Opinion Focus More on Demand than Technology in Crypto Applications

Author: rm
Translation by: 深潮 TechFlow



Building consumer applications is truly challenging! We, the “notorious” early users, may be the only ones excited about transaction speeds that outpace reality. But to be honest, if there is a fantastic waiting interface that keeps users engaged, speed becomes less critical.
What truly matters—borrowing from Nikita Bier’s perspective—is that most consumer applications can be categorized into three types: wealth creation, social interaction, and entertainment, along with their intersections.
People want to earn or save money through these applications, enjoy leisure activities, or make friends (be they colleagues, companions, or future family members). These are the fundamental needs that consumer applications aim to satisfy, rather than the technology itself.
For years, we’ve been asking, “What can this technology do?” However, for most consumer applications, a more crucial question is: What do people want? How can technology meet these needs in new ways? Starting from the technology often leads to unrealistic ideas.
Thus, the first step is: What needs are we addressing? Is it wealth creation, social interaction, or entertainment? Then, how can we leverage technology or infrastructure to fulfill these needs?
User onboarding and retention are two critical moments for a successful application. During the onboarding process, users should not be required to connect services, click on settings, or fill out forms before being shown the application’s features. With each additional click, users may drop off before experiencing the value. It is even possible to forgo login—simply display content based on my location. The aim should be simplicity and speed. First, showcase the value, then let me engage.
It is essential to attract users quickly and provide an immediate positive experience. The more interfaces and clicks there are, the more users will drop off. Quick onboarding should make users feel, “This is interesting” right away.
Now, retaining users presents a new challenge. When users do not receive what they expected upon signing up, they often leave. Although there are many reasons why people return, the key for consumer applications lies in the engaging content and relationships that attract users back. Remember, everything on-chain resembles a vast online service game.
Acquiring high-quality content is particularly difficult due to the high costs of migrating from existing platforms. You don’t want to see numerous posts like “I just registered, happy to be here,” but rather need high-quality content. While new forms of content can help, they are easily replicated, and novelty is hard to maintain today.
If content is hard to obtain, relationships become especially important. People often join a platform because their friends are there. We face two main challenges: first, to expand the user base, we need to establish the right community and strategy. Starting with niche markets often results in a more sticky product. Second, with the new incentive structures introduced by cryptocurrency, if a consumer application is filled with “speculators,” only designs focused on wealth creation will be effective.
If users come for social interaction or entertainment, they may feel alienated. Therefore, designing for the appropriate community from the start is crucial.
How to build an application?
Simply put: What problem does your application solve? Can users become wealthy, make friends, or find entertainment through it? Can they achieve a good experience immediately without cumbersome operations? Can content and other users attract them back for repeated use? How can you leverage user-generated content and the users themselves to drive new user acquisition?
This is a stark departure from traditional on-chain thinking: less emphasis on “contract-first,” more focus on “demand-first.”
Building consumer applications in Web2 typically requires starting from scratch to create account systems, social networks, payment systems, and data storage. On the blockchain, these functionalities are readily available. Therefore, rather than exercising technical imagination, it is more effective to rethink how to utilize existing modules to create something new. You can use Farcaster or Lens to build social networks, wallets as accounts, and on-chain operations like Enso to complete transactions, all while engaging in extensive prototyping.
In the past, on-chain technology was very complex, requiring strong confidence in your ideas due to complicated engineering designs. Consumer applications differ: first, clarify the needs, then utilize existing technology modules, and quickly iterate until a suitable solution for consumers is found. Consumer products rarely originate from a single idea—they evolve through continuous real-time iterations.
Innovation should be reflected in user experience, not just in the technology itself. Make good use of existing modules.
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