3 Ways I’ve Learned to Lead as a Blockchain Small Business Owner

• Constellation Network is a decentralized network and Web3 blockchain ecosystem.
• With a few strategic moves, the co-founder was able to grow the company amid industry uncertainty.
• The company diversified and restructured when necessary – while preparing for future growth.
• This article is part of “Small Business Strong,” a series highlighting the resilience of small business leaders to overcome barriers and achieve success.
  

This narrated essay is based on a conversation with Altif Brown, the 33-year-old co-founder and director of the community at Constellation Network, a decentralized network and Web3 blockchain ecosystem. Insider has verified the company’s growth with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When we first launched the Constellation Network in late 2017, it was during what I would consider the first major bull run in the crypto space. Bitcoin had broken $10,000 for the first time, Filecoin raised almost $200 million in under an hour, and it felt like everyone was building cool things around us.

And then, toward the end of 2017, the markets largely retreated and we entered what many refer to as a “crypto winter.” Not only did that mean that the crypto in our accounts was suddenly worth much less, but it also led to an adverse shift in public perception and regulatory concerns that could affect the future of our company and the industry as a whole.

To be effective as a first-time co-founder, I had to quickly learn how to manage a team whether it was “feast or famine.” In times of “festivity” we learned to become nimble and adaptable, quickly seizing opportunities for growth and expansion. As market contractions forced us into “starvation,” we had to be equally agile in reducing costs, finding new markets to branch into, and setting our growth plan to be competitive.

After six years of ups and downs, we now have over 25,000 users spanning 95 countries and tens of thousands of community members across social media and other platforms. We also work with a variety of clients, from Web3 companies disrupting traditional industries to the US Department of Defense.

In retrospect, the hyper-volatile crypto market swinging between scarcity and abundance was a compelling feature in building our company with resilience, allowing us to weather a series of storms over the past six years and leading to our ongoing success today.

We looked for opportunities to diversify

Diversification as a strength is one of the first things you learn in business school, but it’s a little more difficult to figure out what it means in an industry where there are no boundaries and things are constantly changing. We had to build the plane as we flew and figure out ways to add more variety to our business model.

One thing we did was look again at who we were targeting as customers. While we initially sought to work with businesses, the “crypto winter” took a huge toll on the industry and we were no exception.

Businesses then, and still often today, are skeptical of crypto and blockchain technology as a whole. We decided to start working on contracts with more stable budgets, and after a lot of effort on our part, we got a contract with the US Department of Defense in August 2019.

Although they had some skepticism, they had a growing need for cyber resilience and generally pride themselves on being at the forefront of new technologies, so they chose to overlook uncertainty in favor of exploration. It’s nice to know that no matter what happens, we can fall back on government work.

In 2019 we also acquired a more traditional technology company, Dor, and also absorbed their team. This made our team much more robust, expanded us beyond a group of crypto diehards, and created fewer blind spots within the company. Because the team overall is more eclectic, we can see beyond the reach of our echo chamber in the crypto space.

We prepared for when the party would return

Even in downturns, my team and I have always believed that the industry would bounce back. For one, algorithmically speaking, it should. But also, to work in such a volatile industry, you have to be a little crazy, and we tend to be hopelessly optimistic about these things.

So, planning during downturns for us has always been about getting the pieces ready to maximize our success when the “party” returns, building new products stealthily so that they are ready as soon as excitement for the industry returns.

For example, during the recent downturn, we spent time building our accelerator program, Web3 Launchkit, which helps founders learn all the pieces to launch a successful crypto company. By preparing it now, we’ll have it ready when the passion for the industry starts roaring back.

Preparing for better times also meant changing our priorities and budgets. For example, in times of “festivity” it makes sense to invest a little more heavily in marketing, partnerships and events. When things recede, those budgets are absorbed into other things.

As director of the community, I had to think about where else I could provide value. I went from building our open source community to building relationships with new groups, such as the space community, which expanded our overall exposure to the defense industry.

We restructured our team when necessary while doing our best to keep them in the fold

Like many businesses during industry downturns, we’ve had to lay people off at times, but we’ve always looked for creative ways to keep as much of our team as engaged as possible.

We have offered some people we had to lay off the opportunity to transition to contract work and have converted several team members back into full-time positions when their roles made sense again.

We’ve also helped place some people we couldn’t keep with companies that build within our blockchain ecosystem. In this way, the employee’s career progresses, we reduce costs, and the neighboring company gets an expert to expand its internal knowledge.

In order to retain more of the team during difficult times, we have also looked for ways to get creative with compensation. In addition to the founders and executive team taking reduced pay, we worked with team members to build individualized compensation packages that aligned their needs with our financial situation. Some people were happy to forgo regular cash to receive compensation in a combination of crypto and equity, for example.

No matter what, we worked hard to divide people into parts of the business that used their skills, while contributing to our long-term success – helping to keep us growing and keeping team morale strong.