Sara Simeone: 101 on NFTs With Niftyz

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sara Simeone, CEO and Co-Founder of Niftyz (formerly Digital Oracles), and Co-Chair of Start-up Working Group, Crypto Valley. Sara is a strategist with a commercial mind, she was one of the first to publish a paper in 2018 on how machine learning and blockchain will have an impact on the future of digital marketing.

Sara worked with a portfolio of leading global accelerators, incubators and VC professionals to tackle company maturity and co-develop programmes that both nurture potential and offer innovative capabilities to early stage ventures.

During the course of their discussions, both ladies discussed 1) the Metaverse, NFTs and Web 3.0, 3) why Sara launched and developed NFTs and 3) where the market for NFTs is going, and 4) what are the investment challenges and opportunities to deliver for the immersive internet in the right way.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I’ve been at the forefront of new technologies and new things happening on the web since the beginning of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. That’s what brought me to where we are today. I researched how machine learning and blockchain will impact the future of data, and in 2017, I got in touch with the Crypto Valley Environment and began to build a network in Italy and the UK.
• Web 2.0, which is the world we live in now, is dominated by platforms that we use to share content and information online. Sometimes, unbeknownst to us, our information is sold online. It’s a business model that Facebook (meta), Twitter, and many other publishers out there use to leverage to generate money. Web 3.0 in a container of new terminology. We’re looking at it as a decentralized web where we decide how our information is used and who we share it with, though there are still a lot of limitations from a technical point of view as well as a significant knowledge gap.
• Metaverse and NFT are very much connected. Niftyz looks at NFTs as the keys that unlock specific content that is stored either on-chain or off-chain, unlocking a lot of information, data, tools, features, badges, and exciting new things on the metaverse. If we don’t understand NFTs and how to use these new tools, it will be challenging to get access to the metaverse itself.
• We’ve been trained by the web, and society that we have to monetize the outputs that we create. With Web 3.0 I see another angle, what I call ‘the input economy’ where I can start monetizing at every single step that goes into creating that output. From this perspective, we can see NFTs as empowering the monetization of this value-creation process. For instance, if my brand creates mock-ups of my fashion items, I could potentially create an NFT version of the mock-up and ask my community to vote by purchasing the one they like the most. This market research can be used in the future to create a physical item that people want. From here, AMAs with the designer, virtual fashion events only for users, etc.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Niftyz is basically a platform that wants to enable businesses and brands of all sizes and industries that want to get into this new world of NFTs.’
‘Everybody’s trying to get into the Metaverse, and brands are building teams with competencies around this, but it’s more of a PR/marketing play at the moment, whereas in the future, it will give some returns.’
‘NFTs have a bad reputation. In every phase of the internet, cowboys are trying to get rich quickly. Now, NFTs have begun to be adopted by artists because they’ve found a way to get in touch with a different type of audience.’
‘Web 3.0 is creating a new value for our know-how. That’s the ethos behind Niftyz, empowering people, businesses, and brands to monetize their know-how in a brand new way.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Sara Simeone is CEO and Co-Founder of Niftyz (formerly Digital Oracles) and Co-Chair of Start-up Working Group of the Crypto Valley.

She is also a technology industry mentor, strategist, and growth management specialist with particular strengths in the optimization and commercial development of early-stage, rapid-development tech businesses. 

Her ability to predict commercial and technical challenges far ahead of critical milestones is proven. As a respected strategist, she works with a portfolio of leading global Accelerators, Incubators, and VC professionals, tracking companies’ progress and maturity and co-developing programs that both nurture potential and offer 360-degree support to innovative early-stage ventures. 

With an ability to decipher complex business concepts and technologies, she creates data and KPI-based go-to-market strategies that really work. Practical experience includes managing and mentoring senior teams, negotiating multi-million-pound contracts, guiding companies to achieve maximum results without compromising team morale and P&L management. 

In 2018, Sara Simeone published her master's thesis on how machine learning and blockchain will impact the future of digital marketing. She was one of the first marketers in the world to publish a piece on the topic. This piece of research gave her access to several professional opportunities: mentoring startups at CV Labs in Crypto Valley (Switzerland); consulting for emerging technology companies in the UK and abroad, and lecturing at Manchester Metropolitan University as an Associate Lecturer of Digital Marketing Strategy.

Sara Simeone: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarasimeone/ 

Website: https://niftyz.io/#/ 

ABOUT THE HOST

There are over 140,000 FinTech ventures out there, including FinTechs, InsurTechs, HealthTechs, and WealthTechs. And the number keeps on changing every month. One statistic remains the same: 25% of these ventures have received investment and support from the financing world. 75% of these businesses still seek financing support from institutional and corporate investors alongside value-creating commercial collaboration opportunities with Global Fortune 500. 

Through this podcast series, I would like to demystify the world of corporate venturing, including how corporations collaborate with growth ventures, how venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists make investment and collaboration choices in ventures and give tech founders and entrepreneurs, the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to build, grow and scale their business by understanding how those with financing power think. So, listen in, share and comment as you see fit.

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