Non-Fungible Tokens: Jay Kurahashi-Sofue of Marketing at Ava Labs On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Start reading and educating yourself on the topic. Whether it’s NFTs or something similar, knowledge will excel your understanding and minimize mistakes in the future.
Many have observed that we are at the cusp of an NFT boom. The thing is, it’s so cutting edge that many people don’t know what it is. What exactly is an NFT and how can one create a lucrative career out of selling them? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jay Kurahashi-Sofue.
Jay Kurahashi-Sofue is the VP of Marketing at Ava Labs, a Web3 organization building Avalanche. Prior to Ava Labs, he was the Head of Marketing at Fluidity, focused on products like AirSwap and Factora, and also was a strategist at Ogilvy, where he co-founded its first blockchain marketing group. Jay is also the co-founder of BlockMarketers, a virtual and in-person community for marketing executives in the blockchain industry. Outside of Ava Labs, Jay is a photographer, music producer, and angel investor.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?
I grew up in Westchester County in New York (basically moved all around the area). I’m a twin and was really interested in all different types of hobbies and activities: skiing, soccer, tennis, horseback riding, and computer games. The general outcome of all of these things led to me being highly competitive, as well as hyper-interested in all things tech.
Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
As cliché as it is for a tech person to say this, I really found Aaron Sorkin’s movie The Social Network to be quite profound. Prior to the film, Facebook was one of the most revolutionary products to take over the world–going from 0 to 2.3 billion users in 15 years. Seeing this emotionally provocative film was a pivotal moment in my life as it encouraged me to chase an entrepreneurial, tech-focused career path.
Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in this new industry? We’d love to hear it.
In 2015, I decided I wanted to work in crypto full-time when my interests started to come closer to my professional career, which was at Ogilvy, a global ad agency. There was a moment when I looked around with the crypto “experts” within the marketing field and noticed that I knew much more about this tech than the others. Of course, this was my opportunity, and I decided to pursue it.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?
Since starting this career, I can think of countless interesting stories–lucky for me, crypto is innately interesting, so I don’t have to try too hard to think about this. A recent story is that the events team at Ava Labs was recently in Seoul, South Korea for Korea Blockchain Week and the Formula E race. When we arrived a few days prior to produce a 2-day event, the worst storm in 100 years hit all of South Korea. A day later, the South Korean government called us saying that unless the flooding waters subsided, we could not go ahead with the event. To make matters worse, North Korea then lifted their dams to relieve flooding pressure from their region, which raised the water levels even more. Although a solution seemed near impossible, the team came together and made it happen with a ton of help from the local community, friends at Formula E, and a little bit of magic.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
One of my biggest mistakes was when I first started and was getting used to running all the different parts of the marketing function. One of the functions I led was the social media capability. I, for some reason, knew what I needed to do to publicize an event and went through with teasing the event through our Twitter. Unfortunately, what I had failed to realize is, unlike my previous endeavors where I was the leader, I actually needed to consult my co-founders about the campaign plans prior to execution. It wasn’t funny so much then, but I look back to it now and definitely laugh. Luckily, I never made the same mistake again.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
“Self-made” is one of my least favorite terms that is mentioned when talking about success stories. To be able to credit just one person is also tricky. I have many people to thank: my family, career mentors, close friends, and team members (past and present). The list is so long it’s hard to mention them all!
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I’m excited about all of Avalanche’s environmentally friendly initiatives such as Bye Bye Plastic, a non-profit organization working towards eliminating single-use plastics from events; the World Economic Forum; and Nori, a Web3-enabled carbon removal marketplace. All of these efforts extend Avalanche’s brand values of being an environmentally friendly company. To bring this to life and actually see its impact beyond the digital space is incredible and inspiring. I hope we can continue to do more here.
Ok, super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. I’m sure you get this question all the time. But for the benefit of our readers, can you explain in your own words what an NFT is, and why people are spending so much money on them?
An NFT is a unique, verifiable digital asset or token. It’s like a file format like GIFs or JPEGs. It’s not just limited to those functions but can do amazing things if used in the right context. For example, NFTs can serve as simple digital collectibles or can help create permanent single sources of truth for important documents like property deeds or contracts. People are spending a lot of money on them because there is currently a lot of mainstream hype around them. This type of hype can happen in any market that is new and exciting for people.
The NFT industry seems so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
The 3 most exciting things in NFTs are art with NFTs, physical NFTs, and music NFTs. The art world has persisted within the physical world for centuries. What’s interesting about digital art NFTs is that it not only creates a permanent way to store this art, but it also gives it an easier means of trade. Prior to digital art NFTs, it was much more difficult to trade digital art for other digital goods without intermediaries.
With physical NFTs, you’re seeing an emergence of NFTs being used to add utility to physical goods. There’s a company called Legitimate that’s currently working on creating chips that have NFTs embedded within them for high fashion brands. What’s really cool is the underlying utility is that these NFTs can now completely eliminate the counterfeit market. What’s likely going to resonate most with people is the storytelling that can be embedded in these NFTs. When you buy a unique bag, for example, you can scan the chip to see what materials were used to create the bag, stories related to the brand, and any other information you want to include within that NFT.
Music NFTs is the least mature but as a huge music fan, I’m super passionate about trying to leverage NFTs or blockchain tech to revolutionize this industry. The biggest challenge is teaching the everyday music listener, who’s used to listening to music for little to no cost, to buy NFTs for music consumption. Likely, the earliest use cases will be tied to physical collectibles tied to NFTs or limited digital collectibles that resonate most with the musician’s fanbase.
What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?
Speculation, greed, and bad user experience are what concern me most. Speculation and greed can be coupled into the same category. Because this technology is often tied to a token, it attracts anyone interested in making money fast. Of course, short-sightedness is not great for the long-term growth of an industry.
User experience relates to how these products are created. Web3 aims to revolutionize how the Web is run from the protocol level all the way up to the application layer. It is extremely complex and to create amazing products with strong user experiences requires an extraordinary team and vision.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about NFTs? Can you explain what you mean?
The easiest “myth” to tackle is the statement that “NFTs are a scam.” An open, rapidly growing market will always have scams but to label the entire category as a scam is a bit closed-minded, if you ask me. As mentioned previously, there are plenty of really cool, impactful innovations with NFTs currently being developed.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the NFT industry? What can be done to avoid that?
The most common mistake is listening to others and taking action without doing any due diligence. Like with any purchase decision, you should always do a little bit of thinking and more importantly, pause, so you can process what you’re interested in doing with the technology.
How do you think NFTs have the potential to help society in the future?
NFTs, like with blockchain, will streamline the need for cumbersome verification processes facilitated by intermediaries. The Lemonade Foundation is currently working on a way to create a direct-to-consumer platform on Avalanche for providing climate insurance to farmers. Because there are no intermediaries, more of the value goes to the farmer and is done in the most efficient way possible.
Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry?”
The first piece of advice is to start reading and educating yourself on the topic. Whether it’s NFTs or something similar, knowledge will excel your understanding and minimize mistakes in the future.
The second is to start using products like NFT marketplaces, physical NFT chips, etc. You may make mistakes at this stage, but that’s perfectly ok. Using the products means you will begin to learn and form your own opinions about what works and what doesn’t.
The third is to network as aggressively as possible. You’ll need friends along this journey and finding a brain trust of those who can validate or give constructive feedback to your hypotheses is important.
The fourth is to be ahead of the curve. If you feel like you’re an “expert” at NFTs, think again. Oftentimes, a brand-new innovation will likely start to emerge. You should start to create frameworks and narratives in your head to model out potential future outcomes.
The fifth is to have fun with it. The “crypto rabbit hole” is ever-growing, and if you’re not having fun, then what’s the point of doing all of this?
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to continue to aspire to share positivity and a mentality focused on connecting with and helping others as much as possible. If everyone is able to empathize with their neighbor and lend a helping hand here and there, the world would be a much better place.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
One meal I would’ve loved to share was with Anthony Bourdain, an incredibly talented human who touched millions of lives with his love for food.
Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!
Non-Fungible Tokens: Jay Kurahashi-Sofue of Marketing at Ava Labs On The 5 Things You Need To Know… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
