Yesterday I discovered that someone who had the same idea as me made $48,000 from a project he created two days after I launched my own. And I want to share the lessons I've learned from it with you.
Here's the backstory...
A couple weeks ago, I started a project called The Most Private Coin Ever.
The premise behind it is simple: it's an Ethereum token that makes fun of ICOs by being fully transparent and claiming that it's worth nothing.
I launched the token for sale over a week ago, and have been working on marketing it ever since. You can see some of the promo videos I created:
The Teaser | View on Facebook
The Trailer | View on Facebook
I put some effort into these things. I created the website, figured out how to create my own token, get it verified, set up a MarketMaker contract so I could sell them, and got everything into place.
I even created a Facebook group, and engaged/helped people where I could with learning about Ethereum and wallets and ICOs.
And to most standards, it's starting to work.
That's 43,000 views, 1.6K likes, 40 comments, and 62 shares.
~70 tokens sold.
Not bad.
Additionally, to drum up some attention, I reached out to various publications sharing with them about my project, figuring this would likely be a huge hit.
And so when I saw that someone else had the same idea, launched it two days after mine, and has already made $48,000 from the project, I wondered what the hell happened.
I posted one of the videos on Steemit, and someone replied: "Hey, check out the Useless Etherem Token - looks like they beat you to it." or something of the sort.
When I went to their site, I literally shit myself.
It was essentially the same premise, except they were selling WAY more many tokens than I was. They were even getting covered in the press, when no one responded to my reachouts (before this project was launched).
So how did this happen? What did I miss?
Here are my thoughts.
3 Lessons learned from watching my idea come to life in someone else's hands
1. We Don't Own Ideas
This may be a far-out concept, but hear me out.
Ideas don't come from ourselves. They come from a the "collective" - the space that's shared in-between us all.
I remember when I first created the project and showed a friend, and he said, "Oh, you should check out SendMeEther! This guy is essentially telling people to send him Ether for free in a funny way."
I can't find the site, but it was essentially a website that was launched with a similar concept a couple weeks before I launched mine ...and I didn't even see it.
And so here's what I'm seeing:
Ideas come to us. We don't own them, nor do we create them.
Rather they are "given" to us, and we have the choice whether to act upon that idea or choose to ignore it.
Basically what this means is that if you have an idea about something, it's likely that other people are having it to.
If you have an idea multiple times, it's much more likely that it's starting to become prevalent in the collective.
That's what I failed to see. That because I had the idea, that it was mine and that if I didn't tell anyone about the idea, it wouldn't happen until I acted upon it.
So while people could take this as "he stole my idea", I'm more-so seeing it as I failed to act upon the inspiration that was given to me, and so someone else took that opportunity.
If the idea is something that YOU want to do, and want to be the creator of, then that brings me to my next point:
2. Act Quickly and with Precision
I've been talking about the idea for The Most Private Coin Ever for a couple months with my friends now.
It wasn't until last week where I actually launched the thing.
I realized that I had a lot of doubts and insecurities...
Would people find this funny?
Would people buy it?
Would I even be able to pull it off?
And because I was entertaining these insecurities and doubts, I froze. For months.
As a result, by the time I started executing on the thing, my enthusiasm around it was gone and riddled with complexity and a sense of staleness.
If it's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that ENERGY IN = ENERGY OUT.
The universe responds energetically, and so I'm not surprised that the stale energy I had of going OUT is what came back to me.
It would make sense as to why no publications picked up my project, yet two days later after I launched, the Useless Ethereum Token got tons of press and raised $48,000, which is still rising.
Now, who knows if people are buying it or if he's funding it himself or if he's connected to people that run the publications or if < insert other possibility here >.
All I can do is see the trends and see how reality responds to me.
And so my lesson for this is if I continue to get an idea, and it's inspiring, act QUICKLY and PRECISELY.
Stay present. Stay open to the possibilities.
Don't blindly act without consciousness, but do your research, create a simple plan, and go do it.
It's important here to not let doubt and insecurities get in the way. If you stay frozen from them for long, someone else will take the idea from the collective, create it, and reap the rewards.
3. There's always opportunities
After seeing what happened I got initially angry. It was interesting, actually, because as I was walking down the street with my friend Mike sharing my anger, some people jabbed at me, "It's a beautiful day people!!".
As if anger is a bad emotion and that my anger means I hate someone? No! It means I'm angry at the mechanisms and doubts and insecurities within myself that caused this event in my reality.
Got on a little tangent there, but anyways...
What came to me after my emotional expression was a newfound clarity that there's always opportunities.
I'm already thinking about ways to make use of The Most Private Coin Ever project.
The project just died in it's current form, but what is life without death?
Whenever moments happen like these it's a signal to me that something that doesn't work DIES so that something that will work better is BORN.
I'm appreciative of the life lessons and I'm looking forward to what comes next on the journey.
If you'd like to follow along on my journey, follow me at @maxnachamkin
Great post. I like the first point especially.
Thanks @mikeslavin!
Perhaps they received money because they have the name "ethereum" in it.
A phenomenon similar to this one: https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2017/02/10/investors-snap-wrong-stock/#.tnw_vwoeupZz
Crazy to hear how easily some folks make money these days. Your head is in the right place. Enjoy your time in Boulder, I sure did!
Hah, that's crazy.
I'm not sure. There's a lot of shady marketing tactics out there too, these things could easily be self-funded to gain traction with the media.
But who knows.
Thank you, love it here :)
Buddy you are smart and have a wide mind to come up with such idea in the first place though it might not be your idea (ideas are not body inheritance anyways) however few people get to think this crazy.
I want to say your first project didn't fail if you learnt these inspiring lessons from your mistakes.
Hey bania,
Thank you. I can see many failures in it, but it'd be crazy to think that there wouldn't be any failures. I can only imagine how people feel when they build something for 10+ years of their life only to watch it crumble.
Gonna keep going with the project and seeing what happens.
Thanks for sharing this article @maxnachamkin. You're clearly a bright person. I'm certain you'll create more opportunities for yourself.
My pleasure, and thank you!
Awesome.
Which part? :)
nice post..the question is.. has it already patented before you lounch it?
Thanks. Don't think anyone has patented this, nor am I sure you can.
Unlucky man, sorry that it didn't work out as well as it could.
Personally, I think their name alone was the significant differentiator here, however, at least you can say you have launched an ICO, which is rather impressive in it's own right.
I love that you speak to collective consciousness when referring to idea's, as I think too many people are oblivious to this point. Although witnessed in numerous cases, such as in new scientific theories popping up in different parts of the globe simultaneously without any interaction between researchers, and, demonstrated through behavioural research in animals, I think many people have a very ego-centric world view when it comes to idea's, cultivated in part by patent law.
Anyway, you now have the skillset to try something new in the blockchain space, so I look forward to seeing what you get up to in the future. :-)
All good, lots of lessons here. I could see how the name would be a differentiator, and I see some incongruities with my marketing that have been at play.
I think it's pretty crazy how reality works. Absolutely mind-boggling.
Cheers @devonking, appreciate the support and I'm looking forward to it as well.
Great read. As an Ethereum developer with a bunch of random ideas, this was a good inspiration. It's still the early days and someone else can beat you with a similar idea really quickly. If you have an idea for something, get to it. The worst that can happen is you learn how to do the next project even better.
Indeed, that's what I'm learning.
Thanks @metakosmia.
But if they launched 2 days after you, then they are lying! They claim "The world's first 100% honest", but that should surely be "The world's 2nd 100% honest...." :-)
Haha yeah...but there've been projects similar to mine before I launched as well, which I found out afterwards. It's crazy how the ideas swim around in the world simultaneously.
We have an idea and would like to speak to you about it.
Help us get you the break you deserve
Going to have to be private for now.