Ani Alexander

Human marketing for tech startups

Blockchain Mass Adoption: What Are The Main Blockers?

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Let’s talk today about the mass adoption of the blockchain

It’s something that people in this sphere are looking forward to. We really would love that to happen. And obviously, we would love that to happen soon. 

Is it going to happen soon or not? 

That’s a big question actually. And I think it highly depends on how things go.

But at the moment there are a few things that I think we have to address and look into. Those are going to impact the speed of the adoption. 

Which are the issues? 

To be fair, I’ve been in this space for a bit over three years and I thought that it was going to happen but now when I’m revisiting and looking at things and seeing how things are done, I’m not so sure that it’s going to be happening as soon as I thought it would.

I see several things that are done at the moment.

I’m looking at this from the non-tech perspective, from the human side of it and I am representing the masses. I’m putting myself in the shoes of the masses that are supposed to adopt the blockchain.

So where are the problems?

First of all the masses and the blockchain needs a bridge. 

The bridge is basically all these projects that are creating some things people. 

Let’s look at what’s happened on that side.

I may say something very obvious, but I feel like some need to hear this.

Not only the projects that are creating services and products need to make sure that they are actually solving a problem, which NOT always is the case. 

Blockchain startups need not ONLY to solve a problem but solve a problem that MASSES have.
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Because very often, even when the blockchain projects are solving a problem, they are solving a problem for a very niche market for, for themselves, for tech people, for blockchain enthusiasts, crypto people, but NOT for the masses.

So what happens when you are solving a problem that is very niche and it’s a niche within the blockchain already? 

If you are solving a problem that blockchain people have, then that’s who are going to adopt your solution.  And the adoption probably will not go beyond that niche. 

The easiest and fastest way to contribute to mass adoption would be trying to solve a problem that non-crypto people have, that people who don’t care or are not very inspired by blockchain technology have and solve it for them.

And make sure that when you solve that problem, you create the tools and the bridges that are very easy for the non-crypto people to cross. 

That’s where another problem is lying.

The problem comes from the fact that most of the blockchain founders are absolutely in love with the technology and are focused on building the tech. 

But when you are stuck in the technology sphere, when you talk only to other founders, when you talk only about the tech, you end up becoming isolated and detached from the non-tech crowds, right?

So the more detached you get, the less you understand what their needs are, what their desires are, what they are looking for, and what their problems are. 

As a result, you won’t even be able to come up with a solution to a problem that they have, because most probably you won’t even know what their problems are. 

The deeper you get into the tech and the more isolated you become the bigger will become the gap between the masses and yourself. 
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And then the harder it will be to build those bridges between the two. 

So don’t get stuck and don’t talk only to people in your field.

Get out there and go broader and talk to more people, understand what’s going on in the world. 

The world doesn’t rotate around blockchain. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, not everyone is as inspired by the tech and as excited about blockchain as you are. 

Another thing is the language: the language that you use.

For example, I’m originally from Armenia and Armenian is my mother tongue. So imagine if I didn’t speak English and I did this podcast in Armenian. 

I’m sure that no one would listen. No one would understand and there would be no engagement and whatever I’m telling you would be completely lost in translation.

That’s, what’s happening very often with projects. 

They are so obsessed with the tech and use all these tech terms. They forget sometimes that the masses who are supposed to adopt that technology, have no clue what they’re talking about.

These days, people are leading in a hectic world. They are busy. They are running around and their attention span is very short.

If you bet that this person is going to be so curious that he’s going to go and start digging and looking into the terms and trying to understand what those mean, it’s not going to happen.

It’s just not how life works. No one is going to do that. 

Just a simple example is the website copy…

I go to the website and sometimes I read the whole page and I still have no clue what the project is about. I still have no clue what’s the offering, which means that I don’t even know whether it’s for me or not.

And I spend the time going over it. 

Not everyone is going to spend this time and try to read the whole thing. 

All they will do is just skip it and move on. 

So that’s another thing that is not very complex. Just pay attention to who you’re talking to and what are you saying. 

People can't get excited about something they don't understand.
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Usually, something that is unclear seems complex. It scares you and it makes you avoid it altogether. It just makes you think that it’s probably not for you and you just move on. 

Let’s get to another reason that the masses don’t adopt blockchain. 

Very often blockchain projects bet on the fact that people are going to change their lifestyles.

We talk about mass adoption through education. 

More clear and more simple materials for non-techie people to learn about blockchain and how things work is very useful obviously.

But what we don’t understand is that most of the people actually are not really going to want to learn about the tech behind it. 

They just don’t want to spend the time and effort to learn this – and they don’t need to!

Most of people probably will prefer to watch something on Netflix instead of going and reading a book about blockchain or watching a video about blockchain. Let’s be realistic about it. 

So the educational route is betting on the fact that the people will be so intrigued and so curious that they’re going to go out there and spend time and effort to learn about it. Sorry to shatter your illusions but is NOT going to be the case. 

The other problem is that all the solutions usually include a learning curve and there are loads of barriers to entry for masses. 

Even a simple thing, like opening a crypto wallet is not a straightforward process. Things are not so simple. So people will have to put extra effort in order to try things out.

We need more effortless and simpler solutions, just a few clicks, very easy, not scary, nothing risky kind of thing that is going to make people use the thing without realizing that they are using blockchain and without needing to know how it works.

When I’m sending an email I don’t care how that email got from my inbox to your inbox.  I care about how long it takes and that my message actually gets into your inbox and that it took me just a few clicks. And it was very simple. That’s all I care about. 

So what technology is underneath it – I don’t care. All I care about is how easy for me it is to use and how well it works.

And the problem now is that there are very few blockchain projects that have come out with mass appeal products that are also easy to use.

One of the examples that I’m always giving, because I use that on a daily basis is the Brave browser. And that is why it has millions of users, because I don’t need to know about tech in order to use the Brave browser. I don’t need to change my lifestyle or habits or learn something new in order to be able to use that browser because I use it as any other browser. So there is no rocket science behind it to learn and that’s the way to go.

Back in 2017, during the ICO, boom, the communities were mainly about communities, token buyers, right? 

But masses are not token holders. They are not token traders.

They don’t participate in any other kinds of tokenized crowdfunding mechanisms. 

So, what if you want to reach mass adoption as a B2C project?

What you have to build is NOT a community of token buyers, but a community of your FUTURE USERS. 

So I guess what one needs to consider while building their blockchain startup is – stepping out of the blockchain bubble and become non-crypto customer-centric… and then maybe, the mass adoption process will move faster.

How Do You Make Your Blockchain Startup Marketing Decisions?

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Today what I want to talk to you about is who should influence your marketing decisions. 

How to approach your your blockchain startup marketing decision making?

What is that one thing that is very important to take into account and why?

I feel like there are many things that are going wrong, if you don’t really have the right mindset into place. 

So what I’m talking about today is your user, whoever you are building, whatever your startup is building for.

So why is it so important? 

It’s important because many blockchain founders think that they ARE their customer so they are building things for THEMSELVES.

But it’s not always the case.

And if your customer profile is DIFFERENT from yours, then whether you like your marketing ideas or not is completely IRRELEVANT.

It’s very important to know who you are building the thing for and who is going to be your user, because the better you know that users, the better you will know how to approach them and how to attract them and how to make them actually want to use your product. 

So that’s the most important thing that you should focus on.

Very often we have this common mistake of who blockchain startups are marketing to. 

Startups’ budgets are limited.

Most probably you don’t have too much money to spend on marketing, which means that you have to be very strategic in terms of where you spend that money, how do you spend the money and how do you make sure that the money brings the right ROI and that your funds have been spent efficiently. Especially in the blockchain space where everything is quite expensive.

Very often blockchain founders make different marketing efforts and spend money on things that they shouldn’t spend money on at all.

Think if you are reaching your potential future users with those activities.

Are you making sure that the future potential users are the ones who see the advertising, who listen to the influencer or who hear your speech at an event?

If the answer is NO. Then no matter how amazing that activity sounds like, no matter how good it seems, it’s just going to be USELESS. 

So that is why the exercise of understanding who is your user is important.

And I’m not only talking about the demographics of that persona, but also the psychographics of that persona.

What are their problems? What are they looking for? Where do they get their information? What topics are they interested in? 

And then the more you know about that person, the better you will know how to reach them. 

So when I’m talking about mistakes let me give you one example from my past experiences during the ICO times.

I’m sure you remember that many blockchain projects were spending tons of money on road shows and speaking at different conferences and events, and also on getting booths and sponsorships for those big conferences.

I was among very few who was really against that whole idea and thought that amount of money was not worth spending and that it was something that shouldn’t really have been done at all for the ICO marketing. 

And let me explain why.

ICO marketing was targeting the token buyers, right? 

So all the marketing efforts were basically targeting these people to make sure that they find out about your project and trust the project enough to want to buy your tokens.

What happens when you are going to these road shows and to places like that?

I don’t know if back then you’ve been to any of these conferences, but there were no token buyers on those events.

Most of the startups founders spent tons of money, plus the travel and accommodation and everything else to go to an event where they were going to speak in front of the audience, which was completely IRRELEVANT and who were not going to buy their tokens.

So who were in their audience? 

The companies like theirs who were initiating ICOs (in some cases even competitors). Also there were companies who were there to pitch startups like yours different services, such as ICO marketing or PR services.

So that was the main audience. Those were the people you were trying to impress. 

Were these people going to buy your token?

NO.

Were these people going to be excited enough to go out there and talk about your project and promote it to others? 

NO.

Was it worth the money? 

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

What we did instead when, when I was doing, ICO marketing I was trying to figure out just the opposite.

Okay, at these big conferences, they were not talking buyers…. So where were they? 

So I realized that they were in different small meetups. There were tons of different meetups all over the world, in different cities. They were very small – about a hundred people each but ALL  hundred people were potentially token buyers. 

So even if 10 people out of these hundred were going to buy your token based on what they heard during your speech, it still was going to be way better than the road shows and big conferences.

And guess what? 

It was all FREE. 

So all you were investing was your time and energy and and preparation of this pitch, basically and it was free and it was way more beneficial and the conversion was amazing.

So think of it from that perspective. 

Blockchain startup founders are trying to impress the competitors, trying to impress the people in the space.

You are trying to convince the people that you don’t really need as users or customers.

So who should drive your decisions in marketing?  

Your future user! 

Every time you’re thinking about different initiatives and activities and revising the budgets and making decisions about whether you should do something or not – remember about your user.

Your marketing should be customer centric. 

So always remember the customer. Always put him in the center of your decision making. 

When many say blockchain marketing, they think about actually marketing to blockchain people and the cryptosphere. 

And what happens very often. They think that just because they have a token or use blockchain they need to market to the crypto audience. 

But guess what? 

If your end user is not the crypto audience, then crypto influencers are irrelevant because you’re going to get loads of coverage, but you’re going to get coverage among the crypto (irrelevant) crowd.

If the crypto crowd or crypto person is not your ideal user base or your ideal user persona, then no matter how many people will see the YouTube review it won’t really matter. 

I mean, who cares? 

So please think about, are you who you are providing a solution for? Who are you going to try to acquire once your product or service is out there and where are those people.

Make sure that you look at it from that perspective. 

Don’t get distracted by following the crowd and doing what everyone else is doing. 

Believe me sometimes everyone can be wrong. 

Sometimes someone does something and then everyone follows and no one really takes a step back to think about whether those things should be done or not. 

So just because everyone went to conferences didn’t mean that you had to spend tons of money to go to these conferences too. Just because everyone uses influencers doesn’t mean that you need to use those influencers too because maybe the influencer’s audience has nothing in common with the users that you’re trying to acquire. 

Definitely look at best practices,  look at what others are doing, but don’t take it for granted that it’s the correct way to do things.

Just look at it from the perspective of future users and have them as a  guiding parameter for your decision making.

I hope I managed to convince you and it made sense.

Make sure that all your marketing decisions are user centric, that the user, your future user, your ideal client, your ideal customer is the person who needs to be in the center of everything. 

 And make sure you subscribe not to miss any of the future content:)

Can Marketing Make Your Blockchain Startup Succeed No Matter What?

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In today’s episode I would like to speak about the expectations that many blockchain founders have about marketing. 

If you have listened to the intro episode, you already know that in my job I speak to many blockchain founders on daily basis, which is why most of the things covered here will be based on real life conversations and work experiences I had with them at some point. 

Obviously I won’t be naming anyone, or sharing any specifics – but I assure you that the things I’m talking about are not just assumptions.

Ok, so you will be surprised but what blockchain founders expect from marketing, if generalised can be divided into 2 extreme groups. 

One group is absolutely convinced that marketing does not bring much value and that their product is so good that it does not need marketing. They look at marketing as something they simply need to do – just a box they need to tick from their to do list….

For the rest you’ll need to listen for the full episode 🙂

Would you like me to help your tech project with marketing?

…or speak at your event …or maybe discuss partnerships?…

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