Initial coin offerings also known as ICO have gained much wider attention over the past couple of years. In 2017, the ICO funding market exploded with a huge $1.2 billion with more than 94 ICOs. It is expected to reach $1 trillion valuations by the end of 2018. Many of the ICOs launchings nowadays has failed to provide a good response to the investors. This is mostly due to the lack of awareness for the ICO founders on what to provide and expect during an ICO launch. It is really important to understand what to expect from investors and making mistakes while presenting your project can really degrade your ICO. Let's see some of the common mistakes that happen for an ICO launch.
Having no clear understanding of an ICO project
One of the important factors that you should not avoid in an ICO launch is the knowledge of what a potential investor might think when they approach your ICO. You should always be able to answer every aspect of your ICO project. Often you have to answer questions like “Why do you need blockchain in this project?” or like “When will you list this token in a public crypto exchange?”. It is very important to know what your product does and how it can solve a particular problem. You should know how the tokens can benefit the investor and how the token value can be retained in a long run. The answers that you give about your project can build the trust in investors. If you are not capable of providing a good answer, it shows the immaturity of the team in executing the project. So you have to be ready to answer every aspect of your ICO.
Forming a PR team too late
The first step to take is to build a PR team for your ICO. The second step is to start PR as early as you can. Delaying the process of hiring a PR team will only hold up the marketing and outreach of your ICO. The name of the ICO should be catchy thereby making it popular. The best and effective way to build a public relationship is by making use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Telegram, Reddit that helps you outreach better. You have to write about the most relevant topics about your ICO and publish it on platforms that can achieve the attention of potential investors.
Avoid improper use of social media platform
Before you decide to make use of social media platform for promoting your ICO make sure to have a proper management system for monitoring what happens in the facebook, twitter, Linkedin and other accounts. Never leave any of your channels unnoticed. A frequent and regular post update about your ICO should be done on the social media sites. This will help your customers to get feeds about the ICO and thereby building trust in the project. Always make sure that queries related to your ICO that comes into the media are noticed and answered.
Missing out an announcement
A mistake often noticed in ICOs is that the management team fail to announce an update. Someone from the investor community notices the update and post it in the ICOs official channel. This can bring a bad reputation for the project. Investors invest in an ICO because they believe in the idea of the ICO. Investors expect transparency on what is happening in the ICO management team. You should always have an open conversation and regular announcements. Every update should be announced and it should be concise so that there are no doubts.
Giving away too many tokens
ICO founders give free ICO tokens to people to meet immediate impacts and short-term benefits. For instance, giving away too many tokens in the name of bug bounties and rewards can backfire in the long run. The token that you give away is effectively having zero valuation. This can affect the overall value of the token when the recipients cash out the tokens for any value they get. As the tokens are sold, the value of the token will also go down which is unfair for the investors who trusted in your ICO for its increase in the token value.
Abandoning community halfway
It is common to fail and succeed in an ICO crowdfunding. After the expiry of your ICO token sales, make sure to maintain an active communication with the community which you created. Fundraising is not the end, It's just the beginning. For building the brand value of your company you have to send newsletter, articles and other relevant items about your company to the community.
Breaking compliances, regulations
The important thing you should avoid is violating any regulatory compliances. Manipulating regulatory statements to benefit the fundraising can result in severe consequences. You have to consult a legal team who has experience in ICOs. Any signs of potentially fraudulent activity will be a red flag in front of the audience. So you have to make sure to maintain a trustful relation with the community.
Launching an ICO is easy, but making it a success is a really hard process. The best idea is to learn from the mistakes of others so that you don't make the same mistakes.
