Officially, Blockchain Alpha has been operating for more than a year. This translates to months of working with close to 10 early-stage companies, most of which are in the Web3 industry, and helping them close more paid users with technical content.
Yes, our partners grew in revenue and visibility. But the growth has been bi-directional; Blockchain Alpha has also grown internally.
As the man behind the steering, I’ve practically done every aspects of the job, which I still do. For those who do not know, running a technical content studio—or you can call it an agency—is not only about creating content.
It’s a lot deeper than that. You’ll have to do sales, content management, customer nurturing, SEO, quality assurance, editorial excellence, customer support, and so on.
Meanwhile, as a technical writer, you still have to be in touch with the latest protocols and trends; meaning you’ll have to be actively coding and building stuff in your spare time so your mind can be sharp.
But one thing is sure: it’s been quite an interesting journey.
Having built the studio for more than a year now, I feel it is a good time to reminisce and outline some of the things I’ve learned in the process.
By the way, this blog is not only a way of me documenting the journey, you can also learn quite a couple of things from it if you are planning to build a company or if you do sales in Web3.
Keep Doing What Brought You Here
Have you ever loved a company for one of their products, then they gradually pivoted and slowed down on the initial things you knew them for?
It is bound to happen.
In the case of Blockchain Alpha, we had a good problem — there were lots of content projects to do for our partners.
As a result, we didn’t publish often on our blogs even though we have a lot to push out on our internal content calendar.
Here is why that is a bit tricky: a good way to demonstrate the dexterical excellence of a technical content studio is the quality of their publicly available works, particularly their blogs.
So if technical content like blogs are major tools of our trade, then we should be pushing them out more.
In lieu of that, I took the task of crafting and pushing out our blogs myself. Of course, I want the best representation possible for the studio.
One thing I’ve discovered is how having content calendar can be so helpful in maintaining consistency of publishing. We do this for our partners.
I said all that to say: this new year, expect more from this blog.
And no, I’m not a fan of regurgitating what’s already on the web or other BS. You’ll be seeing insightful content around product building, technical Web3 protocols, marketing and everything in between.
Payment Validate Deals
There was this early-stage Web3 dev company I saw and resonated with their product. As a salesman, I approached the founding team to discuss how Blockchain Alpha can help them with content.
They directed me to one of their teammates who handles growth. I was in touch with this person who seemed to have interest in our offerings.
You know those calls you have with an HR where you both laugh, had fun talking, and you thought the deal was as good as closed.
Yes, that was the kind of connection we had. But boom, I was later ghosted! There were similar occasions like that.
It made me draw up an idea that only payment, not smooth calls, validate deals. I always expect the best, at the same time, I become much more interested in partnerships when payment is made.
You might wonder why it’s quite a big deal.
Here is it: if someone says “Hi John, I like your work and would love to have you create our protocol docs,” the person will only offer payment if they consider the service you are rendering valuable.
Payment shows willingness to commit to a deal. In short, actions—they say—speak louder than voice.
Pierce Through the “NOs”
I would be absolutely dishonest if I say that all my sales games have been full of “YES.” That’s not true. You’ll hear “NOs,” which is fine.
In my experience doing sales for Blockchain Alpha, I’ve discovered that “no” is data. Once you are sure you are offering something that will help the other party’s business and they say “no,” you should examine why they said so.
This has helped me to streamline my outreaches and get better results.
I’ll give a couple of instances.
There was a time I saw an indie-hacker building a cool product I believe was exciting. I proposed partnering with BA and they clearly made expressions around thanks, but I’ll pass.
When I probed further, I discovered the product has not been generating substantial revenue and the person was not ready to financially commit to it.
Thinking about it, they probably made a brilliant decision. I mean, why run into debt on something that is not binging you money yet?
With this “no” as data, I was able to refine my outreaches by focusing more on funded early-stage companies, and the responses have been much better.
Every feedback is data, even ghosting, which leads to my next point.
Ghosting Might Not Even Mean You Are Doing Anything Wrong
If you perform cold outreaches, there are chances you have been ghosted a couple of times. But zooming out, remember you’ve also ghosted some people.
So let’s talk about the elephant in the room; does ghosting mean you are doing something wrong?
Sometimes, yes. And that always revolves around messaging. You can imagine anyone still buzzing your Twitter DM with only “Hi” in 2025.
To keep things short, these are a couple of reasons sales outreaches might be ghosted:
when there is no clear correlation of value between what you sell and the prospects’ products
when your legitimacy is questionable
when you don’t clearly outline what you do and how you can help
when you are too verbose and wear people out
people can be “people” and just not have interest
Notwithstanding, ghosting doesn’t always mean you are doing something wrong. And this is the part many people are not familiar with.
The usual approach is to blame yourself when you get ghosted or sales doesn’t go as planned. But indeed, it is neither your fault nor the prospects’.
Like I mentioned earlier, people can just be uninterested for whatever reasons. After doing proper research, here are some reasons founding teams might ghost you:
they already work with an agency they love
they have an active content team
they prefer individuals to agency
In cases like this, the decision-makers might see no point in even replying; that’s the explanation for some ghosting. But read on to discover what’s more interesting…
Sales Outreaches Are Like VC Checks
Everyone thinks venture capitalists and angel investors are rich. But there is something more interesting: a VC can invest in 10 startups and 9 would fail, but the success of 1 will cover for the losses of 9.
For instance, I once heard the story of an angel who made 300x—if I am correct—from writing a seed check for Coinbase back in the days. Many such cases.
Here is my point: Just one successful sales outreach can cover for all the ones that did not turn out well. Blockchain Alpha made 47% of last year’s revenue from only one partner.
Whatever Web3 firm you do sales for, think of outreaches like investing in startups; get only one shot right and you are made. More beautifully, you’ll get many shots right!
This is what comes to my mind whenever a deal is not later closed or there was an outright ghosting; I know a couple of “Yes” would suffice for everything.
This way, you won’t get burned out in the game of sales, which is an exciting one for anyone who can persevere.
St Francis of Assisi Taught Me The Best Sales Hack
Ever since I started using this hack, my sales success rate has increased. St. Francis of Assisi used to say It is in giving that we receive.
You see, many founding teams see firms—be it design, audit, development, or marketing—as liquidity extractors because we are often asking them to work with us or give us their money.
As a result, they’ve developed a skin of resistance by totally capitulating sales people as BS.
But here was the difference I made:
I’d approach protocols and tell them I prepared SEO & Content audits for them so their bounce rate will reduce. Or I can say I prepared content strategy for them because I noticed there blog was not saying too many things at the same time.
I got an unusually high response when I tested this Franciscan Sales Model. Even though I honestly didn’t close most of them, I got the discussion going. Meaning it can lead to greater leads this year!
All I’m saying is to be value-driven. Don’t ask what XYZ can do for you, think of what you can give to them. Let them know they actually need your help.
The work of a salesman is similar to that of a chef. If you want people to know you are the best pizza plug around, let them have just one bite and they’ll be the one running after you.
Give Each Customer Special Attention
Even though Web3 builders are always in their eco-chambers with technical stuff, they are still humans.
The way you treat a first-time customer determines whether or not they will come back.
But this will not be a problem when you have 3 to 5 customers. It will most likely happen when you have more.
This is the stage you will be prone to the “delegation rabbit-hole.” When you wanted to close a customer, you were in touch all the way. But once they are closed, you delegate someone else to talk to them and handle their work.
This is the slope where quality tends to decline and customers will feel unhappy with deliverables. And this is where the expectation on founders grow more.
For me, I did my best to communicate and execute each customer’s work. Even when I delegated, I’ll take time to review line by line and ensure the quality is off the roof.
This way, we were able to make each customer feel special and meet their needs.
This is so serious because you might have been delivering excellent services all along, but one bad deliverable will taint customer trust and they might never come to you again.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading to this point. I’m sure you’ve learned one or two things you can improve in your sales process.
I have a couple of other blogs coming around sales, team building, product development, and other technical Web3 stuff.
Keep an eye.
By the way, are you working at a:
Web3 protocol
Web3 audit firm
Crypto startup
Web3 Dev-tool startup?
Blockchain Alpha is the leading technical content agency in Web3, and I said that with intellectual honesty.
If you need help with technical content, I’d personally love to discuss with you: