How to Launch an ICO to fund your Startup

1
visit www.sphinx-solution.com
Call 91-020-26434646
HOW TO LAUNCH AN ICO TO FUND YOUR STARTUP
Initial Coin Offerings or ICO achieved
exponential growth in last 2 years. Keep aside
the entire venture capital funding ICOs have
emerged as the best and easiest option for fund
raising. As per the reports, startups raised
more than 5.6 billion through ICO launch in the
year 2017. According to CrunchBase, the number
of ICOS raised in 2017 and first two months of
2018 is smaller compared to venture capital
rounds announced by Blockchain and the Blockchain
related companies. However, despite being
smaller in number, the funding events initiated
by ICO the launch on average attract much more
capital compared to average venture capital
funding rounds. During the last 14 months,
Blockchain and related companies were successful
in raising about 1.3 billion through worldwide
venture capital rounds. Nevertheless, ICOs were
aggressive raising nearly 4.5 billion during
the same period. In 2015, ICO had a smaller
market share. It was harder for a startup to
raise million dollars through ICO. Only a few
ICOs launched could hardly raise a million
dollars and more. Nonetheless, ICO experienced
golden days in the year 2016 when DAO raised 150
million in just a few days from its launch.
However, the same project was plagued with
security issues, later SEC found out, it was
violating the security laws too. But, the speed
at which DAO raised funds created a history and
marked the start of an ICO launching era.
Evidently, Blockchain based ICO products
displayed ease, simplicity, security, and
potential to divert the attention of major
businesses towards ICO launching projects as a
sales or funding model.
2
How Does ICO Work? Before diving deep to
understand how ICO works, it is necessary for
startups to understand what ICO is ICO is an
online cryptocurrency version of the
crowdfunding. The ICO campaign is launched for a
certain interval and investors may purchase
tokens exchanging for available cryptocurrency
only within the specified interval. Each token is
prefixed with a specific price guaranteeing a
surge in the initial price of the token after the
proposed project goes live and earns a
reputation. ICO follows a typical cryptocurrency
environment, allowing investors to trade or sell
these tokens, which reflects how the company
performs to contribute great fluctuations in the
value. The funds thus collected through ICO
launch are then utilized with some features to
launch, manage and grow the proposed
project. Now lets consider how does ICO works,

• There are four major steps in ICO, explaining
  each one of them will help you understand how
  ICO works
• Pre-Sale Announcement
• This is the first phase and is an early
  announcement about the project and procedure made
  to ignite the interest of investors. During this
  phase, ICO launchers give presentations along
  with an executive summary of the project to
  explain its purpose and objective. With every
  presentation, ICO launchers get reviews from
  investors. Analyzing the review, which might be
  positive or negative helps in the Launcher to
  iterate the presentation and scope of the project
  ensuring it meets expectations. A repetitive
  process lasting for about a month, resulting in a
  project presentation satisfying everyone
  involved. Only then, the investors start showing
  interest and start investing in proper agreement.

3

• Offering
• The offering represents the second phase of ICO
  launch, which is a declaration about the
  transactions that will occur during and after the
  ICO launch. It covers everything from partners,
  token generation, token expenses, fund
  allocation, targeted amount and the expected
  outcome of the project. A detailed information
  about the tokens and its sale, trade, use, price
  and other things are covered in the offerings.
  The business proposal also involves all the
  related rights owned by a token of particular
  value, accountability of the investor in the form
  of dividends as well as start and end date for
  ICO token sale.
• PR Campaigns
• PR or digital marketing campaigns play a major
  role in ICO launching as it markets, attracts,
  and forecasts the present and future of the ICO
  project. A thoughtful and informative PR campaign
  that lasts for approximately a month helps ICO
  launching companies and persons to reach small
  and big investors and customers from every
  category. During PR campaigns, the primary focus
  has to be angel investors as they are more
  interested to associate themselves with some
  promising business ideas. At the end of PR
  campaigns, it is the time to start the buying and
  selling process of ICO tokens. The moment ICO is
  launched, investors or customers can be a part of
  your project by exchanging cryptocurrency.
• ICO Sale
• Sale of tokens after completing all the processes
  is the final stage of fundraising. However, there
  are two approaches using which an ICO project
  furnishes successful ICO sale. The first way is
  to launch ICO sale after securing a bare minimum
  amount that has been defined in the proposal
• and then, dividing the sale of token amongst
  various investors in a specific ratio. The second
  way is to sale ICO token at the time of
  cryptocurrency exchanges for this process to
  take place, ICO launchers have to pre-release
  the tokens so that exchanges can take place based
  on many other
• cryptocurrency exchanges. The second method is
  similar to the traditional IPO process.
• Whats in it for Startups?
• A Better Approach to Reach Goals
• The traditional way to raise funds is about
  pitching business ideas, giving presentations,
  and compromising with investors. Although many
  startups believe and practice it to raise funds,
  ICO definitely has emerged as an option to this
  traditional crowdfunding method. Startups must
  consider the ICO launch as a unique opportunity
  to witness their project developed and
  established. It does not matter to which domain
  your project belongs remember a killer business
  idea always has the potential to become next Uber
  or Airbnb. However, this blog does not assure
  anyone that ICO is better than venture capital,
  but focuses on urging startups to try ICO as it
  gives better control over the funding process
  and startups can access contributing creative
  minds interested in growing businesses.

4
Easy Entry in the ICO Environment Tokens are
at the heart of an ICO project. It is due to the
Bitcoin success and the innovation we achieved
in cryptocurrency or digital currency, we could
generate tokens and lunch an ICO. Startups have
the liberty to create tokens either by using the
existing code or by writing a new code.
Remember, the number of tokens you want depends
on the aim or scope of your project. If you
prefer Ethereum platform to develop your ICO,
then you have the leverage to access Template
Token called ERC20 offered by the Ethereum
platform. It reduces the efforts, making it
trivial to define the token. There is no need to
write a code for launching ERC20 token. Paying a
small fee for every transaction ensures token
runs well on the Ethereum Blockchain.
Limited Regulations Until recently, there were
almost no regulations over the ICO market.
Apparently, ICO was looked after as a fair field
of money laundering and Ponzi schemes. The
perception of the legal uncertainty in the ICO
was due to fear of losing everything or fear of
missing out. But, since last two years or so
regulating ICO environment gained momentum,
countries and their regulating authorities are
embracing and welcoming ICO and cryptocurrency
environment. Additionally, the building blocks
of the Blockchain Transparency, and
Authenticity helped ICO re-establishing trust of
investors. It is mandatory for every startup to
have a strong legal support backing ICOs the time
of its launch. Conclusion Cryptocurrency has
been an amazing source of innovation on both
fronts technical and business. As ICO
environment is still in its adolescent stage,
many are taking advantage of this young platform
to get rich faster, which is not right. With
time, startups will start to get clarity about
terms of regulations, investors will get clarity
about what they are buying, and entrepreneurs
will get clarity to adjust their ICO models to
accommodate realistic funding sequence.
Undoubtedly, ICOs represent a very innovative way
of raising capital. With ICO, you get access to
a larger audience with fewer risks, no dilution
risks and an easy way out, unlike Banks or VCs.
In addition, the fluidity of investment that
allows investors to spend or trade tokens, the
opportunity to speculate the tokens once they
are listed along with the transparency and
authenticity it provides makes it an attractive
investment option for investors and a medium of
crowdfunding for startups.
Having worked with many ICO startups right from
scratch to ICO sale, our clients call us the
pioneers in ICO Launching services. We will not
only ideate your ICO product but will also help
you to launch and market it. Contact us if you
need any assistance to launch your ICO.
5
USA 1 732-947-4310 UK 964 0771 7777
916 Malaysia 6017-2126274 IRAQ 964 0771
7777 916 BRAZIL 55 21 2258-7260 INDIA
91-020-26434646 https//www.sphinx-solution.com
Copyright 2018 Sphinx Solutions Pvt Ltd. All
rights reserved.