Jude || Happyful ꁝꆰ

Career Update; Last Friday (Feb 20th) Was My Last Day at SP3ND! Over the past 11 months at @SP3NDdotshop , I’ve led Growth & Marketing efforts focused on building early-stage distribution for a crypto-commerce platform aiming to enable users to shop global retail using digital assets. This involved: > Developing and executing GTM strategy > Scaling acquisition through Beta > Launching the SP3ND Pioneers program > Positioning the brand with a consistent voice and real-world usage messaging > Identifying and targeting early adopter user segments > Securing and orchestrating strategic ecosystem partnerships In the first 5 months post-launch, these efforts contributed to: > Growth from ~20 to 3.3K+ followers > 10K+ connected wallets > 1.2K+ completed orders > $110K+ in checkout volume > at some points, retention rate was 90-100% “All achieved with $0 CAC or paid acquisition spend.” Other notable wins; > Ecosystem Credibility > Multiple Grant wins > Solana Mobile x Radiants DAO Hackathon win > Placed 5th in the Stablecoin track for the Cypherpunk Colosseum Hackathon > MonkeFoundry Accelerator If you’ve ever: > chased 2x SP3ND points through a limited-time partnership > shared a purchase to unlock bonus points > or participated in voucher-based campaigns, you’ve likely interacted with one of the growth loops I helped deploy. As I wrap up this chapter at SP3ND, I’m particularly taking some time to reflect and refine my experience, and how it shapes me going forward. Onwards.

Looked at a consumer app last night and my first reaction was: "Why should I use this when I can just hand over my phone?" The idea is cool. People nearby take each other's photos, so tourists don't have to hand their phone to a random stranger. You earn credits by shooting for others and spend them when you want someone to take yours. It solves a real annoyance. But the stranger next to you will do it for free. That's the interesting growth question: Is avoiding that phone handoff painful enough for someone to install an app, create an account, and change their behavior? No campaign can answer that. You can buy attention, run KOL campaigns, grow the socials and drive downloads. But if the underlying value isn't strong enough, you're just accelerating people toward the same conclusion: "I don't need this." At SP3ND, we got 10K+ connected wallets and $110K+ in checkout volume with $0 paid CAC. The lesson wasn't that marketing doesn't matter. It was that distribution works best when there's already a reason for people to care. Growth should make real value spread faster. It can't manufacture the value.

Been noticing an interesting pattern lately. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had conversations come in around: → Growth and community for a [redacted] layer focused on Africa → Community + KOL growth for a Web3 grants platform → Growth and partnerships at the C-level for a digital collectibles/IP platform Different products. Different stages. Different problems. But the ask keeps coming back to the same place: How do we get more of the right people to care, stay, and take action? That means building communities that actually stick, creating distribution beyond just posting on X, turning audiences into users, and closing partnerships that move the business forward. It’s interesting because these are the exact areas I’ve spent the last few years working across Web3. Maybe the market is finally getting tired of “growth” meaning a content calendar and a few KOL posts. Anyway, I’m paying attention. If you’re building something in Web3 and need someone who can think through GTM, community, distribution, partnerships, and actually execute, my DMs are open.