Erick K. Watson
Fractional CPO & Venture Partner for AI Labs, Studios & Protocols I embed with your core team for 6–12 months to turn research-grade tech into ecosystems, revenue, and investable narratives.
Explore how I partner with labs > See SproutVest
For Venture Studios, Labs & Protocols
What labs and protocols hire me to do:
🔑 Turn research artifacts into products
- Clarify problem/solution for non-technical stakeholders
- Define product lines and roadmaps around core primitives (randomness, privacy, ZK, etc.)
🎯 Design commercialization & ecosystem strategy
- Token and pricing models aligned with adoption
- Partner and ecosystem plays (dev tooling, integrations, grants)
💼 Act as embedded product leadership
- Participate in leadership meetings, not just “advisory calls”
- Drive prioritization, experimentation, and launch cycles with the team
Engagement Model
Embedded venture partner / fractional CPO for 6-12 months (1-3 days/week)
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Limited to 2-3 parallel engagements to preserve depth of execution
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Optionally paired with a SproutVest squad (design, PMM, GTM ops) when you need a small team, not just an individual
Background
With over 15 years of experience across Google, Microsoft, and Protocol Labs, Erick brings a rare combination of product leadership, technical depth, and venture capital expertise to every engagement. As former Co-Founder & CEO of Randamu (2023–2025), he built a Web3 infrastructure company pioneering threshold cryptography, decentralized randomness, and bridgeless multi-chain interoperability from the ground up, raising a $3.3M pre-seed round and presenting at Consensus 2025, Permissionless IV, and Token2049.
His career includes Senior PM at Google (2021–2022), where he drove $1.22B in incremental ARR; VP of Corporate Development at Quantarium, where he led data science teams building automated valuation models and predictive analytics platforms; CPO & Co-Founder of Trensant (acquired by Interos.ai); and Director roles at Microsoft including leading 130 professionals in Beijing and building the CodaLab ML competition platform (300+ competitions).
Erick writes about the technologies shaping our world on his blog, covering topics from artificial intelligence and knowledge graphs to applied machine learning. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and available for bookings on topics including decentralized startups, AI-driven product strategy, and venture capital.
Explore
- Bio — Full professional biography and career history
- Projects — Key products and ventures built
- Blog — Essays on AI, data, and emerging technologies
- Press — Media appearances, interviews, and trade press
- Events — Conference highlights and speaking engagements
- Books — Reading recommendations and reviews
- Speaker — Book Erick for your next event
- Contact — Get in touch