Author: aryan Source: medium Translation: Shan Ouba, Golden Finance

How to define a consumer application?

Before diving into any topic, I want to first clarify what a consumer application means to me, which will lay the foundation for the following section.

A consumer is anyone who accesses your platform every day, or more precisely, a platform is like a habit of the user, like waking up and opening X (formerly Twitter) or reading a newspaper, the user should wake up and open your application/the application should become part of the user. If you have 100 such people, then wow, you have a consumer application.

An example of such non-crypto applications can be taken from the app store rankings.

Examples of such crypto apps

dripdothaus, warpcaster, hey, pumpdotfun, frienddottech, puffpaw and skytrade are some of my personal favorites.

x and the Dialect team deserve a special mention because with the arrival of blinks, x has become a crypto-driven app.

Why focus on consumers?

We are all tired of infrastructure, open CT and see the 69420th crypto infrastructure startup raising some money. We need more consumer applications. More. The entire crypto community only knows a few consumer crypto applications.

If you want to get as many people involved in crypto as possible, then consumer is the only way to go.

"Consumers in crypto are hard", "There aren't enough users", "The infrastructure isn't perfect yet", "The user experience is terrible" and there are a lot of reasons not to build, but consumers are the hardest to crack, whether crypto or non-crypto.

Zuckerberg believes that small startups with strong convictions can beat any company.

Do we have infrastructure?

We have all been cursing infrastructure for a long time, like "Hey, I want to build this app, but the infrastructure is not fully completed", "Hey, I've been waiting for the team to release this feature, but they are delaying", "Hey, question 420, why can't they build the app".

In 2024, there will be only infrastructure on EVM or SVM. Let's look at EVM first

Lens Protocol

Lens Protocol is one of the early social protocols that allows developers to build on top of it. DX is so good that you can launch a web application in less than 30 minutes.

Lens was originally built on the Polygon network and has grossed a total of $30 million through 10 applications built on it. (There are over 100 applications on Lens)

In early May of this year, Lens switched from Polygon to zksync, considering a more scalable approach.

Farcaster 

Farcaster started on Ethereum and later moved the main contract to Optimism, it has an interesting structure where user identities and paying rent to store data are stored on-chain, while data is stored off-chain in something called hubs, which are nodes/validators of Farcaster data.

The above is an architectural overview from the Farcaster Docs, describing the overall flow of the application. DX on Farcaster is also quite good, and using services such as neynar, it is easy to start an application in less than 30 minutes.

SVM Status

Solana, Solana, Solana. There is currently no such social protocol built on top of Solana. The reason is unknown, and teams such as Gum Protocol and Solarplex (on top of at-proto) have tried to build it in the past but had to shut it down. There are applications like drip.haus, helium, hivemapper, etc., but no protocols.

With the recent release of generic zkCompression, SVM API, and firedancer, now seems like the perfect time for people to develop consumer protocols on Solana.

Generic zkCompression can be used to store any data at a very low cost. For more information, visit https://www.zkcompression.com/

The SVM API can be used to create a layer on top of Solana, which can give protocol builders more flexibility to include custom use cases while also making it cheaper, such as this example https://github.com/buffalojoec/paytube, where Joe from Anza Labs created a state channel where people can transact off-chain and then submit the results on-chain

Firedancer will make Solana even more powerful and improve the overall performance of the blockchain.

Considering the above points, this is a great opportunity to create a consumer app.

What are the things you need to keep in mind before/while building a consumer app?

First and foremost, identify your audience. You can’t build an app that everyone loves, but you can build an app that 100 users love and then build from there.

Choosing the 100 users is the most important thing because that will define your app’s niche. These users should be closely related to you, and in FB's case, these users are college students. Puffpaw is a Berachain-based app designed to motivate people to quit smoking, and the founding team has more than a decade of experience in the e-cigarette and pharmaceutical industries, which gives them an advantage over any other startup.

Mobile, building mobile first is extremely important, but if this will significantly slow down your SMT [time to market], then you can focus on building a PWA or web app. But mobile must always be in the roadmap.

I will often use the example of Facebook because no one can deny that it is the most popular consumer app of all time, so they must have done something right that others did not.

Use off-chain whenever possible, on-chain when necessary. This is another angle that Farcaster can verify, where only part of the protocol is on-chain, and the rest is off-chain, such as user messaging. This approach significantly reduces the fees involved, provides a better user experience, and provides more control over the platform.

Personalization/customized for you page is the most straightforward thing, but often overlooked by crypto consumer applications. Any application can leverage the open graph of crypto and create a better FYP page than any non-crypto application.

Who to market to?

We've already discussed selecting an audience, but given its importance, it's described in more detail here.

Take Facebook for example, Facebook started as a college campus social network, if they had thought about selling to the world from day 0 [imagine on day 0, Facebook's slogan was "revolutionizing the way the world communicates], then I don't think they would be where they are today. In any application, it is very important to define the SAM (serviceable addressable market) and make it very specific.

You don't build to attract the next billion users, you build to attract the next 100 billion users.

Dan (Farcaster) discusses similar ideas in this thread, which clearly illustrates how Dan approaches the platform.

The above chart also tells us that one of the main goals of any consumer app should be to become an identity.

Point of View

Are protocols the only way?FC and Lens

Both Farcaster and Lens chose the protocol approach, building the protocol first and then developing applications on top of it.

Farcaster chose Product Lead Growth (PLG) [more on this below]

Product-Led Protocol Development

If you are not willing to do it yourself, why would someone else be willing?

danromero.org

Essentially, the top client on Farcaster, Warpcast, is also managed/owned by the Farcaster team themselves. With this approach they can control a lot of things on the application layer and provide a really good user experience, and if they launch a feature it's easy for them to show what's possible by launching it on the client.

The app login flow is pretty good for the average person too,

It's a completely web2 experience, you don't even need to connect your wallet, you can pay on-chain with Apple Pay, and that makes Warpcast a great consumer app from a UX perspective.

One ​​thing I don't like about Warpcast (which is probably intentional to force login) is that you have to be logged in to browse the app. It behaves similarly to X, you can view posts via the post link, but not through the app.

There is also some controversy about market share, there are apps like Supercast which is a great client, but due to Warpcast, people are said to only use Supercast when Warpcast is down. There are many small apps on Farcaster, but Warpcast is the most widely used.

Lens has chosen a different approach, inviting founders to develop applications, and then the ecosystem will bring users. It has a large user base that applications can leverage to drive growth.

This approach gives more power to the clients, and although they are the main client and are completely open source, other clients serve different purposes and many have their own use cases and are used. Orb is one of the most used mobile clients. As a result of this approach, the application was able to raise nearly $30 million for it, which has never happened to any application built on the Farcaster protocol to date.

At Poster (then called Lenspost), we also had early exposure to the protocol and accumulated community experience, the quality of users was very high, they were really interested in the protocol, and the Lens team itself also spent time building each application on the protocol, which helped us grow the initial base of applications.

After launching the framework in early January this year, Farcaster's DAU has grown significantly, people are using Farcaster to stake tokens, starting with degen, and then multiple people using the same script, the activity on Farcaster has reached its highest level. I used to like Farcaster very much because its qDAU (quality daily active users) dropped after the airdrop metadata appeared, and now it is better than before. (sounds a bit selfish haha, I still use Farcaster, it's just a little more crowded)

Lens usage also peaked last year, there were rumors of an airdrop, and due to the early invite-only feature of len, it provided some status symbol to people in the network, and people were willing to buy handles on the secondary market for $300-400.

This makes one think

Is speculation the only way out? Friend.tech/Fantasy.top

The above is taken from a decentralized blog, every application needs a certain amount of liquidity to function. Every application needs to find metadata that can help them cross the threshold. In Farcaster's case, the frame is the escape velocity. In Lens' case, early invitees created hype, and there were rumors of an airdrop.

Now, here comes the problem. Read a tweet (can't find it anymore), but it went something like this - Airlines reward people with points, but people would still fly even without points.

Any user should use your app, even without points/tokens, points/tokens should be the icing on the cake.

The above tweet highlights why speculation/financialization is important, but applications should focus on long-term incentives of tokens/points.

Applications such as Friend.tech, Fantasy.top have used speculation to attract users, and they gained a large number of users at a specific time, but eventually lost their appeal. This clearly shows that one of the core problems is short-term incentives. The idea behind friend.tech is good - you can trade with people's time, but people just use it to get returns.

The chart below clearly shows how the activity of both apps peaked at one point and then approached 0.

Knock Solana? Drip.haus and Pumpdotfun

Drip.Haus - No consumer is complete without drip.haus.

Drip is a creator-centric application that enables creators to distribute any artwork to a large audience at a very low cost (Drip). Users can also reward creators using something called droplets. You can think of droplets as platform tokens, but they are not on the chain. You need to buy them to collect artworks and reward creators. Creators will also receive droplets, which they can redeem for USDC.

For creators, Drip recently launched a studio to make the process of publishing artwork even simpler.

Drip also has this hook where you can open a treasure chest every day to get a rare or legendary piece of art. Mini-games inside the app, like treasure chests, water drop mechanics, and rarity have helped Drip become one of the most popular consumer apps across all chains. Drip is currently developing a mobile app, which is already live on the Saga store and is expected to be launched on Solana Breakpoint in 2024.

Above are the app screenshots (SS) taken from Vibhu’s tweet, they make you think about how to focus on building consumer apps, and the details you should focus on. The SS on the left shows the user options, each with a completely different login flow.

Pumpdotfun — memecoin as crypto content

For any global news, within minutes thousands of memecoins are created on pumpdotfun and users can trade these tokens until the bonding curve reaches 69K$ MC, after which a raydium pool is created. These tokens represent global events and can also be seen as a piece of content.

It only takes one click to launch memecoin for free, which makes it a very powerful platform

I want to quote this from manan's article

An army of real humans and mechanical bots compete to discover trends and events, then tokenize them in hopes of making a moonshot. If used correctly, pump.fun's terminal is better than Twitter's trending hashtag. It is also one of those applications that has not seen a drop in the number of users so far, and after the recent announcement of free deployment and 0.5 SOL as a reward for memecoin creators who complete the bonding curve, this number is only going to rise. Tiplink and Privy — The UX Savior There are over 20 applications on Solana that you can use without a wallet, you can login through Google powered by Tiplink.

If you have ever been in the Solana ecosystem, then you must have interacted with tiplink somewhere. The concept is simple. The link is the account itself.

You can send anyone in the world a link loaded with some USDC, and they can then transfer it to their bank account.

Anything that can be done in a wallet can be done with the help of tiplink, and the team behind tiplink is making the user experience on Solana better and better.

Privy

Privy

Privy has mastered the art of user onboarding, and with support from multiple OAuth providers like Google and Twitter, and recently adding support for Solana, there is nothing but good news for them.

Teams like Opensea, Zora, Hyperliquid, and Blackbird use privy for user onboarding to bring a better experience. If any user chooses to use social login, an embedded wallet is created for them which is protected by a password. Users can choose to port that wallet to other applications or create a completely new wallet for new applications.

Privy also provides outbound and inbound solutions directly from the wallet with the help of MoonPay and Coinbase. Recently, they also released a feature called Native Bridge which enables users to pay from any chain they want and the application will only receive funds on the requesting chain.

These small design decisions have enabled Privy to bring over 3 million users into the ecosystem through different deployments.

Consumer x IRL — An interesting space

I just recently read about how some crypto apps are creating unique experiences for users by incorporating an aspect of real life into their apps. This generation may be online their entire lives, but they also crave more real-life experiences. Some apps in this space include Skytrade, Puffpaw, and Hivemapper. Skytrade enables people to own airspace rights over their homes, and drone operators can purchase tokenized airspace transactions over that home, which will allow them to become part of this accessible market. Although still in its early stages, skytrade has already enabled over $30 million in airspace rights transactions on its platform.

I am optimistic about projects like Skytrade because back in 2018, when I was working for a hyperlocal drone delivery startup, the process of getting permission to fly drones over residential areas was extremely lengthy, requiring the local police department and the local governor’s office to sign off on each takeoff. Even though it’s already 2024, not much has changed.

Puffpaw is another interesting project that aims to motivate people to quit smoking. It creates e-cigarette devices, or nodes, that have a daily smoking limit that affects the game. The e-cigarettes are also available in a variety of flavors with varying nicotine levels.

Imagine getting paid just for driving around the world, Hivemapper does just that. You can contribute to building a better map system for the earth by simply installing a dashcam in your car.

Since the entry threshold for dashcams is close to $500, the users on the platform are all people who are truly interested in it, and the number of users is increasing month by month.

Why Telegram has become the largest crypto consumption application?

The Telegram team launched the Telegram browser, which supports websites hosted on TON on mobile and desktop devices, and enables seamless switching between messages and websites. This allows nearly 1 billion users per month to use cryptocurrency.

Mini Apps have been a huge success, with more than 500 million of Telegram’s 950 million users interacting with them every month.

Telegram Browser, Mini App Store, Give Stars, and More

Today’s update brings a new in-app browser that supports multiple tabs and makes Web3 accessible to nearly a billion people…

telegram.org

Several mini apps in the Farcaster ecosystem are fun to use, such as

1. Hamster Kombat — a game where you manage a virtual cryptocurrency exchange and raise hamsters directly through Telegram.

2. Fartapbot - This is a very simple app where you can earn some points by just mindlessly tapping the screen and then redeem some goodies.

3. Dialect Operator - A small program that can be seamlessly integrated with the Phantom Wallet to conduct transactions.

Amazingly, you don’t have to authenticate anywhere as the applet just uses the context from Telegram to pre-authenticate the user.

Will Blinks save the internet (and crypto)? URLs have been the backbone of the internet and they haven’t changed for a long time, they are the only thing that can be shared anywhere as a message and a preview can be rendered using the metadata present in the URL, that’s why blinks (blockchain links) are powerful. Any link can turbocharge crypto transactions anywhere.

Here’s an analogy I really like about Blink, Blink meets users where they are, and eventually if we have enough users who want Blink, platforms will be forced to build built-in support for them.

The Missing Piece in Solana

Right now, there is enough infrastructure on the EVM side to create consumer applications, and services like Airstack and Neynar are doing a great job of connecting the dots.

What I feel Solana is missing is a social graph - a place where you can enter any address and see what that address likes to use, what apps he interacts with, his interests, and so on.

Also, there is a lack of support on mobile devices, and app integration of the Solana mobile wallet adapter is cumbersome and not standardized. You need to follow each wallet’s deep linking guidelines to integrate them, and iOS is another story to lament.

Conclusion

We have come a long way in the crypto space, and now is the right time to build a consumer startup.

It doesn’t matter which chain you choose unless the user experience is not compromised.

We also discuss what has been tried so far, the good and the bad, so that you can form your own opinion on what type of consumer app to build.