Why Startups Fail and Whether a Business Needs a Token: Highlights from a Stream with Josip Volarević

Published: September 23, 2026 – 08:27 UTC

How can you spot a promising founder before a product even launches, and why might crypto ecosystems overlook strong teams? Incrypted co-founder Ivan Pavlovsky discussed these questions live with Josip Volarević, Startup Success Lead at Superteam, a developer in the Solana ecosystem and co-founder of Superteam Balkans. They also covered startup failures, accelerators, token launches and ideas for new crypto products.

We’ve put together the key takeaways from the stream. Watch the full recording on our YouTube channel.

The “First Believer” and Betting on the Founder

Volarević says he came up with the title First Believer himself. He has worked in the Solana ecosystem since 2021, launched his own startups and helped establish Superteam Balkans. Over that time, he says he has helped more than 300 founders raise nearly $10 million through grants, startup competitions and venture funding rounds.

That experience led him to believe that an ecosystem loses out not only through unsuccessful investments but also by failing to support promising developers at the earliest stage. He mentioned prediction markets and perpetual futures trading as examples. In his view, there may have been teams within the ecosystem with the right ideas but without early funding, connections or someone willing to believe in them.

“It’s the money that hasn’t been given to the right founders,” he explained.

The First Believer’s job, then, is to recognize potential before a project has demonstrated demand or generated revenue. When assessing a team, Volarević looks beyond social media followings and endorsements from prominent accounts. He wants to understand how founders think, how they talk to users and how they plan to make money.

“I think it’s the clarity of thinking and the focus on the right things,” he said.

Another criterion is founder-market fit: whether the founder is the right person to tackle a particular market. If a team wants to tokenize gold, for example, Volarević wants to know why that problem matters to its members and what makes them well placed to solve it. It is not just about experience; it is also about a genuine personal interest in the problem.

“The only thing that you can actually confidently place a bet on is the team,” he emphasized.

The product may not exist yet, or it may have been live for only a week, making it too early to judge product-market fit. Over the next two years, a project might pivot, change its name or shut down altogether. The founders themselves are what the early bet is really about.

Failures, Changing Course and Genuine Demand

Volarević took part in three Colosseum hackathons and won prizes twice, but he has also had to shut down his own projects. For him, winning above all showed that experienced people in the ecosystem saw potential in him as a founder.

“It’s just like a validation from smart people in the ecosystem,” he said.

Shutting down companies taught him something different: when an idea is no longer working, it is important to let go in time. Prolonging the process, he believes, keeps a team tied to its old project and prevents it from exploring new solutions. Once the decision to change direction has been made, founders should not try to keep the previous product running while pursuing the new one.

“When pivoting, do it decisively, 100% committed, and do it as soon as possible. Don’t overextend the death of the startup,” he advised.

Shutting down a project does not mean giving up on entrepreneurship. Volarević warned that the money and time already spent are not, by themselves, reasons to keep going. He has no universal rule for knowing when to stop. Founders must balance confidence in their idea with a willingness to recognize that the market is not accepting it.

He also cautioned against judging a project solely by its numbers. A social account growing from 1,000 to 100,000 followers might be attracting bots, while millions of dollars in trading volume could reflect short-lived hype. Founders need to understand what lies behind the figures and keep talking to users.

“The numbers are important in a way, but you have to understand how to read them,” Volarević said.

Another way to assess genuine demand is to imagine how users would react if the product shut down. Volarević cited his own digital comics platform — after it closed, several dozen creators genuinely regretted its loss. Their reaction suggested to him that a real need for such a service had existed.

Supporting Founders and the Role of Accelerators

For Volarević, supporting a founder matters more than loyalty to any particular blockchain. He has advised teams to choose the network that suits their product, whether Solana, Hyperliquid or an Ethereum-compatible chain, rather than integrate Solana merely to enter Colosseum.

“I told founders to not try to integrate Solana just for the sake of it for Colosseum,” he explained.

He extended that approach to cases in which a founder’s interests clash with those of users. As a hypothetical example, he described a hacked service: if the company cannot cover user losses, he would not advise the founder to take out personal loans. Instead, he believes founders should be open about their inability to reimburse users and, if necessary, shut the project down.

At the same time, he believes that support during a crisis goes beyond money and technical fixes. After a hack or another serious mistake, even a mentor may not have a ready answer. The mentor’s role is to help the founder assess the situation calmly rather than make decisions in the heat of the moment. This is especially valuable for founders working without a co-founder.

“Founder therapy is extremely important and sometimes the most important thing,” Volarević said.

He cited his own experience with the Alliance accelerator as an example of such support. Its team helped him revisit his company’s structure and equity distribution. They also helped him work out what direction to take next and ultimately decide to shut the project down. Mentors discussed fundraising and how to present the idea to investors. As Volarević emphasized, they supported the shutdown despite the financial losses it meant for the accelerator.

Advice for Ukrainian Developers

Ivan Pavlovsky devoted a separate question to developers in Ukraine. Volarević spoke positively about the Superteam Ukraine teams he had worked with and said he had met Ukrainian entrepreneurs building projects in Croatia and Serbia.

His main advice was not to start with a list of things the community believes Solana or DeFi lacks. Instead, developers should look for a problem that genuinely interests them.

“Ask yourself, what do I have a deep passion for?” he said.

A genuine interest gives developers knowledge and motivation that a casual participant in the market may lack. If no particular field stands out yet, they can start with an interest in building products itself — for example, by creating tools for other developers.

Another starting point is identifying your strengths. Volarević suggested looking for the skills or areas of knowledge in which you stand out, whether languages, music, gaming or something else entirely unrelated to crypto.

“What puts you into the top 1% of talent in the world?” he suggested asking yourself.

In his view, the chosen field should withstand a long stretch of work without outside incentives. When the market turns down and funding disappears, founders need enough interest to keep working on their product, potentially unpaid, for two years. Ivan Pavlovsky compared this with Incrypted’s beginnings in late 2017, when, he said, the publication had no money, clients or reputation.

Tokens and When to Launch Them

Asked by Ivan whether a company in the Solana ecosystem could reach a $1 billion valuation without issuing its own token, Volarević said yes. He cited Phantom, Solflare and Helius as examples of projects without tokens, while mentioning Jupiter among companies that do have one. In his view, issuing a digital asset is not a prerequisite for building a large business.

That does not mean he believes avoiding a token is always the right choice. A token can help a project or create additional complications, depending on the product, market conditions and whether it has already attracted users.

“Sometimes it can be a blessing, sometimes a curse, and sometimes both,” he explained.

He outlined two approaches: launch a token early to attract initial participants through incentives and help a network get off the ground; or build a working product first and then use a token to accelerate its adoption. Volarević cited Backpack and pump.fun as examples of the second approach. According to him, they developed their products first and issued tokens later.

Ideas for New Products

If he were starting again from scratch, Volarević would be interested in two areas. The first is a platform that lets startups and creative teams raise capital using crypto. He would prefer to test demand for fundraising without issuing proprietary tokens first, and add that option only later.

“I would first try to help founders raise money through crypto, but without issuing tokens,” he said.

He named board-game and video-game creators, as well as startups, as potential users. In his view, the first step is to show that there is demand for the fundraising service itself.

His second idea, rooted in personal experience, is a family crypto wallet. He would like to be able to save jointly with his wife for a home, a trip or their children’s education. For longer-term goals, the app could enable recurring purchases of selected cryptoassets.

“The other product that I would personally work on is a family savings wallet. I think that is a problem that is worth solving,” Volarević said.

He also suggested adding Duolingo-style education — from an introduction to digital dollars and stablecoins to basic financial tools. Such a program could help family members understand how to store their funds and give children their first lessons in financial literacy.

Taking Part in the Colosseum Hackathon

Volarević explained Colosseum’s decision to open its competition to projects from other blockchain ecosystems as an effort to bring developers together on one platform. In his view, competing with teams beyond Solana can help its participants move outside their usual circles, while letting developers compare different networks and choose the one that best suits their product.

Turning to entrepreneurial qualities, Volarević contrasted the ability to come up with ideas with the ability to see them through. Some founders quickly identify a solution and build an initial product, only to lose interest when the long process of improving it begins. Others may be less inventive but can spend years refining a product while listening to users.

“Most overrated is the ability to generate ideas. The most underrated is the ability to execute,” he said.

The conversation also covered presenting projects to investors and judges. Volarević said a compelling story helps attract attention but cannot replace a strong team and a product with real demand — some Colosseum winners had weak presentations. At the same time, a poor pitch can hurt even a promising application.

“A bad pitch can kill your chances of raising money or getting into Colosseum,” he stressed.

Volarević advised founders to contact judges before applications close, seek feedback and share updates on their progress. He acknowledged that, when two projects are otherwise comparable, a personal connection may influence his decision: he is more likely to recognize a team that has already kept him informed of its revenue growth when reviewing its application. He regards this kind of outreach as a demonstration of a founder’s business-development skills.

You can find the recording and many other interesting videos on our YouTube channel.

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Source: Incrypted