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Marketing for Founders

How Early Crypto Stage Teams Build a Focused Growth Engine

Welcome to Episode 12 of the Web3 Growth Podcast! 🦁

We interview the best growth operators about their growth strategies, challenges, and tech stacks to give you the insights you need to grow your business in web3 & beyond.

This session was recorded during the second annual Safary Summit in February 2025, hosted by Safary and supported by Hype and Trust Wallet. The summit featured 10 panels with over 20 growth leaders sharing what it truly means to grow in web3.


Marketing For Founders was moderated by Irene Wu, angel investor, and features:

The “Marketing for Founders” panel unpacks the most common missteps crypto startups make—and the frameworks that keep growth strategy on track.

The conversation begins by debunking the idea that marketing is a “last‑mile” expense, arguing instead that it belongs in the earliest product and corporate‑strategy discussions.

Panelists stress ruthless audience focus: define the single business goal for the next 30, 60, and 90 days, then pick only the channels and metrics that move that goal.

They contrast mind‑share and market‑share, noting that having people talk about you is useless if the narrative is off—or if your real buyers don’t live on crypto Twitter.

A deep dive on token‑launch timing warns founders not to “ring the bell” before the product, community, and internal ops are ready, because a token can only launch once.

The session closes with hiring advice: avoid patch‑worked freelancers; instead invest in one mid‑level, high‑ownership marketer who can execute now and scale later—treating that role with the same rigor as a core smart‑contract engineer.

Episode Timeline

  • 00:00 Introductions & why marketing is a strategic—not last‑mile—function

  • 02:30 Debunking common founder misconceptions about “growth later”

  • 05:10 Audience focus: narrowing goals to the next 30‑90 days

  • 08:15 Mind‑share vs. market‑share—matching narrative to real traction

  • 11:00 Channel selection: when “vibes” events help—and when they don’t

  • 14:20 Token‑launch timing: why you only get one shot

  • 17:45 Customer relationships as the controllable growth lever

  • 19:30 Hiring the first marketer: one high‑ownership role vs. contractor patchwork

  • 23:00 Interview tactics & defining success metrics for marketing hires

  • 26:10 Final takeaways ​


Looking for more insights from top growth experts? Sign up for the Safary Certification—a hands‑on crypto marketing course taught by the growth minds behind Berachain, EigenLayer, Kraken, and more (spots are limited).

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