Bio
Erick Watson
I turn deep technology into products people pay for. Over more than fifteen years I have led product at Google, Microsoft, and Protocol Labs, and I have built venture-backed companies from the inside. Two of them were acquired: Trensant, which I co-founded, by Interos.ai, and Quantarium, where I was VP, Product, by Mr. Cooper Group (NASDAQ: COOP).
At Quantarium I was recruited to turn an AI research group into a business. We shipped an automated valuation model that benchmarked first in accuracy and coverage across 105M US residential households, and opened new B2B sales channels that generated $12M+ in new sales opportunities. At Google I owned product for the machine learning surfaces behind $1.22B in incremental ARR for search advertising partners.
I stay hands-on. I write TypeScript and Rust regularly and review architecture with engineers rather than around them. I would rather own an outcome than manage a layer of managers.
I am based in Xi’an, China (UTC+8) and authorized to work in the United States.
Current work runs through SproutVest, a fractional CPO and venture strategy practice, and I am a member of the Toptal network (top 3% of freelance product managers). Engage through SproutVest: fractional CPO, technical due diligence, AI product consulting, and operator coaching.
Track Record
$1.33B+ in documented revenue impact across direct and consulting engagements. $1.22B incremental ARR at Google. 34M+ users served at Elevance Health. $12M+ in new B2B sales opportunities at Quantarium. $54.3M raised across multiple ventures: a $30M pre-IPO secondary placement at Inception Capital Management, $15M in debt financing at G.A.E.M.S., $6M at Trensant, and a $3.3M pre-seed at Randamu. Two acquisitions: Trensant by Interos.ai, and Quantarium by Mr. Cooper Group (NASDAQ: COOP). 3 patented inventions granted (4 U.S. grants). 300+ ML competitions launched on CodaLab at Microsoft.
Career & Fractional CPO Experience
SproutVest (Founder & Managing Director, 2013–Present). Fractional CPO and venture strategy practice serving founders, funds, family offices, and protocol foundations. Embedded as the product owner rather than an outside advisor, owning positioning, product definition, pricing, and go-to-market execution inside client companies, reporting to founders or boards. Engagements concentrate in AI and ML product infrastructure, data and valuation platforms, compute and datacenter infrastructure, and cryptographic infrastructure. Also delivers technical due diligence for investors, product organization design, and operator coaching. Clients include Microsoft, Elevance Health, Angi, Protocol Labs, and ASU. See case studies.
Chainlodge (Co-Founder & CFO, 2017–2026). AI datacenter infrastructure venture in Okanogan, Washington. Led product design, investor positioning, and bilingual (EN/ZH) outreach for a riverfront campus that operated at 1 MW with 5 MW of available headroom, targeting AI compute, HPC, and cloud infrastructure workloads. Wound down in 2026.
Watson Institute (Preceptor, 2026–Present). Run the Product-Market Fit module for Enlight Foundation fellows. Watson Institute is a Boulder-based fellowship for founders and social entrepreneurs, with 3,600+ alumni across 81 countries.
Randamu (Co-Founder & CEO, 2023–2025). Spun out of Protocol Labs to build threshold cryptography infrastructure for Web3. Raised $3.3M, shipped dcipher.network to production across Cosmos, Filecoin, and Ethereum L2s. Presented at Consensus 2025, Permissionless IV, and Token2049. Led the company through October 2025; the entity was wound down in 2026.
Protocol Labs (Entrepreneur-in-Residence, 2023–2024). Assessed the commercial potential of drand, the open-source randomness beacon stewarded by the League of Entropy, and led its spin-out into an independent company. Built the commercial case with Layer 2 networks, DAOs, and game studios, formed the Swiss entity and its governance, and coordinated the IP and team transition out of Protocol Labs. The project launched as Randamu with a $3.3M pre-seed. The role began as a SproutVest engagement and converted to a full-time position at Protocol Labs.
Angi (Principal Product Manager, 2022–2023). Led mobile growth for one of the largest US home services marketplaces, engaged through Toptal. Rebuilt the deep linking setup so campaign traffic reached the screen it promised and installs could be attributed accurately, lifting app installs from web campaigns 38% and deep link funnel conversion 22%. Built the A/B testing program and the shared dashboards that made the gains repeatable.
Google (Senior PM, 2021–2022). Led Search Advertising product driving $1.22B in incremental ARR. Integrated AI/ML into advertiser workflows with a 20+ person cross-functional team.
Elevance Health (Principal Digital PM, 2019–2021). Led product and DevOps for identity and access management supporting 34M+ members. Improved adoption by 10%, member CSAT by 7%, and reduced inbound call volume by 6% year-over-year.
Quantarium (VP, Product, 2017–2019). Built the top-ranked AI valuation platform for real estate, covering 105M U.S. households. Generated $12M+ in new sales opportunities through AWS Marketplace. Managed a team of 8 and a $10M P&L. Led corporate spin-out and acquisition.
Inception Capital Management (Associate Partner, 2013–2018). Boutique asset management firm in Manhattan specializing in secondary offerings of pre-IPO high tech and biotech companies. Raised $30M for investment in pre-IPO secondary share offerings of Facebook, Twitter, Genprex, and others, matching inside sellers to complementary accredited investors through an intermediate venture fund.
Trensant (Co-Founder & CPO, 2015–2017). Predictive analytics using NLP and graph databases. Raised $6M. Predicted the 2016 U.S. election by one electoral vote. Acquired by Interos.ai.
G.A.E.M.S. (Non-Executive Director, 2015–2017). Board advisor overseeing finance committee, raising $15M in debt financing for supply chain and manufacturing. Led CEO search and executive compensation committees.
Microsoft (Principal PM, AI & ML, 2011–2015). Led technical program management for AI and machine learning at Microsoft Research. Built CodaLab, the open-source ML competition platform used by NeurIPS and ICML. Hosted 300+ ML competitions. Grew community from zero to 3,000+ members. Part-time, and contracted through SproutVest from 2013.
Microsoft (Director, Business Strategy, 2010–2011). Ran a $150M P&L and 130-person team in Beijing. Grew Microsoft’s China partner ecosystem investment by 33% ($50M). Established partnerships for Microsoft Research Asia in product development and technology transfer.
Education & Credentials
Louisiana State University: Bachelor of Arts, German Language, Literature & Linguistics. Google Ads Search Certification. Google Analytics Certification. Coursera Executive Data Science Specialization. Claude Certified Architect: Foundations (Anthropic). Languages: English (native), Chinese (limited working proficiency; long-term resident of Xi’an, China).
Speaking
Frequent speaker at industry conferences on threshold cryptography, Web3 infrastructure, AI product strategy, and venture building. Recent stages include Consensus 2025, Token2049, Permissionless IV, and Devcon. Teaching work includes the Product-Market Fit module at the Watson Institute.
See the full Appearances archive.