I’m exploring startup ideas in crypto. I was most recently at Uniswap, after they acquired Genie, an NFT marketplace aggregator that did $800M of trading volume where I was head of product.
I want to build a mainstream business that uses crypto behind the scenes. I’m excited to bring together my DeFi and NFT expertise with my consumer software experience working at Lyft and Microsoft.
I enjoy coding, though my strengths are in user research, design, and go-to-market. I iterate quickly by evaluating markets, brainstorming ideas, and validating problems before writing code.
I’m looking for a cofounder who is also technical and is excited to go from 0 to 1.
My Background
Impressive accomplishments
Improved Lyft’s pay and matching algorithms, reducing costs by $67M/year while increasing top drivers’ earnings by 4%
Built a system at Kite for scaling our AI code completion plugin, growing language support from 1 to 13+.
Grew usage 10x of PowerPoint’s AI design features by shipping 30+ changes and running 100+ A/B tests
Won UNC’s first hackathon as a team, and 2nd place in “most web3” at Uniswap’s company hackathon as a solo hacker
World-class Go (strategy board game) player, representing Canada in international tournaments
Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (on full-ride merit scholarship), BA in Computer Science, 2016
Employment
Uniswap, Product Manager, 2022 - 2023
Genie (acquired by Uniswap), Head of Product, 2022
Lyft, Senior Product Manager, 2020 - 2022
Kite (acquired by Affirm), First Product Hire, 2019 - 2020
Microsoft, Product Manager, 2016 - 2019
Life story
I have always worked on my own projects. I resold candy when I was 8, sold candy kebabs in middle school, ran a tutoring service in high school, and built apps in college.
I am disciplined and focused. I stopped watching TV or played video games in 2007, when I wanted to focus on academics in middle school, and haven’t gone back.
I love scrappy growth. I won election to student council by a landslide with a rick-roll-inspired candidate poster, got enough Lyft and Uber credit to take it for free for years by posting in freshman orientation Facebook groups, and sold hundreds of t-shirts in one weekend by writing in chalk around my campus.
Then, I got a front-row seat at 4 startups as we grew from pre-fundraising/PMF to Series B.
Now, I just can’t stop thinking about ideas. When I was taking the night shift for my newborn daughter, who woke up every 45min from 9pm to 5am, I chose to build prototypes rather than sleep.
More notes
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I have startup experience from 4 startups
At Genie (pre-funding), I learned how to go from insight to launching a feature in a day, doing whatever it takes to unblock engineering, and how to collaborate in real-time.
At Kite (Series A), I learned the importance of being problem-focused. This means not being a solution in search of a problem, knowing clearly what success looked like, and the difference between a vitamin and painkiller.
At Teespring (Series A), I learned the importance of a lean team, fast experiments, and positive unit economics.
At Uniswap (Series A, B when I left), I learned the importance of focus on a few areas over taking too many bets, hiring only who is needed instead of growing too quickly, and having a clear product vision to work towards.
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I have work experience doing UX design
I handled design at a previous startup since we didn’t have a designer
I am able to craft a Figma design, build a Figma prototype, then build it in React.
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I have an edge in fundraising, and especially so in crypto
I am a member of South Park Commons. They provide hands-on support with fundraising, have a network of 300+ funds, and also provide support in the ideation phases. There’s also a free co-working space you can join me at in SoMa.
I have a strong crypto background, having worked at Uniswap, one of the most well-known companies in crypto, and at an acquired crypto startup. After leaving, I’ve gotten many VCs reaching out.
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I work hard and efficiently
My wife and I have a 1-year old daughter. I generally work 50-55 hours per week from 8-6pm, with limited availability on evenings and weekends. I can stretch on this every so often, but I won’t be able to work 70+ hour weeks regularly.
I’ve been told I’m methodical. Every morning, and throughout the day, I make sure the work I’m doing is always the most important work. I do weekly sprints and have accountability partners. Here are my past monthly updates.
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In my free time
I have a 1-year-old daughter who takes up all my free time! In the past, I used to surf, hike, and social dance. I also enjoyed backpacking and living in different places around the world.
Is methodical about prioritization: You ruthlessly prioritize, are deliberate about the why behind what you’re working on, and structure every feature as an experiment. You believe in the power of saying “no” to as many things as possible so we can excel at a few things.
Is also technical. However, you understand that a lot of your time is not spent coding, and that coding is not your highest point of leverage. It’s more important to prioritize what to build, research the competition and how it’s been built before, think through if we should build vs. buy, and reuse what you can, before you start building.
Lives in the SF Bay Area. I prefer in-person collaboration with the flexibility of WFH. You think of working together similar to a marriage, and understand how important it is to be deeply in sync with someone you’ll spend half of your waking hours working alongside.
Respects the power of distribution: It’s not enough to build a great but generic user experience. More important is knowing our audience, thinking about how we reach them, and building our product specifically for distribution.
Focuses on the problem: You are agnostic to solutions. You don’t build on a new technology simply because it’s interesting. If a problem can be simply solved without new tech, you find that ideal.
Iterates as quickly as possible: This is in everything that we do. We don’t plan to think about something, we work on it immediately. We share direct feedback to each other frequently and immediately act on it. We listen to users and make changes quickly.
Be short-term impatient, long-term patient
Are passionate about incentives: Our entity name is Coordination Inc. We believe in using blockchain to coordinate people and capital at a scale that has not been possible before. This is the most fascinating thing ever - it’s like a strategy game but on the world level.
Next steps
Would love to hear from you, even if some of the above don’t match. Contact me at:
I can build basic web front end, write scraping scripts, and handle data queries. I’m able to learn new programming languages as needed. Even without a cofounder, I’m able to prototype.
I majored in computer science and participate in hackathons, winning 2nd place at an internal Uniswap hackathon category by myself this year.
I’m easy to work with. Although I’ve been a product manager since college, I’ve learned from working with eng teams from startups to big tech, and on technical projects like developer tools and backend infra
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I have built in consumer and enterprise
I shipped many features of our NFT marketplace as Head of Product at Genie, which was acquired, and subsequently at Uniswap. I then led our backend team through two migrations.
I launched a new pay model for drivers as a Sr PM at Lyft, created two new teams, and shipped our biggest earnings change ever.
I expanded our AI code completion tool from 1 language to 13 languages, plus launched our paid enterprise tier, as first product hire at Kite.
I led the Windows and Mac PowerPoint teams as a PM at Microsoft, and led growth for our AI design (Designer) and copywriting products (Editor).
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I have startup experience from 4 startups
At Genie (pre-funding), I learned how to go from insight to launching a feature in a day, doing whatever it takes to unblock engineering, and how to collaborate in real-time.
At Kite (Series A), I learned the importance of being problem-focused. This means not being a solution in search of a problem, knowing clearly what success looked like, and the difference between a vitamin and painkiller.
At Teespring (Series A), I learned the importance of a lean team, fast experiments, and positive unit economics.
At Uniswap (Series A, B when I left), I learned the importance of focus on a few areas over taking too many bets, hiring only who is needed instead of growing too quickly, and having a clear product vision to work towards.
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I have work experience doing UX design
I handled design at a previous startup since we didn’t have a designer
I am able to craft a Figma design, build a Figma prototype, then build it in React.
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I have experience, and enjoy, growth hacking, sales, and go-to-market
I have brought creativity and hustle to getting sales for my entire life.
In college, I sold $1500 worth of t-shirts in one weekend by writing in chalk around my campus. I got $500 of Lyft and Uber credits by creating custom promotion images and posting them in freshman orientation Facebook groups
In high school, I won election to student council by a landslide with a rick-roll-inspired candidate poster. When I was in middle school, I made money by trading items in MMORPGs and playing online poker. When I was 8, I made money reselling candy on the school playground.
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I am open to a wide range of ideas and markets.
I’m interested in problems in crypto, personal productivity, and B2B SaaS. Here are some of mine:
I’m excited to ideate, explore unfamiliar markets, and build mockups.
I expect to spend most of my time in the coming months doing market and user research, building Figma prototypes to validate ideas, and coding only after we’ve gotten interest. I plan to go through the following ideation lifecycle recommended by South Park Commons:
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I have an edge in fundraising, and especially so in crypto
I am a member of South Park Commons. They provide hands-on support with fundraising, have a network of 300+ funds, and also provide support in the ideation phases. There’s also a free co-working space you can join me at in SoMa.
I have a strong crypto background, having worked at Uniswap, one of the most well-known companies in crypto, and at an acquired crypto startup. After leaving, I’ve gotten many VCs reaching out.
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I work hard and efficiently
My wife and I have a 1-year old daughter. I generally work 50-55 hours per week from 8-6pm, with limited availability on evenings and weekends. I can stretch on this every so often, but I won’t be able to work 70+ hour weeks regularly.
I’ve been told I’m methodical. Every morning, and throughout the day, I make sure the work I’m doing is always the most important work. I do weekly sprints and have accountability partners. Here are my past monthly updates.
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You write code.
You’re excited to build products, and are comfortable learning new technologies as needed. I’m not looking for a specific skillset, since I understand that ideas change as we investigate deeper.
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You live in the SF Bay Area.
I like getting to know people in person. My preference would be a hybrid approach where we meet up regularly but also get work done from home.
I live in Oakland and go into San Francisco every Wed and Thu to work at South Park Commons in SoMa. I also have a car, so can meet you wherever you are. You can even work at my place in Oakland!
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You want to build a business, rather than tinker with new technology
You are problem-oriented, rather than solution-oriented. We’re at an inflection point where there are cool developments with crypto and AI, but these are tools in a toolbox. If customers’ problems can be solved without using cutting-edge, and often complex, technology, you find that ideal.
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You want to build a venture-scale business, rather than indie-hacking
I applaud indie-hackers but believe that making an impact at scale requires funding to grow fast. I’m willing to take whatever time is needed to find founder-market fit and build conviction.
At the same time, I’d like to work on a lean team and am OK bootstrapping until we’re ready to raise money.
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You generate lots of ideas and are methodical about evaluating them
I’d love for brainstorms on one idea to generate many more ideas as we bounce off of each others’ enthusiasm.
You don’t get attached to one idea. You are open to iterating on, or discarding, ideas based on market sizing, research, or customer feedback.
