Over that period I collaborated with a long list of Telegram and TON projects: Notcoin, Hamster Kombat, DOGS, Catizen, Blum, TapSwap, Tabizoo, Space Games and MoonMix, plus Fragment, Gram, Gift Fest and Telegram itself. My job was to explain to real people what each project was, how it worked and what the risks were, in Hindi and English.

That job taught me a lot about what makes a mini app take off and what makes it die after two weeks. I'm also a developer, and today I build Telegram mini apps, tap games and bots for clients. This is the plan I walk them through before anyone writes a line of code.

First, an uncomfortable question

Before a founder talks about features, I ask: why does this need to live inside Telegram?

Good answers sound like this:

• "Our users already spend all day in Telegram groups."
• "We need instant onboarding without app-store approval."
• "Our product is social, and sharing to a chat is the growth loop."

A bad answer is "because Hamster Kombat did it." I've seen the copycat wave. A flood of tap games launched with the same mechanics, the same promises and the same airdrop teaser. Many of them faded the moment the next game appeared.

If the answer is honest, Telegram is a fantastic place to launch. Your users are already there, and so is the wallet (TON), the payments (Telegram Stars and crypto), and the share button.

Week 0: Decide what you're really launching

Most mini apps fall into one of four shapes:

1. A game. Tap, merge, idle or a real game loop. It needs retention mechanics and a fair reward system.
2. A utility. A trading tool, wallet feature, portfolio view or marketplace. It needs speed and trust.
3. A community app. Quests, referrals, leaderboards and rewards for a project's community. It needs anti-bot design from day one.
4. A bot plus mini app combo. The bot handles notifications and commands, and the mini app handles the richer interface.

Pick one. When a founder wants all four in version one, I gently push back, because that's how a six-week project becomes a six-month one.

Weeks 1–2: Build the boring parts properly

Everybody wants to talk about the fun part, like the tap animation or the leaderboard. The parts that decide whether you survive launch day are the boring ones:

• Backend that can take a spike. When a mini app gets shared into big groups, traffic doesn't grow slowly; it arrives all at once. Plan rate limits, queues and caching before launch, not during it.
• Anti-bot and anti-farming rules. The tap-to-earn wave was full of farms running hundreds of accounts. If rewards have any value, assume someone will try to farm them. Device checks, rate limits, referral sanity checks and delayed reward claims save you later.
• Wallet and payments. TON Connect for TON, or an EVM wallet flow if your token lives on another chain. Keep the user's keys with the user. Non-custodial by default.
• Admin tools. You will need to ban farms, adjust rewards and push announcements without a developer at 3 AM. I always build an admin panel.

Then I give the client a staging link and a demo every week. They see progress, not promises.

Weeks 2–4: Design the loop, not just the screens

A Telegram mini app grows through one loop:

open → do something satisfying → get a reason to come back → share with a friend.

Every screen should serve that loop. A few things I've learned from watching the big games:

• The first ten seconds matter more than the first ten days. If a new user doesn't understand what to do immediately, they close the app and go back to their chats.
• Daily reasons beat one big promise. Streaks, daily tasks and small regular rewards keep people returning. A vague "airdrop someday" doesn't.
• Referrals must be fair. If inviting friends feels like a pyramid, people notice. Reward real activity, not just sign-ups.
• Be honest about the token. If there's a token, say clearly what it is and isn't. If there isn't one yet, don't hint at one to boost numbers. Disappointed users become loud users.

Weeks 4–6: Launch like a campaign, not a post

This is where my two worlds meet. As a developer I can build the app. As a crypto KOL and marketer I've seen what actually moves users.

A launch plan I'd propose usually looks like this:

1. Soft launch to a small group (your own community first). Fix the bugs real people find, not just the ones QA finds.
2. Content that explains, not hypes. Short videos and posts in the languages your users speak. When I promoted Telegram projects, the content that worked best simply answered "what is this, how do I use it, what are the risks?"
3. KOL waves, timed with product moments. Not 50 influencers on day one. A few trusted voices at launch, more when a new feature or season drops. Every paid post is disclosed.
4. Community pushes and X Spaces. Live sessions where users can ask hard questions build more trust than any banner ad.
5. Weekly numbers you can trust. Active users, retention, referrals and conversions from your own data, not screenshots.

Realistic timelines

People always ask how long it takes. From the projects I scope:

• A Telegram bot or simple site: 1 to 3 weeks.
• A Telegram mini app or game: 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the game loop, payments and admin tools.
• Anything with an exchange, wallet or DeFi layer behind it: 2 to 4+ months.

You get a milestone plan before we start, so you always know what's done and what's next.

Mistakes I'd avoid

• Launching without anti-bot rules. You'll celebrate a user number that isn't real, and then pay rewards to farms.
• Promising a token price. Nobody honest can guarantee price, pumps or listings. I won't, and you shouldn't either.
• Ignoring support. Telegram users expect fast answers. Plan moderators and an FAQ bot.
• Treating launch as the finish line. The real work is the second month, when the novelty is gone and only your loop keeps people.

Why I care about this

I spend a lot of my day inside Telegram. The tap-to-earn wave brought millions of people into crypto for the first time, many of them through a game on their phone. Some had a great first experience. Many had a confusing one, and some lost money to copycats and scams.

I want to help build the kind of mini apps that make that first experience a good one: fast, honest, fun and safe.

If you're planning a Telegram mini app, game or bot on TON or EVM, here's what I offer on my Telegram mini apps page. You can also read my Telegram & TON ecosystem case study or book a call and tell me what you're building. You'll get an honest opinion, a written scope and a fixed quote, and you own the code at the end.

Saddam Malik is a crypto trader since 2011, an independent Web3 and AI agent developer, and a crypto KOL. Project names are trademarks of their owners and describe past collaborations. Nothing here is financial advice.

Originally published at saddammalik.com.