Building a business in public is uncomfortable. It means sharing the wins, the delays, and the moments where cracks start to appear. This is Day 4 of my journey building a web3 marketing consultancy from zero — and today was mostly about infrastructure: getting the email list set up, staying consistent on LinkedIn, and thinking through a DM strategy that could accelerate everything.
Here’s what happened.
YouTube: Solid Watch Time, Growing Steadily
The channel is progressing in the right direction. At 61 subscribers today, that’s already double the 30 I was targeting at this point.
The more important metric, though, is watch time. At 12.9 total hours, I’m slightly below the 15-hour target — but the recent videos are long (27 to 38 minutes), which means viewers who do watch are genuinely engaged.
What really stood out in the analytics: 57.4% of impressions came from YouTube recommendations. That means YouTube is already surfacing my content to relevant audiences without me doing anything extra. That’s the flywheel working. The more relevant the content, the more YouTube pushes it — the more watch time accumulates.
The audience breakdown is almost entirely male, aged 25–34. That makes sense for a web3 marketing channel. The goal now is to keep producing content that earns that recommendation signal.
The B2B YouTube Channel — Still Not Started
I’ll be honest: this is the one area where I fell behind today.
The situation in Dubai made it difficult to sit down and get it done properly. New lights arrived from Amazon, which should improve the production quality — but the B2B channel didn’t launch today as planned.
This is the channel that actually matters from a revenue perspective. It’s where I’ll be documenting web3 marketing results, community building strategies, and real campaign data. Everything else — this daily vlog, LinkedIn, the newsletter — feeds into that core channel.
Tomorrow it starts. No more delays.
LinkedIn: The Fastest-Growing Channel Right Now
LinkedIn is outperforming everything else at the moment. Connections are at 2,673 and climbing fast — well above the 10-per-day target.
In the last 24 hours:
- A value post got 3 likes and 2 comments
- A newsletter research post received 4 likes within the first hour
- Nearly 1,000 impressions across just two posts
- 300 profile views
The engagement is there. The reach is growing. But I have doubts about whether LinkedIn connections alone will convert into newsletter subscribers or clients without more of a direct touchpoint.
That’s where the DM strategy comes in.
The DM Strategy: 100 Messages to Validate a Hypothesis
Here’s the idea. I have LinkedIn Premium, which means I can send direct messages to people outside my connections. The plan is to send 100 DMs over 5 days — roughly 20 per day — with one simple message:
“Hey, I have nothing to sell. I run a channel for web3 founders and marketers where I break down how this industry actually works. Would you want to check it out?”
No pitch. No product. Just value.
If 20% reply and engage, that’s 4 new viewers per day from LinkedIn alone — 28 per week. In the early stages of a channel, that kind of targeted traffic from exactly the right audience is genuinely meaningful.
Once validated on LinkedIn, the same approach rolls out on X (Twitter), where 10 DMs per day is a realistic sustainable number.
The goal isn’t to automate spam. It’s to get real feedback fast — and once the message is proven to work, then automation makes sense.
Email Marketing: Brevo Is Now Live on the Blog
Thanks to a recommendation from Leon in the comments, I checked out Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) for email marketing. After testing ActiveCampaign (too expensive at this stage) and Beehiiv (great but limited automations on the free tier), Brevo hits the right balance.
The $18/month plan includes:
- Up to 1 million emails per month
- Full automation workflows
- Drag-and-drop builder with templates
- No Brevo branding
- Double opt-in support
The newsletter opt-in form is now live at the bottom of every blog post — first name, last name, optional company, and email. It’s connected via API so any changes in Brevo update automatically across all pages. No static HTML.
The newsletter itself goes out every Friday. It’s targeted at web3 founders and CMOs — industry insights, campaign summaries, and practical marketing breakdowns. If that’s not you, it’s not for you. That specificity is intentional.
Subscriber count right now: zero (minus the test). Distribution starts April 1st.
The Content Flywheel: How It All Connects
Here’s how the pieces fit together:
B2B YouTube Channel → Newsletter → Revenue
The B2B channel is the main engine. It creates the content that earns trust with the right audience. That audience flows into the newsletter. The newsletter is where the relationship deepens. And eventually, when there’s something to offer, that audience already believes in the value.
LinkedIn and X act as distribution accelerators — especially through the DM strategy. Podcast appearances and founder interviews are the next layer to establish authority with third-party credibility.
Speaking of which: I’m considering a dedicated interview series with web3 founders — both successes and failures. Founders who raised from Animoca Brands and Coinbase Ventures talking about what worked. Founders of projects that didn’t survive talking about what didn’t. That kind of content is rare, honest, and genuinely useful for anyone building in this space.
Nothing to announce yet. But it’s in the thinking.
What’s Next
- Tomorrow: B2B YouTube channel launches. No more delays.
- This week: Start the LinkedIn DM experiment — 100 messages, track replies and conversions.
- Weekend: Figure out link tracking for the newsletter.
- Ongoing: Daily blog posts, LinkedIn posts, and 8+ connection requests per day.
The foundation is in place. Now it’s about execution and consistency.
If you have questions, drop them in the comments — I read and respond to everything.
Follow this series to watch the build happen in real time. Next update tomorrow.
Colin Dijs is a Web3 go-to-market strategist based in Dubai
with 15 years of experience building and scaling businesses
across 3 successful exits. Over the past 5 years he has
overseen go-to-market campaigns for 150+ Web3 and digital
asset projects, covering tokenomics, token launches, community
building, and exchange listings. He publishes free Web3
marketing education on YouTube a for founders and CMOs in the digital asset space.