[Dive #86] Smoothie
🕵️ Discovering Discover-to-Earn
Is everyone still full from yesterday’s massive sample platter? I’m still digesting, so let’s top it off with something a little lighter — Smoothie!
Matt (the CEO) and I go back a little ways. We were both in the mobile app space as he was on the vendor/account management side while I was on the advertiser side of things.
And here we are, crossing paths again in Web3. Small world 🙂
He’s also a fun person to be around, particularly on the dance floor.
Dude’s got moves!
Let’s take a step back though and venture into the world of product discovery.
Product Discovery
If you think about it, the world of product discovery is pretty wild. It’s hard to create a brand or product in any space and gain traction. A warchest of funding helps, but shoving a product down someone’s throat by spamming ads is less effective nowadays.
Product Hunt took a different approached and started late 2013. What’s Product Hunt?
It’s is a discovery platform for new products and startups looking to gain awareness, acquire customers, and get early feedback from a smart group of people.
I first heard about PH in early 2015 and being the curious person I am, signed up June 2015.
Don’t ask me about the broken image with the shipabagofdicks.com URL…no idea what that is lol.
From that point on, I opened those daily Product Hunt e-mails, seeing what new products were being hunted and upvoted.
Product Hunt has become an established launch channel to the point where there are countless guides on how achieve success on the platform:
And today, PH does much more than just discovery. They are:
A strong advertising platform for companies looking to reaching tech enthusiasts
A content hub beyond a daily newsletter
A community with discussions, AMAs, events, and office hours
Oh ya, their newsletter has 500k+ subscribers…
Let’s take a trip down memory lane on Product Hunt with some companies in the Web3/Crypto space:
Coinbase - 6 years ago
Opensea - 5 years ago
NBA Topshot (from Dapper Labs) - 2 years ago
Of course this sampling has survivorship bias, but we can see that even within Web3, this is the place to launch your product from a grass roots level.
Which leads us to…
Smoothie - Discovery that tastes good!
That is not their slogan, I just made it up 😂
So if the Product Hunt business model has been proven, why can’t there be a Web3 version of that?
Smoothie want a piece of that pie…or rather a sip of that smoothie?🧋
Smoothie has a newsletter that provides some great visual guides on Web3 topics:
And Smoothie has their own spin on upvoting with Smoothie Awards. The weekly ‘competition’ starts every Monday:
Basically Product Hunt, but for Web3, right? Correct…but it wouldn’t be for Web3 without some Web3 capabilities, would it? 😏
This is the phrase that caught my eye:
Oh boy another X to earn scheme? Calm down folks, this isn’t Axie Infinity where you purchase this blob looking character that costs thousands of dollars.
So where’s the earning on Smoothie? Let’s start with Product Hunt first. How do you earn points?
On Product Hunt, you can earn points by:
Posting products
Creating discussions
Receiving upvotes in your conversations
Smoothie currently rewards engagement through upvoting, but this is where it gets interesting…
Because Smoothie requires users to connect their wallets to upvote, there’s on-chain reputation.
What gives? Well, not much for now. But what if…
1. You could bring that Smoothie reputation elsewhere on Web3? This reminds me of Reddit’s recent moves with Community Points.
Following this logic, Smoothie could grant early access to certain products on its platform to users that have 1,000+ points. This would be verified through the connected wallet 🤔
2. Users with a certain amount of points (engagement) are rewarded with a discounted price or an allowlist to a specific project.
In the example above, Snackeet, PH’s featured product has a 50% off discount for I’m assuming everyone.
What if there was a project on Smoothie that wanted to do the same, but only for certain users that meet certain criteria like amount of points or level of recent engagement? Or maybe the standard discount is 25% off, but could be 50% off if you reach a certain point threshold?
BTW, I looked up the #2 on PH for today, there’s a typo. Someone tell the team!
3. Users could redeem points for #2? The litepaper says no one can buy/sell points. But it doesn’t say you can’t redeem them 😉
Why would redeeming points be more impactful than a blanket discount? If a user redeems points, it indicates intent. That user is more likely to not only engage, but show that they’re serious about trying out (and hopefully buying) a product.
It’s early for Smoothie, and I’m excited to see how Matt and the team start breaking away from the Product Hunt comparison. The ocean of opportunity is vast in these parts.
For anyone interested in learning more about Smoothie, check out their Litepaper (it’s actually a light read, which is nice) and FAQ.
And if you have a product that would be a good fit for Smoothie — Let me know and I’ll intro you to Matt!
See you next week folks :)