Tell us about your background & role at Pinata!
Yep! So I’m originally from Philadelphia, but I’ve lived in New York City for about 4 years now. I love the fast-paced nature and the unexpected chaos that makes the city what it is. I think it helps me thrive as a person and as a professional.
I joined Pinata in September of 2022 as a Product Manager. When I graduated college, I was doing marketing and PR before pivoting into product, which I found to be much more of my vibe. Still, having that marketing background has helped me a lot in terms of how to position the products we’re building.
How did you become interested in IPFS?
I dove into product management at a very large bank working on retirement tools. Around that same time, I was becoming increasingly interested in crypto and Web3. As it started becoming more and more a part of my personal life outside of work, I decided to make a hard pivot from traditional banking into Web3 and IPFS, as new-school as it gets.
A lot of the entry points that I had into Web3 were around health groups, wellness initiatives, or cool art products, things that I already love. It made learning the space a lot easier and more natural. Eventually, I realized that this technology that was powering these initiatives that I was interested in could be worth pursuing as a career. And now here we are.
Tell us about your experience working at Pinata.
Working at Pinata is really cool because it feels like there are no boundaries— it's really like a blank canvas. It’s so gratifying to work with a lean team that is constantly building and shipping new things. I have the opportunity to work with so many different personalities and skill sets which makes every day different and exciting.
What is your favorite thing about working on the Product Team?
The Product Team is sick because I can lean into anything and everything I want to, meaning I’m constantly learning. The more product features/improvements we build as a team, the more blog content we write, and the more UX work we do; I’m constantly researching and learning more about the IPFS space and what our customers want. I really love the Product Team!
What advice would you give someone looking to begin their career on a Web3 product team?
I think the first thing would be that your background doesn't matter. Really. It’s more about finding that initial entry point and being able to take your past experiences and figure out the point of connection. For instance, with my marketing background, rather than thinking about creating a product, I could think about how I could sell it, and which components would be the most marketable. Then I just flipped the perspective and thought about how we’d actually create it. These are real things you could help a company with.
And then I think it's also figuring out your area of interest. There are so many different subgroups of Web3 like wellness, music, hardcore IPFS—there are so many different areas, you just have to ask yourself, “What's my niche? What's my point of connection based on what I've been doing?” Ultimately, if you're passionate about the space and what you could be building, it's very easy to pivot into product because you're going to be spending a lot of your time thinking about how you could improve an experience. And then it all works out.
Elise Jones
Sr. Talent & People Partner
Published on
September 24, 2023
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