Welcoming Jason Karsh, Chief Marketing Officer at SDF

Marketing at the protocol level is no small task—especially in a space where narratives shift fast and regulation is still coming into resolution. That’s why we’re thrilled to welcome Jason Karsh as Chief Marketing Officer at the Stellar Development Foundation.

Jason joins SDF with a rare blend of crypto-native fluency and brand-building precision. He’s scaled teams, launched category-defining campaigns, and brought storytelling discipline to some of the most influential companies in tech and Web3—from Google and Coinbase to Blockchain.com and Block.

At SDF, Jason will oversee our global marketing function and help position Stellar for its next phase of adoption—bringing our product, brand, and ecosystem strategy into sharper focus as blockchain infrastructure matures.

I sat down with Jason to hear more about his approach, what he’s excited to tackle next, and the unexpected places he’s found his best ideas.

EC: You've marketed everything from Google products to crypto wallets to mesh WiFi routers. What's the most surprising thing that stays consistent across totally different audiences?

JK: The elusive obvious in marketing is to understand and market to your target audience, not necessarily yourself. Ruthlessly prioritize what they care about and ensure you’re focusing your messaging and narrative for that audience.

EC: At Blockchain.com, you helped make history with the first-ever crypto partnership with an NFL team (Dallas Cowboys). How do you know when you're ready to make that kind of bold move?

JK: Quick context-setting for the first-ever crypto-NFL partnership: that was the height of FTX, Crypto.com, and others sponsoring arenas, sports teams, and events. So we knew we were ready thanks to market and board pressure to ensure we weren’t lost in the mix.

The way I think about large-scale sponsorship is that you need to be ready for a huge brand campaign and there needs to me an omni-channel strategy of which a sport sponsorship is just a part.

Of course, you need to be audience-driven and authentic to the brand.

EC: From Google to Coinbase to Block - you've seen the evolution of how people think about money and technology. What shift surprised you most?

JK: How little most people know about either money or technology. It’s hard to bring new people into crypto when there isn’t upward price movement, but once the market has their attention you have a chance to convince investors, builders, and developers to your ecosystem. You build in the bear market to capture attention and be one of the educators during an upmarket.

But to reiterate, we’re so early. Most people can’t explain how money works, how payments work, or how technology (for which their lives rely upon) works.

EC: What's the biggest marketing myth about crypto/web3 that you've had to bust over and over?

JK: That it’s only for turbo nerds. Bitcoin is usually the first crypto that a person learns about or encounters, and getting them to their ‘a-ha’ moment, helping educate them that crypto/web3 is for them, is a consistent myth I’ve worked to overcome.

Treat people like they’re smart and their time is valuable and you can probably break through that stereotype and help bring more people into the space.

EC: You went from marketing mesh routers at eero to crypto at Coinbase. What made you take that leap, and what did you learn from such a dramatic pivot?

JK: It was more strategic than a leap — I decided to look around at a technology that has a large TAM (total addressable market), was early enough that there wasn’t widespread belief that it was important, and that my peers weren’t yet flocking to work on. My two conclusions were machine learning (now AI) and crypto — and I felt a deeper connection to crypto and a truly borderless global economy.

I learned that it’s not too late to learn a new field. And to rely on your convictions amidst general sentiment turning on the industry.

EC: If you could only track three metrics for the rest of your career, which would they be and why?

JK: I think metrics are highly company/project-specific, but if I had to look at leading indicators of product-market fit and marketing impact I’d focus on: awareness, adoption, and revenue (or for an organization like SDF the three equivalents could be addresses, number of transactions, and TVL).

EC: What's the most counterintuitive marketing advice you'd give to a crypto startup founder?

JK: Focus on one target audience with one key message. Focus is easy to talk about but incredibly hard to operationalize.

EC: What's the weirdest place you've ever gotten a brilliant marketing idea?

JK: Honestly, the best ideas usually come while reading books or listening to podcasts about other successful businesses or titans of industry. Learning about John D. Rockefeller and the rise of Standard Oil can teach lessons on marketing, people management, and scaling operations.

Also, ideas are a dime a dozen, it’s all about execution and operationalization. Put differently, great marketing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

EC: What's one thing you're bringing to SDF and one thing you hope to learn here?

JK: One thing I’m bringing is a rounded experience in crypto-marketing. One thing I hope to learn (together) is how to innovate in L1 marketing to grow an L1 in this unique moment for web3.

EC: What's the best (or your favorite) campaign you've worked on?

JK: Probably the launch of eero. We were creating a new brand, aiming to be loved in an unloved space, making highly-technical networking gear a simple and delightful product for people’s homes, and we created an entirely new product category in the process. Truly flexed brand, product, and performance marketing all at once.

In crypto, loved launching USDC while I was at Coinbase, felt like a big milestone and the company went from deciding to launch to launching in a 4 day period (decided Thursday, launched by Tuesday AM).

EC: What are your crypto conference essentials?

JK: Telegram/Signal, sleep, and hydration. Gotta connect, gotta keep energy high, and gotta keep your voice strong!

EC: Who's your favorite follow on X?

JK: Impossible to answer succinctly. But for wisdom I love Naval, for cinephile movie analysis I like All The Right Movies, and for web3 news I rely on different VCs and builders for various takes/network analysis.