Building In An Ecosystem: What Founders Often Get Wrong

What Happened

A recap of a podcast hosted by Alevtina Labyuk, Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer at BeInCrypto, in partnership with The Top Voices — a community-led media platform for early-stage startups and IT talent, backed by a global network of 3,000+ entrepreneurs — featuring Anthony Tsivarev, VP of Ecosystem Development at the TON Foundation.

During the conversation, he explained why building inside an ecosystem is fundamentally different from launching an independent product – and why many teams fail to recognize the shift in mindset required to succeed.

In a traditional go-to-market strategy, startups usually follow a straightforward sequence: build a strong product and then acquire users through marketing, partnerships, or distribution channels.

That means founders must think beyond functionality. A product launched inside Telegram needs to understand how people communicate there – through chats, channels, stories, and friend networks.

Retention loops, Anthony emphasized, matter far more than simply launching inside the ecosystem.

Working inside an open ecosystem means anyone can launch a product. Today, developers can build a mini-app in a day and distribute it instantly through social channels. That openness creates both opportunity and clutter.

Market Context

Building a startup inside a large ecosystem can look deceptively simple from the outside. The distribution is already there. The infrastructure is ready. Millions of users are just one click away.

But according to Anthony VP of Ecosystem Development at the TON Foundation, this perception is one of the biggest misconceptions founders bring into platforms like Telegram and TON.

Why It Matters

Ecosystem Distribution Is Not the Same as Demand

Platforms such as Telegram change this dynamic completely. The distribution already exists. But crucially, it does not belong to the startup.

Details

“You still need to build a great product,” Anthony explained. “But on top of that, you need to integrate it into the native behavior of the platform.”

Ecosystem products succeed because they naturally fit into how people already behave on the platform. For example, with TON, founders must design not only for user behavior but also for token economics, incentives, and payment mechanics.

“Classic GTM is one layer,” Anthony said. “In ecosystems you also have social graphs, social interaction, and in blockchain you add an economic layer on top of that.”

Creativity Comes From Behavior

A common fear among founders building in ecosystems is that the environment limits creativity. After all, the infrastructure, identity layer, and wallet systems are already defined.

Anthony sees the opposite. Platforms like Telegram mini-apps provide standardized building blocks, but differentiation emerges from how founders use social behavior.

Successful products often rethink how their app interacts with chats, communities, and sharing patterns. They create loops that encourage users to bring their friends into the experience.

The most important design question becomes surprisingly simple: Why would users come back?

“You need to think about why people should use your product consistently,” he said. “Integration is only the beginning.”

The Founders Who Actually Succeed

When Anthony evaluates new builders entering the ecosystem, two things matter most:

The first is experience. Teams with a track record of building social products often understand platform dynamics much faster.

The second is what he calls ecosystem product fit.

In other words, the product should leverage the ecosystem (not just sit inside it).