Execution Versus Hype in Web3 Strategy

Your Web3 project isn’t getting funded because you're focused on the wrong metrics. Here is how to fix it 👇 🧪 Build a prototype, not a pitch Your MVP should solve a real problem. Ship something users can test and give feedback on. Execution > ideas. 💬 Build your community before raising capital Investors look for signals. An engaged, loyal community is the strongest one. NEVER buy fake followers - they’re a red flag, not an asset. 🔍 Focus on metrics that matter Investors want hard numbers, not promises. Data showing active user retention is far more valuable than metrics that don’t demonstrate user engagement or loyalty. Retention metrics > vanity metrics. 🎯 Apply for funding strategically Not all funding paths are created equal. Choose wisely: - Ecosystem Grants: Perfect for chain integrations. - Protocol Grants: Ideal for improving existing protocols. - Hackathons: Great for networking and testing ideas. - VCs: Focus on teams with strong technical execution, clear roadmaps, and scalable potential. Don’t shotgun your pitch - tailor it to fit the funding source. 📈 Build momentum before talking to VCs VCs back progress, not just ideas. Before pitching: - Highlight adoption curves, early community growth, and technical achievements. - Build relationships with early users - they’re your first advocates. - Launch an MVP, iterate fast, and showcase how feedback has improved your product. 🔥 Don't burn cash on hype Focus on: - Token utility: Depending on the project, you can show a strong strategy for generating yield, TVL, or transaction growth. - Treasury management: Keep 12+ months of runway in stablecoins or diversified assets. - Community engagement: Highlight governance votes, staking rates, and active participation. Keep it lean, measurable, and sustainable. 💲 Want to raise capital? Build first and show progress. The money is out there. The question is: Are you fundable?

Honesty isn’t a “value” on the wall. It’s a decision you make when everything’s on fire. That’s Florian Ehrbar, founder of OnchainLabs. When a consulting gig he’d joined was clearly failing, he didn’t sugar-coat it to extend the contract. He told the investor the truth. They killed the project. Then asked, “So what now?” Florian’s answer: keep the people who work, and build something that actually does. That moment birthed OnchainLabs - connecting physical assets to the digital world (think: skis, classic cars, gold… even trees) with real utility, not hype. What stood out for me: Radical candour > polite decay. Telling the truth ended a paycheck and started a company. Side-hustle myth. He didn’t have one. Funded from day one. Great on paper… but it compresses the “figure it out” phase and piles on pressure. Product > protocol. “Blockchain is the how, not the why.” The goal is a wallet as simple as email and a no-code platform for tokenising real-world assets. Focus beats possibility. When you can do everything, you’ll do nothing well. Pick the beachhead, earn the right to expand. Leading a “half-inherited” team. Swing between empowering smart people and stepping in with a clear, non-negotiable vision. We got into: ⚙️ Turning luxury skis into tokenised products customers want to register 📲 Why “Wallet 2” has to feel like email, not MetaMask 🧱 Building a no-code RWA platform (white-label, scalable modules) 💸 Private capital, unusual backers, and the hidden cost of being funded early 🧠 Risk, optimism, and the discipline to sell what you can actually deliver If you care about where tokenization goes after the hype and the kind of leadership it takes to build real utility, this one’s worth your time. Watch/listen to my conversation on The Everyday Founder with Florian Ehrbar of OnchainLabs 👇 #Startups #Web3 #Tokenization #RWA #FounderJourney #Leadership #EverydayFounderPodcast

While everyone's writing Web3's obituary, some builders are quietly solving real problems. Tashi Network, led by ex-Grab exec Amar Bedi, just closed an oversubscribed funding round to tackle something critical: AI's centralisation problem. Here's the issue most people miss. As AI agents and autonomous systems proliferate, they're relying on centralised coordination systems, the same infrastructure that failed spectacularly during AWS outages. When the central server goes down, everything stops. For real-time robotics, autonomous vehicles, or coordinated AI agents, that's not just inconvenient, it's catastrophic! Tashi's solution? A distributed consensus technology called Vertex that allows machines to synchronise, validate, and settle actions in real-time without any central servers. Think of it as giving every robot or AI agent the ability to coordinate with thousands of others instantly, without needing a "maestro" calling the shots. The market validation is already there: 50,000+ nodes running in their DePIN network, 100+ ecosystem partners, and early paying clients. Co-led by Blockchain Founders Fund and Exponential Science, with backing from industry heavyweights like Gabby Dizon and Wei Z. Here's why this matters beyond the hype cycle: Yes, Web3 has lost its shine. The speculation frenzy is over, and most people have moved on to AI as the next shiny object. But that's exactly when the real innovation happens. When the tourists leave, the builders stay. What Tashi is building isn't about tokens or trading, it's infrastructure for the intelligent economy. They're preparing for a world where millions of AI agents and autonomous systems need to coordinate without trusting a central authority. That coordination itself becomes measurable, rewardable, and tradable and essentially turning coordination into currency. The timing is interesting. We're entering an era where AI agents will need to transact with each other, where autonomous systems will make real-time decisions, and where trust can't be outsourced to a single company's servers. Amar's background (Grab, Uber, KPMG) and the team's track record (previous exit at $34M to an NYSE-listed company) suggest they understand how to build for enterprise adoption, not just crypto enthusiasts. The broader lesson? While the narrative has shifted away from Web3, the underlying technology is maturing exactly where it should: solving real coordination problems for the next computing revolution. Worth watching as they launch their token on Solana and scale their network. Check out the article on e27 (Optimatic): https://lnkd.in/gN3ba8W4

Too many Web3 founders still believe tokens = traction. They don’t. A token can amplify a product, it cannot replace one. For every project that builds value loops, a hundred launch tokens that do nothing except pump early and panic later. Here’s the real Web3 maturity test: Does your token create behavior, or chase speculation? Can value be earned, used, and recirculated, not dumped? Does holding your token unlock utility, or just hope? Web3 isn't struggling because of regulation or markets. It's struggling because founders built tokens before ecosystems. Real tokenomics isn’t about price, it’s about coordination, incentive design, and long-term network behavior. Tokens aren’t meant to bribe users. They’re meant to reward participation and deepen commitment. At Matrix, we remind founders: If you remove the token and the product still works, good. If removing the token collapses the product, you don’t have utility, you've engineered dependency. Web3 won't scale through hype. It will scale through utility, trust and repeatable value loops. So before you mint, ask the only question that matters: Would people still show up without the token? If yes, now you're building something fundable. P.S. Dropping impactful insights that matter in my weekly newsletter every Saturday, 10 AM EST. Don't miss it. Subscribe right here! https://lnkd.in/gcqfGeK4

I’ve always believed that good ideas are easy to admire, but it is the follow-through that defines leadership. Ideas are sparks. But without consistent execution, they fade. Real impact comes from the work that happens when the excitement wears off. When we built Kiwi Express, it was not just about writing software. We embedded it across more than 40 courier companies. We trained teams, restructured operations, and dealt with real-world messiness. It was exhausting. It was hands-on. And it changed how an entire sector operated. That experience taught me something fundamental. Execution is not the glamorous part of building. It is the part most people underestimate. Strategy decks and mission statements will always look clean. But behind every transformation are the people who keep showing up solving the same problem again and again until the system works. As we prepare to bring USBC to the world, that same discipline guides everything we do. Our engineers are refining transaction flows down to milliseconds. Our legal and compliance teams are working across multiple jurisdictions. Our support staff are mapping onboarding experiences that will serve users from Nairobi to São Paulo. Every function matters. Every detail counts. There is no shortcut to earning trust. I have seen the temptation to scale fast and skip steps. I have also seen what happens when companies move faster than their infrastructure can handle. My approach has always been different. Build with care. Design for longevity. Treat every user interaction as a test of the system's integrity. Execution is often invisible from the outside. But inside a company, it is the culture. It is how people work together when no one is watching. At USBC, we do not measure progress by noise. We measure it by what we deliver, how we deliver it, and how reliably it works when it matters most. Over the years, I have learned that the most enduring companies are not built on hype. They are built on the quiet, relentless work of people who believe that every detail is worth getting right. That is the work we are doing now. And that is the work I will always show up for.

90% of Web3 startups don’t make it past 18 months. Not rugged. Not hacked. Just... gone. Like a ghost town Discord: 3 mods, 2 bots, and zero actual users. Here’s how most projects quietly disappear — and how not to become one of them: 1️⃣ Solving problems no one has “Let’s build a zk-rollup-as-a-service on top of an oracle middleware protocol!” Cool. But who’s it for — other founders? 👉 Find real users. Solve real pain. 2️⃣ Co-founder fallout Started as frens. Ended in governance drama and a silent multisig. 👉 Work with people you trust in the hard moments, not just the hype ones. 3️⃣ Paralysis by perfection 6 whitepapers, 0 users. Still “preparing for mainnet” a year later. 👉 Ship before it’s perfect. Learn in public. Survive by iterating. 4️⃣ Tokenomics based on vibes Token launches, price pumps, community bails. Because... it didn’t do anything. 👉 Build actual utility. Incentives > hype. 5️⃣ Ignoring legal until it’s too late “We’ll figure out the structure after the raise.” The SEC already downloaded your deck. 👉 Get legal advice early. Retroactive compliance doesn’t exist. Web3 is chaotic, but survivable. Start smaller. Build with people who won’t disappear. Stay honest with your users. Month 19 is where the magic happens. #Web3 #Startups #Crypto #Founders #Tokenomics #Blockchain #Memecoins

The first time I raised capital I thought the hardest part was securing a meeting but it wasn’t & infact that was a breeze…..the hardest part was proving why my company deserved to exist. Gratefully I sit on the other side of the table now.  But I also see crypto founders making the same mistake of believing "being early" is a business model. It’s not…..why have we glorified this so much? Institutions don’t fund narratives & they will continue to not. They fund businesses that generate real economic value. Too many Web3 pitches focus on token mechanics instead of market need.  Airdrops instead of actual revenue or a viral community instead of sustainable demand. Let me give you a harsh tldr: → Having a token ≠ having a product. → Raising money ≠ building a business. → A 100K Telegram ≠ real traction. Venture capital isn’t there to bet on vibes (sorry vibe coders). It is clearly capital that expects an exit. They also know that the best founders don’t chase hype cycles. They want their founders to build through these cycles. If your company disappears when the market turns, you never had a business but just a trade.

We’re in the “operationalization” phase of Web3. For years, crypto adoption was driven by startups experimenting at the edges. What’s changed recently is who is integrating Web3 and where it’s showing up. Stablecoins are moving into treasury operations. Wallets are becoming identity and access layers. Tokenization is starting with cash-like assets and short-duration instruments. This is the phase where experimentation turns into operating leverage. It’s quieter, slower, and far more durable than consumer hype cycles. When systems move from innovation teams to finance, legal, and ops, they rarely go back.

At the start of every year, crypto gets loud. Predictions. Narratives. Momentum trades. Everyone has an opinion on what’s “next”. But the real progress in this space rarely happens on stage or on X timelines. It happens quietly, behind the scenes: ✅ In structure ✅ In governance ✅ In control frameworks ✅ In decisions that won’t trend, but will still matter in three years Noise creates attention. Discipline creates longevity. As we move through 2026, the strongest crypto projects won’t be the noisiest ones. They’ll be the ones that took the unglamorous work seriously early on. The difference between hype and progress is rarely technical. It’s organisational. And that’s where most projects either mature....... or disappear. #CryptoLeadership #Web3 #BlockchainGovernance #FounderMindset #DigitalAssets