People Fundamentals #1: Elitsa Taskova – Meet Our Most Inquisitive Product Owner

Earlier this year, the strong fundamentals behind Nexo were the talk of the town. But behind our business model, the wheels and cogs, mechanisms and code, is a group of sharp-witted humans with a vision for the future of blockchain and finance. They too are fundamental to Nexo’s existence and growth which is why we think it’s about time you get to know some of them.

Introducing Nexo’s People Fundamentals, a series of blitz interviews with the people behind Nexo, covering everything from who they are and what they do, to crazy crypto stories, failures, sleep habits, and other curiosities.

We’re kicking off with one of the chief masterminds behind our platform and many of the products we’ve launched over the years: Product Manager & Owner, Elitsa Taskova.

People Fundamentals is going to be a weekly thing, so keep an eye out next Wednesday for the second edition where we pick the brain of yet another bright Nexonian.

Elitsa Taskova – An Inquisitive & Impactful Product Owner

1) Who are you? Describe yourself in a few words.

My name is Elitsa which means “a small pine tree” and I love it. I am a typical product manager – kind, curious, and sometimes funny with my unrealistic expectations of others. Jokes aside, I hope I am a good person. I have a variety of interests in different fields, primarily tech, psychology, and nutrition. Generally, I’m inquisitive and outspoken.

As for the doing part of my identity – oh, and isn’t that an interesting web3 topic? – I enjoy a lot of things but spend my time mainly building digital products (mostly on blockchain ;)) since I find it to be a multidisciplinary and impactful endeavour which is what I am looking for.

2) How would you describe your digital personality #Meta-Identity? (Ex. Internet Aficionado, Social Recluse, Digital Doggo Freak)?

It’s the same as my real-life personality: colourful, investigative, looking for whatever is of interest, speaking what’s on my mind. That kind of person…maybe I could be described as a digital nomad. But really, I always try to recreate myself in the digital space, not invent my identity from scratch. So I am who I am – just behind 0s and 1s.

3) You have all the resources you need; what do you want to create?

3.1. A real-life experiment, or an experimental city where I’ll use the concept of universal basic income. Basically, I’d invite people to live their lives in this manner for long enough to gather real-time data as to the effect on creativity if an entire group of people, i.e. a society, lives by having all they need to sustain life and spend time nurturing other parts of themselves. Creativity will be the primary focus as I am really curious to understand what bolsters our capacity for innovation, although a lot of other questions can be analysed in such a controlled setting like “How a capitalistic need is expressed?” or “Is ambition a thing in such a society?”, “What about criminals?” etc.

3.2. An ecosystem that can be sustained in space. Not because I want to move to another planet but because I can't imagine life without all the beauty and perfection of what we are surrounded by.

4) How did you get into crypto? What’s your Nexo story?

In my previous job I pitched an idea for the merchant to start accepting Bitcoin as a payment method (I guess this must have been back in 2018) and they laughed. I wanted to go where they think Bitcoin is the future. And Nexo wanted to create that future. And some luck, of course, I have never truly wanted to be so involved in crypto as I am today. It’s a matter of how much you can shift your perspective when an opportunity arises and if you can really grasp new concepts and ideas.

5) What is your biggest challenge?

Keeping myself up to date with all that is happening, or at least the more important stuff.

6) What is your biggest failure?

I hope I am not the only one looking through a different lens here: no failures, only lessons that brought me to where I am, and where I am is where I always wanted to be in one way or another. Life is magic. To call things “failures” is to disgrace a quality experience. But on second thought, I fuck up every day. That happens when I don’t meet my own expectations or when I fail my team or the people around me in any way. And that’s totally fine.

7) How many hours do you sleep?

I sleep like a PRO – eight hours and when I can, I can do more.

8) What’s in your crypto survival kit?

1. Patience
2. Forget the monetary part
3. Patience

9) What coin are you most curious about?

Bitcoin – that’s why we are all here, talking about crypto, right? :)

10) Who’s on your must-follow list on Twitter?

I am not into Twitter so much. I probably created an account there quite late :D Really, I find the concept of limiting your messages to certain symbols quite disturbs what quality writing can really provide to a reader. But I follow people that work in other crypto companies, a kind of competitiveness I have. I like Dan Rose’s digital presence, along with writers from a16z, “The Generalist”. The most recent thing that gave me a sense of awe was from the Milk Road newsletter. Fun, fun but useful fun – if you read this, great job guys.

11) Who are you outside of work?

Recently I started running and I’m kind of obsessed with it. Generally, I enjoy doing sports like yoga and swimming to keep my head light and clear :) I love a varied life and enjoy doing different things with my partner and my loved ones, like dancing, cooking, eating, walking around the city, and traveling – all that normal, simple pleasures that we so often overlook. I try to enjoy every bit of them.

12) To me crypto/blockchain is…

…what we’ll make out of it.

Next Week on People Fundamentals

Software Engineer Emanuenele Bolognesi from the Trading team tells us about his journey from aerospace engineering to crypto and his love of unicorns (not just the corporate kind). Tune in next Wednesday to meet this talented Nexonian.