NFT now co-founder Alejandro Navia on building the future of tokenized media

Harvard dropout. Startup entrepreneur. Web3 advisor. Non-fungible token (NFT) enthusiast. Alejandro Navia seems a lot like your typical modern entrepreneur, but one who has a strong spiritual life and is willing to challenge the Web3 industry to consider life beyond the gadgets and screens.

Navia is currently one of the creatives behind the leading Web3 news platform, nft now, where he covers cutting edge artists and technologists. For him, Web3 offers two simple selling points: digital ownership and sovereignty.

Prior to nft now, Navia gained professional experience with leading media, AI and aerospace companies, including Verizon. He has also helped many founders and creators scale their businesses, raising over $92 million in funding.

Navia’s passionate interest in spirituality, herbal medicine and mental health advocacy shapes most of his work. In fact, he has been actively vocal about the mental health crises in the creative economy, affirming the importance of mental health care in the next generation of creators.

“Web3 is definitely going through its own mental health challenges. It’s a 24/7 industry that’s derived from access to information… The promise of life-changing money [in Web3] is really something that can create addiction or create gambling-like behavior,” Navia said in a CoinDesk interview.

As nft now continues to produce informative content highlighting the best talent in the Web3 universe, CoinDesk caught up with Navia to understand the future of tokenized media and why mental health in Web3 needs more attention.

The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

In addition to running a company full-time, you also have an interest in psilocybin education, plant medicine and marine conservation. How do you manage all this?

It is very simple. To the outsider, it seems like there is a lot going on, but when you actually start looking into it, it really just comes down to one simple purpose I have in life – to be of service. I am very aligned with mental health and really bring it to nft now. It’s about empowering the creators of [Web3] culture and bring the technology from niche to mainstream. And we explore the ways to do it in an effective way that tells other people’s stories and empowers those who are the visionaries of [NFT] room.

And when you think about my day, it’s very simple. It’s about having a well-crafted vision, knowing what the purpose is, and then having the discipline to say “no.” When you have your why and then you have your what, everything just becomes crystal clear. It’s really about making sure you have the right systems in place, and making sure you’re surrounded by the right people, the right team. I can’t stress enough how much help I get from my team, wife and friends.

Do you think there are challenges exclusive to the Web3 and NFT industry that make it difficult to run a startup in it?

It’s an interesting question. Being an entrepreneur in startups is incredibly challenging. And being a founder in media and Web3 is also challenging. So when you combine all three, it’s almost a recipe for suicide. So it’s incredibly challenging, but also rewarding.

And the challenge I face is [in understanding] what the future of tokenized media is going to look like. Especially because we at nft are not ground-breaking now. We are the ones who cut the edge. We are tackling a major problem that has really plagued the industry for about 15 years now.

Also, Web2 is broken. We know that very clearly. Even in journalism, it’s about the headlines, the clicks, the CPMs (cost per thousand impressions). And it sometimes comes at the expense of the community. People are now diluted to a single number, which is traffic, and our identity is not considered for the things we like. And then as a consumer there is this element of being covered by these concepts. People are no longer loyal to the publisher or publishers. They are loyal to the headlines.

So the invitation here for us to tokenize media is [in understanding] how to flip that model and actually show opportunities instead of showing ads. How do we ensure that we share the value we create with our community? How do we stimulate the community and the reward systems we can create?

And that’s why we launched Now Pass to be able to begin this first step towards tokenized media sharing. And Now Pass is the key that will help you unlock the Now network. And Now Network is this membership portal that allows you to engage with tokenized media and earn points that allow you to exchange those experience points for rewards, access, merchandise, NFTs, events and dinners, etc. And then you really start to incentivize the community of taking a generally active role in what you do versus a passive role.

Interesting. What is the biggest misconception about Web3 that you come across?

The biggest misconception is that we’ve been conditioned to have instant gratification when most people don’t realize that it took us about 40 years to get Apple Pay on your phones. And so the biggest misunderstanding is that we’ve conditioned society to think that everything should work right away very quickly.

Even in Web3, outsiders believe that everything should work efficiently right away, as quickly as possible. But great things take time and technological paradigm shifts really do take time. Remember that the internet was born in 1991 and it wasn’t until the mid-2000s that we started seeing digital media become a thing. All social media platforms we use today are probably around 15 to 20 years old. If they were human, they wouldn’t be able to enter a club. Think about it in that perception. Technological paradigms and shifts require time.

How can we address the mental health of Web3 creators?

Web3 is definitely going through its own mental health challenges, more than ever. It is an industry that is on 24/7. It is an industry that is based on access to information. And the promise of life-changing money is something that can create addiction or gambling-like behavior.

So it’s really about being more open and destigmatizing the conversation. And make it a natural sequence to say, “I’m not feeling well today,” or “I’m going through a challenging time.” And we are starting to see this in younger generations who are more open to it. But it’s still a fine balance between being open about it and doing it for social media.

Aside from your love of NFTs, what else do you have in common with the other founders of nft now, Matt Medved and Sam Hysell?

Oh, we have a passion for storytelling. When we founded nft now, we asked ourselves the question – what will not change in the next 10 years? It’s a question from Jeff Bezos, and I borrowed that question for us. And what we came down to is storytelling. The storytelling is not going to change in the next 10 years. It seems the media will change.

We also have a lot of commitment to serving people, sharing and empowering creators. We want to advance technology and challenge the status quo, and do it in a fun, efficient and friendly way. Honestly, we just do it with love. That’s what we have in common, the love of the game.

If you had to sell Web3 in 30 seconds, what would your pitch look like?

The idea of ​​Web3 is digital ownership and sovereignty.

Fair enough. What are you most excited about in the NFT space right now?

I am excited that the NFT space continues to thrive in the bear market. I am also very excited about the Now Network. I’m also excited about the future of tokenized media. And I’m excited for the nft now team to bring that future to life very, very soon.

This makes me excited for you too. See you at Consensus!