Nooor talks: Ani Alexander
“ Be a voice, not an echo”
Today our guest is a blockchain marketer, a startup mentor and a bestselling fiction author — Ani Alexander. Consulting a number of projects, she is currently the head of marketing at Amazix, a full-service consultancy for blockchain businesses.
We sat down with Ani to learn about her inspiring journey in the field and her views on the current trends.
— Ani, please tell us about your journey into the blockchain industry.
I got into the industry by accident. My friend, who was a fiction author, introduced me to Steemit. I interviewed someone from the team for my podcast and later started writing there and earning crypto for that. That made me fall down the rabbit hole and learn about crypto and blockchain. Shortly after that, I landed my first job in the space. It’s been over 3 years already…
— What was the most exciting experience throughout your career path?
It depends on what you consider to be a career. On a personal level, having my pen name on book covers and books on bestseller’s charts was exciting. Launching and growing a podcast from scratch was a very inspiring experience too. As to the blockchain, marketing an ICO from scratch with a completely different approach from what was out there at that time was a risky but exciting experience of its own.
— How different is the marketing pattern of blockchain projects now and then? How did the market change after the meteoric rise of ICOs back in 2017–2018?
Back in 2017, what projects did for ICO marketing is what I call “lazy marketing”. In fact, calling it marketing would be a stretch. It was mainly paid placements-paying for PR, paying influencers, paying ICO listing sites… which is why they mostly attracted speculators who were ready to dump their tokens at any time.
The market has matured now. These days, projects need to have way more than just a whitepaper (which in some cases read like fiction). They need to look at and deal with marketing like any other tech startup that needs to raise brand awareness and acquire users.
— The new reality of COVID-19: please outline the importance of reshaping of marketing strategies during the pandemic.
Whatever you’d planned before COVID-19 definitely will need to be modified and, in some cases, even pushed back or forgotten completely. But that does not mean that you should disappear and do nothing. At minimum, maintaining your online presence is crucial.
These are the times when brands need to be sensitive and relevant with their online content. The focus should be more on building relationships and engaging with your audience and communities vs pushing sales and pitching projects.
— As you know there are lots of people in the crypto and blockchain space, who as well have Armenian roots. Who is your go-to person in the industry?
The beauty of the blockchain community is that it unites different people from all over the world around a technology that has a true philosophy behind it. It’s a decentralized community that is beyond geography, ethnicity, and religion. I love working with many of them and would prefer not to mention names, risking to forget a few.
— You are the author of a number of best-selling books, you run a series of podcasts. What is your source of inspiration?
Life itself is the best source of inspiration. Real-life stories and real people are what I look at. There is so much one can notice if we just pay attention.
— We have many young folks in our community who are trying to pave their way in the space. What will be your advice to them?
Don’t get intimidated. Often, you may think that people in space are way smarter than you are, but that is not true. No one in this space knew and understood blockchain from Day 1. We all started from scratch, just like you are doing now.
— Thank you very much and looking forward to more exciting endeavors on you side, Ani!
Want to know more about projects Ani is working on or about first-hand insights from Ani’s podcast guests? Make sure to subscribe on https://anialexander.com/
Originally published at https://nooor.io on May 28, 2020.
