NEEDED TO KNOW HOW MUCH IT WILL TAKE YOU TO RUN A SUCCESSFUL ICO
Today I was discussing with a business man on upwork about Smart Contract development . Then, I got asked this unexpected question:
“What do I need to do and how much will it cost me to run a successful Ethereum ICO?”
In quest to answer this question , i have come up with the run down what it takes.
Note that I’m not an expert when it comes to run ICO .So take this guide with a grain of salt.
In order to create a successful ICO you’ll need to spend money and time on the following things:
The whitepaper: A good whitepaper must be done by the founders and reviewed by experts to perfect the idea.
Cost: $0 USD
The website of the company: Any decent startup will have a professional looking website to show off their vision, their goals and their plans.
You’ll find a lot of good developer in sites like upwork.com.
Cost: $5,000 USD
If you want to raise money, you’ll need an ERC20 compliant token. This is a token that is easily tradable on exchanges.
You can find developer in upwork.com, ethlance.com, jobs.ethercast.com, linkedin.com, twitter, youtube, facebook, indeed.com, remoteok.io and others.
Cost: $8,000 USD
The Crowdsale ICO Smart Contract: This is the program that will run the ICO to distribute tokens to investors in exchange for their ether.
to create a secure Crowdsale ICO Smart Contract you need to spend about $10,000USD.
Cost: $10,000 USD
Smart Contract audits:
The price of a professional audit from a reputable company could cost as much as $50,000 USD dollars but you can get by with an audit from an experienced individual for about $10,000 USD dollars.
Cost: $10,000 USD
Marketing: Probably the most important step. Your ICO won’t get anywhere unless the curious investors notice it’s presence in Social media: twitter, instagram, youtube, google and facebook.
Communication channels: such as slack or telegram.
Cost: $2000 USD per month for a community manager and content creator and $5000 USD for paid advertising.
Legal Stuff: Investors into you ICO need a modicum of protection that your ICO is not a scam and by ensuring that your ICO has been review by a knowledgeable legal representative in the realm of securities regulations again will lend credibility to the ICO.
Cost: $20,000 USD for legal fees.
The Result
Finally, summing up everything it will cost you:
$0 for the whitepaper + $5,000 for your website + $8,000 for the token + $10,000 for the crowdsale contract + $10,000 for audits + $2,000 for a community manager and content creator + $5,000 for paid advertising + $20,000 for legal fees
The total is $60,000 USD dollars to create a prosperous ICO .
Conclusion
That’s pretty much about it. You see that an ICO startup isn’t an easy process. It requires tons of work from development, to management and marketing in all the possible platforms.