From Drop Shipping to Bitcoin Education: Sanjna's Entrepreneurial Shift - Part 1

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi everybody, welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:02

Today you're going to be listening in on my conversation with Sanjana.

Tali: 00:00:07

Hey Sanjana, welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:09

I am so happy to have you here.

Tali: 00:00:11

Um, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you heard

Tali: 00:00:16

about Bitcoin, uh, when you did?

Sanjna: 00:00:19

Of course.

Sanjna: 00:00:20

So thanks for having me on the show, Tali.

Sanjna: 00:00:22

I'm super excited to be here.

Sanjna: 00:00:24

I'll tell you a little bit about my background.

Sanjna: 00:00:26

I'm based in Belgium.

Sanjna: 00:00:27

I've lived here my whole life.

Sanjna: 00:00:29

I, uh, went to the UK, studied sociology, and then went on to pursue

Sanjna: 00:00:34

a master's in media and communication.

Sanjna: 00:00:37

And then I came back to Belgium, and I was super interested in,

Sanjna: 00:00:40

just, marketing in general.

Sanjna: 00:00:42

So I worked in a startup.

Sanjna: 00:00:43

I worked in B2C, B2B, did about seven years in marketing, and

Sanjna: 00:00:48

then had a complete career switch and came into Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:00:51

I came into the Bitcoin space.

Sanjna: 00:00:52

So it's, it, it, it is very interesting.

Sanjna: 00:00:55

I, when I left, left my last job as a marketing manager in an

Sanjna: 00:00:59

industrial company, I was wondering what to do with my life next.

Sanjna: 00:01:03

And then Covid hit about six months later.

Sanjna: 00:01:05

So, my husband and I actually started a drop shipping company together.

Sanjna: 00:01:10

We, we we're both very creative and very adapting and we're very, we, we've

Sanjna: 00:01:15

always wanted to start something out of the blue and just try something

Sanjna: 00:01:18

that no one else has ever done.

Sanjna: 00:01:20

So we came across drop shipping and we thought, okay, this is cool,

Sanjna: 00:01:23

'cause I'm super into marketing.

Sanjna: 00:01:25

He's super creative.

Sanjna: 00:01:26

So we had that whole knowledge and, and sense of, you know, creating

Sanjna: 00:01:30

ads, creating compelling videos, just getting a little creative with,

Sanjna: 00:01:34

with that whole marketing front.

Sanjna: 00:01:36

So we started a drop shipping business, which eventually led into

Sanjna: 00:01:40

a white labeled beauty product.

Sanjna: 00:01:42

So of course at the time of Covid, you know, salons were shut worldwide.

Sanjna: 00:01:46

Women still wanted to be completely groomed and, and have a way

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of doing their beauty routine.

Sanjna: 00:01:51

So we started selling an eyebrow hair removal pen.

Sanjna: 00:01:54

And you think it's just such a niche product, and it's so random, but

Sanjna: 00:01:58

it, it actually worked really well.

Sanjna: 00:01:59

We, we, we sold, I think over...

Sanjna: 00:02:02

we had over 15,000 customers worldwide, so it was super interesting.

Sanjna: 00:02:06

And then we got into the whole business of more home beauty gadgets.

Sanjna: 00:02:10

So we, we kind of scaled that business.

Sanjna: 00:02:12

We worked on it for a year, almost a year and a half, and then there

Sanjna: 00:02:17

were just a lot of changes going on.

Sanjna: 00:02:19

We thought that, okay, COVID was making it a little difficult 'cause

Sanjna: 00:02:22

of the logistics, but there were a lot of issues going on with

Sanjna: 00:02:25

advertising and small businesses.

Sanjna: 00:02:27

And we just thought it was, it was more of a passion project and we're like, okay,

Sanjna: 00:02:30

maybe you know, maybe we stop this now and we find the next thing that we wanna do.

Sanjna: 00:02:35

So I think in that much time, we gained a lot of experience on how to start

Sanjna: 00:02:40

a business and how we can actually work together, me and my husband.

Sanjna: 00:02:43

'Cause it's a nightmare for most couples, right?

Sanjna: 00:02:45

It's not easy working with your partner.

Sanjna: 00:02:47

But I think taking that as a first experience is what actually

Sanjna: 00:02:50

led both of us to Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:02:53

So my husband's known about Bitcoin since, I'd say, 2013, 2014.

Sanjna: 00:02:57

He is, he is always been very knowledgeable, very intrigued by

Sanjna: 00:03:02

the whole space of, of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, but he never

Sanjna: 00:03:06

really took a lot of action in 2013.

Sanjna: 00:03:08

Then I think when things started picking up again, he, he got into it.

Sanjna: 00:03:12

We, you know, we quit, we quit this ... business, so he had more time.

Sanjna: 00:03:16

He, he, he does some other work on the side.

Sanjna: 00:03:18

He's a, he's a jeweler.

Sanjna: 00:03:20

He is in the diamond business.

Sanjna: 00:03:21

But he also kind of wanted to explore, explore other opportunities.

Sanjna: 00:03:26

So once he started getting more into Bitcoin and reading about

Sanjna: 00:03:29

it, he was fully immersed.

Sanjna: 00:03:31

'Cause when you get into the Bitcoin space, there's like,

Sanjna: 00:03:32

there's no turning back, right?

Sanjna: 00:03:34

It's, it's a rabbit hole and just go deeper and deeper.

Sanjna: 00:03:37

So I think for about a year I was still kind of figuring out what I wanna do,

Sanjna: 00:03:40

and he kept talking about Bitcoin, and it just, it never interested me.

Sanjna: 00:03:44

I just, I would go blank every time he spoke to me.

Sanjna: 00:03:47

He would, he would do all these sketches on a whiteboard, try to write these notes,

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and he really wanted me to learn about it.

Sanjna: 00:03:53

And I, I was just like, I, I don't get it.

Sanjna: 00:03:55

And there's nothing about it that's, really hit the spot where I feel like,

Sanjna: 00:03:59

okay, I need to learn about Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:04:01

But then I think the more he got into it and the more passionate he got about it...

Sanjna: 00:04:06

like, I could hear him talking about it with our friends or

Sanjna: 00:04:08

family and, you know, at that point everyone's like, oh, what is crypto?

Sanjna: 00:04:11

What is this hype?

Sanjna: 00:04:12

It wasn't specifically just Bitcoin, it was the whole space.

Sanjna: 00:04:15

Right?

Sanjna: 00:04:15

It was, there was this hype of Ethereum, Solana, just a lot of

Sanjna: 00:04:18

these different coins and tokens.

Sanjna: 00:04:21

And suddenly I'm like, okay, maybe I, I have a little bit of interest.

Sanjna: 00:04:24

I just wanna know what, you know, what you spend so much time in a day doing.

Sanjna: 00:04:27

So he started explaining a bit of the technicals to me.

Sanjna: 00:04:30

He started explaining hash rate blocks, mining, all of that.

Sanjna: 00:04:35

And then again, like, I don't come from a very technical background.

Sanjna: 00:04:38

I don't have a finance background.

Sanjna: 00:04:40

So for me, I was, I was still, I was trying to get interested 'cause

Sanjna: 00:04:43

he was so passionate about it.

Sanjna: 00:04:44

But nothing, again, nothing still really hit the spot where I was like,

Sanjna: 00:04:47

okay, this makes a lot of sense.

Sanjna: 00:04:50

I think that moment where I was like, I wanna get deeper into Bitcoin is

Sanjna: 00:04:53

when I started learning about the human rights part about Bitcoin, right?

Sanjna: 00:04:57

So it's funny because when I talk about this, a lot of women are

Sanjna: 00:05:00

interested in the same thing.

Sanjna: 00:05:02

Maybe it is a gender thing, I don't know, but he never told me about

Sanjna: 00:05:06

Bitcoin from this perspective.

Sanjna: 00:05:07

But I actually started doing a lot of reading.

Sanjna: 00:05:10

I started finding out that, okay, there's a lot more to the

Sanjna: 00:05:13

technical aspects of Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:05:15

Sorry, there's a lot more than just the technical aspects of Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:05:18

There's this whole crisis that can be solved with Bitcoin, right?

Sanjna: 00:05:22

People actually use it as a financial empowerment tool, as a human rights

Sanjna: 00:05:26

empowerment tool, especially in developing countries, in countries

Sanjna: 00:05:31

where there's authoritarian regimes.

Sanjna: 00:05:34

Maybe because he's from the U.S., I'm from Europe, it doesn't hit

Sanjna: 00:05:37

us, you know, the way it should.

Sanjna: 00:05:38

But we're both originally from India and, and we spend a lot of time in India, and

Sanjna: 00:05:43

government corruption, monetary issues, a lot of the stuff does hit close to heart.

Sanjna: 00:05:48

And then, that's when Bitcoin started making a lot of sense to me, when I

Sanjna: 00:05:52

thought that, okay, there's about 5 billion people, four to 5 billion people

Sanjna: 00:05:55

in this world who are living under these kind of governments and authoritarian

Sanjna: 00:05:59

regimes, and it's a place where Bitcoin can really solve all, all your issues.

Sanjna: 00:06:04

When, when I really started understanding that Bitcoin is for everyone.

Sanjna: 00:06:07

It, it's a form of money that's borderless.

Sanjna: 00:06:10

There's no restrictions based on age, gender, sex,

Sanjna: 00:06:13

religion, caste, none of that.

Sanjna: 00:06:15

Right?

Sanjna: 00:06:15

It, it, it doesn't matter where you come from, Bitcoin is literally for everyone.

Sanjna: 00:06:19

And I think that is when I started going down the rabbit hole and I'm

Sanjna: 00:06:23

like, okay, I, I can do something with this and I, and I wanna get into

Sanjna: 00:06:26

this, and this is the future, and I think I wanna spend the next 30 years

Sanjna: 00:06:31

of my life just focusing on Bitcoin.

Tali: 00:06:34

That is so wonderful.

Tali: 00:06:35

We have a very similar journey, in that, my husband started, he

Tali: 00:06:39

started down the Bitcoin rabbit hole before me, and he tried very,

Tali: 00:06:44

very hard to get me interested.

Tali: 00:06:45

And I wasn't.

Tali: 00:06:47

Like you said, they would go...

Tali: 00:06:48

I don't know if it's a man thing or an engineer thing, but they

Tali: 00:06:51

always go from the technical side.

Sanjna: 00:06:53

Exactly.

Tali: 00:06:54

He said, he was explaining, he was explaining the hash rate to me,

Tali: 00:06:58

and the, the, the whole blockchain, you know, structure and I'm like, I don't...

Tali: 00:07:04

what, what?

Tali: 00:07:05

But I really wanna find out more about that moment of spark.

Tali: 00:07:09

So you said that you...

Tali: 00:07:11

what interested you in the first place was the human rights aspect of

Tali: 00:07:15

it and that it's a freedom money and it's, it's financial empowerment.

Tali: 00:07:19

So can you think back to maybe a specific story that really jumped out

Tali: 00:07:23

at you and grabbed your attention?

Sanjna: 00:07:25

Yeah, sure.

Sanjna: 00:07:26

So I think the first thing that I read about actually was, was the strike.

Sanjna: 00:07:31

I think it was in Canada, but basically there were a bunch of truck

Sanjna: 00:07:35

drivers also who went on strike.

Sanjna: 00:07:39

They wanted to raise money through crowdfunding, and I think the government

Sanjna: 00:07:43

completely blocked them off some platform.

Sanjna: 00:07:45

I'm trying to remember the exact story, but that that's what kind of happened.

Sanjna: 00:07:48

And basically you realize that the government has a lot of

Sanjna: 00:07:51

control over, over any system.

Sanjna: 00:07:53

Everything is centralized, whatever bank account, whatever, uh, way

Sanjna: 00:07:56

you're transferring money...

Sanjna: 00:07:57

anything can be blocked, seized at any moment, because they

Sanjna: 00:08:00

have all your information.

Sanjna: 00:08:01

Right.

Sanjna: 00:08:02

So I think when these truck drivers went on strike and their money was blocked

Sanjna: 00:08:07

from transferring it to other people.

Sanjna: 00:08:08

It was, it was Bitcoin that actually saved them, and they could actually make

Sanjna: 00:08:12

a lot of remittances and, and transfers.

Sanjna: 00:08:14

And I think that's actually, I'm giving a first world example because

Sanjna: 00:08:17

that's when I think a lot of people started realizing that it makes a

Sanjna: 00:08:21

difference all over the world, right?

Sanjna: 00:08:22

It's not just about where you come from.

Sanjna: 00:08:23

It's not just about Africa and certain countries in Asia.

Sanjna: 00:08:26

It's actually, it's happening in North America.

Sanjna: 00:08:28

So, so that's one of the things that struck me.

Sanjna: 00:08:31

I mean, there's a lot of, there's hyperinflation happening

Sanjna: 00:08:34

in countries like Zimbabwe.

Sanjna: 00:08:35

There's, there's issues going on in Lebanon.

Sanjna: 00:08:37

There's again, India, right, like...

Sanjna: 00:08:39

it, the government's so corrupt.

Sanjna: 00:08:41

They're trying to block, they're trying to block Bitcoin in general.

Sanjna: 00:08:44

But even then, there's just so much corruption and so much politics.

Sanjna: 00:08:47

You, you can't even understand what's going on.

Sanjna: 00:08:49

It's like only the top 5% of that country actually has access to

Sanjna: 00:08:53

wealth, or whatever happens to that country is just in their control.

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And what...

Sanjna: 00:08:58

India's like the most populated country today.

Sanjna: 00:09:00

It's crazy to think that 95% of the people there don't even have, have

Sanjna: 00:09:04

access to bank accounts, or they just get seized, or they just get frozen.

Sanjna: 00:09:09

So I, I, I, I think for me it's, it, it, the best example is just India,

Sanjna: 00:09:13

'cause it's close to heart, and I know what's going on in that country.

Sanjna: 00:09:16

But for example, we've been speaking to a lot of people from, from

Sanjna: 00:09:19

Venezuela and Nigeria, Philippines.

Sanjna: 00:09:21

Like, these are all, all personal stories.

Sanjna: 00:09:23

One of our co-founders is from Lebanon as well, and there's so many

Sanjna: 00:09:27

countries going on in their own...

Sanjna: 00:09:28

so many issues going on in their own country.

Sanjna: 00:09:31

And I think it's, it's just one of those things where people are not aware.

Sanjna: 00:09:35

You know, if more people were aware of what's going on worldwide, they would,

Sanjna: 00:09:39

I don't wanna say just, move to Bitcoin, but they would try to understand how

Sanjna: 00:09:44

flawed our economic system is in general.

Sanjna: 00:09:47

But, but yeah, I think, yeah, I think again, for me it's just, it's just

Sanjna: 00:09:50

really India that hits for me, because it's, it's, it's really one of the...

Sanjna: 00:09:55

if you move away from the three largest cities in India, it's

Sanjna: 00:09:57

like it's a horrible situation.

Sanjna: 00:09:59

Whatever's going on in villages and remote areas and the way, yeah, the

Sanjna: 00:10:03

way the government has just been since the past like 60 years, it's very

Sanjna: 00:10:06

difficult to get, to get any kind of money into your bank account or to

Sanjna: 00:10:10

just, you know, get past the government and, and, and that whole KYC process.

Tali: 00:10:15

I really would love to be able to picture, like, a specific example

Tali: 00:10:21

that maybe that comes to your mind when you reference the village situation in

Tali: 00:10:26

India outside the three large cities.

Tali: 00:10:28

Because I think, especially for us women, we, we tend to want

Tali: 00:10:33

to relate through our feelings.

Tali: 00:10:36

And so if you can think of something more specific, maybe some particular family

Tali: 00:10:41

that comes to mind, or particular specific situation that you can describe for us...

Sanjna: 00:10:48

It's funny 'cause I've spoken to a lot of people from India, and they've

Sanjna: 00:10:50

told me their stories, but I'm just like completely blanking out right now.

Sanjna: 00:10:54

But the country that does come to mind is actually El Salvador.

Sanjna: 00:10:57

'Cause we actually just, like, did a class on this in our byte section as well.

Sanjna: 00:11:00

But I think El Salvador was seen as one of the most dangerous countries

Sanjna: 00:11:05

until we got the new president.

Sanjna: 00:11:07

Right.

Sanjna: 00:11:07

Nayib Bukele, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing him right.

Sanjna: 00:11:11

But basically he came into power and I think in, I think in 2019.

Sanjna: 00:11:16

So before he was in power, the country was known for its high

Sanjna: 00:11:20

crime rate, for violence, for a lot of the population being unbanked.

Sanjna: 00:11:25

And after he came into power, he actually, he's, they're the first

Sanjna: 00:11:29

country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

Sanjna: 00:11:31

So there's so many people who support this, and I mean, of course the country,

Sanjna: 00:11:36

but there's so many people outside of El Salvador who support this.

Sanjna: 00:11:39

And we, we'll probably see a lot more countries follow, and following, and

Sanjna: 00:11:43

taking the step because we've seen Bitcoin's impact on El Salvador, right?

Sanjna: 00:11:48

So crime rates have gone down.

Sanjna: 00:11:50

They've gone down more than 30%.

Sanjna: 00:11:52

It's become a new hub for tourism...

Sanjna: 00:11:54

for talent and tech startups to, to start their hubs there.

Sanjna: 00:11:58

Of course, he has a lot of popularity, positive popularity from

Sanjna: 00:12:01

the, from the population itself.

Sanjna: 00:12:03

Just, economically they're doing a lot better.

Sanjna: 00:12:05

So I think this is the best example of where you see a pre-Bitcoin country

Sanjna: 00:12:10

and a post-Bitcoin country and how much of a change there's actually been

Sanjna: 00:12:13

economically but also socially and, and just, yeah, just in, it just...

Sanjna: 00:12:17

very positively within the country and how many changes it's, it's made.

Sanjna: 00:12:20

And they're getting a lot of support.

Sanjna: 00:12:22

I think there's...

Sanjna: 00:12:23

we went from Bitcoin Miami, and there's just people who, who wanna

Sanjna: 00:12:27

move to El Salvador, they wanna, you know, start investing in El Salvador.

Sanjna: 00:12:30

Like it's, it's just opened up like a million new opportunities.

Tali: 00:12:34

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

Tali: 00:12:38

If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would

Tali: 00:12:41

like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

Tali: 00:12:46

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

Tali: 00:12:48

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Tali: 00:12:50

Also, if there are women in your life whom you think will both enjoy and

Tali: 00:12:54

benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them.