Variant co-founder Li Jin: What determines success or failure more than user experience is the product-market fit

Original Title: The Barrier to Mainstream Crypto Adoption Isn't UX --- It's Product-Market Fit

Original Author: Li Jin, Variant

Translated by: Peng SUN, Foresight News

Discussions about promoting crypto adoption often focus on improving user experience (UX). People tend to approach from the perspective of user experience, believing that Web3 products are relatively underdeveloped, that new users face friction in their onboarding experience, and that there is a learning curve for technical concepts. Therefore, Web3 lacks a seamless application experience for broader adoption.

While improving user experience is important, I believe that building products that users need is even more crucial. Web3 faces a product-market fit issue rather than a user experience issue.

Product-market fit refers to the ability of a product to meet strong market demand. For developers, the allure and challenge of creating a product lie in the astonishing consistency of human needs over time. This is why Maslow's hierarchy of needs continues to resonate nearly a century after it was proposed, with universal needs including physiological needs (food, shelter, clothing) and psychological needs (belonging, love, entertainment, respect).

The history of consumer startups is a continuous story of innovation that solves human needs in new ways. Although people often dismiss new consumer applications as mere entertainment products (like "teenagers making dance videos") with incremental innovations, successful startups actually provide ways to significantly improve how people meet their core needs. Amazon simplifies the purchasing process by allowing us to buy books (and other goods) with just a few clicks; Facebook enables us to connect with the people we care about at any time; Tinder exposes us to more potential romantic partners than we encounter in real life.

There is ample evidence that when the benefits to users are significant enough, user experience is not particularly important, and people will actively learn how to behave in emerging fields, whether in crypto or not. For example, the first-generation iPhone (without a touchscreen keyboard), the internet itself, and all the crypto assets and applications that have been widely adopted to date (like NFTs during the last bull market). For products that address core needs, a strange and complex user experience is not a problem.

Despite the many user needs, exploration of crypto applications has so far been largely confined to the financial sector. While income is a universal need, most products lose attention when the price of coins drops. Therefore, when users can choose to earn income through low-risk methods, it becomes challenging to promote such DeFi products.

Builders in the crypto industry have the opportunity to create products that better meet other human needs, such as belonging, community, and entertainment.

NFT communities and DAO organizations can meet a portion of people's need for belonging on a small scale, forming new social graphs based on asset ownership. For those who believe that shared economic interests cannot serve as the basis for "real" relationships, a glance at the real world suffices to understand, as many of our connections are predicated on ownership, whether among neighbors, employees of a business, or collectors of Pokémon cards.

We have the opportunity to leverage on-chain assets to build a new community foundation that addresses basic needs such as belonging, respect, and connection. In August 2023 alone, Ethereum and its Layer 2 protocols minted 94.5 million NFTs; as user activity increases, it is conceivable to infer user interests based on on-chain behavior and establish connections based on various activities participated in.

On-chain media provides us with more entertainment options, allowing us to engage in online consumption and creation. On platforms like Sound.xyz, Friend.tech, and Zora, users can bet on the media and creators they believe in, enhancing the content experience and turning it into a financialized game. In a world where all media exists in the form of NFTs, a new economic dimension will enrich our experience of the internet.

These are just the starting points for cryptocurrencies to seek product-market fit and meet needs beyond income; there is still much room for experimentation. To achieve widespread adoption and move beyond the current niche market, crypto products need to enhance user experience through some crypto-based solutions.