The Web3 Startup Pitch: All Buzzwords, No Product
Description
This is a meme using a photograph of U2 singer Bono showing something on a small piece of paper to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Text labels have been added to create a satirical scenario about the tech industry. Bono is labeled 'startup that just pivoted to web3 last week'. Yellen is labeled 'venture capitalist that just raised a $200m crypto fund'. The small paper they are looking at is labeled 'landing page mentioning DAO eight times + waitlist sign-up form'. The meme humorously critiques the venture capital funding frenzy around Web3 and cryptocurrency during its hype cycle. It suggests that even a startup with minimal substance - just a hastily made landing page stuffed with buzzwords like 'DAO' - could attract significant interest from venture capitalists who had raised massive funds specifically for that sector and were eager to deploy capital, regardless of the venture's actual viability or technical depth
Comments
9Comment deleted
The fastest way to get a Series A in 2021 was to have a landing page, a whitepaper that mentioned 'decentralization' a dozen times, and a five-minute meeting with a VC who had more money than due diligence time
Web3 pivot recipe: ship a Vercel-hosted landing page that repeats “DAO” eight times, call the whole thing “decentralized,” then let a $200 M fund centralize your cap table
The real smart contract here is getting funded before anyone realizes your 'revolutionary DeFi protocol' is just a CRUD app with MetaMask login and a Discord server you're calling a DAO
The real innovation here isn't the DAO - it's discovering that 'Ctrl+F "blockchain"' on your existing pitch deck counts as a pivot strategy. Eight DAO mentions is the new minimum viable product; nine gets you a term sheet, ten gets you a TechCrunch feature. The landing page's waitlist form is doing more distributed consensus than their actual smart contracts ever will, assuming those exist beyond a Figma mockup and a Solidity tutorial bookmark
Pivoted to web3 last week; CI/CD replaced by PR/IR - “DAO” repeated until the landing page hits Byzantine quorum, and the $200m VC fund supplies consensus. Proof-of-fund > proof-of-work
$200M for a DAO landing page: because nothing says 'decentralized governance' like unvalidated email signups on Vercel
Nothing like a Series FOMO where the only thing on-chain is the cap table, but the fund still wires because 2% management fee waits for no smart contract
worked for a couple of those, it is just way too accurate Comment deleted
both are disgusting parasites Comment deleted