- What IBOs are
- What Types of Bounties are There?
- Best Practises for IBO PR
What are IBOs?#
In the history of crypto fundraising, the majority of different techniques essentially boil down - one way or another - to an investor giving a project money to get started with their infrastructural or product building. While IBOs have a similar effect, helping to get the project started, they don’t have the same starting position, with this actually having very little to do with active capital allocation. Equally, IBOs don’t have the same shady history of ICOs, making them a much more favorable strategy to use.
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Instead of investing money in an IBO, users invest their own time. What this means is that users with specific skills will help the project out with that area, whether it be marketing, sales, user-onboarding, or programming, in return for currency at the end of their working period. The more work they do for the platform, the more they receive at the end of the IBO.
Time over money is the IBO way
Essentially IBOs are all about users investing their own time and skills into the project, then getting rewarded with the cryptocurrency that they’ve been working on. If they like the crypto, they can hold it for the long run, hoping it goes up in value. If not, they’re then able to sell it for a profit on any associated DEX (decentralized exchange). Considering that 45% of all crypto owners donated at least $1,000 to a new project in 2021, it's a very strange occurrence to see IBO projects over more traditional fundraising schemes. One additional benefit for those that run IBO PR campaigns is that by onboarding what are essentially workers, you increase the possibility for word of mouth marketing, with others telling their friends what a great project they’re working on. Equally, this allows you to gain ‘investors’ even if they don’t actually have starting capital to give your project, helping you to get started with your project if you’re in the early development phases.What Types of Bounties are There?#
When running an IBO PR campaign, there are several different roles that you will want to target, depending on what resources your project currently needs and the phase of project that it is in Each of these roles will need different PR campaign advertisements, tailoring your copy directly to the type of person you’re trying to target and bring on board.Typically, there are a few set roles:
- Users - These are the least effective member of the team, people who will sign up for the IBO PR project but not actually do any work. While these are annoying to encounter, they are good for boosting the relative success to external eyes of your campaigns, which can trigger more interest and further followers.
- Builders - The builder bounty collectors are people that participate in your IBO by directly offering services as a programmer. These people will help your project by creating the infrastructure of your blockchain platform, developing any elements of product points that you will need for future success. These are often the most frequent format of volunteer, as the world of blockchain is full of people in tech fields.
- Promoters - Any individuals that actively promote, whether it be through their own marketing avenues or through traditional methods like social media are known as promoters. Promoters are essentially for-hire marketers, with each being assigned unique sign-up codes or links. This will help a project track how many new customers/bounty hunters join the team, measuring their success.
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