The Curious Learners

My guest today is Sinan Koc. He is a co-founder of BiLira, which is a stablecoin pegged to Turkish Lira.

I truly enjoyed speaking with him. We discussed the following and many more interesting topics:

- why do we need stablecoins? Now and in the future?
- do stablecoins remain as a gateway between fiat and crypto?
- is there a bifurcation for the use of stablecoins between emerging markets and developed markets?
- what are the two most important KPIs for a stablecoin business?
- how did he combine his previous experience in building a traditional fintech business with his time at Consensys?
- which blockchain is the most promising in his personal view?

Please enjoy my conversation with Sinan Koc.

My guest today is Krishnan Menon. He is the co-founder and CEO of BukuKas.

He is building BukuKas as a one-stop-software solution for merchants. His journey into building BukuKas was an outcome of his deep understanding of merchants' problems.

Krishnan and I talked about initial company building, finding product market fit, and the early signals that tell founders when to scale up the business.

We also discussed the framework of simplicity, differentiation, and value-add. And how he takes it into account in building the right solutions for merchants.

As a second-time founder, he gave several insights for company building:

• Instincts and initial customer feedback are important to build the initial product
• Listening to your users too much might also have some drawbacks, as you would add features after features
• 'Know your profit' proposition resonated well with merchants
• Founders need to be able to sell (to investors, to future employees and to customers)
• Being intellectually honest with yourself is important to decide when to stop

Please listen in for much more and enjoy my conversation with Krishnan Menon.

My guest today is Hugo Amsellem. Hugo is one of the thought leaders that I look up to for the creator economy. He has been working with entrepreneurs, creators and artists for a long time and he was once a founder himself. He is now with Jellysmack as the VP, Community.

Hugo and I talked about the current state of creator economy, the framework that he uses to help out creators and how he sees the creators as the first founders of our new internet world. Of course, we also discussed the transition from web 2.0 to web 3.0 and where creators stand there in terms of content, audience and distribution.

His answer to my closing question was fascinating and I would expect no less from him. 

Please enjoy my conversation with Hugo Amsellem.

My guest for the fourth episode of The Curious Learners is Feras Jalbout.

He is the founder of commission-free investing platform Baraka.

Feras is on a mission to democratise access to investing and enable everyone to participate in markets.

Among other things, Feras and I discussed the key pillars of building a customer-first investing platform, their focus on distribution quality research to their customers and his journey intro entrepreneurship.

He also talked about how things are different when the product is live and when you start to hear from your customers.

Please enjoy my conversation with Feras Jalbout.

My guest for the third episode of The Curious Learners is Geri Cupi. He is a serial entrepreneur with a distinctive focus on circular economy. He also quietly built Monochain as one of the first businesses with an NFT utility in real world.

He is now building Twig, which is the "Bank of Things". It is a continuum of circular economy with innovative fintech products.

Geri and I talked about company building and scaling including early days of product building, finding product market fit, growth and of course the team.

In his words, if there is one word to describe Geri, it is "curious"!

Please enjoy my conversation with Geri Cupi.

My guest for the second episode of The Curious Learners was Nikita Fadeev. He is a Partner and Head of Fasanara Digital, which is a quantitative investment fund in crypto assets. It is part of Fasanara Capital, which is an alternative asset management firm founded in 2011.

Nikita developed a strong interest in crypto in 2017 when he was at college studying mathematics. Since then, he has been learning about and investing in crypto.

Nikita and I discussed lots on this episode including the origin of his curiousity into crypto, his investment strategy at Fasanara Digital and his take on three hot topics in crypto today: DeFi, NFTs, and Metaverse.

Please enjoy my conversation with Nikita Fadeev. 

For those interested, please see below a selection of books from Nikita's shelf:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Infinite-Game/dp/073521350X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1637072653&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastery-Robert-Greene/dp/0670024961/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1637072671&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Man-All-Markets-Beating-Street/dp/1786070286/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1637072720&sr=8-1

I knew Jovan Stojanovic was going to be a perfect guest for the first episode of The Curious Learners.

Jovan is the co-founder of Anari AI, an exciting artificial intelligence company, where they are building the AI hardware industry from scratch. He is also the founder of  Wonderland AI Summit, a mission-driven community of AI experts, practitioners and enthusiasts.

In his formative years, Jovan was curious to better understand human reasoning. That set out an obvious path for him into  artificial intelligence.

I had so much fun speaking to Jovan about his journey, his current focus areas and plans for the future.

Please enjoy this great conversation with Jovan Stojanovic.