Prior to initiating an ICO, it is HIGHLY SUGGESTED that, as a start-up, you set your goals straight and investment ranges should be defined early so that additional costs will not ruin the financial situation substantially. As soon as this is carried out, it is all about maintaining the discipline and not allowing any reckless endeavors.
Before even you even consider starting an ICO, you must define which tasks are going to be done internally and which are going to be outsourced.
Whitepaper. Quality Whitepaper should be conducted internally and later revised by industry experts who will give their professional input and make a final version more technical and user-friendly at the same time. Depending on your preferences, the funds spent for the creation of Whitepaper range from $0 to $1000.
Website. Website is yet another key factor that will attract your investors and contribute to the conversion of your goals. The website will present your idea, solution, product/service, token, team & advisors, roadmap, and most importantly, contribution function. Most ICO startups outsource this task to developers who already had some experience with ICOs, and give them clear instructions of their vision. Website building costs range from $5,000 to $15,000. We highly suggest that you engage developers and web designers whose portfolio verifies that their past experience correspond to your preferences.
Creation of the Token. If you want the token to show good results through the process of crowdfunding, then you will require an ERC20 based token. Finding adequate Ethereum developers can be tricky, but it’s definitely feasible. Once you find a candidate, you must explain to him every technical and structural detail of the project. Ethereum developers are VERY EXPENSIVE. They can charge up to $200 to $300 an hour, but if you are certain that a developer has the prerequisite knowledge and can turn your vision into a code, then the cost is definitely worth the effort. Usually, it takes developers about 2 or 3 weeks to complete the task, but it’s important not to rush them into delivering the mediocre work. The overall price of this task would be around $8000 to $12,000.
Smart Contract perusal. As the smart contracts will deal with real money, making sure that its security is up to date is a MUST. However, it’s virtually unfeasible to guarantee that security of your smart contract will remain strong. Smart contract perusals can assist you in finding the weak spots and eliminate them. Expertise assessment from a well-renowned agency can even cost $40,000, but you can get a perusal from an experienced individual for about $10,000.
Marketing. Being one of the most crucial steps for getting the word out, it is mandatory NOT to skip this part and try to make the best out of it. Additionally, you will be plainly invisible for investors if you do not invest time or funds promoting your ICO on social media and other sources such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Bitcointalk, Reddit, Telegram, etc. Similar to previous tasks, this one can be outsourced as well. There are copious ways in which you can outsource your work. You can either choose a marketing agency to do everything for you in terms of PR, social media management, competition analysis, traffic boost, etc; or you can do it by yourself. In most occasions, marketing agencies propose a 6 months campaign including all ICO phases (pre-sale, main-sale, and post ICO) and charge around $70,000 to $90,000.
On the other hand, social media accounts need to be updated with content related to news, updates, promotions, bonuses multiple times in a week. Depending on the purpose of your token, you need to do your due diligence and investigate where your potential investors roam around the most. Once you find that information, exploit that tool to the best of your capabilities.
ICO listing. Increasing brand awareness even more through the use of ICO listing websites is almost required. ICO listing websites such as icorating, coinschedule, and icoalert can review your ICO, provide pros and cons, rate it, and most importantly, provide a call-to-action (CTA) link to your website. The prices for such service vary from website to website, but are usually free or up to 1 BTC.
On top of that, there are other websites such as digrate and icobench who offer an additional option of drafting a thorough and in-depth report of your ICO. The report will encompass literally all the technical aspects, vision, token features, etc. However, the report can cost as high as 0.5 BTC or even 2 BTCs for such as a service.
Events/Conferences. Incorporating legitimacy and validity as your main virtues, communicating ICO’s specifications directly to your investors face-to-face can guarantee you that they will feel and will be much more open to investing than before. This task can be outsourced as well, but it is preferred that you do it by yourself because the people will start recognizing your face once you present them your idea. Prices are usually around $10,000 for participation.
Having all of this information in mind, overall expanses can vary drastically depending on your choices of action. If you, for example, decide to put your own effort into launching your ICO, then the overall funds needed for its creation would be about $40,000 to $50,000. However, with the help of external service providers in terms of marketing, copywriting, and developing the overall price would increase to $180,000 or even much more.
If you want to find out more about other aspects of the ICOs, please visit https://www.coinpoint.net/icoguides for more in-depth information.
