a16z Partner: Marketing Guide for the Web3 Era

Author: Maggie Hsu, a16z Partner

Original Title: “Go-to-Market in Web3: New Mindsets, Tactics, Metrics”

Translation by: Web3er Liu, Chain Catcher
All companies face different types of "cold start problems": How to start from scratch? How to acquire users? How to create network effects (where a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it, thus attracting more users)? In short, how should a company "go to market" and make potential users spend their money, time, and attention on its products or services?
During the Web2 era, giants like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Twitter launched large centralized products and services that defined the internet age, with most of the value accruing to the platforms rather than the users. Most companies or organizations in the Web2 era invested heavily in their marketing teams as part of traditional go-to-market (GTM) strategies. The focus of GTM is on generating potential users, acquiring, and retaining existing users.
However, in recent years, a new organizational building model has emerged, leveraging decentralized technology to make users owners of the organization through digital primitives known as tokens. At the same time, this new organizational model is not controlled by companies, nor are product decisions made by centralized leadership, even when using consumer data and user-generated content.
This new model, referred to as Web3, fundamentally changes the GTM concept for emerging companies. While some traditional user acquisition frameworks still apply, the introduction of tokens and new organizational structures like DAOs requires various go-to-market approaches. Web3 is still new to many, but there is enormous potential for growth in this field. In this article, I will share some new frameworks for thinking about GTM in the context of Web3, as well as the different types of organizations that may exist within the Web3 ecosystem. I will also provide advice for builders looking to create GTM strategies as they develop in Web3.

New Catalysts for GTM: Tokens

The concept known as the "user acquisition funnel" is central to GTM, and most businesses are familiar with it: from "awareness and lead generation" at the top of the funnel to "user conversion and retention" at the bottom. Traditional Web2 "Go-to-Market" addresses cold start problems through this linear user acquisition perspective, covering aspects such as pricing, marketing, partnerships, sales channel mapping, and sales team optimization. Generally, metrics for measuring GTM success include the time taken to complete a lead generation, website click-through rates, and revenue generated per user.

Web3 changes the entire paradigm of lead generation networks, as tokens provide a disruptive approach to solving cold start problems. The core development team of a project can attract early users through tokens rather than spending money on traditional marketing channels. These early users can be rewarded for their early contributions when network effects are not yet apparent or have not yet materialized. Essentially, these early users act as evangelists bringing more people into the lead generation network (they also hope to receive returns for their contributions) and are more powerful than marketers or traditional business developers in Web2.
For example, the lending protocol Compound uses tokens to incentivize early lenders and borrowers, providing additional rewards in the form of COMP tokens for participating in liquidity mining programs that "guide liquidity." Any user of Compound, whether a borrower or a lender, receives COMP tokens. After the incentive program launched in 2020, Compound's total value locked (TVL) surged from $100 million to $600 million.
It is important to note that while token incentives attract users, this alone is not sufficient to create "user stickiness." While traditional corporate organizations often incentivize employees through equity, they rarely reward users with long-term economic incentives (aside from shopping discounts or referral bonuses).
In summary: In Web2, the primary stakeholders in GTM are users, typically acquired through marketing. In the Web3 ecosystem, the GTM stakeholders of a project or organization include not only users but also developers, investors, and partners. Therefore, many Web3 companies find that the role of the community is more important than marketing.

Web3 GTM Matrix

For Web3 organizations, the GTM strategy depends on the organization's position within the following matrix, which is based on organizational structure (centralized/decentralized) and economic incentives (no tokens/tokens).

The "Go-to-Market" direction in each quadrant differs, covering everything from traditional Web2-style strategies to emerging and experimental strategies. I will focus on the upper right quadrant (decentralized teams with tokens) and compare it with the lower left quadrant (centralized teams without tokens) to illustrate the differences between Web3 and Web2 GTM methodologies.

Decentralized Teams with Tokens

First, let’s look at the upper right quadrant. This includes organizations, projects, and networks with unique Web3 operating models that require novel GTM strategies.
Organizations in this quadrant follow a decentralized model (although projects often start from a core development team or operators) and use token economics to attract new members, reward contributors, and align incentives among participants. The fundamental difference between Web3 organizations in this quadrant and those using traditional GTM methods lies in a core question: What is the product? Web2 companies and those in the lower left quadrant must start by building products that attract customers ("born for tools, live for networks"), while Web3 companies enter the market through a dual perspective of goals and community.
Having a solid technical foundation and product is always important, but it does not necessarily come first.
What these Web3 organizations need is a clear purpose to define the reason for their existence. What problem are they trying to solve? This also means that projects must do more than just rely on white papers and founding teams for funding; they need to have a strong community—not just "community-led" or "community-first," but community-owned—blurring the lines between owners, shareholders, and users. Having a highly engaged and quality community, and matching the right organizational governance goals with the community, will be a clear objective to ensure long-term success for projects in the Web3 space.

Now, let’s delve into the GTM motivations of two major types of Web3 organizations in the upper right quadrant: (1) Decentralized Applications (dApps) (2) Layer 1 blockchains, Layer 2 solutions, and other protocols.

GTM Motivations of Decentralized Applications

"Decentralized applications" encompass use cases such as DeFi, NFTs, social networks, and gaming.

DeFi DAOs

A major category of decentralized applications is decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, such as decentralized exchanges (like Uniswap or dYdX) or stablecoins (like MakerDAO's Dai). While they may have GTM motivations similar to centralized applications, the ways in which value is created differ due to organizational structure and token economic models.
Many DeFi projects follow a path where the protocol is initially developed by a centralized team, and after the protocol is launched, the team attempts to decentralize the protocol to enhance its security and allocate governance rights to the community of token holders. This decentralization is typically achieved by simultaneously issuing governance tokens, launching decentralized governance protocols (often a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO), and transferring control of the protocol to the DAO.
This decentralization process may involve many different entities. For example, many DAO organizations operate without any associated legal entities, functioning solely in the digital realm, while others use multi-signature wallets to act under the guidance of the DAO community. In some cases, establishing a nonprofit foundation is intended to oversee the future development of the project under the DAO's guidance. In almost all cases, the original development team continues to operate as one of the contributors to the ecosystem created by the project, developing complementary or auxiliary products and services. (The white paper contains more details about the legal framework of DAOs, covering factors such as taxation, entity formation, and operational issues).
Here are two common examples related to DeFi:
MakerDAO started as a DAO in March 2015, established a foundation in June 2018, and retired in July 2021. MakerDAO has a stablecoin, Dai, which aims to allow users to transact quickly, at low cost, without borders, and transparently using a stable unit of value. This can be done through purchasing goods and services or participating in other DeFi applications. It also has a governance token, MKR. The DAO approves various governance changes and certain parameters of the protocol's operations, including the collateralization rate used by the protocol to mint DAI.
Uniswap was launched by a centralized company, Uniswap Labs, but is now owned and governed by Uniswap DAO, which is controlled by UNI token holders. Currently, Uniswap Labs controls one interface of the Uniswap protocol and is one of many developers contributing to the ecosystem.
So, what does "Go-to-Market" look like here? Taking MakerDAO's algorithmic stablecoin DAI as an example, one of the goals of most algorithmic stablecoin issuers (like MakerDAO) is to foster more use cases for stablecoins within the financial ecosystem. Therefore, MakerDAO's market entry motivations are: 1) to list DAI on cryptocurrency exchanges for retail and institutional trading; 2) to integrate DAI into wallets and applications; 3) to have DAI accepted as a payment tool. Today, there are over 400 markets supporting DAI, which has been integrated into hundreds of projects and selected as a payment method through mainstream business solutions like Coinbase Commerce.
How did they achieve this? MakerDAO initially accomplished this through a traditional business team that drove many early partnerships and integration activities. However, as MakerDAO became more decentralized, its business development functions were increasingly taken over by the token holder community's SubDAO "Growth Core Units."
Moreover, because MakerDAO is decentralized, the operation of its protocol is trustless and permissionless, allowing anyone to mint or purchase DAI using the protocol. Since the code for DAI is open source, developers can integrate DAI into their applications in a self-service manner. Over time, the self-service nature of DAI will strengthen, with better developer documentation and more integration cases, enabling other projects to build on this foundation at scale.

GTM Metrics for DeFi DAOs

With the introduction of new marketing strategies in the Web3 era, new GTM metrics have naturally emerged. For DeFi applications, the standard metric is Total Value Locked (TVL). It measures all assets being traded, staked, and lent within the protocol or network.
However, TVL is not an ideal long-term metric for measuring organizational health and success. While new DeFi protocols can replicate open-source code, offer high yields to users, and attract significant capital inflows to increase TVL, this does not necessarily indicate stickiness—traders often withdraw funds when the next new project appears.
Therefore, more critical metrics to track could include the number of unique token holder addresses, community engagement and sentiment, developer activity, etc. Additionally, since projects are composable and can interact and build on each other programmatically, integration becomes another key metric (the number and types of integrated projects, how projects are used in wallets and exchanges, etc.).

Social, Cultural, and Artistic DAOs

For social, cultural, and artistic DAOs, GTM means building a community with a specific purpose—sometimes even starting from text chats among friends and organically growing the community by finding others with the same purpose. But how does this differ from "a chat group" or traditional Kickstarter crowdfunding?
There is still a distinction. While traditional Web2 crowdfunding project organizers also have clear purposes, they must clarify the methods to achieve those purposes from the top down. Project initiators typically detail how the funds will be used, provide a clear product roadmap, and present a comprehensive timeline. In the Web3 model, the purpose is paramount, and the methods are often determined later, including how to use funds, product roadmaps, and timelines.
For example, ConstitutionDAO aimed to purchase a copy of the U.S. Constitution; Krause House aimed to gain management rights to an NBA team and pioneer fan management of the team; LinksDAO aimed to create a virtual country club with the golf enthusiast community; PleasrDAO aimed to collect, showcase, and creatively add or share NFTs representing cultural movements and ideologies.
Taking ConstitutionDAO as an example, it raised $47 million from a community of strangers who gathered for this purpose, completing the process in a few weeks, starting with a clear goal and raising funds solely for that specific purpose. Beyond that, ConstitutionDAO had nothing else—no clear roadmap, execution plan, and even no tokens during the bidding process (the PEOPLE token was created after the bid failed). The individuals providing funds were aligned with the purpose and incentivized by the community; they simply wanted to contribute and spread the word. At that time, Twitter was filled with related emojis, even becoming a meme.
Friends with Benefits is a social DAO with "token-gated access," initially created as a Discord server with a token threshold for Web3 developers. In addition to purchasing the minimum amount of FWB tokens (representing DAO membership), potential members must apply in writing to join FWB. The FWB community continues to grow, connecting across various Discord channels, hosting IRL events, and ultimately realizing that one of the products they could create is a "token-gated" application. FWB allows creative developers to gain real benefits within the community, while the DAO framework enables this decentralized social group to coordinate at scale, allocate budgets, and complete projects ranging from content publishing to event production.
The market metrics for social DAOs: One of the key metrics for measuring the health of a DAO is the quality of community engagement, which can be measured through the primary communication and governance platforms it uses. For example, DAOs can track channel activity on Discord, member activation and retention rates, attendance at community meetings, governance voting participation (including voting frequency), and the actual work being done (number of paid contributors).

Other metrics may include new connections established within the network or trust relationships built among DAO community members. While there are indeed some tools and frameworks available, the metrics for social DAOs remain an emerging field, and as this area develops, we will see more tools emerge.

Gaming DAOs

Today, most Web3 games, whether play-to-earn, play-to-mint, move-to-earn, or other types, are very similar to popular Web2 games but with two key differences: Web3 games use game assets on open blockchain platforms, unlike the closed economic systems of traditional paid and free games. At the same time, Web3 gamers can become true stakeholders and have a say in the governance of the game itself.
In Web3 gaming, marketing strategies are built through player referrals and guild collaborations. Guilds like Yield Guild Games (YGG) allow new players to rent game assets to start playing. Guilds choose which games to support based on three factors: game quality, community strength, and the robustness and fairness of the game economy. Game, community, and economic health must all be present simultaneously.
While blockchain game developers may have lower ownership stakes or commissions, by incentivizing players to become owners of the game, developers are helping everyone grow the game economy.
However, unlike Web2, Web3 is goal- and community-driven. For example, Loot is a game based on content rather than gameplay, driving GTM through goals and community rather than products. Loot is an NFT collection where each NFT is called a Loot bag, representing a unique combination of adventure gear items (e.g., dragon skin belt, angry silk gloves, enlightenment amulet). Loot essentially provides a prompt or building block for creating games or other projects. The Loot community, inspired by Loot bags, has created various game projects ranging from analytical tools to derivative art and music collections.
The key idea here is that Loot's development is not due to existing products attracting users en masse but because of the ideals and narratives it represents—a network that is open, composable, inclusive of various ideas, and incentivizes users through tokens. The community creates products, rather than the network itself creating products. Therefore, a key metric here is the number of derivatives, which can be considered more valuable than traditional metrics.

GTM for Layer 1 Blockchains and Other Protocols

In Web3, Layer 1 refers to underlying blockchains such as Avalanche, Celo, Ethereum, and Solana. These blockchains are open-source, allowing any developer to build, replicate, or modify them and integrate with them. The growth of these blockchains depends on whether more applications are built on top of them.
Layer 2 refers to technological solutions running on existing Layer 1 networks to address scalability issues. One type of Layer 2 solution is rollups. Layer 2 rollups do this by "aggregating" transactions from the Layer 2 network and then bridging the data to the Layer 1 network. There are two main types of Layer 2 rollup solutions: the first is Optimistic rollup, which "optimistically" assumes that transactions are honest and free of fraud. The second is ZK rollup, which uses "zero-knowledge proofs" to verify the legitimacy of transactions. Most of the projects within these Layer 2 solutions currently serve the Ethereum network and do not yet have their own tokens, but we will discuss them here as their GTM metrics are similar to those of other Layer 2 networks that have issued tokens.
The growth of Layer 1 blockchains, Layer 2 solutions, and other protocols may come from forks, where the code and architecture of one network are copied and then slightly modified. For example, Celo is a fork of Ethereum, Nahmii and Metis are forks of Optimism, and Uniswap was forked to become SushiSwap. While forking may seem negative, the number of fork projects from a network is actually a measure of its success—it indicates that others want to replicate it.

The examples and thought processes above focus on the upper right quadrant, which consists of decentralized projects with tokens, broadly speaking, the most advanced Web3 instances currently. However, there is still a considerable mix of Web2 GTM strategies and emerging Web3 strategies based on differences in organizational types. When builders formulate market strategies, they should understand the boundaries of various approaches, so now let’s look at hybrid models that integrate Web2 GTM and Web3 GTM strategies.

Centralized and No Tokens: A Hybrid of Web2 and Web3

Many companies in this lower left quadrant (centralized teams without tokens) provide users with access to Web3 infrastructure and protocols through entry points or APIs. In this quadrant, there is significant overlap between Web2 and Web3 in GTM strategies—especially in the SaaS and marketplace sectors.

Software as a Service

Some companies in the lower left quadrant follow traditional Software as a Service (SaaS) business models, such as Alchemy, which provides "node as a service." These companies offer on-demand infrastructure through different tiers of subscription fees, determined by factors such as the required storage capacity, whether the nodes are shared or dedicated, and the monthly request volume.
The SaaS business model typically requires traditional Web2 go-to-market motivations, where customer acquisition is achieved through a combination of product- and channel-led strategies:
Product-led user acquisition focuses on allowing users to experience the product itself. For example, one of Alchemy's products is Supernode, an Ethereum API aimed at organizations building infrastructure on Ethereum but not wanting to manage it themselves. In this case, users experience Supernode through a free tier or free model, and these users recommend the product to other potential users.
In contrast, channel-led user acquisition primarily involves distinguishing different customer types (e.g., public sector vs. private sector users) and aligning the marketing team with these customers. In this case, a company may have a marketing team focused solely on public sector users, such as government and education sectors, and will deeply understand the needs of this customer group.
In this article, I provide an overview to help explain the differences between Web2 and Web3 GTM strategies, but it is important to note that developer-centric promotion and developer relations—including developer documentation, events, and education—are also very important here.

Exchanges and Marketplace Platforms

Other companies in the lower left quadrant rely on familiar marketplace and exchange models for consumers, such as peer-to-peer NFT marketplace OpenSea and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. These businesses generate revenue based on transaction fees (usually a percentage of the transaction), similar to classic Web2 business models like eBay and Amazon.
For these types of companies, revenue growth comes from the number of goods listed, the average dollar value of each listed good, and the increase in platform users, which collectively leads to increased transaction volume while benefiting users in terms of diversity and market liquidity.
Here, a key go-to-market initiative is collaborating with other platforms to increase distribution channels and showcase featured products. This is similar to Amazon's affiliate program, where bloggers can link to their favorite products, earning a commission on any purchases made through those links. But a key difference between Web2 and Web3 is that, in addition to affiliate fees, Web3 also allows royalties to be distributed to creators. For example, OpenSea offers traditional consignment sales channels through their white-label program, where purchases made through referral links earn a percentage of sales for the referrer, but it also allows for royalties, enabling creators to continue earning a percentage of profits from any secondary sales.
Since creators now have the opportunity to continue monetizing their work through secondary markets—something that is not seen in Web2 systems, let alone capturing value—they are incentivized to continue promoting the marketplace. Creators also become evangelists.

GTM Strategies

Now that I have shared an overview of key thought patterns and specific use cases, let’s look at specific GTM strategies commonly seen in Web3 organizations. These are core components rather than a complete script, but they can still help builders enter and explore the Web3 space to understand strategies and make choices.

Airdrops

Airdrops refer to the distribution of tokens by a project to users to reward specific behaviors that the project wants to incentivize, including testing network or platform performance. These tokens can be distributed to all existing addresses on a specific blockchain network or targeted (e.g., sent to specific key influencers); they are typically used to address cold start problems—generating leads, rewarding, or incentivizing early users, etc.
In 2020, Uniswap airdropped 400 UNI tokens to anyone who had used the platform. In September 2021, dYdX airdropped DYDX tokens to users. Recently, ENS airdropped tokens to anyone who owned an ENS domain (the decentralized .eth domain); this airdrop took place in November 2021, but anyone who owned an ENS domain before October 31, 2021, was eligible to claim the ENS airdrop (until May 2022), providing token holders with governance rights related to the ENS protocol.
In the non-fungible token space, airdrops for NFT projects are also becoming increasingly popular. A recent notable airdrop came from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a collection of 10,000 unique NFTs; on August 28, 2021, BAYC created the corresponding Mutant Ape Yacht Club. Each BAYC NFT holder received a Mutant Serum, allowing them to mint 10,000 "mutant" apes. Additionally, new participants could also participate in obtaining 10,000 new mutant apes. Because there are different types of serums that can only be used once, different bored apes cannot use multiple serums of the same level, adding a new scarcity feature.
The reason for creating MAYC was to "reward ape NFT holders with a new NFT"—a "mutant" version of the ape NFT—while also allowing newcomers to enter the BAYC ecosystem at a lower tier of membership. This maintained broader community accessibility without diluting the exclusivity of the original collection or making original owners feel that their contributions were downgraded. (Another way to address accessibility is through NFT fragmentation, where one NFT has multiple owners). The floor price of MAYC, or the minimum listing price of MAYC, has consistently been lower than that of BAYC, but owners essentially have the same interests.
These airdrops are conducted retroactively to reward NFT holders or protocol users (like the ENS airdrop), but airdrops can also serve as proactive GTM activities aimed at generating awareness for specific projects and encouraging people to experience them. Since information on the blockchain is public, a new project can airdrop to all wallets using a specific wallet or all wallets holding a specific token.
In any case, before conducting an airdrop, projects should clearly articulate their overall token distribution and classification plans. There are many cases where airdrops have been used for malicious purposes or have gone wrong. Additionally, in the U.S., airdropped tokens may be considered securities, so projects should consult legal advisors before engaging in any such activities.

Developer Grants

Developer grants refer to funds provided from a protocol's treasury to individuals or teams that contribute to the protocol in some way. This can serve as an effective GTM strategy for DAOs, as developer activity is a crucial component of a protocol's success. Examples of projects and protocols with developer funding include Celo, Chainlink, Compound, Ethereum, and Uniswap.
However, grants can be used for activities ranging from protocol development to bug bounties, code audits, and other activities beyond programming. Compound even has a grant related to business development and integration, aimed at funding any integrations that promote Compound's adoption. One example in this area is their funding of a foundation that integrated Compound with Polkadot.

Memes

Viral images with text overlays are another GTM strategy for Web3 organizations. Given the complexity and breadth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as the short attention spans of social media users, memes allow information to spread quickly. Memes can also convey signals of belonging, community, goodwill, and more in a highly information-dense manner.
Viral images with text overlays are another GTM strategy for Web3 organizations. Given the complexity and breadth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as the short attention spans of social media users, memes can quickly convey information. Memes can also convey signals of belonging, community, goodwill, and more in a highly information-dense manner.
The NFT project Pudgy Penguins, a collection of 8,888 penguins, launched due to its meme attributes.
The collection sold out within 20 minutes of its launch and received extensive media coverage, helping such projects enter mainstream visibility. Social display and the "PFP" (profile picture) collecting community element—where people set NFTs as their social media avatars in Web3—also fueled this viral spread. Twitter recently launched a feature allowing users to set their NFTs as profile pictures in a special hexagonal shape by connecting to OpenSea's API.
When NFT holders with large followings change their social media avatars to one from an NFT project, it draws attention to that project, and the NFT holders of that project often follow all holders of that NFT project. These actions can also trigger other meme elements, such as in Crypto Covens and the "web2 me vs. web3 me" memes, where users display their witch NFTs next to their real faces, conveying identity, belonging, and more.
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So, what does all this mean for the founders of Web3 projects?
In Web2 companies, founders not only set top-down visions but also cultivate teams and plan and execute based on that vision. In Web3, founders play more of a gardener role, helping to nurture potential successful products while preparing for everything. While Web3 project founders still set organizational goals and initial governance structures, the governance structure itself may quickly bring about new roles.
Founders may optimize protocol experiences and community quality rather than optimizing for employee growth or revenue capacity. Additionally, after achieving decentralization, project founders must adapt to an environment without hierarchical power structures, where they are one of many participants driving the success of a specific project. Therefore, before decentralization, founders should ensure that their projects can succeed in such an environment.
I witnessed some of these situations while serving as Chief of Staff to Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of Zappos.com. Zappos.com is an e-commerce company now owned by Amazon. Starting in 2014, the company attempted a more decentralized governance structure (in contrast to the top-down approach), including a self-organizing management system known as "holacracy."
Holacracy involves a work hierarchy rather than a human hierarchy, with mixed results. Hsieh provided a useful metaphor, comparing himself to a gardener of plants in a greenhouse (in the overall governance model), rather than the best plant. He said he needed to be the "builder of the greenhouse"—creating reasonable conditions for all other plants to thrive.
Today, Alex Zhang, the "mayor" of the social DAO Friends with Benefits (FWB), feels similarly, stating that his job is "not to set a top-down vision," but to facilitate the creation of frameworks, permissions, and regulations for community members to approve and build upon. While Web2 leaders focus on updating product roadmaps and pushing new product releases, Alex Zhang sees himself more as a gardener than a top-down builder. His role includes observing FWB's "neighbors" (in this case, referring to Discord channels) and curating by clearing out unappealing channels while helping to support and grow promising Discord channels. Thus, Alex Zhang becomes more of an educator and communicator.
For NFT project founders, their roles are primarily as initiators and temporary managers of intellectual property (IP). The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) wrote, "We see ourselves as temporary managers of IP, which is becoming increasingly decentralized. Our goal is to become a community-owned brand that reaches into world-class games, events, and streetwear."
Owning an NFT—whether an image, video, sound clip, or other forms—transfers all ownership associated with the NFT to the owner. As NFTs are bought and sold, this ownership is transferred, and as the ecosystem surrounding NFTs develops, these benefits will accrue to NFT owners, not just the founding team of the NFT project.
NFT ownership can also be community-driven licensing and community-driven content (unlike traditional IP licensing). One example is Jenkins The Valet, an NFT avatar from the BAYC series (Ape #1798), which is signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation across various forms of media.
Jenkins The Valet was created by Tally Labs, which owns Ape #1798. Tally Labs decided to inject its own brand and backstory into the ape and reverse the notion that statistical rarity of NFTs is the primary determinant of their price and success. They then created a way for others to create content around the Jenkins The Valet avatar through a members-only website called "The Writer's Room," where community members could vote on the type of first book to create.
As more people embrace crypto, decentralization, and Web3, we will see more possibilities. Traditional Web2 GTM frameworks are useful references and provide some useful strategies, but they are only part of the many frameworks for Web3 organizations. The key point is that the goals, growth, and success metrics of Web2 and Web3 often differ. Web3 developers should start with a clear goal, develop a community around that goal, and match their development strategies and community incentives accordingly, along with corresponding GTM activities. We will see various models emerge in the future and look forward to observing and sharing more here.
Thanks to Justin Paine, Porter Smith, and Miles Jennings for their contributions to this article.