building @ostium | prev harvard, ballerina @ royal danish ballet
Joined October 2020
- Tweets 5,487
- Following 2,461
- Followers 10,924
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541 Photos and videos
Just finished a hiring round for our growth team. A ton of dms and resumes flooded in from this post
I know there’s a lot of people looking for their next career chapter. I was reflecting on what I signals I use to filter applications and invite to first round interviews:
Bucket A: Specialist in a specific channel that is hands on (e.g. performance marketing, lifecycle marketing)
- Firstly requires a clear view of OKRs and how to achieve them to know what roles to build around
- Some knowledge in how time intensive each speciality is and if it requires dedicated talent doing it full time, or a generalist type (this is changing with AI)
- Should be visible in a candidates resume with quantifiable results
- As a candidate, you should also reflect knowledge of the skill with the exact tool stacks you’ve used in your cv
Bucket B: Generalist with domain expertise
- For example, a marketing lead or growth marketer who wore multiple hats but worked at a competitor, breakout app, or company in similar category
- Requires awareness of and identifying breakout companies, competitors, similar cos in your category (some carry more weight)
- Ideally comes with some edge based on that exact vertical (existing relationships, knowledge in best converting channels, angles, geos etc)
- When applying as a candidate, highlight companies you’ve worked at that are most similar to the job with call outs on how you helped them grow
Other signals I look for:
- Ability to position themselves concisely in cold dms
- How metrics and responsibilities are framed in cv
- Existing owned distribution: do they have any social channels or media they’ve built up themselves
- Proactivity and grit signaled by any entrepreneurial experience
- AI-native (usually more deeply sourced in interview)
Reference checks are also important in key hiring decisions, if you’re an applicant, expect this to happen
This means dream hires are someone who has a combination of both buckets and some of the bonus signals too. They have channel or tactic specialties they’ve built up over the years, have executed them in a company in a similar vertical that has proven breakout growth, and come with existing distribution and relationships
If you were affected by the Coinbase layoffs and/or seeking your next growth role, i’m actively building a GTM team
Looking for domain expertise in:
- neodistribution: clipping, ugc, ai creative at scale
- media buying (specify which channels and split between quantitative v creative)
- seo/aeo
- email marketing and lifecycle
- affiliate marketing
Must be actively using AI to scale work, yet have discernment in output that comes from experience
Bonus if you’re a trader and/or have grown consumer fintechs and neobanks. You’d work with other high-agency growth generalists who like winning and feeling proud about the work they do. Comment if this is you or feel free to share - can send a jd.
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On the phone with my mom and she’s telling me about her agent setup. She has Claude, GPT, and Grok all running concurrently. I called and she wouldn’t talk until she had Claude set up to continue its analysis so it could work while we spoke. I’ve created a monster
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Last month she told Claude its response was bad and it was “being an idiot” and Claude responded that it “took offense” and “wouldn’t tolerate being insulted.” She responded that it “isn’t a sentient being” and thus “can’t have hurt feelings.” It backed off & fixed its response
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The OrangeBox™ shoot was one of my early exposures to Fok’s creative direction
Two months ago we had these big orange boxes in the office. I was taking shots of them on the carpet thinking it’d be a good idea to tease on socials
Foks came in and was like “wait what if we do something fun, like take photos of them at a bodega or something?”
In the next 45 minutes we bought a stack of newspapers, staged a setup at a bodega, and got these tasteful street shots. I downloaded some genz photo editing app to color grade it lol and boom
Beyond insane taste and style Foks also comes with deep trading knowledge, is a prolific writer (he’s a huge part of our macro newsletter we send weekly), and helps sanity check copy, details, and narrative all with the utmost calm, bless
May 20
Pleased to finally announce I've been working at @Ostium for the past couple months. I'm helping with propaganda, narrative, and all things taste.
Ostium is the gateway to bringing global markets, like gold, FX, and equities, onchain. Traders have access to true depth and liquidity on crypto rails.
For many years I've been the CEO of being unemployed. Fortunately for my mental health, I'm putting that mantle down to focus on things that matter.
"The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!" — Nietzsche,
or as I read it: to risk is to live
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Thrilled to welcome @exaltedfoks, our minister of taste and propaganda to the team!!
May 20
Pleased to finally announce I've been working at @Ostium for the past couple months. I'm helping with propaganda, narrative, and all things taste.
Ostium is the gateway to bringing global markets, like gold, FX, and equities, onchain. Traders have access to true depth and liquidity on crypto rails.
For many years I've been the CEO of being unemployed. Fortunately for my mental health, I'm putting that mantle down to focus on things that matter.
"The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!" — Nietzsche,
or as I read it: to risk is to live
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hyperostium?
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I started following Emily on X in 2023 and spent 2 years scheming to get her to join Ostium. She has a unique combination of seemingly oxymoronic skills - growth hacker but data driven, savvy strategist but in the weeds executor, crypto native but web2 origins
Super pumped to have her on the team!!
Fun fact: I mailed her a gold bar with the words “redeemable for Ostium equity” engraved on the back as an offer
I've joined Ostium to lead marketing!
There is a massive market opportunity ahead using blockchain rails to build better financial platforms for traders and investors globally
I first met @kaledora in 2024 at Bangkok Devcon. In 2025, I visited the @ostium office where she looked me dead in the eyes and said she wanted to build a $10B company; I asked where can I send my (small) check. After a few months of learning more about the team and vision, I joined full time in March. Angel investor to employee arc activated
What excited me most came down to the people, product, and vision:
- The infrastructure was intentionally built to disrupt the opaque broker space and better serve digitally native traders around the world
- Over 19m people trade CFDs, companies like IBKR are valued at $150B - market size is bigger than this channel
- Passionate, intense co-founders that care a lot. War time mode CEO and CTO doesn't turn off. Yes, @contrarianmarco showed up in a suit in our first call
- Getting to work with a cracked team of engineers, product developers, quants, and traders - supported by some of the best on the cap table
- Top 20 revenue generating protocol in the whole industry
- White glove customer service, a team focused on retention and users - @FlowTraderTM honestly needs to sleep more
- Some more major product and partnership announcements in the works
In the last two months I've been here, we've started running growth experiments across 8 channels, brought on two more senior growth marketers, listed sixteen new assets, revamped the liquidity engine, and announced a data partnership with a major exchange.
I'm having fun and there's a lot more work to do. Looking forward to this next chapter. If you're a user, trader, or growth marketer - dms are open
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Couldn't be more excited to be partnering with @Nasdaq for our equities data!
It took months of discussion and downstream engineering effort around data integrity, security, display policies and more to get us here.
Blockchains (and AI!) are fundamentally reshaping how market data is distributed, and our data partnership with Nasdaq is a huge step forward not only for Ostium but the industry more broadly as DeFi and TradFi continue to converge.
Super proud of the team!
Live with Nasdaq.
This partnership brings us a step closer to unlocking access to global financial markets. More assets, more liquidity.
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