The Consumer Maxmalist

While everyone is debating what kind of crypto-maximalist they are, here’s a new category to consider: consumer maximalist.

The thesis: products that provide the most value + ease of use to your average person are the products that will win the next generation of crypto users.

Isn't this basically saying "the best products will be the best products on the market?"

Not exactly.

My view is that too many web3 products get caught up in technical details and trying to appeal to a natively web3 audience. You can build the world's best product, but if people don't get how it solves a problem, or can't figure out how to use it, it doesn't matter how technically good it is.

In order to onboard new users into web3, we have to meet the average where they are. Hence, consumer maximalism.

Solve their problems, don't create more of them.

“For every 1 hobbyist who wants to do it themselves, there are 99 people who want to buy it off the shelf.” ? - Steve Jobs on the personal computer

This speaks to the fact that while 1% of the population will love all of the technical nuance behind a product, 99% of people just want something that works.

Imagine this: I tell the average consumer that there's a new electronic messaging service that runs on SMTP and allows you to host your own client locally on your home device.

Their response: sounds hard, no thanks.

Plot twist: all I’m describing is email. You know, the thing that 4 billion people use globally.

Unfortunately, this is still how many products within the web3 ecosystem are marketed; overly technical, with the core value prop getting lost among the jargon and complexity.

How was email able to gain global adoption? Companies laid the groundwork that allowed them to abstract away the complicated workflows, leaving the user with something extremely useful and usable.

Instead of making everyone set up their own email client on their device, and arrange for storage on a remote server, we got webmail interfaces like Gmail. Create a username, set a password, and boom - everything else is done for you.

Where have we seen the equivalent of this in Web3??

The Reddit, Inc. NFT launch is a perfect example: Reddit abstained from using the term “NFT” or any other crypto jargon, opting instead to position their avatars as unique digital collectables.

They launched their nft collection on Polygon Labs as a means of keeping transaction fees low, but then allowed users to pay for their avatars using a credit card.?

Why? Because it’s familiar, and the product is the avatar, not the blockchain underlying it.

Remember: the product is the product, not how you deliver it.

The result? Reddit sold 2.3 million avatars, surpassing opensea in active users, in the midst of a down-only bear market.

Reddit knew that they wouldn’t get everyone to create their own crypto wallet, onboard to an exchange, swap fiat for crypto, and then purchase.

Rather than requiring that everyone complete a crash course in web3 fundamentals, Reddit gave them an easy on-ramp, and created 1-2 million new web3 users in the process.

Their approach might upset the purists, but think about it: now that the idea of digital collectables has been normalized for these users, i’d wager they branch out and explore the ecosystem further.

Let’s capture it in terms of dollars and cents (or sats, or gwei):

What’s the lifetime value of someone who doesn’t make a purchase because they’re confused or overwhelmed?

$0.

What’s the lifetime value of a customer who onboards through familiar channels, and then branches out into the broader ecosystem?

> $0.

This is what a consumer maximalist is optimizing for: conversion to paying customers (sales), and conversion into the web3 ecosystem itself (adoption).

The caveat here (which will become its own post) is that security needs to be prioritized throughout this process. It is possible to create very consumer-friendly scams or ponzis (see all of 2022 for reference), but that doesn't mean this would fall into the consumer maximalist bucket, namely because they do not truly serve the consumer.

The key is to remember that, for the average consumer, the product (and the problem it solves) matters much more than the underlying tech (no matter how cool it is). Building Web3 products through this lens will ultimately help bridge the gap between early adopters and the rest of the world.

Position accordingly.