From Drop Shipping to Bitcoin Education: Sanjna's Entrepreneurial Shift - Part 3

Tali: 00:00:00

Hi everybody, welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:02

Today you'll listen to part three of my conversation with Sanjana.

Sanjna: 00:00:06

So, so yeah, I think the first world is, is just in deep

Sanjna: 00:00:10

of a, of a problem as, as all the, these other developing countries,

Sanjna: 00:00:15

you know, it's, it's the whole world.

Tali: 00:00:17

It is definitely the whole world.

Tali: 00:00:18

And you're right in that, I think especially when you're talking about the

Tali: 00:00:22

VC that you spoke to, I feel like a lot of people who have assets who are able

Tali: 00:00:27

to adjust their income based on their rising asset value, they don't feel

Tali: 00:00:32

the impact compared to a working class person who's depending on salary to live.

Tali: 00:00:37

So the fact that it's not impacting them personally, I think maybe

Tali: 00:00:42

just allows them to say, well of course it doesn't impact me.

Tali: 00:00:46

What are you talking about?

Tali: 00:00:48

But I wanna go back to what you said.

Tali: 00:00:50

You mentioned that when you first went into the Bitcoin space, or, because your

Tali: 00:00:54

husband was talking about it and you wanna support him, you started looking into it.

Tali: 00:00:58

Was there any point when you were first looking around, like, poking

Tali: 00:01:02

around, where you felt like, no, this can't possibly be real?

Tali: 00:01:06

Like, was there, was there any, like, emotional struggle moment?

Tali: 00:01:10

Can we talk a little bit more about that?

Sanjna: 00:01:12

Oh yeah, for sure.

Sanjna: 00:01:13

Because it's like, it seems like there's such a perfect tool suddenly,

Sanjna: 00:01:18

that can solve all our problems.

Sanjna: 00:01:20

And there's so many times where I've just tried to research what

Sanjna: 00:01:24

are the problems with Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:01:25

And honestly, I found nothing.

Sanjna: 00:01:27

Like, yes, okay, we can't predict the future, and we can't know for certain

Sanjna: 00:01:31

that Bitcoin is what is gonna take over.

Sanjna: 00:01:34

And it, it is relatively new, right?

Sanjna: 00:01:35

That's why all the volatility is there, all the concerns are there,

Sanjna: 00:01:38

so much debate is there around it.

Sanjna: 00:01:40

But, but that's, that's any, that's any investment or asset.

Sanjna: 00:01:44

That's, that's anything when, when it's new, right?

Sanjna: 00:01:46

There's always volatility.

Sanjna: 00:01:47

There's always debate.

Sanjna: 00:01:48

It's just that we used to...

Sanjna: 00:01:49

okay, pre, pre-World War, we used to live in an era where...

Sanjna: 00:01:54

didn't have fiat currency.

Sanjna: 00:01:55

We had gold, right?

Sanjna: 00:01:56

So Bitcoin is not that new of a system.

Sanjna: 00:01:59

It's, it's an improved version of gold.

Sanjna: 00:02:02

It's digital.

Sanjna: 00:02:04

It has a fixed supply.

Sanjna: 00:02:05

It's just, like, fiat currency came into play because the governments just

Sanjna: 00:02:09

chose to take money into their hands.

Sanjna: 00:02:10

But that's not how societies and civilizations have lived forever.

Sanjna: 00:02:15

Right?

Sanjna: 00:02:15

So there, there is a better tool.

Sanjna: 00:02:17

And what Bitcoin is, is it, it's.

Sanjna: 00:02:19

Like, it's too perfect for people to understand, but it's not...

Sanjna: 00:02:22

it, what I'm trying to say is, is it's not that new.

Sanjna: 00:02:25

It's not that someone invented this out of nowhere and it just came out of nowhere.

Sanjna: 00:02:28

It, we used to live in a world that, that had a better version, that

Sanjna: 00:02:32

had a better alternative to, to fiat, which was the gold standard.

Sanjna: 00:02:35

Right?

Sanjna: 00:02:36

The fiat standard is, is a very new system.

Sanjna: 00:02:38

And just coming back to my point that I think, I wouldn't even call it a flaw,

Sanjna: 00:02:42

but maybe the only issue with Bitcoin is, is, is that it's just very new.

Sanjna: 00:02:46

And it takes time.

Sanjna: 00:02:47

It takes time for any currency, any asset, any form of money to just

Sanjna: 00:02:52

get that stability and, and get that recognition from the whole world,

Sanjna: 00:02:57

get, get to hyperbitcoinization.

Sanjna: 00:02:59

But yeah, I, I, I think for me it's just, I, I really tried to search and I

Sanjna: 00:03:03

was like, there's no issue with Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:03:05

Like it's, it's just too perfect.

Sanjna: 00:03:07

It's, it's too good to be true, but it's, it's something that

Sanjna: 00:03:10

the world needs to know about.

Sanjna: 00:03:11

And I think I, I think this is where you need good education, 'cause

Sanjna: 00:03:16

it's so hard for the whole world to just believe, like, one person.

Sanjna: 00:03:19

Right?

Sanjna: 00:03:19

We, we to achieve hyperbitcoinization, we really need people to explain it well.

Sanjna: 00:03:24

We need...

Sanjna: 00:03:25

different target groups have to be educated differently.

Sanjna: 00:03:28

I did this talk with, with women in tech about like two months ago, again,

Sanjna: 00:03:32

very similar situation where they were, like, 50 women in the call.

Sanjna: 00:03:35

They've all heard about Bitcoin, but they're just too scared to get into it.

Sanjna: 00:03:38

They're so overwhelmed.

Sanjna: 00:03:40

And they're like, we've heard about it.

Sanjna: 00:03:41

It sounds cool.

Sanjna: 00:03:41

But then I don't know what to do beyond that, you know?

Sanjna: 00:03:44

So I think it's just, it's about knowing how people wanna learn.

Sanjna: 00:03:48

Like I, I'm, I'm in a team of, we're five co-founders and I'm the only female.

Sanjna: 00:03:52

And you always see the other four talking about the more technical

Sanjna: 00:03:56

part of it, the development.

Sanjna: 00:03:58

They, they're so excited about, you know, just like, what the, what,

Sanjna: 00:04:02

what Bitcoin can do technically.

Sanjna: 00:04:03

And I'm just like, but look at what it can do in humanitarian terms, you

Sanjna: 00:04:07

know, there's so much more to it.

Sanjna: 00:04:08

And that always hits me more.

Sanjna: 00:04:10

And for me that aha moment was just that it can literally save the world

Sanjna: 00:04:15

and all the issues we're going through.

Sanjna: 00:04:18

And maybe we're too early, maybe it's not perfect.

Sanjna: 00:04:21

People will always find flaws, but you can't, I, I, I think the media tries to

Sanjna: 00:04:25

find flaws when these flaws don't exist.

Sanjna: 00:04:27

Like, they say, it's not environmentally friendly.

Sanjna: 00:04:29

Yes, it is.

Sanjna: 00:04:30

It's just, the media puts up such a negative image, you know.

Sanjna: 00:04:33

So when you really, like, I, I don't wanna get into the whole environmental

Sanjna: 00:04:37

part, like you can see the classes, you can search online, but it's way more

Sanjna: 00:04:41

environmentally friendly than the way fiat currencies are made and printed

Sanjna: 00:04:44

and how much electricity they use.

Sanjna: 00:04:47

You know?

Sanjna: 00:04:47

So it's just that when you, when you have that 5% of like interest, you, you get

Sanjna: 00:04:53

completely into it and you're like, okay, there's, there's no flaws in the system.

Sanjna: 00:04:56

Whatever flaws you're seeing is just the media putting up stuff that is inaccurate,

Sanjna: 00:05:00

and you can't always rebuttal the stuff.

Sanjna: 00:05:03

But if you, if you truly know and understand and wanna learn, you'll see

Sanjna: 00:05:07

that it's almost close to perfect and much better than what we have today.

Sanjna: 00:05:11

For sure.

Tali: 00:05:12

Can you share...

Tali: 00:05:13

in the early days, when you were looking around trying to learn about Bitcoin as

Tali: 00:05:18

a very, very beginner, was there, if you could only recommend one resource, what

Tali: 00:05:23

would you tell people to go look up?

Sanjna: 00:05:26

That's a great question, 'cause that's why we actually came up with

Sanjna: 00:05:28

this idea, and we're trying to solve the way Bitcoin education is today.

Sanjna: 00:05:32

So the five of us, we have, the five founders, we have just this

Sanjna: 00:05:37

common vision that, you know, we wanna educate the world on Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:05:40

And the way people are educated on it today is just not good enough.

Sanjna: 00:05:43

I was, I was searching articles online, I was watching YouTube videos.

Sanjna: 00:05:48

I even tried to find some online classes.

Sanjna: 00:05:50

Nothing was good enough, because there's no structured curriculum for such

Sanjna: 00:05:54

a new person to get into the space.

Sanjna: 00:05:56

You don't know what to learn first, how to link things together, what to learn next.

Sanjna: 00:05:59

And we come from this generation where we don't wanna spend 10

Sanjna: 00:06:02

hours behind our computer and learn about one concept, right?

Sanjna: 00:06:05

Like, we have access to quick learning.

Sanjna: 00:06:07

We have access to learning one concept in two minutes.

Sanjna: 00:06:11

You're on the go.

Sanjna: 00:06:12

You're on the commute.

Sanjna: 00:06:12

You can, you can quickly just learn about one thing, right?

Sanjna: 00:06:15

So, In all honesty, the best platform for me and the best way I learned

Sanjna: 00:06:20

about Bitcoin was through Twitter.

Sanjna: 00:06:21

I do use a lot of social media to learn things, 'cause...

Sanjna: 00:06:24

maybe it's a generational thing, but I just feel like ... twitter, Instagram,

Sanjna: 00:06:28

sometimes, you know, it, it really feeds you content that you want.

Sanjna: 00:06:31

So even if it's financial literacy, there's like, there's people out there

Sanjna: 00:06:34

teaching you how to invest your money through reels on Instagram better

Sanjna: 00:06:38

than teachers in a university hall.

Sanjna: 00:06:41

Right?

Sanjna: 00:06:41

Like it's just, it's just the whole shift in learning that's made a big difference,

Sanjna: 00:06:45

and that's where the idea also hit us.

Sanjna: 00:06:48

It's like we don't want people scrolling through social media,

Sanjna: 00:06:50

aimlessly learning about something.

Sanjna: 00:06:51

Like, why don't we create this app where you can learn about

Sanjna: 00:06:55

one concept in two minutes?

Sanjna: 00:06:56

You don't need to figure out the, the, the curriculum.

Sanjna: 00:06:58

We've created it for you.

Sanjna: 00:07:00

We're creating a personalized experience eventually, where if you feel like,

Sanjna: 00:07:03

okay, I know this stuff, I wanna skip it, you can go to the next part.

Sanjna: 00:07:06

Make it social.

Sanjna: 00:07:07

Right?

Sanjna: 00:07:08

We live in such a social world, you don't wanna, again, sit alone in a room or

Sanjna: 00:07:12

sit behind your computer and be alone.

Sanjna: 00:07:14

And, and people did this in Covid, it's not fun.

Sanjna: 00:07:17

We live in such an online social world that why not be able to learn socially?

Sanjna: 00:07:21

So we also included this aspect, and we just thought that...

Sanjna: 00:07:24

compete with people, play games, earn rewards.

Sanjna: 00:07:27

That's what makes it fun.

Sanjna: 00:07:28

That's where the instant gratification comes from as well, you know?

Sanjna: 00:07:30

So I think, especially in financial literacy, this is

Sanjna: 00:07:33

what we're missing right now.

Sanjna: 00:07:34

I'm not too aware of other, of other topics, but I think there's

Sanjna: 00:07:39

just a big gap in learning the way, the way it's done today.

Sanjna: 00:07:41

Like, I think learning through long videos and, and articles is so 10 years ago.

Sanjna: 00:07:46

It's not the way people wanna learn today.

Sanjna: 00:07:48

You know, Duolingo is doing great.

Sanjna: 00:07:49

You wanna learn about languages.

Sanjna: 00:07:51

It's, it's the best way to pick up a new language, and it's, it's quick, it's fun.

Sanjna: 00:07:54

It's like you're just playing a game and you're learning a language.

Sanjna: 00:07:57

And you know, that's, that's kind of the, the direction we're going in with

Sanjna: 00:08:00

financial literacy, 'cause we feel like it's something, it's a skill that everyone

Sanjna: 00:08:04

should have, but not everyone knows how to learn and where to learn from.

Tali: 00:08:08

So how did you meet the other four founders?

Sanjna: 00:08:11

One of the co-founders is my husband.

Sanjna: 00:08:13

So we, we actually met through these Bitcoin conferences and meetups, right?

Sanjna: 00:08:18

So we met one of the co-founders was from London, and then he

Sanjna: 00:08:22

connected us to the two other co-founders who were in Switzerland.

Sanjna: 00:08:25

And the two co-founders in Switzerland are our developers.

Sanjna: 00:08:28

So they have their own company as well, and they've been

Sanjna: 00:08:31

friends for the past 10 years.

Sanjna: 00:08:33

So everyone's just kind of interconnected, came about with the

Sanjna: 00:08:36

same vision, and it just clicked and we're like, okay, this is...

Sanjna: 00:08:39

it just felt like it was, it was meant to be.

Tali: 00:08:41

So this app, it's called Yzer, Y Z E R.

Tali: 00:08:47

Can you give us a, a quick overview of what it is and how

Tali: 00:08:50

you came up with the concept?

Sanjna: 00:08:52

Yzer is a gamified mobile app where you can learn about

Sanjna: 00:08:56

Bitcoin and financial education.

Sanjna: 00:08:58

We, the concept is doing really quick two to three minute classes, and at the

Sanjna: 00:09:03

end of each class, you can take a quiz.

Sanjna: 00:09:05

If you get five out of seven, correct, chances are you'll find a ... box and

Sanjna: 00:09:09

you'll be able to earn actual Satoshi.

Sanjna: 00:09:11

So Satoshi's are the, smallest denomination of, uh, of Bitcoin.

Sanjna: 00:09:16

Now we're not getting people on this app to get them rich, right?

Sanjna: 00:09:19

We're just giving them that instant gratification.

Sanjna: 00:09:20

Even if it's, if it's a few Sats and it's just a few pennies, it's, it's

Sanjna: 00:09:24

what gets them back on the app and addicted to the app and, and, uh, that,

Sanjna: 00:09:28

that's where I talk about the social aspect and the gamification aspect.

Sanjna: 00:09:31

And I think that's how people wanna learn, 'cause they wanna get rewarded, they wanna

Sanjna: 00:09:34

get that adrenaline rush of of coming back and wanting to learn something.

Sanjna: 00:09:39

So we are a Bitcoin education first app, but we teach, we actually have

Sanjna: 00:09:43

entire modules on Austrian economics and the stock markets and financial

Sanjna: 00:09:47

literacy, 'cause we think it's important for users to be able to understand the

Sanjna: 00:09:51

root problem before understanding why Bitcoin as an empowerment tool, right?

Sanjna: 00:09:55

So you need to learn about the macro issues and know about

Sanjna: 00:09:58

inflation and interest rates.

Sanjna: 00:09:59

And Austrian economics is super interesting as well.

Sanjna: 00:10:01

I hadn't even heard about what it was before, but it's just this whole other

Sanjna: 00:10:05

school of economics that's completely different to Keynesian economics and it's,

Sanjna: 00:10:10

it's all of this that you need to learn to put everything together and understand

Sanjna: 00:10:13

that, okay, Bitcoin makes a lot of sense.

Tali: 00:10:16

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

Tali: 00:10:20

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

Tali: 00:10:23

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

Tali: 00:10:27

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

Tali: 00:10:30

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Tali: 00:10:32

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

Tali: 00:10:36

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