Operations: The redheaded stepchild of web3

Today, I’d like to address something I rarely hear about in web3: Operations.

In web3, we hear about product, community, marketing, tokenomics, team and more.

Yet, hardly any thought leadership is positioned around operations when it comes to web3.

As a former operations consultant, I’m going to shed some light on several important aspects of operations from a web3 perspective.

• Communication

• Leadership

• Goals and planning

Communication

Have you ever been on a team where getting anything done seems like a major pain in the ass?

Just trying to figure out when you’re going to meet takes 10 emails back and forth.

Finding a logo when you need it seems like finding a needle in a haystack.

You sit around waiting for guidance because something you’re working on wasn’t clear enough when handed off.

Sound familiar?

Rather than give you a fancy framework, I’m going to spell out some simple bullets to keep in mind to communicate clearer.

• Keep all files cleanly organized and ensure everyone has access

• Take the time to write something out and document it before asking someone to do it

• Record a video explainer and send it prior to a meeting, giving someone a chance to delve in and come prepared with questions

• Use technology and tools to eliminate wasteful communication, such as Calendly for meeting bookings

• Have a knowledge base with links to all important information about the project

• Build organization in from day one instead of trying to organize a mess later

• Make it clear who people report to and who to ask if they have questions

The goal should always be to use clear communication to make everyone’s job in the future as easy as possible.

Leadership

In web3, it’s common for me to see the CEO attend every meeting and be part of every aspect of the project.

As a former co-founder and CEO/CTO, I can tell you that this way is not only unsustainable, but will create issues within your team later.

A better pathway?

Break your project down into workstreams and have a key leader above each stream.

Example: The CTO leads the development team and reports up to CEO. The CEO doesn’t need to be on every development meeting.

If you’re a CEO and need to attend every development meeting, does your CTO feel trusted? Absolutely not.

Instead, the executive team meets once a week (or whatever makes sense) and aligns on what’s going on within the project.

Organizing your team this way will enable each person to perform their best work in alignment with their responsibilities.

When every executive is part of every meeting (common in web3) they are wasting a ton of time, energy and effort and ignoring their own responsibilities.

“I don’t have time for that.” is a common thought process, but the reality is if the person saying that audited their own time they have a lot of time, they just aren’t using it right.

One last thing: If you cannot trust a person on your team to do their job you may have to consider exiting them as they might not be the best fit (or require some training).

Goals and Planning

It’s not uncommon for me to ask a web3 team what they’re working on and see them glow with excitement.

They love sharing the amazing product they’re building!

Then, I ask them to show me a couple things:

• Their goals/KPIs

• Their operational plan

Not one project has been able to pull both of these things up yet.

I watch as I see them go from excitement to deep concern.

Don’t get me wrong: Building is a ton of fun!

But, if there’s no plan or goals around what’s being built it’ll be a very inefficiently ran project with a lot of wasted money.

The root cause? It takes work to set up goals and a plan and it’s also not very exciting. It’s much more exciting to jump straight to building, which is why us humans tend to do just that.

Obviously, this newsletter is not the time or place to explain how to build an operational plan.

However, if you don’t have one I encourage you to take a few simple steps.

1. Outline the workstreams within your project

2. Document the priority tasks within them

3. Ensure tasks have dates/milestones that are clear

4. Ensure there’s accountability (someone’s name)

5. Use a Gantt Chart - they’re simple to make

For your goals/KPIs, make sure your goals and KPIs align with your operational plan.

For example, 1,000 active beta users by November 1st 2023.

To get 1,000 active beta users, there must be tasks in the operational plan to be completed in marketing, development and more, right?

These are the linkages that need to be built to ensure the plan aligns with the goals.

One thing to keep in mind: Reasonable expectations.

If you’re like most web3 founders, you’ve never done this before.

Don’t feel bad about this: Plan for it and give yourself some extra time or be more reasonable with numbers.

When you’re ready, here’s a few areas I can help you:

• Free tokenomics template

• Building a simulation of your entire token economy

• Guiding you on overall project operations, launch and scale

• Identifying gaps in tokenomics, a huge pain point for many

• Learn from my 3,500+ hours of live project operations experience

You can book a free strategy call right here: https://calendly.com/tonydrummond/strategy-call