Why Token and ICO teams need to change their hiring tactics

Some cypto companies that sell Tokens to fund the growth of their business are akin to Series A funded companies from a financial perspective, acting like ‘family and friends’ funded startups in execution. And I said some, not all.

Following a Series A raise, a company has typically gone through numerous growing pains and recruitment drives. And importantly, they are surrounded by sophisticated investors who can help them identify hiring patterns and the type of people they might need to bring in for thir stage of growth. This is just one of many ways smart investors add huge value to startups — which is missing from Token sales.

Early-stage startups who have raised a few hundred thousand dollars are a different beast. The team you need for this stage of the company is likely to look different to the team you need when you’ve got $30M to spend on accelerating growth.

Crypto companies fall somewhere between this rock and hard place. They have the makings of a pre-product early-stage startup, but bankrolled like a Series A or B company. They have a few founders, little to no technology, no product and certainly no customers. But lots of money to spend on marketing. I’m sure some of the funds is spent on tech people but not enough.

Meanwhile, thousands and sometimes, hundreds of thousands of people have already bought an expensive asset from company — Tokens. Who’s managing all of the important technology related to their Tokens? In almost every instance, the crypto company is relying on suppliers with little to no understanding of their technology or their SLAs— making it more difficult to chose the best suppliers — based on their strengths and weaknesses.

We see a lot of security breaches in the Crypto space, in part, because many of the teams are more focused on community engagement and building their core tech and products, than the tech surrounding their Token.

It’s time Crypto companies focused more on hiring people with an established history in roles such as CTO, CISO, DevOps, Operations and other core technology-biased roles before it’s too late. DevOps of course, isn’t the job of one person either — it’s a role that all tech people should take on. But I digress.

The main takeaway is that Crypto companies need to get more serious with hiring tech people.

As a footnote, I’d like to add that any exchange or wallet that hasn’t undergone an independent third — party audit, is irresponsible at best.

Full disclosure — I’m an Advisor to Hacken. But I can’t recommend their service enough. Crypto companies should hire the best of white hat hackers to find out where they’re most vulnerable — before the bad guys do.

Stay safe out there! And, make sure to install Cryptonite 🚀