Ep 81: Building a cute, educational & interactive NFT platform for Web3 beginners | Mai Akiyoshi (CEO & Co-Founder, Curious Addys' Trading Club)

It’s time to meet our 5th #Web3 #NFT guest on STIMY!Mai Akiyoshi is a Silicon Valley engineer from Japan who has had a rather unconventional route littered with what one might conventionally consider to be “failures”.And it all began… with Mai applying for a sales position at a Japanese company. The company decided unilaterally that they would train her up as a software engineer instead and it proved to be really difficult. She was consistently at the bottom of her cohort, but still made it through the training and… got into the most technically demanding department of the company, where she was treated like an alien!Mai then got into a startup by accident - applying for a position she had no prior qualifications in, and even tried to rescind her application! That position eventually led her to the States, where she met Ben Yu (her co-founder & partner) through Nuseir of Nasdaily/Nas Academy and where her Web3 journey began. Now, Mai is the CEO and co-founder of Curious Addys, a Web3 startup building the best educational platform and community for newcomers to Web3 while celebrating ADHD. She is building ember.help, a platform where anyone can ask questions on Web3 and get guaranteed answers from experts. If you’re interested in all things Web3/thriving despite all the difficulties that life throws at you, then this is definitely the episode for you.Highlights:2:32 Growing up in Japan4:35 Being diagnosed with ADHD5:55 Being influenced by her grandparents, who founded their own company after World War II7:02 Wanting to go to the US8:27 Applying for a sales position & becoming a software engineer10:02 Japan’s shaming culture11:29 Feeling like she’d landed on an alien planet 12:24 Moving to a new startup, Logbar14:18 Moving to the US15:03 How Nuseir of Nas Academy introduced her to Ben Yu & is the “mother” of Curious Addys16:56 Studying at App Academy 19:19 Becoming the senior software engineer at Gusto21:55 How Mai first entered the Web3 space22:51 Why Ethereum is so interesting23:37 Meeting Zeneca & helping him with his smart contract 24:47 Starting a Tamagochi education platform?26:54 Why NFTs are here to stay28:23 NFTs are the best way to bootstrap a community29:32 The vision behind Curious Addys’ Trading Club: Education, Cute, NFTs32:07 Why an octopus for a mascot?33:56 The early days of building Curious Addys36:01 Finding her founding team members37:24 Maintaining the right values as the community grows39:28 100% refund policy40:15 Why release only 5,000 in the initial launch40:51 How they promoted Curious Addys’ Trading Club42:02 Building partnerships 42:59 The type of products under Curious Addys’ Trading Club44:39 What is Ember?47:03 NFT portfolio tracker 50:12 Reading smart contracts52:35 Mai’s favourite NFT 53:53 What Mai believes in that most people don’t in the crypto space54:15 Biggest mistake Mai has done in the Web3 space55:03 How to spot NFT/crypto scams📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/81         💌 Sign up for the weekly STIMY newsletter: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605 🪙 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sothisismywhy