I lost my job last week.

For anyone who is new here, I’ve been working as Head of Research for a Web3 startup for the past year.

It came as a bit of a surprise which was the worst part.

No one wants to get caught off guard like that.

But this is how startup life works.

Things happen quickly.

Plans change.

You live and die on the length of your cash runway.

So WTF happened?

Let’s dig in to see what lessons we can learn and how you can use those in your Web3 journey.

The Backstory

My job was to build a high quality research portal covering Web3 games.

I had a team of writers and we produced game deep dives, research reports, and market insights.

Even though I hadn’t been a gamer since I was a kid, I managed to get this job through writing a newsletter about a Web3 game I was playing.

Yep, never underestimate the power of a newsletter.

But our startup was more than just content, there was another side to the business: data analytics

Using the term data analytics usually gets confused looks from people.

So let’s simplify it.

When a team builds a Web3 game, they usually don’t have the time or resources to build their own analytics dashboard.

Think of it as Google Analytics but for blockchain games.

Here is what currently happens:

Most Web3 games build a game and then have no idea who their players are, where they are playing, and many other metrics that they need to know.

That’s where we would come in.

We had a developer team that built dashboards for games to help them understand their players better.

But, we were still a pre-revenue startup, and we had about 10 months left of runway - so we needed to raise more money, and soon.

The goal was to monetize both sides of the business - get games to pay us for data analytics and also start charging for our research.

We had been working with a few games providing data analytics but were not getting paid for it yet.

The research portal was a few months away from generating revenue.

So what was the problem?

We needed to raise more money.

But we needed to meet certain conditions:

• we had to either have three games as paying customers or,

• show considerable progress on monetizing the content

We felt confident with our gaming partners that we could raise enough money.

But then things changed in a matter of days.

Our gaming partners didn’t want to pay.

And our competitors were partnering with games we thought we could close.

Our research portal wasn’t ready for primetime.

Suddenly, the bear market felt like it would never end.

And then I got the call.

“We’re going to have to let the entire content team go.”

Lessons Learned

Web3 is a young industry.

It’s a technology that’s going to change the world, for the better.

I strongly believe that, and if you’re reading this newsletter, you probably do too.

But we’re still in a phase where the industry is run by developers.

Generally, developers only care about the product.

But if we want the industry to achieve mainstream adoption, we need to be able to explain it to the masses.

Someone’s got to sell that product.

That’s where content and marketing and sales and all the soft skills come in.

When I started as Head of Research, our company was more focused on content.

Over time we pivoted to focus more on data analytics.

In the end code was more important than content.

You can see this happen with many Web3 projects.

They’ll raise $5 million to build a project but their Twitter page will be empty and they’ll have one half-assed Medium post and a dead Discord.

This issue is exaggerated by where we are in the cycle: deep in the bear market.

Bear markets are for building, bull markets are for marketing.

So if you’re writing content in Web3 and you’re struggling to find work, be patient.

Understand where we are in the cycle.

Keep building your skills.

Learn copywriting.

Learn about the underlying technology.

Next Steps

So what the hell am I going to do next?

I’m a Web3 true believer.

Currently I’m reaching out to industry contacts, people I’ve worked with and projects I admire - trying to find a new position.

A few months ago I created a free guide for finding a job in Web3 (you can find it here).

I’ll be following my own advice and reaching out to newly funded projects.

I’ll continue working on my side hustle.

But when I think about what got me my last job in Web3, it was writing content.

That’s what opens doors.

Never underestimate the power of a newsletter.

Or a social media post.

Don’t stop posting.

-Savant

I hope you have a killer weekend. Go outside. Touch grass. Hang out with friends. Do fun shit.