Where are the Crypto User Stories?

Crypto needs more real users. Adoption and usability are key to realizing decentralization's full potential.

A perspective shift is needed to build crypto products real users will use. Most projects build from the ground up. This isn't surprising since most projects are started by developers.

It's necessary to shift this bottom-up perspective. It needs to be balanced by a top down approach, with users at the top.

In my experience, a top down approach starts with user stories.

What do we want the user to do with our crypto product?

What are we hoping to empower the user to achieve when they use our crypto product?

The answers to these questions flow from a project's missions and values. The user stories then feed into requirements.

Defining user stories provide a powerful organizing structure for a project's product development process. Doing this also gets the team thinking from a user perspective.

Since most crypto projects start with the technology, they don't work from user stories. Then, once launch approaches, there's “no time” to develop the stories. This means many projects launch, yet struggle to attract users.

Because of this, the first step I usually take when working with crypto PM clients is to define the user stories. From there we usually figure out how to converge them with the bottom up development work that's already underway.

This allows us to continue the work that's started, while directing it toward products real users will use.

So next time your development process feels stuck, chaotic and/or without direction, think about pausing, if even for a couple days. Then take a little time to sketch out a rough set of user stories. After that, consider how to merge the two, before the development engine revs up again.

My experience has been that these steps get teams unstuck, help them feel recharged and result in products more likely for real users to use.

P.S. - This was first published in my Blockchain PM newsletter here. Subscribe for free to receive posts like this and PM jobs listings about once a week.