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hi
been heads down on something new. wanted to share some thoughts on building for creators and consumers in crypto the past ~3yrs
there's roughly 10k (+/- 5k) real monthly transacting users in consumer crypto and their desire for new metas is insatiable
for builders, this presents two possible outcomes:
1) (default) you build a thing and no one cares. no one uses it
2) you build a thing and it becomes a meta (hypersub experienced this briefly). people use it for a little while but eventually get bored. a new meta emerges and everyone moves on
from here your options are:
3) go back to the drawing board
4) chase the new meta
gaining traction is really hard and most builders don't want to give it up. so most chase, hoping their thing will eventually transcend the cycle and achieve breakout success by gaining adoption among a wider audience
but outside of infra and trading, thats never happened. (fun thought experiments: why not? will it ever? if so, what are likely to be the causal factors?)
so—
5) you can stay the course, keep grinding, and hope that the castle you've been building in someone else's kingdom eventually prospers
or
6) exit
5 leads to burnout if you're bootstrapped and bankruptcy if you're vc-backed. hope is not a strategy (sorry)
you can exit to a categorically different market, or to a different segment of crypto. the former likely means ai, the later means infra or trading. the problem is that you're late. the market has matured, incumbents have a lot of leverage, and its hard to differentiate
we don't bear the risks and opportunity costs of becoming founders so that other men will come to our rescue. we do it because of an irrational belief in our own abilities. my advice: build where there's durable demand. sans infinite runway or corporate sponsorship you'll die otherwise
i realize this sounds negative and pessimistic. sorry about that, not my intention. this message is for the builders who are trying to figure out where to invest their time and energy. its what i wish someone shared with me when i started
if you're a founder and struggling with figuring out where and what to do next, hmu happy to share more 1:1
rooting for every single one of you 💛
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