The test
Could a sponsor invitation become something fans actively chose to join?
THE DEFINITIVE JOURNEY
Every chapter built the next.
Markets taught risk. Scale taught execution. Enterprise systems taught adoption. Participation work became live testing. Today, those chapters converge in intelligent operating systems.
Begin at the beginning
1998—2008MarketsIllustrative context
2016—2022ParticipationOwner-supplied historical artifactAI CREATES AI · SYSTEM OVERVIEW
Infrastructure · development · operations · orchestration
Goals · departments · approvals · customer workflows
01A—B
1998—2008
MARKETS
Learn the rhythm of risk, information and timing.
Sholom’s early professional foundation was financial markets: currencies, commodities, alternative investments and international client relationships. The work built a practical view of how information, incentives and timing shape consequential decisions.
The progression began in Prague at Rock Consulting Financial Services—first in sales management, then in international sales—and continued at Hemisphere Global Asset Management in Miami, with capital, risk and cross-border relationships at the center of the work.
02
2008—2011
SCALE
Sales became a system, not just a conversation.
At Truman Foreclosure Assistance, the focus expanded from individual client relationships to recruiting, training and managing an outside-sales organization. It was a chapter in repeatable commercial operations: aligning people, marketing and sales around a real execution model.
125outside sales executives recruited, trained and managed
$15M+sales recorded during the Truman Foreclosure Assistance period
35%+reduction in sales and marketing operating expense recorded for that period
Selected career metrics from a privately reviewed résumé; the résumé itself is not published.
03A—B
2011—2016
ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY
Technology earns its place by creating measurable value.
Panaya and VATBox brought Sholom into complex enterprise technology conversations: SaaS, SAP and Oracle environments, international business development and finance automation. The work made adoption concrete—large organizations change only when a system earns trust in day-to-day operations.
Technology became less about software itself and more about removing complexity from real business operations.
View the public professional record
What if customers chased products instead of products chasing customers?
THE OBSERVATION
People do not want to be advertised to. People like to play, compete and win.
While working in enterprise technology and attending conferences, Sholom noticed a contradiction: companies spent heavily to gain executive attention, while people would voluntarily engage with a small game or a chance to win something useful. Prize-based experiences were proposed and repeated across conferences.
That commercial and behavioral insight—not a claim of sole invention—became a starting point for later gamification work: invite participation first, then create the relationship around it.
TRADITIONAL
BRAND → AD → CUSTOMER
PARTICIPATIONCUSTOMER → GAME → REWARD → BRAND
05
2016—2019
A SHARED IDEA BECOMES NGAGE
Complementary perspectives, put into practice together.
When Sholom met the entrepreneur who became his NGAGE SPORTEK partner, they found they had independently been thinking about related problems in gaming, engagement and advertising. They combined complementary capabilities to test and commercialize the participation thesis.
The story is intentionally co-founder-led: it does not claim that Sholom individually invented later joint intellectual property.
STADIUM LAB / MACCABI
Participation had to work in the real world.
NGAGE tested games, prizes, sponsor engagement and timed interactions in a live professional-basketball environment. The product learned when to start and stop so participation could support—not distract from—the game.
The participation
Mobile games and timed interactions brought the audience into the experience.
The reward
Prizes, basketballs, signed merchandise and drones gave play a clear reason to matter.
The learning
Live usage showed that product timing matters as much as the game itself.
Private Maccabi letters, payment information and confidential metrics are not published on this site.
FROM TESTING TO INDUSTRY RECOGNITION
Innovation became visible beyond the arena.
Historical NGAGE archive material records a EuroLeague Basketball innovation-recognition period. This public narrative keeps the claim limited to the retained evidence and does not publish a finalist or award designation without its corresponding authoritative public record.
Recognition materials are retained as source evidence; precise award status remains subject to source verification.
FROM THE ROAD
Take the participation question to the people who live it.
The historical archive includes club, venue, meeting and presentation material from business-development work across professional sports. The site uses only factual visit, meeting, presentation or event captions when a formal partnership is not documented.
Visits and presentations are evidence of business-development activity, not automatically a partnership claim.
Venue imagery remains separate from official partner announcements and source records.
The public Inter Miami CF relationship is documented independently and appears in the next milestone.
07
2021—
XMANNA
Turning advertising into participation.
XMANNA expanded the work into gamified advertising, loyalty, social and skill-based gaming, rewards, sports engagement, commerce and interactive experiences. Sports was a natural environment because invested communities already existed.
Digital worlds were one expression of a broader participation-and-commerce thesis—not the whole story and not a claim that every concept launched commercially.
INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES
The idea becomes clearer when you can see it work.
Three representative historical experiences keep this chapter chronological. The deeper product archive remains in Work and Media, where every item is labeled as built and demonstrated, prototype and test, or concept exploration.
PUBLIC MILESTONE · 2021
XMANNA ×
Inter Miami CF.
Inter Miami CF announced XMANNA as its first-ever jersey sleeve partner and Official Loyalty and Gamification Partner. The official announcement identifies Steve Stein as XMANNA CEO and co-founder.
The relationship is presented accurately: through XMANNA, not as an Inter Miami ownership, employment or current endorsement claim.
FROM DIGITAL WORLDS TO INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
What comes next is built to coordinate action.
Building participation ecosystems made the operational problem clearer: complex work has to be built, operated, coordinated and communicated without losing accountability. Today’s AI Creates AI chapter carries that question forward with Adam internally and Eve externally.
AI CREATES AI · SYSTEM OVERVIEW
Infrastructure · development · operations · orchestration
Goals · departments · approvals · customer workflows