This is the first time @josephxu_ and I are starting a company, but Buzzing isn’t our first product. Our previous project was an experimental AMM that combined Uniswap v3 with a kind of custom futures trading mechanism. Here are a few lessons I learned from that experience:

1. Don’t create a new asset class New asset classes always sound exciting. “This is crypto — we can trade anything!” Trade time, mindshare, Twitter profiles… everything on-chain. But the truth is, getting people to adopt new trading habits is insanely hard. Trading, at its core, is about linking possible future outcomes to price movements. That mental model takes time to form. For example: I know BTC is trading around $120K right now. Based on macro trends, policy news, or technical indicators, I can make a guess about what happens tomorrow. But can anyone tell me what BTC’s mindshare is today? Or what’s likely to move it up or down tomorrow? In our last project, we were building markets around a brand-new kind of asset. Even though it felt pretty close to ERC-20s, in practice, it was almost impossible to get users to build habits around it. This time, we’re working in a space with clear and proven user demand — prediction markets.

2. Don’t make your LPs think In our last project, I spent a ridiculous amount of time explaining how our LP model worked. How it was different from Uniswap. What impermanent loss was. How the payout structure worked. None of it landed. We’re in the era of lazy money. No one wants to read a whitepaper. No one wants to deeply understand a custom PnL curve. Your LP mechanism needs to be explainable in one sentence. Here’s how others do it: * Uniswap: Hold altcoin + stablecoin. Price drops, add more. Price rises, take profit. Like grid trading. * GLP: A crypto index + lend to traders for leverage. * HLP: Automated market making, you’re the trader’s counterparty. If they lose, you win. Ethena: A funding rate arbitrage fund. Buzzing LP: You’ll see

3. Build an ecosystem, not just a product Our biggest mistake last time was thinking in terms of “product.” Yes, we had an interesting DeFi mechanism. Yes, the UI looked great. Yes, the use case was real. But we lacked the upstream and downstream. We didn’t build an incentive network. We lacked other people who could make money with us. As a result, once we got past the 0-to-1 stage, growth quickly plateaued. This time, Buzzing isn’t just a product, it’s an ecosystem. A place where people play different roles, bring different skills, and earn in different ways. Because in the long run, it’s ecosystems, not just products, that create real momentum.