Weekly: Doing Things Differently, Web3 Product-Market Fit & Tooling

Greetings from Down Under fellow wayfinder! 🇦🇺

Last week, I shared the final installment of my 5-part series around lessons from a "failed" web3 startup. Here's a summary of all five newsletters, with lessons covering multiple areas:

• Part 1-2: Product & Investment

• Part 3: Marketing

• Part 4: Management

• Part 5: Market (Ecosystem)

Today I will summarize what I would've done differently. An essential reflection as we close out 2022.

Let's dive in.

☕️ Reading time: 4 minutes

Doing Things Differently

Now that we've gone through all lessons learned, there are many things I’d do differently. This will be helpful for anyone looking to learn from my mistakes.

The most prominent (for the idea behind Honā) would have to be the following:

• Get to product market fit a lot sooner

• Focus on user growth or monetization upfront (choose one)

• Create or join a community sharing prominent pain points (e.g. on Reddit, Discord, or Slack)

• Oversubscribe an email list before building anything (min. 100 subscribers is enough at the beginning)

• Charge for a set number of pre-orders

• Focus on obsessed users

  • After launching an alpha or beta, focus on power users (the “obsessed”)

  • Setup frequent times to speak with them

  • Incorporate their feedback into the roadmap until enough traction has been hit

Product-Market Fit

There were some specific guides I found that I wish I had access to earlier on, specifically around Product-Market Fit (PMF):

• Christ Cunningham’s strategy

• The PMF Playbook by John Danner

• The Scientific Method to Solving Product Market Fit by Nick Kozmin

Tooling

Another really important area is tooling. The following management tools were what I used after a lot of experimentation, and I highly recommend them:

1. Linear - issue management for agile teams (really well-designed)

2. Notion - all-in-one productivity tool (e.g. tasks, wikis, etc.)

3. Sturrpy - financial modeling for startups

4. Runway - cash planning for startups

5. Cabal - investor communications

6. Intercom - a popular customer support tool

7. Hotjar - heatmaps and behavior insights tracking

Final Remarks

In conclusion, I'd like to point out how much of what I've shared isn't unique to blockchain or Web3. A lot of it is general startup advice and lessons.

What this should tell you is that:

1. Don't be afraid to enter the space

2. Web3 still has a lot of room to grow and mature

3. You don't need to be technically proficient (but it does help)

I hope you've enjoyed the last couple of weeks of lessons. Look out for a blog post soon bringing it all together for easier reference!

Until next time, remember: through patience & persistence, it will come.

GeorgeTwitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Tools

Last week's premium newsletters:

• Daily #165: The Orbit Model (A Community Framework) 

• Daily #164: Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

• Daily #163: What's your focus for 2023?

• Daily #162: Lost Time, DNA & Family

❤️ Loved this content? Get deeper insights about growing one-person businesses, building productive communities in the blockchain space, and applying ancestral wisdom. Click here to upgrade for $10/mo.