Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Tulika Jain, co-founder of Next Decade, located in San Diego, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We are moving towards an interconnected web of all virtual worlds where our identity will seamlessly move between them. Witnessing this dawn of the metaverse, we saw the rise of many new meta spaces but realized that most existing worlds are far too complicated.

Moving away from these complexities, the Next Decade universe is building metaverse as a lifestyle (a mobile-based experience for both brands/users). Users can curate their own space, immerse in a plethora of brand and artist experiences, bring utility to their NFTs through avatarification and unlock their New Digital lifestyle!

So, talking more about what is a space? A space is a 3D scene in which the user can place their NFTs inside and visualize their whole collection. Almost like their own personal canvas for self-expression! Their personal space further is an NFT in itself that can be bought and sold. The space equivalent for brands is a Showroom. A showroom is a particular space where a brand can place what they want inside (including NFTs) to showcase their world. We act as a launchpad for brands to bring any products/experience to the metaverse space. A showroom is not an NFT and cannot be bought/sold.

We want to cater to both brands and users while making the onboarding so simple that it allows the mainstream audience also to slowly adapt and explore this new digital lifestyle in the metaverse space.

Tell us about yourself

I’ve always enjoyed doing things that are out of my comfort zone, and I was never satisfied just staying in Silicon Valley in a typical tech company as a computer science UC Berkeley graduate. I moved to Paris to work at Louis Vuitton in their connected objects team, creating connected watches/shoes/earphones/speakers / etc. While at LV (also with my co-founder), we noticed that clients at LV massively cared about their digital personas (on Instagram/TikTok/etc.), and we decided to deep dive into this phenomenon.

At Next Decade, we are creating the future of social media and building your digital identity with a high level of interaction between clients and brands, transparency, and a strong sense of community. We are building a platform that would enable artists, charities, and small businesses to grow and gain visibility.

I strongly believe that our company, once fully developed, will help build a better world, and I am super fortunate to have the chance to build it.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

We’re still a fairly new company (<8 months ago), but we’ve achieved quite a few amazing things. We successfully raised money within four months of launch, we’ve built a community of 900 amazing individuals globally who are highly engaged, and we’ve hired 15 talented individuals to help us grow our vision. I’m super proud of the work we have done so far, and I continue to learn and grow as the company grows.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

There is a huge learning curve if you’ve never been a business owner before, and you’re always making mistakes. But it also means that you’re always learning, and it’s incredibly rewarding to grow in leaps and bounds.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Truth is a broken mirror, and every one holds a piece of it. It’s important to believe in your vision, but it’s even more important to be able to speak to others about your project to see if you are missing anything / or if you can level up your vision. It’s important to get a lot of input and take only the pieces that are relevant to you.
  2. Fail fast! Don’t sit in your garage for too long. Release your project as fast as possible to start getting feedback. It’s ok to fail, but it’s important to fail fast, again and again, so you can iterate and succeed as fast as possible.
  3. Keep it simple! There is a tendency to over-complexify everything, and it’s important to take it one step at a time.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://nextdecade.io/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextdecadeapp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nextdecadeapp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tulika-jain-a25b3681/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.