Software Product Development Checklist After Funding
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May 12, 2025
Getting funded is a major win, but here’s the harsh reality:
70% of startups burn their funding without ever achieving real growth (CB Insights). Why? Because building code is easy—but creating a software product that users want and investors love takes strategic discipline.
With our recent project, RW , we launched a marketplace for tokenized real-world assets, carefully validating demand, prioritizing critical features, and modeling growth scenarios before writing a single line of code. [See full case study →]
The results?
- 80% reduction in user drop-off during onboarding
- Immediate liquidity growth from day one
- A product precisely aligned with market needs and investor expectations
This isn’t just theory. It's a real-world Software Product Development Checklist, battle-tested by startups we’ve guided from funding to scalable success. You're here because you need clarity. And we’re here because we’ve flown this route enough to navigate it blindfolded.
Why Most Funded Startups Fail (Even with Great Ideas)
Raising money is a win — but it creates a dangerous illusion: "we must be right." Here’s why funded startups still crash — and how RWA avoided the trap at every step:
🚩 Mistake 1: Solving an "interesting" problem, not a painful one
People say they like your idea — until something more urgent comes up. In real life, "nice-to-have" products get ghosted first.
Before building anything, we mapped real investor pains:
- Assets stuck without liquidity.
- No unified secondary market.
- Legal headaches for every deal.
We didn't just ask, "Would you use it?". We asked, "What costs you money today?" If the product didn’t solve a direct loss — we scrapped it. Find what hurts wallets, not what sounds cool.
🚩 Mistake 2: Building for launch day, not for day 100
Most teams sprint toward MVP, then wonder why users disappear after the first login. Growth dies when you don’t engineer habits from day one.
Every design choice aimed at long-term engagement:
- Wallet-native logins — no friction, always one-click away.
- Secondary sales — users can immediately re-trade, not just buy once.
- Smart KYC loops — no need to reverify for every action.
We didn’t just build an entry — we built a system users would keep using. Build not for launch, but for the boring Tuesday three months later.
🚩 Mistake 3: Building features to impress VCs, not users
Every extra feature adds cost, bugs, onboarding complexity — and confusion. Investors may love "AI-powered NFT marketplaces," but users just want buy / sell / done.
We applied a brutal test to every idea:
- Will this make trades faster?
- Will this make assets easier to find?
- Will this make liquidity stronger?
If not — cut it. No buzzwords. No shiny distractions. Only tools users actually need to move money and assets. Impress users first. Investors second.
Funding is the start of your climb — but without ruthless focus on priority pain, daily usage, and simplicity, you'll stall before you even clear the clouds. RWA's success? It wasn’t magic. It was discipline — from day zero.
Quick Tip: Not sure if your feature plan is tight enough? Use our AI product planner — it maps features to real growth outcomes in minutes.
The Real Preparation You Must Do Before Building
The most common founder mistake? Starting to build before the plan is strong enough to survive reality. Here’s how RWA (and every product built to scale) prepared before touching code:
✅ Prioritize features that drive growth, not noise
Every new feature looks tempting. Without a system, you’ll sink in a sea of "nice ideas." At RWA, we scored every feature by Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort (RICE). If it didn’t move key metrics fast enough — it was cut, no matter how "cool" it looked.
Example:
A wallet analytics dashboard sounded great. But Reach = low, Impact = cosmetic, Effort = high. We scrapped it — and focused on liquidity flow features instead.
👉 Always calculate RICE or ICE. Ideas are cheap. Focus is expensive.
✅ Validate with real users, not your team’s opinions
Your team’s enthusiasm means nothing. The market doesn’t care what your CTO or PM thinks — only what users act on. RWA validated early with user paths and low-fidelity demos — no code burned. Same way Buffer started with a simple landing page asking users to pay — before the app even existed.
Example:
Dropbox’s demo video triggered 75,000 signups before writing software.
👉 Validate behavior, not compliments.
✅ Build your Growth Model early
Without real growth math, you’re flying blind. At RWA, before any sprint, we built baseline models:
- TAM (Total Addressable Market) — real size, not "dream" numbers
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) vs LTV (Lifetime Value)
- Core unit economics (retention % needed to be profitable)
Example:
If CAC was projected too high vs ticket size, we adjusted go-to-market tactics before committing tech budget.
👉 If you don't model growth, you won't grow. You'll guess.
✅ Plan for user acquisition as seriously as for building
Great products fail every day — because no users show up. RWA built acquisition into the product from day zero:
- Easy sharing via wallet
- Secondary sale incentives
- Referral reward models for Web3
Not after launch. Before writing a single smart contract. Even viral giants like Dropbox engineered referral loops (2GB free per invite) into their product, not into their marketing plans.
👉 User acquisition isn’t Plan B. It’s Part A of your product.
Coding before prioritizing, validating, modeling, and planning growth properly is not "lean." It’s like building a rocket upside down.
RWA’s success? We built the launchpad before fueling the rocket.
How We Prepared and Built RWA (Without Guesswork)
When you hear "crypto marketplace," you probably imagine chaos: complex wallets, heavy onboarding, broken transactions. We didn’t want that. We wanted something real investors could use every day — even if they didn’t know the word "Web3."
Here’s exactly how we built RWA to make that happen — clean, focused, and growth-ready from the start:
1. We kept the first user action ridiculously simple.
What most crypto apps do:
- "Connect your wallet."
- "Authorize this contract."
- "Sign 4 transactions before you even see the platform."
What we did at RWA:
- One click to register (Google, Apple, or WalletConnect)
- Two clicks to verify (KYC in background, using Sumsub API)
- Ready to trade in under 90 seconds.
For developers: We designed flows to minimize network calls and session drops: front-end prevalidations, error retries, and parallel loading for KYC+wallet syncing.
No spinning loaders. No silent failures.
2. We prioritized liquidity flows before anything else.
What most startups do:
- Build a beautiful marketplace first.
- Then realize nobody is selling anything.
What we did at RWA:
- Enabled instant re-listing of assets.
- Designed smart-contracts where ownership transfer happens atomically (buy+sell bundled into one transaction).
- Always show available liquidity first — not "coming soon" assets.
For developers:
Smart contracts are minimalistic: just ownership, price, expiration.
All metadata (asset descriptions, images) handled off-chain (IPFS fallback), reducing gas costs to sub $3 per listing on L2 chains.
3. We modeled failure before coding success.
Before the first line of code, we asked: "What happens if users don’t come back? What happens if no one lists assets?"
Solutions:
- Daily liquidity checkers (simple cronjobs verifying new offers)
- Re-engagement triggers via wallet push notifications
- Admin console to boost offers manually if needed
For developers: We built basic observability tools: health checks, listing volumes, transaction fallbacks — before we built user-facing analytics. If the system failed, we would know why — not guess.
4. We made Web3 invisible for users who don't care.
What most crypto startups forget:
99% of people investing in real assets don’t care about wallets, gas, or chains. They care about outcomes.
How we solved it:
- All asset prices shown in stablecoins (USDC), not ETH fluctuations.
- Wallet connect is optional — you can register first, explore assets, and only connect wallet at checkout.
- Gas fees calculated and explained before transaction confirmation — no "surprise" fees.
For developers: Front-end gas fee estimation via ethers.js with fallback API from blocknative. Stablecoin price feeds from Chainlink — real-time updates to protect users from volatility.
We didn’t build "a crypto platform." We built a real-world marketplace that happens to use blockchain where it helps — and hides it where it confuses. (see: building Web3 products that feel natural for users)
That’s why users trade naturally — not because they love Web3, but because the product gets out of their way.
Warning Signs You’re Not in Control (But You Think You Are)
These aren’t beginner mistakes. They’re dangerous signals that everything seems “fine” — while your product slowly drifts off course.
We’ve seen these patterns inside funded startups over and over again:
- A growing backlog is a lack of decisions, not momentum.
- Conversations don’t equal alignment.
- Output without impact = theater.
- Listening to everyone = building for no one.
- Vague numbers = blind navigation.
How We Handled This at RWA
We made it a rule: if a feature didn’t directly improve liquidity or user re-engagement — it was gone. Backlog review = deletion, not addition.
Every idea was boiled down to: “Will this help users move assets faster, safer, or more often?” No fuzzy roadmaps. No features “just in case.” No false confidence.
“A growing backlog doesn’t mean momentum — it means you’re avoiding decisions. Great products aren’t built by collecting ideas. They’re built by killing 90% of them.”
Product Strategy and Development Services for Scalable Startups
We don’t just build what’s asked. We help founders build what the market will use, fund, and scale. Here’s what we actually do — before the first line of code:
- Feature scoping with ruthless clarity
Every idea gets stress-tested with RICE/ICE, user logic, and real business value.
- Product architecture that supports growth from day 1
No monoliths, no rewrites after MVP. Just clean, scale-ready decisions.
- Acquisition and retention loops — built into the UX
Because user growth isn’t a marketing task. It starts in design.
- Crypto and Web3 integration — invisible where needed, visible where valuable
Seamless flows. Wallet-native logic. Frictionless KYC and payments.
We’ve done it with RWA. We do it with every product that needs to scale smart.
💬 Want this level of clarity before you build?
Let’s talk — before budget turns into backlog.
Funded? Good. Now Plan to Win.
Capital is fuel — but growth comes from sharp planning, clear priorities, and the right tech setup from day one.
Not sure where to start?
Use our AI-based product scoping tool to define your core features, timeline, and tech stack — based on 10,000+ real-world projects. It’s not about the estimate. It’s about seeing the road ahead — clearly.
FAQ for Crypto Startup Founders
What is a Web3 startup?
If you're building with blockchain, tokens, or wallet-native UX — you’re likely working on a Web3 startup. A Web3 startup uses decentralized infrastructure (like smart contracts or on-chain assets) to give users more control or ownership. That could mean tokenized real estate, NFT-based tools, or crypto-native finance.
For example, RWA built a secondary market for tokenized assets — making real-world investing behave like DeFi. For a deeper breakdown of real-world Web3 business models and architecture choices, read our guide to building and scaling decentralized startups.
How much does it cost to start a crypto startup?
If you're planning a real product (not just a token drop), expect to spend at least $30–50K for a working MVP — and more if you’re doing KYC, wallets, or smart contracts. Building anything secure and growth-ready takes more than a dev and a logo. RWA’s MVP, for example, included KYC integration, wallet auth, and smart-contract-based secondary trading — with each module scoped for performance and compliance. Founders often underestimate costs by 2–3x. It’s not the blockchain that’s expensive — it’s everything else around it.
How do I launch my own crypto startup?
Start with a clear user pain, not a token idea. Then validate it fast — with a no-code demo, waitlist, or even paid pilot. Once that’s working, scope your MVP with core features only (e.g., wallet login, smart contract, trading UI) and plan retention from day one. That’s how RWA launched a live token marketplace with real users and real liquidity — not just hype. Too many crypto startups start with “let’s build on-chain.” The right way: “Let’s build for users who need this on-chain.”
Is making your own cryptocurrency profitable?
Creating a token is easy. Making it valuable is brutally hard. You’ll only see returns if the token solves a problem better than fiat — by enabling things like staking, access, governance, or liquidity. Tokens that just “exist” collapse fast. RWA didn’t issue a token at launch — they built user flows and liquidity first.
If your token isn’t backed by usage or network effect, you’re not creating value — you’re adding friction. Before issuing a token, make sure it has a functional role in your product. This article on Web3 startup strategy covers where tokens truly add value — and where they create unnecessary friction.
How do I get funding for a crypto startup?
Most Web3 investors look for strong traction, not just a whitepaper. That means waitlists, testnet users, or early liquidity. Your best bet is to validate fast (think: demo landing page + wallet signup) and then pitch with actual usage data. RWA secured early partner support by proving demand for secondary token trading — before the smart contract was even live. Investors don’t need your pitch deck. They need proof the market already wants what you're building.
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