AI, ML & Blockchain: Meet the UCLA Founder Who’s Just Getting Started
Meet Tushar Mehrotra, one of the most exciting and promising student founders here at UCLA! Studying both computer science and physics, there’s no short of technicality in his ideas.
Founding AI/ML-as-a-service company during his Freshman year, Hazlo.ai helped small businesses and non-technical business owners harness the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to help their business. After just a year and a half, Tushar sold the company to a VC fund that wanted to use the platform for their portfolio companies.
Now he’s onto his next venture, The Blockwood Inc., and I had the opportunity to speak with him about it:
Q: How did Blockwood come about?
A: It started when I began buying and selling NFTs last year. I had made a little money here and there, but when the market took a turn for the worse, I was left with some NFTs just sitting in my digital wallet. So, I started thinking about adding utilities to NFTs, making them more than just something to have sit in your wallet.
Q: So what exactly does Blockwood do?
A: What we do at Blockwood is help NFT creators add utility to their NFT collections, thereby increasing how much they’ll sell for. We are currently partnering with athletes and helping them make their own NFT collections.
Q: So what are some of the utilities you help provide?
A: Some of the things we focus on currently are discounts to certain stores or brands, signed merch from celebrities and athletes, meet and greets, and other events. Not only do these additions to the NFT make it more valuable, but they give the consumer tangible and real-world object or experiences.
Q: What has been Blockwood’s biggest challenge?
A: The pace at which the markets are innovating can be hard to keep up with. There are always new technologies and products being created which change consumer behavior. Although this can be a challenge to stay competitive, it also makes what we do so exciting and even more rewarding when we get it right.
Q: Having already had one exit and founding another company poised for success, what’s the secret?
A: I think two things have helped me greatly. First, is having as many mentors as possible. They have the experience that a first time or student founder may lack and, because of that, have helped me tremendously. Second is simply being a student! Being a young entrepreneur, I’ve found that we know what people want to a much higher degree than older folks do.
Q: My last question is simply, are you currently looking for interns or funding at Blockwood?
A: Yes and yes! We are currently looking for deeptech engineers that can help scale our technology and will be starting a round as soon as we can!
Thanks again for coming to speak with me today, Tushar!
If you want to follow Tushar on his entrepreneurial journey, are looking to intern for him, or fund his company, here are a few ways to get in touch:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tusharmehrotra28/
Email: tushar@theblockwood.com
