Web3 vs Web3-Powered
Discover more from Inside Web3 │ By Julian Ivaldy
What's up insiders! I hope you are all doing great.
I can't believe it’s already Q2 2023... Time flies 🤯
I'm really happy to write this new edition! It's been three months since my last edition. As mentioned in the last edition, I've moved from a weekly newsletter to an occasional newsletter.
In this edition, I'll share some practical tips for Web3 entrepreneurs looking to build successful businesses in this space. I also have some exciting news about Mobula and what we have been doing behind the scenes. Finally, I'll talk about the concept of "Web3-powered" and its importance to Web3 builders.
The bear market has cleaned up the crypto & Web3 industry. I have seen two types of entrepreneurs & builders who continue to grow despite the bear:
1/ Those who act fast - They follow trends, create products that capture traffic, gain traction, and monetize them through a token/business model.
2/ Those who take a Web3-Powered approach - They don't develop a Web3 project just for the sake of it but rather develop a solution to a problem and use Web3 to improve their solution.
Concretely, today we still see cryptocurrencies launched daily that follow trends and take important market shares. We can take the example of all the AI-related crypto with bootstrapped cryptos like Crypto AI or VC-funded cryptos like Crypto GPT.
But we also see projects that continue to build and expand their use and ecosystem despite market conditions. This is the case with Mobula.
So you have to decide which game you want to play and ask yourself if you are the right person.
If you're playing the speed game, you need to be able to be the fastest, have the most & best contacts (or at least a few), and have the least friction throughout the project creation chain.
Suppose you play the game of the ambitious long-term project, web3-powered. In that case, you must quickly validate the interest of your solution, federate a real committed community, and not let yourself be distracted by the market.
Quick news about Mobula:
1/ The community is on-fire 🔥
We are starting to have a strong & committed community who understand and support the movement & fight for better transparency in the crypto ecosystem.
An example of the strength of this community: The Twitter raids
When we want to share a message, we are not 7 from the core team, but about 1000 (10% of our community) to follow. This allowed us, for example, to welcome many Nomics API customers into our ecosystem after the announcement of their closure - and the Twitter raid we organized to talk about the Mobula alternative. BTW, you can check out the Mobula APIs here
2/ We build strong 💪
Judge by yourself - whether it's improving the flow of basic features to make it frictionless or adding new possibilities never seen before. We're starting to have a product that makes everyone proud.
I think the main learning from this quarter was to focus on the key features already starting to be used - and to stop spreading ourselves thin on additional features. Ship light has limits, especially when your key features are imperfect.
The other good news is that the app's traction remains strong, with +160,000 wallet-connected users, +60,000 monthly active users, 70% 28-day retention, and an average monthly active user growth of 10% 🤯.
3/ The lab has decided to raise funds from the community 📭
Mobula is co-created by the company Mobula Labs. From the beginning, usage traction has been more important than revenue traction. While Mobula is currently generating revenue from the protocol & paid listing), it is not generating enough to provide financial support to Mobula Labs to sustain development.
To maintain the project's independence and not rush the monetization stage, Mobula Labs has therefore organized the sale of (future) Mobula tokens to the community members who have been around the project since the beginning. The fundraising is in its final phase and is approaching $1M.
You know all now :)
Feel free to visit the Telegram & Discord community.
Web3 vs Web3-Powered
Building a Web3-powered company means using Web3 technologies to improve an existing business model or solve a real market problem. It's about leveraging the capabilities of Web3 technologies, such as decentralized networks, smart contracts, and tokenization, to create new and innovative solutions that generate real value for the user.
On the other hand, we still see a lot of entrepreneurs launching Web3 companies, with Web3 positioning as the only added value. We must first see if this is applied (Shared governance? Real community? Redistributive business models?) or just used as marketing. In general, it's not enough in most cases. Building a Web3 business just for the sake of it may not be sustainable in the long run.
So do not fall into the trap. The best way to start a company in Web3 is to learn deeply about the Web3 ecosystem & technologies (blockchain, crypto, tokenization, etc.), understand their values, and link a real market problem with a solution optimized by Web3 technologies.
This is also why many successful Web3 entrepreneurs are not Web3 aficionados at the beginning of their journey - but rather enthusiasts of a particular industry with a problem they have decided to best solve with Web3 technologies.