FOMO Co-founder Se Yong: Public Development is Nearly Suicide
FOMO co-founder Se Yong posted a lengthy message stating that the transition from private development to public building is the hardest step to take. Most companies are forced to go public only at the time of an IPO or token issuance. For unlisted consumer applications, regularly sharing roadmaps, previewing features, and receiving real-time feedback is almost a suicidal task.
He explained the reasons: everyone has opinions and believes they know better what should be done, when, and how. Satisfying one group of users will lead to complaints from another group about neglected features. For companies that have not yet entered the public market, this approach has limited upside and significant downside; they should strive to maintain privacy while also reaching out to users and liquidity.
FOMO still chooses to publicly share its roadmap, reveal new features in advance, engage in dialogue on timelines, showcase daily behind-the-scenes activities, and accept interviews to explain its role in the market. He describes these actions as having nearly completely negative expected value but insists that the North Star is to create products that users find valuable, enjoy using, and are willing to share.
The company is positioned as a social trading application for ordinary people, founded by former dYdX members Se Yong Park, Paul Erlanger, and Prashan Dharmasena. The product lowers barriers with embedded wallets, Apple Pay deposits, and cross-chain exchanges, turning trading into a social activity through information flow and following trades. Public reports indicate that its user base has surpassed one million and it has completed a Series B round led by Index Ventures, with a valuation of approximately $550 million.
He also acknowledged that it is impossible to respond to everyone but claimed that the team sees all mentions of FOMO and will continue to make mistakes, keep developing the product, and remain on the front lines to learn, observe, and take action. This statement redefines "public building" from a growth tactic into a user relationship declaration.
In terms of market mechanisms, this is attention-driven, not delivery-driven. Buy orders are bets that public interaction can sustain revenue, drive referrals, and fuel subsequent token speculation; sell orders question the losses of most users and the fixed fees taken by the platform. Capital flows into the social trading sector and related Solana fee agreements. Beneficiaries are platforms that rely on transaction fees and distribution cuts; those under pressure are short-term speculators who interpret public building as a signal for imminent token issuance.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Se Yong describes "public building" as having negative expected value yet necessary, continuing the old method of consumer crypto products vying for distribution: first making the founders accountable, then locking in users through feedback loops. He and his partners transitioned from Deutsche Bank to dYdX to create FOMO, not by first developing a professional terminal, but by embedding on-chain exchanges within social information flows. Missing a Base meme, complaining about wallets and cross-chain complexities later became the product's origin.
The capital path is also straightforward. After the Series B round raised the valuation to about $550 million, growth no longer relies solely on angel testing but on public roadmaps, creator commissions, and referral rewards to turn users into channels. The real function of public building is to lower customer acquisition costs: every preview is an ad, and every complaint is a retention test. The motivation is to heat up the social graph and fee machine before any official token is issued.
In a similar position, Robinhood lowers stock trading barriers with its interface, Pump.fun lowers token issuance barriers with launch pages, and FOMO lowers following barriers with information flow. The industry phase is consumer crypto moving from "tool websites" to an expansion period of "turning trading into content." Whoever can simultaneously master deposit entry, social relationships, and transaction fees will capture attention first.
Structural changes belong to technological substitution. After seed words, cross-chain bridges, and professional candlestick charts are replaced by a layer of social interface, pricing power shifts from those who can operate to those who can organize information and follow trades. The mechanism is: public building turns product flaws into community events, which then transform into retention; platforms do not need to prove users are making money, just that they are always listening.