Nadja Bester, Co-founder of Engage of Earn investment platform AdLunam, Inc., joins the show today! Nadja has a career in tech, journalism, and travel all rolled into one. We talk about building a platform, why crypto and Web3 projects are important, and what tools founders can use to set themselves up for success.

Episode Resources:

https://adlunam.cc/

https://hackernoon.com/engaging-to-earn-with-adlunam-co-founder-nadja-bester

https://www.benzinga.com/fintech/22/05/27186631/women-leading-in-the-journey-toward-web3

https://metaverseinsider.tech/2022/04/28/an-interview-with-nadja-bester-the-ceo-of-adlunam-a-transformational-ido-launchpad/

Welcome to the meadow woman podcast. We address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey the

boss POS, the meta woman podcast starts

now. Hello, and welcome to the meta woman

podcast part of the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your

host, Lindsay the boss POS. And from struggle to success. We're

covering it all. To our returning listeners. Thank you

so much for supporting the show. And for all the new listeners

out there. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you'll join us again.

Today's guest is someone I'm really excited to introduce and

we spent a long time going over how exactly to pronounce her

name and her native language and I know that I'm still going to

butcher it but that's okay. We'll do our best. Nazia Bester

is the co founder of ad Luna and has an illustrious background as

a marketing executive, cmo agency, Director, journalist and

traveler. She's joining us today from Istanbul Turkey, which is a

place I've always wanted to visit my secret favorite, or my

secret, kind of number one travel dream is to go to the

balloon festival in Cappadocia, Turkey. So Nadia, if you've been

please tell me and welcome to the show, please introduce

yourself, give the audience a bit of your backstory. And tell

me if you've ever been to the hot air balloon festival and

capital Jaya.

Hey, Lindsey, very good to be on. Sorry, I

unfortunately, I haven't been I got to Turkey, just the summer

was starting. And so I tried to stay indoors as much as

possible. So I've only really explored the Istanbul in the

area surrounding it, but absolutely has to be on your

travelers. It's one of those cities that just blew me away. I

didn't know what to expect, but it superseded my expectations in

so many different ways. And as for the way that you pronounce

my name, I think it's very, very close to how I would say it. So

fantastic job. And then lastly, I'm actually no longer in

Istanbul, I am in Kosovo, in the Balkans in Europe. So very

interesting place for very different reasons. But a great

experience all

the same. You're living out my my travel bucket

list.

I mean, it's a difficult job, but someone has

to do it. So you will asking a little bit about me and my

background. Origin Stories are one of my favorite things as

well. Because I think there's so many different points of entry

into anything, you know, probably as many as they will

fingerprints in the world. So I would say if I have to really

kind of look over the journey that I've taken to get to where

I am today, a lot of it was quite serendipitous. So I got

started originally studied psychology started in

therapeutic field and went into marketing very much by chance,

my son, he's an unschoolers, or you know, he doesn't go through

traditional go through traditional schooling. And at

those in those days, there was this community spread out across

the world, people who practice alternative education, but we're

not connected, because the internet itself was you know,

really in its infancy in the sense that people didn't use the

internet the way they do today. And so I started learning how to

create websites. So I could create this community to connect

all of these different people in different geographic locations.

And, as a result, learned a lot about marketing. And before I

knew it, I was working in the industry and had started my own

agency. From that point on, you know, this sense of serendipity

really just continued. At some point, I was leading digital

marketing, and this was back in 2015. So digital was this

freshly minted adjective. I mean, today, we don't use the

word digital. It's all just marketing. So I was working for

the head office of a multibillion dollar pharma

company, which probably the least fun industry in the world

to full digital marketing. And, you know, after a few years of

constant international travel, high stress, I was supporting

over 60 different country offices. So work was 24 7365. I

woke up one day and I decided, Okay, that's it. I've had

enough. So I plan to hand in my resignation a few months down

the line. But on an almost daily basis, I woke up and I would

say, You know what, I'm going to decrease this period by one

month. And so they weren't that many months before. Long before

I knew it. I'd done it. My resignation was in and my son

and I he was 10. At the time we were on a plane to a tropical

island, and I had no plans Other than the intention that I would

stop working so damn much and just relax. Now, what I didn't

anticipate is your as a workaholic, I had no idea how to

relax. So I couldn't actually achieve this objective. I very

quickly got into environmental marketing consultancy. And I

worked on a range of different projects, including, funnily

enough the island that we had stayed on. But the seed I think

had been planted, that I really wanted my life to take a

different turn. Yeah, fast forward a few months, I was

sitting in a villa, right next to a rice paddy, central Vietnam

that we were renting at the time. And I was still in this

process of, you know, learning to take in the stillness of the

moment. But old habits die hard. And I was still at the same time

longing for what's next. And you know, what can I kind of what

can I kind of dig my teeth into sink my teeth into a funny story

in the sense that it really wasn't something I was planning.

But a friend tagged me in a post on Facebook in a group. And this

post was looking for journalists. So I had loved

being a journalist for my high school paper. And when I was a

teenager, I used to win, you know, many writing awards and

things. But I never seriously considered making a career. So

when I saw this person, you know, my name was there. And I

was like, Okay, this is a sign, I'm going to go for it. I'm

going to, you know, live this other life that I that I was

never going to choose for myself. Sorry, it wasn't at all,

I think a very serious thing. For me, it was like, Oh, this is

the next thing that's going to come up. And it's also I guess,

the way that I live my life in general. So this this job

opening was with a newly launched crypto publication. So

I very quickly became hit news editor, post that I went on to

write for other publications like investing.com bitcoin.com,

B and crypto, etc. And yeah, history tends to repeat itself.

Because before long, I found myself again, with a

communications agency that I had started, I worked as a CMR. And

you know, leading up from there, now, I'm the co founder of at

Luna. So yeah, roundabout way to get into the industry. But if I

look back, I really see kind of the trajectory and how it led me

there. That is

quite the origin story. And I love that it's all

tied up in travel and journalism and all kinds of other things.

Can you tell me how, as someone with less technical background,

how you've been able to fit in into kind of the crypto tech web

marketing world, and how you've been able to transition from

someone who may have done more, you know, writing and traveling

and kind of creative pursuits into a role that requires kind

of quite a bit of maybe technical knowledge, but not

technical application, or just what it's like, I myself and

also a non technical person, I do not have a software

engineering background by any means. So I'm always curious as

to how other people kind of handle that and the roles that

they wind up in,

I first encountered Bitcoin back in 2012, which is a

lifetime go. And I was at the time setting up a digital

marketing agency. So this was really early in this digital

slash Internet revolution, you know, in terms of mass adoption,

you know, so compared to the average person, at that time, I

felt that I was, let's say, not technically able, in terms of

skills, but I had a more technical understanding,

perhaps, of, you know, something as simple as HTML. When I

encountered Bitcoin, it seemed like absolute rocket science,

not only the technology, and of course, the technology really

appeared to be central to understanding anything about it.

But in general, it was just so above my mental paygrade, that I

told myself really, that I would revisit this whole concept, you

know, if it became bigger, and had become idiot proof, fast

forward to 2017, it reappeared on my radar. And this is with,

you know, this opportunity that I got as a journalist that

technology had, like, already expanded into this newly born

business sector. So there was this whole array of professional

services that go with it for me, because my entry point came

through journalism. I had the opportunity on a daily basis to

school myself about all these various aspects. So I quickly

became, let's say, a Joel of all awareness, not necessarily of

trades, but I had this bird's eye perspective of the industry

as a whole. So it was easier for me, I think, to grasp that I

didn't have to know everything. And in fact, no one And does,

because I think there's this belief in not only crypto but in

general, when it's a technical industry that you have to

understand things inside and out. And while of course, that's

a huge strength, it's really not necessarily and not not

necessary, not required. So in the web three space or in

crypto, I mean, I don't have to train as a solidity developer in

order to legitimately create a valuable place for myself. So I

would say, you know, for me, personally, if I look over my

own journey, I had already had a career as an agency director,

you know, marketing, executive consultant, and all of those

things found their place in krypter. So I was back to

business as usual before long, but just you know, in a

different industry. The difference was that in this new

industry, they were possibilities to rise up to

almost I don't want to say break through the, the glass ceiling,

because for sure, there is a glass ceiling everywhere. But

the glass ceiling in this industry probably is higher than

it is in others. And so I've never really felt personally

speaking, that my lack of technical expertise has held me

back because there are so many other aspects to being in this

industry that doesn't require technical knowledge. I mean, if

I look, for example, to add Luna, we are three co founders,

Jason Fernandez and I, we used to work on a different project

together a couple years ago, and we stayed friends. And then

Lawrence Hudson, who is also our CTO, he joined us shortly as

well. And between the three of us, I think we bring to the

table, so many different, like a huge, wide variety of

experiences and skill sets, many of which probably most of which

we acquired before coming into this industry, the reality is

that I am by far the least technical between the three of

us, while at the same time, the value that I add to the company

is instrumental to its existence. So I think you know,

that's really important is owning who you are. And not

everyone is technical, and we don't all have to be technical.

So own who you are. And at the same time, you know, stay fluid

and flexible, because you still want to grow into whatever it is

that you wish to be. But not feeling like what you are now is

inadequate, because you'll only be good enough, if you have,

let's say technical skills,

that makes total sense to me. And again, as

someone who is non technical, I very much appreciate that

answer. This is a question. I've kind of asked folks in the

gaming industry. But can Are there any gaps that you

currently see in the web three industry, we'll get more into

what aluminum is and what it does. But you've been working in

web three and working in crypto, and there is a dearth of, of

creative and bright software engineers and electrical

engineers, computer engineers who are working on these massive

projects, right. But is there a gap in in these non technical

positions that you're seeing? Like, are you seeing companies

that have a brilliant product with very poor marketing or a

brilliant product that they can't bring to launch? Because

there's bad project management or not even bad, but you get

what I'm saying? Basically, are there any kind of overall gaps

that maybe people who are non technical looking to get into

crypto should think about learning the skills for or

bolstering their skills for to actually enter the industry?

Yeah, that's a really fantastic question. And I think

it's such an important question, because you look to this

industry as it has everything it needs. Its you know, like the

cool kid in class who you might sit there at the boring desk,

but listening to the boring teacher and the boring

classroom. But you know, that this kid, as soon as they leave

school, their life is just going to be Technicolor. Where's

yours? I don't know, whatever the opposite is. So on the

surface, it seems like crypto has everything that it needs.

And it's, you know, like speeding through space at rocket

speed. But in reality, what is needed are the non technical

skills. And this, I would say is probably one of the things that

hinders progress, in terms of building sustainable companies,

what hinders it the most, because, you know, in any

startup in any industry, you have different people playing

different roles. You have founders who bring the vision

and the strategy, and you have different departments and

different employees who execute on that vision and that

strategy. A startup is like a well oiled machine. And it's,

it's a bit of a catch 22 Because in business in general, and

especially in this space that seem to move at triple the speed

as other industries. It's very difficult when There are dynamic

processes at play, macro and micro economic and political

environments that are out of your control. So it's very

difficult in general, to run a business as a well oiled

machine, when there's so many things that can go wrong, it

almost makes me think of, you know, if you look at the rate of

car accidents that people across the world are involved in, on an

annual basis, it's amazing that we are still getting into moving

vehicles. So in the same sense, as a business, we know the

statistics, we know that the likelihood that any business is

going to succeed is really very slim. Now in crypto, the

lifecycle, unfortunately, is very often so short, in the

sense that the company gets an idea raises funds, maybe build

the product, maybe not. And before long, you'll never hear

from them again. Now, in some ways, that is definitely because

they are, you know, people with ill intent in this industry. And

they use these opportunities as ways to hit and run, make as

much cash as I can in the shortest amount of time and then

disappear, you know, into oblivion. But I think in most

cases, and I speak really from experience, having consulted

with, I don't know, hundreds of companies over my career, most

times, this is really more from a place of not knowing how to

run a business. And so if you look at the roles that are

needed, in order to make a business successful, this

doesn't require technical expertise only right, I can have

a fantastic product. But if I don't know how to sell, and I

don't know how to project manage, and I don't know, I

don't know how to run the office, or my HR isn't good,

then that great product is going to mean nothing. So ultimately,

I would say that, you know, not even a concept of what are the

gaps. But to think about crypto as being any different than any

other industry where it takes, you know, this whole concept or

concept of it takes a village to raise a child. But in crypto in

web three, in general, it takes an entire world to build an

industry. And I genuinely believe that a there is space

for everybody, no matter what your skill set is, of course,

upgrade as much as possible, so that you continue to skill up to

make yourself valuable, but everyone has value because there

are there's so much that needs to be done. And second, you

know, the industry as a whole, which is really, really new.

It's only being built out by the contributions of people who are

in this industry. So if you are not a crypto native, and you are

coming into the space, you don't have technical skills, but for

example, you have fantastic project management skills, you

are going to translate a vision into an actual process that is

going to be executable and is going to be you know, manageable

and accountable. And so completely, this should not be

disregarded. No matter what it is that you bring to the table,

it is going to be not only valuable, but extremely

appreciated. I mean, I have worked with so many different

companies in the space where the technical skills are not only

there, I mean, it's impressive, like you speak to, you know,

some of these founders, and it's like, Oh, my God, it's, it's

like technical poetry listening to them, you might not

understand exactly what they mean. But I mean, they really

talk the talk. But then the simplest of things in terms of

management and execution is absent. And this is really where

those technical folks come in, because the foundation needs to

be there. So we can but we cannot build without foundation,

because then it becomes you know, like castles in the sky.

And unfortunately, this very often is what happens with the

best of intentions. But there is zero reason to discount oneself

because you are not technical because in some ways, you know,

you might not be technical and you might not feel that you have

the same level of value. But I promise you to a technical

person who doesn't have the skills that you do what you

offer is incredibly valuable. So I think that really is the

number one thing to keep in mind is there is space for everyone.

I love the term technical poetry. I'm taking

note of that because I think that's a very succinct way of

describing a lot of what we hear from from people who are

actually on that design backing back end engineering portion.

very succinct way of describing it and Now that we've kind of

talked about the industry itself, I want to learn more

about aluminum. And I want to start with ideas and just walk

through what an ideal is why web three companies should engage in

the ideal process and what ad loon him kind of offers as a

launchpad. So we've talked all about what it's like to be in

crypto and web three. So now tell me what you actually what

you're actually working on the company, you've founded what it

does,

so I'm going to stay true to the spirit of saying

that you don't have to be technical to get in to the

industry and say, as a disclaimer, you know, there's a

lot of terminology and that terminology is intimidating. So

I'm going to try and answer this question in as much of a plain

speak way as possible without referring, you know, almost

leaning in to these different acronyms that, you know, people

might or might not understand or have heard or might not have.

But

I love that just as an aside, it's like the

explain it like I'm five method.

Exactly. And I mean, that's the way that people that

people, even myself, I mean, I would love for, okay, maybe I

don't like mansplaining, so much, so maybe I wouldn't want

everyone to explain it to me, like on five. But I mean, in

general, if, you know, it's this whole idea that if you cannot

explain it to a five year old, then maybe you don't understand

it yourself. And on the flip side, if you can understand it,

like a five year old, it would become easier to understand it,

you know, from you, as you go higher up, let's say knowledge

hierarchy, in simple terms, when a startup raises funds, now, in

web three, this would be a startup that's launching a new

token, they are different funding rocks, starting with

seed, and private. And potentially this is now in the

traditional space, potentially culminating in a in a public

sale. So in traditional finance, you know, public sale, of

course, means the company is going public, there is an IPO

and they are going to be listed on a stock exchange. In crypto,

it's a little bit different. A public sale is almost a given

and post that public sale, this is now what's referred to as an

IPO, or an initial Dex offering, but really, you know, don't

worry too much about what the term means at this point. So

after this public sale, the token gets listed either on a

centralized exchange on a decentralized exchange or both.

And this, of course, allows you to buy the token, sell it or

utilize it on whatever platform that it is native to

historically, before it was called an IPO. It was an Ico so

that was an initial coin Offering projects would raise

huge amounts, specifically from the public. Yeah, that left a

lot of room for a lot of scams, because it was very easy to get

a retail investors to invest into your project, especially if

you know the amount that they invested didn't have to be that

much. But at scale, you had like all of these people ultimately

giving you millions. And it was really easy to just kind of run

away, which is what a lot of projects did. But so things have

evolved in the sense since of course, so nowadays, I think the

public sell is more likely to be the smallest funding round, you

can think of something as little as $400,000, as opposed to the

235 million that it was in the in the earlier days. What this

means the indication for retail investors is now the opportunity

to invest in an IVR is much smaller than it was before. So

competition, of course is fierce to the extent and I always find

this so funny. But at the same time, it's really indicative of

this industry as a whole. People become influencers really on

YouTube and Twitter, simply so that they can be guaranteed

allocation. So and maybe just to add here, so allocation stands

for the ability and the amount that you are able to invest in a

fundraising round. In light of all of this a launch pad. This

is now what aluminum is as well. The word launch pad, I would say

is crypto speak for an investment platform. So launch

pads perform many of the same services as a venture capitalist

firm, including doing due diligence on projects before

they are listed for public or private sales. So the difference

between a VC and a launchpad is a launchpad connects projects

with retail investors and it's the retail investors that invest

in this project as opposed to launch pads can also invest from

you know from their position as a launch pad, but their job is

to connect projects to retail investors. So because of this

come competitive, highly competitive nature of IPOs.

Because the amount raised is smaller than the amount of

people wanting to invest in this fundraising rounds. launchpads

use a few different mechanisms to distribute allocation. So one

is guaranteed allocation via staking. Staking refers to

locking your LaunchPad tokens, so you can't use them during

that time that they are locked. And some of the most popular

launch pads guaranteed allocation via staking can be

priced as high as $25,000. Or even more. So it's really not

very accessible to the average retail investor who simply

doesn't have 25k lying around. Now, the alternative is

mechanisms like lotteries, and auctions. So these as opposed to

the guaranteed allocation, these rely purely on the randomness

factor. And they are often touted as a fair distribution

model. But in truth, I mean, neither project nor retail

investor benefits truly benefits from this arrangement, if you

are familiar with pumping dumps. So this is where an investor,

this is when an investor will really hype up token, only when

the price goes really high at the public, you know, during the

public round and beyond, they will sell off the tokens as soon

as they can to make a profit. So they will dump the tokens back

on on the open market. And of course, for the project, this is

going to be devastating. And on the other hand, you have retail

investors who are truly valuable to a project's long term growth,

but there's no way of identifying who these people are

and ensuring that okay, you can actually reward them

specifically. So this is really the idea the core behind it,

Luna, we wanted to democratize crypto investment. This is the

objective that we set ourselves, you know, and for us, I mean,

all three of us are founders, we've been in the industry for

years, we've seen many things, some of which were great, some

of which were, you know, things we'd rather forget. And so for

us who and we are very committed to being in this industry long

term. So I think this is what happens is you come into the

industry, and you know, you're blinded by all the bright shiny

objects and, or the hype and the opportunities, and there's so

much happening, and it's so amazing. And the ethos, I mean,

you know, this idea that radical freedom and empowerment for all

people, and it's just all wonderful utopia. But then at

some point, you realize, okay, the reality is actually very

different. It is an industry, like any other industry, and

you, you know, you bring people to a new industry, but they come

with their own legacy ideas and legacy behaviors and beliefs. So

really, what we wanted to do is we wanted to democratize krypter

investments specifically. And how we've done that is we

created a model a business model called engaged to earn, I'll go

a little bit in a while into exactly what that is, but

important that it's powered by an allocation mechanism called

Proof of attention. Now, this is very, very significant. And this

is definitely what I'll go into in a little bit more detail. You

know, in general, our model is designed to make crypto

investments accessible to all income levels, because you have

the situation of Wales kind of coming in and gobbling up all of

the available allocation opportunities. And people have

to pay these really high sort of staking fees and or you know,

the staking in order to do ensure allocation. And for the

average person who doesn't have a lot of money to invest in the

first place. It's almost as though the door is being shut in

your face and you are being left in the dark. And in the cold,

like the legacy financial industry also does. So the whole

idea behind crypto I mean, at least the philosophical idea

behind it is to democratize access to finance and, you know,

a step further access to investment but the reality is

that they still this lack of access, that's being perpetuated

because we are bringing these legacy thinking patterns into

this new industry. So, you know, in a nutshell, that's really the

value driven aspect of aluminum is to make sure that everyone

has equal access to crypto investment.

That was a really great summary and you've led me

perfectly into some of my next questions which mostly have to

deal with some of the issues that we are seeing. So I

definitely first want to get into the proof of attention

model and kind of How you are able to protect customers from

crypto scams? I do feel like there's a little bit of a, I

don't I don't know exactly what the word is, but there's

definitely an imbalance, at least in the news cycle of good

crypto projects versus bad crypto projects. And the bad

ones are just getting all the news. So I asked this question

with the caveat that I, I and you and hopefully our audience

all know that there's tons of really, really cool stuff

happening in crypto that is totally worth investing in. But

that unfortunately, people with very bad intentions often get a

lot of money as well. And we're still a little bit in that wild

west phase. So what are you doing? And how does the proof of

attention model work to protect customers from or retail

investors, I should say, from some of the less savory projects

that are happening.

So I am very excited to hear you talk about all the

problems in crypto because I can go on at length about this

topic. But to first answer your question about proof of

attention. And I think even more specifically, to begin with the

responsibility and the onus that rests on the shoulders of a

launchpad in order to protect investors, I have this analogy

that I used when I did an interview with hacker noon,

about the mangrove, you know, the estuary, where before a

project is ready to go out into the open sea, the big wide

ocean, where there's sharks and weird fish with, you know, scary

teeth, and all of those things that's out there to ready

yourself in, you know, this sort of nursery environment, which is

what a mangrove is in, in ecology. And I see the role of a

launchpad as really being that nanny in the nursery. So

projects have a lot on their shoulders, there's so much

happening in terms of setting up a new company, and building

product and building community and launching and running this

thing, and, you know, weathering all the storms that come with

it. So the role of a launchpad for a project is really to offer

a lot of support that is genuinely helpful.

Unfortunately, because of the nature of, well, again, humanity

launchpads have become a dime a dozen. And a lot of times, the

only role really is to conduct the sale, but there's no further

support. And, you know, they even require, for instance, that

a new project that has no community come with a very large

significantly numbered community, otherwise they will

not accept them. So this you can imagine perpetuates this trend

that we have of building vanity numbers on social media without

any substance behind them. I would say that for projects, you

know, a launchpad has a very, almost a sacred responsibility

to support these founders in making their vision a reality.

But even more so in terms of investors, retail investors, you

know, I speak to a lot of people, people who are in crypto

people who are not in crypto people who have dabbled in it.

And it's ironic, it doesn't matter which group it is, it

could be any one of those three, even people who work in crypto,

one of the top things that I hear over and over again, is

man, this is all so much to take in. So you know, there's so much

information out there, you don't know where to turn, you don't

know who to turn to you don't know who to trust. And so if you

put yourself in the shoes of a retail investor, you are parting

with hard earned money. And you really want to make sure that

this company that you invest in a is not a scam and of course be

you know, you can't guarantee the kind of gains you'll make

but you don't want to invest in let's say a losing project but

particularly in terms of scams. We've seen over the years, on

the one hand, how sophisticated scams can be but on the other

hand, how easy it actually is to spot them due diligence is

something that is so incredibly important. But if you look at

the type of scams that have taken place and how they fooled

even some of the top VCs, you know I sometimes cannot believe

that these things take place but at the same time I know that the

cycle is so fast moving maybe not now in the crypto winter but

in general you know this it's a it's a case of you snooze, you

lose. So if you get an opportunity you know the

dopamine sets in and you have to say now, yes or you have to

snooze and lose and you know, bad luck to you. So the

responsibility of a launchpad then to retail investors is to

really make sure that there's due diligence that takes place

is done well, diligently, because retail investors don't

have the time capacity, and sometimes the technical

expertise in terms of what to look for how to make sure that

something is really legit, versus it only seems legit. So,

you know, just to answer your question in terms of what role a

launch pad can play, to safeguard investors. But so

specifically in terms of the proof of attention model that we

have. So other launch pads, take this pop up store approach, the

community comes together for a specific idea or the specific

public sale, and then they disband again, until the next

time when you know, there's another sale. So we, on the

other hand, really believe that a community should be

permanently engaged. But this comes with a caveat because

first of all, why does a community have to be engaged on

a permanent basis, it demonstrates to projects that

investors have a certain value that's not just monetary,

because money in crypto is really easy to come by. So

there's always someone who you know, willing to give you and

not just willing, but there's always some someone begging you

to take their money, in fact, so money is not the issue. But what

other what other value can an investor bring to a project. So

when you are engaged, and when this kind of engagement that you

are engaged in is demonstratable and visible to a project, they

are much more likely to want you to invest in them. The funny

thing about all of this, the ironic thing is that investors

are already engaging on a daily basis, or on a weekly basis,

because as I said, it's a lot to make sense of, and people need

to stay up to date with what's happening. They need to, you

know, wrap their head around all these different things that are

happening, all the different concepts, technologies, new

companies, updates, developments. So they are

already taking these daily engagement actions, but on a web

to platform, whether it's Twitter, or Reddit, I don't know

discord, Telegram, etc. What we have done with the proof of

attention allocation mechanism is we've really gone the

gamified approach way. So there are regular interactions on our

platform, that will give you points, badges ranks, so the

engagement that you put in and that you've already been putting

in because this is what's needed, if you want to, you

know, stay abreast with whatever's happening, these

actions, these engagements lead to some kind of reward. And so

what this reward is beyond the points and the badges and the

ranks, etc, you have a dynamic investor profile. And this is

powered by dynamic NFT. So the technology really is dynamic.

And this acts almost as your passport across the whole Atlona

ecosystem. So what does passport control mean in the sense, so

when a project wants to list, whether it's the public sale, or

whether it's the private sale on at Luna, they have access to our

leaderboards, the data analytics that we gather all of these

things, the analytics, we have the leaderboards, it all

demonstrates, which investors are the most actively engaged,

what a project can then do is they can look at these active

investors. And instead of using these lotteries, or auctions as

a distribution mechanism, instead, they can specifically

offer their location to investors of their choice. Now,

this is significant because this happens in the private round. If

an institutional investor wants to invest in you, you know,

maybe this is not so typical in other industries. But in crypto,

there are more VCs wanting to invest than there are projects

offering investment. So a project can very, very easily

and does say no to certain VCs, because they don't feel like

this VC is going to add as much value. There's even been

projects where they've raised funds from VCs, VCs made certain

promises. And when they didn't deliver on these promises, these

projects would pay back their money they would refund them. So

value driven contributions are extremely important. But this

has not happened at the retail level, which is why at Unum is

really focused on instead of everything being random. We

believe that due diligence on one end should be extended to

the retail investor. But on the other hand, that investors

should be rewarded for the actions that they take. You

know, I find it so funny that especially in the web three

space, we always hear the beause that community is everything,

you know, community is all there is. And without community, we

have nothing. But if you look at the type of engagement that is

happening, even in web three, it's so one sided, and there's

no recognition. So we are still, you know, fostering that whip to

era mentality where the community needs to give to the

business to the company to the project, by showing up by giving

them attention. And as a result, well, what do they get back?

Nothing, they just part of the community and the community is

so important. So I think in this attention economy that we live,

in, which I mean, we all know, it's incredibly demanding. Yeah,

as a company, you cannot afford to take people's attention for

granted. Because if you do, it's the same as a relationship, they

will get sick of it, and they will go elsewhere to where they

are appreciated. So you're in a nutshell, and maybe that was not

such a small nutshell, this is what proof of attention is all

about.

I'm so sad that we're actually at the end of

this interview. Because this has been so fascinating for me to

learn. Kind of glad that we started off by talking about you

and your history, because we got into such a discussion on how

algorithm works. And kind of the methods behind it that I want to

I'm glad I got to know you first before we jumped into that,

because I can ask a bunch of questions and more about this.

I'm just going to quickly summarize our discussion. And

then we'll move into the very last section of the podcast. So

we started off by talking about you and talking about the

differences between technical and non technical backgrounds.

And what folks with non technical backgrounds can do.

This is very near and dear to my heart. Because I am also a non

technical person, I think one of the great pieces of advice that

you gave is that it is important to have an understanding of kind

of what you're getting into and, and what projects you're working

on. But you don't need to have an in depth knowledge of exactly

all the ins and outs of the crypto space. If you can talk

about it, if you can understand how the pieces work and how they

fit together, you don't necessarily need to understand

each individual piece to its absolute depths. There are so

many things that need to be addressed by a variety of skill

sets and knowledge that just kind of generally understanding

what's going on. It is enough, if you can't list the entire

technical stack. One other thing that you said was the thing

about crypto as the same as other industries, you need the

business infrastructure to build the industry, you need people

who are going to build run interact with the entire

industry, you don't need to understand technical poetry you

need to offer what you can offer, I wanted to bring that

technical poetry bit back in. We talked a lot about aluminum and

how it works. We talked about the evolution from coin

offerings, which got a lot of attention three or four years

ago and not usually not good attention. So that used to kind

of be the way that the that crypto companies or projects

would raise money from the public, there has been an

evolution in this funding process. Public sales are

perhaps the smallest portion of funding routes with things like

private investors, or self investment or other things

taking over. Thank you specifically mentioned private

investment being big there. That means that retail opportunity,

retail investors have fewer opportunities to invest in new

projects. They're all kind of competing for the same projects.

And they're often competing with people who have much deeper

pockets. So launchpads, what they do is serve as investment

platforms. They provide similar services as VC firms, but

instead connect retail investors to projects. And the goal that

you have at aluminum is to make crypto investment available to

all income levels, then we kind of got into discussion of some

of the issues on crypto. Again, I'm glad that we started talking

about you because I could keep going I think for another two

hours on this. And I think you could as well. And but we talked

to what we ended on when we talked about a lot in the past

20 or so minutes was the importance of engagement and of

protecting users on the platform. So the one way of

doing that is to build trust between people who are

interested in investing and those who are creating projects.

So to encourage this, what I've learned them does is build a

community based platform that rewards engagement. So as

investors discuss and analyze projects, they earn rewards for

their contributions for their input on those projects. When

companies then list they can choose to look at the

leaderboard and see who is engaged with their work and give

that investor the chance to invest rather than using a

lottery model, which as you said before, given that the pool for

retail investors is ever shrinking that lottery, you

stand to win fewer and fewer opportunities through the

lottery model because there's more and more competition for

fewer and fewer projects. So what this does when you are

actually rewarding engagement is it allows people to find

projects that they're passionate about and allows people who are

running those projects to connect with people who are

passionate about seeing them succeed. So it's kind of this

symbiotic relationship between Investors and people who are

actually building the project, it can be a little bit more

successful than finding VCs who are just anxious to throw their

money into crypto may not have as much incentive to actually

stay on or help build or help guide the project. So I think I

covered a lot of what we talked about, I wish that we had two

more hours to keep going. What I like to end on each podcast is

what I call a moment of reflection. And this is just a

chance for you to kind of look back on all the things that

you've done. And we've talked about some of them, I'm sure

there's many more. But I would love to ask you what is one

thing you would like to tell your younger self about getting

into the crypto and web three space and being successful?

First of all, I just want to compliment you. In our

in the therapeutic field, there's this concept of active

listening. But I think you have demonstrated today what active

interviewing is, because that was an incredible summary. And

I'm almost grateful that I didn't answer any of these

questions before we spoke, because I think there would have

been no need for this episode, if you had only summarized it.

That was an incredible summary, life is always so much easier in

the rearview mirror. I would say that, you know, because I wasn't

that young. When I got into the space, I definitely feel like

I've done a better job of things here than I did earlier in my

career. But of course, there are certain choices I wish I hadn't

made. It did teach me a lot. But you know, it's an icky feeling,

knowing that inadvertently, I have contributed to, for

example, scammy projects who take advantage of people in the

industry. So on the one hand, you know, I would say to my

younger self to better vet people and projects that I work

with not worry about passing up opportunities that doesn't sit

well with me, even if I can't express myself why that is I

think doing business or building a career. It's always a question

of aligning yourself with others who share the same values. And

in this sense, shared values means don't be a crook. So if

you fail to be intentional about your values, I think you

inevitably open yourself up to getting involved with you know,

all sorts of people. But the point here is that this happens

to the best of us. As I said, Life is always easier. In

hindsight is 2020. If you look back, you can see, okay, this is

you know, where I got where I went wrong and what I should

have done. So, really, I'm going to cheat a little bit here and

not make that my my number one advice to myself. I think I want

to just very briefly get back into this discussion we had

earlier about, you know, really the imposter syndrome, I guess

about entering a space and feeling like you have no

business being there. Because you don't know as much or you're

not as technical or as as much an expert at something as other

people. If I had advice for my younger self, it brings to mind

this idea or that this chord really that I think Eleanor

Roosevelt said, but no one can make you feel inferior without

your consent. And of course, this is easier said than done.

Because a if you are non technical or be I mean let's

face it, if you're a woman, we are notorious for undervaluing

underselling ourselves, it is difficult to, you know, kind of

believe in yourself. And yes, we can whip out all of these

cliches like fake it till you make it acting as if but in the

end, you get what you think you deserve. And so really, you can

have everything but if you don't believe in your own value and

your own worth, then the best opportunities will come and go,

and you won't be able to hold on to them. Because you cannot

reconcile what you have with what you believe you're

deserving of. So really, if I have a piece of advice for my

younger self, it would be that everything happens in our own

heads. So beauty is created in the head problems are created.

They're not to discount the actual legitimate systemic

problems on the outside. But there's so much that we are able

to do simply when we have our own internal business, let's say

straightened out. So you know, this inner work that you do as

you come into an industry or as you build up your repertoire in

an industry, like that's that core inside of yourself that you

strengthen this thing doesn't matter if it's if you're

technical or non technical. It really is all about learning to

own whatever inherent worth you have. And I mean every person,

every single person has something to offer. It really is

just about understanding what is the particular niche that you

fit into. And as a young person, I think I always wanted to get

to the finishing line of oh, I needed to find that answer of

what is my place in the world. And I needed to do it really

quickly. If I have any piece of advice, it's there. You know,

this will happen in due time. In the meantime, keep an open mind,

listen to your intuition, look out for opportunities, you know,

take it one day at a time, take it as it comes, because all will

fall into place. I just have to take the right next step.

I liked that because you kind of started off,

we started off with that discussion. And you had said

everyone has something to offer. So I think circling back on that

is is a perfect way to end. So I would like to compliment you on

your ability to keep a thread through a whole conversation. I

think that's great. Nadia, thank you so much for coming on. Where

can people find you follow you if you want to be found and

followed?

Yeah, that's definitely the question of the hour. I'm

not a big social media person anymore. But for sure, the best

would be on LinkedIn or Twitter. I also host a weekly podcast on

the future of NF. TS, just live on Twitter spaces every Tuesday,

or you can catch it on a podcast platform after the fact. And if

you are interested in working in web three, I would also watch

out for a YouTube series from add Luna that I'll be hosting,

which deep dives into, you know translating the ins and outs of

building a startup that's specific to web three. So in

that sense, definitely follow at LUNA also on Twitter or@luna.cc.

And yeah, Lindsay just absolutely want to compliment

you. It's like a ping pong ball going around now. But this has

been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. I want to mimic

your sentiment that I wish we had two hours, although it feels

like we would spend a lot of that time sort of critiquing

what is going on. But those conversations I believe, are

really important in order to highlight what's problematic. So

we can also talk about what the solutions are and how to build

them together. But in general, absolutely. Enjoyed this time

with you so much. Yeah, it's been a pleasure.

Yes, I totally agree. I also I was just able to

find you on Twitter. So for all the followers out there, it's

Nadia and a DJ A and then Buster, which is exactly how it

sounds. For all the listeners, be sure to leave those five star

ratings and reviews. I do see them and it makes me happy every

time. Check out other holodeck media podcasts, including meta

business for all the finance stories you could ever want in

business of esports. I'm on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn

and Lindsey poss. You can catch me Wednesday afternoons on the

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