Scott Kominers on Warpcast

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I had a fantastic time talking with this year's @a16zcrypto Crypto Startup Accelerator (𝗖𝗦𝗫) cohort as part of the Research Team sessions on Tuesday! Here are three 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 from my part of the conversation: 👇🧵

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1⃣ 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻. Starting broad gives you the space to find product-market fit — identifying the users who have the strongest demand for the category of transaction you enable (measured in terms of value creation). But then once you find those early adopters, focusing on them lets you optimize the business model, after which you can scale by expanding scope to adjacent use cases.

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2⃣ 𝗪𝗲𝗯 𝟮 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝟯 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀. Platforms have historically benefited from creating "walled gardens" to lock in their advantage over competitors. Protocols, by contrast, establish competitive advantage by becoming embedded in as many applications as possible — and that means they should explicitly support third-party development.

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3⃣ 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻, 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁. Owing in part to the Bitcoin precedent, many projects try to fix their entire tokenomic design (e.g., token supply, emission schedule, and so forth) up front. But that's rarely the right path. Not only is it really hard to fully calibrate an economic system before you've seen it in use, but in practice token supply and the associated design parameters should generally evolve along with the project ecosystem, as new uses and users change the dynamics of money demand.

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