How Web3 Startups Succeed After IDO: Key Post-Launch Strategies and Products

The Initial DEX Offering (IDO) is a basic milestone for Web3 startups, marking the public influx of community attention and capital. However, the period after the IDO is just as critical—if not more—when it comes to building a sustainable ecosystem, retaining users, and delivering on the roadmap.

Development Lifecycle: From Alpha to Product-Market Fit

Depending on the community, investors, and market, a project can conduct an IDO at any stage of product development. Usually, the earlier the stage of the startup, the greater the pressure on the founders to accelerate development. But such acceleration often destabilizes the team and the project as a whole. There is increased pressure to prove that the funds raised support something real.

The development path usually goes through three stages:

• Alpha stage focuses on verifying the basic logic and testing smart contracts. Feedback from developers and advisers is important here. Bug hunting programs, audits, and limited community testing can also begin at this stage.
• Beta testing stage with a selected group of users allows for stress testing in a real environment. Feedback becomes extremely important. Functionality may be limited, but real interaction with the community begins.
• Production launch. The full version should be debugged, with high uptime, integrated wallets, analytics, and full dApp functionality. Startups should be prepared to scale quickly and iterate based on usage data and community feedback.

After IDO, professional development partners specializing in Web3 frameworks (such as Solidity, EVM chains, zk-rollups, etc.) and infrastructure (data providers, oracles, IPFS, The Graph, Chainlink) are often needed.

Legal Support and Compliance

Before launching a token, it’s extremely important to ensure legal clarity. However, given the emerging norms and regulations for this rapidly developing industry worldwide, it’s important to provide legal support throughout the entire product lifecycle.

Legal services after IDO focus on the following aspects:

• Governance and Token Rights.  It’s extremely important to maintain the relevance of the token's status in different jurisdictions and to clarify whether the token is utility, governance, or security. This can be particularly important when trading SAFT contracts or tokens in vesting on the off-exchange OTC market.
• Entity structuring when establishing foundations or Decentralized autonomous organization (DAOs). These structures help to transparently manage treasury funds, grants, and incentives for the team.
• Support for partnerships, integrations, and other interactions with third parties.

Innovative Product Features to Build Utility

With the token launched, utility must follow. Real products—not just speculative promises—are what sustain a post-IDO startup. Some effective post-IDO product features are described below.

Liquid Farming (Supply Management)

One of the biggest threats to token value post-IDO is excessive supply hitting the market. Liquid farming mechanisms allow token holders to lock their assets in exchange for yield, temporarily removing tokens from circulation.

Liquid farming tokenizes the user's staked position, turning it into a yield-bearing liquid token. This creates a secondary market and can bring you additional value through royalties.

This helps reduce sell pressure while giving the token long-term utility.

NFT Passes

Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) can serve as passes for users who are not participating in the IDO. They may include:

• Access to events (online/offline)
• Early beta testing rights for new features
• Community bonuses (exclusive roles in Discord, governance power)

They help attract users who missed the IDO but are interested in the project. These passes can be earned, purchased, or won, opening up many opportunities to attract new users.

Subscription-Based dApp Access

Web3 projects can monetize through token-gated subscriptions, where users must stake or pay tokens for access. For example:

• Premium analytics dashboards
• DeFi strategy builders
• Generative AI models or DAO tooling
• On-chain data APIs

This model aligns incentives: users spend tokens to gain recurring access, while the project gets predictable demand and token absorption.

Abstract

An IDO is a starting gun, not the finish line. Web3 startups that succeed after this milestone are those that treat their token as a means to build—not a product to sell. Post-IDO services must focus on:

• Building usable, secure, and scalable products
• Ensuring legal transparency and regulatory hygiene
• Running community-first marketing with consistent value delivery
• Designing products with true utility, not hype