Growing Web3 Social Apps
summary
Lens is a decentralized social layer that launched without a frontend, forcing integrations-first growth; teams build on-chain profiles, open data structures and user-generated collectibles that can be remixed and traced across apps. A focused musician onboarding playbook (started via a Lenster hackathon app) proves you must pick one community, build its ecosystem, then scale. Broad early targeting caused low retention; concrete wins include a $100,000 crowdsourced gasless rollout via the collect module and ongoing work on account abstraction to onboard non-crypto users.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (19)
- 0:00Opening and intro to Christina Beltramini
- 1:13Christina’s background in music and TikTok
- 2:53What defines a web3 social app
- 4:29Why full decentralization matters
- 5:38Pitfalls for web2 founders entering web3
- 6:41Why community-first strategy is essential
- 7:52Building Lens without a frontend
- 8:59The musician onboarding playbook
- 10:33Failed experiments and early lessons
- 11:41Building ecosystems for specific communities
- 12:43Key differentiators of web3 social
- 14:25Utility and cross-platform engagement
- 15:01Monetization, remixing, and provenance
- 16:35Open data structures and deeper engagement
- 18:47Challenges for onboarding non-crypto users
- 19:23Advice on growth and early user traction
- 20:59Psychological ownership and community funding
- 21:35The power of community over product
- 22:06Final thoughts and wrap-up
