The Future of Art Investing
Today’s Startup Founder of the Day is Yaovi Kpoga, Founder of Roadies Labs
Yaovi immigrated to the States from West Africa when he was 11 years old. Moving to the States was difficult for Yaovi and his family— they didn’t speak English and had no money. Fortunately, Yaovi had some amazing mentors take him under their wing. They helped him learn about entrepreneurship and computer science education programs. With their support, and opportunities from great friends who saw something special in Yaovi, he was able to make something out of himself.
Yaovi started his career as a software engineer and has built multiple products from the ground up. In addition to developing his skills as a developer, he’s learnt how to manage teams of people, how to find funding for his ideas, and how to market them once they are live, all while still having time left over for coding!
The idea for Roadies came to Yaovi after he worked on a similar platform for musical artists. He saw the positive impact of providing more autonomy to the artist and their creative process. With the trends he was seeing, which merged tech and visual art, Yaovi thought there was a space in the industry that would be perfect for Roadies.
Roadies: The Future of Art Investing
Roadies is a Web3 fractional art investing platform that leverages blockchain technology to facilitate official governance, transparency, and liquidity via a peer-to-peer exchange. Artists are provided a new revenue stream and access to production capital, by allowing their supporters to buy and trade shares in their favorite art. Roadies’ virtual immersive gallery, real world pop-up galleries, and community platforms help bridge the gap between art and tech.
Since founding Roadies, the team has become part of the AlphaLab accelerator program, allowing them to complete their first two artist drops, each selling out of tokens within 24 hours. This traction has allowed Roadies to begin forming key partnerships with artists, investors, and cultural organizations both nationally and internationally.
How You Can Help
Roadies is growing fast, and is launching their beta version within the next month.
Currently, they are looking for artists who share Roadies’ mission and want to show their work in a new way. Roadies is also looking for investors that believe in their vision and are willing to bet on them. Finally, Roadies is looking for customers who are interested in investing and connecting with art like never before.
Join the Roadies family as an early user or join their pre-seed round.
Advice to Fellow Founders
"I know I don't have to tell you this, but I wanted to say it anyway: keep going. You're building something that's going to change the world, and no matter what happens, good or bad, your idea is something worth pursuing. There are people out there who are paying attention—even if you don't think they are. So put your product out in front of them and find out how they respond. And even if they don't respond the way you want them to—even if they hate it—you can still learn something from their experience that will make your product better next time around. It's okay if your product isn't perfect right now. It never will be—just keep testing things out and improving along the way!"
–Yaovi K. Founder of Roadies
Congrats to Yaovi, our Founder of the Day!
Please support our Founder by sharing their story.
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