How We Grew to 100K+ Users as a Bootstrapped Crypto Startup in a Bear Market
It was October 2017 when a friend called and asked if I knew where to get Bitcoin because he wanted to buy $20,000 of it. Fast forward to December 2017 and this same friend and I were having dinner with a group of friends.
All throughout dinner, the conversation revolved around how much Bitcoin he had purchased (he was a crypto millionaire on paper) and how he could get more. At the end of dinner, he turned to me and asked, “Hey, can you spot me for dinner? I put all my money into Bitcoin.”
This represented the height of the crypto craze. We launched our startup, Altcoin Fantasy, amid this hype. We had seen the crazy ways people, like my friend, had found money to invest in Bitcoin in the belief that Bitcoin would rise to $100,000 by the end of 2018.
As tech nerds, we were more interested in the technology side of crypto. We wanted to create a way for people to learn about the amazing blockchain technology powering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin while also supplying people with the proper tools and resources needed to learn about and practice trading crypto, without the risk of losing your house or savings.
Hence, the idea for Altcoin Fantasy was born — a gamified crypto trading simulator where people could learn how to properly trade, test out their strategies in a safe environment, learn from other people and even win prizes if they placed top in our fantasy trading competitions.
Unfortunately for us, or fortunately as we later came to see it, we launched and tried to scale at the worst possible time — the dreaded crypto bear market (or crypto winter as the industry referred to it). Companies died left and right, even those that had raised tens of millions of dollars through their initial coin offerings (ICO).
Meanwhile, when Bitcoin dropped below $6,000 in October, a maintenance price it had kept throughout 2018, we saw a huge surge in users and went from 17,000 users to 40,000 users almost overnight. From there, we jumped to 70,000 users then hit the 100,000 user mark just over a year after we launched.
What we discovered is that in a way, our app was somewhat inoculated against the market tides because, in good times, people wanted to learn how to trade and win crypto, and in bad times, they wanted this even more.
We were one of the few crypto companies that didn’t raise an ICO upon launching and one of the only ones we knew who were bootstrapping. While this made things tough, it also made us more resourceful and creative in how we did things.
We know firsthand how tough it can be to scale when you’re resource starved so we’re sharing our tips and tricks on how to grow your user base in a tough economic environment with little or no funds. These are not your typical growth hacking tricks — these are tricks that we haven’t seen shared and that we discovered through our own painstaking experience.
We’ve divided these hacks into 4 main sections:
- SEO
- Viral Loops/Referrals
- Partnerships
- Conferences
Each section is further divided into hacks with details on how to actually implement them, examples and the benefits for implementing.
These hacks work for ANY startup, not just blockchain/crypto startups but my fellow blockchain/crypto startups should appreciate getting tips on building a user base since it’s tougher to do so within this still niche space.
Published at Sat, 29 Jun 2019 04:37:32 +0000
