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Rouen, 2022

Are you investing in similar projects or building them yourself?

Interested?

And why should you consider doing the same.

# The great crash

I know you heard about the great crypto crash of 2022. If you’ve been in the space long enough you also heard about the great crypto crash of 2018. And if you are a “crypto-granny” you also remember the crypto crashes of 2013 and 2011. The OG ones. On all of those occasions the industry was pronounced dead and the bubble burst. Well… It’s still here, isn’t it?

![Screenshot 2022-06-13 at 09.43.24.png](https://shape-landing.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Screenshot_2022_06_13_at_09_43_24_75d824a4b6.png)
Bitcoin chart from the first day until now.

# Follow the money

Let’s start with some statistics for the latest and greatest bull run. I’m not sure if excitement about the technology, wanting to participate in something hip or just plain old FOMO, but institutional investors almost doubled the amount of money they put into VCs in 2021. Where did that money go? Crypto startups. Almost 33 Billion one-dollar bills to be exact. In an extremely volatile market, it is hard to estimate the total cryptocurrency market cap. It is reported to be around $1.3T at the moment, but it topped out at almost $3T in Q4 2021. In 2020 we saw **more than 2000 new ICOs** launch on the market. That’s more than two thousand new companies. I don’t want to talk about the industry that will change the way we pay for milk and bread, but no one should ignore it anymore either. 

# Who survived?

Moon boys 🚀! Just kidding of course. Everyone that was in the “Cryptok” (the crypto corner of TikTok) or crypto Twitter saw the amount of money-grabbing projects (especially in the NFT category) spun up on a daily basis. A lot of those were riding the wave for as long as the wave lasted. A lot of those also failed when the whole market went down. The ones that stayed were **proper companies with established teams and innovative solutions to solve real problems**. History repeats itself again.

![LUNAUSDT_2022-05-12_13-52-08-637879816001059853.webp](https://shape-landing.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/LUNAUSDT_2022_05_12_13_52_08_637879816001059853_977ad33489.webp)
The great crash of Terra Luna in 2022.

# What to build?

Coming from the paragraph above, you should think about solving a real problem that can be efficiently solved with web3 technology. The advantage of the bear market is time. There’s less and less media attention and less and less pressure to build something quick. I can’t give you an answer on what to build exactly, but choosing stable technologies and having a long-term vision is always a big plus. 

# How to build?

As you probably read in many similar articles: prototype, find your customer segment, innovate, launch fast, and iterate often. As mentioned use established technology or, if you are building something completely from scratch, use the knowledge of those who failed. Look for mentors and talk to people. Building a new idea is a learning process, treat it as such.

# Wen Lambo?

😀 There are theories, and there also are mathematical analyses that help predict the next surge in the market. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there are hundreds of other factors that contribute to the movement of the curve. Rome wasn’t built in a day nor weren’t successful companies. Earlier you start, the better the chances of catching the next train prepared. 

![when-moon-when-lambo.gif](https://shape-landing.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/when_moon_when_lambo_a7fd874f2a.gif)

The evolution of the internet is an ongoing process and there has never been a technology rising faster than web3/crypto. It has A LOT to do with social media hype, countless overnight millionaires, and media attention. Don’t let all of that blind you from the potential this technology truly has. It is supposed to be the internets’ redemption. The weight is on our shoulders.

Why are we building the new web?

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Ljubljana, 2020

Stay in the loop

In this magical time, your app idea is on paper and your savings account is answering yes. You have been scrolling through Appstore for a while now, there is nothing just like it on the market yet. Awesome!

Next step. You need the [right team](https://www.shape-labs.com/articles/the-right-team) for your future product. Also very important you don’t want a featureless skeleton. Perfect. For the purpose of the story, let's say your idea is a new dating app. Another search away and you find [UpWork](https://www.upwork.com). This impressive matchmaking online web page returns a long list of proposals for your new project. Estimations are varying from only a thousand to five-figure numbers. Not just what you expected, but ok somewhere in the middle will do. Let's take a leap of faith here, cut some features that feel insignificant, and begin building the product. Leap of faith, really? What if I tell you there is another way?

# How to scope your product and minimize the fail rate

We said you are building a dating app, something that will disrupt the dating app market. A general list of your features goes: card swiping, video calls, chat, Stories, and subscriptions.

Here are three perspectives or options:

1. If we ask an investor. A payment system is important for every MVP, proof of a sold item. Due to the pandemic real live dating is off, so video calls make sense. That leaves us with taking away the stories.
2. We want people to chat. Exchange stories, experiences, have conversations. Sometimes Stories can play an important role after the matchmaking with swipes is done. These little 10 second snaps can be good conversation starters. So we need a chat, we need video, we need Stories and swiping. That leaves us with taking away the payment system/subscriptions. Anyway, there might be a better metric than proof our product has a [market fit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product/market_fit).
3. What if we take away the swiping? Maybe there is a way to use the Stories principle not only for conversation starters but also for matchmaking. Hmm ok, might be. 

Every option seems equally good, but we still don’t know which one is the best. To be honest, I don’t think we ever will until we try, but we can start off with the best option. The answer to this is the workshop. One where you invite a few perfect users and few people from the team. It is a wonder how far we were able to come in just a two-hour workshop.

*MVP = [Minimum Viable product](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product)


How to filter features while building an MVP*

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Brisbane, QLD Australia, Jan 2020

We built an App for all the people that need help at fixing things in their homes.

> We built an App for all the people that need help at fixing things in their homes.

Consider this: You just moved into a new flat or plan to change something in your current one. You want to add an electrical socket, move the washing machine or repaint a room. Finding the right person for this, used to be quite a task if you haven't had any handy friends on your contact list.

Imagine if you could just take a photo of your problem, add a description about it, click ‘post’ and wait for somebody to reach out. Our client decided to do just that and asked us if we could turn this into reality. We were intrigued and together we started to work on Doneski.

![renders.d42dd85b.png](https://shape-landing.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/renders_d42dd85b_bd7746dcea.png)

# What did we do:
- Mobile application for Android and iOS
- Backend API
- Content management system

We decided to build on our experience from our previous project and utilize React Native as our framework. It gave us the needed flexibility to try out different ideas across the iOS and Android environment, without wasting too much time on pivoting on features that we identified as weak and not delivering the right value to the MVP.

The backend pipeline consists of multiple servers, allowing us to test and review versions. The production server is running Node.js with Koa layer on top leveraging async functions. For our main database, we picked PostgreSQL. The platform is mainly connected using the REST architectural style and used Firebase to handle live updates on some features of the app. We utilized Firebase which convinced us especially through the persistent hash data structure in the cloud and the realtime database which offers seamless synchronization of data across all of the users.

![logo.bdbf14d2.jpg](https://shape-landing.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/logo_bdbf14d2_da2d596f27.jpg)

Although our bread and butter are helping startups and companies build the technical side of their businesses, we strongly believe that tech is the easy part when we want to build new things.

This is something we keep in mind when working with clients on new novel Ideas. We understand our position in this relationship not only as technical workers but as advisors. We build Doneski in a way that gives our client enough agility to pivot fast without sacrificing too many resources on rewriting the codebase. This gives our client more time to focus on identifying and validating the right business model, the thing that matters most when building a company that is here to stay.

Handy hand just one post away

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Dallas TX, USA, Aug 2020

"They provided a structured, organized environment that enhanced the professionalism of the business interaction."

The client's vision for the product was powerful, yet simple: connect artists from across the country and make it easy for them to start collaborating on their projects.

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We designed the platform with music in mind. Soothing dark colors with accents of Ear Hustlaz green bring elegance and a professional look to the product. Custom icons and state illustrations make it unique.

![Eh post 2.jpg](https://shape-landing.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Eh_post_2_40926a29a8.jpg)

The platform is built as a PWA (progressive web app) to attract as many artists as possible without the hassle of downloading a mobile app. The backend and database are run on a highly scalable PaaS infrastructure.

Ear Hustlaz story is far from being over. Stay tuned!

[www.earhustlaz.com](https://www.earhustlaz.com)

EarHustlaz

Product development partner

Building decentralized digital ventures and redefining the established ones.

For startups

For enterprises

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Abanka

Award winning fintech concept.

Pablu

Livestream shopping. Venture, focused in the future of ecommerce.

Business angels of Slovenia

Strategic partner in Shape ventures.

ABC accelerator

Award winning accelerator program.

"The project team has delivered to the vision and added to it for a better MVP."

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