All You Need To Know On Sourcing ICOs-The Story Continued! What Do ICO Startups Actually Need?

By Max Lautenschlaeger

WHAT DO ICO STARTUPS DEMAND

Iconiq Lab offers 8 central services to startups accepted into the program based on startup needs:

· 25,000 € worth of Ether in Seed Funding

· Token structuring including feedback from token investors to find the most attractive token model for their respective business

· Connections to legal guidance for the token model including finding the right jurisdiction and legal partner for the startup

· Connecting to coders which can program and/or audit smart contract(s)

· Crypto specific marketing campaigns

· Business development and mentoring in the startup’s respective fields of the business

· Insights into the blockchain industry, including lectures and workshops on most recent developments

· Access to the Iconiq Lab network and strategic partners, which includes investors, academic researchers, mentors, business experts, legal teams and much more

When applying to the Iconiq Lab Accelerator Program, startups can choose whether a certain service is highly needed, needed or not needed at all. We dug a little deeper and here is what our startups had to say.

From the results to date, it can be clearly derived that getting access to the Iconiq Lab’s network and partners is perceived as the biggest need for a successful token launch, followed by seed funding and marketing services within the crypto space. One of the reasons for this is the uniqueness of the blockchain environment; a very open-minded, forward-thinking and engaging community which loves the value-add of blockchain technology and how it can impact the world. Yet the community is quite small though and marketing works much different than in the traditional digital startup environment.

Targeted ICO Size

The ICO markets have already seen many over-liquidated projects, which Iconiq Lab feels is irresponsible on behalf of management teams towards their token investors. It is neither sustainable nor transparent. Projects who have applied to the accelerator program are not shooting that high though, and wish to fundraise responsibly. Most of the projects are in the range of $3 and $10 million with an arithmetic mean of $12 million a median of $7.5 million. It seems that good businesses know exactly how much money they really need and do not tend to over-liquidate themselves, even if they potentially could. Iconiq Lab encourages them to only fund reasonable amounts with the aim of a maximized token holder value.

Conclusion

The findings to date clearly show that an accelerator like Iconiq Lab is needed in this market.

The international bandwidth confirms, that a mostly remote and digital accelerator program is the best approach. The design of the Iconiq lab program makes international collaboration easy and very efficient.

The industrial variety shows that a focus on only one particular industry doesn’t make sense. It’s all about understanding the different use cases and the potential impact of the blockchain technology in the respective field and elaborating the most beneficial token model for the business.

The key services Iconiq Lab is offering to their startups are all very demanded. A complex and steadily changing environment like this is in need of guidance as it is offered in this program.

Investors are more and more seeking for high-quality ICOs. A proper due diligence process is not yet established by any of the players in these markets. The team of Iconiq Lab is transferring their due diligence expertise from the traditional and alternative financial markets to the crypto environment, combining the best out of two different worlds.

Check out the first part of All You Need To Know On Sourcing ICOs here.