Overcome ignorance debt and learn to value distribution
The most expensive mistake you'll make as a Founder
Ignorance debt is the price you pay for not knowing.
The most common form of ignorance debt for crypto Founders is undervaluing distribution.
If that’s you, my goal with this newsletter is to explain why it’s happening, how to snap out of it and what to do.
Is this you?
The signs of ignoring distribution surface in the language people use to describe their company. Here are some I've heard just this month:
“My product didn't win because the other Founder had 20,000 Twitter followers”
“We just need to find a couple more customers to validate the product”
“The product is not ready yet to discuss with customers, but we’ll launch in 3 months”
"We are building in stealth right now”
“I'm not good at sales so I'm focusing on product”
“Distribution would take too much effort right now and be a distraction”
How did this happen
In fact, the stereotypical Founder is even more prone to these false beliefs.
Here's how:
Ivy League education → “selling/content is going to reduce my status”
Ex-product/engineering background → “product is everything”
Reads Hacker News and Product Hunt → “I'm 1 hackathon/week-end away from a successful product”
Reads biographies of 90s Founders → “they didn't have social media to waste time with”
Watches YCombinator talks → “first you don't have it, then Product Market Fit hits you in the face all at once, keep going with what you're doing”
Gets advice mainly from VCs who are incentivized to be your distribution → “Founders shouldn't be tweeting”
Trust me, I know, because I suffered from all of above.
Distribution does matter.
It gives you a steady flow of customers, advisers, collaborators and hires.
It makes your business significantly more predictable.
It makes your product better and simpler.
Here’s how you can get started with building distribution.
Describe your target customer and find where they hang out
You should already be able to describe your customer but if not, don't worry on getting it perfect.
As we start to generate attention and getting feedback, you’ll quickly refine the target persona.
Don’t worry about being too narrow either. It's best to start narrow to appeal more strongly to your target customer.
My version:
Ambitious Seed stage crypto Founder
Raised from a reputable firm / building an interesting product
Prefers building a revenue generating product to just launching a token
Wants to get to Product Market Fit quickly
Hangs out on Twitter and Discord, listens to crypto podcasts, reads newsletters, attends conferences
Build your Dream 100 list
The “Dream 100” is a concept introduced in the Ultimate Sales Machine.
These are the 100 people on your platform that currently own your customer's attention.
If you get to know them, you’ll be in a great position to present your product.
Establishing the Dream 100 list doesn't just give you a good sense of who you'd like to get to know on the platform, observing how they attract their audience will give you content ideas (just don't copy their content directly).
My version:
Various crypto influencers on Twitter, especially Venture Capitalists, Developer Relations, Builders that attract the attention of Founders
Stored in a private Twitter list
Define an offer you could present to them right now
If your product is live and launched – it’s easy – you want them to sign-up.
If you don't have a product yet, your temptation may be to get to “pick their brain” with nothing to offer in return.
It's much better to offer something of value instead.
They may be more inclined to look at a Figma prototype that could solve their problem down the road.
This is also an offer: get an Amazon voucher for spending 30 minutes with us and giving us feedback.
You could also want them to try out your open source project, read your e-book, attend your meet-up, etc.
The main idea here is that there are many ways to deliver an exchange of value even before you have launched a product.
The more people you drive to your offer, the better you’ll get and the more you’ll have them primed to check out your product when it launches.
My version:
I help Seed stage crypto Founders get to Product Market Fit
We’ll identify what’s holding you back across engineering + product + distribution
Then we’ll create a PMF engine and start running it immediately
[While you're here – respond to this e-mail with “PMF” to start a conversation]
Tell your story in a way that resonates with the customer
The way you can position changes whether your customers are on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Discord or in other places.
For the sake of simplicity, we’ll look at Twitter as this is where people make the most mistakes.
If you are a Founder in the Health care space, don't expect to win customers by sharing content for other Founders.
But you also don't need to lie and portray yourself as a Health care industry veteran to get your customers’ attention.
Tweak your messaging so that your experience resonates with your customer and their journey.
For example: “Founder of StartupCo. Helping health care providers worth $1B+ leverage AI for compliance. Sharing lessons about responsible use of AI in healthcare.”
That’s all you need to start.
My version:
Side note: my profile could still be a lot more specific. Working on it now.
Build a system to get their attention
Now that you have an offer that's valuable for your business and you've positioned yourself to be relevant for your customer, it’s time to start driving people towards the offer.
A system is a regular set of activities done by you or by tools that make progress of moving people towards your offer.
You don't need a perfect system to start and there are platform-specific guidelines and tricks for these that you’ll discover over time.
The most important thing is consistency (which helps algorithms promote you and improves your skills) and efficiency (having a system means you can start using tools to create leverage for your team).
The two combined lead to predictability.
My version:
1 newsletter a week (mention the offer here)
2 threads a week
3 tweets a day
30 minutes of commenting / DMs per day (mention the offer if it’s relevant)
Looking back at what resonated weekly
Be a human being
Finally, while it’s tempting to think that customers will come knocking on your door, that’s not really how it works.
This approach only leads to results if you enjoy being around your customers and getting to know them.
The key is the networking you’ll do behind the scenes with other people on the platform whether they are customers, peers or mentors.
Need help building a crypto product?
→ Twitter: Follow me for more frequent & casual insights on the crypto industry.
→ Need an advisor?: I help Seed stage crypto Founders get to Product Market Fit with proven systems. Respond to this e-mail with “Product Market Fit” to start a conversation or click on “Need an advisor” to jump on a free discovery call.
