How to Gain Web3 Competitive Edge

During the fall of 2014, attending the executive program of Singularity University at the heart of the Silicon Valley, the idea that Blockchain will be as significant to the growth of the internet in the next fifteen years as the internet has been in the previous 25 years started to grow in my mind.

Two market cycles after, I have seen many of the world's best minds and billions of dollars in investment pouring into the space to figure out how to use the technology to make a fully digital society a reality. Adoption for Bitcoin has increased positioning as a store of value, smart contracts have enabled crowdfunding, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and Decentralized finance (DeFi).

Companies in various industries use blockchain to streamline processes and foster greater transparency and trust. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global blockchain market is projected to grow from $7.18 billion in 2022 to $163.83 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 56.3% in the forecast period.

Blockchain is more than Bitcoin, Stable Coins, NFTs, DeFi, and Crypto.

Considering the pandemic, we have seen that the two main factors driving the expansion of the blockchain market are the financial services sector's competitiveness and the health sector's digitalization. Also, growth is fueled by the increased demand for data security, and there is already noticeable progress in the supply chain, gaming, music, and the arts. Our Web3 innovation practice has been helping firms in the fintech, financial services, energy, healthcare, entertainment, manufacturing, and telecommunications sectors to assess the impact of blockchain and other exponential technology and trends on their business, develop integrated programs to enhance their current business models, create new ones, and gain and track their competitive advantages.

We know from experience that blockchain is still in its infancy and that it has yet to demonstrate its potential to transform the current internet into the internet of the future. But every business needs to dip a toe into the web3 wave. While in most businesses, it might still be early to commit entirely, there are certain areas where the race has already started. Why Blockchain? We are moving from the sharing economy into the ownership economy with new ways people organize around a project; communities and decentralized organizations will play a critical role. Blockchain technology becomes essential for business and society if you believe that material contributions should have clear ownership and provenance.

Blockchain is a platform for disintermediation, it is about trust, decentralization, and ownership. Consumers will be able to own their data, and the technology enables tools to reward contributors and user behavior, boosting creativity, collaboration, and digital communities.

Communities are starting to engage their members, simplifying the technology and the user experience, and from there, they are beginning to explore opportunities. Therefore, adoption driven by digital communities will be critical and effective.

When technology is simple to use and solves a real problem, it is quickly embraced by the general public. As it is, blockchain will not be an exception. Businesses must explore, build, measure, learn, and repeat to develop the skills required to flourish in the web3.

How to gain web3 competitive edge? Below are the components of a disruptive innovation system to help organizations embrace blockchain disruption, gain competitive advantages, and make web3 happen.

1. Begin with a Massive Transformative Purpose that can be taken by your organization and your community or one that can draw a new community.

2. Proactively and pragmatically assess market trends impacting your business to identify opportunities where trust, ownership, and disintermediation have the potential to change the future of your industry.

3. Leverage your Purpose, develop relationships, and nurture community; this way, the right people will find you.

4. Engage your community, and educate yourself on web3, so together can better identify the problems your organization can solve and the jobs to be done with the customer at the core. 5. Set aggressive objectives and 3-5 measurable key results (OKRs), run experiments, fall fast, and learn quickly.

6. Establish and maintain a business rhythm and help your team to identify what they need to create new business models and monetization mechanisms.

7. Use data, dashboards, and real time information to make informed decisions about where and how to invest across the web3 innovation portfolio.

8. Understand and measure your key success factors (KSFs), and hold yourself and your team accountable. Identify the #1 most prominent specific and measurement activity to success.

9. Wash, rinse, and repeat; and make sure you extend your web3 disruption innovation culture.

Those who don't start climbing the web3 learning curve may miss the most significant value-creation opportunity of our lifetimes, just as many people did during the transition to the world wide web in the 90s and the second wave during the 00s where the user-generated content business models emerged.

Please contact us if you have any comments or suggestions or want to continue the conversation.