S4E13 – Alexandra Nicorici – What is Web 3.0 and why does it matter?

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Key Timecodes

• (01:02) – Show intro and background history
• (04:45) – Deeper into her business model
• (07:15) – Understanding her business strategies
• (09:57) – How she helped a startup to raise 1 Million in 2.5 hours
• (17:17) – What is the difference between WEB2.0 and WEB3.0
• (20:25) – How businesses are using AI to run more efficiently
• (30:11) – Will AI take away our jobs?
• (38:21) – What is the worst advice she ever received
• (39:01) – What is the best advice she ever received
• (40:23) – Guest contacts

Transcription

[00:00:00.000] – Intro

Hey. This is Sean Tepper, the host of Payback Time, an approachable and transparent podcast in building businesses, increasing wealth, and achieving financial freedom. I’d like to bring on guests to hear authentic stories while giving you actionable takeaways you can use today. Let’s go.

[00:00:18.100] – Sean

There are a lot of businesses out there that’ll use Web 3.0 lingo such as blockchain, crypto, AI, and they’ll use it more as a marketing play, not really as a solution that solves problems for customers like you and I. So my next guest is a consultant. She’s actually a tech consultant that helps businesses integrate Web 3.0 solutions in practical ways that actually solve problems. In this episode, she gives us a little background of some of the customers she worked with. In fact, she tells a story on how she helped the business raise a million dollars in about 2.5 hours. That’s a fun story. And then we talk about how businesses can correctly use Web 3.0 to actually grow their business. So if you want to learn more about Web 3.0, this is a good one. Please welcome Alexandra Nicorici. Alexandra, welcome to the show.

[00:01:04.030] – Alexandra

Thank you so much for having me.Hi.

[00:01:05.790] – Sean

Yes, good to have you here. So why don’t you kick us off and tell us about your background?

[00:01:10.450] – Alexandra

So I’m Alex. I have been working for the last 12 years for early-stage tech start-ups from all around the world, most times being the only hire in the marketing team, let’s say. So I work very closely with CEOs and very small teams to take startups off the ground. Some of the things that I was most proud of, let’s say, and I really like to bring this on, is that I helped a marketplace to become number one on their niche. They were listing co-working spaces and they became number one in less than 12 months, which was quite an achievement for us with zero marketing. So that was quite an interesting story. And one of the other things that I’m very proud of was helping a startup from Romania to fundraise one million euros in two and a half hours. That’s also another story for another day. And about two and a half years ago, I got into Web3, totally by mistake. I was coming from a really bad burnout. A year and a half with this startup that we fundraise that I was just telling you about. And I got COVID. I was so happy that I don’t have to see anybody for a couple of weeks.

[00:02:27.970] – Alexandra

And there were some friends of some friends that were trying to get me to work for the startup of theirs, and I told them, Hey, guys, I would love to help you, but I know nothing about Web3. And then they said, Look, we know you’ve done really big events before. Help us out with some mini hackathons with some developers. It’s not really Web3. It’s something that you know, ready to do. And I said, Yeah, okay, maybe I’ll work part-time. And then I ended up working full-time. And then I think a month and a half in, they told me like, Hey, we’re moving the entire team to Barcelona. Do you want to come? It wasn’t actually a choice. I had to go. But I’ve been wanting to go there for a very long time, so I said, Okay, let’s do it. And then they sent me to Avalon Summit last year, who was that, which was happening in Barcelona. I think that was actually the moment for me which really opened my mind and towards what else is out there in Web3. I think the rest is history. I think Web3 is right now a rabbit hole for me.

[00:03:30.150] – Alexandra

The digger I dig, the more I find, it’s a never ending story. There’s so much to learn. It’s so fascinating. A lot of people actually ask, Nekh, why do you like Web3? Well, I like it because it’s so new and it’s so innovating, and I think that’s something that’s a bit unpredictable, which I think it’s something I really like, let’s say, especially as a marketer. I got into some Web3 women communities. Cefi is one of them, an amazing educational platform for women in Web3 and non-binary folks. And then last year in November to show that I have more skin in the game, I launched my own podcast, Out of Ordinary, a Web3 marketing podcast. I tried to bring forward marketers and founders to talk about how they build in Web3. The thing is that right now we’re in a bear market, so conditions are a bit not very – Volatile. -in our favor, let’s say. At the same time, there are a lot of companies that I speak to and I can see a lot of growth. Everybody is growing steadily and I can see everybody’s preparing for what’s up to come. This gets me very excited.

[00:04:44.110] – Alexandra

Yes.

[00:04:45.760] – Sean

We’re going to talk about Web3 here in a second. I didn’t know this about you, but some of these highlights here I do want to touch on. You said you want to talk about those on another day. I’m like, like, we’re going to talk about those today. The first one was you helped a marketplace marketplace go number one. Can you tell us what is the company and what is the the ranking? Seems number one, in Search engines or number one in the country? Maybe give us a little context on that.

[00:05:11.720] – Alexandra

The company is called coworker. Com. I actually ended up there because I know we’re going to talk about anything like like and maybe a lot of founders are listening to that. The way I got hired there, it’s a pretty funny story. I used to live in Malaysia for two years, and one of my ex-colleagues was a founder of this company. She told me, I don’t need your CV. I’ve already worked with you. I know who you are. Can you do this personality test? I did a personality test. She’s like, You’re hired. So that was it. And basically one of the things that they did very well is that they didn’t spend any money on marketing. The only thing they did very well was that they invested in SEO because they were trying to rank to be number one results on Google. When you were looking, for example, for working space space in or LA, or New York, or stuff like this. This. And we would get a lot of of spaces on the platform that would get qualified leads because it was no advertising, so everybody would just get there from Google. You know exactly that there were people that were looking specifically for a co-working space.

[00:06:17.980] – Alexandra

They wouldn’t have just ended up there by mistake. Mistake. So they became a leading platform worldwide. They had over 12,000 co-working spaces out of 14,000 that were existing worldwide. That’s the numbers that I’m comparing it to, or why I’m saying it was number one.

[00:06:38.380] – Sean

So it became number one in Search engines?

[00:06:40.740] – Alexandra

Yes. And they were the platform that was listing the most co-working spaces in the world, and they were attracting the most or the biggest number of people looking for a co-working space. So it was a marketplace. It was like a B2C somehow. They were definitely getting qualified leads from both sides and trying to make a match, basically, between the two parties.

[00:07:05.840] – Sean

And did you help with the SEO strategy, or was there another marketing strategy you helped with?

[00:07:12.070] – Alexandra

I helped with biz dev and partnerships. I was onboarding big chains and smaller co-working spaces. I was acting as an account manager. And one of the things that I really liked about that team was that even if we were all working remotely, I I in six countries from Canada to Thailand, so quite around the world. But every time there was an opening or every time there was a place where they couldn’t cover within the role that they had, they would ask me or somebody else from the team like, Hey, would you like to take on this? I know you’re interested in SEO, for example. We were working with a a third agency that was also doing a lot of technical SEO and so on. That was something a bit more more hands on that needed to be done. But the strategy was simple, like rank as number one, as much as possible for as many cities as possible, especially the tire ones.

[00:08:12.680] – Sean

Got you. What really moved the needle in that business, was it the partnerships more with other other or was it more the SEO?

[00:08:21.780] – Alexandra

That’s a very chicken and the egg question, especially in a foreign marketplace. But to be totally honest with with you, think if I were to rank, I think having more co-working spaces on the platform in as many cities as possible drew the people that wanted to book a space.

[00:08:42.520] – Sean

Got you. I know with a lot of marketing strategies out there, especially new new get get Right away they think about, about, so I got to be doing advertising on Google or YouTube or even Facebook. I tell a lot of of startup, spend money. There There are creative ways you can bring in leads. And sure, SEO is a play. I always found SEO from my my perspective. The long play. It’s good to put it in place, but you’re not going to really see the results for two, three years. That’s based on my experience. But the partnerships, like connecting with other people, other businesses, that I found is the most creative way and can be the fastest way to bring leads into a business.

[00:09:25.370] – Alexandra

For sure. And I think I haven’t really done much Web2 stuff, let’s say, in two two years. From what I remember, I think this partnership side, I think it’s totally underutilized. You can see with really big brands, but smaller companies, they don’t do it as often as they should. Whereas in in a you really see that flourishing, which is very exciting to know this and to see what synergies can happen between two companies, which are pretty much the same level or very similar. Similar.

[00:09:57.100] – Sean

Right As mentioned, we’re going to jump to to Web here in a second. Another question here I have to ask. Did you say you helped a startup raise raise one million Was it it million?

[00:10:09.010] – Alexandra

Yes.

[00:10:09.590] – Sean

In two hours, correct? Correct?

[00:10:11.630] – Alexandra

And.

[00:10:11.920] – Sean

A half hours, yes. How was that achieved?

[00:10:14.790] – Alexandra

Brand awareness, awareness.

[00:10:18.890] – Sean

Were you using social media? How did you get the brand awareness so quickly?

[00:10:23.540] – Alexandra

Long story short, it was actually a year in the making, but we didn’t know it will lead to that place. Place. Long short, I got hired in the beginning of 2020, two weeks in my role. It was a very early-stage startup. They received €200,000 to move a bit to have a proof of concept. Covid hit two weeks weeks beforebefore my my job, were supposed to launch a big campaign with €100,000. Basically, we couldn’t do anything because nobody was moving. It was a home renting app. Imagine, we were absolutely stuck. And basically, what we did, we launched a CSR campaign. We tried to give away some money for housing, for medical medical staff. They need to leave from home because maybe they have some sick relatives, like kids or something like this. And basically, a lot of media picks it up because at that specific specific moment, was a lot of media trying to cover a lot of these initiatives. We did that. We managed to get about 100 people. The majority of the places that we found were donated by people that found about us from radio or from the TV. I think we only spent €80 for three months, which was absolutely insane, even if the initial budget budget the press release was was like$2,000.

[00:11:45.320] – Sean

It.

[00:11:46.460] – Alexandra

Like $10,000. It was very little cost for us. I think it brought us some visibility. Then they did a business model switch. Instead of spending all this money on advertising in the summer, we grew the the team. Played around with some campaigns. They were basically trying to figure out what would be the best way for them to monetize. Something we were doing I think was very smart. We were launching a press release, mostly because Bukrest or Romania, it’s a smaller country. It’s not like the US or, I don’t know, Russia or whatever, where you would need a lot of force, I’d say, to… For this information to be pushed. And we used to do a press release every month and a a every two months with some pretty big numbers. In the summer, for example, we announced that we have in their management apartment in total value of over $20 million. So that was, I think, it also drew some attention. So people were watching us, right? Right now in the CE, there’s a crowdfunding platform for tech start-ups. And when we decided to launch there or to get listed, a lot of VCs, like local VCs, the CEO was was talking to a really big Polish fund, but a lot of the local VCs were like, I want a piece of this.

[00:13:14.430] – Alexandra

The cool thing with that platform was that you could get tickets as small as 2,500 euros. So if you didn’t have to have a lot of of money. Basically half of the money was raised through VCs that were like, I want to chip in, I want to chip in, I want to chip in. And the other half was raised in those two and a half hours by everybody. I think it was a hard movement, let’s say, because it was like, Oh, my God, this seems to be like the next big thing. The CEO also had a lot of credibility because he sold two big companies before. He replicated something like Uber-ish before it got into Europe and stuff in Saudi Arabia. They actually went, I’m heading to a a Web next next week, and actually got there with the booth and somebody from Saudi Arabia was like, I’m going to fund your company. Come and replicate this in there. And that’s what they did. Did. So had a lot of credibility and people were like, Well, if you made it before, I’m pretty sure you can make it right right now, so the money. I think that helped quite a lot.

[00:14:20.820] – Alexandra

The funny thing was that they gave us a PR kit, let’s say, telling us like, You should go on TV. You should do this. You should do a press press and so on. I’m like, Unless I do a big PR PR there’s absolutely nothing I can do at this moment because everything that you’re telling companies to do before the listing, we’ve been doing it for last year. There’s nothing we can do. But But that proved to be in our favor and we we the money that we needed. That was a nice story to tell.

[00:14:49.600] – Sean

Just to summarize here, what I’m hearing is probably about a solid year of PR, different activities, getting the word out, and then you you get to crowdfunding platform and it took two and a half hours to raise the one million euros. So the big lesson there is what I would learn from this is definitely build some PR, get some buzz out there, talk to other people. It sounds like a little paid advertising was happening, very small amount, which is nice. And then you do the crowdfunding. I think that’s a really smart play because I see people going to a kickstarter or or whatever, platform is popular here in the States. Indigo Indigo another one. And people, they don’t build any buzz at all and then they go on the platform. It’s like, no, I would actually try to get some momentum before and then you can see a bigger movement happening. I know like product hunt, we’re going to go on product hunt soon for the Tykr mobile app. And what we’re starting to do is build a little buzz leading up to that prime the pump, if you will, because we want people to be excited about that event.

[00:16:00.140] – Sean

Event. And then not like they hear about it the day of and now now go like it’s one of for the audience audience here. One of those platforms where you you or it’s like their version of a like, like a Facebook Facebook like. Upvotes you can get, the more they will promote you to their network. Anyway, that’s the takeaway I have on that that strategy. Raising raising a million euros in 2.5 hours.

[00:16:25.010] – Alexandra

I think the power of branding or brand awareness is so underestimated and people were like, I think most people don’t really think about it and everybody just wants to push money into PR, like APR and so on. It doesn’t always work. And it might work if you have a lot of money, but if you do it smart and if you do it like a lot in advance to the moment that you have to raise or launch or whatever, I think it will cost you less money and you might have much better results. So I think I’m such a big fan of brand awareness and I know nobody wants to talk about it and everybody just talks about it from a very theoretical point of view. I’ve seen it happening time and time again, and I really believe in the power of it.

[00:17:17.930] – Sean

Right. Yeah, totally agree. All right, let’s get into Web 3.0. So why don’t you give us a little comparison? What is the difference between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0?

[00:17:28.920] – Alexandra

I think I always get caught in explanations around this question. One of the differences is that is the decentralization and the ownership part of it. I think in Web2, you own something, but there’s a bigger entity that owns your data, for example, Facebook, Google, and so on. Whereas in Web3, they try to go a lot on decentralization, on protection of data, on ownership, or or of pieces of a project. This is why people launched like NFTs and tokens and crypto was launched. I think that’s one of the reasons why it has so much power, not because it can build you wealth over time, of course, that as well. But I think the main driver for a lot of of at least, was this ownership and the fact that they don’t have to make and do whatever they want with their money and they don’t need to give anybody any explanation. So they don’t need to depend on regulations given by the bank, for example, or anything like that. They can do whatever they want. So if you were to ask me, this would be the differences. And of course, Web3 has blockchain as a fundamental to everything that’s being built.

[00:18:47.820] – Alexandra

So I think this would be the differences in a nutshell.

[00:18:52.340] – Sean

Right on. And then one big one that I read a lot about is AI. How are businesses using AI to maybe run more efficient maybe with I’m thinking of like sales, marketing and operations. You can actually use AI for all three. But do you have any examples of some of the startups you’ve worked with recently that maybe made some mistakes with Web 3.0 and how they approach it?

[00:19:17.160] – Alexandra

I see this quite a lot and quite all the time, mostly because it’s a very, somebody actually called it recently. They call the Web 3.0 a startup. And it is is true, is a startup. A lot of mistakes are happening there. I think one of the biggest mistakes is in Web2 as well. People don’t know exactly what they want to build. They start with an idea, but they don’t really know how to monetize it, but then it doesn’t really work the way they planned. They don’t have enough money to execute it, so it’s always a very tricky situation to get something off the ground. If you were to ask me, this would be the biggest mistake when companies are trying to build something. I have a list of things that I think they should be done or why they’re in the wrong, let’s say. But I think this would be one of the main reasons why I think companies fail in Web3 as well. And of course, course, don’t really know who they’re serving. So basically the same thing that you’ve seen so far as well.

[00:20:25.580] – Sean

Do you think that people are using the Web 3.0 buzzwords to power marketing, but at the end of the day, they’re not providing providing For example, I’ve seen businesses like a few years back, they’re like, Well, we use blockchain. Oh, that’s cute. But what are you doing for the customer? What problem are you solving? Now I see businesses like Powered by OpenAI or Powered by AI, and it’s like, That’s great. You can get people excited for a moment. But what is it actually doing for the customer? What pain is it removing or what efficiency is it increasing? Are you seeing some businesses using the Web 3.0 lingo to pump their marketing?

[00:21:12.440] – Alexandra

To be totally honest with you, I think AI has been used for a very long time just to draw attention. Ai and machine learning was so much used for many, many years. I do believe that blockchain was also used to draw some attention, especially from investors that are trying to raise money. But from what I’m seeing right now, the latest trend that I’m seeing is that people that are really believers in Web3, like I’m talking about here, the users. I’m not talking about people people with own crypto or or I’m talking about anybody that would like to be part of this new industry, let’s say, or this new era, whatever you want to call it, they really want utility. They really want to see that the product are actually being built with a purpose in mind. They don’t want to see just buzzwords because I think Web3 users are very, very smart and you can’t really fool them as fast as you could have done it a couple of years ago. I think they’re they’re seem a bit more elevated, more educated, which is very important, and I think they can sniff bullshit a mile away.

[00:22:22.580] – Alexandra

So if you’re not really there for the right reasons, I don’t think your product is going to stand. Probably you could ask me now, yes, you’ve seen a lot of fails. Is the FTX trial right now happening as as well? I know in the States, it’s like a really big thing. Everybody’s talking about it on all the podcasts and newsletters and so on. But that went crashing because of, of course, these mistakes, but because of other market reasons as well. The initial idea was good and it was for a higher purpose. Not exactly what happened with the handling of that that money, a different story. But I think Web3 users are not really getting discouraged by situations like this to stay in the space, mostly because Web3 is not just about crypto. I think that’s what keeps people there. And it’s pushing founders and teams to build something more reliable and for a longer term purpose in mind.

[00:23:27.730] – Sean

I look at, and you can correct me if I’m wrong here, but I look at all the Web 3.0 buzzwords and what’s hot right now. I look at crypto, blockchain, AI, NFTs, of everything I list there. Where should a business really focus? Where do you think is the most opportunity for a business to really focus if you were to pick one of those?

[00:23:52.490] – Alexandra

It really depends on what you want to do. What is your purpose? I think I’m always always getting these questions, and I think they’re very vague, unless you know what is your your aim, why starting this? If you ask me, this is not a good moment to start an NFT project for many reasons. Even if I’ve seen projects, some of my friends, actually, a couple of days ago, they launched their second collection of NFTs. They sold out half a million euros in 77 seconds. If you ask me, NFTs are still standing, they’re still being sold, but not with the idea of building wealth, more of the idea of it used as a utility token. I think I would see a lot of utility tokens being, or a lot of companies building utility tokens in different ways, and I think this is what is going to keep the users there. Something else to be mentioned here as well is that I think it’s very important to understand if you’re a Web3 native company, company, if you’re building something just for the Web3 user, let’s say, or if you’re starting from scratch, or if you have a business like Tykr, for example, you already have a Web2 base, let’s say, but you want to get into Web3.

[00:25:14.410] – Alexandra

That’s a totally different approach. It’s a totally different story. I think this would be some moments to really understand what is your purpose. Do you want to grow your audience? Do you want to re-engage your audience? Do you want to expand your product? Do you want to tap into new audiences? Just to see if your product fits into into What is your purpose? Based on that, I think I would be able to give a better answer case by case.

[00:25:41.680] – Sean

No, that’s good. It does vary by business. I’ll actually call out Tykr in this case because we brought in two different Web 3.0 components. One is crypto, but Tykr can’t analyze a crypto coin because it’s a coin, not a business. But we brought into the ecosystem for the marketing place. Place. So I was saying earlier, calling out businesses, I’m calling out out our there. But the win is we bring in people who are are really, all about about yet they don’t know the difference between crypto and stocks. We bring them into the the Tykr and then we teach them like, Hey, you can invest in crypto. Try to to go as we say, 5% or less of your net worth. You’re going to get more reliable returns going to nice, safe, conservative businesses, businesses, stocks. The crypto play. But then we had to put some serious thought into how are we going to use AI in a meaningful way. And you alluded to that. It’s like, how do you bring bring it in so actually solving a problem? Actually, I won’t go too deep on this because I know this is more about you than than me, I love your feedback here.

[00:26:54.040] – Sean

We’re bringing AI in to help with a tool called the the checklist or or 4M booster. Long story short, there are four Ms with investing. You want to start with the first M, which is the margin of safety. That’s all the math part of investing, and that’s unfortunately where a lot of people start and stop. But investing is more than just numbers. You got to understand the type of business, the competition, and the management. Management. So four Ms really just the high level. You got the margin of safety is the first M. Second M is the the meaning. M is the moat, and the last M is the management. The meaning is how does the business make money? How many revenue streams? How scalable are those revenue streams? The The is how does it stack up against the competition? Competition? And the management is what’s the track record of the CEO? Ceo? And that manually today is actually time-consuming. But if you can get a a of 80 or higher, that’s really good. We started doing some testing with AI like, okay, so the first time is done automatically by by but how do we use AI to do steps two, three, and four?

[00:27:58.180] – Sean

It took about about three, four months of of and prompt engineering is really big to figure out like, Okay, we can remove this pain from our customer. So it’s been a long journey, but we’re excited to launch that. But finally, it’s like the one utility. Okay, we can actually use AI in a meaningful way, not just to say, Hey, Tykrs, PowerPie AI. That’s so superficial.

[00:28:24.500] – Alexandra

That’s exactly what I wanted to say. That I feel like everybody is using saying AI, AI, AI, but at the same time, this AI needs to be connected to something, to a product, to a utility. You can’t just use AI like this because it does nothing by itself. You need to connect it to something. I think lately I’m seeing so much utility being pushed. I think we were talking about it last time that you haven’t even had that in the last six months, let’s say. I think everything just absolutely exploded. Right now, at least to me as as a it does make a lot more sense why, or not why, but how it can be utilized by a bigger or the vast majority of people. Because I think at the beginning it was like ChatGPT and everybody was like, Good, get here, and I’m telling you it’s going to steal your job, and so on. It’s not true. I think right now I can see a lot of utility and it does make a lot of sense. For me personally, and probably like a lot of people that are listening to this podcast as well, my purpose in life is to make as, not as little work as possible, but if I don’t have to spend 20 hours on something, I can spend 10, and then the other other I can spend it with my friends and family, family, that be best.

[00:29:43.220] – Alexandra

Best. And I get the help of an AI to do some of that work, I don’t actually mind. Mind.

[00:29:49.030] – Sean

Yeah. The thing thing how do you use AI to run more efficient? Efficient? And are a lot of cool ways you can use it. Chatgpt has been impressive. With that notion, just a huge huge time saver. So I’m with you. Do I want to work 20 hours? Do I want to cut that in half and do things I want to do outside of work? It’s pretty obvious. Very cool. Cool. On that mentioned something there I want to touch on. I did not prep you with this question, but what are your thoughts on AI taking away jobs? Do you think there’s a threat in some way, shape or form? What are your thoughts?

[00:30:25.710] – Alexandra

I don’t think it’s going to take anybody’s job. If you think think AI going to take your job, I think you are being left behind and you should really step up. I’m a really huge believer in continuous education. I was raised like that because ever since I was in uni, there’s a program in Europe called Erasmus, and they basically send you all around Europe to study a semester or a year and so on. I think it was called a lifelong learning program or something like this. I think this stuck with me for the, I’m an an adult It’s been almost 14 years ever since I went to Erasmus, but I think this stuck with with and I’m always trying to learn and to become better at what I do. Because especially, I don’t know how it is in the States, but in this part of the world, you could see a lot of parents, and especially the generation of my parents or my grandparents, where they have worked a job for 50 years. They didn’t have to become better. They just just to do one one thing, and is exactly what they were doing every single day for many years.

[00:31:35.460] – Alexandra

But right right I think it’s a pivotal moment where everybody needs to step up. And to me personally, this is very exciting. I wouldn’t really be afraid of it. I would try to work as much as possible with the new technology. I know there was a moment where where everybody like, Oh, my God, the technology is going to steal the the jobs. But I I was watching watching where I was listening to a podcast, I can’t remember, and people were saying, What about agriculture? For for example, like select new tractors, you can select new agricultural stuff.

[00:32:12.500] – Sean

Yeah, the egg industry is huge here in the States. Yeah.

[00:32:16.340] – Alexandra

But that’s also tech. You can’t really go back to what you were doing 50, 70 years ago when my grandparents were taking care of the land with their horses and so on. You can’t really sustain sustain that 2023, and I think just taking that as a comparison, you can really see that. I think the tech in general has had a really huge and beneficial impact on what and how we live right now, and I was just very happy to see how it’s going to get moving forward.

[00:32:50.080] – Sean

I’m 100 % in agreement with you. There are people that talk about AI taking jobs. It’s like, no, you need to embrace it to make your jobs more efficient. You can use it to serve more customers. Is going back to the the egg, wife, her family, they’re farmers. And we were friends with a lot of farmers. And it’s so cool how tech has helped that industry, for example, self-driving combines using GPS to go in these efficient rows. And some of the cornfields cornfields here whatever crop you’re growing, they can go on for miles straight. And if you are not dead on accurate, you can be be left to right and and creating inefficiencies and don’t even know it. Well, with GPS, you can be laser-focused on a straight line and moving those straight lines there and back, get more work done, produce more yields. The list goes on. It’s pretty cool stuff. If anybody says, Oh, my gosh, it’s going to take my job, it’s like, No, it’s going to help you work more efficient and serve more customers. That’s what it’s going to do.

[00:33:51.620] – Alexandra

Exactly.

[00:33:52.570] – Sean

Yeah, right on. Let’s take a quick commercial break.

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[00:34:39.970] – Sean

Okay, back to the show. All right, that was a great discussion on Web 3.0, but we need to move into the rapid-fire round so we can find out who Alexandra really is. If you can try to answer each question in 15 seconds or less. You ready?

[00:34:56.610] – Alexandra

Okay, I’ll try.

[00:34:57.810] – Sean

All right, so what is your favorite podcast?

[00:34:59.990] – Alexandra

I think I would say my podcast because I can’t really get something else in my mind right now.

[00:35:06.840] – Sean

You don’t listen to any other podcasts?

[00:35:09.970] – Alexandra

I do, but you you me too fast. I listen to a lot of Web3 stuff, so anything that’s Web3 related, I’m trying to get into that. There was one that I really really something about DAOs, how to build a DAO or something. I really, really enjoy that.

[00:35:24.150] – Sean

That. Okay, all What is is recent book you read and would recommend?

[00:35:28.600] – Alexandra

I’m reading a book right now, but I don’t think it’s a bit tough. Let’s say my therapist suggested that to me. But I think one of the books that I really enjoyed was, and I was actually talking about it on Twitter yesterday, I’m going to say two. One is The Whistleblower by Susan Fowler, and she talks about her journey at Uber. Very cool book. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, so that’s really easy read, let’s say, say, because it’s lot of storytelling. Storytelling. And very cool book, especially because I’ve seen yesterday that we worked file for for is called The Cult of We, where where also also about how we work basically grew and failed.

[00:36:15.410] – Sean

I would be very much into both. I love stories on like Corporate trainwrecks, you could say, like The Bad Blood, Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes. I thought that book was great. I think it’s it’s The Inventor, could be be on HBO. I just watched Superpumped on Netflix. It’s got Joseph Gordon, love it, but that’s all about Uber and his demise with with them. That company, has not done great in the stock market either, but Whistleblower is one. You mentioned what’s the other book?

[00:36:47.580] – Alexandra

The Cult of We.

[00:36:48.930] – Sean

Cult of of We. We We I’ve watched multiple docuseries on that.

[00:36:55.190] – Alexandra

They’re not really great, but the book is.

[00:36:58.180] – Sean

Really, really good. Even… I don’t know. See, I did enjoy. I think there’s one on Hulu that was pretty good. But yeah, anyway, love it. Thank you for those recommendations. All right, movie question. What is your favorite movie?

[00:37:10.370] – Alexandra

Sorry to disappoint. I don’t like movies, but something that I really enjoyed recently, it’s a series I’m really big on series and reality shows. A series that I’ve seen recently on on I actually finished Billions, which I really enjoy. Enjoy. I’ve also liked, a a called Soil, and it’s about this Moroccan guy whose father has a funeral home, and basically they’re repatriating repatriating the because they have this thing where where they they have to be buried buried soil soil there. And he finds a new business idea to bring soil back to Belgium to bury these people. People. It’s I know the story sounds weird, but it’s very very quirky, very so pretty, very very weety. So really enjoyed it.

[00:38:03.380] – Sean

Is that on Netflix? It feels like a global production.

[00:38:07.100] – Alexandra

It’s on HBO.

[00:38:08.500] – Sean

It is on HBO. I know Netflix produces a ton of content outside of the States. Hbo, I think, is starting to get into that. But yeah, cool. I’ll add soil here to my watchlist. Okay, a few more questions. What is the worst advice you ever received?

[00:38:29.230] – Alexandra

Something that I’ve been complaining about lately is that I grew up with Gary Vee and this hustle culture, and for many, many years, hustle, hustle, hustle. No woman wants to hustle. No man wants to hustle. I think you need to really understand what is your pace, where you are in life, and how you can take it from there. I think this hustle thing wasn’t really for me, and it took me about 10 years to figure that out. Out.

[00:38:56.760] – Sean

Yeah, was beaten over all of our heads for a while, and and I I am not a fan. All right, flip that equation. What’s the best advice you ever received?

[00:39:06.180] – Alexandra

Like Nike says, just do it. I think I’m a huge overthinker, and I think many people are. Because I overthink, it takes me forever to launch something for myself, just to be very specific for myself. For others, I don’t really have a problem to come up with the initiative and execute on that. But for myself, I just go in a million parts and ways ways and so I think the more I try to get over that and just do it, the better it gets.

[00:39:37.730] – Sean

Analysis for Alice.

[00:39:39.150] – Alexandra

I basically fail fast and learn from it and.

[00:39:42.790] – Sean

Move forward. Forward. Yeah. All right, Last question here, time-machine question. If you could go back in time to give your younger self advice, what age would you visit and what would you say?

[00:39:53.630] – Alexandra

I think I would go to when I was almost 22 the first time I moved to Malaysia. I think it was a very weird time of my life. I had no idea where I was going, what’s going to happen to my life. I think the best advice I could give myself was build a self-esteem and trust in what I can do and and why in life. I think the rest is history, basically.

[00:40:24.540] – Sean

All right. Where can the audience reach you?

[00:40:26.670] – Alexandra

You can find me on Alexandra Nikodicon LinkedIn. I’m quite active there. You can find me on Twitter, or you can find my podcast and out-of-organity podcast on any platform that you want.

[00:40:39.160] – Sean

We’ll get all the links listed below, but thank you so much for being being desk. This was great.

[00:40:43.770] – Alexandra

Thank you so much for inviting me. This has been a really nice nice and I think we’ll speak again.

[00:40:49.060] – Sean

All right. Talk to you later. See you.

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Hey.

[00:40:53.220] – Sean

I’d like.

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To say thank you for checking out this podcast. I know there’s a lot of other podcasts out there you could be listening to, so thanks for spending some time with me. And if you have a moment, please head over to Apple Apple and leave a five-star review. The more reviews we get, especially five-star reviews, the higher this podcast will rank in Apple. So thanks for doing that. And remember, this show is for entertainment purposes only. If you heard any stocks mentioned on this podcast, please do not buy or sell those stocks based solely on what you hear. All right, thanks for your time. We’ll see you.