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Alain Breillatt
Chief Product Officer at Optoro
Alain Breillatt, Chief Product Officer at Optoro
Alain Breillatt is the Chief Product Officer at Optoro, a leading technology provider for retail returns. He brings deep expertise in scaling SaaS products and partner networks for supply chain and ecommerce.1
Key facts about Alain Breillatt::
- He has a proven track record of building and growing products that solve complex problems for retailers, logistics providers, and consumers.1
- Prior to Optoro, he served as Vice President of Product Management for carrier networks at e2open and Logistyx Technologies.2
- He has held product leadership roles at Quadient, ProShip, and Nielsen.2
- Breillatt holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor's Degree from Brigham Young University.2
In his role at Optoro, Breillatt is responsible for bringing best-in-class returns management solutions to more retailers, brands and 3PLs, while uncovering new ways to create value and impact.1 He joins Optoro during a period of record company growth, as the company has grown 75% year-over-year in 2023.1
Highlights
Retail returns are messy especially when ecommerce is involved and the technology still has a ways to go. The costs are more than most shoppers realize with a single shipped return losing ~35% of the purchase price and that item more than likely is not going back to stock to be resold at full value. Every conversation I have with executives responsible for their supply chain, workers in the warehouses, associates behind the store counters reveals pressures to ensure shoppers are happy and to control margin loss while building sustainable outcomes.
This is not just an Amazon problem but those partner stores that sign up definitely take on an increased burden as discussed in this article. The associates can quickly be overwhelmed during peak season(s) which with last week’s Prime Day they’re encountering right now.
Every retailer I’ve visited struggles with their own onslaught of shoppers in lines with armfuls of items they no longer want. Part of that is due to the challenge of ecommerce where unless you know exactly your fit there’s a strong possibility it doesn’t work once you put that dress on. This is why over 60% of Gen Z shoppers will “bracket” by ordering one of multiple sizes in hopes that one will be right.
It may not even be the fit, who can tell whether a color or style looks right on your body until you see it in the mirror and ask your spouse / friends for their opinion?
And who can ignore the many who buy an item to use it for one event or one photoshoot and then send it back essentially renting the runway for free while creating losses for their favorite store? All with the expectation of free shipping and returns.
I warned last year that the era of free shipping and returns is evaporating. Especially for returns, eventually that option will only persist for a Brand’s loyal shoppers or where the retailer has an alternative source of revenue like Amazon who hedges everything with their AWS cloud computing business.
As I spoke with a colleague recently we ruminated on the fact that the technology is imperfect and has a ways to mature but here's one foolproof approach to help shoppers choose better:
Retailers have attempted virtual try-on with everything from uploaded selfies, virtual lenses on your phone, to come let us scan your body in store and we'll provide a 3D hologram to show how our clothes fit you. There is a simpler way and some retailers are getting it right. Give the actual dimensions of your clothes sizes including such critical measures as sleeve lengths, pants rise and leg opening width. It would be straightforward to provide a schematic with the various measurements per size overlayed on the clothing alongside the glossy sample model images. The easier you make it for a shopper to compare sizing to their own fit, the less likely they are to bracket. AI can go a long way in doing quick simple drafts for each SKU.
More thoughts tomorrow on why the ecommerce tech stack is lacking and how it needs to evolve.
What early experiences spurred you to the work you do today? Why do you create and build?
A quiet holiday week stroll exploring our new community - Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦 and Independence Day 🇺🇸 to my North American friends - led the pup and I along a lazy little brook where we encountered a small dam that took me back to my boyhood and an early influence.
Growing up there was always one or more creeks somewhere nearby that my friends and I explored almost daily and inevitably after we tired of chasing frogs, fish and crawdads we would set out to build a dam. Why? Because we saw the challenge of halting and ultimately controlling the water flow as a muddy adventure. Sometimes it was to develop a pool of calm water for better catching fish. It scratched an itch if you will.
Over the years we built many temporary dams and with each iteration we learned what raw materials were best used in the construction and what structures could achieve our goals. We never brought anything to the site (no tools or materials) so it all had to be sourced from the stream bed - talk about the constraints that spur innovation.
Inevitably the most perplexing issue we faced was how to design and implement the water outlets / spillways which were critical when all we had were clay and sand to hold back the water that would otherwise flow through the cracks in our carefully placed rocks and pebbles. Ultimately the most prized approach was the necks of bottles but separating the neck from a glass bottle with nothing but sticks and rocks required its own forms of engineering and problem solving.
And because we were boys, and because tomorrow is the 4th, of course there was always the fun of demolition which sometimes involved gunpowder based explosives that go boom.
So many innovation and product management lessons learned from those summer days of adventure.
#productmanagement #design
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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