🤓🤢 White Paper errors to avoid!

[naetis]

I’ve worked with dozens of blockchain project as an author, mostly writing White Papers, press releases, landing site copy, blog posts, one-pagers, and so forth. I’ve also edited lots of other people’s work, and unfortunately the same issues keep popping up again and again. So I’ve decided to collect a few of the “mortal sins” of White Paper writing and post them here one by one. It would be cool if you could add some of your own pet peeves – just stuff that annoys you when you read a White Paper or any other blockchain-related copy!

Here we go:
1) Writing “whitepaper” as a single word
White Papers are a type of official documents issued by the UK government. They describe policy proposals. (There are also green, yellow and blue papers, by the way.) Business adopted and adapted the term, so a business white paper describes not a proposed policy but a proposed project. You can choose to spell it “White Paper” or “white paper”, but please, please don’t write “whitepaper”. After all, you don’t write “whitewalkers” when referring to Game of Thrones, do you? Same thing here.

2) Placing disclaimers at the beginning
Disclaimers are the nastiest part of a White Paper – all they do is scare the reader. There are so many things that can go wrong – and the company won’t owe you a thing if your tokens lose all their value. Sure, you have to list the risks and protect yourself. But why do it in the beginning of a marketing document that aims to promote your project? Do you really want all that brutal and incomprehensible legal language to occupy the prime spot in your White Paper? Place it at the very end.

3) Claiming to be unique
Every project has competitors. Competition is not just Apple vs Samsung or Marvel vs DC Comics films. If you say that your project is unique, unrivalled, and free from any competition, it means one of two things: a) you haven’t done your research, or b) you have a very limited idea of what competition means.

A much wiser way to treat the competition issue is to devote a few hours of research, collect information on your competitors in a structured table, and find a way to present your project as being better. For example, you can stress that project A has so far failed to release a prototype, or that project B’s monetization system is inferior to yours.

Understand this: the fact that you have competitors means that there is money to be made in your niche. If there are many companies working on similar projects, it shows that there is demand, that an actual pain exists and needs to be solved. Claiming that there is no competition begs the question: if nobody has tried to do this, then maybe there is no need for it at all? Sure, Steve Jobs was able to create needs people didn’t know they had. But face it – you are not Steve Jobs.

More White Paper errors and mortal are still to come, so check back on this thread later.  And do add your own “favorite” errors!

[Pecunia non olet]

About White Paper I didn´t know, thank you for very educational article, now we all know how to write it correctly.
Because Whitepaper as a word is used by 90% of all ICOs? 

[naetis]

About White Paper I didn´t know, thank you for very educational article, now we all know how to write it correctly.
Because Whitepaper as a word is used by 90% of all ICOs? 

That's right Pecunia - unfortunately, there are tons of silly errors repeated by 90% of ICOs, so most people don't even realize they are errors. But if you do things the right way, you will stand out and look really good compared to others!

[john2231]

You are just a jr. member but you said that you already have dozen of experience working on blockchain project but I can't even see any one project on your post history. Unless if you can share your all running project until now and let's see.

Don't judge how they make their own whitepaper the important in crypto if you are legit company you don't need to do something listed from OP.

[naetis]

You are just a jr. member but you said that you already have dozen of experience working on blockchain project but I can't even see any one project on your post history. Unless if you can share your all running project until now and let's see.

Don't judge how they make their own whitepaper the important in crypto if you are legit company you don't need to do something listed from OP.

I collaborate with a number of ICO promotion agencies, which bring me clients, and I have my own thread in the Russian-language subforum. I am not a company. However, some of my works can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17lSday1CDXibwcPgJgahlygqudvg9uQCxufeGBYZ0FA/edit
I did not initially include any links to my own stuff because I do not aim to advertise my services in this thread. And I do believe that it's totally fine to evaluate other people's White papers, share experience and tips, and learn from others' mistakes)).

[rjp55]

White paper is the skeleton of the project. If they didn't make a good job creating it, that project never end well.

[KingDome]

Lol, didn't even thought that whitepaper is the right name even though whitepaper is the most suitest word for me to explain a white paper.

[naetis]

White paper is the skeleton of the project. If they didn't make a good job creating it, that project never end well.

I totally agree. The team and the proposed idea can be great, but it won't help them if the white paper is poorly written. Of course, it's a bit different for highly technical white papers that consist of pieces of code, functions, etc. - those are written by devs, they don't have to be good literature. But most project aren't so technical.

[naetis]

Alright, let’s proceed with the list of the most common White Paper errors! This one would be no.4.

4) Not including links to sources
For your White Paper to look serious and professional, it needs to include figures, statistics, graphs, and quotes from eminent blockchain personalities. The sections that are usually rich in such stuff are the market overview, competition analysis, and technology overview. It’s not enough to say that the market is growing fast, or that hackers stole lots of crypto last year, or that competing projects have poor interfaces – you have to provide examples, data, and numbers.

Each such piece of data should be accompanied with a link in the footnotes of the page. Don’t put all your links and footnotes in an appendix at the end of the document, by the way – they should be right there at the bottom of the page and easily accessible.
Finding good sources can take hours, but it will make a good impression on potential investors if they see that you know what you are talking about.

[rijaljun]

2) Placing disclaimers at the beginning
Disclaimers are the nastiest part of a White Paper – all they do is scare the reader. There are so many things that can go wrong – and the company won’t owe you a thing if your tokens lose all their value. Sure, you have to list the risks and protect yourself. But why do it in the beginning of a marketing document that aims to promote your project? Do you really want all that brutal and incomprehensible legal language to occupy the prime spot in your White Paper? Place it at the very end.

I don't think it's an error, it's and ethical so if the reader found any wrong thing (like grammar error), they will apologize because maybe the white paper was written by unprofessional person. It's like you giving warning at the beginning of the video that says "It's an adult content", and you think it's better to see the warning after your children completely wacthed it?

[naetis]

I don't think it's an error, it's and ethical so if the reader found any wrong thing (like grammar error), they will apologize because maybe the white paper was written by unprofessional person. It's like you giving warning at the beginning of the video that says "It's an adult content", and you think it's better to see the warning after your children completely wacthed it?

I understand your meaning Rijaljun, but we are speaking about marketing errors here. We presume that White Paper readers are all adults, so there is no risk that anything in the WP will traumatize them for life)). Think of a website: any landing page will have (or should have) a disclaimer, but where do you usually find it? In the footer at the very end, in small print. Nobody places a disclaimer on the first screen of the website, right? That would be marketing suicide. The same goes for White Papers: their purpose is to promote a project (and provide detailed and correct information, of course). A disclaimer should be there somewhere, but putting it on the first page is just bad marketing.

[naetis]

Let’s get on with our list of the most common White Paper mistakes!

5) Setting your bonus rates too high
I’ve once had a client complain that a 40% pre-sale bonus is not high enough to attract investors. He wanted to set it at 60%. I had to explain that even 40% looks dodgy and potentially scam-like. Look guys, if you have nothing but high bonuses to lure investors in, then perhaps you shouldn’t go into this business at all. Your team matters, your prototype matters, your White Paper and landing copy matter – in short, it’s the execution that matters.

Yes, a couple of years ago you could stick a shovel in the crypto ground and investor money would pour out. But we are past that now. There have been too many scams with high bonuses. Try not to look like them. Actually, some respected people in the space even believe that there should be no bonuses at all. I personally think that a 20% bonus at the pre-sale is quite enough.

[ginobitcoiner]

The White Paper is one of the important supporters of an ICO project. so in my opinion the White Paper is a very important thing. so that if the whitepaper seems to be out of place you should avoid the project.
Tim and Dev are people who implement what is contained in the White Paper, is the OP really a person who is an expert on the blockchain? I am not too sure about that.

[naetis]

The White Paper is one of the important supporters of an ICO project. so in my opinion the White Paper is a very important thing. so that if the whitepaper seems to be out of place you should avoid the project.
Tim and Dev are people who implement what is contained in the White Paper, is the OP really a person who is an expert on the blockchain? I am not too sure about that.

I am not a blockchain expert myself in the sense that I'm not a dev and I can't write code. But I consider myself somewhat of an expert on how an idea should be presented. You are absolutely right that one should keep away from a project whose WP seems dodgy and vague. On the other hand. the team and the devs don't just implement what is in the WP - they should have a very good idea of what they want to do and how even before a WP is written. The purpose of a White Paper is to explain your project to the wider audience, not to yourself and to your team. So in theory (say, if you find a pot of money and you don't need an ICO at all) you should be able to implement your project without any White Paper at all.

[hongus]

Listen well, the technical documentation should be. And for mass users, and for technical specialists. For many, white paper is just a formal reply. Then such projects disappear.

[rijaljun]

I don't think it's an error, it's and ethical so if the reader found any wrong thing (like grammar error), they will apologize because maybe the white paper was written by unprofessional person. It's like you giving warning at the beginning of the video that says "It's an adult content", and you think it's better to see the warning after your children completely wacthed it?

I understand your meaning Rijaljun, but we are speaking about marketing errors here. We presume that White Paper readers are all adults, so there is no risk that anything in the WP will traumatize them for life)). Think of a website: any landing page will have (or should have) a disclaimer, but where do you usually find it? In the footer at the very end, in small print. Nobody places a disclaimer on the first screen of the website, right? That would be marketing suicide. The same goes for White Papers: their purpose is to promote a project (and provide detailed and correct information, of course). A disclaimer should be there somewhere, but putting it on the first page is just bad marketing.

Ah, I got it and I agree with your explanation now. It's like putting source at the top of page which looks weird and should make people think like "Why do I need to read this while I can read the original one?". But, this called error has become common in this space and not many people take this as a problem.

[elitemobb]

The issue of Whitepaper is very important since most of the projects stand on it with their own architecture and roll back in development from this document and the presence of errors in it is a threat to the implementation of any project.

[aylabadia05]

A bad whitepaper will have a diametric effect. The idea behind your ICO may be sound and viable, but a poorly written document will lay waste to your plans. A bad whitepaper breaks the illusion. Think of a good ICO with a sub-standard paper as a sharp dressed man with a peg leg. You get the point. whitepapers must frame blockchain technology as something that can empower business processes, and not just as a way to make money.

[Mrsparks]

Salient points have been made on this thread.. That aspect of having the disclaimer at the beginning of the white paper to me beat the scopes of marketing and even though it keeps investors abreast of the risk, I think it shouldn't be on the front-page of the document.

[naetis]

Ah, I got it and I agree with your explanation now. It's like putting source at the top of page which looks weird and should make people think like "Why do I need to read this while I can read the original one?". But, this called error has become common in this space and not many people take this as a problem.

Exactly! That's kind of the key issue here: projects just copy each other's example (be it in the WP structure, in their marketing structure, in how they present content, etc.) and never stop to think if this is the best way to do things. One looks at other people's White Papers, finds a disclaimer at the beginning and copies it. Or one sees that everybody else pays for sponsored articles at a certain site and does the same. While in fact, many things that everybody does are simply not efficient at all!