There is a creative and fun way to attract smart people to your community. Most marketeers don't use it.

In crypto, the majority of projects seek smart people in their community: smart people possess expertise, network, and funds. LTV can be extremely high, and one individual able to spot a critical flaw in a smart contract or connect a project to a top VC is worth at least a dozen regular token flippers (not that these people aren't smart, by the way; they just might not be convinced about the project's worthiness. Converting them into believers is a different topic). So how do projects usually try to acquire smart people?

Usually they don’t

Surprisingly, most popular community acquisition tools and activities only take into account airdrop hunters. The quintessence of a typical activity is “Follow our twitter, retweet our pinned post and make a post about our project tagging 3 friends to be eligible for the sweepstakes with $10 worth of reward” and it’s absolutely useless for building a quality community.

What can be done instead?

One approach is through challenging games like cryptic puzzles, which provide an opportunity to:

• Challenge their intelligence,

• Learn something new,

• Show how smart they are.

Let’s see what the Puzzles are!

Example One: Akropolis

Akropolis run a series of community events centered around cryptic puzzles in 2018-2019. The results:* Community increased from 1,500 to 12,000 members during the first quest, Akropolis received free press coverage in crypto media. Active community core was formed and included crypto enthusiasts, traders and developers.*

How did it look like? Let’s see one a recap of “Informal Economy” Puzzle Round (multiple recaps available here):

1. The round started with an article explaining the concept of informal economy and its implications for Akropolis. Then participants were invited to discuss the article, and then the puzzle begun. The puzzle started with a question:”Find the National treasury building. Walk about 300 meters to the east. Then make a right turn and move another 60 meters to the south. Look at your right — what is the nail polish brand?”

Hint : Cool water city

1. The second part of the puzzle was instantly available for anyone who finished the first part and got the password (Luron). It started with a question:

“What is the destination of an airplane, scheduled to depart from capital airport at 12:15PM on this Tuesday?

Hint : An east African country mentioned in today’s article where term “chama” is used for the Informal Savings groups.”

Example Two: Bored Apes

How to create a good puzzle - tips

One of the secrets to a successful puzzle is making it enjoyable. Quite obvious, right? But it's essential to ensure that participation is fun and can be treated like a leisure activity. So:

• Puzzles should be highly logical and have only one solution. If the solution is illogical or if it's possible to arrive at a “wrong” answer, people will be dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction kills the fun and causes people to stop participating,

• No additional requirements for participation, such as “like, share, retweet, follow us everywhere, submit your CV and cover letter.” This is a significant problem for standard community campaigns on platforms like Zealy and Galxe; to participate, one must join all the project's socials, make a retweet from a personal account, etc. Organizers believe this will boost social numbers, and it does, but the issue is that only airdrop hunters are willing to do all these tasks. Smart people avoid them,

• Puzzles shouldn't be too hard or too long. Remember, it's a fun activity that people will participate in during their spare time, not an exam like the GMAT or a challenge like Cicada 3301,

• Organizers should monitor the process during the event and provide hints when needed. If people get stuck and can't find a solution, not helping them will kill the fun.

Would you like us to launch a puzzle for your project? Drop us a message at sales@thulium.xyz or fill in the form.