Lessons From Cannes: Lesson 2

Dear diary,

Awareness is cute. Funnels are better.

One thing that kept coming up during conversations at Cannes I had with marketers, BDs, or even founders these last 2 days is this: crypto marketing is stuck at the top of the funnel.

Everyone’s doing the same thing:
KOLs and airdrops with no plan past the drop.
It’s like the entire space agreed to collectively ignore the rest of the journey.

And sure, awareness is important. You can’t convert people who don’t know you exist. But if your strategy ends at “get them in the Discord,” you’re not building growth, you’re building churn.

So here’s lesson two:
Crypto marketers need to start learning from Web2.
Study onboarding. Retention. Activation loops. Email flows that make sense. UX that doesn’t punish curiosity.

Obsess over the boring stuff, because that’s where growth actually lives.

There’s a whole playbook we’re ignoring, and worse, pretending doesn’t exist.
Because the truth is, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Everything we need to build full-funnel, long-term growth? It’s already out there.

Web2 did the experiments. The frameworks. The data. The case studies. The failures. And they’re all still wildly relevant.

• Onboarding flows that reduce friction.

• Email sequences that actually convert.

• Product tutorials that guide, not overwhelm.

• Activation loops. Retention systems. Re-engagement mechanics.

• Metrics that go beyond "number of impressions."

All of this exists. We just need to care enough to adapt it.

Crypto has spent years in a growth culture that prioritizes hype over habit.
We obsess over reach but ignore behavior.
We drop tokens before we build journeys.
And then we wonder why the retention graph looks like a ski slope.

Your job isn’t just to create buzz. It’s to guide someone from curious tweet liker to active, loyal user. And that means knowing what happens after they click the link. After they mint. After the hype.

Real growth happens in the details.
In the hand-holding. In the follow-up. In the actual experience.

So yeah, run your airdrop. Work with great KOLs. Post the memes. But also:
Map the journey. Fix the funnel. Measure what matters.

Because what’s the point of awareness if no one sticks around?

Lesson three coming soon. But in the meantime, maybe open that Notion doc called “activation strategy” and actually start writing in it. Just saying.

Got questions? Feedback? You know where to find us 📞—we’re here to help you get organized, even if we’re still figuring out our own lives.

Until next week,

stay cookish. 🍪