Does Your Web3 Project Need a Whitepaper?
To put it simply – Yes it does!
Initially, whitepapers were written by government organizations, financial institutions, researchers, and think tanks to promulgate research findings or to spread awareness on a common issue and suggest solutions to it. One of the earliest examples of a whitepaper is the “The Churchill Papers” released in 1922 by Winston Churchill.
But the scope and reach of whitepapers expanded with the rise in popularity of the internet and the content-based attention economy. More and more brands started using whitepapers as a means of promoting their products, ideas, and solutions in the community and as the web 3.0 economy evolved and grew wings, they recognized the power of whitepapers.
Today, every successful ICO has a distinguished whitepaper to thank for. Projects like EOS have raised more than $4.2 billion from their ICOs and the reason they were able to do this was because their whitepaper was able to convince the audience that a problem exists in today’s world that is hindering their progress and the project will solve that problem and make their lives easier if they successfully raise funds and work towards the further development of the project.
And as you are already aware that whitepapers are long forms of content, which allow you to address the problem and the solution at length and disclose every imaginable detail about your project explaining every little feature and advantage it has over existing solutions.
Ok, so now that we know how important it is for a brand to include whitepapers in its ICO strategy. Let’s get down to “How to Write the Perfect Whitepaper for Your Project?”
How to Write the Perfect Whitepaper
A whitepaper is a comprehensive document that requires a lot of research and planning to make. So here’s a wireframe for you to get started!
Let’s Break the Ice and Get Started
To get the show on the road, start with a legal advisory or a disclaimer to prevent people from a certain geographical region from buying the tokens or engaging with the project to avoid legal complications due to restrictions or regulatory provisions in a region.
The very beginning of a whitepaper is the perfect place to have a disclaimer or an advisory that breaks it down to the audience that investing in the project itself is no guarantee for future returns and just like any other investment, the project comes with its own set of risks.
The reason you need to put an advisory, or a disclaimer at the beginning is that these projects have high potential upside and people often engage with them just for the extraordinary returns it offers and this might turn out to be disastrous in some cases when things go south, so it’s prudent to inform people to not invest blindly and analyze the potential upside and downside before jumping onto the project.
What comes after that is a simple, well-structured, and thoughtfully written introduction that touches upon the problem in question. The introduction is your initial conversation with the reader and if you manage to bore them in the introduction itself, they’re not going to stay to read another page.
The best introduction is the one presented as a personal letter from the founder or a key contributor from the community. It establishes a personal connection with the audience and gives them a feeling of trust in the document.
The introduction should touch upon the problem and the consequences of not solving the problem. It should also explain the benefits of reading the entire document and some hints about how the project aims to solve that problem for the user and make their lives easier.
Discuss the Project at Length
Whitepapers are comprehensive documents and therefore, a lot of research goes into making a whitepaper. One of the easiest ways to make something more believable is to back it up with numbers, equations, and algorithms. But the problem is, that most readers won’t be able to comprehend the mathematical equations and algorithms so it’s easier to convert them into graphs and tables to make the document more scannable and easier to understand.
It is sometimes a better idea to have someone from the development team draft the technical aspects of the whitepaper which can be later edited and restructured to make it look more presentable.
Also, try to include a public roadmap of the project in the document to help people understand how things will roll out in the future. And also discuss the financials of the project to help them understand how their money will be utilized in the development of the project and how the team plans to move toward the final objective.
Investors usually don’t prefer to invest in projects that are very early because then they don’t have enough data to indicate a trend in their development curve. They prefer projects that already have something to show. So if you have something like a waitlist of potential customers or a community, don’t forget to leverage them in the discussion because they will make a huge impact on the investors.
Also, talk about where the project currently stands in the ecosystem and in terms of development, is the project in the development phase, or the testing phase, discuss that, and put forward a realistic timeline for the completion of the project. Back each statement with facts and figures and try to make the document as credible as possible.
Introduce the Team Members
Behind every great project is a strong and reliable team that is responsible for turning the ideas into reality and implementing the solutions in real time to solve real problems. They are the backbone of every web 3 projects and the success of every project depends heavily on the team.
And they are also a crucial metric while evaluating a project and its prospects. So make sure that you don’t leave out the team itself. Introduce them to the readers and mention their past experiences with other successful projects, mention their achievements and qualifications and explain to the audience why you think the team members are the right fit for the project.
If any of them already have experience in web 3, blockchain, or cryptographic assets, highlight them and explain how the relevant experience is going the shape your project and propel it in the right direction.
This will help convince the investors that the right people are working behind the scenes and running the project, and the probability of the project’s failure is low because a group of talented individuals is backing every step in the process.
Structure, Tone, and Language
When writing a white paper, use structured, and descriptive style writing. The tone of the document should be very elaborate and professional. Its focus should be narrow, as it is preferable to choose one topic and concentrate on it.
The language should be the one with the highest reach. You can choose to publish the document across various languages to boost its reach and influence in the ecosystem. You can hire a professional translator to do the job for you as it doesn’t cost much. It will cost you around $150-200 to translate a 20-25 page document.
The layout or structure of the whitepaper can be anything from a BAB (Before-After-Bridge) approach to a FAB (Features, Advantages, and Benefits) approach, or some custom layout based on your requirements.
But a majority of successful whitepapers written for ICOs of Ethereum and Polygon employ the BAB (Before-After-Bridge) structure where the whitepaper starts with an image of the ecosystem where the project does not exist and highlights the problems that hinder the progress of the society as a whole, and then it starts with a narrative where the project solves all of these problems and makes lives of people easier. It acts as a bridge between the obsolete problem-stricken past and the simple future where these problems don’t exist.
Another great structure that successful whitepapers follow is the FAB (Features, Advantages, and Benefits) approach which highlights the features, advantages, and benefits of the project to the audience and convinces them of how the project will create value in the future and is a great investment.
The Filecoin whitepaper is a great example of how you should structure your whitepaper using the FAB approach!
Where to Publish the Whitepaper?
As already discussed in the previous sections, a whitepaper is a comprehensive document and not everyone is interested in reading 25 pages long. So to get noticed by the right people, your whitepaper needs to be in the right place.
Choose the platforms very carefully, you can’t just publish a copy of it on every platform and hope that it comes across to the right audience. You need to find out where your audience resides across the wormhole and specifically target them to get the highest amount of exposure.
Bitcoin-related forums, Reddit, Discord, and the website of the project are some great choices to publish your whitepaper on. Because they are often loaded with the buzz around ICOs and new projects around the block. People looking to explore new projects and find worthy investment opportunities often hang out on these forums, and that’s where you should be if you want to get noticed.
Some Common Mistakes to Avoid
Here are some common mistakes you should avoid while drafting your whitepaper:
- Using an over-promotional tone
- Doing light research
- Poor use of visual and lexical resources
- Not optimizing content for smartphones
- Using full gating instead of partial gating
- Not managing the leads effectively
- Not proofreading and editing
TL;DR
Whitepapers are an essential part of any ICO strategy, and they are extremely useful for web 3 and crypto projects to raise funds or to create awareness about the project. Whitepapers allow web 3 brands to reach out to people who want to know more about the project and explore the solutions they have to offer. A whitepaper is a comprehensive document and requires a lot of research and planning to draft. Some key points you need to absorb to write the perfect whitepaper for your brand.
- Begin the whitepaper with a disclaimer, or advisory to help prevent regulatory actions and breaches of regional restrictions. The next part is a short, crisp, and precise introduction that addresses the existing problems, and how the project addresses the problem. The best introductions are those that come from the CEO or a key contributor to the project.
- Include every possible detail about the project in the whitepaper from the public roadmap to the current status of the project, along with its financials. And support every statement with graphs, infographics, charts, tables, and statistics.
- Talk about your team and their experience in the field, and discuss how they are pivotal to the success of the project.
- Whitepapers usually have a formal tone and follow a FAB (Features, Advantages, and Benefits) approach or a BAB (Before-After-Bridge) approach. Both these approaches are powerful and you can pick any one of them to structure your whitepaper efficiently.
- Choose the right platform to publish it. Discord, Reddit, and project websites are usually preferred by projects to publish their whitepaper.
