Web3 roles you need if you're coming from web2
Your team needs a specific set of skills to succeed in web3. Let me give you a heads up.
In my past life, I was working in B2B SaaS. Before that, management consulting working with large telcos, banks, and consumer goods companies. Each industry has its nuance and therefore fitting roles to get the job done.
Sometimes they sound similar, but the devil is in the details.
Product Managers, for example, are prevalent in tech. A similar role is Brand Manager in a fast-moving consumer goods company (Procter & Gamble, Unilever, etc). One owns a ‘product’ and the other owns a brand or business unit. Similar-ish, but the nuance is crucial for each respective industry.
Entering web3, I urge you to consider the nuance.
The products, user segments, and jobs-to-be-done are different
Before we get into actual roles, let’s take a step back to wonder why there is a difference. There are three drivers of nuance:
The product isn’t just software
Blockchains, cryptocurrency, NFTs, DAOs—these are not software with a monthly subscription. You don’t login with an email and password. A 'gas fee’ is needed for every transaction. A $40Bn ‘product’ can disappear and become worthless in a span of a week.
Launching a web3 company, you need to consider how your tokens will be received in the open market, preserving IP versus open-sourcing for composability, etc etc… Don’t even get me started on the legals and regulations.
Users are also investors
If you thought web2 users had a ‘voice’ via social media, wait until you meet the web3 crowd. Discontent is very quantifiable is web3 as you’ll discover as you stare at your token prices going up and down in the open market.
Transparency, security, and enablement are new jobs to afford
As token holders, your users demand transparency to a degree that the SEC would feel embarrassed. No, they won’t wait until your quarterly report. Information needs to be now, in real time.
Despite the open books, the market also demands additional security. You can’t rewind or refund transactions in web3 because everything is final in the blockchain. If someone hacks your code and goes off with $600 million, it’s gone.
And finally, your token holders will likely demand control as well. Governance is a typical super power promised by web3 businesses. If you don’t share a seat in the table for your holders, be prepared to be labelled as the ‘centralized’ app.
(New) Roles required to tackle the nuances above
The following roles will sound familiar, but I assure you that a good shot at success in web3 requires a team that ‘gets it’. You don’t need someone who’s done it before (because so few have), but rather a willingness to dive deeeeep into the rabbit hole.
By the way, 1 role is not necessarily = 1 headcount
Economist
Whoa an economist? Are you kidding me? Nope.
You don’t need a professional economist, but at least a financial wiz that can appreciate economic theories.
You’ll be dealing with financial assets—tokens, NFTs, supply and demand. If no one in your team can make educated decisions on liquidity, price discovery, utility, nor the velocity of money, then… best of luck :)
Social Media maven
This is a full time job. A web2 person knows this. The difference in web3, you need to work on this very early. Probably even earlier than the MVP of your product. Hand-in-hand with your community manager, social media needs to drum up a following.
Competition is fierce and it’s easy to be copied in web3. Your community will likely be the only thing you can rely on to cut through the noise, bootstrap your product, and defend against copy-cats.
Your social media person needs to make you relevant in an already noisy space.
Community Manager
As social media creates more awareness, you need someone to recruit and enable your most loyal believers. The only way that happens is through building rapport and one-to-one relationships with community members.
Your community manager will live in your social channels. Currently, this is done in Discord, Telegram, or Reddit. They should be in sync with what the community members need—information, news, involvement, etc.
Security expert
The most successful web3 companies are also targets. Hackers and bad actors are always looking for the next vulnerability to exploit. Sometimes, it’s not even a ‘hack’ but plainly just an attack through the open market. Someone needs to constantly think about how to protect your product and community members.
Researcher(s)
Web3 and crypto moves fast. You need to keep up daily. Else, what you’re building might already be obsolete. Ideally, everyone in the company across functions keeps a pulse on crypto trends.
Lawyers
‘Nuff said. (This one probably wasn’t a surprise)
Spend time in crypto Twitter
Seeing is believing. It only takes a couple of weeks scrolling through vocal Twitter personalities to get a vibe of the web3 difference.
Or just dive in, build in web3, and experience it for yourself.
If you know someone else that’s web3-curious…
I also post web3 stuff in Twitter: @nigelwtlee