Web3 Leader Spotlight: Caitlin Cook
This week, we had the opportunity to chat with Caitlin Cook, a twitter influencer & Head of Marketing at HXRO, a leading distributed liquidity layer for derivatives trading & betting applications built on the Solana blockchain.
Having enabled over $382M in transaction volume since starting in 2021, HXRO is a platform for trading and betting on the future of anything, from crypto to sports to politics. It leverages the power and speed of the Solana blockchain to offer fast, fair, and fun derivatives markets.
How and why did you get into Web3? What’s your story?
I made the switch from asset management to crypto in 2021 when I took a role at an early stage startup where I built and operated a crypto education platform for traditional financial advisors and institutions. Once I started educating TradFi participants on 101 level crypto and blockchain content, I had an increasing urge to dive head first into DeFi and all of the exciting projects being built in the industry. For that reason, I made the switch to contributing to Hxro Network in 2022.
I never intended to work in web3, nor did I have any interest or knowledge on the space prior to taking my first startup job in 2021. I simply saw it as an interesting opportunity to take on a lot of responsibility and learn as much as possible at a very early stage in my career (I was ~22 years old) and knew that even if it wasn’t a forever job that I would learn a lot from the experience. Now I can’t see myself doing anything else.
Biggest love and loathe of the industry??
Love:
Crypto is one of the most exciting and rapidly evolving industries there is. Having the ability to participate early and get in at the ground floor is such a unique opportunity. For better or worse, the entire industry is operating at a breakneck pace. Builders are constantly innovating and the landscape changes; there’s never a shortage of new things to learn. Regardless of the project or blockchain you’re operating on, you’re situated at the cutting edge. The volatility and speed of the business certainly aren’t for everyone, but it’s a good fit for me.
Loathe:
It’s hard to develop and execute on a consistent marketing strategy in a space like crypto; you’re effectively building the plane after it’s already off the ground at all times. Since the space moves quickly there’s rarely time to sit back and contemplate what could work best, and by the time you do the metas, memes, and leading narratives have already changed. You have to be willing to experiment and let things fly rather than being so careful to get things right that you miss out completely. Not necessarily a “loathe” if you’re willing to adjust your mindset.
Any key takeaways around web3 marketing vs traditional marketing?
For full transparency, I actually never worked in a traditional marketing role (having started in asset management before switching to crypto). But I have seen one clear difference in that web3 marketing requires a much more fluid approach to remain relevant within the industry and culture. Crypto markets operate 24/7/365, with leading memes and metas turning on a dime.
To be successful as a marketer in this space it’s critically important to stay up to speed on the latest across the entire industry, otherwise you’ll fall behind.
How is Hxro Network disrupting DeFi on Solana? Why should people care about it??
Hxro Network is making it easier than ever for developers to bring new and exciting derivatives trading and betting applications to market.
The network’s underlying liquidity and core protocols provide everything needed to stand up a marketplace (example: complex yet critical risk, margining, exchange, and settlement functions), allowing developers to focus a majority of their efforts on creating unique user experiences rather than underlying infrastructure.
Solana delivers the perfect venue for these solutions with incredible speed and low costs, but the experience on-chain needs to be improved dramatically from a UI/UX perspective. Hxro allows builders to focus their attention in the areas most in need of improvement. By doing so, these teams also become part of the broader Hxro community; they have the ability to become part of something bigger.
