Friend.Tech > Bitclout: A go-to-market case study

For those of you still plugged in to Crypto Twitter (or is it Crypto X now?), you’ve probably seen a lot of talk about a new decentralized social platform called Friend.Tech. Friend Tech is the “marketplace for your friends.” Every user gets their own personal community. People can buy your “keys”, giving them access to the community.

The kicker?

Each user’s key is its own economy, with the price rising and dropping based on demand. Some keys are worth as much as 2.7 ETH as I’m writing this. That’s wild.

But wait, that concept sounds pretty familiar.

About 2~ years ago something called Bitclout launched with basically the exact same idea. I wrote about it and its viral implosion. There were a lot of reasons to not like Bitclout's approach.

But there were other strategic decisions that were fumbled, too.

So why has Friend Tech thrived where Bitclout crashed and burned? Today let’s look at some key differences:

1. Avoid Sketchy Growth Tactics

Probably the biggest and initial source of uproar against Bitclout was that they created accounts for a ton of people who never signed up. Thousands of people went on to the website to see that accounts with their profile picture had already been created and populated.

People were pissed, even leading to lawsuits against the firm.

This caused a huge erosion of trust in the Bitclout brand before they even really got started.

2. Users are Skeptical of Tokens

Another poor decision by the Bitclout founders was using a native token for their platform. People are generally skeptical of any decentralized tool that requires you to use a token instead of just a popular layer-1 coin.

One of Friend Tech’s best product decisions was to have everything work in ETH directly – no funny tokens, no sketchy exchanges. This gave FT utility off the bat, and people loved that.

3. Let Your Users Keep Their Money

Another huge issue with Bitclout was that you couldn't withdraw any funds. Your account may have been worth, say $16K in value, but there was no way to liquidate and remove any of that value.

While you could deposit value onto the platform, the ability to withdraw was “coming soon.” This left a big “yikes” in the heads of already skeptical early adopters.

And again, on the other side of the coin, withdrawals from Friend Tech were available from the start. And because you create your account using the ETH address, your withdrawals just go into that wallet. Simple as that, no confusion for the user.

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4. Your Funding Sources Matter

Bitclout was widely known to be a heavily VC-funded platform, which people did not like at all. Before launch, they had raised about $200 million from some of the biggest names in the industry.

At the time, the general industry was starting to become wise to the fact that many new crypto projects were a revolving door of VC pre-seed investing that led to dumping on the consumer class. And this cultural awareness left people skeptical about Bitclout’s intentions

Friend Tech also hasn’t come off completely clean from this issue. Paradigm invested an undisclosed amount in Friend Tech’s seed round.

But, with that said, people don’t really seem to mind this time around. Without the other major self-owns that Bitclout created, Friend Tech is able to mitigate this brand issue with the strength of their product, which is a huge compliment to the founders.

6. Perfect Timing for the Market

The current market environment is polar opposite of what it was two years ago.

In the Bitclout era we were just entering a crypto summer. Bitclout launched with a ton of hype and PR in an era where every project was seeing some level of success.

Now, with Friend Tech, we’re solidly in a crypto winter. It has thrived quickly, largely due this cycle era of heavy speculation. Traders and web3 users are looking for new ways to make money, and Friend Tech arrived at the perfect moment to make this real.

A successful go-to-market is more about timing than it is anything else. And sometimes that’s more important than anything else.

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