A Crypto Founder's Guide to “We Don’t Do Marketing”
Why crypto founders who ignore marketing are doomed to obscurity
The most dangerous lie in Web3 isn’t malicious. It sounds like this:
“This product is so good, we won’t need marketing.”
It’s noble. It’s logical. And it’s deadly.
Great tech without adoption is just potential energy. Solving a real problem isn’t enough—people still have to know you exist.
The product doesn’t speak for itself.
You build the product. You build the narrative. You build the movement. If your plan is to build the best tech and hope it catches on, you're not building a protocol designed for growth—you’re building a hope-and-pray machine.
The Myth of Organic Community Growth
Let’s be honest. Most founders secretly want a grand debut. The big launch. A viral tweetstorm. Tokens mooning. Mission accomplished. It’s all glorious.
Bring it down a level Hollywood: you want to launch the product like it’s a blockbuster movie and watch it break the box office. But this is crypto, not Universal Studios. And most blockbusters? They flop.
You don’t need a grand reveal. You need traction. And traction doesn’t happen by accident—it’s engineered.
Growth Is Not a Department
Real growth isn't something you slap on in a post. It's not a press release, a polished announcement, or an X thread after launch. It’s definitely not “hiring a marketing person” three weeks before TGE.
Growth is baked into the product. It starts the moment you define who you're building for and how they’ll find, use, and fall in love with what you’re offering.
The best growth engines are invisible. They don’t announce themselves.
They show up as a referral code inside your wallet UI.
Token rewards that fuel community milestones.
Shareable dashboards that practically tweet themselves.
Airdrops that double as onboarding flows.
That’s not “marketing” in the boomer sense. That’s building distribution into your DNA.
Marketing ≠ Hype
Let’s get something straight: marketing isn’t a dirty word. It’s not scammy, it’s not desperate, and it’s not a shortcut.
It’s a builder mindset focused on growth.
As Ryan Holiday said, the best growth hackers don’t see marketing as a department—they see it as part of the product. Every feature gets tested not just for usability, but for virality, stickiness, and scale.
Great marketing doesn’t start with a headline. It starts with a question.
They don’t “launch and hope.” They iterate, optimize, and compound—until growth becomes a self-sustaining loop that markets itself.
What Founders Get Wrong
When founders say “we don’t do marketing,” they usually mean one of two things:
1️⃣ They think marketing = paid media, cringe gimmicks, and empty PR.
2️⃣ They’re afraid of looking like they’re trying too hard.
Both are just fear in disguise. One hides behind cynicism, the other behind pride. Neither builds traction.
First, paid media and PR are just one tool in the stack. The best growth stories in crypto didn’t start with ad budgets—they started with visions that people could rally behind, shareable experiences, aligned incentives, and memes. Marketing tools can amplify a fire, but they don’t light the match.
Second, trying isn’t cringe. There is a light in you that wants to be shared. Share it. Spread the word. Don’t hold back.
No one’s impressed by how little you promote your product. They’re impressed when your product spreads by itself like wildfire—because it was designed to. That’s what real marketing looks like.
The Crypto Edge: Marketing Native Onchain Tools
You’re in crypto. You already have what most web2 startups dream of: A built-in incentive layer. Community-driven governance. Transparent user behavior. A meme culture that eats advertising for breakfast.
If you’re not using those things as growth tools, you’re playing with one hand tied behind your back.
Design your product like it’s a growth engine:
Turn LPs into ambassadors with tokenized loyalty.
Reward governance participants with real social capital.
Build public dashboards that spread on their own.
Launch features like quests—interactive, shareable, and rewarding.
Crypto doesn’t need “marketing.” It needs mechanisms. Incentives. Distribution loops. Community-sourced narratives.
Start there.
The Growth Mindset
The best projects don’t separate marketing from building.
Call it growth. Call it marketing. Doesn’t matter. Marketing is building. It’s designing a product with growth levers wired in. It’s architecting every moment to convert attention into action. It’s not just “telling your story.” It’s designing how others tell it for you.
And that starts before launch. Ideally it starts on day 1.
Because if you think marketing starts when the product is built for launch, you’ve already lost.
The Final Boss: We’re All Marketers Now
Every time you explain your product to a friend, post on X, or build something you hope people will use—you’re doing marketing.
The only question is: Are you doing it intentionally? Or are you just hoping the flywheel spins itself?
I sense your aversion. Admitting you’re a marketer? That’s the final boss.
Stop saying you don’t do marketing. You already are.
Now it’s time to do it well.
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