During my career in WEB 3 i met two types of startup pioneers, those that spent years to build MVP hoping to lure investment and those that can sell an idea and then build something, improvising depending on the market condition.
There are pros and cons to both approaches and yet when i look at STEPN and their approach in marketing their product, i can`t resist to applaud and share some of my findings.
Concept:
Lifestyle has always been my favourite approach in developing business, tailored relationship and connection with target audience, when one looks at airbnb, starbucks or apple and scores of others they succeeded in building a unique relationship with a product and/or service and STEPN is not exception.
Stepn has developed (NFT) game that operates on the Solana blockchain, and it's the first of its kind where users can earn tokens by walking, jogging, or running outdoors while wearing NFT sneakers. (At first sounds silly and surreal)
The platform aims to encourage millions of people to lead healthier lifestyles while also transitioning them to the Web3 era and contributing to carbon neutrality AKA climate change) and yet it did pay off
Web:
Well designed, well communicated and easy to navigate website shows accolades that project has achieved which looks quite convincing at least to download and try the project, especially a CTA (Making steps count) Refer to screenshot below.
Socials:
Branding and social network chemistry deserves admiration, lots of content work, distribution work, community and influencer marketing work, the simpler the idea and the easier to digest it, and STEPN has done exactly that and amplified the idea across all social networks.
Partners and VCs:
The list of official partners and VCs speak for themselves, during their seed round, some of leading investors included: Solana Capital, DeFi Alliance, MorningStar Ventures, Sequoia Capital, etc, thus their network and affiliates itself have propelled the project into WEB 3 community using media outlets.
Team + Advisors
Satoshi Lab developed STEPN. Jerry Huang and Yawn Rong are the co-founders of Solana (SOL)-based STEPN (GMT).
The Solana Ignition Hackathon Gaming Track was won by STEPN. It's also the only mobile game to take home the prize at the Hackathon. The Hackathon judges praised STEPN's game design, built-in marketplace, easy-to-use user interface, wallet and goal of persuading millions of non-crypto users to adopt the app. "Taking advantage of the Hype"
Naturally Solanas dominance in NFT world. Show Less
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