Building a Crypto BD Team from 0 to 1: a16z's Practical Experience
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Building a Crypto BD Team from 0 to 1: a16z's Practical Experience
Hiring the right talent at the right time is the key to success.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthors: Christian Crowley,Pyrs Carvolth,Maggie Hsu & Mehdi Hasan, a16zcrypto
Translation: TechFlow
Building an effective business development (BD) and growth team in crypto is no easy task. The unique dynamics of the crypto space make it difficult to directly replicate Web2 organizational structures or hiring patterns. As fintech and financial services become increasingly involved in crypto, the landscape continues to evolve. The right BD and growth role configuration depends entirely on what your company is building and the desired outcomes.
For example, are you building on a public chain focused on increasing total value locked (TVL) and user numbers? Or are you an infrastructure provider aiming to help fintech companies and neobanks embed crypto capabilities into their core products? Depending on the answers to these questions, your BD and growth strategies must adapt accordingly.
Before hiring, clarify what your company is building, how success will be measured, and how a new BD or growth role will contribute to achieving those goals.
This article does not offer a step-by-step guide for all types of crypto companies. Instead, it shares guiding principles and practical lessons drawn from real-world experience within the crypto ecosystem, intended for teams actively building and working closely with founders.
But first, how does crypto change BD?
Business development (BD) and growth in crypto differ fundamentally from traditional Web2, with several key factors changing the game entirely:
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Token design: Knowing when and how to use tokens in partnerships or co-incentive structures requires deep understanding of target ecosystems and strong command of your own tokenomics. Used correctly, tokens can drive user growth through partner products; misused, they can lead to expensive experiments with little return.
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Distribution models: Distribution in crypto often happens on-chain, meaning strategies must revolve around wallets, airdrops, and quests—not traditional email lists or paid ads.
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Decentralized governance: In some cases, deals require approval via decentralized governance, meaning support from decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) rather than traditional executive teams. This typically involves managing broader, more complex stakeholder groups.
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Open-source ecosystems: Crypto typically operates in open, permissionless environments where most code is open source. This makes competition more transparent and successful strategies easier to replicate quickly.
These points don't apply equally to all projects, and depending on your product, some may matter more than others. But they represent layers absent in traditional Web2 strategies. If any of these factors are central to your product's growth, they will directly determine the kind of talent you need, which experiences to prioritize, and how quickly that person can start delivering results.
Understanding which of these dynamics are critical to your product can influence everything—from go-to-market approach to partnership building and success measurement.
Step One: Define the Role Needs
First, understand the need and what you aim to achieve with this hire.
Before launching a hiring process, the team must clearly understand why this new role will drive business success and what specific function is needed. Below are several common specializations within BD and growth and how they differ:
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Business Development (BD): Focused on strategic deals—such as enterprise partnerships, exchange listings, or wallet integrations—that expand distribution channels and user access.
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Growth: Emphasizes product-driven loops (e.g., self-reinforcing referral programs or network effects) and funnel optimization (improving each stage from awareness to conversion, retention, and monetization).
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Partnerships: Focuses on product integrations (e.g., embedding your product into other platforms or enabling partners to build on yours), co-marketing campaigns, joint branding initiatives, or other strategic collaborations that multiply distribution.
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Revenue: Concentrates on scaling customer sales after product-market fit is achieved.
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Ecosystem: Broader in scope, often including developer relations (DevRel), foundation- or community-driven incentive programs to encourage third-party apps, tools, and infrastructure, and grassroots community growth to expand the overall network.
These roles are not interchangeable. Though they fall under broad categories like “business development” or “marketing,” each requires completely different skills and success metrics. Expecting one person to handle all responsibilities can lead to role misalignment or poor performance. A common mistake is expecting a “strong BD hire” to also manage growth loops, revenue operations, and ecosystem building—when in reality, spreading focus usually means none get done well. Therefore, before defining the role, clarify the impact you want it to have and use precise job titles to avoid confusion. We've emphasized in other hiring articles that this step is crucial for any role. Yet it’s often overlooked at the start of the hiring process, and neglecting it can snowball into bigger problems affecting candidate sourcing, screening, expectation setting, and compensation structure.
Key consideration: Implications of the first hire
In early-stage startups, execution is critical. Fast-moving companies need people who can maximize limited time, budget, and team resources—not only strategizing but also doing the work. This often includes outbound outreach, identifying and qualifying leads, leading exploratory calls, and deeply understanding customer pain points and how your product solves them.
It’s also important to set clear metrics and goals for the first hire—goals that should be directly tied to the product. For example: number of pilot agreements signed, number of integrations with relevant protocols, number of qualified leads in priority verticals, or securing key partnerships in critical categories.
Before product-market fit (PMF), defining the right BD goals can be tricky. There’s often temptation to pursue major partnerships, but this can backfire. Landing the wrong “big customer” too early might cause the team to overly focus on a single feature request or custom integration, distracting from other parts of the product that may be more essential for broader market adoption. While strategic deals can bring distribution, credibility, or early revenue, they can also divert the team from the iterative learning needed to find PMF.
As the product matures, BD goals evolve—but without clear metrics and milestones, it becomes hard to measure progress from the new hire. Tie these metrics to compensation, setting goals that are both challenging and achievable (and if involving token compensation, refer to our article on token comp).
After defining role expectations, the team can then consider timing, seniority, and experience—which we’ll explore in detail next.
Step Two: Determine When and Who to Hire
Hiring a BD or growth leader can significantly accelerate a company’s trajectory—but only if the conditions and timing are right. Before product-market fit, teams need flexible “doer” types who can explore use cases, test effective strategies, and even assist with product development when necessary. After PMF, the focus shifts to scaling: building repeatable systems, establishing clear metrics, and executing proven strategies.
So how can founders make their first hire count?
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Pre-PMF: Hire adaptable talent to explore use cases and validate effective strategies.
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Post-PMF: Hire experts skilled in scaling, with deep knowledge of sales processes, repeatable systems, and team management.
Below are common questions we receive about hiring—from seniority to crypto experience. Every company answers these differently, but there are patterns worth knowing to avoid costly mistakes.
When do you need a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or Chief Growth Officer (CGO)?
At the leadership level, execution matters most in early stages. Startups need hands-on resources who can get work done—not just strategize. Hiring a CRO or CGO too early can therefore result in high costs and low output.
A true CRO/CGO needs a mature go-to-market (GTM) engine—including repeatable sales processes, customer success support, marketing resources, and a steady pipeline of leads—to operate effectively. Most pre-PMF projects don’t yet need such sophisticated systems. If you’re unsure whether you need a CRO or CGO, you likely don’t need one yet. Early stages call for “doer-leaders”—people who can close deals personally while beginning to build a sales or growth team. Stay disciplined and wait until the business or GTM engine is ready before bringing in executives.
Do GTM hires need technical backgrounds?
It depends on the product and target audience. If your product targets developers or is an infrastructure protocol, technical experience is often essential—even at the CRO/CGO level.
If your product is at the application layer, familiarity with technical concepts is helpful but not required.
How important is crypto experience?
It depends on your product category. If you're building something like a Layer 1 or infrastructure protocol, crypto experience is usually indispensable due to the complexity of underlying technology and its tight integration with other ecosystem components. Additionally, for some projects, cultural fluency—understanding native norms, memes, incentives, and community dynamics in crypto—can be key to success.
However, don’t overlook strong talent from outside the crypto space. For many roles, crypto experience isn’t mandatory—candidates can learn basics like wallets, protocols, and on-chain activity. But some abilities can’t be trained, such as customer empathy and strong communication skills.
The crypto industry is still maturing, and experienced talent may be scarce. Strong candidates from fintech, open source, gaming, or other frontier tech fields may bring fresh strategies precisely because they aren’t bound by conventional crypto thinking. Some of the strongest strategies come from those who challenge established rules.
Additional early-stage hiring considerations:
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Is this person responsible for finding new deals (outbound) or managing existing ones (inbound)? This distinction matters, as the two require different skill sets.
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Are you building from scratch or scaling an existing successful strategy? You may need someone comfortable with ambiguity or someone skilled at optimizing established approaches.
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What is your partnership strategy? Will this person focus on a few deep integrations or many lightweight collaborations? Clarifying needs—depth vs. breadth, patience vs. speed—can greatly impact role definition.
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Do they have a track record of success and hands-on experience in similar roles? Success in one type of company (stage, product, etc.) doesn’t guarantee success in yours.
Common mistakes:
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Hiring too senior (losing execution): Highly experienced hires often expect to lead teams and craft strategy, while early-stage needs center on execution.
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Hiring too generalist (lacking GTM capability): Generalists without GTM experience may struggle to prioritize the most effective early strategies. Early GTM hires typically need sharp, hands-on skills.
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Unclear goal definition (e.g., “do BD” without knowing what success looks like): Vague mandates set hires up for failure. Defining success clearly is critical.
Team Structure Design: Go-To-Market Strategies in Crypto
As startups scale, founders often ask how to structure their go-to-market (GTM) team. While there’s no single answer, there are proven patterns and pitfalls worth noting.
Below are common questions and best practices for team structures across L1s, L2s, applications, and infrastructure projects.
Should BD, growth, and marketing be managed by one person?
In early stages, one strong GTM leader may manage all three, but separating these functions becomes more appropriate as the team grows.
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BD (Business Development): Focused on deals and partnerships.
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Growth: Focused on funnel optimization and product-led strategies.
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Marketing: Focused on brand building and messaging.
Each function has different rhythms and metrics, so keeping them bundled long-term may hurt performance in certain areas.
Do you need early customer success or integration support roles?
For clarity, customer success primarily manages existing customer relationships—helping resolve product issues, ensuring customers continue deriving value, staying active, and potentially buying more. This role is especially important for complex, highly customized, or SaaS-like products.
In early stages, agile product and engineering teams can often handle customer success tasks. However, if your product requires significant implementation support (e.g., infrastructure, developer tools, or protocol integrations), investing in dedicated customer success—or equivalent support—early may be worthwhile, even if not labeled as such.
When should founders split the BD function by market segment or vertical?
Some teams organize by industry—DeFi, NFTs, gaming, banking and financial institutions, etc. This approach works best after gaining traction in core use cases, not before. Otherwise, it risks over-indexing on an unproven area.
If your product isn’t mature or your user base isn’t established, keep the team flat. One experienced BD lead can cover multiple areas.
What are best practices for Layer 1 / Layer 2 protocol teams?
Protocol teams face unique BD challenges because they’re not just building a product—they’re building a network. This often means BD isn’t a single function but a set of complementary roles working together to grow the network.
Common team breakdowns include:
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Core BD team: Focused on attracting developers and projects to build on the L1/L2.
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Ecosystem team: Handles funding, community building, and governance.
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Technical integration team: Supports partner deployments on the network.
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Regional teams: Address local language and regional needs.
How should teams plan geographic expansion?
Unlike traditional product launches, crypto projects are often global from day one. Thus, prioritizing regions with existing user adoption is crucial. Avoid creating full-time regional GTM roles unless there’s clear traction or interest in a given region.
However, based on product needs, hiring a junior community manager in a country with early interest may boost local engagement. Timing depends on actual product adoption and future growth potential in that region.
How to handle governance/community GTM?
Governance—the process of coordinating decisions through decentralized communities—is a unique aspect of crypto, relevant only to certain projects. Traditional BD relies on hierarchical decision-making and direct negotiation, while governance-driven BD emphasizes community participation and blockchain transparency.
For example, when protocols expand across blockchain networks, community governance plays a key role through DAOs or protocol governance mechanisms. DeFi protocols like Uniswap and Aave use DAOs and token holder votes to decide multi-chain deployments, protocol upgrades, treasury management, and token issuance parameters.
A successful BD lead must shepherd proposals, activate delegates, and drive governance votes—making this both a BD and community advocacy function, including communications and campaign efforts.
Below are nuances candidates should understand regarding BD and governance.
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Not just sales—product skills matter: Governance forums host proposals at various stages, often involving years of builds and iterations. Each vote requires candidates to understand the proposal’s history and how it fits into thematic evolution. Sales experience alone isn’t enough; candidates also need product sense to tell compelling stories and manage post-vote activities (e.g., explaining outcomes and their impact on the protocol).
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Governance and “whale” influence: Candidates must excel at relationship and community building while clearly articulating value to stakeholders. This often involves direct outreach to large holders (“whales”) for support, while winning over smaller holders through governance forums and community channels (like X and Discord).
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On-chain vs. off-chain dynamics: Many successful governance discussions happen both online and offline. Proposals often begin off-chain but culminate in binding on-chain votes. This hybrid model builds trust and deep relationships while being scrutinized by the broader crypto community.
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The key is transparency—ensuring all potential voters know where discussions are happening and how decisions are made, even if most dialogue occurs off-chain. Engaging the community during discussion phases is often critical. Candidates must develop clear, data-backed plans to propose or respond to governance proposals, while also having the skills to address and manage public rebuttals.
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Coordination challenges: Compared to traditional negotiations, crypto governance involves multiple stakeholder types and cross-time-zone coordination, which can lead to decision fatigue or stalled progress. Candidates need patience, strong organization, and meticulous attention to detail.
Common mistakes:
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Keeping BD, growth, and marketing bundled for too long instead of allowing each to specialize. Delaying separation can hurt performance, as each function requires deeper expertise and focus once traction is gained.
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Splitting by vertical or geography too early, before product-market fit is clear. Premature specialization can waste resources by chasing the wrong markets before understanding where demand is strongest.
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Lack of technical support: For products requiring heavy integration support, failing to provide technical backing limits GTM effectiveness.
Interview Process: Best Practices
Hiring BD, growth, or marketing talent isn’t just about resumes—it’s about assessing candidates’ thinking, communication, and real-world abilities through practical scenarios. A strong interview process should be structured enough to fairly compare candidates, yet flexible enough to accommodate exceptional ones. When encountering candidates with highly relevant experience or unique perspectives, adjusting the process to dig deeper is worthwhile.
Key steps in the interview process:
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Case study
Have candidates analyze a case related to your product—ideally based on real or anonymized deal scenarios.
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Prefer real cases over theoretical ones.
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Ask candidates to share specific deals they led, growth strategies they executed, or community initiatives they drove.
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Observe how they demonstrate ownership, adaptability, and ability to clearly communicate results.
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Mock pitch or scenario exercise
Ask candidates to develop an outbound strategy or handle a complex inbound request. For example, present a vague inbound message (e.g., a protocol wants to “explore collaboration opportunities”) and ask how they’d assess the opportunity, build a pitch, and move the deal forward.
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Cross-functional interviews
Depending on company stage, include interviews with marketing, product, legal, and other teams that BD will collaborate with. Some partnerships may seem promising initially but fail without product support or legal compliance.
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Meeting with founders
For early BD hires—especially the first one—meeting founders is crucial to ensure alignment with company vision and values. As the team scales, founders won’t need to meet every candidate, but the hiring process should still ensure new members integrate well and work effectively.
Why these methods work:
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Test both strategic thinking and execution ability.
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Showcase communication under pressure.
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Align key stakeholders early.
At its core, business development is about rapid learning, focusing on what matters, and diving deep when needed. In interviews, don’t expect candidates to already fully understand your product—instead, look for adaptability, problem-solving, and comfort in fast-changing environments.
Take sufficient time to thoughtfully evaluate candidates while providing timely feedback. The hiring process reflects your company’s brand—small details accumulate and impact founder and team reputation over time.
The central theme here is timing: hiring the right person at the right time can rapidly accelerate your company, while a wrong hire can set progress back.
Pre-product-market fit (PMF), teams need hands-on candidates to test, learn, and close early deals; post-PMF, the focus shifts to scaling repeatable systems and teams. Clarity is also essential: BD, growth, and marketing require different skills, and keeping them bundled long-term is a common pitfall. Moreover, the complexity of crypto—tokens, governance, open-source dynamics—makes targeted hiring based on product and stage even more critical.
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