Raj Cosmos is a young Indian entrepreneur who has spent the past few years building start-ups in education and blockchain. His journey has included several setbacks, but he sees each one as part of the path to success.
Early ventures and lessons from failure
Raj launched his first start-up online in 2018, but it struggled to raise enough funding. He pivoted to a peer-to-peer learning platform that became Lastmoon Inc., which he says was recognised among the top 100 edtech start-ups in the country in 2019. That company also eventually closed, as did several other ideas he tried.
Rather than seeing these as failures, Raj takes a Silicon Valley view. “Entrepreneurs never fail,” he says. “Every setback is a stepping stone to a bigger idea.”
Discovering blockchain and NFTs
A committed reader, Raj began researching blockchain technology and became fascinated by its potential beyond cryptocurrency. He believes NFTs and crypto represent only a small fraction of what blockchain can do. A visit to Dubai during the World Expo convinced him that NFTs and blockchain-based verification would play a growing role in proving authenticity across many industries.
Oceanofnft
That insight led to his latest venture, Oceanofnft. Raj chose to focus on Asian markets first, believing awareness of NFTs and blockchain is already high in the West but still developing in many Asian countries.
Advice for aspiring founders
“You just need a phone, a laptop and 100 books, and you can take over the world,” Raj says. Among the books he recommends are The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
Looking ahead: soulbound tokens
Raj is particularly excited about soulbound tokens (SBTs), a concept outlined in a 2022 paper co-authored by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. SBTs are non-transferable tokens that could represent credentials such as degrees, certificates or memberships. Raj believes they could transform how qualifications and identity are verified, continuing a wave of innovation that began with Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper in 2008.
