With a market cap of over $200 million, Steemit has proved itself to be one of the most successful coin/business launches in the crypto world to date. With this historic success in mind, it is important to take a look back at what made Steem such a success, and how we can use this information to identify other startups bound for similar growth.
1.) A solid list of team members.
Every project worth its salt needs to have a team of developers actively working on the project full time. If a project has a fancy web interface but a list of developers is nowhere to be found, quickly drop any thought of investing in said project. The presence of real people who are willing to put their face and credibility to a project will to a large degree ensure that there is not an imminent risk of an exit-scam occuring.
Once you find the list of team members, do an investigation of their backgrounds. The most reputable projects will have a list of social media for each member of their team on their contact page. From its initial announcement post on bitcointalk, Steemit listed a couple key team members along with their linkedin accounts. A quick look at their linkedins will reveal two highly educated and motivated individuals that are highly qualified for their jobs.
2.) Active development
The only way to verify that a project is making any progress at all is to monitor their development through github. The majority of projects out there are open source, and will link to their code. Make sure that github commits happen frequently and that real development is taking place. Be wary of any project that does not allow the public to audit their development cycles. It is all too easy for the project heads of these companies to claim vast progress while nothing may actually be coded.
Steemit made their github public from the start, and it was easy for the public to see for their own eyes the development of the project progress. Steemit makes frequent, transparent commits that assure the public that the project is well on its way. Every startup should adopt the same practice, and those that do should merit a look at investment
3.) Active social media
Crypto start-ups should always be close to their fledgling communities. Frequent interaction with developers helps the userbase understand the goals and ideals of the project developers, along with staying up to date on the latest developments.
Steemit from the beginning had excellent communication through a wide range of social media. From slack, to facebook, to youtube, Steemit always maintained solid communication with its userbase through social media.
There are certainly even more areas in which Steemit excelled, but the three core aspects discussed above comprise a solid foundation upon which every crypto startup may build upon.
Investing in extremely low market cap coins is by far one of the most lucrative options in the world of cryptocurrency. However, for every gem out there, there are at least 10 coins that are completely worthless. Watching for the same metrics that made Steemit such a success can be applied in your search for the next breakout alt-coin.