What is important to evaluate in projects
We bring 5 topics that we use in our evaluation structure and explain a little the perspective we have on each of these points, these are: Utility, Structure, Team, Branding and Community
For some creators to have a project the necessary is to have an idea and that's 10% or less of all it takes to provide a solid project and deliver something useful to the community that can last and thrives regardless of community traction and buy-in to the project, regardless of floors. For that, we will evaluate these 5 categories by themselves as a brief explanation of how to read and understand the projects that will be evaluated and analyzed in our discord and posted in our project library.
The logical order is: understand what the project offers, see if it has the proper structure for what it promises, if the team has enough skills or will have the cash to hire future developers, if the project has a well-made brand, visual identity, and if the communication is aligned with the community, then you can pick up all the red flags, neutral flags and green flags on the way and check for yourself if you should or not buy in.
Utility
Each type of project has a different utility and having none or multiple utilities is not what makes a project greater or better than the other, it is a fact that utility, when well applied, can collaborate in the long term for the community to pass more time interacting with the project, with each other, and inviting new people to be part of it. Each type of Utility needs a structure, and this structure is the basis that guarantees that certain projects have a team that is skilled enough to deliver what they are promising, so before saying that “this project does not have a whitepaper” maybe you have to ask, this kind of project “really need one?”
Among the utilities, there are projects that will deliver a tool and with this tool, you will make use of NFTs (a normal game, p2e, a platform, a dashboard, a DAO, etc) and some other projects will not build or develop any tools, projects that are just based on PFP or staking with third-party platforms, membership, etc. Understanding this makes it clearer to ask yourself what you can or not demand, likely, a PFP picture project will not have a whitepaper since it probably doesn’t really need one, and if it is a project more focused on Art, meeting and talking to the artist responsible for the art is an interesting way to get to know the interests of the founders, many artists are paid with very little or nothing from the amount collected from minting and are used as tools to make money, in the end, some projects are not art based at all.
Differentiating each type of project makes you understand the need for good structure and team skill, it is not very reliable for example to invest initially in a project that promises a game where the team does not have a game dev or someone with experience in project management or experience in this area to deliver a quality game and not something poorly made using ready assets from unity, and if this project sells everything, expect the development to take time, depending on third parties to deliver any kind of work always comes with the dependence on fit with the predicted time + the provider's margin of error.
Understanding the type of utility is an initial need to seek more points and make more criticisms about a given project, it makes no sense to charge certain points without first understanding what the project wants to do, and if the founders don't know what they want to do, it doesn't make sense to put your money there.
Structure
What we know in companies as an “operational base” in projects we can call Structure, which is nothing more than the set of places where we can get information about the project and create an initial security base to eventually buy or not these NFTs in the future, therefore, the structure is the set we know between social media, website, discord, telegram, etc. The basics for every project are to have a main social network (until then, Twitter) with clear information about the project, accessible links to more information, and a website. Any additional structure is relative to the usefulness of the project, what it is developing and promising to deliver, or how they want to maintain the community.
Imagine that a project is promising a game, or, a flipping platform, the basic thing is that this project has Twitter, but imagine that it doesn't have a website before starting the marketing, you should think a little bit more about what this means. I personally consider this one of the biggest red flags. If this team can't find someone or make themselves a basic website with concise information, why would I believe they are capable of delivering a game? or a more complex platform? In addition to showing commitment, and knowledge or promoting a good user experience, a website guarantee that you have the basic skills of development, or, management for your project.
In addition, we have whitepapers or roadmaps for projects that promise more complex tools or utilities, telegram as an optional form of community, and discord servers for various types of projects, remembering that a project not having a discord server, by choice, is not a problem, maybe it's not the pattern we're used to as consumers, but it's not necessarily a heavy red flag.
Projects that are made to be implemented in third-party tools without any kind of individual utility are also suspect, today we have a lot of Utility as a Service, such as staking platforms, and when staking is the main utility of a project and this structure is dependent from a third party, it makes project development a cash grab easier, so it's important to keep an eye out for projects that are released with third party dependency.
One of the things that draw attention in structure is numbers, and as we discussed in another article, numbers (Twitter and discord) are easily manipulated through BOTs, which can act or be constructors to interact in an extremely natural way, with some specific patterns and easy to identify. The biggest red flag, possibly in social networks, is the number of bots these accounts have, and if they do, how the founders react to these numbers knowing they are fake. There is a huge difference in BOTs and followers that were gained through contests and giveaways, but that's a subject for another article.
Not least, project verification in a secondary marketplace such as jpg.store is not counted as “structure” as compared to August 2021, today, verifying a project can be done in a few hours and in an easy way, there is no fee to be listed and the store itself does not endorse any kind of guarantee that the project is safe, only that the policy is verified by the owners of the social networks and original structures, this doesn’t mean security at all.
Team
Behind all ideas there are people who idealize, idealize or make an idea something concrete, individually, the team's ability to deliver is important. There are red flags to be noticed in teams, such as the member's time or presence in the community before doing a project, the way he behaves in relation to other projects and people, or being afraid to discuss and talk about his ideas or the projected future are primary points to pay attention to looking for red flags.
The individual skills of the team are a key point depending on the utility they have, and it is possible to verify the structure of the skill level of the members not only by talking to them but requesting background information, as you will notice through the art, logo, communication, website, and brand contents the way or the affection that the team has with the project, in delivering something new and original. The absence of these skills is a common red flag indicator for a cash grab.
Within the team there are also third-party members or companies contracted to deliver certain tools and many times we take the reliability of these companies with certain projects and mix trust too much, it is necessary to understand that the contracted company accepts, due to the interest in generating more income, the project can afford and that the responsibility for overseeing the team itself and trusting the project rests with the community and not with service providers
Transparency and fiscal responsibility is a point that many people have been talking about in recent months due to the amount of rug pulls and the only possible security for this is a two-step payment delivery, a KYC verification with a third-party company (which has no link with NFTs on Cardano, or, direct interest) and the minters that promote these services by sending the profit to a wallet, preferably an exchange, that is linked to the same verified KYC. “Oh, but I don't like KYC” “Oh, but I think it's too invasive” “Oh, and my privacy”, either you enjoy being robbed and accept that it will happen eventually, or you simply support a decision that protects everyone, no matter how precious your fancied anonymity is to you
Doxxing is a flawed term applied to “leak personal data” and is known in a pejorative way, it has been modified in our environment to “it is safe because the founder is doxed” when in fact it does not bring any security, doxxing with selfie, video call or document photo is something people can bypass 100% easily, that does not bring accountability, there are also founders or people who prefer to remain anonymous and that depends a lot on whether or not the community accepts what that person has to offer as a community leader, what type of project he is offering, or if people trust what he says or not. EVERYONE is subject to being deceived in one way or another by someone, demanding KYC from creators collecting large amounts of money, always.
Branding
One of the little-noticed points is the branding quality of a project, this ranges from all official digital media of the project, videos, logo, and personalized invitations, to the way the project eventually participates effectively with IRL marketing with its holders (Hello Yummi 2021), or, create a unique user experience on your website (Stag Alliance, Beat Boyz). Weak branding will not go beyond a copied or simple invitation template, sneak peeks reveal, a simple and lifeless website, or logos and digital creatives that were done effortlessly, the simpler the branding of a project, the greater the red flag
When founders create something to make money, what we know as a cash grab, little or no effort is put into certain sections of the project, and branding is one of them, it is possible to notice, today, the amount of projects that were considered rug pull in the last months they didn't have; website, decent branding, own content and unique visual identity, this is a common pattern because doing something well requires time, affection and good taste, and it is not something that everyone has in abundance. Branding is a variant way of promoting user experience and this user experience directly impacts how you feel interacting with the project or the opposite.
“But you can buy it on Fiverr or somewhere like that etc” Exactly. It's cheap, creative, and original to work well on branding, regardless of who you are, whether it's a Fiverr designer or someone from the team, there's no reason not to deliver something of quality FROM THE BEGINNING of the project, and with quality, it's not about doing more than same or copy what has worked, is to be original.
Community
Considered one of the most important parts of projects, community assessment is often done superficially, essentially in new projects. There are two types of communities we need to evaluate, the pre-mint community and a post-mint community, first it is important to understand the difference between the two communities:
Pre mint
The pre-mint community is not just the people who publicize or talk about the project, but any kind of engagement that is done BEFORE minting on social networks and on discord, this feeling, most of the time is bullish because it is It's in the interest of everyone participating in minting to generate some kind of hype for the project.
In addition, projects that create passes, such as our Swords or other types of NFTs that work as whitelist invitations, are targeted by the community for the possibility of easier flipping, without much effort and with less risk. In this wave of pre-mint engagements, when the delivery of passes ends, the volume of project engagement decreases considerably and this “hype” eventually dies.
In pre-mint, it is easier to happen and has a high number of bots, either in publications to farm whitelist or OG badgers, or to just increase project numbers and attract more people.
It is not easy to assess pre-mint communities due to these factors but in mind how projects are born, are fed, or even die during the launching process, it is important to help understand the real feeling of the community towards the project and not fall into fake hype.
Post mint
At another point, the post-mint community is evaluated through the secondary market, and the feeling with the project, some points such as presence in social networks and discord are relative since today there are countless servers and generally people who are in older projects always talking are a specific group of members who have created a “house” there. Today there are many multi-chain communities and projects where these members prefer to stay and therefore there is not a continuous movement in most projects as we saw before.
Regarding the secondary market, the feeling with the project is a simple calculation between the number of holders and the number of NFTs that are listed, in addition to the value that is listed, the thickness level of the floor, as most of those interested in NFTs are here to make profits, the real feeling of people with the project is not given by social network, but by the way they value these NFTs and list them in the secondary, many people just follow prices and the floor decreases or increases as other people do too well, usually a strong community, even with few holders, will have a fair amount of unlisted NFTs.
The volume of purchases and sales is also an important point but relative to the stage of the project, if one of the projects is in a specific stage of development, or, in a release situation (with an announcement about a new feature) it is possible that a new volume in purchases and sales is established, giving new entry and exit opportunities.
Evaluating projects by giving scores to numbers and the community is a mistake due to the ease of handling numbers and information, in addition to misinforming the community with a false sense of security, similar to doxing.
It's better to gauge the community by seeing how it interacts with creators, and other members, and talks about a project in a natural way than just by numbers.
Wrapping up
To evaluate any project, it is important to understand the stage the project is at, and what the initial proposal is, understanding this guarantees you the reliability to seek specific answers about the team's ability to deliver the project or not, or if the quantity being raised from mint is corresponding with the investment needed to actually deliver a tool.
In addition to these points, other obvious red flags such as copying artwork on other chains, founders' wallets, and information that can help you cross-reference a current project with another that may have been a rug or cash grab are additional ways to ensure that a project may or may not end up being a bad buy.
With this information in mind, it will be easier to read and understand each type of project evaluated within our discord, in addition to being able to look at some important points on your own when looking for projects, remembering that the whitelist farm and unconditional support for creators of which you don't know is sometimes downright detrimental to the community as a whole and at the end of the day, neither you nor I nor other minters will have any kind of profit or advantage from purchases.
Strong projects will have smart communities, members who aren't expecting quick profits, and trust in the team's knowledge.
In case you still don't know, Cute Dumb Orcs is a project made by an ONLY creator delivering rich content with community time for reading, security, and project evaluation, our NFTs are available on jpg.store and are used as membership in our discord and future in our communities in Chain Lobby