [Metaverse] Voltaku (real-time studio built for the web3 world)
Disclaimer: Nothing written in this newsletter is in any shape or form investment advice. Content is for informational purposes and only reflects the views of its author, if at best.
Create your profile
Only paid subscribers can comment on this post
Check your email
For your security, we need to re-authenticate you.
Click the link we sent to , or click here to sign in.