Technical aspects of four ICOs
This document has been created as proceedings from retrospectives of running technology sides of 4 ICOs surpassing $100MM and turnkey solutions for two ICOs for $70MM combined. The described methodology is a default one, real work with your project and at a given period of time will have a lot of custom processes and goals, unexpected situations, challenges and solutions. ICO we are interested to run are always custom events happening in the environment, where “one month is long-term”.Our commitment is joining you as if we would be majority owners to bring full alignment and ownership approach to our competent, experienced and creative team.
1. RESEARCH
Creating a big picture — where we are now and what do we have at hand?- What is the stage we are now? Idea, whitepaper, proof of concept, MVP, pre-revenue, post-revenue?
- What are the hard evidences to date we can build on? Solid, relevant to blockchain idea backed by experts and a team, operational business, star-advisors, backing by known VCs?
- Existing product, app, business, user base, revenue, partnerships…
- Why we are doing this? Will it scale an existing business or will open up a new vertical, disrupt existing industry structure?
- How user base, revenue, functionality, awareness, market penetration, partnerships are expected to change?
- What is the amount you are targeting? If not clear, what is the range and why?
- Is it cost based or market based?
- Is there a business plan for the funding required or will we make one?
- Are there any business factors affecting ICO timeline or it is marketing / fundraising / community building driven?
- Tentative schedule without regard to private placement, presale, main sale
- Custom application token / utility token, wider private money, security
- What is ICO tokens function in the system, what is token life-cycle for a token holder?
- What is revenue / profit distribution mechanism if any
- How can we run this business without tokens? Blockchain? What is difference?
- How many pros and cons has token usage?
- Inquiry into investment nature of the token
- Inquiry into user as a holder, community and network effects
- Private placement, pre-ICO, ICO
- Timings, amounts, soft, hard caps
- Discount levels or other engagement types
2. LEGAL
Outside of our scope as changing legal field of crypto-markets requires specialised partners in the jurisdiction of your choice. We will join and assist in steering initial conversations towards the choice of jurisdiction, structure, site terms and conditions, disclaimer production, token sale terms and condition, articles of incorporation, KYC procedures as well as connecting to the bank for converting private placement, pre-sale and ICO funds.- Introduction to security and utility token concepts
- US regulations, SAFT
- Introduction to local partners in different jurisdictions
- Usual ICO legal structure overview
- Inquiry into taxations
- Inquiry into connecting ICO jurisdiction with declared operations, possibility if remote contract deploy and ICO management
- Bankers introduction and account opening management
- KYC/AML requirements for token holders
3. DELIVERABLES
White paper- Domain industry analysis
- Blockchain relevancer
- Token economy
- Incorporation of all researched and agreed points eg sale structure, justifying the goal, business model and funds usage plan, legal inquiry into operations, team
- Conversion target, mailing list, social media, joining channels
- Rich, heterogenous content, text, illustrations, video, quotes, faq, download links, personality profiles, news — high-energy layout and content
- Update and incorporation of legal comments
- Update of news section and any other changes eg onboarding of new advisors
4. FUNDRAISING / MARKETING
Design and production of promotional assets- Series of press-releases — from project release announcement to major milestones and pre-sale momentum
- Press kit, logo sets, team photos
- Social media content strategy, 1 post per 1–2 days, unboxing project features, presentation of team members, advisors, sharing publicity and ratings, etc
- Banner strategy, from announcement, key feature communication to pre-sale / ICO urgent subscription
- Retargeting banners set — AdRoll, Facebook
- Display network banners (CoinTelegraph, Coindesk, Coinmarketcap), all sizes
- Setting up the tracking document
- Submitting the forms and requests for interviews
- Exploration of paid options
- Daily follow up and sharing of published stories in social channels
- Check, contact, follow up advisors and backers of similar type projects
- Draft an advisor / backer engagement offer
- Setting up the tracking document
- Working on initial press release and upcoming stories
- Requests for article, interview, sponsored
- Daily follow up and sharing of published news on social media and the site
- Creating outreach templates
- Reaching out in LinkedIn and e-mails / whatsapp / telegram to the ones already in closer touch
- Daily follow up, conversion is passing the contact further to the team, when there is interest expressed
- Discount driven
- Pre-pre-ICO
- weekly summary, education of the project benefits, sharing CTA, conversion to social channels
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- Project, team, events, media updates stream
- Provocation, social channels are not the entry point, but rather verification that there is hype about this project
5. TECHNOLOGY / WALLETS / SECURITY
- Cryptocurrency lifecycle planning, from setting up cold wallets, to withdrawal
- Web presence analysis, high-load resistance, private cloud in AWS, project-specific security analysis and assessment of vulnerability to usual ICO vector of attacks
- Blockchain exposure, smart-contracts. Creating, testing, auditing, compiling, deploying. Customer walk through on deployment / ownership.
- Customer identification
- Queue management
- Discount management
- Real-time transaction acknowledgement
- Total collections update
- Back end for collections management
- Switching from landing / pre-sale / ICO / closure / various kill switches
- KYC/AML module potential integration
- See extended 20 pages document for customer and admin experience, platform tech
- Listing of all incoming funds
- Converting to sale currency based on declared exchange rate
- Refunding of extras received
- Creation of ERC20 contract for the token
- Batch assignment of tokens based on the built investors book
6. POST ICO
General retrospective meeting- what could be improved
- great things to note
- Listing and assigning responsible for possibly stil pending tasks eg conversion to fiat
- info / milestone / events planning for media
- newsletter outreach
- social channels ongoing maintenance for the community of investors
- traditional media / project profile media outreach
- team members / official and non-official communication guidelines
- brand usage monitoring / scam / phishing
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