How to Choose the Perfect Team in Web3
A 3-step process to navigating web3 opportunities as a product manager
So…you want to move into Web3? The complete guide to finding your next Web3 team is here! This week, Web3PMs contributor Will Lawrence, author of Product Life, and Product Manager at Paxos, will walk you through what you need to know. But first, a few community items:
We’re lucky to be joined by Will tomorrow for an event where we’ll discuss his journey from Web2 —> Web3, how blockchain is changing the future of finance, and diving deeper into the content below. You do not want to miss this. RSVP for the event here: lu.ma/web3pmswill
And if you missed our previous events,, you can now view them here:
If you haven’t already our Discord where we post dozens of jobs weekly, and follow us our socials, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for some special first-access!
Inspired to make the jump into Web3 and need to brush up on your interview skills? Exponent (our favorite Product Manager prep resource) is offering Web3PMs 10% off here! Get the PM job of your dreams.
And now….
Navigating web3 is hard.
With an endless supply of new acronyms (DAOs, DeFi, BAYC), terms (airdrops, fungibility, protocols) and breaking news (Beanstalk, Moonbirds, CBDC), finding the perfect spot to jump into the ecosystem can be tough.
This is especially true if you’re a product manager coming from Web2. When you evaluated your most recent job, the landscape was clear, business models were well understood and separating hype from real value was relatively simple.
The pain of transitioning from Web2 to Web3 is oh too familiar for me. After several years as a product manager at Meta, I decided I was ready to take the plunge. It took me 3 months, hours of research, dozens of coffee chats and an embarrassing amount of gas fees to finally find my next play.
But in navigating this process, I also found a structured way to approach finding the right team in Web3. It’s the playbook I wish I had at the start of my transition and I hope it can save you some heartache.
The outcome of this playbook is to help you go from 100s of possible web3 entry points to 3-5 amazing fits for you.
There are three steps in this process. Each helps you narrow the aperture of opportunities to the ones that best align with your goals:
What stage of company am I looking for?
What area do I have the highest conviction in?
Who are my ideal teammates?
This is a little contrarian to the usual advice for transitioning to Web3. But I found that it forces me to be objective, reduced FOMO as an influencing factor and helps me find a match unique to my goals.
So if you’re exploring your next play in Web3, try working through the three steps below. Let’s give it a go!
Step 1: What stage of company am I looking for?
Companies are more similar across stages than across industries.
For example, working at an early stage music NFT project will be more similar to being at a YC e-commerce startup than working at OpenSea.
Nikhyl Singhal, a VP of Product at Meta, introduced me to this concept. In one of his great essays, he shares how the cultures, compensation, exit opportunities, manager quality and background of peers vary wildly by the stage of the company.
There are a few reasons for this:
People sort themselves by risk-appetite (amongst other factors)
The problems being solved require different approaches
Operational cultures vary by stage
For these reasons, he suggests starting at the right stage for you before even looking at companies.
Nikhyl divides traditional companies into four main stages: the drunken walk, product-fit, hypergrowth and scale.
Web3 is a little different.
The entire industry is nascent meaning even the largest companies (e.g. Coinbase, Opensea, Consensys) have potential to grow even more.
Company metrics like funding rounds, employee count or valuation aren’t as widely used. For example, the Ethereum Foundation has no external funding, ~400 employees and a token market cap of ~$370 billion. What stage is that at?
But the principle remains the same: deciding which stage to jump into will drastically change your experience.
For this reason, I’d suggest choosing between one of three stages of Web3 Growth.
Here are the key considerations of each stage of team.
Early: Pre-Product Market Fit
Key question: Do you want to build the first iterations of a Web3 product?
Pros: creative, small teams, more potential upside, less process, less politics.
Cons: higher risk, unproven model, less need for a traditional product manager.
Growth: Post-Product Market Fit
Key question: Do you want to grow a Web3 product that has traction?
Pros: fast-paced, existing consumers/customers, more established team.
Cons: can be stressful, ambiguous, and lack structure.
Scale: Expanding to new markets
Key question: Do you want to work on Web3 products with the structure of an established team?
Pros: structure, strong mentorship, resources, brand recognition
Cons: slower moving, more process, upside may be already captured
The key metric here is Product-Market Fit — this means the team has released a product that has significant traction. Lenny Rachitsky has a great compilation of how the best experts define product-market fit.
Think about the right stage for you, regardless of the specific area or company.
🛑 Don’t leave this section until you chose a stage of company that fits your needs, interests and goals.
🟢 Continue if you have a stage in mind.
Step 2: What area do I have the highest conviction in?
It’s now time to explore the landscape itself.
But in true PM fashion, define your decision-making criteria ahead of discovery to have better results.
The desired outcome of this step is to find the sector of Web3 that you have the most conviction in. Conviction is a combination of optimism for its mass adoption, signs of explosive growth and an understanding of the problems it solves.
To do this, create a table of all of the areas in Web3 that you want to explore. From here, I’d suggest looking at the following five-axes to assess your conviction.
Mass Adoption - how large can you see this getting?
Talent Inflows - can this space attract incredible talent?
Capital Inflows - can this space attract capital and customers?
Innovation - how much better is the web3 solution versus web2?
Your specialized knowledge - how many unique insights do I have about this space?
Measuring your conviction against axes makes it quantifiable, transparent and objective.
Use a table to assign scores across each axis for your areas of interest. My table looked like this, with a 10 point score for each axis.
From this exercise, you’ll have 1-2 areas that you have high conviction in.
Going one step further, turn that area into your own Web3 thesis. This is a statement that encapsulates your conviction and why you hold it.
Here’s a template:
I believe [area X] will solve [important problem Y] through [innovation Z]. This is based on my [experience/unique insight] and the [talent/capital inflows] this sector is attracting.
Here’s my thesis:
I believe DeFi will solve regional barriers in financial infrastructure through digitally native asset rails.
This is based on my experience building WhatsApp Payment for Brazil and the influx of incredible talent and partnerships that this sector is attracting.
Get creative with your thesis. The more unique it is to you, the more conviction you likely have.
(P.S. if you write a thesis, tweet it out, tag me and I’ll retweet it to help you find companies that are building against your thesis).
🛑 Don’t leave this section until you have identified your area of highest conviction in Web3.
🟢 Continue if you have your Web3 thesis.
Step 3: Who are my ideal teammates?
One thing I love about Web3 is the diversity of backgrounds it attracts. This ranges from artists to community managers to game developers.
Defining your ideal teammates will help you whittle down a medium list of teams to a handful of excellent fits.
Move past the obvious filters — like smart peers, a good manager, leadership you respect etc. — and ask questions that can help you distinguish between companies.
Here are some of the questions you may want to ask yourself:
Experience Level: do I want to be with industry veterans or newcomers with no preconceptions?
Product Culture: do I want to be on a team with an established product culture or do I want to help build it?
Manager involvement: do I want an active manager or one who will give me significant independence
Cross-functions: do I want to primarily work with designers, business development, data scientists, community managers, marketers or engineers?
Assessing these will take time. LinkedIn is your best friend for the first pass, but beyond this, you’ll need to start speaking to people on these teams.
Twitter is the easiest place to reach out to web3 operators. They’re also very excited to speak with you — hiring great talent is at the top of everyone’s mind right now.
In my web3 job search, I reached out to my future manager with this simple message:
Hey XXX. I’m a PM at Facebook working on developer experiences. Before this, I worked as a PM on WhatsApp Payments.
I’m excited by crypto and am exploring the right next step. Paxos seems great and I’d love to learn about your team. Would you be open to a quick chat?
So once you’ve found the 3-5 teams that you want to explore more, reach out to some operators with this template.
🛑 Don’t exit this section before you reach out to one operator. It may seem daunting, but I’m confident they’d be willing to speak
🟢 Continue if you’re ready to go land that perfect role!
Recap on the process
If you’re looking for your perfect role in Web3, try answering these three questions:
What stage of company am I looking for?
What area do I have the highest conviction in?
Who are my ideal teammates?
This will help you narrow your focus and find the best fit for your career goals. Good luck!
If you enjoyed this, we definitely recommend subscribing to Will’s newsletter, Product Life for more insightful PM tips sent straight to your inbox!