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John Gatharia | Founder, Bullione Africa | Africa Investment, Market Entry & Venture Growth
I am the founder of Bullione Africa, an Africa-focused investment and business-development platform based in Nairobi, Kenya.
I work with founders, growth businesses, investors, and international partners looking to understand and participate in Africa’s evolving private markets. My focus is practical: identifying opportunities, testing commercial assumptions, improving investor readiness, supporting market entry, and helping build businesses that can scale.
I am also developing Bullione Studio, an investment and venture-building model that brings together private-market research, venture incubation, quantitative research, and investor infrastructure.
I joined Contra to connect with people building globally relevant businesses—especially founders preparing for growth, investors seeking grounded African insight, and specialists interested in collaboration across finance, technology, and business development.
I will share lessons on African market entry, private-market diligence, startup investment, investment thinking, and venture building.
If you are building, investing, or expanding into African markets, let’s connect.
John Gatharia
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
Connect with clients, get discovered, and run your business 100% commission-free
Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
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NFT Founders, Read This Carefully.
Selling out your NFT collection isn’t luck. It’s not hype. And it’s definitely not copying what worked for someone else.
Every NFT founder launching right now wants one thing: a sold-out collection.
But the real question is how do you sell out without blending into the noise?
That’s where I come in:
I’m not here to just drop art. I design the demand engine behind your NFT launch.
Every asset, every reveal, every visual move is engineered for one thing: momentum.
🔺Brand Clarity Before Artwork
Look at collections like:
Bored Ape Yacht Club and Azuki
What do they have in common?
Not just aesthetics but: Clarity.
Before a single trait was designed, three core questions were answered:
• Who is this collection for?
• What emotional identity does it give the holder?
• What culture is it tapping into and where is that culture heading in 1–3 years?
Brand clarity determines:
• Art direction
• Base character design
• Trait philosophy
• Long-term relevance
Without clarity, you’re just generating random layers. With clarity, you’re building identity.
🔺 System Thinking (Not Just Art)
NFT collections are not illustrations. They are engineered ecosystems.
When I say creative strategy, I mean:
• Designing traits that layer logically
• Structuring rarity distribution intentionally
• Building trait matrices
• Testing combinations for aesthetic integrity
• Considering secondary market psychology
Rarity drives demand.Demand drives floor price.Floor price drives brand perception.
So you know why your NFT will get sold out? I illustrate with rarity psychology in mind.
🔺 A Builder, Not Just an Artist
When you hire me, you’re not hiring “an NFT artist.”
You’re bringing on:
• A brand strategist
• A rarity systems thinker
• A visual architect
• A builder who understands market behavior
From ideation to trait development, metadata structure, and deployment on marketplaces like OpenSea
I handle the technical and creative alignment.
I currently have 5 open slots for founders who want to build strategically not randomly.
If you’re serious about launching an NFT project the right way, here’s what you get:
• NFT Ideation & Concept Strategy
• High-level Illustration & Visual Direction
• Metadata Structuring (Paid Service)
• Blockchain Integration Handled for You at No Extra Cost
If you’re serious about:
• Building a culturally relevant collection
• Engineering real rarity demand
• Launching with strategic clarity
Send me a DM or an email to cthumbs213@gmail.com
Let’s build something that sells and sustains.
Limited to 5 founders. No fluff. Only builders.
Founder Story Landing Page I designed for UndrDog.
The founder's goal was to test multiple pages to improve sales and increase overall ad spend. One of these pages was a long-form “Founder Story” landing page.
The main objectives were:
- Design a new long-form landing page for paid ads.
- Highlight the founder’s story.
- Showcase UndrDog’s premium fabric through their stress tests.
- Clearly show the difference between their hemp t-shirt and all the other products on the market.
- Create a premium-feel landing page design.
- Add scarcity elements to the page.
Designed in Figma, with supporting assets created in Canva and Photoshop, then handed off to the client's development team for custom implementation.
Big Buy : AI-Powered Investment Research Companion
Redesigned Big Buy, an AI-powered investment research app, turning complex financial data into a seamless mobile experience.
I redesigned the full product journey - from onboarding and company discovery to research feeds, AI-powered dossiers, earnings insights, watchlists, comparisons, and subscription flows. The goal was to create an intuitive research ecosystem where users can discover market changes, understand why they matter, and make informed decisions with AI-assisted insights.
I delivered UX strategy, user flows, information architecture, UI design, and scalable interaction patterns.
