Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Vasily Nikonov, founder, and CEO of Velvet.Capital.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Velvet.Capital is a DeFi Operating System that helps people & institutions create DeFi products (tokenized funds, yield farming strategies, and other structured products). We're launching an institutional-grade "DeFi-as-a-Service" offering for asset managers, hedge funds, banks, and other financial institutions. We have strong backing from the best investors in the space, such as Binance Labs, Mucker Capital, Ceras Ventures, PAKA fund, and other VCs and prominent angels.
Tell us about yourself
Prior to founding Velvet, I was a Venture Builder at Longhash Ventures in Singapore, one of the first web3-native VCs incubating blockchain & crypto startups. I was also a Project Leader at BCG in New York, launching Fintech ventures and Digital products. I'm very excited about bringing together my experience from Traditional Finance and Web3 to make the financial system more transparent!
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
We won several high-profile hackathons & bounties at BNB Revelation, Polygon Summer BUIDL, EthIndia, EthCC, EthNYC, NEAR Hackathon, and Starknet. We're also a part of "Startup with Chainlink," collaborating with other founders on building Web3.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
As a business owner, you need to push across many different dimensions: product, marketing, tech, sales, regulation, admin, etc. All dimensions are important, and each one of them can make or break the business - the greatest challenge is to be able to prioritize across them and push each one of them at the right time to make sure the business is moving forward.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
A lot of tech entrepreneurs are focused on getting the product right, which is obviously very important but sometimes happens at the expense of everything else. To create a sustainable business, the founders have to spend almost the same amount of time (if not more) on sales, distribution, and business development to make sure there are people willing.
The other important aspect is building a world-class team. Even if you consider yourself a top professional, 99% of your business success depends on the team you have - make sure to put substantial effort into recruiting high performers and developing them further within your team.
Finally, fundraising is a very important part of any tech business as it gives you the necessary leverage to boost growth. Especially as tech becomes more and more competitive, it will increase your odds of winning in this increasingly challenging market.
To sum up - make sure customers are willing to pay for what you're building, create a world-class team and take care of it, and do everything to make sure you have enough funds to reach a sustainable state.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://velvet.capital/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/velvet_capital
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/velvetcapital/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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