The GTM success recipe: PMF, UX and marketing.

Transcript

Okay. Ciao. Can I start? Okay. Ciao guys. Ciao everyone. I'm Maria and I'm Italian as you can hear from the accent. I joined the space the crypto space in 2018. And I have worked several years in DeFi in touch in close touch with the Ethereum ecosystem at Ave initially then Maker DAO, Balancer and other like DeFi protocols.

And now I've joined Hype Agency the marketing agency and so I have always done marketing for these projects but now I can see multiple ecosystems and multiple projects and not just DeFi and Ethereum. So as you can see from this slide initial slide I love food analogies to explain in concepts because I I think that sometimes they are very useful to explain certain concepts. And today I want to talk about the fact that usually when you launch a product or a a project and it doesn't work

marketing is the first thing or department you blame. But it's not like that. You need the perfect receipt. You need the product market fit, UX and UI and then of course marketing and go to market. So basically this is the agenda for today. The first ingredient I will talk about the product market fit. The second ingredient user experience and user interface of course. And then the third go to market.

And then what how to cook all together and finally I will show a quick checklist that you can use maybe as a model to see if you're doing good. So first ingredient product market fit. I call it the basement problem. What does it mean? It means that first let's start with some data. 11% of seed funds funded startups reach series A. 42% of startups fail because they build products that nobody wants.

What happened? Basement problem why? Because what I've noticed in in the years is that you have the idea in January. You sit and and so and down to develop the idea for months in your basement without you never get out of your basement and then when you launch basically the market is not needing your idea anymore. So what you need to do is to always check. So what is a product market fit? It's a living entity. It's a living signal. So what you you have

build perfectly is like when when something you have build is perfectly aligned with the what the market needs. And so people will buy, use and recommend this product without being pushed. So users will come back without incentives and referrals are organic. The 30% rule is a rule for which 30% or plus of users would be disappointed if your product disappear tomorrow.

So what you need to do you need to assess constantly. So not being always in your basement but always check. Is my is this problem still real? Is my product still the best solution and the best answer to this to this problem? And also if you have a community already active use it to make questions to ask, get feedback etc. Because product market fit can be also lost as markets and especially our market evolve very fast and competitors emerge and so you need to validate constantly.

Yeah, this is some something that that you can check. So usually what we check is vanity We are very focused in our space on vanity metrics like total wallets not active wallets total then airdrop claimants that now are not very in my opinion uh useful anymore. >> [snorts] >> Discord members, X followers. But the real signals are post campaign retention, active wallets the revenues, the word of mouth organic and the conversion of course.

So the test could be turn off your incentive for 30 days and who is still here. Ingredient number two is user experience. So here's some stats again. 80% 88% won't come back after a bad experience so you will lose them and 72% of users would switch for a better UX from one product to another. And and here the first impression is is you get it in 50 seconds. I don't know there's an a typo. In 50 seconds and 90% 94%

it's based on the UI the design. The ROI for investing in UX is almost 10K%. So the TLDR here is to invest in time before you launch in your user experience and user interface. This is a very like easy example. Of course we are working in a complex in like in a complex space and sometimes some something we can't avoid. Okay? But like DeFi six steps to cost money CeFi

three steps all free. Of course the first our first friction point is inevitably the the connection of the wallet. But then we can try to simplify as much as possible being transparent, being fast, being clean and like avoid try to avoid as many steps as as possible. For example no surprise for gas fee. Try to avoid extra steps etc. So this is an like some some qualities that a good UX should look should have. So one click wallet connect.

Gas fee shown before and no surprises. Plain language very transparent very clear guys because our goal is to attract new users like new new crowd and if you tell my mom maybe not my my dad liquidity provisions in 2 AMM protocols. What should like what what what does he understand? Nothing. So swap just like be simple. Then mobile first.

A lot of dApps are still very like desktop based and desktop desktop friendly but we needed to be mobile because everyone is just going around with their phone. Also now phones are like 2K euros or so I mean. Visual feedback on every action it's very useful. And then in app education when something like when there is something that could create some friction let's put for example like a mini pop-up or I don't know something that explain what's happening in this way

people are just better feel better you know. Then and I missed something in the previous slide which is the support. I think that having a good customer support is also very important part of a good user experience. Third ingredient is marketing go to market. So what's not working now and we are still doing it. Blanket airdrops. So I think it's already like airdrops per se are already gone for since last year.

They they don't stay you know they just you you create the the hype and then they they are gone after the airdrop. Infofi I I think it's dead as well. So there's no signal left in the noise as I as I wrote here. Um paid KOLs as well like I think there like key opinion leaders still exist but they are not those who ask for a to post and who are not those who get your copy-pasted message posted without understanding anything

and without even using probably your product. You need to find them. It's hard. But yeah, the audience they don't give a about KULs. So, probably the metrics are also fake. And then lately we have these AI CMOs. And which are agents. Like I don't think agents are are completely fine. At IP we use AI a lot. And and I think it's great. But AI CMO are something that can't exist because at a certain point you need human intelligence to

optimize what the AI is telling you. And so like you can't leave your marketing and your GTM in in in the hands of of an agent. You can't. So, what's working? Behavior-based incentives. It's right to give incentives, but just like link them to something that user want to do. And like not giving them for free just to mint for example, I don't know a card on on X.

Just like make them do something. Then creator and builder marketing. I think it's really good, especially lately. Having instead of big KULs posting, having some like smaller influencers or creator posting it's way better. It's it's also cheaper guys, and it it's more impactful. LinkedIn and TikTok. New channels. New channels like Let's Let's try to get LinkedIn and TikTok are two different channels. I put them together because they are channels that we are not super considering in our space, but they are important both. But they are talking to different audiences as well.

But for example, if you are targeting institutionals or you're B2B, use LinkedIn more. If you are want to target Gen Z or even millennials, use a TikTok as well. And your product product is comprehensible and user-friendly, of course. Then building public. So, share your metrics, your pivots, your failures. Because as I always repeat for years, audiences and communities love authenticity.

And then ecosystem partnerships. So, distribution without spend. Which is something that you need to leverage on whenever you have a partner, let's like first thing like try to cross marketing amplification etc. for free. So, the full lasagna. If you don't have a the ragu in the lasagna, it's it's not a lasagna guys. It's a If you don't have the right pasta, it's not like so. You can't miss any of these. If you don't have the product market fit, so your product

is no one needs your product. You you miss a big piece. So, the go-to-market can't do anything for you. If you don't have the UX, so the users arrive is super poor like super hyped etc., but then there are two 2,000 steps or like a leading time of whatever, and like you will lose them. The rest the two other things can't do anything. The same with the go-to-market.

If like you think about a great campaign, but then nobody wants the product or the UX your the UX is again it's useless. So, you need the three of them together, and this is a team effort, okay? So, it's it's an never-ending job. So, product market fit check every quarter. The question should be is the problem still real? Are we still the best answer? The UX check every sprint. Where are users dropping off? What's the correction completion rate? So, what's the conversion?

GTM check every campaign. Which channel brought user and who stayed? The the CAC versus 30-day retention by source. New channels. What are the new channels that I could use that maybe now are fine. So, PMF can be lost. UX debt accumulates and GTM channels saturate. This is a quick checklist that you can you can use.

And so, name 10 users would be very disappointed if your product disappeared. Can a user complete the correction in under 3 minutes without a tutorial? Do you have a clear product and value proposition? Do you know which GTM channel brought users after who are still active after 30 days? Have you talked with five to five users in the last 2 weeks? And are your post-incentive retention numbers going up?

If you can answer yes to all, then your lasagna isn't ready to serve to be served. So, [snorts] this is a final note on AI CMOs. It is an experiment that we did at Hype. Basically we have built this agent in 24 hours. Which gives you a lot of insights on your project. If you type your Basically if you type your website and X account or or LinkedIn, you get an analysis and some results which are very insightful.

Because they are good good hints. But the point that we wanted to demonstrate is and then what? Like I have this analysis, but then what should what should I do? I need some human intelligence to like make a a plan and you know and activate the changes that I need to make to my to my project. That's it. Thank you. >> [applause] >> If you want to follow me on X. And if you have any question we have time right?

Oh cool. Questions? Good. No questions better. Okay, thanks guys. Ciao. Yes. It was great.