KYC (Know-Your-Customer)

Author

Tugan & Apollo
November 21, 2023

You probably already know the daily workflow of Tugan and Apollo… 

But here again, for all the newcomers. 

  1. Wake Up 

  2. Talk to Web3 Projects 

  3. Live Teaching Session about Building in Web3 

  4. Talk to more Web3 Projects 

We follow an approach that is called MMS (

Magical-Missing-Shit). 

In this case, we look at a project and ask ourselves… “what’s their MMS? What’s holding them back from unlocking 10x growth?” 

What we’ve been noticing quite often is that most project founders don’t even know who they’re building for. 

They had an idea, they forked a competitor, and they built super fast, but at the end of the day, they had no clue who their user was or would be. 

We want to build stuff that people need and want. 

99% of web3 projects fail because their product and marketing don’t strike a nerve with the audience. In order to achieve that, let’s get to know our users. 

You should do this no matter the business you’re running. If you have an email list, if you post on X, if you’re launching a reflection token. You always have people on the other side of the screen. 

Step #1 - Foundational KYC  

In traditional marketing, we ask ourselves: 

  • Who is the customer?

  • What are his beliefs?

  • What is his family status?

  • Where does he live?

  • What is his job and financial situation?

Ask yourself… 

  • Is it his first time in crypto?

  • What has been his crypto journey? Which centralized exchange, which coins did he first buy, and when?

  • Has he experienced a bear market?

  • Has he been rugged?

  • Which other coins or NFTs does he own?

  • Whom does he trust? Or distrust? And why?

  • Which country and purchasing power?

  • What’s his favorite blockchain and wallet? 

  • Which communities does he spend time in? 

Step #2 - Enter Their Communities  

List five communities where your audience hangs out. 

Talk to them, learn their language, become one of them, and understand what makes them excited or what makes them FUD. 

Reserve 1-2 hours every day to spend time in those communities.

Step #3 - Interview Them 

If you really want to go the extra mile, try to talk to some of them in a private call. 

Titan Hack: never show your product or ideas to the person you’re interviewing; rather, ask them questions about why they like or use certain things and make product and marketing decisions from there. 

If you go down this road, we would recommend doing 10-20 initial interviews and eventually doing 2 per week to stay up to date and not go astray with your ideas. 

You can usually find those people in communities by DMing them on X or by asking your friends if they are close to your ideal user.

Usually, they will agree to talk to you for free (which is a great sign since their pain point is really high). If not, you can give them some soulbound tokens or WL passes. 

YC combinator explains this better than we ever could here.

Good things are coming, 

T&A

By the way, congratulations to Crypto Piros from our community for landing a job in Web3.