"Shoot for the moon, because even if you miss you’ll land among the stars."
Tamara Obradov has always lived by the saying.
Tamara Obradov holds multiple roles. She is co-founder at Gamechangers - an NFT collection by women artists, featuring Gamechanging women in their fields - from which the funds raised will go to women-led ventures. Back in 2015, after working as an operator in the digital space for a long time, Tamara decided it was time to give back to the world around her by creating jobs and pushing technology forward. This was why she went into the venture industry and became a VC. She wanted to help build new jobs for other people and accelerate innovation. During this journey, Tamara discovered the discrepancy in funding between male and female founders. "It just did not feel right to leave it like that – also considering I have two daughters of my own. I tried in the traditional way to change the established system, without success. When the Web3 revolution caught on, I thought this may be the way to create a new financial system that is more equal – and the Gamechangers was born. "
Tamara is passionate to be impacting FinTech in a way that they are building a new financial system for women entrepreneurs, in which access to networks for talent, expertise, launching customers, and access to capital is more equalized than in the establishment today. "By making contributors to this success, and also owners of the success, we can hopefully encourage more people to make an extra effort for a marginalized group. " She says.
Tamara started her career in the internet business back in 1998, while in high school. Domain name registration became legalized/regulated and they used to buy up all the well-known names. After college, Tamara moved to a more traditional career journey, in marketing, then strategy consulting (mostly multi-channel strategy & M&A), and finally on the board of two large e-commerce organizations. She founded two startups along the way that failed miserably. "I think the hardest part is to find a team that complements you fluently and is fun to be in. "Tamara shares.
Looking back at her career decisions, Tamara shares that the most important lesson that she learned is about people and team: "You cannot do it alone. And even if you could, it is way less fun."
She explained by sharing her best job decision as well as the worst one: "The best decision I have ever made was to work together with my two partners at Tablomonto Ventures. Even though there is much difference between us in terms of experience and expertise, capability wise, it has been one of the most diverse and rewarding teams I have ever worked in. I learn from them every day and truly believe together we make better & stronger decisions. Hopefully, we can create such a diverse environment with the Gamechangers as well. " The worst decision was when she was working with good friends on two different startups and not making clear agreements before commencing the work. "It led to failed expectations on all ends and cost us the friendships in the end. I promised myself I would not do it again, yet here we are🙂 "
To Tamara, "Shoot for the moon" represents a mindset. "A mindset that while it maybe not anything is possible, if you strive for it and think big, you will land in an alternative that is as bright. And funny enough, if you would put it in the context of web3, you could argue that this is the way to the Metaverse -> a collection of stars (Metaverses) that will be accessed if we just aim high😉 "
More on Tamara
Current location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Family at home: I live with my partner Robbert and our three kids in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Favorite hobby: Cake baking (yes really)
Favorite part of your day: evening, when everyone sleeps, and I have finally time to be hyper-productive
Can you tell us about a time someone encouraged you to try a task or take on a project you didn’t think that you would know how to do/or be good at?
All the time. A clear one was when my boss at an e-commerce company encouraged me to be on the board of an operating company of ours. I thought I was too young and inexperienced, but he saw potential and pushed me to go on. Let’s just say the hardest battles have the fastest learning curve.