Thoughts and Perspectives from Web3 Entrepreneurs in 2023

Author: MapleLeafCap, Yiye Venture Capital Source: Twitter, @MapleLeafCap

Recently, I have been in Shanghai for nearly 5 months, during which I met many excellent Web2 to Web3 application entrepreneurs. Here are some of their recent thoughts and opinions, for reference only. In addition, they are quite upset about Elon's limitation of Thread, because it makes it difficult to read long texts.

• USD payment has become the most powerful application in the industry. Allowing users to use USDX for transactions is still the best solution to expand the user base, because most people cannot adapt to their own utility tokens. Deposit issues are gradually being resolved, but last-mile withdrawals still require more effort to be successful. Talk to them if you have ideas, as many applications have huge demand.

• At present, the pure halal account system is just self-promotion in the industry**, and a semi-centralized solution similar to a centralized exchange is most suitable for those who want to quickly implement it. In addition, the majority of users actually only care about a few core functions, and really don't care much about the native features of Web3. Only after the basic needs are met and a sufficient user base is accumulated can there be innovation and lofty ideals. I estimate that the field will be quite mature in 12-24 months. As for the halal issue, I can only hope that some genius can do a better job at UI/UX to outshine the rest of the competition.

• **The Ponzi model is achieved through the wealth effect and scale effect over a period of time by using free tokens, cash flow multipliers, and time-mismatched circulation. **Finally, it depends on the lower limit of the product and the demand for entertainment consumption. Typically, many current Web3 offerings have neither scale nor network effects, and the degree of completion is like a mess. Adopting the Ponzi model without being prepared is an absolute failure. Of course, the Ponzi model is also an excellent trump card for general projects to compete with Web2 leaders, but how to play better in terms of not greatly changing user portraits, continuously motivating new users, binding continuous contributors, and balancing the rentier class, we have not yet learned. find out. Personally, I am very much looking forward to the emergence of the new model.

• As I said before, if you don't even dare to touch the boundary of value capture, how dare you say you love Web3? **There are many approaches to value capture, not just buybacks. **It can increase the blind box and explosion rate in the airdrop game after Staking, and provide Staker with a premium repurchase or cash back the potential value in the game. For many projects with tax extraction scenarios, are there substantial tax cuts or even discounts/subsidies? This is related to the previous point. I personally think that a team that is excellent in both product and mechanism can surpass similar Web2 projects in terms of user acquisition efficiency, ARPU and user retention for a period of time.

• It is already 2023, **stop showing off "we are an NFT project". **NFT, like FT, will become a standard configuration for projects that incorporate Web3 features. Therefore, even if you say "we are the luxury fashion brand of Web3", it must be more realistic. In terms of games, the current throughput cost of the industry cannot support the on-chain transactions of general game items, so for a period of time, centralized transactions will still be the mainstream. All valuables can be traded on the chain, and many of them can be gamified (for example, after being traded on the chain, return them to the game to obtain buff/debuff), we can think together about the purpose of putting valuables on the chain.

• At present, we have not fully considered whether the in-game economic industry chain should belong to the official or the player**, and how durable goods should be consumed in the end. We don't have an answer to this question ourselves. Can only go step by step. There are many experts in this industry who know better than we do. Looking forward to interacting with them.

• **There are only two real payment scenarios in the app. ** As mentioned earlier, entertainment determines consumption, another is that people who want to get ROI off the field are willing to pay for certain behaviors in the application, the most typical of which is advertising/getting user attention. It is really not easy to create entertainment, so I also look forward to seeing any applications that directly transform off-site needs and return cash to users. It is best to be a practical application with high frequency of daily use, which already has quite strong profitability on Web2, whether it is Strava, Chrome or Toutiao. If you have a good idea, please share it with us directly.

• The vast majority of projects currently seen in Web3 neither understand 2C products nor how to achieve user growth (although CEX generally does a good job). The experience of Web2 is actually very applicable in many cases, so I think people who have successful experience of Web2 entrepreneurship in the past actually have a lot of advantages. However, firstly, we need to realize that many people in the industry do not have a good connection between Ren and Du. The ready-made TAM is extremely small + a lot of infrastructure is messy. Secondly, we must understand that adding the Web3 feature is equivalent to starting to play a financial game; so the inherent awesome experience in the past It's good, but it's still easy to make mistakes if you follow the big TAM and don't be sensitive to expectation management and financial prices. can study together.