Don't touch crypto without this
A new app can change how you use crypto. Here's how we built it. By Jim Myers, CTO.
Hey BAFB readers,
This is Jim Myers, CTO at Flipside. After months of gathering feedback, careful design, and intense building, we’ve launched the new Flipside!
It was a massive, team-wide effort that, whatever you’re working on, I think you’ll find value in. So below, I describe the thoughts and processes that got us here, and the broader implications for the space.
Enjoy!
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Why was it important to build the new app?
Having the best data is pointless if you don’t have good tools to explore that data.
Our main goal has always been to reduce analyst friction when it comes to exploring and making sense of blockchain data. Our top analysts spend thousands of hours a year in our data app, how do we make that time more productive and a tad more fun?
The original version of our data app was launched over two years ago. Tens of millions of queries later, we’ve collected an immense amount of feedback and data on the challenges analysts encounter in their workflows.
In the fall of 2022, we decided the best way to address our findings was to build from the ground up. We launched next.flipsidecrypto.xyz and began iterating in public each week with our community.
What are the implications of the new app for analysts and the broader crypto space?
As I said previously, having the best data is pointless if you don’t have amazing tools to explore and understand that data. The new data is a complete revamp to not only the query and dashboard building experience, but also for data explorability.
Behind the scenes, Flipside has also developed some pretty incredible pieces of technology and infrastructure to power our data platform. Our goal with this build is to begin exposing more of this tooling to the analyst community. One such example you will see coming soon are custom SQL functions – these functions enable you to directly query and decode data from a blockchain’s node database.
We’re excited to see what new types of builds these features unlock for analysts in crypto.
What was the process of designing the new app?
The success of a product like this hinges not on one major feature but on lots of tiny features that add up in aggregate to enable a friction-less workflow. It’s all about anticipating what the user will reach for and ensuring that the feature is right there ready to grab.
Getting to this point requires being relentless about putting yourself into the shoes of your users. We’ve done this in a few ways. First, we dog-food our own product everywhere we can internally from our own BI dashboards to dashboards we deliver to our blockchain customers. We also built the entire app in public, with a real-time pulse of needs/challenges from within discord, and incorporated that feedback each sprint cycle into the app. And of course, we’ll keep doing that even after this launch.
We decided from day 1 to “Build in Public” here. That led to some really amazing feedback but also a huge volume of feedback. Meeting the demands of our community, and determining what to build and when was certainly a challenge. We constantly brought every request back to one question “does this reduce friction and does it reduce friction more than ‘x’, ‘y’ or ’z’”.
What did we learn about building in Web3?
More broadly than just this app, building in web3 typically means being among the first in the world to encounter technical challenges or issues, especially within the nuances of blockchain data. There is typically no stack-overflow post that’s going to help you solve the issue. Oftentimes it requires going directly to the developers that are building the protocols or chains to understand how things were developed.
What changed?
Ultimately, we can categorize the list of new features in three broad ways they affect the analyst experience:
Customization - We built ways to give analysts more control over their workflow. Query tabs, adjustable panels, and the drag-and-drop dashboard editor give you the power to configure your workflow just how you like it. Interactive parameters let you set ways for viewers to change data in your dashboards for new results.
Efficiency - The less time research takes, the better. Features like autocomplete, shortcut commands, and auto-format SQL help you get the answer as quickly as you can think of the question. The "Explore Data" panel lets you quickly browse Flipside data structures to easily add references to your queries.
Recognition - Analysis is a professional skill, and we added features to help analysts build a portfolio and a following. "My Work" puts all your collections, queries, and dashboards at your fingertips. The new homepage drives eyes to your work, and you can compete for dashboard supremacy on the leaderboard and Top-8 placement on the homepage.
See what data can do
The new app officially launched this Wednesday, but the process isn’t ever really over. We’re still finding and fixing bugs, shipping new features (like dark mode coming soon), and keeping a close eye on community feedback. This industry is constantly evolving, and so are the needs of its builders, users, and protocols.
If you’re curious how data can improve the way you use Web3, I’d encourage you to explore the new app.
Even if you’re not an analyst, the home page displays top dashboards and analysts, as well as a search bar so you can find insights other people have created about your favorite chains/protocols.
As always, it’s free at
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WOW ! Amazing