To Mint Or Not To Mint

This week I (Apollo) was in a twitter space surrounded by web3 gaming launchpads and vcs. 

The topic was the following: 

What’s the best way to market a free mint for a gaming project?

The panel discussed strategies on how to launch best, monetize, and make the most of a free mint.  

Doing what I do best, I disagreed with everyone. 

My argument was the following… 

What I remembered from my good old days in the NFT space was the following… 

Projects start with 0.5ETH mints, go down to 0.05eth, and eventually end up at 0. 

It’s a race to zero in which nobody wins. 

There’s this quote from the web2 marketing legend Dan Kennedy: “There’s no competitive advantage to being the second cheapest in the market. So just be the most expensive one.” 

And that stays true in Web3.

So, if you want to stand out in a market where everybody is minting for free, charge 10x your competition. 

And go free mint if your competition charges 0.5ETH.

It’s an attention game. 

Second…. 

Free mints are a bad idea in the first place. Founders don’t make money. But communities still speculate. So if things go well for the first wave of investors, they make a 10x and leave. Somebody ends up buying the top and keeps holding the bag on the way down. 

It's a really bad way to onboard someone… 

So instead… if you want to reward people for playing your game, spending time in your ecosystem, reward them with a soulbound token. 

It makes them feel special and connected to the project, and there’s no financial incentive. 

Psychological Ownership > Financial Ownership 

So if you’re thinking about also doing a free mint, if everybody in your competition is doing it, don’t. 

Either mint for 2eth. 

Or give out soulbound tokens. 

Back to work, 

T&A

P.S.: If you want more Web3 marketing insights like this, join the most profitable community of Web3 builders. We do daily sessions at 10:00 and 14:00. And it’s free.