Written by: Rishabh Gupta

Compiled by: Jia Huan, ChainCatcher

As a fledgling founder, I poured years of effort into three infrastructure projects that ultimately failed. In 2025, I began building a consumer product that people truly wanted to use. Here, I share my painful lessons learned in user acquisition and fundraising.

I've been in this industry for about four years.

In 2023, when "account abstraction" was still the hottest topic in the industry, I started developing within the EVM ecosystem. At that time, everyone was developing SDKs (Software Development Kits) for account abstraction wallets. Rollup scaling solutions were also very popular—Optimism, Arbitrum, and various RaaS (Rollup as a Service) dominated.

As a math enthusiast, I am deeply attracted to ZK (zero-knowledge proofs) and believe it will change the world (and I firmly believe it will in the future).

I once mistakenly believed that complexity equals credibility.

When VCs asked about application scenarios, I would confidently list zkML (zero-knowledge machine learning), zk identity, and zk voting—but to this day, these areas remain largely unused. I mistakenly identified amazing technology as a useful product.

Over time, I've come to believe that the more complex an idea is, the greater its chances of success.

VCs also told me that in the crypto space, building infrastructure is the only way to succeed.

It took me nearly two years and over 500 rejections to realize that this wasn't right for me.

Entering the Solana Ecosystem

This is a completely new ecosystem for me—people here care about use cases. Even Meme coins don't matter, because revenue is important.

Speed is important. Distribution is important.

I've been building consumer applications with Solana for 7 months now, and here are my thoughts:

1. Built for young users who are willing to try new things

Try developing for young people who are naturally open to new products.

In the consumer crypto space, this typically means people who can trade in the "trench" or young users aged 13-21.

A 2024 study by the Consumer Technology Association showed that 86% of Gen Z (aged 11-26) consider technology to be central to their lives—a higher percentage than any previous generation. They own more devices and are more willing to spend on technology products.

They are more willing to try new apps, experiment with new features, and change their habits.

Users over 25 years old are generally less willing to adopt new operating procedures unless there is a very strong incentive.

Research shows that social activity peaks around the age of 20-21. This means that products designed for young people naturally have higher viral potential.

2. Make the product inherently "spreadable" to reduce marketing costs.

If you don't have a huge marketing or advertising budget, the product itself must be the traffic channel.

In the field of encryption, transmissibility is particularly important because:

KOL marketing is very expensive.

The level of trust is extremely low.

Everyone expects rewards or incentives.

If your product gives users a reason to spontaneously share it with friends and communities, you've won publicity without burning money. It's difficult, but worth optimizing from day one.

3. Launch the features requested by users as soon as possible.

When users report a poor experience or bugs, please fix them immediately, especially the pain points that hinder use.

I used to apply patches all at the end of the day. But then a user messaged me saying, "Since your app doesn't have this feature, I'll switch to product Y."

Once users go to competitors and form a habit, it's very difficult to bring them back.

Therefore, try to fix it immediately (ideally within 2-5 hours).

If multiple users request a certain feature and it is feasible:

It can be made in 2-3 days.

Tell them this was launched based on their feedback.

You could even give them some rewards.

This builds a deep level of trust. Users begin to feel that the product "belongs to them," and this sense of belonging is incredibly powerful in early-stage products.

4. The application name is very important.

It seems simple, but many people (including myself) have messed it up.

The application name should be highly recognizable and easy to share verbally.

My previous product was called "Encifher," a name that was extremely difficult to remember; even investors and partners would misspell it when creating group chats.

So we later changed it to encrypt.trade. It's concise, easy to remember, and stylish.

5. Communicating with users is difficult, but it's necessary.

Finding and engaging with users is extremely difficult, especially when what you're building isn't part of the current "hot narrative."

When I started working on privacy, it wasn't popular. I reached out to nearly 1,000 people via cold-start messaging: maybe 10 out of 100 would reply. Of those, only 3-4 offered any real help.

I talk to anyone who shows even the slightest interest.

I worked with them to iterate the product.

The Cold-DM framework is also an iterative process. Here are some key points to note:

• Begin with a warm greeting.
• Put the highlights (financing situation, transaction volume, etc.) at the beginning.
• Explain where you found them.
• Give a friendly call to action.
• Always remember to follow up.

There is no perfect Cold-DM; you must test against each other to find an effective approach for your target customers.

Here is a decent Cold-DM template available: but be aware that the process is slow and tedious.

In the cryptocurrency community, few people reply to DMs because scams are everywhere.

Low response rates are the norm (which is a bit frustrating, I know).

Nevertheless, you must do this.

Your goal is not to acquire 1,000 users at this stage.

Your goal is 10-20 early adopters who care about the issues, are willing to try the product, and will provide honest feedback.

These early users will become your support system.

Early products often have bugs, and these users will help you get through that phase.

6. Rapid iteration

The crypto industry is constantly changing, and attention spans are extremely short.

You must study user behavior, not just listen to their language:

What are they doing repeatedly?

What kind of compromise are they using?

What are people already willing to pay for? (Many ideas sound good, but they can't survive if users aren't willing to pay for them.)

7. Make your website so simple it's "foolproof".

Never make any assumptions about how users perceive things.

As a developer, you may have stared at the product for hundreds of hours and find it obvious, but it may be completely unfamiliar to someone entering the field for the first time.

Avoid introducing new terminology or complex processes.

Minimize the number of clicks.

The core value should be presented within 5 seconds of entering the app.

Conclusion

Building consumer-grade encrypted products is both fun and challenging. Speed of iteration, user-centric thinking, and marketing prowess are more important than perfect technology. This is completely different from B2B.