During a summer that would later be known as the 'DeFi summer,' five strangers connected on a hackathon, the Genesis Kernel Block. It was a non-stop innovation - personal tokens, social tokens, food coins, and new yield projects were emerging daily. Amidst all this creativity, we found our goal: bringing utility to all newly minted tokens.
A platform where each creator could use their own token, enabling token-gated content. Our first MVP was a tokenized iteration of TikTok, marking the beginning of our adventure.
Our journey
V1 - Token Gated Content
Our initial product allowed creators to tokenize access to their content, offering something unique in the market. During the Tachyon accelerator, we launched Token Protected Pages (TPP), our first app into token-gated experiences. The diversity of our users - from content creators and DAOs to NFT projects and even the Golden State Warriors - drove our growth and led us to our next evolution, MintGate, alongside our seed funding round. From that on, that became our name in the space.
As encrypted content gained traction, we recognized there were still creators with a greater presence in web2. Thus, we conceived the idea of creator points to engage Twitter users without a wallet.
Discoveries
Feedback on TPP highlighted the diverse needs of our user base and the potential of token gating as a means to cultivate exclusive communities. Points weren’t used much at that time, as a new player was in town: NFTs.
Stats
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TPP links: 8428
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Unique users who created TPP links: 2753
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Total users who accessed TPP links: 27895
V2 - NFTs as Access Pass
We’ve experienced our first PMF and within the first two months, we observed that almost 80% of the content was gated with NFTs instead of ERC-20 tokens, so we pivoted by offering a new feature, NFTs access pass.
This feature enabled creators to lock content behind any NFT collection across multiple blockchains or create exclusive NFTs for unlocking a wide diversity of digital products: video, audio, links, tickets, crowdfund NFTs, and eBooks. Any content could be gated into an NFT.
Discoveries
Adapting to NFTs presented both challenges and opportunities. We developed a solution that not only gated content behind NFTs but also ensured a seamless user experience, enabling creators to offer a more diverse and engaging content portfolio.
The challenge was in increasing our security and helping projects to create utility for their PFPs.
Stats
- Users creating NFT access passes: 1283
V3 - Memberships and NFT Storefronts
The concept of NFT Passes changed the way we viewed memberships. Inspired by platforms like Patreon, we encrypted content to offer tiered memberships, ensuring content exclusivity and security. A fan will buy into tiered memberships that would unlock specific content.
Crowdfunding your work was important, but they wanted something more. The introduction of NFT storefronts was a direct response to our users' desire for personalized, white-labeled experiences. This feature allowed creators and brands to establish their own digital space, gated by NFTs, enhancing the connection with their audience.
Discoveries
This was one of the hardest pivots we had. A big contract was on the table and we shifted gears to make it happen. By concentrating on a major client, we neglected our smaller users. The feature we developed needed a shift towards a B2B approach, moving away from our original B2C focus.
Even if we had traction, targeting web2 brands was harder than we thought.
Stats
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Storefront projects: 2849
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White label websites: 170
V4 - Unified Community Experiences
As our B2B NFT Storefronts approach was challenging, we wanted to get back to our essence. We envisioned a singular, integrated community space where all content accessible to an NFT holder could be explored.
The idea was simple: Be your NFT. This approach unified community engagement, allowing users to access all their content in one place, simplifying navigation across multiple platforms.
Discoveries
This phase marked a significant enhancement in how users interacted with content and communities. However, migrating users to a new platform proved challenging, especially when they were used to platforms like Discord.
PFPs communities were onboarded, but experiences were preferred to be shared with everyone.
Learnings
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Market Timing: I’ve learned firsthand how crucial it is to sync with market trends. After V2, the bear market taught me the hard lesson of building momentum and how that can drastically impact adoption and success.
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Speed and Execution: in an always-evolving crypto space, the ability to quickly develop and deploy features is a huge advantage. We had to move quickly, building different experiences while keeping an eye on the new NFT projects that emerged daily.
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Strategic releases: the capacity to pivot based on feedback and market shifts is invaluable. From token-gated content to expanding into memberships and storefronts, we launched so many new features, that we thought both web3 and web2 users would respond well. But web2 users weren’t ready to get onboard yet, even if we thought so, building easy access and on/off ramp solutions
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Onboarding and Distribution: you need to focus on UX if you want to onboard creators and even more so, web2 brands. We did a great job of listening to our community. However, distribution was challenging as NFT marketplaces attracted the majority of users.
Our decision - open source the code
Market timing wasn’t ideal for our latest release. It’s well-known how the last bear market affected both products and fundraising for everyone. After exploring acquisition options at the beginning of 2023 without success, we decided to open-source our latest work, hoping to contribute to the broader token gating experiments. We want to continue learning from the community and giving back to the ecosystem.
As for our financials, the remaining funds are being used by part of the team to develop a new project, as Jonathan explains here. What about me? - I’m currently experimenting with onchain loyalty programs. I’ll share more about this soon!
Reflections
This venture was a profound learning experience, from a simple hackathon idea to raising $1.7M and non-stop building for over 30 months.
I'm so happy to see that nowadays most of us in web3 use token gating, building different experiences, and giving access and value to token holders
I did understand something: timing is everything, and our hearts told us to put an end to this experiment and look for new opportunities.
Every setback is an opportunity to learn. Our pivots and the eventual decision to close, though difficult, provided invaluable lessons for our future paths.