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Andrew Lipovsky
Founder, CEO at Highrise
Andrew Lipovsky is a seasoned entrepreneur with a successful track record of building and growing businesses to millions in revenue.
He has secured tens of millions of dollars from top investors and has expertise in managing large teams.
Currently, Andrew is the driving force behind Highrise, his second business venture, where he aims to mentor and empower the next generation of business leaders.
His educational background includes a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management from Boston University.
Andrew has held key roles in various organizations such as Founder and CEO at Highrise, Inc., Founder and Partner at Industria Ventures, Founder and CEO at Eponym, Analyst at a Family Office, and Summer Analyst at Merrill Lynch.
Highlights
A lot of folks ask me how I knew Highrise was going to be my next company.
A big part of arriving at this decision was understanding myself and figuring out what kind of company would be right for me.
When I started my first company, I was pretty naive. I was 24, and it was hard not to be. Now, in one regard, this naivety was a boon. Without it, I probably wouldn't have started the company.
But it also created an unnecessary blind spot: I couldn't quite foresee all the different areas that I wouldn't find as energizing as the rest.
As the company grew, I learned what drained me. And, in turn, these realizations informed the type of company that Highrise became.
I realized that at this time in my life, I wanted to work calmly, and certain types of businesses might be better suited to this working style. I didn't want to manage a large, distributed team; I wanted to work with a small one.
I didn't want to fight tooth and nail to be the only successful company in my space—i.e., a 0.00001% chance of becoming a gajillionaire vs. a 50% chance of doing really well.
I wanted to build a company in an industry where 10,000 people could succeed. I didn't want to spend my day navigating investors, landlords, supply chains spanning multiple continents, etc.
I wanted to focus on the incredible folks I worked with and our customers.
Knowing what doesn't work for you helps you identify what is right.
If I go to a restaurant and order a dish I don't end up liking, I won't order it again. Yet, I see folks have a poor experience at one type of employer and then jump to another similarly situated company without taking the time to truly understand the type of environment that will make them thrive.
What I'd love for you to walk away with is the idea of guardrails. While you can't know the future, you can identify and be aware of those things you don't like.
Note when you experience them and add that to a mental (or better yet, written) index to draw from when building the guardrails that will guide you toward energizing experiences.
Of course, what energizes you might change over time. One day, I may very well find myself back running a larger organization.
Maybe you're enjoying your time at a company focused on scaling, and you'll soon find yourself missing that pre-product scrappiness. The good news: We're allowed to change our minds. We're allowed to want different experiences at different phases of our lives.
The important part is to listen to ourselves, our dislikes, and our likes, and with some awareness, patience, focus, and honesty, you'll get there, wherever that may be.
I’d just raised my Series A when, unexpectedly, two critical members of my team left.
I knew about business challenges. I’d overcome them to get here, but I didn’t know people challenges existed until this moment. And, spoiler, I was horrible at them.
During our first board meeting the board came to me with a firm suggestion.
“Hey, Andrew, we think you could benefit from a coach.”
Honestly, it felt remedial. While in hindsight it’s obvious that there were issues, I didn’t think too much of the departures at the time — I rationalized them and even saw them as opportunities, I said to myself that I’d find more effective team members.
I was lucky because I had a network of folks (founders, lawyers, etc.) that could point me in the right direction. They made some introductions, and I ended up finding a really great coach.
But it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. It took me a long time to adapt and realize that I was at least part of the problem. After all, as the expression goes: culture starts at the top and there was no one higher than me.
Once I got in the hang of things, it was like a switch went off. Having a coach felt like a cheat code.
Here’s an example: I don’t like praise — it’s a bit cringey for me when I get some. (We don’t have enough time to get into my theories behind it.) The point is that I wrongly assumed that everyone around me didn’t like praise and, because of this, I’d give it out very sparingly.
Through structured assessments and reflection with my coach, I learned that there were others on my team who were the complete opposite of me. And while I couldn’t change their behavior, I could change mine. I could give out praise (which is free) and get a performance from my team that, in some cases, even money wouldn’t have gotten.
I was always in constant search of how to motivate folks and to get more out of the limited resources that we had. The lack of a coach had been hurting me. I’d been creating more stress, losing sleep, and hurting my company.
Jumping ahead, I’d sold the company and my partner had just started as an early employee at a new company. She’d gone through five managers in her first 15 months. It was a mess. She was having a lot of the same challenges I had, only from the other direction. I gave her the same advice I was given: You should find a coach.
But finding a coach proved difficult without the network and the intros, and even if she managed to find someone, her company wasn’t going to pay for it and she sure didn’t have $20k to spend.
The point was clear: It shouldn’t be this difficult to get help.
The average age of someone working with an executive coach is over 45. At that point, our habits are ingrained.
Life-transforming moments have likely been missed. I believe that no matter your role, no matter your age, we all still have the same challenges and we deserve to be able to find help.
Since I couldn’t find a solution, I decided to make one. And Highrise was born.
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- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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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.
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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.
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