How to onboard 300k new users to Ethereum - Victor

Transcript

[Music] Hello. Ah, okay. This is already on. Hey, how do I pass the slides? Is there a clicker somewhere? No, this is the last slide. Thank you. All right. Oh, okay. So, the title of the talk is how Starknet on boarded oop how starting on boarded 100,000

users to Ethereum. Actually, it wasn't 100,000 users, it was 200,000 users. And actually, it wasn't 200,000 users. Uh this is Ollie, my boss, and he sent a screenshot in the Slack channel the other day. We made it past the 300,000 users from the as you can see in the Dune dashboard. And then yesterday I was practicing uh my slides and I checked again the Dune dashboard and it's now 323,000. So the real title of the talk is how to on board 300,000 users to Ethereum. So my name is Victor. I work in the ecosystem team at Starkware.

Starkware we're building a 2 on Ethereum and soon on Bitcoin with a dual settlement architecture. And my job is to help you find a Cairo job or to help you build your project on Starknet. So the tail of this presentation is that there are no web two and web three users. If you want to really build consumer applications, you have to remove anything that has a zero X. You want to sponsor your transactions. You want to completely remove the wallet. You want to have fast and cheap transactions. and I'm going to give you some tips and tricks on really low budget marketing. Um yeah, so this talk is really about how you can create a consumer application. Um and the

agenda of the talk is why you want to build consumer apps, how you want to build them, idea and tech-wise some tips and tricks, how you want to get users and then the last question when consumer apps and all of that is going to be wrapped around a case study on focus tree which is the application is the consumer application that on boarded those 300 plus thousand users. So I'm going to tell you how they work, why they work, and what they're doing well. And I'm going to give you this knowledge so that you can apply it to your own consumer application. So I have two goals for this presentation. I want to bring more consumer applications to Ethereum. The tech is already here. We have really

fast, really cheap transactions. It's really possible to build consumer applications and on board millions of people that have no idea that they're using Ethereum. And then I'm also going to tell you that it's actually easier to get ideas than to figure out the tech. And now we've figured out the tech. So let's actually start getting ideas. Um, and in general, the goal is it's it's an invitation for you to think consumer and not web 3. In case you want to try out Focus, this is the app on the app store, so you can check it out later. But before I tell you how to create your own consumer apps and what you have to do, basically this is how it works. The the application, it's um so an

application where you focus and you get rewarded. Super easy to understand. You press a focus button, your phone gets locked, you accumulate NFTs, you basically that's how you get rewarded and that's the finality and then you can compare gardens with your friends. It's a very very simple application and why it works, why we're on boarding 300,000 people to to Ethereum is because it's an action and a finality. The action of focusing and the finality of getting rewarded. So, it's very simple. And then why they're working right now so aggressively is that the they had a marketing Tik Tok and they have a marketing Tik Tok strategy which is um working really well. So they've they just see that based on those Tik Tok

views that they're getting redirected to the app store and they're getting a lot of users just based on Tik Tok. Um they're targeted towards students and there's no ugly web 3 UX. So it's very abstracted. So let's get it. First topic of the of the talk, why consumer apps? And when I say consumer apps, that's any application that has a blockchain backend. And so if we want to bring true decentralized um and secure technology to billions and billions of of people, if you want to bring Ethereum to billions of people, it's technically possible today. So we have really fast transactions per second. We have really cheap infrastructure. It's really low

cost for any company to integrate um smart contract technology, but the the Ethereum ecosystem lacks this consumer culture. So, we're very into building the latest tech and the best tech and being the best at everything, but we often lack this consumer perspective. Um, and we're not talking enough to non-cryptonative people. So, people who really don't care honestly that they're using a blockchain and we're selling too much tech, not enough culture. Um, and basically this talk is a call to people to start thinking more about their consumers. um then create their own business that is focused around consumers and eventually you build a sustainable startups that has a

blockchain back end but that is targeting non-web3 users. So we have a Ferrari but it's not being used and if you didn't get the analogy the Ferrari is the tremendous tech that we have but it's in the shop and not a lot of people are using this tremendous tech to on board billions of people that don't really care that they're using blockchain. So now how consumer apps tips and tricks first in terms of ideas. These are just a bunch of things you should think about if you want to create a consumer application. So for example you want to find people um that do something in a messy way and then you want to basically build an application in that um that um caters to that messy way. So for example

what focus tree does the the application is you press focus it locks your phone and then you get rewarded. What I used to do, for example, when I was in university, I would use my iPhone's timer and do like the Pomodoro technique. I would set like a 25 minute timer on my like clock application on the the phone. Um, and that's like the messy perspective of doing something. So, just build an application that caters to that action. Um, and these are, you can take a picture of this if you want, but these are just other questions or things to think about when you want to get an idea consumer-wise, when you want to to really on board millions of users for a consumer application. So, TDR is that you want to

think consumer. You want to ask yourself where is data ownership, where is decentralization, where is privacy needed, and where do normal people, where do normies benefit from blockchain? And these are just some underlying questions that will help you get some principles um for your app. So what focus you did? Their mission is to focus to onboard um students and help them focus or increase their focus. They grow their garden. What's interesting is that their initial target audience was starknet. So like people like you and me, web 3 users, defi deans. Um but it didn't work. It was a big flop like one year and a half ago. um and then they shifted to targeting students and now it's a really

big success. So techwise what do you need in order to build this kind of application? Your ultimate goal should be to remove anything that is crypto-reated like it's it's gibberish to noncrypto people. They don't care about wallets. They don't care about tokens. They don't care about bridges or that connect wallet button. You can abstract that completely nowadays with the tech that we have. So you want to assume that your user has zero knowledge, no pun intended, um on uh on web three stuff. So yeah, these are the basic requirements that you would need. What's

really important is that um users should note that they have a wallet that's deployed. You want to sponsor your transactions with a pay master. You want to abstract the wallet as much as possible. So not even that crypto interface like nothing. You have really cool softwares nowadays like Privy or Dynamic which allow you to do Google login and in the back end they handle the entire account management. Um you also want to make sure that you're using an infrastructure that allows you to have fast and cheap transactions. And then you want to have some if you want to build a flutter applications because mobile is clearly the future you have um SDKs and specifically for starknet you have the starknet.start SDK. So that just gives

you all the tools for you to build uh an iPhone or an Android application. So what's the cost? This is the cost um that for focus tree that uh their pay master incured for around 200,000 people that they imported. So whenever you open the application you you going to create some first transactions, right? You're going to focus and you're going to get an NFT and that NFT is minting and that's getting handled by the pay master. So the user has no idea that the user doesn't need crypto to pay for that NFT. And so the pay master for 200,000 users because transactions are so cheap nowadays and on start they're so cheap

uh it only costed around $1,000 for 200,000 users. And if you have look at basic SMS services you know you need like those um six digits for 2FA sometimes it's around 0.01 per message. It's way more expensive. So it gives you an idea of of these are all onboarding tools and it gives you a perspective a comparative perspective on which tools cost how much. Then we also have a pay master on startnet. So we have multiple pay masters. It allows you to basically trans to really sponsor transactions for your users. We have native account abstraction. So EIP7702 was recently deployed which

introduces account abstraction to Ethereum. The difference with native account abstraction is that it's way more secure. So basically every account for your user is a smart account and you can really program the UX for your user. So that's the main benefit of of using smart accounts and you don't have to deal with EOAs when you're using smart accounts. So, uh, a couple of minutes ago, I told you that one around a year ago, um, Focus 3 didn't work out because they were targeting like web 3ens like you and me. Um, the reason why it didn't work out is because this was their onboarding flow. So, you get the app, you connect your wallet, you install the extension, blah blah blah blah blah, and

then you can finally start using the app. And they removed all of this by abstracting it all the way. And now the app is you land on the app and then you can use the app, right? This should be the actual flow for people. Uh transactions are really cheap. Start is a ZK rollup by the way. Um we have a mobile first SDK. So startet.dart they're using. This is actually built by focus tree. So they built their own dot dart um library but now anyone can use it.

So, how do you get users? That's a pretty good question. Um, you have um I'm going to give you a bunch of tips, especially if you're a young business or a young startup on things to avoid whenever you want to get more users. Um, before I worked at Starkware, I worked in a smaller lab and I remember we would spend like a,000 1,500 for like 3D super sick ass videos like, "Yeah, we have this amazing announcement um like a 30-cond ad on this new feature." Um, and they would cost a lot of money and then once you make that announcement, that video is basically forgotten.

So, an easy trick to to get more users, get more attention, and avoid spending thousands of euros, especially if you're a young company, is that you can pay Tik Tok creators to create content for you. This is what Focus Tree did. They would pay $20 to Tik Tok creators, especially uh student influencers, and like, "Yeah, today I used Focusree. I focused 60 minutes and I got this NFT in my garden. So this is way cheaper and way more effective. And if you want to take a picture of this, this is basically the playbook that they used to get those users. Another cost-effective marketing

that you should consider is founder marketing. So really, it's really basic, but you want, if you're a founder, you want to record yourself using your product. It's super cheap. It's human. It's interpersonal. You're creating a human brand behind your product. Um, you want to tweet loudly, right? You want to make noise. You want to be on the top of that Kaito leaderboard. And if people see that you have a cool brand and you're a nice person, then people will likely use your application. This is an example. So this is you know when OpenAI they do their announcements, they're like sitting on the couch and they're chilling and like I mean I like Open AI like this influences the brand perception. And this is Gaban from Focusree. So he was on the rollup and then you also have

Mert Sch shilling time. Fun. So he's not the founder of timef fun but you know it's like it kind of gives founder marketing vibes. So, you also want to do memes. And many people, like to many teams I talk to nowadays, I tell them, "Hey, you should do more memes." They laugh at me like, like, "Why should I do like more Pepe Frog images if I'm doing like a dick?" But no, like memes is culture. Memes is budget friendly. You're demestifying the products. It's relatable. It's funny. Again, you're creating a cool brand perception. It's very cheap. You can literally create memes for free in 15 minutes. And it you're creating a culture for your application.

And these are some you see memes every day. I don't need to give examples. So when consumer apps now we have the tech and now we really just need ideas. So that's actually the also the the most easy the easiest part. We've figured out the tech for all these years and now we just need to build something that is actually useful for people. So the talk of this presentation is on the ETHRAG website how to on board 300,000 users to Ethereum. But actually I want this talk to be called uh how to on board 300,000 new users to your app. So why you should consider starknet

when building a consumer application. First we understand now how to to build a consumer application especially with focusry. We have a playbook. We have a virality playbook. The picture of the Tik Tok strategy that I showed you earlier, we have that integrated. We know how to do that. Um, and we have even more research in the background. So, if you want to know more about that too, please reach out to me. And we also give idea advisorship. In terms of the tech, we have the pay master, so you're taking care of of all the costs for onboarding your users. you we have really fast and really cheap transactions native account abstraction and you have Dart SDKs which allows you to easily build applications

on StartNet and then if you need ecosystem support well this is my team this is me but then you have Akash Rehan and Odinfrey which is my boss um but we're also going to talk to the wizards at Starkware that take care of building Cairo smart contracts and we're going to tell them hey this startup over here needs help uh with their Cairo contract please help them. We're going to give you cool marketing support. We're going to give you grants program. We're going to give you business advice. Something I hear all the time nowadays is um people like devs build a product and they have no road map because they don't think about the road map. But that is like a basic business requirement that you should have nowadays, but devs don't

oftenimes think about it. So, speaking of memes, this if you've watched the Powerpuff Girls, this is all the ingredients that you need to build a good consumer application. You need a pay master, fast and cheap transactions, native account abstraction, a mobile SDK, and then you have the happy professor with a viral consumer application. So, I'm going to close on some final thoughts, but we're at all-time lows in terms of gas costs, um, in terms of of transaction time. One important note as well is that you want to meet the user you want to meet the user security standards. The it's not the it shouldn't be the other way around. So, you want to avoid that the user starts handling seed

phrases and and weird weird web three stuff. That shouldn't be the case. We should abstract everything and take care of everything. And often times self-custody is a feature that we want to sell to people but it should be the opposite. Self-custody should be important for the operator. So for the person handling the business because often times you know for like regulations or for that regulatory perspectives um you get a lot less complexity when you're handling self-custody. So for example, Signal like the Telegram equivalent, they don't hold custody of the of the message data.

So from a regular perspective, it's all good for them. Um, so it's often a feature that we sell to end users, but it's it should be more a feature that you take into account for your own product. And then it's also very affordable and accessible to build smart contracts today. It's very easy. There's documentation. It's cheap. It's fast. So we can build viral consumer apps. And the goal is to bring Ethereum to billions of users. And it's time to supercharge Ethereum. Thank you. And if you want to reach out, this is me on X on Telegram, um, if you want to learn about Cairo, if you want to build a startup, if you want

to build a consumer application, just reach out to me and let's start a talk and we'll help you with financing and idea advisorship and we'll help you with your smart contracts. And that's also my mission at Starks. Make sure that you are successful in the Starnet ecosystem. Oh, this is my last slide. So, thank you very much for listening. Thank check. So, thank you. Thank you for the wonderful presentation. Uh, we have five minutes for a quick Q&A. If you have any questions, feel free to throw at him. Anyone? Okay. Yes.

Thank you. Uh what kind of on on and off ramps do you have? Uh so we have um we have the classic on and off ramp. So I think banksa I don't know all the names but if you go into the the website we have a section with I think around five or six onramps. There's a BD manager there at Starkware in the blue shirt who's laughing at the moment and raising his hand. He's going to tell you a lot more of which often on-ramps we have and also towards which other on-ramps we're um we're looking forward to to integrating.

Thank you for an amazing talk. It's been great to see many of the points which I think just a year ago many of them were not being mentioned here but from a UX perspective you've mentioned a lot of the things that matter and I'm just curious from an ecosystem perspective are you now seeing more cryptonative DAPs and projects kind of pivoting and going more the consumer route or are you seeing also an independent inbound of purely consumer apps that are just looking for suitable infrastructure uh we see both.

So I said earlier you there is no difference between web two and web 3 users but we're kind of catering towards two markets. So if you're you if you're building a DeFi application I think you're going to not want to abstract your wallet and keep the crypto wallet, right? Europe, you're you're dealing with money, so you want to keep your wallet, but then you also want to cater to those nonweb 3 people and those people that don't care at all about blockchain. So, we're catering towards both. And from an ecosystem perspective, we have um there's kind of a separation, but it's it's two target groups that you're targeting basically when you're creating applications. I saw a question over here.

Thank you for the talk. Um, I was just having a thought while you were presenting. Um, I'm guessing thinking of and calling people who are not deeply involved with web 3 normies could be harming the desire to involve more people into like calling them normies and thinking of them as normies. Okay. uh this is my job as abstracting a concept to bring it to people like to bring it to this Ethereum community. So normies okay could sound like a harm harmful term but I think that's also the reality like normal people like who who just want to use an app for the sake of using

it but not necessarily um who have no interest in the the the fact that it's a blockchain back end. So, normal people could be a different term, but I think the point was was clear. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Any other questions? All right. I I do love normies, by the way. Um Oh, I think we all love normies. Sorry. How do we get more founders? More founders. That's a great question. How do we find them? What are the signals?

Yeah, that's a great question. So actually um it's uh recently like uh we've seen or when so I work at starkware but we talk a lot with the Starket Foundation and the Starknet Foundation's goal is to get more devs or get more Starknet education out there and they've recently shifted from a moto from getting more devs to getting more founders because we have enough devs. So now we just need founders and business people and people who have, you know, an entrepreneurial mindset. And I think that's a really tough um group of people to find because you want to find somebody that is technically skilled but also has a business mindset. So knows how to drive

a product and start a product and create a road map and talk about financing. I think the best duo is having a dev and um an entrepreneur but they get re um that they get um along very well. So how do we get founders? That's really good question. I think every single ecosystem out there also outside of Ethereum those are um big questions that they ask themselves. But I think the best way is to to find those weird devs that have an idea and that you just support them as much as possible. But try to if they're only focused on developing, give them an a business support and a marketing support and teach them entrepreneurship.

I think that's also our job as um at Starknet to to give this to people not just to build stuff but also to teach them how to to make their stuff usable by others. So to answer your question, how do you get more founders? Um, how I do it, I go on Reddit, I go on Flutter Discords, I go on iOS Discords, and I just ask people and start talking to people and create relationships. And I think it's really just a um a um how's that strategy called where you um spray and prey like it's a spray and prey strategy where you talk to as many people as possible and only 10% of those people are going to show interest and

then only 10% of those people are actually going to be founders. So TLDDR founders are very rare but you have to create inter like really good personal relationships with them um and help them create a good product. Hi thank you for the talk. It was really nice. Um my question is so I have idea for a app. I'm working on couple of things already and what is the selling point? Why I I can imagine why would I use it? But from your point of view, why should I use something like this like blockchain all the web three stuff instead of using just a database heavy centralized? For me, I want to keep the

loss cost down until I hit I don't know millions of users. So why should you use blockchain and not keep it a web to mobile app? Yeah. So you have many benefits in terms of blockchains. You have that regulatory argument. though where you are not the the holder of the user, you you don't hold custody of the user's asset. I think that's a big point that people often times forget. Um there's another argument which often times if you're handling, for example, let's say that your app is handling some sort of transaction and you're doing this transaction offchain. Often times the cost of doing this off-chain transaction is higher than the cost of doing it onchain. So like simple ERC20 transfers. Um for

example, we're talking to this team and they're doing offchain transactions at the moment and they've asked us, hey, why should we actually build on the blockchain? And we've seen it compared to cost that it's actually way cheaper for you as a business to do it onchain and to build your contracts and get that transfer logic onchain. So from a cost perspective, I think blockchain is a great argument. From a custody perspective, blockchain is a great argument. Um and and also the fact that you I think another cool argument is that you can plug your product into multiple other products. So blockchain if you if your product is open source you can start using other people's tooling. Um people can use your product.

Um I think it's it's a great thing of of blockchain culture is that we try to make as much of our software open source as possible. So if it's open sourced as well, you can um you also have those benefits there. So also people finding things in your code for instance. Um but again the fact if you should open source it or not is a good question for people who really want to go 100% into that entrepreneurship route. So um yeah to answer your question I think it's a custody argument and a um cost argument as well but depends on your use case. I think uh that's about it and thank you. Thank you everyone.