How To Pull 1 Million Users As A Developing Brand

You know that frustrating moment.

You've built something genuinely innovative. Your tech is solid. Your small community loves what you're doing. But the line is barely moving when you look at your growth metrics.

If we are brutally honest about growth in Web3, most founders are playing the slow game:

Grinding for years, spending fortunes on marketing, and watching their user count tick at a snail's pace—one follower here, two users there, three users, where?

Meanwhile, some new projects appear out of nowhere and suddenly have millions of users. What do they know that you don't?

After talking with Dami Aregbesola on the Podcast Web3 Growth Marketing, someone who's cracked this code for multiple brands, I've discovered something rather interesting:

It's rarely about having better tech or more funding. The real difference? Strategic ecosystem magnetism.

And you’re about to learn how to do that for your brand in this issue, where we’d dissect the power move that brands like Immutable, Aptos Labs, and Onboard Wallet used to shortcut their way to mass adoption.

We're diving into:

• The institutional ecosystem hack that instantly validates your project

• What Dexalot's experiment reveals about user behavior (and why it matters)

• How DeepSeek R1 is using the same scaling playbook in AI that's working in Web3

This isn't a growth-hacking theory. It's the playbook top founders use to scale from thousands to millions with a single strategic move.

If this is your first time here, Welcome to Blocks and Growth. Now, let’s unpack these nuggets!

Google Gemini is racking up numbers, with 275 million monthly visits—a steady climb from 267.9 million in mid-2024.

This isn’t just good marketing; it’s the power of launching within an existing ecosystem. 

The same strategy applies to Web3 startups. As Dami explained on the W3GM podcast, the secret to onboarding millions isn’t just funding—it’s ecosystem magnetism.

Take Onboard Wallet, which supports Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Base. It didn’t claw its way up through one-user-at-a-time tactics. Instead, it integrated with chains with millions of users, instantly validating itself and attracting developers who, in turn, brought their communities.

But how do you access these institutional partnerships that fast-track adoption? According to Dami, it starts with one move: Conferences.

Instead of spending money on ads and cold outreach, you could take the shortcut of attending Web3 events and standing in front of institutional decision-makers. 

That’s how brands like Immutable, Aptos Labs, and Onboard Wallet sealed deals with giants like Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Disney.

One strategic partnership = instant access to an existing, engaged audience.

Listen to Dami break it all down on W3GM here.

How to Leverage On-Chain Data To Find Insights!

If integrating into an ecosystem is the move, then understanding user behavior is the strategy—just ask Dexalot.

This decentralized exchange (DEX) is pioneering a central limit order book (CLOB) model on an Avalanche Subnet. This approach aligns closer with traditional finance than automated market makers (AMMs). 

So why does this matter to you?

Well, here’s why Dexalot is unique: they built a product similar to a system (CLOBs) that brings in a specific, engaged user base—something most new DeFi projects struggle with–and unlocked some exciting traction.

The data on Dexalot is quite apparent: For example, Bitcoin-backed assets and stablecoins dominate trading, with USDC/BTC.B alone accounting for 14.86% of the total volume. 

This tells us that new users are first drawn to familiarity. They want liquidity, reliability, and seamless onboarding. Integrating these UX into their Pool availability might not have been outrightly intended, but the traction is incredible for them.

Dexalot’s growth strategy mirrors the theme of this issue: It didn’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, it optimized for what existing traders already wanted and integrated more profoundly into the Avalanche ecosystem for immediate credibility and adoption.

For Web3 founders, the lesson here is clear: Study your users, align with what they already trust, integrate where they already operate, and invest in data monitoring.

AI is for Builders, and that’s why I love Cursor AI

Even in AI, the lesson remains the same—don’t build alone when you can scale with the right alliances.

China’s DeepSeek R1 is making waves in AI, competing with GPT-4.0 in math, coding, and reasoning. But what makes it truly powerful? 

It trains itself through reinforcement learning rather than brute-force data scraping, meaning it adapts within existing frameworks instead of trying to redefine them.

This is the same playbook we’ve seen across Web3 and DeFi—tap into what already works, optimize it, and scale faster.

DeepSeek R1 does this through:

• Chain of Thought Reasoning, making it more intuitive for developers and researchers.

• Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) is a technique that stabilizes learning without wild fluctuations.

• Model distillation, shrinking its massive 671 billion parameter framework into accessible, scalable versions—like Llama 3 and Qwen—without losing power.

It’s not about being the biggest—it’s about being the smartest at scaling.

Bricks on Bricks—Don’t Stop Building!

Blocks & Growth isn’t just a newsletter—it’s a construction zone of ideas, insights, and execution for founders, Developers, and Marketers like you.

You might agree with this … Mass adoption comes from one strategic move that leverages existing audiences: institutional partnerships, user behaviour-driven strategy, and optimizing within existing systems rather than fighting them.

The overarching principle across all industries is "Integrate smartly, scale fast. Every industry, from AI to Web3, follows the same principle: Integrate smartly and scale fast.

So, what’s your one move? Reply and let me know—I’ll feature the best insights in the next issue.

If you’re new here, subscribe so you don’t miss out. Until next time, keep stacking blocks and keep growing.