Guide on How To Conduct a Successful IEO
IEOs (Initial Exchange Offerings) are on an incredible rise right now. Projects that don’t have a giant budget for self-sustained fundraising are able to get enough money to develop MVP, gain traction or even release a working product with the help of IEOs.
IEOs are a great tool to scale businesses through secure fundraising. However, a lot of really promising projects fail to raise anything at all, because they don’t understand the process or simply hope that the exchange will nail this process themselves.
Having reviewed with more than ten crypto startups who were able to successfully close their fundraising rounds at such IEO Launchpads like Huobi, Coineal, CoinBene, and SHORTEX, we would like to share our insights about what it takes to conduct a successful IEO.
IEO Guide Step 1: Your product comes FIRST
ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) were the Klondike for scammers. With tens of thousands of investors and crypto enthusiasts being fooled, the whole crypto community has become way more cautious and thoughtful with their money.
So it really doesn’t matter how much work you put into the marketing if your project is not relevant. You must have a strong idea before even contemplating to launch an IEO.
If it’s another e-commerce platform or messaging app, you probably have to think twice before launching. Only groundbreaking and truly innovational projects usually find success.
Build a community
As obvious as it is, any IEO Guide would not be complete without this recommendation. Somehow a lot of startups still rely on the community of the exchange. Even if it’s a huge exchange like Binance, don’t take anything for granted. Startups have to keep in mind that the major part of any exchange’s community is traders. They’re just trading BTC, ETH, LTC and other big cryptocurrencies.
Before fundraising through IEO, get at least 100 genuine supporters. Use PR and reach out to people via good-quality SMM. Always focus on quality instead of quantity.
In order to execute a decent promotional campaign, startups need to create a marketing journey. At first, your potential investor sees a post about the project from an influencer. Then he sees a mention of your product in his favorite media. When he will see your targeted ad this time, it will be something familiar for him and chances are he will click the ad. It is all about these 3-4 connections. This is when true ‘marketing magic’ begins to work.
No need to spend thousands of dollars on random youtube bloggers and banners. Every penny should be spent wisely.
Don’t abuse airdrops and bounty programs
Even though airdrops and bounty programs have proven themselves as a decent tool to create traction and activity, it’s a double-edged sword that can easily be turned against you in the future.
Your community chat will turn into an ‘airdrop chat’, where everyone is begging for tokens. It will leave a really bad ‘aftertaste’ if a genuine supporter comes in.
Don’t put all your eggs into one basket
Instead of choosing one extremely expensive IEO launchpad, go for several cheaper ones. That way you will save some money and have a chance to reach a far bigger audience.
Diversification is always good. Keep in mind the geography of the Launchpads. Use one with an Asian audience and one with a more English-speaking audience.
Use Private Sales
Private Sale is a secret tool that often gets the job done. Choosing a Launchpad with an exclusive base of investors is a game-changer.
As for our practice, 70% of the successful fundraising can be attributed to Private Sales.
Go global
Don’t focus only on the English-speaking community. Hiring several community managers from Russia and China can be a super-cheap and valuable investment.
Get Free advice
It really hurts my feelings when a good project fails to raise funds due to some marketing mistakes. Wherever you can receive free advice, take it.
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