Introduction

An initial coin offering, also known as initial currency offering, is an unregulated means of raising funds for a new cryptocurrency project. It is a financing process often used by several startup cryptocurrency projects as an easy alternative to the cumbersome and highly rigorous process of obtaining the relevant capital from banks or venture capitalists.

TokenData, a foremost ICO tracker, highlighted that in 2017, there were approximately 902 Initial Coin Offering projects. According to the tracker, 142 of the total ICOs failed even before the offering, while 276 projects subsequently failed after the funds were raised.

In fact, an additional 113 ICOs have been deemed “semi-failed “ projects. Different reasons account for this semi-failure status. That includes the projects’ teams halting of communication across social media platforms, and the existence of relatively small communities for the projects. In all, reports indicate that approximately 59% of the ICOs from 2017 are failures or soon-to-be-failures.

Having examined the factors that led to the failure of most of the ICOs, this article seeks to establish the relevant steps that can be adopted in remedying the situation. In essence, the article seeks to highlight the steps the Swachhcoin team has adopted to ensure an upward performance of its token post-ICO.

How to determine if a project is successful

The success of a project can be determined based on different metrics and most of these metrics are hinged on its performance after its ICO. The metrics include:

The funds raised during the pre-sale Whether or not the project maintains market relevance for more than one year after the Initial Coin Offering The technical characteristics It's popularity across social media platforms The trading volume.

To ensure that a project is successful post-ICO and invariably ensure its upwards performance post-ICO, there are certain steps that can be adopted by the team. They include:

1. Adopting a gradual discounts decrease strategy

Several ICOs fix huge differences in the discounts given to early adopters at the diverse phases of the token sale. The relatively large differences might prove counterproductive subsequently because the participants who enjoyed high discounts end up dumping the tokens at ICO prices when the tokens get listed on exchanges. A better approach will be to adopt a gradual discount decrease scheme as this will help to eliminate such issues. Swachhcoin has a healthy discount scheme whereby the discounts gradually decrease every week over the entire period of the sale of tokens.

2. Making announcements at strategically planned periods

It is important that the team behind any project work with a strategically planned schedule. Having such schedule helps the team to efficiently deliver announcement and roll out important updates amidst ideal audience awareness. The Swachhcoin team over time has regularly and actively adopted this policy.

3. Vesting from bulk investors

It is essential that the bonus tokens of bulk investors are locked and released over a defined period of time as that would contribute to the reduction of dumping scenarios. The Swachhcoin team understands the importance of this step and has already vested all the tokens of its Private Sale.

4. Obtaining maximum investment from retail investors

Retail investors are also known as small cap investors. An ideal token sale is one where a major percentage of the total tokens are sold to a larger number of participants. The existence of such percentage reduces individuals’ dumping power should they decide to sell their tokens.

In addition, it gives room for a steady growth as opposed to irregular spikes since there is a continuous, healthy and steady supply of tokens to buyers. In a converse situation where a lesser number of investors hold the major percentage of the total tokens, they can choose to withhold their tokens and that could lead to an unnatural spike in price and a major fall afterward. The major percentage of investment in the Swachhcoin project comes from the small-cap investors.

5. Working with a strategically planned roadmap

One other step that can contribute to the upward performance of a token post-ICO is regularly giving updates to the members of the community. This helps to keep the members abreast of all relevant developments. Swachhcoin has a strong roadmap ahead of its token sales. It also has major development releases scheduled for publication at regular intervals.

6. Running a strong communication channel with the community

Having an active community interaction discussion for all the projects prospects is very important. Such discussions should include the pros and cons of the project, suggestions about the operations of the project as well as feedback. Currently, the official telegram discussion group of Swachhcoin has more than 99,000 active participants.

7. Building a grievance redressal channel

Building a solid grievance redress channel helps a project to gain the trust of the members of the community over time. The redress channel is where the concerns of the community members are addressed. The channel should be readily accessible and also have a fast response time. Swachhcoin works with ground level community members with full commitment all in a bid to satisfactorily resolve any issue raised by any member of the community.

8. Healthy Token Distribution

It is essential that the total percentage of tokens for sale in an ICO is not so little considering the fact that it increases the chances that such tokens will be subsequently dumped by the team. Swachhcoin offers 69% of the total tokens for sale in the ICO. The team holds just 9% of the total tokens and that is locked as indicated in the schedule stated in the Swachhcoin whitepaper.

9. Listing on a reputed exchange with high volume

This last step is an extremely important one. If all the earlier mentioned steps are incorporated in an ICO project, but the project isn’t listed on a highly reputed exchange that boasts of a robust user base and high volume, there is little or no chance that the upward performance will be possible. Listing on a reputed exchange that has high volume aids the expansion of the project’s user base. The Swachhcoin team is currently in partnership and discussions with highly reputed exchanges.

In conclusion, the Swachhcoin team vividly understands what it takes to ensure the upward performance of a token after ICO and has strategically adopted these steps.