Postmortem: Co-founding a Web3 startup as a crypto skeptic young dev

[JohnMakin]

> Basically we were planning to only make money on fees, which already seemed too much for us considering we'd rather have low fees and more user satisfaction. But what investors in the crypto world wanted was not only fees, but actually even more than that. They wanted us to create our own crypto (on top of the NEAR blockchain) and basically manage it like our own mini financial asset (of course not declared as such because that would be in a grey legal area). With staking, giveaways, and other mechanisms to create more and more of it, or to pump its value over time.

I, for one, am shocked.

[namaria]

Scam-as-a-service. People wanna run a grift AND they want the playbook ready for them. That's just... wow. I don't know why I'm surprised but I always assumed crypto scammers were at the very least building their own scams.

[moffkalast]

Shocked! Well not that shocked.

[yieldcrv]

There is some merit to that

Think about it: you have no-coiners running around like “why does that need a token!? there is no use case for anything, I looked at the top 100 things on Coinmarketcap…”

Not noticing that they only found things with tokens because it advertised to them effectively, completely missing the products that do not have a token attached

Splitting the protocol fees with a subset of token holders who choose to stake is an ok human coordination mechanism, even gets no-coiners to look and swayed too late by a grifting youtuber at the top of the next bull market

[arciini]

I think this is actually a pretty balanced and rational take on crypto. There's a lot to be jaded by in the industry, and I'm glad he got a lot out of the experience (attending the conference, meeting people, including other skeptics) despite not continuing on the startup. I think at the start of our careers, it's generally a good instinct to just try things and see if they're for you.

> By the way, we didn't plan doing that at the end, after thinking about it a lot, but it meant we would need to gain many users by having a killer product and work for free for very long, like a regular startup I'd say.

Real web3 startups are just like normal startups if you take out the token economics. There do exist use-cases and users, but I'm glad the author had a strong enough sense to do what he felt was right. It's definitely easier now that the bandwagon has mostly stopped, but I think his reaction is a good one to maintain throughout our careers.

[dumbfounder]

I am a web3 startup founder, and we had to push back a lot on investors in the early days around the pressure to release a token. We raised money on a SAFE with warrants for a token should we decide to issue one. I think many others weren't experienced enough to know they could (and should) push back on investors for things they believe in. All that said, we still think issuing a token could be the right move for us, but we won't do it until we understand exactly what we are getting into, and believe that it is the right thing for the protocol we are building. Anything less is just a get-rich-quick scheme. Founders should focus way more on the value they want to create and not the way they create a return for investors. But it's doubly tough in this industry to do so with so many waving money in your face that only really care about the fact that crypto gives you an incredibly short path to liquidity.

[latenightcoding]

title could be: "nerd tunnel vision" lead me to work in a Ponzi scheme.

Many many years ago Ethereum /smart contract hackathons way were more innocent, at least most participants acknowledged they were working on something useless but fun.

A Ponzi scheme still a Ponzi scheme even if it's using Rust.

[_gmax0]

Give the author a break, he/she is 21.

[jgilias]

Not every bad person is a Nazi and not every scam is a Ponzi scheme. Most crypto scams are the equivalent of an old school pump and dump on a penny stock.

That’s not a Ponzi scheme.

[troupo]

It's good that the person is young and rather clear-headed.

Here's what the actual sceptic would immediately see and say "nah":

Goal: "hackathon during which we had to develop an innovative app or web app using NEAR's blockchain"

Result: "During the hackathon we made a decentralized exchange (DeX or "swap" in web3 jargon) named "Far Far Away Swap". This app's goal was to let our users exchange coins hosted on the NEAR blockchain using an automated market maker (AMM) algorithm"

Yup. Yet another currency speculation exchange. As a more jaded person, I would stop there. However, I see it as a good learning experience for the author, and I wish them the best of luck on their path.

----

This also made me chuckle: "I met many skeptics there. Often they were on the older side of the attendees (most of them were looking like 40 years old)".

Yup :)

[vcryan]

Maybe the outcome would have been different had he founded a Web4 or Web5 company. Lacks vision.

[njovin]

This is completely myopic. I'm already working on a project that's third wave post Web.

[shapefrog]

Weak grindset.

[traceddd]

Poor idea to found a startup in a field you don’t believe in. Waste of time from the start.

[nine_k]

Even as a rank-and-file senior dev, I never join companies that work on ideas I don't believe in (web3 included). I can't be productive and efficient working on stuff I despise.

I can't imagine how would it look for a founder. It's like trying to swim while being skeptical about touching water.

[srejk]

Roll-friggin-eyes Scotsman. You think everyone that founds a startup for, say, B2B data integration Really Believes In It? Or just that there's money to be made?

[pickingdinner]

If you don't believe in the work, it's just a job. Most of us have a job, which really is just low hanging money. Belief can be motivation to start something, but this wasn't something he started, either.

[AnicetN]

Lesson learned

[unwind]

Meta: typo in title, s/sckeptic/sceptic/ I guess. Thanks.

[thaumasiotes]

https://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Boock_of_darc...

[AnicetN]

Thanks ;)

[xupybd]

I worry that the author isn't seeing the possible impact they can have by doing work that is driven by making money. Yes, the work itself might not lead to the changes in society they want but climbing that ladder can give them the money, power and influence to really make an impact.

Money is only a means to an end.

That said the amount of dishonest scammy behavior around the crypto world is terrible. You don't want to be part of that. You still have to make an honest living to make the world a better place.

[michaelt]

> climbing that ladder can give them the money, power and influence to really make an impact.

Have you tried converting money into power and influence lately? The exchange rate is terrible.

The bay area has hundreds of thousands of STEM millionaires. Does the politics look like they're having a lot of impact?

Admittedly, engineers might not have any particular advantage when dealing with issues like drug addiction - but you'd expect things like water infrastructure, new homes and construction of high speed rail would be well in hand.

[kaoD]

The chances of making enough money to be able to make an impact are much slimmer than actually making a direct impact even if it means a less lucrative career path.

[al2o3cr]

Why did your team choose to use the same name as a different DEX that seems to have gone silent back in 2021?

[riffic]

As an aside, wtf kind of date convention or formatting is 8/01/2023 and is it really August already? Is there some sort of an issue preventing people from wrapping their minds around ISO 8601?

https://xkcd.com/1179/

[thatguymike]

YYYYMMDD makes the most sense, but DDMMYYYY is second best because it arranges the parts in a logical order, least to most significant. The only nonsensical ordering is MMDDYYYY.

[mvdtnz]

It's the normal format for the majority of the world.