Author: Rubywang.eth, Founder of Web3Brand Source: X (formerly on Twitter) @rubywxt1
Ryan Wyatt, former President of Polygon Labs, recently shared his experience in brand building at an event by Variant Fund. The collaborations that Polygon has established in the past year with companies such as Starbucks, Nike, Reddit, Immutable, and others have driven the development of web3 brands. How did all of this happen?
From this interview, I have summarized Ryan’s 4 thoughts. Interested friends are welcome to read and share.
Summary
1. Polygon Brand Strategy: Betting on the track, driving cognitive change with dual wheels
2. When there is a lack of measurable data, bold bets on tracks are needed, followed by evaluation using appropriate metrics
3. Partnership marketing should not be the main strategy for startups
4. Web3+ vs +Web3: Attempting to embed web3 into a broader internet
About Ryan Wyatt:
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Ryan (@Fwiz) started his career as a creator, doing game streaming on Twitch
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At the age of 27, after 14 rounds of interviews, he became the Global Head of Gaming at YouTube, helping to expand YT into one of the largest gaming platforms in the world
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Two years ago, he went all in on web3 and joined Polygon Labs, leading a series of collaborations
1. Polygon Brand Strategy: Betting on the track, driving cognitive change with dual wheels
Polygon chose to bet on collaborations with mainstream companies to expand brand influence.
Driving with dual wheels means “accomplishing two very different but equally important goals simultaneously.”
Group A: Changing mainstream brands’ perception of blockchain and changing users’ perception.
Polygon achieves this by ensuring the success of brand partners, thereby changing the brand’s view of web3 and establishing web3’s credibility and Polygon’s brand influence.
Group B: Changing the perception of web3 among native developers and promoting application development.
Ultimately, it is the native builders who are truly needed to drive web3 development, especially the confidence and long-term commitment of the developer community.
2. When there is a lack of measurable data, bold bets on tracks are needed, followed by evaluation using appropriate metrics
One major challenge in web3 is the lack of measurable data.
What Polygon wants to change is emotions and cognition, so an important metric is PSAT (Partner Satisfaction): “Do partners want to establish protocols on Polygon and recommend others?”
These kinds of questions help evaluate and determine if the strategy is moving in the right direction.
For example, with specific collaborations like Starbucks, what Polygon really needs to bet on is loyalty and reward on the blockchain. Starbucks is one of the best companies in this regard, which brings a positive sentiment to everyone involved in loyalty and reward activities and makes them want to participate (Nike also joined later).
However, initially, betting on tracks and discussing collaborations cannot rely on data-driven approaches but require bold attempts with conviction.
3. Partner marketing should not be the main strategy for startups
“Partner marketing is like adding fuel to the fire, it can’t start anything.”
As one of the strategies for marketing, partnership cannot build a sustainable business model. It is not recommended for startups to invest time and resources before achieving PMF (Product-Market Fit).
Otherwise, it may deplete the company’s capital and only achieve superficial results.
4. Web3+ vs +Web3: Trying to embed web3 into a wider internet
In an article written by Ryan at the beginning of the year, he mentioned, “Stop trying to bring people into web3.”
Instead, try to embed web3 into a wider internet and things that users are already using.
“Embracing decentralization, smart contracts, owning your own assets, and digital wallets are all great, but I think 99.9% of people will never care about any of these terms.”
“We, as an industry, do a poor job of communicating to the outside world.” Ryan mentioned that when building products for consumers, we need to focus on value propositions rather than the actual technology.
We must abstract away all those things and only provide them when others need them.
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