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Web3 sales playbook: 5 days, 49 founders, 3 channels each

By NAUT Research · · 11 min read

49 Web3 sales crypto founders with X, Telegram and LinkedIn on file, worked over 5 days. Logos: Polygon, Uniswap, Tron, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Filecoin, Sui, Stellar, The Sandbox, Axie Infinity, Immutable X, Livepeer, Basic Attention, Theta Network, Compound.

This web3 sales playbook gives a web3 BD team 5 days of work and a named person for every hour of it: 49 crypto founders who each hold an X account, a Telegram handle and a LinkedIn profile on NAUT, grouped into 1 batch per day by the sector tag on their record. Open on X, move to Telegram 3 days later, send the LinkedIn note 7 days after the open, and keep the email for the 6 of the 49 who have a work address on file.

How this list was built: on 27 October 2026, NAUT read the 6,608 live project companies it holds and pulled every contact recorded as a founder, co-founder or CEO at one of them. That returned 400 records across 236 companies once duplicates were merged. 196 of those founders carry at least 1 outreach channel on file. 50 of them carry all 3 of X, Telegram and LinkedIn, and 49 of those 50 are named below.

8 records were left out. 2 were people tagged to a chain they are not publicly connected to, where the tag looks stale. 5 were stints whose job title text already said the person had left while the record still read as current, so they cannot be treated as the founder to call today. The 8th is 1 of the 50: the record carries a founder title at a chain, and the person's own site and X bio put that founder title at a different company, so the row needs a fix before anyone sells off it. All 8 are a data job on NAUT's side rather than a judgment about the people. Every channel below came out of the record on 27 October 2026, so check the founder's NAUT page before you send: a handle changes and a page is the fresher copy.

Web3 sales playbook: the 5-day sequence

A crypto sales sequence earns its keep when the follow-up date is booked before the first note goes out. The sequence works on 2 rules. Batch by sector so 1 piece of research covers 10 notes, and fix the follow-up date at the moment you send the first note rather than deciding later.

  • 1 sector batch a day, so the opening line you write on Monday is reusable 12 times.
  • X first, because a founder's X account is the channel they read in public and the one you can reference.
  • Telegram 3 days after that batch opens, LinkedIn 7 days after it opens, then stop. 3 touches is the whole sequence.
  • 25 of the 49 use the same handle on X and Telegram, so a Telegram follow-up lands with someone who already saw the name.
The 5-day crypto founder outreach sequence
  1. Day 1, chains12 founders tagged L1, L2 or L3, from Justin Sun at Tron to Gauthier Leonard at Avalanche.
  2. Day 2, DeFi12 founders, among them Robert Leshner at Compound and Hart Lambur at UMA.
  3. Day 3, infrastructure7 founders, among them Sandeep Nailwal at Polygon and Juan Benet at Filecoin.
  4. Day 4, AI and gaming9 founders, among them Doug Petkanics at Livepeer and Jeffrey Zirlin at Axie Infinity.
  5. Day 5, the rest9 founders across 8 smaller sector tags, among them Veronica Wong at SafePal.

The 2 biggest days are 12 founders each and the smallest is 7, so a single person can run the whole list inside 1 working week and still write every note by hand.

Which crypto founders do you message on each day?

Each day below is 1 sector group, taken from the first sector tag on the founder's NAUT record. The X handle in each table is the one on file on 27 October 2026; the founder's own NAUT page carries the Telegram contact, the LinkedIn profile, the company page and whoever else NAUT lists at that company, so open the page when you are ready to send touch 2.

Day 1: the 12 chain founders

The chain batch is tied for the biggest, and it is the one where your pitch has to be specific about which chain. Justin Sun is the founder of Tron, Steven Goldfeder is co-founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, which builds Arbitrum, and Kostas is a co-founder of Mysten Labs, the team behind Sui. 1 of the 12, Griffin Anderson at Archway, also has a work email on file.

Founder Project X
@andergri
@kostascrypto
@tammycamp
@justinsuntron
@sgoldfed
@Nutymoon
@knwang
@junhaotan_
@a_lanaspa
@elenacryptochic
@alanchiu
@luke_vx

Day 2: the 12 DeFi founders

DeFi is the densest sector in NAUT's founder set, and several of these people now run a second company, so read the NAUT page before you name a title. Robert Leshner is a co-founder of Compound, Hart Lambur is a co-founder of UMA, and Nevin Freeman is a co-founder of Reserve Rights and CEO of ABC Labs, the team behind Reserve. 2 of the 12, Evan Kuo at Ampleforth and Amitej Gajjala at Kelp DAO, have a work email on file as well.

Founder Project X
@evankuo
@gamitej
@josh_benaron
@nnevvinn
@ruitao_su
@sam_thapaliya
@juliankoh
@smykjain
@galacticminter
@rleshner
@hal2001
@onchainpanini

Day 3: the 7 infrastructure and DePIN founders

A short day, and the right one to spend on research instead of volume. Sandeep Nailwal is founder and CEO of the Polygon Foundation and Juan Benet is founder and CEO of Protocol Labs, the team behind Filecoin. Sandeep Nailwal is also 1 of the 6 with a work email on file.

Founder Project X
@sandeepnailwal
@neelsomani
@tzahi_kanza
@juanbenet
@WatanabeSota
@stakeeth
@CharliehuAI

Day 4: the 9 AI and gaming founders

5 of these 9 carry an AI tag and 4 carry a gaming tag. Doug Petkanics is a co-founder and CEO of Livepeer, Mitch Liu is a co-founder and CEO of Theta Network, and Jeffrey Zirlin is a co-founder and growth lead at Axie Infinity.

Founder Project X
@devrelius
@jamesrosst
@petkanics
@karansirdesai
@mitchliu
@borgetsebastien
@arimeilich
@Jihoz_Axie
@0xferg

Day 5: the 9 founders in the smaller sector tags

The last batch is 9 founders whose first tag is its own small group: RWA, privacy, 2 in exchanges, a launchpad, a wallet, tools, SocialFi and media. Veronica Wong is founder and CEO of SafePal, Brendan Eich is co-founder and CEO of Basic Attention and of Brave, and Nader Al-Naji is the founder of Decentralized Social (prev. BitClout). 2 of the 9, Paul Kohlhaas at Bio Protocol and Omer Sadika at Ika, have a work email on file.

Founder Project X
@paulkhls
@omersadika
@haydenzadams
@vsadkovv
@V_SafePal
@ag_dwf
@BorisPovod
@nadertheory
@BrendanEich

How do you follow up without being ignored?

Touch 1 goes out on X on the day the batch opens, touch 2 on Telegram 3 days later, touch 3 on LinkedIn 7 days after the open, then stop and log it. The dates fall out of the day the batch opened, so the whole month is on the calendar before you send anything.

Batch X Telegram LinkedIn
Chains Day 1 Day 4 Day 8
DeFi Day 2 Day 5 Day 9
Infra Day 3 Day 6 Day 10
AI, gaming Day 4 Day 7 Day 11
The rest Day 5 Day 8 Day 12

The second week of the calendar is follow-ups only, which is why the 5 opening days have to be batched: by day 8 you are writing touch 2 for the chain batch and touch 1 is already behind you.

3 details decide whether touch 2 and touch 3 land:

  • Change the channel, and keep the thread. A Telegram note that repeats the X note word for word reads as a mailing list. Reference the first note in 1 line, then give the new thing you have since.
  • 25 of the 49 use the same handle on both X and Telegram, so name the handle you wrote to first. For the other 24 the Telegram name is a different string, and it sits on the founder's NAUT page: read it there before touch 2 rather than guessing from the X handle, which is the single most common way a second touch reaches a stranger.
  • Email is the last channel here, after the third touch. Only 6 of the 49 have a work address on NAUT: Sandeep Nailwal, Evan Kuo, Paul Kohlhaas, Griffin Anderson, Omer Sadika, Amitej Gajjala. Everyone else gets 3 touches and then a note in your CRM.

What do you send on each channel?

Short, specific, and built on something only you could have found. The channel sets the length.

X, 2 sentences, no link. Name the thing they shipped and ask 1 question about it. Example shape: saw the Arbitrum note on LG this year, we run onboarding for 4 teams in that shape, worth 15 minutes?

Telegram, 3 lines. Line 1 names the earlier note on X, line 2 is the reason you are useful to them this quarter, line 3 is a specific time. A founder reading Telegram on a phone will answer a time and skip a question.

LinkedIn, the longest of the 3 and still under 100 words, because it is the channel where a note is read later by someone else on the team. Say who you are, what you do, the 1 number that makes it worth a reply, and the ask.

For the 6 with a work email, send the email after touch 3 rather than instead of it, and attach nothing on the first send.

How to run this web3 sales playbook when you are raising

A founder raising works the same calendar backwards. These 49 people are operators rather than funds, so the ask is an introduction or a reference call, and that changes the 3 notes.

  • Ask the founder for 1 introduction, named. A general ask for help gets a general answer.
  • Pick founders whose sector tag overlaps yours, so the introduction they make is to an investor who already owns that risk.
  • Their NAUT page lists the investors on their own rounds. That is the shortlist to name in the ask.
  • Give them the 2 lines they can forward. An introduction you have already written is the one that gets sent.
The same 5 days for a founder raising
  1. Pick your sector dayRaising for a DeFi protocol? Day 2 is your batch, 12 founders including Julian Koh at Ribbon Finance.
  2. Read the backersEach project page on NAUT lists the investors recorded on its rounds, which is the ask you name.
  3. Open on XSame 2 sentences, with the specific round you are running and the sector overlap.
  4. Ask for 1 nameRequest 1 introduction to 1 investor you have already identified, not a list.
  5. Send the forwardable2 lines they can paste, so the warm introduction costs them 20 seconds.

Where do you find the channels for a founder who is not on this list?

Start from the 196 founders NAUT already holds with at least 1 channel, because 146 of them are reachable on 1 or 2 channels even though they missed the all-3 bar here. Open the project page, read the people NAUT lists at that company, and work the person whose title says they decide. Where a channel is blank, the founder's X bio and their own site are the 2 places to prove a handle before you send to it, and a handle you cannot prove is one you leave alone.

NAUT's directory is built for this order: project page, people on it, channels on the person. It is the reason a 5-day plan can be written on a Sunday and run on a Monday, with 49 names and 147 channels already in one place.

Web3 sales playbook FAQ

How to reach crypto founders without a warm introduction?

Open on the founder's X account with 2 sentences about something they shipped, follow up on Telegram 3 days later, and send a LinkedIn note 7 days after the first one. All 49 founders in this list, read from NAUT on 27 October 2026, hold all 3 of those channels, so the sequence runs without an introduction.

What is the follow-up cadence in this web3 sales playbook?

3 touches over 7 days per batch: X on the day the batch opens, Telegram 3 days later, LinkedIn 4 days after that. With 5 batches opening on 5 consecutive days, the last LinkedIn touch lands on day 12.

How many crypto founders does NAUT list with a verified channel?

196, as of 27 October 2026, drawn from 400 founder, co-founder and CEO records at 236 live crypto projects. 50 of the 196 hold X, Telegram and LinkedIn together, and 49 of those 50 are named in this playbook.

Which founders on this list have an email address on file?

6 of the 49: Sandeep Nailwal at Polygon, Evan Kuo at Ampleforth, Paul Kohlhaas at Bio Protocol, Griffin Anderson at Archway, Omer Sadika at Ika, Amitej Gajjala at Kelp DAO. The address itself sits on each founder's NAUT page, and the email belongs after the third touch.

Which sectors do the 49 crypto founders cover?

Grouped by the first sector tag on each record: 12 in L1, L2 and L3 chains, 12 in DeFi, 7 in infrastructure and DePIN, 9 across AI and gaming, and 9 in the smaller tags of RWA, privacy, exchanges, launchpads, wallets, tools, SocialFi and media.

How many of the 49 use the same handle on X and Telegram?

25 of the 49. The other 24 answer on a Telegram handle that differs from their X handle, and that handle sits on each founder's NAUT page, so read it there before touch 2.

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