Advice for 2024: 20 Ideas from 20 of Consumer Crypto’s Best

2023 was… a lot. From historically volatile trading to the implosion of major projects to ongoing legal dramas that stole the headlines, we saw it all.

Still, things are turning around quickly. And with newfound momentum coming into 2024, we asked some of the top voices across crypto what advice they’d give other builders in the space. Here’s what they told us 👇

Focus on Real World Problems

Over and over, we heard from our survey that too many projects had stretched way beyond the purview of everyday users. Instead, builders should be locked-in on creating products that can have an immediate, material impact for people. 

It starts with humility, according to Shannon Snow from World of Women: 

“After a few years of dramatic wins followed by harrowing losses, let’s do what tech should do -- quietly and consistently make lives better. I want a year where we make strides in putting unsexy but necessary records on the blockchain -- such as the program California is testing to electronically exchange car titles to reduce processing time for over 30 million vehicles. Before ChatGPT made headlines, AI was working in the background to make the web more navigable for a decade. Let’s have a year where we stop feeling we need to shout from the rooftops about the benefits of blockchain and instead show clear results, earn trust, and build the backbone of the modern web.”

Similarly, @belikewater893 argues that the “countless fun games and tools you can create with this technology” won’t last “unless they have the purpose of solving real problems.”

Nat Emodi from Highlight told us that “blockchain products don't inherently solve problems; if anything, they have the potential to introduce complexity and confusion relative to workable web2 solutions.” 

Instead, the goal should be finding the “intersection between building something users want and that is uniquely possible with the blockchain. This starts by focusing on use-cases (such as generative art) that are uniquely enabled by the blockchain and provide 10x-better benefits to users than anything possible in web2.”

Break the Old Models

Not everyone agrees that ambitions should be scaled back. In fact, some of those we spoke with said that we should be expanding their horizons, not narrowing them. They argue that existing structures and mental models are limiting potential for innovation. And that the true potential of web3 will rely on systems and concepts not yet in existence. 

Jon Wu from Aztec suggests that builders should “think independently on what you’d like to see. Many projects take as given that we need things like composability, interop, cross chain, MetaMask style transactions— but I think it’s very hard to build something valuable by simply copying what already exists.”

Brian Trunzo from Polygon Labs told us: “Sometimes, people glom on to the latest trend and miss the forest for the trees. Meaning: there were too many folks talking about community, loyalty and generative art during the bull run when they should have been thinking through new primitives and business models. We stifle our own innovation by staying near the surface. Don't fight for innovation dollars from marketing departments but digital transformation dollars from the c-suite.” 

Key to jumpstarting this kind of innovation is to “check your biases”, argued Shawn Cheng from ConsenSys Mesh. “Never stop learning from people that may disagree with your convictions.” 

These kinds of anti-establishment voices are already in crypto, argues David Phelps, Co-Founder of Jokerace – they just need to be given sovereignty. “When you get the best people–the ones who show initiative to solve problems and create opportunities you didn't know you had, i.e. the anti-status quo original-thinkers who are drawn to crypto in the first place—it unleashes their potential.”

Be Patient

Truly transformative progress, however, is usually the result of strategic, long-term thinking. Since Web3 technologies don’t conform to existing infrastructure and principles, large-scale adoption requires time and commitment to new ways of thinking. 

As Jason Ostheimer, Co-Founder of Advancit Capital, puts it: “It's a long journey with a lot of bumps along the way. Builders need to focus on their long-term vision, ignore the noise and maintain conviction.”  

Tara Fung, Co-Founder and CEO at Co:Create also warns about “a lot of noise” in the market. “If you want to stand out, and exist beyond a hype cycle, you need to develop a group of true believers who are with you through thick and thin.” 

Jana Bobosikova further cautions against getting lost in what customers are demanding today: “Adoption flows from creators to products to brands – not the reverse. [This is] super obvious in macro view [but] super easy to miss in the depth of building hardware.”

Brett Shear, Managing Partner at Palm Tree Crew Crypto, had a slightly different take on patience. He argues that founders and investors need to “be less greedy,” as “being greedy is crypto’s biggest downfall. Maybe you're a founder and the market is ripping and people want to invest or make business partnerships; you might think it will last forever and so you pass on those opportunities. Or, you're personally invested in the crypto market and you will see incredible returns, look for signals of greed and remember what amount of returns you would have been happy with when it was a bear market."

Grow the Pie

Others agreed that limiting focus to immediate customer needs and existing audiences preempts an expansion of the industry as a whole. In their eyes, the goal should be bringing more people into the space with transformative products that create new markets.

Simone Berry, Founder of People of Crypto, told us: “Don't build for the 1%, but for the end-users you actually need to scale. Don't build for early adopters, and don't create products that only the technologically savvy can participate in. Focus on creating products and services with broad appeal for a wider audience. Make the technology invisible and prioritize the customer journey.” 

Fonz from tokenproof wants to “increase the crypto consumer base. Targeting only the current crypto-natives is not a TAM that will lead to good results and I look forward to more tools and efforts that allow us to trojan-horse the tech into the general consumer.” 

Sam Ewen at CoinDesk adds: “Most Web3 builders over index on building for the Web3 audience vs building for a general audience. Understand the largest possible markets and build for them, not for those that are biased already to support you. It’s very hard to build a brand for niche audiences.”

…Or Just Dig Deeper

But some disagree – noting that building for a wider, underdeveloped market comes at a serious cost. And resources should be focused on established consumers. 

According to Daisy Alioto, “You can build for early adopters or new adopters – but probably not both at the same time.” 

Amanda Young from Collab+Currency takes it even further and argues that builders should “focus on crypto-natives -- targeting high transaction volume from a small number of users, or mass consumers with a blockchain-abstracted experience.” 

Ridhima Ahuja Kahn at Dapper Labs agrees: “Find product market fit with a golden cohort of your target users before expanding a product. Identify specific metrics for each phase of the product and don’t move to the next until you’ve mastered each stage. Stay disciplined and focused. Product led growth strategies win.”