I’ve built two startups in the past, that are both unsuccessful in terms of monetary profit, but I’ve gain so many new perspectives and skills that I will not trade these experiences for anything else. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested to chat about the learnings!
Trust protocol is a data analytics service for web3 social protocols using on-chain data. These data are drawn across different chains, tokens (non/fungible alike), transactions, decentralized social interactions, event attendance, POAPs, and other on-chain activities to create a massive web of trust. They are then parsed and analyzed to be used by applications for user acquisition, user retention, building recommendations and content discovery engines.
My cofounder and I started working on this in late 2022. Our first target use case and vertical for the on-chain data is for decentralized social networks (e.g. Lens protocol and Farcaster). Web3 social was fairly early at that time, and although we have really good pilot partners that are using our products, we find it hard to monetize as our partners are also early stage startups. We lost a bit of conviction and thus decided to pivot, returning our pre-seed investments.
My biggest takeway is that conviction is so important in building a startup, as it takes you through the lowlights and tough times. Since then, I had been on a journey of explorations, and slowly building up more targeted convictions. With hundreds of customer discovery interviews, I’m also very surprised that most web3 teams and projects have very limited insights into who their users are, and most do not have a clear user acquisition strategy. I still believe there is a lot of value in on-chain data to derive these insights.
Onboard ID is a decentralized identity management system that creates reusable KYC credentials. The average user drop-off rate during KYC onboarding is 20-30%. Onboard ID provides a credential-as-a-service solution to enterprises such that users are issued a reusable KYC credential when they first complete KYC. This credential can then be reused for subsequent verifications in a privacy-preserving manner.
We won a few awards, including being awarded a research grant by the Scottish government. The largest challenge is the incentive between enterprises to share KYC credentials. The convenience for end users is maximized when the network effect of the credential is being accepted in more places, however, it is tough to bootstrap a standalone identity ecosystem. My thesis is that such a solution is best suited when dealt with a top down approach, meaning either through a government-driven initiative or a large enterprise that already have a massive user base (e.g. Google), which can than bootstrap the identity solution as a by-product.