ICOs are being used by startups to raise billions to get their projects off the ground. Some are successful, while some falter. Lars Lien, CEO of Luckbox expresses his opinion on factors that influence ICOs’ success:
Engage your community from day one.
The clue is in the title – “crowdsale”. We were lucky in that are community were helping us almost from day one. We had some really experienced people to turn to for advice and the number of people doing that steadily grew so that we ended up with a community who feel deeply involved in the project. They care enough to challenge us and ask questions, which is vital, but they’re also supportive. There’ve very much a sense of “we’re all in this together” and wanting to achieve.
Be serious about security.
Protecting your assets and your community from malicious activity is paramount. There’s a lot of nefarious activity in the crypto world and it’s important to be mindful of that. You need to make sure you partner with trusted and reputable third parties to offer protection and keep your community educated about the risks.
Stand apart from the crowd.
ICOs have had a fairly bad press, particularly in the mainstream media and not without reason. Some crowdales have taken millions from people and then vanished. We’ve worked really hard to make potential contributors feel that’s not going to happen with us. The best tools in this respect are by being as professional and transparent as possible. We’ve tried to communicate in a clear and timely fashion so people know what’s going on. We’ve also done profiles on our team, so they can see real people are working on it and we’ll be releasing some images of our product prototype so people can see that we are building something great.
Time it right.
The rollercoaster nature of crypto means timing is everything. For example, when the price of Bitcoin surged in November, a lot of ICOs suffered as people were holding their coins instead of considering investing. You need a bit of luck but, mostly, you have to adapt and respond to the market conditions. If you need to postpone or bring something forward, then you have to be willing to do so, as long as it’s for the right reasons. The success of the project is paramount and in everyone’s interests.
