So you want to B(D) in crypto

At AlphaGrowth, we’ve mastered the art of crypto BD. We’ve structured deals between DeFi protocols, blockchain ecosystems, DAOs, liquidity providers, family offices, venture capitalists, and every archetype in between.

As you can probably imagine, through the cycles, we’ve learned the ropes and written the playbook.

Below you’ll find a field guide that will help you navigate the chaos.

Communications

Let’s begin with some tough love.
Don’t be the guy that drags on and on about how great your product is.
I promise you this: nobody that can actually help move your organization forward cares about the transactions per second of your blockchain.

It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to: the harsh reality is that they don’t care about your journey; they care about their destination.

If you want to grab someone’s attention, lead with your sexiest foot forward.

Keep these 5 pillars in mind when communicating your value proposition:

• Investment - “backed by Arthur Hayes”
• Founder/Team DNA - “Harvard MBA”, “YCombinator founder”, or “Previous BlackRock”
• Bluechip partners/clients - “Used regularly by EtherFi” or “Partnered with Uniswap”
• Grants received - “Received a 500k grant from Base chain”
• Numbers that tell a story - “12k token holders” or “50k monthly active users”

Also, communicate the problem that you’re solving.
Are you a solution to an indisputable and recognizable problem?
Or are you a solution that is seeking a problem that doesn’t yet (and may never) exist?

Telegram (apologies in advance)

Telegram is an absolute zoo. Similarly to email, 99% of inbound DMs range from scams to nonsense. You are competing with a cacophony of bullshit, so be concise and persistent.

The “Delete and Resend” trick
There are few decision makers that have the time to achieve “inbox zero” every day. So, with that in mind, you’ve gotta maintain your seat at the top.

If they haven’t responded within the week, they’re probably not going to.

If you delete (for both of you) and resend the message, you’ll automatically jump to the top of their Telegram inbox.

Depending on what timezone they’re in, they may never see your messages at the top of their inbox. So try deleting and resending at different times intraday.

The added benefit of this strategy is that if they do finally open your message, it doesn’t make them feel as bad for ignoring all of your prior messages.

Make sure the visible is actionable
If I were to send 3 messages on Telegram, the only one that can be visible from an inbox is the most recent message that I’ve sent. So, make sure the relevant and actionable context is the last thing you send.

Think about this as the subject line of an email. Nobody is going to click an email with an irrelevant subject line.

Followups
Don’t just brag about growth metrics & milestones; drip the novel and actionable opportunities.
For instance: “We've got another private deal offering 10% BTC on BTC, are you guys actively deploying capital?”

Try leveraging your wins as a talking point:
“We just brought 25M to one of our DeFi partners last week, are you guys looking for to grow TVL?"

Introductions

Unless your pitch is bulletproof or you’ve serendipitously run into someone at an in-person event, your best odds of fostering a solid connection to a team is via warm introduction.

The absolutely most efficacious introduction is by way of one of your target teams’ investors.

For instance, if a16z were to introduce you to one of their portfolio companies. This is a flaming hot intro.

This works just as well in the opposite direction. If you’re looking to meet investors, ask a team for an introduction to an investor that they have made money for in the past.

An intro to a partner of a team is also an obvious killshot. If you want to meet with Chainlink, scope out who you know that is already working with them.

Meeting a team by way of someone that used to work for the organization is also a great angle.

Reduce Friction
To facilitate the introduction process for the person that is doing you a favor, pre-send a one-liner hook that helps contextualize the purpose of the introduction.

Accompany the one sentence blurb with a telegram invite link to a pre-made TG group:

“We’re helping several Liquity V2 forks structure deals with various assets and chains, it would be great to connect with XYZ CDP”

https://t.me/+7pV3uLKUyEc1NWYx

If you can’t access someone through one of the vectors listed above, try these.

DeBank is a great way to message a specific wallet address. This has the highest success rate if you have the luxury of messaging your own holders, but with the right pitch, it can also work outside of your own network of token holders.

Finally, if you have to resort to direct messaging, use your team’s official X (Twitter) account.

In Person Events
The nature of this industry is built entirely on trustlessness, therefore every offchain transaction requires a tremendous amount of trust.

Events are where deals get done.

However, there is some nuance here. Typically the founders and decision makers of DeFi protocols and blockchains aren’t just aimlessly wandering around the conference floor. And for that matter, neither are high signal investors or liquidity providers.

Oftentimes vendors at conferences will staff their booths with junior BDs and locals (that have little to no fluency on the company) to hand out shwag at their booths.

That said, most of the heavy lifting will occur before the conference itself.

In the days leading up to the event, make sure you tee-up some in-person coffees or beers depending on your speed.

And no, don’t talk about business until they start to. You can do that later in a Zoom meeting. The purpose of an IRL meeting is to build trust. At the end of the day, if they won’t look forward to hanging out with you, they’ll probably not want to work with you (or invest in you)

So here’s the bonus mission: parlay a coffee or a beer into something memorable.

Go ride jet skis.

People will have dozens of meetings and conversations at a conference, so stand out.

When it comes to finding the right conferences to attend, https://cryptonomads.org/ is a phenomenon resource for scoping out solid conventions and side events.

AlphaGrowth
If this playbook stresses you out, that’s why we’re here.
We’ve assembled the strongest BD team in crypto, and working with us means that you can leverage it.

If you’d like to see number go up, drop us a line - we’re ready to rock.

https://alphagrowth.io/contact-us/