Jason Trost’s Blog

When I was eight or nine growing up in suburban Philadelphia, I received a package in the post. I have no idea why it came, maybe because of my Cub Scouts involvement. It was a do it yourself entrepreneurship kit, complete with a shopping catalog and instructions.

The goal was simple: sell mainly household-type items and get a commission. Brilliant. Finally a way to increase my bank account faster than waiting for annual birthday and Christmas cheques. My father helped me create a bespoke invoice, with the help of an ASCII editor and a dot matrix printer, and off I went from house to house.

I didn’t do random selling to my neighbors for that long, but I made enough cash to impress a kid. It taught me two valuable lessons: 1. you needn’t do ‘normal’ things to earn money (e.g. mow lawns and deliver newspapers) and 2. your level of success is directly related to your actions.

In the fall of 2005, one of my best mates Hunter Morris, from university, was visiting me from London. We were brainstorming ideas for different companies we could start. We discussed the idea of founding a new type of betting exchange (aka prediction market). I was very familiar with the concept from my trading job in Chicago.

Both of us had recently completed computer science degrees and thought we could create something that would beat any existing betting exchange website. In August 2007 both of us left our full time jobs, myself at UBS and Hunter at Wolverine Trading, and set out just to do that.

And Smarkets be thy name.