In late June of this year, I received a message on my website through a friend of a friend looking to get started with their ICO and in need of some marketing assistance. “No problem,” I thought. Well, it turns out the ICO was scheduled to run less than one week after the initial message, and they were strapped on funds due to an even more haphazard and poorly thought-out pre-ICO.

I accepted, and here we are — one month later, with money burned and some important lessons learned.

While the below takeaways and tips might seem like common sense, that’s because they likely are. But, if blockchain’s short and meteoric rise has taught us anything, it’s that even the most seasoned crypto “evangelists,” thought leaders, and market makers are committing some of the most egregious and glaringly obvious mistakes (looking at you Balina).

Hopefully this piece serves as a reminder not to overlook the fundamentals.

1. Take Your Time: There’s No Need to Rush

Well, as mentioned above, this ICO was launched with such little foresight and room to prepare, that I wasn’t even done responding to the initial message in full from the “CEO” before the official start date commenced. And, with nearly 46% of ICOs never raising a single dime — mind you, even with thorough preparation, comprehensive marketing plan, and sound product — what makes you think cutting corners and expediting an organic process is going to yield anything more than fallacious results?

But, alas, the CEO was intent on pleasing the several pre-ICO investors who had contributed roughly USD $10,000. No amount of pre-ICO raised capital is worth shooting yourself in the foot from the get-go. While blockchain is full of idiots (like any industry) and some of the most incompetent people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, it’s also full of plenty of resourceful and skeptical cynics, who know their way around a computer and are able to exercise a certain degree of critical thought, which I personally think to be unprecedented in any industry.

Just as Roman emperors ultimately deferred to the raucous, uncouth, and inebriated plebeians in the stands to decide the fate of some poor and bloodied Thracian, the fate of a blockchain project ultimately vests with the people — and this time, they’re literate and Internet savvy. Unconvinced by pomp and circumstance, be prepared for investors and enthusiasts to pick apart every single detail of your project and ICO campaign. So, approaching your ICO with a barebones website, raw UpWork drafted white paper, and vague protocol promises of “to be decided in the future,” likely won’t generate the delusional returns you initially envisioned.

In a race to the bottom, don’t squeeze ten pounds of decentralized shit into a five-pound ICO bag just because you want dibs at first stall of the Sunday morning market. At least have the courtesy to properly package and sell it.

Taking your time, mitigating potential leaks, and tackling your ICO with a comprehensive gameplan might actually stall long enough so your project doesn’t get bodied by the current market.

2. Get Payment Upfront & Diversify

If you’re brought on to advise, code, market, make sure you receive payment upfront. Considering ICOs fail nearly as often as U.S. marriages, there’s about a 50/50 chance there isn’t even any money leftover to pay you at the end of the ICO.

And, with blockchain connecting literally everyone from every corner of the globe, you might not even be located within the same country as the project you’re advising on or coding for. Are you really going to fly to Russia to track down some founder known only by his online Discord handle “NotaScamCryptoIPromise” to enforce on a debt not even likely to exceed the small claims court threshold of your respective country? Nyet. Or, what are you going to do if a Serbian developer makes off with the bulk of funds raised during the ICO? Yeah, that really happened. I’ll be getting into this a bit more in Part 2.

Costs add up and unforeseen expenses arise. And, in an industry of the finest snake oils and Florida swampland known to man, the estimated ROI for ICO marketing is likely marginal or démodé.

Furthermore, how confident are you in the project? Can you absorb the costs of living and one to three months of work without ever being paid? What happens if the project’s native token ends up worth the same as a dirty bar napkin? Before deciding on how to split up your payment, weigh what the overall value of it means to you. I’m all for a good gamble, however, I’m also for hedging your bets — especially in an industry plagued by extreme variance and volatility.

I personally opt for a 75/25 split, 75% in BTC, ETH, or fiat mix, and 25% in the project’s native token. 75% enables me to still retain the corpus of payment should things go wrong, while 25% in the native token generates enough of a financial stake in the project that I genuinely care about the outcome.

Do you really think a mid-50s Saratoga banker and husband would throw away his 20 year marriage and relationship with his three kids just to throw down Monopoly money on Seabiscuit? No, you need a stake in the game — a horse in the race.

3. YouTube “Influencers:” The Juice Not Worth the Squeeze

If a “YouTube influencer” has to spam your Telegram channel or directly message your project on Facebook demanding you pay them 2 BTC for a favorable ICO review, steer clear. The second you engage and entertain the idea of actually paying these people, you’ve already lost. Legitimate YouTube ICO reviewers and social media influencers aren’t aggressively soliciting or begging you to hire them.

Most of these channels bombarding you with exorbitant ransoms for reviews aren’t even organically crypto. Their followers were either purchased or accumulated through the building of a channel of substantively differing subject matter. There’s not likely much of a fervent fire burning in the hearts of birdwatching subscribers to now be subjected to the hottest decentralized exchange (DEX) you’ve never heard of.

To put things in perspective, our “CEO” engaged and paid roughly 10 crypto “YouTube influencers” — with the most popular of the bunch having nearly 160k subscribers — and our most viewed review had just shy of 9,000 views. Note that most of the comments on each video were either general and jumbled statements about Bitcoin, advertisements for another ICO or project, or irrelevant spam posts geared towards enlarging your penis and fixing your diet.

This isn’t even addressing the countless scam YouTube accounts out there that strictly just take your money and run.

Don’t be easily misled by posts like this https://medium.com/koinok/ico-marketing-101-getting-featured-by-youtube-crypto-influencers-142bc0c946f0, as an alarmingly high percentage of these YouTubers have zero actual knowledge of the blockchain ecosystem or project fundamentals, and will typicaly gloss over important details while providing a “walkthrough” of the website and white paper. I strongly suggest watching a few YouTube ICO video reviews before actually pulling trigger and shelling out a hefty fee. It should be immediately apparent whether the reviewer in question is contributing anything of value to the cryptosphere or simply regurgitating a rudimentary script with no actual analysis.

Seek out YouTubers who possess critical thought, someone who will give an honest review of your project while striving to educate, not shill.

This takes me into my next point, organic over artificial. I’ll tackle my next 3–4 points in Part 2, which should be coming out soon.

You can follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/whybeyellow.

-Obiter Cryptum