How I became a… crypto founder

Tavonia Evans is a self-described 'mompreneur' who has founded four businesses, as well as developing the decentralised cryptocurrency Guapcoin that she hopes will empower Black people and Black-owned businesses

Growing up, Tavonia Evans knew she wanted to change the world. She thought she might become a scientist, a researcher or perhaps an attorney.

Her early passions also didn’t hold many clues as to how her career would progress. “I was into cheerleading, I was creative, I loved graphic communications. Then when I was in college I was going to study history and travel the world,” she says.

But while she was studying history at the University of North Carolina A&T, she became interested in computer design and desktop publishing. A love affair with technology began, born out of her desire to problem solve.

“I started out by fixing broken code, which helped me to learn,” she recalls. “I’m a very good problem solver, I can solve any problem, I don’t care what field it’s in! If there’s a problem to be solved, I’m not going to stop until I solve it.” 

Her tenacity paid off, and she started working on open-source ecommerce platforms fixing glitches, before moving on to writing her own code. “Every opportunity I got to learn something new, I would take it - that’s just my love of tech in general.”