We recently connected with Tina Djenge and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tina, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

In early 2021, those who followed the financial markets observed a big movement of retail investors leveraging social platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Stocktwits, etc to influence stock prices – think Gamestop, AMC, etc. The same social volatility volatility also greatly impacted the digital asset markets, with Elon Musk’s tweets and celebrity endorsements driving price fluctuations in assets like Dogecoin and Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collections.

Success favored those with the bandwidth to track social trends or spend time in social chat rooms, leaving many, including major institutions, with significant losses and struggling to adapt. At the time, the market need was evident. Our team’s background is deep in analytics. We have already built one startup on the same premise of using social signals to predict demand within the fashion industry. So this year, we were really looking to expand into new industries, and we initially built a model that was doing social signal interpretation across 1k+ stocks, 80 cryptocurrencies, and 10k+ NFT collections. When we introduced the tool to the market, we quickly realized that in addition to interpreting the market, consumers needed more tools. So, we expanded the product and added on-chain signals, and then over the last two years expanded the product to be an end-to-end infrastructure platform allowing organizations to launch digital assets, as well as track and interpret them using our robust AI-driven models.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a cofounder and COO of Alpha Trend, where we developed a no-code technology platform designed to empower organizations in quick implementation of AI-powered analytics and blockchain technology offerings. This is my second business venture, and the path to being a full-time entrepreneur has been quite a journey. I spent first half of my career at Fortune 100s, across various roles and eventually landing in product management. During those years of overseeing a product portfolio, it became apparent to me that there was a gap between how I observed product rollout vs. how the company thought about the strategy for expansion of these products. I explored several ideas through early prototype stages before growing one into a sustainable, fundable venture. Pursuing an MBA and nurturing the right network provided me with the confidence to transition full-time into entrepreneurship.

For the past 3 years, I’ve been operating Alpha Trend with my business partners and there have been no dull moments. Our Alpha Trend platform isn’t just another complex technology, it’s a game changer for organizations. We offer end-to-end infrastructure that provides non-technical users with the capability to: 1) seamlessly integrate infrastructure for safe and secure data storage, 2) utilize smart contracts to establish rules governing product or data transfer for enhanced profitability, and 3) automate informed decision-making—all without the need for coding expertise.

We cater to a diverse range of industries, currently making strides in sports, entertainment, healthcare, and financial services.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Before starting my MBA program, I met Dip, our CEO and cofounder, at a networking event for UChicago accelerator program. His background was in commercializing new technology, and he was seeking a partner to bring the business idea to market. Recognizing our complementary skill sets, we were quick to form a partnership. At the same time, we were in search of someone with financial modeling skills. Hui, now our CTO, happened to live in the same building as Dip. So, the three of us came together early on, bringing together a unique blend of skills needed to get this business started.

We ran our first company for a few years, and then in 2021 decided to enter the digital asset industry. Hui spent over a decade building out financial market prediction models at TD Ameritrade. So, the transition that involved our analytics background building AI products and financial background for building digital assets felt pretty natural.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Blockchain technology has been notoriously difficult to sell in the past due to market’s struggle to understand the complexity of the technology and it’s benefits. However, when we presented our solution to a problem faced by one of our college sports customers in Oklahoma, the response was overwhelmingly positive. The managing director expressed excitement, noting that we were the first company in over a year to approach them with a focus on solving their real issues rather than simply selling the benefits of the technology.

I firmly believe that the most effective approach to selling blockchain technology is to avoid even mentioning it whenever possible. Removing complexities from the language and focusing on addressing tangible problems directly is key to closing a sale.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alphatrend.ai
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/alphatrendai
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/alphatrend
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/alphatrendai
• Other: www.medium.com/alphatrend