Building a Blockchain-Powered NFT Marketplace

NFTs are encrypted, uniquely identifiable assets that utilize the blockchain. NFTs can’t be used as cryptocurrency. As a result, unlike cryptocurrencies and other fungible tokens, NFTs can’t facilitate commercial transactions. However, they are quite useful in other ways. “Applications for NFTs include collectibles, gaming items, domain names, digital art, and other goods on a blockchain,” GalaxE’s CEO Jenny Q. Ta explains.

Many companies, including GalaxE, have sprung up in recent years to take advantage of the approximately $1 trillion market for NFTs. The idea for GalaxE first came to co-founder AJ after he interned at a software company. Deciding he needed a new direction for his career, AJ began to explore the world of technology and NFTs. He then met Lenny, another co-founder. Together they started HODL Assets, which developed GalaxE.

“Accomplishing something that people said he would never be able to accomplish was, and still is, AJ’s inspiration,” Ta says. “I joined the team in August 2021 when AJ and Lenny acquired my company CoinLinked [another blockchain company], and things have transformed from there.”

Although there are many other NFT platforms, GalaxE stands out for several reasons. In particular, it claims to be the first “cross-blockchain Web3 NFT social metaverse,” Jenny says. “What differentiates GalaxE is that the platform enables creators and collectors to not only discover, collect, mint, and sell NFTs, but to engage, socialize, and swap over 450 different cryptocurrencies while earning free social tokens to pay for minting and gas fees as they share blockchain-based digital goods. The marketplace integrates all these features and more into a single platform.”

 Jenny says she has always been an entrepreneur at heart, having founded three companies before joining GalaxE. “The [founder’s] role holds a lot of responsibility and discipline and at times is super stressful,” she says. “But there are big pluses if success is attained: wealth, freedom, and the ability to be independent with your time.” She also stresses her love for problem-solving through technology. “Being an entrepreneur and founding a startup has to start from passion. It’s one’s passion to resolve a certain problem that usually initiates an idea for a business, and from there, the right market follows.”

GalaxE has gone through several accredited angel investor rounds. It’s currently raising its Series A funding round of $15 million ($4 million has already been committed and signed). The company has a team of about 30 engineers that work exclusively on the GalaxE.io platform, most of whom are independent contractors. 

Jenny says the company’s marketing strategy is “a mixture of branding PR, conventional digital advertising, and social media influence through outlets like TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn.” GalaxE acquired its first 100 customers in part by being very intentional about building a community on social media and elsewhere. She’s most active on Twitter, where she’s been listed as one of eight Dogecoin accounts to follow, alongside such luminaries as Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, and Billy Markus. “That’s the sphere where I do most of my connecting, and it’s helped tremendously in growing our customer base,” she says.