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Original title: What mom hasn't told you about building in consumer crypto Original author: Mac Budkowski Source; kanfa Compiled by: Zhou, ChainCatcher Due to the length of the original text, the editor compiled it without changing the author's original logic as much as possible.   In the past two or three years, many people have equated growth with PMF. But in the consumer crypto track, this equation is most likely to fail: the growth you see may just be a magnifying glass for speculation, word-of-mouth support, or cyclical dividends. What really determines life and death is the motivation for retention and real use, and whether you can run a stable and reusable signal in a small and fragmented market that is constantly diverted by tokens and zombie projects. 1. Why is the signal distorted? 1) Revenue may also be a "false positive" Farcaster made over $1 million in 24-hour revenue after launching the Pro subscription. It sounds like PMF, but if you look closely at the data, nearly half of the buyers have less than 100 followers, which does not match the "heavy user targeting". One reason is speculative motivation – early buyers get about $600 in airdrop returns the next day, 5x in 24 hours. The result is: money comes in, but verification may not come in. In the crypto environment, these exogenous incentives can make the dashboard look bright at any time, but contribute little to the value of the product itself. 2) Goodwill payment is not the same as real needs Kiwi asked for a $10 NFT pass in the early days, and organic growth gained a group of paying users, including celebrities. However, a review later found that a considerable number of people did not feel distressed because of the support of friends, value recognition, or spending money on the Internet. In other words, payment is not the same as retention, let alone core value hit. 3) Cyclical dividends are a double-edged sword If you do an NFT exchange in 2020, you may naturally be pushed by the wave; But if the same path is repeated in 2025, the environment will be completely different. When your curve steps on external heat (not the endogenous value of the product), the faster it rises, the faster it may fall. 4) Attention hijacked There are a large number of zombie projects in the crypto world, founders have withdrawn from the community, and users are still guarding Discord and token narratives, unwilling to shift their attention. Coupled with the traction of the token market on human nature: During the 2024 Base Chain meme coin frenzy, the use of many knowledge/tool products declined - the same 15 minutes, should I read a long decentralized article or go find the next 100x? Most people will choose the latter. 2. Why is consumer-grade encryption itself more difficult? 1) The market is small and the penetration is low Ethereum (mainnet + L2) monthly active addresses are about 40 to 50 million; Even assuming one person, one address, which obviously doesn't hold, global penetration is still less than 1%. A small sample means that noise is more dominant than signal. 2) The population is complex and mutually exclusive Developers, speculators, artists, researchers, and TradFi people are distributed in different L1/L2s, and there is a natural conflict between feedback: some people want technical depth, some want artistic aesthetics, and some want light entertainment. The more you want to satisfy everyone, the easier it is to get out of focus. 3) Early adopters love to trade They are willing to try it out with bad UX, which is a bonus; But they'll also move on to shinier new gadgets next week, at a cost. High trial rates don't mean stickiness. 3. Correct understanding of PMF: growth × retention PMF isn't just about growth, it's about retention. If users enter the store and leave without returning, the faster the growth will burn the market - the download and revenue numbers will be deceptive, and return visits, next-day/week/monthly retention, and active structure are the water mark. Twitch got 16 million downloads in four months in the early days, and the founder still said there was no PMF; The reason is that retention is too low. 4. Actionable countermeasures: from "noise reduction" to "focus" Points, new rebates, tradable tickets, anticipatory airdrops...... It will lead people astray. In the early signal stage, try not to mention these. A new Kiwi recruitment caused a large number of registrations due to "an influencer claiming to have an airdrop", but there were very few long-term users, and it was eventually shut down. Use karma/lists/public acknowledgments to motivate high-quality content and continuous contributions; Use clear content specifications and minimal governance rules to eliminate low-quality and wool. If necessary, check the history of the chain to distinguish between novices and farmers who have not read the rules. Telegram/Discord group chats are easier to get feedback on the fly than emails. Collect questions according to the three-layer structure of creator/commenter/diver, and modify the function: The content is not enough → to make a one-click submission tool; Interaction thinning → Enhanced comment editor/reply preview/emoticon; High reading threshold → Optimized loading, information density, and sorting. Larry Page's so-called toothbrush product – use it 1–2 times a day to solve a clear small pain point. Stack resources on this action: use → daily frequency feedback → daily frequency iteration. Fancy pages and long-tail functions that do not affect the core value, cut if you can. Let users feel the value in seconds: comment previews, key point excerpts, charts/memes, etc. Keep the deep and long article, but design the entry and return curve to be more friendly. Immediate gratification + long-term value is not in conflict. Instead of convincing your mom with a DeFi aggregator, start with a veteran who makes 5 trades a day. High match → high retention. Offline ETH conferences, hackathons, professional podcasts, and ENS/Gitcoin communities are all high-density crowds, with expensive customer acquisition but clean signals. Aave once contributed tens of millions of dollars in fees with about 25,000 monthly active users; Blur is aimed at "professional traders" and has also achieved results when "everyone sings bad about NFTs". A small number of pairs of users > a large number of pan-users. Privacy was still a niche in 2022, and after a few years, Railgun made significant revenue; OpenSea was full of minds before NFTs became the Next Big Thing. Choose a theme that you believe will grow and patiently invest in it for a long time. NBA Top Shot uses league IP to make ordinary users willing to buy their first NFT; Polymarket has reached a larger circle with the help of social media play + election prediction + creative gambling questions. If you go out of the circle, it is still recommended to focus on 10-1 million users and control costs, feedback, and risks within a manageable range. consumer products should be controllable in terms of data, push, and stability; PWAs can be transitional, but not long-term. 5. A "self-inspection checklist" Metrics: Do you focus on retention/revisit/frequency/activity structure, rather than just growth and revenue? Motivation: Behind the addition/payment, do you like the product or expect a return? Incentives: Are there any points/rebates/tradable assets that add noise? Can it be turned off? Users: Who are the core 100–1000? What channels, what scenarios, and pain points are they strongly related to? Value achievement: How long does it take for a user to "feel valued" from opening to "feeling worthy"? Can it be cut in half? Focus: Does the team make at most one change per week that improves the "toothbrush action"? Channels: Do you put resources in small and dense high-channel channels, rather than blindly out of the circle? Organization: Is there a clear closed loop between product, growth, community, and support for feedback and data? Conclusion: Replace training with battle, don't wait for the perfect combination to shoot Looking for signals is more like art than science. You can develop taste and judgment, but no one can predict exactly which song will come out on top. What really matters is: pushing the product to the user as early as possible and calibrating the direction in real friction; When you can provide a stable answer to the growth × retention equation, PMF will naturally come to the surface. ——In consumer-grade encryption, don't be fooled by the rise and revenue. Noise reduction, focus, daily frequency iteration, with high matching users + toothbrush-type action + short TTV, in a small and fragmented market, first do a solid job of retention, and then talk about growth.