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WARNING: After Shipping 19 Web3 Products, Here's What Every Founder Needs To Know About Teams That Kill Projects (Before You Waste 6 Months And Your Entire Runway)

After watching 19 Web3 projects from the inside, some that hit $100M TVL, others that burned through millions and died in weeks, we found 6 patterns that separate the survivors from the graveyard. Most teams think it's about funding or timing, but they're solving the wrong problems.

Andre Costa

Published on:

Jun 6, 2025

Strategy

Development

Most Web3 teams won't survive the next 18 months.

But some will thrive.

We've been inside 19 different Web3 builds,

From DeFi protocols that hit $100M TVL to gaming platforms that found their audience.

We've also watched NFT projects disappear after two weeks, and infrastructure plays burn through $2M without shipping.

The difference wasn't funding, timing, or tech.

It was how they built.

Most founders think projects fail because of money problems or bad market timing. That's what we thought, too.

But after interviewing over 1,300 developers, working with 50+ of them, and watching these teams from the inside…

Seeing their Slack conversations, sitting in strategy calls, and watching user metrics in real-time, we found something different.

That success comes down to these five specific decisions:

🏆 What do you build first?

🏆 When do you start growing your audience?

🏆 How do you spend your runway?

🏆 Who do you hire?

🏆 Which infrastructure do you choose?

Get these wrong and YOU will waste months building features nobody wants.

Here are the 6 common patterns we saw in teams that survived and scaled.

Pattern 1: Clarity > Complexity

Stop overbuilding. Build ONE crystal-clear feature that proves your value.

What bad teams did: They'd spend 6 months building a "full ecosystem" with staking, governance, NFT marketplace, and DeFi pools. But, when the launch day hits, it’s 47 users, and zero retention.

What good teams did differently: They picked ONE high-leverage feature. Built it in 4 weeks. Shipped it. Got feedback. And only added features after users begged for them.

Why it worked: Simple. Users can't fall in love with 15 half-baked features. But they'll become obsessed with ONE feature that solves their problem.

Great builders don't guess their way to product-market fit. They TEST their way there. And this saves you months of dev time while helping you build something people want instead of what YOU think they want.

➔ Code is worthless if users don't care.

Pattern 2: Distribution Begins on Day 1

Here's what most teams get wrong: Your code might not save you, but your community will.

What bad teams did: Spent 8 months "heads-down building." Zero social presence. No community, and then launched to 12 Twitter followers.

What good teams did instead: From day one, they posted build updates, DMed potential power users, and started small beta lists. They documented decisions publicly and made people feel part of the journey.

Why it worked: Because when you finally launch, you have 1,000 people waiting to try your product instead of launching into the void.

But this isn't just about followers. It's about building trust early, getting feedback during development, and creating users who feel invested in your success. Your best users want to be part of the story, not just customers at the end.

➔ If you're just coding in silence, no one will care when you launch.

Pattern 3: No Paid Growth Until PMF

Speaking of launches, here's where teams burn the most money:

Don't buy traffic for a product you haven't proven.

What bad teams did: Dropped $50K on KOL campaigns, AMAs, and airdrops before they even had retention metrics. Burned runway. Got vanity metrics and Zero sustainable growth.

What good teams did differently: They held off on big spends until they had retention, knew their pitch, and had metrics that proved people wanted what they built.

Why it worked: Because pre-Product Market fit, every dollar spent on marketing is a dollar not spent on building something people want.

We've seen teams waste entire funding rounds trying to buy their way to product-market fit. But here's the truth: the market will tell you when you're ready to scale. So, don't guess with your runway.

➔ Save your money for after you know WHAT works.

Pattern 4: Incentives Still Matter (Even If It Feels Cheesy)

Now, this might sound contradictory after talking about not buying growth, but hear me out: Yes, it's Web3. Yes, people want to earn. Use that to YOUR advantage.

What bad teams did: They thought they were "above" Web3 incentives. No rewards, no quests, no early access perks. They wanted to be "pure" and build for "real users only."

What good teams did instead: They used quests, testnet rewards, and contributor points. But here's the key - they built something people wanted FIRST, then added the rewards on top.

Why it worked: Sure, many incentive-farmers churn. But 10% become power users, community leads, or preachers. And that 10% becomes your foundation.

Don't think you're above Web3 rewards - your competitors are using them and building stronger communities faster by mixing real value with smart incentives.

➔ Build value first. Then reward the people who find it.

Pattern 5: Founders Who Talk to Users Outperform Those Who Don't

But incentives alone won't save you. What really matters is that your first 100 users should feel like they're in a private club.

What bad teams did: Founders stayed behind the scenes. Community managers handled user feedback. Founders made product decisions based on internal assumptions, and not user reality.

What good teams did differently: Founders DMed users personally, dropped into Discord threads, and collected feedback themselves. Not outsourcing product insight but OWNING it.

Why it worked: Every successful team had founders who knew their users by name, whereas failed teams treated users like metrics on a dashboard.

You need to know what your users hate, what they love, and what confuses the hell out of them. Nobody else can learn that for you.

When we helped Zenrock hit 35,356 active users in just 29 days, it wasn't through hype. It was through clear value, strong onboarding, and community feedback loops that started with founders talking to users directly.

➔ If you're not talking to users daily, you're building blind.

Pattern 6: Chain Selection Takes Longer Than Expected- Keep Your Options Open

Finally, here's something that trips up even the smartest teams: The chain you launch on might not be the one you stay on.

What bad teams did: They locked into one ecosystem early. Built everything around one chain's specific tools and then, when that ecosystem lost momentum or changed direction, they were stuck.

What good teams did differently: They built with multichain in mind from day one. Kept infrastructure modular and stayed in active conversations with 3-5 ecosystems.

Why it worked: Because ecosystem politics, user liquidity, and funding support all shift. Chain choice affects way more than just your tech stack.

Teams that locked in early got screwed when their chain lost steam or users migrated elsewhere. Whereas teams that stayed flexible jumped ship and kept growing.

➔ So, don't MARRY your infrastructure, instead DATE it.

Look, the market won't wait. And your competitors aren't sitting around either.

If you don't act on these patterns, here's what happens:

➙ You burn dev time building features nobody wants.

➙ You lose momentum while competitors ship faster.

➙ You launch something users don't care about.

➙ You pick the wrong chain and get stuck.

➙ And ultimately, you lose market share to faster, smarter teams.

This isn't guesswork.

We've shipped 19 Web3 products and seen exactly what makes teams stall versus what helps them survive and scale

The real risk isn't launching too soon.

It's building in the wrong direction, missing your market window, and losing trust with users, investors, and even your own team.