Problem Statement

In an era where decentralization and blockchain technology promise to revolutionize industries, the potential for Web3 projects to transform our digital landscape is unparalleled. However, despite this enormous potential, an immense pool of highly talented, visionary founders and an abundance of creative and potentially revolutionary ideas, the Web3 space has yet to deliver on its promise.

Founding successful startups is challenging, founding successful Web3 startups is even more difficult. There are many studies on launching a successful startup, but Web3 startups are still relatively new. There are no standards for launching your own Web3 startup, which is why so many are failing.

The Web3 space is rife with challenges that often prevent even the most talented, creative and high-potential founders from launching a successful project. Despite the presence of highly gifted and visionary founders, 95% of Web3 startups fail. This high failure rate is because founders often excel in two, three, maybe even four areas, but underestimate and underperform in the dozen other areas needed to successfully launch their Web3 project. Founders often are left with blind spots in those areas and lack the comprehensive support and resources needed to navigate the complex and ever-changing landscape of Web3 development, including security, regulatory compliance, marketing and many more. Founders often underestimate what it takes to launch a successful Web3 project and need a lot of support to realize their ideas.

VC dependency

To acquire enough capital, founders are forced to sell a large part of their tokens to VCs. According to CryptoRank.io, Solana has sold over 30% of the supply in private and pre-sale rounds and privately sold another undisclosed amount of tokens for $314M in 2021. Estimates are that 50% of Solana is held by private investors, while only 1,37% has been sold in their public ICO. This strong dependency on VCs conflicts with decentralized Web3 values and ethos and the interests of founders, communities, and retail investors. Providing access to early private sales exclusively for VCs, allows VCs to profit from retail investors that believe in the project and provide value to the ecosystem.

This problem is visualised in the following chart:

Suprime is turning this trend around and democratizes access to pre-seed raises, restoring control to founders and retail Web3 investors.

Startup trilemma

One specific area that founders struggle with when launching a new project is early-stage growth. There’s a chicken-or-egg problem: You can’t develop your project without funds. You can’t raise money without a community. You can’t grow a community without funds.

Suprime solves this trilemma through their community-powered private sales.

Failing projects isn’t just a problem for the founders and their teams, it also poses an enormous risk for Web3 investors. Lack of transparency, clear goals and fundamentals in Web3 projects lead to a very high-risk investment environment. The Web3 landscape is maturing and investors are looking for projects and founders that are held accountable, provide transparency and deliver excellence in all aspects of development.

Summarising

The problem statement is summarised into two points as follows:

1. Web3 founders don’t receive the support needed to launch their projects successfully.

2. Web3 investors suffer from this, as there’s a lack of transparency and many investments result in a loss.