Have you ever wondered how investors craft their “rejection letters” to startup founders? You can now find out – via a non-fungible token.
Seattle entrepreneur Rebekah Bastian released an NFT compilation on Wednesday featuring a selection of letters submitted by startup founders who faced rejection from investors.
The names of the companies and founders are hidden – and unlocked when someone buys NFT. Some of the companies have raised large amounts of capital or had successful exits. Others ended up shutting down.
“The project’s primary goal is to provide transparency and solidarity about the painfully common experience of receiving a rejection letter from an investor you really wanted to work with,” said Bastian.
The collection is released under the umbrella of “Authentech,” a term coined by Bastian after she couldn’t find a category to describe her Seattle startup, OwnTrail, a platform where people share their career and personal life journeys, providing support and connections.
The prices of each letter are set by the founders, and range from 0.05 to 0.5 ETH, or about $65 to $650. The income goes back to the founders. Bastian does not make any money from the project, although she submitted some of her own rejection letters.
“Imagine owning a certificate of chain for an investor who thought Uber, Bumble or Canva wasn’t a good bet,” Bastian explained in an email. “The unlockable content (the name of the founder and startup) is like a classic NFT art reveal, and the value is also determined over time as the startup progresses.”
Bastian has taken a personal interest in NFTs, launched a few collections of her own art and started an all-woman investment DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).
“As a tech leader and lifelong artist, the intersection of technology and art is really tantalizing to me,” she said. “And I love the potential that NFTs have to remove gatekeepers and redistribute wealth.”
Bastian, a former Zillow executive, said the project fits with OwnTrail’s values: openness and solidarity. But the startup is not delving much further into the NFT world for now.
Founded in 2020, OwnTrail recently expanded to all genders and launched a paid membership level. It has 4,500 accounts that have shared more than 30,000 milestones.
“We’re working towards a huge vision, of a world where everyone has a path that they use to unlock opportunities across every aspect of their lives,” said Bastian, who co-founded OwnTrail with Kt McBratney.
