The Future Is What We Make It

Hello, my name is Matthew Iles. I'm a husband and father of 2 under 4, living in the Hudson Valley, NY.

I’m a digital entrepreneur who has started two growth agencies and two venture-backed software companies, all focused on consumer brands. I co-created the Digital Marketing course for General Assembly with my wife Katie Iles, the Chief Growth Officer for The Farmer’s Dog. I’ve worked with more than 100 brands to drive acquisition and retention, and I possess strong skills and deep experience across PR/comms, organic social/content, influencers, partnerships, paid social, paid search, on-site conversion rate optimization, SMS/email marketing and automation, and digital product. I’m a highly technical growth-oriented operator, have hired/managed several digital product teams as well as 360-marketing teams, and have a successful track record in direct-to-consumer.

I have grown into a seasoned manager and even-keeled leader who is vocal, ambitious, and exacting. I am budget-conscious, but risk-taking: I grow companies through a data-driven process of escalating experiments and rapid capacity-building where we find results that scale.

A recent example of this is with Sotheby’s, the major auction house, and my NFT ecommerce company, Mojito. In 2021, my marketing agency Serotonin was the largest and fastest-growing independent shop dedicated to crypto, NFTs, and blockchain. I started our in-house product studio, where I led product and GTM for Mojito, a direct-to-consumer platform for brands to use NFTs for marketing, ecommerce, and more. I secured our first customer in Sotheby’s just before their first-ever NFT sale on the third-party platform Nifty Gateway. Thanks to Serotonin and Mojito, it would be the last time Sotheby’s ever performed an NFT sale off-platform.

Sotheby’s co-anchored a $20 million round along with CAA/Connect Ventures and others to spin out Mojito as an independent company. I was cofounder and COO of Mojito, and simultaneously also named NFT Managing Director at Sotheby’s, where I was contractually responsible for driving 100% of the company’s NFT strategy and execution. I hired for and led a dedicated team of Sotheby’s employees for 2 years, generating nearly $150 million in revenue, surpassing arch-rival Christie’s by a significant margin since taking the helm. Time Magazine named Sotheby’s one of the 100 most influential companies in 2022, specifically due to its NFT business, and Forbes named Sotheby’s to its Top 50 blockchain companies both years I served as well.

I led digital product for Sotheby’s Metaverse, their direct-to-consumer NFT marketplace, and served as head of NFT product within the organization in order to facilitate crypto and NFT experiences throughout their core dot-com site, mobile app, and even live auctions. All powered by Mojito, my direct-to-consumer NFT SaaS platform for brands. Simultaneously, I led 360 marketing for Sotheby’s NFTs, including PR, social+content, community, paid, email, events, and partnerships, including coverage in NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Verge, and more. I also brokered major business deals between Sotheby’s and Coinbase as well as Ledger. I helped sell an ETH-denominated Banksy for $12 million with a metaverse promotion, the original open-source code for the world wide web by Tim Berners-Lee for $5 million, and some monkey jpegs for $24 million.

Although Sotheby’s was my most dedicated customer, I provided similar digital product + 360 marketing services for major brands like CAA, Liverpool FC, Mercedes, Prada, Givenchy, Pernod Ricard, ATP (Pro Tennis), Milwaukee Bucks, Tampa Bay Rays. I did similar work at Serotonin for some of the blockchain industry’s largest brands today such as Alchemy, Arweave, Aleo, and Republic. We grew that business to more than $10 million in revenue by its second year, and it’s still the most influential shop in that industry today.

Prior to Serotonin and Mojito, I started Civil, a decentralized journalism company backed and eventually acquired by ConsenSys. Along the way, I turned Civil into one of the most buzzed about blockchain projects in the world between 2017-2018, generating 250+ press mentions including NYT, WSJ, WaPo, Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, CBS, PBS and more. The now-host of TED’s Radio Hour Manoush Zomorodi dedicated the first season of her ZigZag podcast to covering Civil. I hired former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller. Unfortunately, it failed. Or as the New York Times put it: “Alas, the Blockchain Won’t Save Journalism After All.”

Before Civil, Katie and I ran Nine Lines, a DTC marketing agency that owned paid acquisition, retention, and conversion rate optimization for clients like John Varvatos, Thinx, Birchbox, Blue Apron, and M.Gemi. After 6 years, we were acquired by the venture studio behind M.Gemi.

I am excited to work with no-BS, high integrity, passionate people building tech-forward companies that can change the world.

Please get in touch on X, LinkedIn or via email to learn more and chat about potential collaborations.