Emerging Web3 Business Frameworks

Wondering if Web3 offers an advantage to your business? Curious about what you can learn from other businesses that are leading the way? 

In this article, you’ll explore innovative NFT projects and discover how they form frameworks for future Web3 projects.

Business in Web3: What, Why, and How

You might be overwhelmed if you are at the beginning of your journey to explore Web3. A lot is happening in this space, and almost everyone gets overwhelmed regardless of how long they’ve been involved. 

Thomas Pan’s advice for managing the overwhelm is to take your time. Find a resource to help you understand the basics. 

Then, look for industry leaders— individuals or companies, who have been in the space for a while, create thoughtful content, and share insightful opinions. Follow them and start digging deeper into the initiatives they’re interested in.

You might also wonder why this matters and what changes for businesses, brands, creatives, and consumers.

The intention behind Web3 technologies is to help enhance, enrich, and empower your business or product. There's a near-endless list of opportunities, but there are also challenges.

To find inspiration to successfully incorporate Web3 tech in your business, product, platform, or processes, look to existing businesses pioneering in the space. Reverse engineering what they do will give you the insights you’re looking for.

Solving Common Business Challenges in Web3

Two years ago, building awareness and acquiring customers or community members for a Web3 initiative wasn’t as difficult as today. The hype was in full swing.

With hindsight came the realization that there needed to be a sustainability aspect to that awareness and acquisition. While many tactics and strategies from two years ago are still in use, they are executed more thoughtfully about what those efforts yield. 

Will your marketing attract the people who will become the foundation for a strong community? For example, are the people joining your initiative high-quality community members? How do you measure that? How do you judge whether they’re part of the community for the long term versus the short term for transactional benefit, after which they’ll leave?

This brings us to retention: sustaining the interest that led to acquisition. How do you keep people coming back? How do you share with and show them the promise, value, and benefits of what you're focused on so they remain in it for the long haul?

Imagine your initiative involves a 10k-piece NFT collection. Getting your first two or three thousand holders isn’t easy. When you have those first few thousand holders, your goal is to make them happy and retain them because they are the people who will move the needle for you. Over time, they will organically grow your community.

As this process plays out, you’ll shift from focusing on growth to focusing on growth and retention, then to focusing less on growth and more on retention.

Because the Web3 space is so new, businesses have to be or can be more creative with their approach to solving common business problems.

Here are four businesses noted by TPan as excelling with awareness, acquisition, retention, and reactivation in Web3.

#1: Solving the Awareness and Acquisition Challenge: DeGods and y00ts

Dust Labs launched the Y00ts and DeGods NFT collections on the Solana blockchain. Each has a robust community, a legitimate and thoughtful roadmap, and plans for longevity. 

On Christmas Day 2022, co-founder FrankDeGods announced that DeGods would be migrating to the Ethereum blockchain, and y00ts was migrating to the Ethereum-based Polygon blockchain. 

Think about the last time you moved across town or to a new state. Migration is similar. It's complex and isn’t something to undertake lightly.

Some people were super excited, and some were less excited. Still, the team took a thoughtful approach to ensure that as many holders as possible and as much of each collection as possible successfully migrated.  

First, the team and its partners provided support to holders.

To encourage opting into migration, the team created incentives. For example, holders who migrated wouldn’t incur listing fees if they decided to sell their DeGod or y00t in the future. In addition, holders who migrated in the first 72 hours were entered to win a DeGod Ordinal.

The team created deterrents to discourage late migration or opting out of migration altogether. For example, holders who didn’t migrate off Solana and want to sell their NFT now pay a hefty 33.3% royalty.  

Soon after the migration announcements and moves, FrankDeGod made an interesting and savvy move. He purchased over a dozen NFTs from some of the most prominent projects in the Ethereum NFT ecosystem; Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, Valhalla, and others. 

The purchases were his way of acknowledging and introducing himself to existing ‘neighbors’ on the Ethereum blockchain and showing other prominent projects that he wanted to be involved in and aware of what happens in their communities.

#2: Solving the Awareness, Acquisition, and Retention Challenge: Opepen

Jack Butcher is a respected visual designer who launched his first collection, Checks, as an on-chain art project that riffed Twitter Blue and verification.

His second collection, Opepen, is a 16k-piece NFT collection minted as an open edition for an undetermined period of time.

What’s noteworthy is the unrevealed artwork and what’s happening with that artwork over time.

Each blank or canvas has a black background with a character shape described with white lines. As Butcher built the collection, he updated the metadata to give people a sneak peek of what the final art might be.

About a month ago, Butcher shared that the Opepen collection is split into 200 sets of 80 pieces. As the sets drop, people can opt in, and once demand reaches a minimum of 200%, the set will release. If demand doesn’t reach the minimum, the set is replaced. The rules and guidelines Jack Butcher put in place for a set to be approved and revealed mean the holders of this collection need to get involved. 

The community votes as each set and its overall artwork style is revealed. If the set meets minimum demand, the metadata for the set is applied to the NFTs of random holders who opted in, and the artwork on their NFT is updated.

The cycle creates a flywheel of awareness and acquisition because the whole community is incentivized to participate in the voting for 20 sets regardless of whether their art has been revealed or not. There’s also a tactic for retention in play; people want to hold on to those unrevealed NFTs to see if the art they get is highly valuable.

It's an interesting collaborative approach with the community that is building and accruing value and goodwill.

#3: Solving the Retention and Reactivation Challenge: Rug Radio Stubs

Rug Radio is a decentralized media platform that hosts a Space on Twitter, and on March 21, the team launched the Stubs program to aid in retention and reactivation.

On Mondays, the show announces the artist for that week’s token. 

If a listener holds one of several NFTs, they can tune into the morning show every weekday to hear a special code that lets them mint a Stub (a mint pass) for the weekly Rug Radio Stubs free minting activity on fair.xyz. The only cost for minting is the gas fee.

The artist announces the drop on the show every Friday, and the mint window is open for 48 hours. 

The key is that only engaged members of the community can participate.

The wild card factor is what the artist decides to do. They can release a single piece, a complete collection, or multiple versions of the artwork. You might burn two Stubs to mint one piece of art, while you might burn multiple Stubs to mint a special edition of the art.

Listeners can hold onto their Stubs for as long as they want, waiting for the chance at artwork from their favorite artists, which adds a gamification layer to the mix. 

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Instagram and @Mike_Stelzner on Twitter.
• Watch the interview and other exclusive content on the Web3 Business YouTube channel.

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