865 Manuela Seve : Blockchain Revolution

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Manuela Seve:

Blockchain is a very powerful tool to connect people, right? We like to say at Alphaa that we connect people, content, and experiences, and we’re automating the process so that every person that listens to a podcast will get points for that every person that shares a podcast will also get points for that. And with that, we’re building affinity between the network so that the listeners themselves can be compensated for doing exactly what they do, listening. And you have such amazing podcasters in your network. And so, to be able to let the listeners engage deeply and to be able to quantify who the largest listeners are and know, have them be able to ask a question live, or have them be able to come on the podcast, have them be able to meet that podcaster also pairing those podcasts with experiences and brands that are right down their alley.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing things happen when two powerhouse female founders join together to combine their innovations around a shared mission of abundance and social impact, so everyone wins. Manuela Seve is revolutionizing loyalty rewards and sponsorships with blockchain as the CEO and founder of Alphaa.io, today we share her inspiring entrepreneurial journey and how we’re changing the game of podcasting at Podopolo with our new partnership. We talk conscious inspiration, geek out on AI and Blockchain, and how entrepreneurs can and must change the world.

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a five-time serial entrepreneur and I’m all about paying it forward, so this podcast is all about catalyzing an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other …Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together.

And in an aligned manifestation of exactly this podcast’s purpose, today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is busy democratizing the world with blockchain – and partnering with my company Podopolo brings many benefits to podcast listeners and creators.

Manuela Seve is the CEO and founder of Alphaa.io, the Web3 platform opening up access to major event sponsorships, enabling even the smallest of brands to secure a digital presence where it matters most while rewarding their customers with virtual and real products, discounts and exclusive access.

Today we talk about what that means for podcasting, including our exclusive event at this year’s SXSW this March at actor Adrian Grenier’s farmhouse in Austin. Plus, what it takes for female founders with big disruptive innovations to raise money, build aligned teams, and create in easeful flow rather than the burnout of hustle and grind.

Manuela will be here in a moment, and first,

What if you had an app that magically surfaced your ideal podcast listens around what interests and inspires you – without having to lift a finger?  Podopolo is your perfect podcast matchmaker – AI powered recommendations and clip sharing make Podopolo different from all the other podcast apps out there. Podopolo is free in both app stores – and if you have a podcast, take advantage of time-saving ways to easily find new listeners and grow revenue. That’s Podopolo.

There can be no end to the stress and relentless pace of entrepreneurship, until the startling wakeup call comes.  When Manuela Seve had a serious health scare, she realized no measure of material success was worth her well-being. How could she bring her big dream of building a transformational billion-dollar Unicorn to life without all that burnout and stress? Today she shares how her gateway to conscious and mindful living, much like mine, was inspired by Michael Singer’s transformational book, The Surrender Experiment, sending her on a spiritual journey that has transformed her own entrepreneurial experiment. The simple truth? The act of simply letting go can guide us towards unexpected supporters and pivotal opportunities – like the one we’re unveiling next month with actor Adrian Grenier and some top podcasters at SXSW.

Today, as we describe the vision of our AI meets Blockchain moment, combining Podopolo’s growing podcast platform with Alphaa.io’s Web3 wallets to reward listeners like you just for listening and support podcasters in growing their communities, you’ll see the power of alignment on values, mission, and purpose to do well by doing good.

We talk about how embracing personal growth and cultivating teams truly invested in success and shared purpose, can forge a path to sustainable success. Manuela’s focus on working with brands aligned on improving the planet, combined with blockchain’s decentralized transparency, illuminates a new way of doing business.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Manuela Seve and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

INTERVIEW

Melinda Wittstock:

Manu. Welcome to Wings.

Manuela Seve:

So happy to be here, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, I was just reflecting how incredible a chance meeting can be, in our case, both pitching at AWS Demo Day last November. And I remember seeing your pitch and saying, ‘wow, she is amazing. What she’s doing is amazing’. I hope you thought the same about mine, but it seemed like a really chocolate-peanut butter kind of encounter and blossoming into this amazing partnership.

Manuela Seve:

I could not agree more. I’m all about surrendering to our path and our journey. And it wasn’t by chance that we were both in that AWS room. Every single woman in that room was amazing. But I think when you heard my pitch and when I heard your pitch, we just immediately thought, this partnership needs to happen because we have the two ends of this perfect synergy. And as they say, the rest is history. Here we are kicking off this brilliant partnership.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I love what you said about there not being, in effect, any coincidences. Right? Like, on your journey, and certainly on my entrepreneurial journey has been increasingly spiritual in the sense that it’s intentional. It’s all about being in gratitude, in flow, in abundance, all these sorts of things. And the more that I step into that, the more I end up attracting the right people and the right resources and the right opportunities into my life. And I think one of the reasons we gel is that’s kind of like where you’re coming from, too.

Manuela Seve:

1000%. The spiritual journey has been such an integral part of me being able to deal and cope with the stress that is involved in the entrepreneurial path. And I don’t know if this is interesting to the listeners, but the way it came into my life was literally after I had a crazy health issue that came from stress. And I woke up one day and I was like, all the money in the world isn’t worth anything unless I can actually be here. And so that was kind of like what kick started my path into mindfulness, into spirituality. And very quickly after that, I found Michael Singer’s book, The Surrender Experiment. And just listening to that and understanding know he was able to integrate both ends of the spectrum, right? Being deeply spiritual, deeply mindful, but also being very open to everything that life threw his own way and how that blossomed into a beautiful adventure. And the culmination of all of that was I actually went down at the end of last year to his ranch in Alachua, Florida, and met him in person.

Manuela Seve:

And I really do feel like we are living this surrender experiment if we let ourselves live it. And the results are so beautiful and so unimaginable when we let the divine creator take control 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, the hairs are standing up on the back of my neck because that book was also instrumental in my entrepreneurial journey as well. In my case, my crisis was a terrible marriage to a narcissist where I had kind of lost myself, and nothing that I was doing was really working quite right. Like, even though I was doing all the right things, all the things I’d always done before, that always worked for me. And I discovered this book, The Surrender Experiment. And I also now, just yesterday, found out that I have the opportunity to also go to his ranch in Florida and meet him. So how amazing is that?

Manuela Seve:

When are you going? I may go again.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think it’s sometime in the spring.

Manuela Seve:

So, he told me that now that I’ve been there, I can come and stay at the house.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wow.

Manuela Seve:

So next time we go, we can go and stay at the house. He’s such an awesome person, and I actually have a tattoo in my arm that says, “Try Something different. Surrender”, period. A roomy quote.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so counterintuitive for entrepreneurs because we’re all brought up into this ecosystem where it’s all hustle and grind. As long as you work hard, you’ll be rewarded. And you get to a certain point as an entrepreneur when you realize that that’s actually not really the case. Sometimes you do or achieve and manifest a lot more when you’re not in all that stress of efforting. Talk to me about that, how that kind of played out in your journey, building Alphaa.io.

Manuela Seve:

I have some tears in my eyes right now, especially because this week specifically has been very emotional on closing fundraising. You know how that goes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, my.

Manuela Seve:

And pulling the whole thing together, making sure that people actually send you the docs, wire the money. You have a whole team of people that is dependent on you, that needs to get paid. You don’t want to disappoint, but sometimes you end up disappointing them. And maybe that’s a lesson that they also need to learn, that they can’t be dependent on anyone. It’s really counterintuitive, because as entrepreneurs, we want to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. But at some points, the best thing that we can do is prioritize our mental health, prioritize the state that we’re in, so that we can manifest all of our dreams. And sometimes that means, yes, disappointing people, but it also means being so transparent and so open and so vulnerable that you’re not just building a team, you’re building a family. And I think that’s what we have accomplished here at Alpha through all of the highs and lows.

Melinda Wittstock:

You sound like you’re echoing my journey. Certainly, it’s very difficult for female founders in tech to raise money, and we’ve had a difficult climate because of the higher interest rates and such, where a lot of the money kind of dried up or at least slowed down at a difficult time. So even when there was an abundance of money swilling around to lots of new ventures, women are still getting about 2% of the venture.

Manuela Seve:

Yeah, 2%. And under and under.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s really hard. And there’s this incredible pressure because it’s almost like you have to do more.

Manuela Seve:

And we’re very maternal. That’s what I’ve found. Like, we as leaders, we care. We care about our team; we care about getting people paid. We care about making sure that they’re going to be able to make their rent, even if that means sometimes, like, jeopardizing how we’re going to make our own rent.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’ve done that before. I’ve paid people ahead of paying my rent. Yeah, same four times than I can count, actually. Do you know what I mean? In those scary moments where you just have no idea, you know, you’re going in the right direction, you’re in alignment with your purpose, you’ve sort of surrendered, you’re in gratitude, you’re doing all the things, and yet just that fear that comes up and it can be really difficult. And what’s so fascinating, and certainly through this podcast, has been like therapy for me because I realize that every other female founder is really going through the same thing. Other people make it look easy, but everybody kind of is sort of in this same boat, and this is where it does become spiritual and sort of like, you need to kind of find the faith because there’s so much, Manu, that’s beyond your control. Like, you can only control what you can control, which is yourself. And this is tricky because a lot of women founders struggle to hire people kind of fast enough because of that fear.

Melinda Wittstock:

Like, will I have the money? Because we’re sort of seeing it potentially as an expense long term, rather than seeing it as an investment. And so, bringing the right people, and you mentioned family that are really going to understand that that’s easier said than done. How have you found your team in those kind of circumstances, where you’re trying to raise money, you’re trying to kind of keep it going and keep growing and do all the right things and everything, but you don’t necessarily have the resources that you need?

Manuela Seve:

I literally had a tech call this morning which was about motivating the tech team. Okay? My CTO was like, I get it. I know where we’re going. I know the token is coming. We’re launching a token in the summer, and it’s very clear, even by the price of bitcoin today, that is at $52,000 for the first time since 2021, that we’re entering a bull market. So, things are going to be good. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to be more than okay.

Manuela Seve:

But sometimes you actually have to sit down with the team and explain to them that they’re going to be okay, too, because these are the mechanisms that we’re building so that they’re aligned. This is the amount of token that I’m going to be granting to the team. This is the amount of equity that they hold so that they understand that they’re not just employees, they’re owners, they’re co-owners. And I feel like if you’re a startup founder and you’re not involving your people, and if you’re not putting your people on the cap table, you’re doing it wrong because they should be family members. If you have 20 people that are working for you, you’re going to become 200, you’re going to become 400, you’re going to become 4000. We’re breeding a unicorn here. We’re not breeding something that’s just going to be around for a minute and disappear. And we’re making waves.

Manuela Seve:

We’re changing the way that people connect. We’re changing the way that people consume content. On your end, these are structural changes. These are things that are going to stay around for the next, I don’t know, ten years, 100 years, it’s hard to know, but it’s really exciting to be a part of these building blocks. And I feel like the team should feel the same way because this way, their ability in their stomach to kind of go through these periods that will happen when they can’t get paid because it’s late for a week or late for a couple of weeks or late for a month, they understand that they’re kind of like part of something bigger. And the other thing is, when the abundance comes, make sure to compensate them 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, I’ve had that 100%, and I’ve had that same thing. And some team members really get it, others don’t.

Manuela Seve:

And if they don’t, that’s okay. Maybe they’re not the right team members.

Melinda Wittstock:

For a startup they’re not the right people. And this has been my lived experience, certainly with Podopolo. Who are the people who are going to have an “Own It” kind of mindset, and then how, as a leader and the CEO and the founder, can I cultivate that and really prioritize the personal growth too, of the whole team? And in fact, just last week on my podcast, I had an award-winning entrepreneur who’s doubling her revenue year on year with an ESOP organized company where literally all her employees are owners. And she’s actually put that front and center of what she does. I think that’s very consistent with what you mentioned. You said we’re maternal. It’s kind of like what we want to build. It’s our natural inclination as women to kind of foster that sort of collaboration and community in our businesses, I think 1000%.

Manuela Seve:

And that’s why we build businesses that are more sustainable, they live longer, they burn less capital, because they’re consciously being built as an investment in the future, 100%.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, let’s get into what we’re doing together. I want to get into all the exciting things because you mentioned that you’re building this unicorn. I am also building a unicorn. It’s very rare for women to actually stand up and own that and say it right, and just say it like, just, I’m playing a big game. I’m playing a game to change an ecosystem. You and I are both operating at that level. We’re starting where we’re starting, but we have this amazing collaboration that I’m so excited about because for the first time.

Manuela Seve:

Me too, by the way.

Melinda Wittstock:

Podcasters are going to be able to really engage and reward their fans in a meaningful way where fans for the first-time win points and rewards and discounts and exclusive access to podcasters and all sorts of different things just by doing what they’re already doing, which is listening to podcasts. And this is in partnership with you. So, I want you to explain a little bit for everybody how the Web3 and blockchain experiences. How the Web3 and blockchain, which is a little black boxy to some people, how that’s going to manifest so effortlessly on Podopolo, for sure.

Manuela Seve:

So blockchain is a very powerful tool to connect people, right? We like to say at Alphaa that we connect people content and experiences, and that’s exactly what we’re doing here at our partnership. We’re automating the process so that every person that listens to a podcast will get points for that every person that shares a podcast will also get points for that. And with that, we’re building affinity between the network so that the listeners themselves can be compensated for doing exactly what they do, listening. And we know that a lot of these podcasters, like you have such amazing podcasters in your network. Like, Asprey is an example. And Huberman, these people are like, they have cult like following. And so, to be able to let the listeners engage deeply and to be able to quantify who the largest listeners are and know, have them be able to ask a question live or have them be able to come on the podcast, have them be able to meet that podcaster also pairing those podcasts with experiences and brands that are right down their alley. Like, for example, the event that we’re doing at SXSW is perfect, right? So, we’re doing a wellness day at Adrian Grenier’s ranch.

Manuela Seve:

Adrian’s actually going to sit down with one of the podcasters and talk about his journey and how he changed his life completely, leaving Hollywood and now works the land, works the ranch, and kind of like, did the whole surrender experiment as well for himself. We’re all kind of, like, tied together, and maybe one lucky listener will actually get to come to that because he’s already the person that’s listened to the most content in those areas. But we can also pair the podcaster with brands that are doing the same for the environment, brands that are making products in recyclable materials, brands that are removing carbon from the atmosphere somehow. So, it’s really generating this positive cycle of positive consumption and teaching people how they can have better ways. So, I’m really excited about this program, and it’s not a one-off thing. It’s an ongoing program that will continue to benefit the listeners. It’ll benefit the podcasters as well, because they’ll now have first party data on who those listeners actually are, how they can engage with these listeners, where they live in the world, what do they want? So, it’s a win-win across the board, and we’re doing something good for the planet because we’re benefiting brands that have positive ESG during this process. Since we don’t actually take on brands that use a lot of plastic or that use a lot of sugar, we know that the technology that we’re putting out there is so powerful and that it really increases engagement and consumption to a level that we want to make sure that it stays within the alley of people that are doing something a little bit better for the planet, not just for the planet.

Manuela Seve:

But for ourselves. Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, that’s one of the reasons why we’re in such alignment. Because if I think at the core, why do I do what I do? Why am I building Podopolo? It’s to really raise global consciousness. Okay, that sounds like a really big thing to do. There’s lots of ways and steps.

Manuela Seve:

That’s dope.

Melinda Wittstock:

Dope, right. But, like, for a moment, because you’re listening to a podcast because you want to improve yourself. So, to align that with a company, a brand, or a business that is doing the same thing and rewarding that listener, rewarding that podcaster. So, podcasters can not only grow their audiences with the right people listening who are really being impacted by their work, so that podcaster’s influence is increasing, but the quote unquote ads that they’re listening to, or the rewards or the sponsored tie ins are consistent with that podcaster’s mission and why they chose to podcast in the beginning. And it’s helpful to the listener or the viewer because they’re like, oh, yeah, I can see how this actually really advances my life. And it’s consistent with why I’m listening to this particular podcast. There’s just such a clarity about this. It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually, I don’t know, it feels to me elegantly simple.

Manuela Seve:

1000%. So, our ethos is we want to gamify capitalism, to incentivize people, to work together, to make the world a better place.

Melinda Wittstock:

Love it.

Manuela Seve:

Very much aligned. Very much aligned.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. See, I think women are playing on this stage now of entrepreneurship in a new way and have a chance to kind of reinvent business. So, it’s not just short-termism, kind of winner take all, just no matter the impact or whatever, but it’s just more cohesive. It can improve the world. So that’s very much, I think, where a lot of women like to play. I mean, not all, but more so.

Manuela Seve:

Totally. And even if you look at the sectors that women are kind of like maybe a little bit stronger, like health tech, anything with sustainability attached to it, because we do care. We’re going back to kind of like what we said at the beginning, right? We’re maternal.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Like cleaning up the supply chain, getting rid of plastic packaging. There’s so many different things. Like you think of fast fashion, right?

Manuela Seve:

Totally.

Melinda Wittstock:

Gosh. On the climate, on the planet, and on our health, on so many different things. Using business as a canvas for social good has always been the aim here. This is why I’m so excited about this. So, of course, let’s talk about the product development of this, because this starts small with kind of a minimum viable product, if you will. Right? And it’s going to get more and more and more sophisticated over time in terms of how we’re doing this. So, we launch at South by Southwest with Adrian, which is wildly exciting, and some first brands, first podcasters, and in the app over time on Podopolo, it’s going to start to grow where everybody automatically, just automatically has a wallet, kind of seamlessly, automatically, very easy to just win rewards and such and connect with podcasters.

Melinda Wittstock:

The other aspect of the thing we’re working on together, too, is for podcasters to be able to authenticate the ownership and protect the ownership of their content. This is really important in what I call a Gen AI world, where we’re doing a lot of gen AI and stuff at Podopolo as well, and we use AI and such, but it becomes quite difficult, increasingly, to protect your own voice, which is your value for podcasters. So that’s going to be an exciting dimension of where we go as well.

Manuela Seve:

Really exciting. And I think it sets the groundwork not just for podcasters, but the way that we think of content as a whole. Right. Blockchain really is that authenticity layer that can sign ownership of all content. And also, I think the work that we’re going to be doing with your AI within the podcasters also opens up a conscious AI model that we can launch down the line, where different creators be them podcasters, be them, artists, be them writers, can contribute to a OpenAI library that can actually compensate them in terms of when their content is used, because it can be blockchain tracked. So, we’re very excited about kind of like the building blocks of this connection between blockchain and Gen AI because it really changes the ecosystem and makes us know just where is this ip coming from and how is it that we can compensate the creator?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, you know what, Manu? This is going to be bigger than either of us even know. And when I share what we’re doing with people, their eyes immediately light up and their brows lift, which is a sign of intrigue and excitement. And I found it very easy to explain to people, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting, because I had kind of thought the blockchain and crypto, it’s a little black boxy to people don’t know this wallet thing. Like, how do I do that? Whatever and so we’re just going to make that super easy for people.

Manuela Seve:

Super easy, which is kind of like the name of our game at Alphaa is simple UX, which doesn’t. When you think of blockchain and crypto, you don’t think of simple UX. But that’s kind of like how we’ve always operated. I’ve been in this sector for almost ten years, nine years this year, believe it or not. And we always built custodial wallets. We’ve always had authentication attached to emails or phone numbers. We don’t want people to have to jump through a million different hoops to be able to enter the blockchain ecosystem. We want them to do it in a way that they don’t even know that they’re on chain, but that they’re reaping all the benefits.

Manuela Seve:

And that’s where I feel like this partnership really kind of like, shines.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. I think the power of it too, is its decentralized nature. One of the things 1000% thinking about a lot is what’s wrong with social media. I was one of the early innovators in social media, one of the first ever crowdsourced content apps. That was the social. It was before Instagram. It was like text, video, audio, all of this sort of stuff. And we were using the beginnings of unsupervised machine learning, the beginnings of AI and unstructured data and natural language processing and whatnot, to understand not only the relevance, but the reliability of the crowdsourced content.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, ironically, solving the fake news problem before there was one, right? And I look back at that particular company and oh man, if I’d had blockchain back then, not only would that have been so much easier; it was a concept, while it worked, that could have been made so much better and so much more effortless. It was a little ahead of its time by the blockchain, for reasons of the decentralized nature of it, where creators effectively own their own audiences, for listeners and viewers, it’s completely portable and decentralized. That changes the game of anything social, where content is connection, which is very much where Podopolo is going as well. So that decentralization, do you think it’s going to completely remake the way we connect and converse online overall over time?

Manuela Seve:

A thousand percent. And it’s already happening, right? But I used to say that maybe during the last bull run, people would ask me that exact question. And my response was, it’s a backend revolution, meaning most people won’t even know that the system has changed, but the system is changing in such a powerful way that this decentralization is taking the powers that beat the Fed, the banking system, governments, countries, and is making them much less relevant because us as individuals and the tech companies that are kind of like leading this revolution are so important right now. That’s why it’s so important to align yourself with people that like ourselves are prioritizing. Companies with stronger ESG are very transparent because the blockchain makes all of that possible, right? You can have everything on chain, everything can be fully transparent, everything can be looked up via a ledger. So, the history is all there in its place, which paves the way to a brave new world where the power is much less focused on whatever brought someone into power and much more focused into what it is that they’re actually doing to contribute to the ecosystem. So that’s the beauty of the model, so disruptive.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you look at big tech, you look at all the issues around Twitter or X or Facebook or, you know, all the kind of issues there. Imagine that know complete transparency and where it changes the business model in a big way as well. Because all of a sudden, know, you think of Facebook’s business model or Meta I mean, they’ve been profiting off all the data of users and using what they know about people also to drive what’s known as engagement, right? But then when they figured out that engagement was driven by outrage, right? Look at the impact that that’s had on our society. So how does this technology potentially. I just love to geek out on this. My apologies going down this rabbit hole.

Manuela Seve:

But we’re like, listeners, we’re sorry we’re such huge nerds.

Melinda Wittstock:

But how does blockchain really address that from a business model perspective? Because it’s no longer centralized, it’s decentralized. So how do you see the model in terms of the way companies like yours and mine make money?

Manuela Seve:

That’s a great question. I feel like people are still going to continue to make money in a similar way by building communities. But I think the key word here is community, right? The power of the business community here is so much stronger, and it’s part of the game that we work on. How can we attach to companies or to communities, or to groups that already have cult like followings and give them tools to automate that so that their communities can really blossom and also become a bigger part in terms of participating in the next steps that company should make?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. I mean, I think there’s so much like all these things, it’s a work in progress. Right. I take it back to the beginning of our conversation about, like, you and I have these big plans and vision, and we know the why. Right. We know most of the what, but we may not know all the how, but we know that the who is vitally important. Right. A lot of women, this has come up on this podcast, some 870 episodes now out in the world that we can get really easily obsessed as entrepreneurs on trying to figure out the how.

Manuela Seve:

The how doesn’t matter. The how goes back to kind of like our mindfulness discussion earlier. Right. Things are changing so fast that the how is just like, it’ll change on a daily basis. And that’s kind of like the beauty of operating a startup is that you can pivot quickly and you can understand what works better with an audience and kind of like build on top of that. What really matters is the why. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly.

Manuela Seve:

I love that Simon Sinek quote.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s all about the why and it’s about the who. I think you and I are a testament to this.

Manuela Seve:

It is about the who. Thank you for bringing that up. I forgot about.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Like, it’s the people that you attract into your life, into your business, the customers you attract, it’s how you co create with them. And I think sometimes as women, it’s easy to be tempted to kind of put our heads down and be human doings, doing all this stuff and realize that we haven’t actually invested the time to cultivate the relationships that actually will be the things that truly transform our businesses or take them to the next level.

Manuela Seve:

Yeah. And that’s such an important, beautiful thing that blockchain brings. People can actually align with the who. They can choose who they want to support. They can join these communities, they can get their tokens, they can participate more actively, and they can be compensated for participating more aptly. And they can eventually even connect into the hoop 100%.

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Melinda Wittstock:

It’s just so exciting. So, I have a question for you. How did you first get into blockchain? What was it? That man who’s sitting there one day is like, yes, I’m going to be a blockchain entrepreneur. What was the origin story of all of this?

Manuela Seve:

Oh, my God. That’s a crazy one right there. So, the origin story was Manu started her career in finance. I worked with the former central bank president of Brazil, Armenio Fraga, and he was an amazing mentor. He really kind of, uh, a game changer in terms of what I learned, in terms of know. And at the time, I was looking at commodities and I was reading Mark Rich’s book, King of Oil. And there were just so many similarities between how the oil market in the 60s operated and how the creative economy in today’s day still operated. And so that kind of, like, set the framework for me to go and start my first company, which was an art licensing business.

Manuela Seve:

Through the art licensing business in 2015, I picked up blockchain for dummies, which was the first blockchain book out there. It was about Hyperledger, a network that doesn’t even exist anymore. And when I looked at it, I knew that that technology was going to change the way that we did absolutely everything, not just the way that we thought of ownership of physical artwork, which was our first use case. And so, we started to kind of develop our protocol internally as a solution for authentication, provenance, ownership, community building in the visual arts. Then when 2018 came along, we’re like, okay, we’re ready. Now is our time. We should get ready for an ICO. And then the whole world ended, and that was kind of like a proper bear market there.

Manuela Seve:

Nobody even wanted to hear the words blockchain. It was like, if you said blockchain, people would close the door on you and kind of shove you out of your office. So, we had to kind of continue to run the art company. And we were a closeted blockchain company for a while, where we continued to work on our protocol, but we kept licensing artwork. We placed hundreds of thousands of pieces. We did projects with the four Seasons, with Hilton Marriott, and that paid the bills. That got us to raise some funding as well. And we just kept the blockchain on the back end.

Manuela Seve:

And then when the bull run came back, all of these investors that never wanted to touch the blockchain use case, but that had invested in the art use case, started, called me up and they’re like, wait, don’t you have a blockchain project? What’s happening with that? So, we spun off the tech and, in the beginning of 2022, launched Alphaa, which is the first of its kind. It’s a fan engagement solution that allows for brands to know who their biggest fans are and to give them access to anything online or offline. We started last year with two enterprise clients, and we finished it with 30. We have ten more in the pipeline, and we’re probably going to get to 200 by the end of this year. So really exciting to be on a rocket ship as it takes off.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, this is so interesting, Manu, because it reminds me, that delay is not denial, right?

Manuela Seve:

No. And timing is everything. Founders forget about that timing. Like me launching this product in 2018, it would have sucked. We didn’t have enough ecosystem yet. We weren’t ready for it. But me launching this product in 2022, that was perfect timing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. That’s so interesting. The universe has a plan for you.

Manuela Seve:

The universe has a plan. If you listen, great things can happen.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s the thing for Podopolo. It’s been interesting. It’s been really difficult to raise money. We’ve progressed how we’ve progressed. Right. But there have been timing issues, there have been resource issues, all that kind of thing. And then now suddenly, like for us as well, things are starting to line up. So, if you’re in that kind of entrepreneurial dark night of the soul, if you’re listening…

Manuela Seve:

… dark night of the soul.

Melinda Wittstock:

Things are not quite working as you planned. Right. It can be a sign of many things. Maybe it’s true. Maybe you are doing the wrong thing that’s not in alignment with your purpose. That could be possible, but it’s not always the case. It’s just that, look, you just got to figure out a way to stay alive and be positioned correctly for when that wave hits, right? In your case, how do you know the difference? Because there have been times.

Manuela Seve:

Surviving is the name of the game, isn’t it?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Because there can be times when things just look so bleak. You think, oh, my God, and you start to doubt, right?

Manuela Seve:

Yeah. There’s a Lady Gaga Oscar speech which gets me every time, and every time I’m feeling down, I actually go and listen to that freaking speech where she says, it’s not about winning, it’s about not giving up. And that’s like the biggest piece of truth that you in your entrepreneurial journey will ever listen to. It’s not about winning. You’re going to win, you’re going to lose every single day. You’re going to get through things, you’re going to survive. But there’s one point in my career where it was right after FTX, so really bad moment for everyone in the crypto industry. We had just lost our lead investor.

Manuela Seve:

I needed to pay people. It was the holidays, and it was even raining in LA, so literally could not be more of a depressing day. And I’m sitting outside at this holiday party and this guy walks up to me, he’s like, oh, my God, you look so amazing. I was like, I literally don’t have time for this right now. And he’s like, what do you do. I was like, I’m a futurist. He’s like, I’m a futurist, too. I was like, oh, yeah, okay.

Manuela Seve:

You caught my attention. So, we started talking, and I started pouring my heart out to him, and I was like, it’s so hard. Life is so hard right now. And blah, blah, blah, blah. And he’s like, listen, how many times in your life has it been worse than right now? And I started laughing. I was like, oh, my God. Like, so many. And then he was like, and how many times in your life have you solved it? And I was like, all of them.

Manuela Seve:

He’s like, so the data shows that you got this. And not only did he give me a pep talk when I needed it the most, but on Monday, he went ahead to introduce me to an investor. Winded up investing in us 30 days later, so saved our ass. Wait, it gets better. Then that investor introduced us to another investor who’s our billionaire or savior. He ended up investing as well. That investor then introduced us to a foundation that gave us a grant, and that gave us enough money to survive the entire year and ended up opening a million doors. And that came from a conversation with a literal angel outside of a holiday party.

Manuela Seve:

So, you never know where it’s going to come from. That’s kind of like the other lesson as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

What a beautiful story and an important point to always open ourselves up to the possibility, to possibilities we could not have foreseen, like, just a simple conversation. Because you could have easily chosen in that moment just to blow that guy off.

Manuela Seve:

Right, exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

But you didn’t.

Manuela Seve:

And I tried to.

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean, you never know.

Manuela Seve:

This is just never know.

Melinda Wittstock:

Interesting. And so just finding a way through your day to stay open to and consciously aware, like, in the present moment. And that’s hard because a lot of people live in the past with all the self-recrimination and all that kind of stuff. If only I’d done XYZ, all that kind of build.

Manuela Seve:

Exactly. If only I’d done this. If only I’ve done that. But you have now. That’s, like, the most powerful tool that you have, and things are going to.

Melinda Wittstock:

Work out for you 100%. This is so inspiring.

Manuela Seve:

If they’re supposed to. That’s the most important part.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. We’re going to have you come back on this podcast. We’ll check in and have you come back on this podcast. And obviously, everybody listening to this, if you’re a podcaster, if you love podcasts, you’re listening to this show, you’re going to want to like. We’ll keep you posted on how this evolves. I’m so excited for it. And also, if you are a company, an author, anybody who wants to know about Alphaa.io and all the different ways Alphaa.io so important…

Manuela Seve [00:38:54]:

…there’s a second ‘a’ at the end, everybody goes…

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s all going to be in the show notes.

Manuela Seve:

Alpha-a-io.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what are all the different ways and brands, businesses and whatnot can play with you, Manu, because you’ve got so many different things going right now. Like with the simple right.

Manuela Seve:

We have, basically, we have two main avenues. One is the loyalty suite, and the loyalty suite is just the best loyalty program in the world. And you can engage with the loyalty program if you’re a company in two ways. One, we have a scavenger hunt as a service product called the Passport. Last year, we had scavenger hunts at New York Fashion Week, NFTNYC, Art Basel, you name it. We had over 50,000 people play last year. And then the second part of the product we call the fingerprint, which is a punch card that the user never loses and never expires. That becomes their identification within that community so that the brand can know when the user is engaged with the product, where he’s attended an event.

Manuela Seve:

All of that in one simple, organized pane of glass. And you’re going to have both of those very soon, Melinda, on your own dashboard. Then what we’re launching in a couple of months, and this is fresh news, is we have a new platform called Spawnstar, which came from our demand, doing all of these large events and having access to these massive organizations. We’ve noticed that there’s a massive mismatch between sponsorship dollars and sponsorship blocks because companies usually have much smaller budgets, but they would love to gain access to major events like Coachella, Formula one, the Olympics. But they don’t have 200 grand, a million bucks, or whatever it is. They may have five k, they may have $1,000. So, what we’re doing is we’re fractionalizing these sponsorship blocks on the blockchain, and we’re making them accessible to these smaller brands so that they can buy these tiny sponsorship tokens and have a digital presence in all of these events and have all of the data behind that. And for the event itself, it also launches a secondary marketplace where these sponsorship blocks can be negotiated, and they can make a resale royalty.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, we’re going to have all the ways that people connect with you on social and your website, all that stuff. We’re going to have all that on the show notes. I could talk to you for hours, Manu, thank you so much.

Manuela Seve:

For hours. Thank you so much for having me, Melinda. And I’m so excited for our little project.

Melinda Wittstock:

We’re putting on our wings together to soar. And that’s one of the whole objectives of this podcast, is encouraging women to work together, to buy from each other, to promote each other, to invest in each other, because we also are hired when we fly together. Thank you so much.

Manuela Seve:

Thank you, Melinda. Have a good one.

Melinda Wittstock:

Manuela Seve is the founder and CEO of Alphaa.io, the blockchain platform democratizing loyalty programs and event sponsorships.

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