Jason Trost
Co-founder and CEO of Smarkets in London
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Work status: | Employed Full-Time |
| Website: | http://smarkets.com |
| Industries: | Financial, Gaming, Internet |
| Skills: | English, French, German, Languages, Languages and Platforms, PHP, Python, Software Engineering, Web Development |
| Location: | London, UK |
| Groups: | YouNoodle's Entrepreneurial Workspace Challenge |
| Visas: | UK |
| Interested in: | Brainstorming, Finding business partners, Finding engineers, Finding team mates, Getting press, Meeting new people, Participating in a competition, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Receiving feedback, Recruiting for my startup |
| Tags: | betting exchange, prediction market |
| Schools: | Northwestern University |
FEATURED STARTUP
Smarkets
Smarkets
Smarkets is a simple, smart way to bet on your favourite events.
- Startup type: Company
- Status: Active
- Stage: Growth
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | Smarkets |
| Position: | Co-founder and CEO |
| Time period: | August 2007 - Present |
| Description: | ○ Responsible for designing corporate infrastructure and legal framework for international gaming company.
○ Leading fund raising efforts across Europe and North America. ○ Coordinating third party providers and consultants to successfully launch a nascent startup. ○ Negotiated and transacted the purchase of smarkets.com and smarkets.net. |
| Employer: | UBS AG |
| Position: | Analyst |
| Time period: | March 2005 - June 2007 |
| Description: | ○ Financial software developer for UBS Fund of Funds ($37 bil assets under management).
○ Ran statistical analysis of fund performance. Developed reports to monitor AUM, strategy allocation, benchmark correlation, and fund capacity. ○ Designed software platform that processed hundreds of emails a day, one of the FoF's two main software packages. Allowed different business units quick access to pertinent documents. Responsible for project management, marketing, infrastructure monitoring. Created a proprietary Sybase database schema to persist document data. ○ Engaged and traveled to Zurich office for discussions to expand financial document software to their office. |
| Employer: | Great Point Capital, LLC |
| Position: | Equities Trader |
| Time period: | July 2003 - May 2004 |
| Description: | ○ Proprietary equities trader responsible for my own book; traded on NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX exchanges.
○ Employed fade, swing, and momentum strategies. Responsible for trading decisions, equity research, risk management, trade execution. Utilized statistical regressions and Excel / VBA to model data. ○ Created volume and price volatility strategy to fade stock moves. ○ Demonstrated strong performance track record: Grossed $86k Q1 2004 with a book of $500k. Grossed $146k with a book of $100k - $500k over nine months (Q3 2003 Q1 2004). Top trader in peer group of twenty. |
| Employer: | Descipher, Inc. |
| Position: | President and Founder |
| Time period: | December 2001 - March 2005 |
| Description: | ○ Internet startup founded during university (www.descipher.com) that allowed consumers to selfdiagnose lab test results and privately sold in 2007.
○ Created mathematical algorithm to aggregate medical information into a formula that can diagnose lab tests: disease prevalence, population densities, geographic distribution, race and sex of patient. ○ Generated revenue streams from online advertising and payperuse diagnostic software. ○ Cultivated high traffic with search engine optimization and repeat visitors. |
| Employer: | Northwestern University |
| Position: | Research Programmer |
| Time period: | September 2001 - October 2002 |
| Description: | ○ Research assistant to a Computer Science professor
○ Developed software to aid computers to understand simple physical processes. Used natural language parsers as the main tool to extract information. ○ Implemented natural language algorithm to extract qualitative process information from middle school science texts. |
| Employer: | Pfizer, Inc. |
| Position: | Summer Analyst |
| Time period: | July 2001 - September 2001 |
| Description: | ○ Assistant to the regional finance head.
○ Prepared $3 million 2002 IT budget projections for the head of the department. ○ Designed and implemented the Finance Department’s intranet website. |
EDUCATION
| University: | Northwestern University |
| Time period: | 1999 - 2003 |
| Degree: | Computer Science, BA |
INFORMATION
| Hobbies: | Private equity investor in Scottish liquor company, prediction market enthusiast, Linux, soccer,
skiing |
Jason's Startups (1)
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Jason's Contacts (7)
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Sokratis Papafloratos
Entrepreneur, co-founder of TrustedPlaces
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Manoj Ranaweera
Founder and CEO of edocr Ltd
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Andy McLoughlin
Co-founder and EVP Strategy at Huddle. Host of London, Paris and San Francisco's DrinkTank events. Occasional speaker.