Behind the incredible drops and the hype surrounding Gary Vaynerchuk’s non-fungible endeavors is Avery Akkineni, president of NFT marketing and strategy company VaynerNFT. Formerly head of VaynerMedia Asia-Pacific, Akkineni has played a key role in everything the growing VaynerNFT ecosystem has to offer.

Akkineni became an NFT purist after investing nearly a year of her time and energy into the space, and is now at the helm of one of the most innovative tastemakers in NFTs. With Gary Vee’s NFT collection and community-building project VeeFriends amassing nearly $100 million in sales volume in five months, VaynerMedia has been a dominant force in the 2021 NFT market. 

VeeFriends, which launched in May, is already within the top 25 all-time traded NFTs on OpenSea, and has secured numerous accolades in the NFT space. It’s impressive growth, but Akkineni says there’s a lot more to come for VaynerNFT.

 “We launched our first couple of projects in August, and there’s a lot more coming that we’re excited about. It’s still super early days for VaynerNFT,” Akkineni shares in the latest episode of the nft now podcast. “We want to work with partners who are looking to build something for the long term here, and who want to spend the time and investment educating themselves on the space and taking it seriously.”

On this episode of the nft now podcast, Akkineni discusses how she became immersed in the NFT space, the future of VaynerNFT and more.

Heading VaynerNFT’s mission to onboard athletes, celebrities, artists, brands and more into the space, Akkineni has entered the NFT ecosystem during a period in time that has seen numerous businesses and bold-faced names attempt to join the world of non-fungibles with varying degrees of success. Some find a natural cadence with the community, resulting in their NFT drops going over well. Others have a more difficult time, facing skepticism and backlash.

With various partnerships and activations in the works for VaynerNFT, Akkineni says she’s seen the good and bad of brands entering the space, and has positioned herself on the frontlines of bringing mainstream names into the NFT community. 

“It’s been a blast to help educate brands in this space and guide them on the way to think about it right,” Akkineni tells nft now. “It’s all about delivering value. To show an interest — a real vested interest in this community — I think is the best way for brands to get started.” 

Hit subscribe and jump in to our talk with Avery Akkineni here.