Yael Tamar | SolidBlock
What Is SolidBlock? Tell Us About What You Do And How You Do It.
I’m CMO and Co-Founder of SolidBlock, a pioneer in real estate tokenization. Our mission is to create a market that is global, inclusive, transparent, and efficient, with no borders, limits, or unnecessary complexities and where capital is both accessible and protected. My personal mission is to raise awareness about the hurdles to blockchain adoption and inspire companies to work on various technologies or platforms that will assist enterprises with implementing blockchain in their workflow.
Specifically, SolidBlock is an end-to-end platform that helps real estate developers and fund managers raise funds through offering digital securities to investors. Its platform is used across a variety of fields such as finance, real estate, tokenization, fintech, and digital securities. Our claim to fame was the Aspen Coin - the first ever tokenized commercial real estate project in the world whereby SolidBlock raised $18M in 4 months for the luxurious St. Regis Ski Resort in Aspen Colorado. The Aspen Coin was listed on tZERO in Sep 2020 (amidst the COVID-19 crisis), traded by over 700 customers with over 4-8% of its market cap traded every month. The issuance price was $1 and the current price stands at about $1.30 (30% premium).
Our team is always hustling, simultaneously, working on diverse tokenization projects for residential, commercial, and hospitality-based properties in the United States, Europe, and Asia as well as developing strategies for the tokenization of additional asset classes.
Moreover, SolidBlock prides itself on its efforts to advance and facilitate interoperability and regulatory standardization, thus mitigating barricades to digital markets and investing.
What Is Your Background And What Was Your Upbringing Like? Also, If You’d Like, Share With Us Some Insights As To What It’s Like Being A Female Founder In The Fintech And Real Estate Industry.
I was born in Crimea, on the shores of the Black Sea. Essentially, I grew up on the sea and on the beach, surfing, swimming and diving. I am sure that those earliest years fostered my passion for freedom and entrepreneurship. For high school, I travelled by myself to the US on a special program and subsequently earned my BA from Hunter College and an MA in Behavioral Finance from the City University of New York. For all practical purposes, I was independent from a very young age and always knew that my life journey would be at the forefront of social and economic evolution. I worked on the New York and Tel Aviv stock exchanges but my pace and passions were clearly more fit for the start-up world.
In 2018 , Yuval Wirzberger and I founded SolidBlock. Yuval and I are the basis of a fantastic team. He has over 15 years of technology and product management experience and has helped both startups and large enterprises bring new media and technical visions to life. I have over a decade of experience as a marketing executive within the fintech, finance, telecom, and energy industries, as well as a long track record as an entrepreneur. I am also a regional co-chair at FIBREE, the Foundation for International Blockchain and Real Estate Expertise, the leading international network for exchanging knowledge between the real estate industry.
I am also a mother to two kids, ages six and eight, not to mention the dog and cat
What Was The Inspiration Behind The Company Name?
SolidBlock is a play on words that Yuval and I thought captured the essence of our vision of transforming illiquid assets such as real estate into tradable, compliant liquid assets.
The technology is based on blockchain and our primary, initial focus is on real estate, a “solid” real world asset. The word “block” has a dual role - emphasizing blockchain and the blocks that build houses.
What Have Been Both Your Favorite And Least-liked Parts Of Your Entrepreneurial Journey? What Have Been Your Most Challenging And Most Exciting Moments For You And The Company?
Favorite: My favorite part of my entrepreneurial journey is definitely the blessing of being able to see a dream become a reality. In other words, I am able to take an idea, grow it, develop it, nurture it and watch it flourish. Now that I think about it, I think entrepreneurship is a lot like parenthood so, touching on the previous question, Fintech in particular and start-ups in general may be optimal career choices for women.
There have been many exciting moments watching SolidBlock develop but, if I had to pick one, I would choose the success of the Aspen Coin. The feeling of witnessing something so novel, almost historic, emerge that will disrupt existing ecosystems in a positive way and to know that you and your company played a major role is hard to explain.
Challenging:
Similar to other startups in a new industry, our biggest challenge has been educating potential clients. In our case, SolidBlock is a Marketplace and therefore we need to educate two types of clients - real estate companies and real estate investors.
In order to relay the added value of tokenization to our prospective clients, we have had to devise a lot of educational materials which we have done consistently and successfully during 2019 and 2020. We have prepared a course on tokenization, built a prolific blog, webinars, a podcast channel, as well a book on tokenization, and a handbook on how to tokenize - both due to come out in 2021.
The efforts to educate real estate investors is a work-in-progress. With the recent rise in crypto, there has been an increased interest in additional crypto-like asset classes, which is essentially what we create. I believe that in order for us to overcome the challenge of getting investors on the SolidBlock platform, we will need to create easy-to-understand messages and tools as well as partner with various investor groups and platforms where we would be able to communicate our added value of this particular property-based asset class.
Tell Us About Your Co-Founder And How Your Skills Complement Each Other.
My Co-Founder is Yuval Wirzberger and we're a perfect match because number one we can use each other as a springboard for ideas for which we developed a methodology to turn them quickly into features of products. And number two, both of us are idea generators and both of us are position to execute while Yuval is slightly more technological than I am, having spent the majority of his life and career in IT. I also possess a good understanding of technology, which I think is important in a startup that is primarily engaged in R&D activities, but also, both of us are savvy on the business and marketing side. I think that because, you know, while Yuval had definitely has USB in Tech and I have USB in marketing and the fact that we have a well-rounded understanding on all of these areas definitely helps our company grow faster.
What Was The Fundraising Process Like For You? Tell Us About Your Investors And What You Use The Money You’ve Raised For.
Our fundraising efforts are diverse and ongoing. To date, we are thrilled to include BSEED (Built Up Ventures), the Holt Accelerator, Expert Dojo and various private individuals and angels as our investors. We are currently fundraising for Seed+ and within the next couple of months expect our valuation to substantially increase and boast another group of investors who are committed to our vision.
To date, funds raised have been utilized for various purposes ranging from tech development, operations and execution, marketing and business development as well as the execution of specific projects.
Can You Tell Us About Some Of Your Numbers? How Has Growth Been Over The Last Year?
Our company exists since 2018. We've grown tremendously in the past year with a number of our Partnerships exploding beyond 30 and with two assets tokenized and four assets in the process of tokenization.
We've shown consistent growth in Revenue as well as our platform has been fully developed with new additional features being added all the time.
Anything Exciting That Will Be Launching Soon?
We're super excited to launch our Marketplace. We have amazing assets that will be joining our Marketplace this quarter. So stay tuned for further announcements.
SolidBlock Tokenized The First Commercial Real Estate Deal In The World- The St. Regis Ski Resort In Aspen. Can You Walk Us A Bit Through That Deal And Tell Us How It Came About?
In early 2018, my co-founder, Yuval Wirzberger created SolidBlock with the idea to provide digital security issuance platform for the real estate market. Shortly after he was contacted by Elevated Returns, the company that managed the St. Regis Aspen Ski Resort, with a request to put together an offering for that property.
Their thought process actually started with an IPO where they were planning to take a part of the company public for the purposes of refinancing, but they quickly realized how expensive and cumbersome that was before and after and when you take a look at the cost associated with reporting and other ordeals of being a public company. At that point the IPO plans were scrapped but there was still one more option and that was the STO (security token offering). They looked at the landscape of the company's offering, a platform to conduct such an offering and they found SolidBlock and contacted my co-founder Yuval.
That deal was super successful as I described above and now Aspen coin is trading on tZero. I was working on a similar venture at the time and while looking at the competitors, came across a SolidBlock and the Aspen coin deal, discovered that Yuval lived in Israel and found a common friend who introduced us and we joined forces shortly thereafter.
How Do You Think Your Industry Will Change Post-COVID?
Our industry already tremendously changed in COVID and post-COVID but real estate went fully digital and real estate sales went digital, real estate tours when digital, it went global too because, you know, if you can't visit houses in your area, you can't visit houses in London or in Paris, just as well. So people are much more comfortable with buying and investing online. People are much more aware about global markets and they're also experiencing FOMO on a daily basis.
Any Other Thoughts You Want To Share Relating To Current Events, The Economy, Political Climate, Or Any Other Topic?
We're leading the current events economy. Any other topic? I guess one more interesting topic to mention is the recent events related to Robinhood, Wall Street, and GameStop and goes on to show how important it is to have the numbers and Retail investors on your side because of social media and the ability to transfer information and mobilize online. We're seeing this amazing phenomenon that I think will be taught in business schools for years to come and that phenomenon is that you cannot discount simple investors and only through democratizing the investment process and increasing the access to assets we can truly benefit from the growth in our industry and the growth in wealth and opportunities for all.
What Are Your Daily Routines? Walk Us Through Your Typical Workday Schedule.
The most important thing for me as an entrepreneur is to be able to see the “big picture”. So there are several things I do daily to enable that, which include waking up early (really early), planning my day, and critically assessing my performance over the past days or the week.
In order to be able to focus, I try to meditate daily, however recently, with all of the stress surrounding having children at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, I haven’t been able to practice it consistently and I think it has affected my performance.
What Is The Most Important Skill A Modern Day Entrepreneur Needs In Order To Be Successful? What Advice Do You Have For Entrepreneurs Who Are Just Starting Out?
I would say the most important skill for an entrepreneur is to focus. Stay true to their course. And make important decisions in a timely but not rushed manner. I think every entrepreneur needs to have a partner or an advisor they can talk these decisions through.
Keeping in mind their overall vision which needs to be as clear as day and that vision needs to be driven by something within the entrepreneur, a part of their ethos and something they want to deliver to the world.
Tell Us A Story Of Something That Happened To You That Taught You An Important Lesson.
So once I happen to have a bad day and I don't even remember what made it such a bad day and I went into my office building. Yeah, back in the day we used to have offices and regular office buildings and I went to my regular coffee guy and it was raining that day and I was all wet, you know, I think I took a bike and I didn't look at the weather forecast and I came in I was shivering and cold and here's the coffee guy bright and early all smiling at me and he knows exactly what I want. He was asking me how my day is and you know, and at that point everything just was much brighter and everything looked good, and I asked the coffee guy like how come he's here everyday smiling, it looks like he never has a bad day, no matter when I see him, he's smiling and he's happy. And the coffee guy told me, I believe that's a part of my job and my mission in life, you know, when I'm happy and I'm smiling other people forget about their problems and challenges and then they pass that on to everybody else. So then I realized, that's everybody's job. It's everybody's job to make the world a happier place. It's everybody's job to pass on good energy to others and that's what I try to do every day. My standard answer to "how are you?" is "amazing" and that surprises some people and I'm not sure why.
If You Can Have A One-Hour Meeting With Someone Famous Who Is Alive, Who Would It Be And Why?
There's so many interesting people I'd love to have a conversation with because I am a practical person, I would love to meet with Elon Musk. Because his vision also grand and unattainable, seems to be on its course to becoming a reality and I think it's because he created a path that broke that Grand Vision into something grounded and attainable and then move further and further to where he is today. He also has a very open mind, understands the challenges that all the all of us face and is not afraid to speak his mind.
What Do You Do In Your Free Time?
During my “free time”, if we can call it that, I run, I meditate, I surf, I take care of my children and pets.
What Is Your Favorite Quote And Why Does It Resonate With You?
My favorite quote is “no one owes you anything”---- by Yael Tamar. This philosophy encompasses two truths for me:
Don't blame anyone else other than yourself for anything
Don’t expect anyone else to come and solve your problems or bail you out when you're having challenges
Who Is Your Role Model?
Naming one role model isn’t easy but I will go with Tim Ferris. His philosophy, his life and career paths, his podcasts and his books, particularly the 4-Hour Work Week definitely influence the way I try to run my business and live my life. I do admit that I have a bit to go to reach his ideal but that’s ok…. I guess that’s what makes him a perfect role model.
Is There A Parable That You Often Think About? What Is It And What Lesson Does It Teach?
Growing up, I always liked Aesop’s Fables and later on I understood that many of the morals remain relevant for me. One fable that I like to keep in mind is the Lion and the Ass. In this story a Lion is walking around proudly in a forest and an Ass remarks scornfully as he passes by. The Lion clearly became angry but he just looked at the Ass, understood who he was, turned his head and walked passed him. He didn’t even strike at him.
The moral here is to simply ignore the remarks of fools or for me, people who may not understand me, my motivations and my abilities. Moreover, the moral teaches me to keep walking in my unique reality, chasing the goals that I know I will reach. I am always open to constructive criticism or perhaps, better stated, to feedback or input. However, I take absolutely no heed to words of criticism that derive from negativity. In my worldview, nothing is impossible and positivity is crucial on the road to success.
What Does Success Mean To You?
Success is internal feeling of satisfaction with myself and where I am. It doesn't mean stopping. It doesn't mean losing ambition. It means to me, that I will have succeeded to reach some of my important goals mainly delivering value via technology product or service that change the lives of some the change the lives of some people for the better.
Yael Tamar’s Favorites Stack:
Books:
For those who are in my industry, I definitely recommend SolidBlock’s Tokenization One-on-One course as well as the Tokenization for Real Estate Entrepreneurs book that is coming out this year.
In general, my favorite books are:
Pitch Anything, by Oren Klaff, as well as his other book Flip the Script.
Four Hour Work Week, (even though it doesn’t necessarily fit with the tech startup grind, it still has a very important message of how to prioritize different tasks within an entrepreneur’s activity)
Robert Kiyosaki books such as Rich Dad Poor Dad (I recommend for those in the FinTech sector who want to learn how to think differently)
Health & Fitness:
I am really not into brands. So my go-to health products would be healthy food and my go-to workouts are running, surfing, mountain biking (really not branded workouts right)
Brands:
Black t-shirts
Zoom-worthy blazers
Comfortable shoes
Consumer Products:
Newsletters & Podcasts: