What NOT to do on an ICO - compiling a list of bad habits for ICO launchers

[BlackBoxRecords]

I am opening this thread so that people who have been on ICOs and have endured them can provide a guide for "good practice" for companies launching ICOs.

PLEASE DON´T POST GENERIC COMMENTS. I intend to curate the thread and edit this message is sufficient members have relevant things to say. If you want to spam, there are many threads out there.

Curated contributions:

- Obviously, don´t scam.
- Set clear Soft and Hard Caps and don´t change them.
- Have your telegram groups moderated.
- Have a group for bounties and treat your hunters as partners, not as beggars.
- Don´t make decisions that harm your community and investors. It will come back as negative publicity.
- Do no whitelist three times more contributors than what you need. At a certain point is best to close the list because you will create a community of angry people than will not ever buy your token.
- Don´t ignore your community and have a decent response time.
- Set realistic soft and hard caps and do what is required to achieve them.
- Fix the dealines / dates and adhere to them.

Please, add...

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[Akorharrison]

Thanks you for this write up I m very much Happy,  I think this are problems almost in all ico's. In addition payments mode should be Fixed meaning no change of Date for payments.

[plentix]

I am opening this thread so that people who have been on ICOs and have endured them can provide a guide for "good practice" for companies launching ICOs.

PLEASE DON´T POST GENERIC COMMENTS. I intend to curate the thread and edit this message is sufficient members have relevant things to say. If you want to spam, there are many threads out there.

My own contribution:

- Obviously, don´t scam.
- Set clear Soft and Hard Caps and don´t change them.
- Have your telegram groups moderated.
- Have a group for bounties and treat your hunters as partners, not as beggars.
- Don´t make decisions that harm your community and investors. It will come back as negative publicity.
- Do no whitelist three times more contributors than what you need. At a certain point is best to close the list because you will create a community of angry people than will not ever buy your token.

Please, add...

Good points! 👏

I would add:

- Define the PROBLEM you are solving and HOW would you solve it with your crypto-based project.
- Ensure you have a working whitepaper with step-by-step plan for implementation of your project.
- Build a team of professional and highly skilled individuals

[olubams]

Those things you have there are the basic in which I don't see anybody who is serious about his ICO would not want to as a matter of importance take care of those things but one thing is key which is PR i.e public relations a lot of ICOs or upcoming ICO is guilty of that, it takes forever to respond to legitimate questions raised, they chose questions to ask if they decide to even answer any, they disregard all critics as FUD instead of harnessing it for their growth, and even updates of steps accomplished is another problem for them.

[Crypto_lion]

One more thing that maybe obvious is don't buy a ico coin after it hits or about to hit the exchanges on the basis of hype .most likely it will be going down

[AlexaSonda]

do brand ambassador, presentations and discussions directly with the community or potential investors.
they will feel in one family and can contribute fully to the project.

[eagle10]

I am opening this thread so that people who have been on ICOs and have endured them can provide a guide for "good practice" for companies launching ICOs.

PLEASE DON´T POST GENERIC COMMENTS. I intend to curate the thread and edit this message is sufficient members have relevant things to say. If you want to spam, there are many threads out there.

My own contribution:

- Obviously, don´t scam.
- Set clear Soft and Hard Caps and don´t change them.
- Have your telegram groups moderated.
- Have a group for bounties and treat your hunters as partners, not as beggars.
- Don´t make decisions that harm your community and investors. It will come back as negative publicity.
- Do no whitelist three times more contributors than what you need. At a certain point is best to close the list because you will create a community of angry people than will not ever buy your token.

Please, add...

Good points! 👏

I would add:

- Define the PROBLEM you are solving and HOW would you solve it with your crypto-based project.
- Ensure you have a working whitepaper with step-by-step plan for implementation of your project.
- Build a team of professional and highly skilled individuals

Great. I am also one of those bounty hunters who were scammed not twice but I guess the fourth time,  some ICOs, I understand them, were not able to meet the required hard cap and even the soft cap but they are trying to promise to pay the bounty once they have their coin listed in exchanges.

I just  noticed that ICOs who successfully launched and those who not have the so called presentation when bounty thread are created. Newbies should be aware of that. Good to point out too about the dev and the team composing the ICO to be launched. You point out that telegram should not be overlook, you should get updated their too because many admin and team members are on this channel. This is my contribution for now you have already mentioned importat things to remember especially for newbies.

[maracuja1]

May I add:

Don't rage gas wars, create an interface where each user has his own eth address to send to.

Add a individual hard cap, not too low so people are angry like in Wepower. (it was 0.2 ETH)

Close the whitelist when you have enough people, divide the hard cap by no. of whitelisted people and make sure the individual cap is still reasonable.

Most importantly, do not change the rules during ICO, for example Wepower doubled the tokens from 4000 to 8000 WPR per 1 ETH just one day before ICO. Big no-no

[paxmao]

I am opening this thread so that people who have been on ICOs and have endured them can provide a guide for "good practice" for companies launching ICOs.

PLEASE DON´T POST GENERIC COMMENTS. I intend to curate the thread and edit this message is sufficient members have relevant things to say. If you want to spam, there are many threads out there.

My own contribution:

- Obviously, don´t scam.
- Set clear Soft and Hard Caps and don´t change them.
- Have your telegram groups moderated.
- Have a group for bounties and treat your hunters as partners, not as beggars.
- Don´t make decisions that harm your community and investors. It will come back as negative publicity.
- Do no whitelist three times more contributors than what you need. At a certain point is best to close the list because you will create a community of angry people than will not ever buy your token.

Please, add...

- Update you bounty hunters on their progress. Be understanding to them because they are, as you say, your partners.

[Lanatsa]

Those things you have there are the basic in which I don't see anybody who is serious about his ICO would not want to as a matter of importance take care of those things but one thing is key which is PR i.e public relations a lot of ICOs or upcoming ICO is guilty of that, it takes forever to respond to legitimate questions raised, they chose questions to ask if they decide to even answer any, they disregard all critics as FUD instead of harnessing it for their growth, and even updates of steps accomplished is another problem for them.

True, No ICO launcher would really act non-professionally since they do know that they do really need investors and even on Scam ICO its not an exception and they would really do such thing to advertise and be polite as they should to look legit ones and get some victims. Same goes for legit ones but in a different motive. Its normal to have these basic things or habits to be done when you do plan for a crowdfunding. Be polite and be kind as you should to avoid conflicts to the community which would give negative impact on the crowdsale.

[SHOP_]

Is it always necessary to launch an ICO with a bounty program? Some of them come across as so spammy. What are the most legitimate bounties?

[GamerSky]

I'd like to add this:

-Stick to the exact dates you provide, so for example, if you say the website will be online on dd/mm/yyyy at hh:mm then make sure the website is reachable by then, not start uploading and finding bugs/troubles at that time. Same goes for the ICO date, publishing stuff, updates, etc. Whatever date you set make sure to meet it.

[CryptoNerd.io]

I am opening this thread so that people who have been on ICOs and have endured them can provide a guide for "good practice" for companies launching ICOs.

PLEASE DON´T POST GENERIC COMMENTS. I intend to curate the thread and edit this message is sufficient members have relevant things to say. If you want to spam, there are many threads out there.

My own contribution:

- Obviously, don´t scam.
- Set clear Soft and Hard Caps and don´t change them.
- Have your telegram groups moderated.
- Have a group for bounties and treat your hunters as partners, not as beggars.
- Don´t make decisions that harm your community and investors. It will come back as negative publicity.
- Do no whitelist three times more contributors than what you need. At a certain point is best to close the list because you will create a community of angry people than will not ever buy your token.

Please, add...

there is whole list of things to do, better break it to detailed list.

Good idea, make it sticky in top of category