2018 - 2019 / Product / Research / Startup
Basescore
Co-founder and Product Manager
Building the Metacritic of ICOs during the crypto gold rush.
Co-founded Basescore to create an ICO reviews and research platform that aggregated review scores from leading critics into a single weighted Base Score. The goal was to give investors a trustworthy reference point during a market flooded with scams, dishonest marketing, and zero regulation. We pulled data from Reddit, Coinmarketcap, Binance, and ICObench to create a singular, unbiased score investors could actually trust.
Product / Research / Startup
Before
A chaotic market flooded with scams, paid reviews, and no reliable signal
- The 2018-2019 cryptocurrency ICO boom was the Wild West. Investors faced widespread scams, dishonest marketing, and zero regulation. Review sites were paid to promote projects, and there was no single source of aggregated, unbiased data to evaluate an ICO before investing.
- Reddit, Coinmarketcap, and ICObench all had pieces of the puzzle, but no one was connecting them. Investors had to manually cross-reference multiple sources just to form a basic opinion. ICO teams had no incentive or platform to build trust through verified scores. The market needed transparency, and it needed it fast.
After
A weighted, trustworthy score aggregating multiple sources into one number investors could trust
Market Validation and Discovery
Conducted weeks of in-depth market validation research, engaging crypto subreddits, forums, investors, and ICO teams directly. Used surveys, in-person discussions, and online video chats to gather hundreds of responses.
Competitive Analysis and MVP Definition
Analyzed existing ICO review sites using SimilarWeb benchmarks to identify the common data points and features driving traffic. Cross-referenced competitive findings with market validation insights to define the MVP feature set.
Product Design and Brand Development
Designed the complete brand identity including logo concepts, color system, and comprehensive branding guidelines. Built interactive website prototypes showcasing user-friendly navigation, the ICO database structure, detailed project pages, and the weighted scoring methodology.
Database and Backend Architecture
Worked with my developer co-founder to engineer a robust backend architecture for scalable data processing and secure user interactions. Built a comprehensive ICO database pulling from Reddit, Coinmarketcap, Binance, and ICObench to feed into the weighted Base Score algorithm.
Weighted Scoring Framework
Formulated a singular, unbiased, weighted Base Score by aggregating review scores and research from leading critics. The score gave investors a single number they could trust, removing the noise of paid reviews and conflicting ratings.
Launch and Community Engagement
Launched in September 2018 after 6 months of development. Leveraged market validation contacts for a soft launch with consistent communication through social media channels, forums, and subreddits.
The outcome
A platform that gave crypto investors what they could not find anywhere else - a single, weighted score they could actually trust in a market full of noise, paid reviews, and bad information.
Project gallery
Brand Identity
Designed the full Basescore brand identity from concept to final mark. Started with bar and score-inspired sketches and refined into a clean, recognizable logo that communicated trust and authority in a market full of noise.
Weighted Scoring Methodology
Built a weighted scoring methodology that aggregated review data from multiple ICO sources into one trusted score. Created a data completeness audit framework so users could see exactly how much research backed each rating. Made a chaotic market more transparent.
Market Validation Research
Led the end-to-end research and validation phase, from Trello-driven project management to user surveys and data prioritization. Built the systems that defined what data mattered, how to collect it, and what users actually needed to trust an ICO score.
Branding Guidelines
Created a complete set of branding guidelines that gave the team everything needed to build a consistent brand: typography specs, logo variations for every use case, and full colour palettes with hex, RGB, CMYK, and LAB values. Left nothing to interpretation.
Website Prototype
Designed and prototyped the full website experience: a responsive platform that aggregated thousands of ICO scores into one searchable, filterable database. Homepage immediately communicated the core value proposition with live score badges and a curated project grid.
ICO Database
Built a searchable ICO database with rich filtering by status, dates, review count, and score range. Colour-coded hexagonal badges let users instantly assess any project's rating at a glance. Turned a messy research problem into a clean, usable tool.
Sample ICO Page
Designed detailed ICO profile pages that aggregated ratings from multiple review sources into one clear score. Each profile showed project summaries, team backgrounds, rating breakdowns, and source cards so users could dig deeper without leaving the platform.
Project Comparison
Multi-screen mockup showing BaseScore across devices. Main laptop displays the homepage with aggregated ICO scores and search. Surrounding pages show a bar chart score distribution, detailed project profile with team info, and a "BriKit" project page with Summary, Team, Roadmap, Whitepaper, and Buy tabs.
Backend Architecture
System architecture diagram for Basescore showing Express.js servers connecting to Redis cache and PostgreSQL database. Crawler Task handles web scraping from external sources and Formatter Task processes data, with arrows showing data flow from crawling to formatting to storage.
Logo Evolution
Final Basescore logo: a 3D isometric cube icon in deep blue with three emerging arrows (green pointing up, yellow pointing left, red pointing down) suggesting growth and progress. The word "BaseScore" appears in bold, slightly italicized black sans-serif typeface.