Crypto VC Practitioner Notes: What Value-Added Services Should VCs Provide?
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Crypto VC Practitioner Notes: What Value-Added Services Should VCs Provide?
In the world of capital, money is the least important thing. There are too many people and project teams with funds available. While having money is necessary to get things done, its impact is actually quite limited.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Lingwei, Zonff Partners
Edited and published by TechFlow with authorization
Seattle's winter is defined by rain, as the Lunar Year of the Tiger ushers in a new chapter for crypto.
Transitioning from Web2 to Web3 early-stage crypto investing, I always ask founders one standard question: What kind of support do you hope to receive from a VC?
I carefully record their answers, summarize and analyze them, aiming to evolve into someone who—beyond institutional capabilities—can offer founders additional value and meaningful assistance.
I believe that venture capitalists must not only identify value but also learn how to create it. Once I truly deliver strong value-add, I will have earned my place in the Web3 world.
This is my weekend reflection as an investor.
1. In the world of capital, money is the least important thing. There are plenty of people and projects with capital. While funding is necessary to get things done, its impact is relatively small. Investors should ask themselves: beyond capital, what else can I offer?
2. A win-win mindset is crucial.
Traditional investing emphasizes the investor’s insight and judgment, while entrepreneurs focus on innovation and product delivery. The investor makes selections and provides funding. But in Web3, investors must actively contribute during the创业 process, supporting and assisting projects as core community participants. Their contributions should match their token allocation.
3. A VC’s reputation matters greatly.
Any firm can provide capital, but few VC names make projects proud to announce they’re “chosen ones,” attracting all other resources like moths to flame. How does one become such a name?
4. To sum up, in the Web3 industry, founders generally need seven types of resources:
1) Community Resources
Community means end-users (C-side). Can the investor directly bring users and visibility to the project?
2) Media Resources
Does the investor have access to mainstream media, industry-specific outlets, or specialized publications that can boost the project’s and founder’s visibility and credibility both within and outside the ecosystem?
3) Technical Resources
Does the investor possess solid technical expertise to assist in technical architecture discussions or code audits? This is a notable gap between domestic and international VCs—Paradigm, for example, has appointed a dedicated CTO for its fund.
4) Capital Bootstrapping
Can the VC help bootstrap TVL for DeFi projects or even provide initial liquidity? This is especially critical for DeFi protocols.
5) Investment Banking Role
The VC should offer valuable investment banking services during future fundraising rounds—such as investor introductions, connections to public sale platforms, and exchange negotiations.
6) Strategic Consulting
Can the investor provide guidance on product strategy or even overall company direction? This requires deep understanding of the current ecosystem, tokenomics, technological trajectories, and competitors, along with unique insights, vision, and judgment.
7) Talent Resources
Can the investor help founders find the right talent they urgently need?
5. How do I approach this?
By this point in my thinking, the advantages of my prior exposure across multiple industries finally come into play. Of course,
in this new world built on computing atoms, my lack of technical background remains a disadvantage. Yet my experience building a multi-industry career and becoming a blogger with over a million followers gives me certain strengths. Leveraging these experiences strategically, compensating for weaknesses, and developing a distinctive post-investment style—this is how I aim to complement my firm’s strengths and achieve mutual success. It’s both my personal requirement and goal.
1) Community Resources
I come from a KOL background, having lived through the birth, rise, peak, and decline of the Web2 era.
After surviving that wave, I now lead an efficient small team, maintain close ties with a network of influential KOLs, command 5 million followers across platforms, have strong platform relationships, content design frameworks, and hands-on operational experience—all highly replicable.
Having run communities myself and having a dedicated community team, I naturally understand community dynamics—I must fully leverage this experience.
Approach:
1/ Maintain public visibility—aim to publish weekly videos in 2022.
2/ Each week, identify and join one high-impact industry community, share valuable insights, and offer resources.
3/ Build private products and cultivate my own community.
2) Media Resources
Map out mainstream media contacts, expand industry-specific media networks, and pay special attention to building overseas media relationships.
Maintain regular communication to understand their needs and editorial trends.
3) Strategic Consulting
This is the most critical area.
It’s also the hardest, requiring deep industry knowledge, thorough research, project experience, and independent thinking.
Approach: Rapidly learn and absorb industry knowledge, quickly form my own views, preferences, and judgments. Evaluate more projects. Talk frequently with founders and experienced peers.
4) Talent Resources
Attend hackathons and other industry events regularly, engage with professionals, build connections, and create a talent pipeline to facilitate matchmaking.
5) Technical Resources
Assemble a group of skilled tech experts familiar with smart contract code. Offer them side gigs, job opportunities, and forums for discussion and mutual learning. Host study groups at home, inviting nearby individuals to regularly gather and revisit university-level courses, discussing real projects together.
In the end, victory in investing comes down to values. Relentless growth, discovering value, and creating value—this will remain my long-term mission and that of my firm.
About Zonff Partners
Founded in 2016, Zonff Partners is an investment holding group that drives diversified business growth through investments and acquisitions. We continuously focus on Web3.0, frontier technologies, healthcare, new consumer sectors, and enterprise services. Adhering to an integrated primary and secondary market strategy with emphasis on industrial cycle structures, we practice a philosophy of in-depth research, technology-driven decisions, and structured post-investment empowerment. Leveraging our capital and resource advantages, we aim to help companies unlock their full potential and jointly advance global business innovation and technological transformation.
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