Street Meat

What is the most dangerous thing a founder can do?

• Travel to Las Vegas?

• Eat street meat in Thailand?

• Not go on the Building Web3 Podcast?

All dangerous but not even close compared with: Not tracking their numbers.

The Warning Signs I Missed

As my newsletter grew, I kept bragging about metrics.

"Track everything!" I'd tell clients.

Yet behind the scenes? I was flying blind.

I tracked surface metrics - followers, impressions, growth rate.

I knew subscribers came from Twitter.

But which posts? Which topics? Which formats?

No idea.

The Moment of Truth

Last month, subscriber growth flatlined.

Then started dropping.

Panic set in. I needed solutions.

So I launched two fixes:

1. Auto DM - Direct message to new followers with subscribe link

2. Auto Plug - Consistent newsletter promotion in my posts

The bleeding stopped. Numbers climbed again.

But I faced a new problem:

Which tactic was actually working?

Data Changes Everything

This weekend, I finally implemented proper UTM tracking.

One for each source. One for each medium.

The data told a clear story:

• Auto plug: 8,000 impressions → 12 newsletter visits

• Auto DM: Much smaller reach → 3 direct conversions

• 8 new subscribers total

The revelation was immediate:

My auto DM had a much higher conversion rate, but limited reach.

My auto plug reached thousands, but had friction in the conversion path.

Without tracking, I'd never have known where to focus my efforts.

The Web3 Founder's Dilemma

I see this same pattern with crypto projects:

They launch without proper analytics.

They know traffic comes from "Twitter" or "Discord."

But which specific posts? Which specific channels?

This is exactly why I worked with the Arbitrum team on ambassador impact tracking.

Results matter.

But you can't improve what you don't measure.

The Hard Truth

Every founder needs a metrics dashboard:

• Not just traffic sources, but specific content performance

• Not just community growth, but which topics drive it

• Not just conversion rates, but which messages convert

These detailed metrics aren't just nice-to-haves.

They're your competitive edge.

In Web3's noisy landscape, you can't afford to build in the dark.

Your competitors are measuring everything.

Are you?

What's one content type you're not tracking properly?

Keep Building,

Jax 

PS - My team opened up two slots for Twitter Ghostwriting this month. Send me a reply if you’re interested in growing your X account.

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