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Ash Ali
Co-Founder Uhubs | Bestselling Author: 'The Unfair Advantage' | Making Your Sales Team Better
Professional Background
Ash Ali is an accomplished entrepreneur, best recognized for his pioneering role as the first Marketing Director at Just Eat, where he played a pivotal part in transforming the company into one of the UK’s first technology unicorns. With more than 20 years of experience in the tech and marketing sectors, Ash has cultivated a remarkable career built on innovation and strategic growth. His journey into the business world is especially inspiring as it defies traditional pathways. Not only does he lack a formal degree, but he has also created his own opportunities through a blend of tenacity, keen instincts, and a distinctive capacity to identify potential where many see impediments.
Today, Ash is not just a leader in the startup ecosystem; he is a mentor and investor, actively fostering the growth of the next generation of entrepreneurs and startups. His extensive experience in go-to-market (GTM) strategies, marketing, and sales equips him to provide guidance that resonates deeply within the entrepreneurial community. Currently, he leads Uhubs, a cutting-edge B2B sales enablement startup focused on delivering innovative technologies that assist sales leaders in defining and measuring excellence within their teams.
Education and Achievements
Ash’s academic journey began at King Edwards Grammar School, setting the groundwork for his future ambitions. Although he did not pursue a traditional university education, his practical knowledge and hands-on experience have proven to be invaluable in his professional endeavors. Ash’s commitment to sharing insights and expertise is evident through his roles as a guest lecturer across multiple prestigious institutions, including the University of Warwick, Royal Holloway, UCL School of Management, Loughborough University, Imperial College Business School, and ESCP Business School.
One of Ash’s most notable accomplishments is co-authoring "The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed," a book that emphasizes leveraging individual strengths to achieve success. The book has resonated widely, winning accolades including the title of Business Book of the Year, and has positioned Ash as a thought leader in the entrepreneurial landscape. His philosophy centers on the principle that everyone possesses unique traits that can be harnessed for success — a truth he encourages others to embrace.
Achievements
Ash has been at the forefront of several successful ventures throughout his career. As the former Marketing Director at Just Eat, he was instrumental in scaling the company during its formative years. Following his tenure there, he held various key positions, including CMO at VideoJug and interim CMO at SHOPCADE under Lagardère Active Media Group. In addition, he co-founded and served as a growth hacker for the FARE EXCHANGE NETWORK LIMITED, an innovative platform aimed at driving community-based exchanges. Furthermore, he operated as a startup investor, advisor, and mentor through his contributions to The Unfair Advantage, focusing on nurturing new tech startups.
In his role at Uhubs, Ash leads the development of unique technologies aimed at empowering businesses to excel in sales performance. Their flagship product, Pulse technology, provides real-time insights and metrics that help companies accurately define
what good looks like
facilitating clarity and precision in sales strategies. Under Ash's guidance, Uhubs has emerged as a significant player in the competitive marketplace, helping sales teams thrive in demanding environments.
Beyond his direct contributions through leadership roles and startups, Ash is known for his engaging public speaking skills. He frequently shares his insights at conferences and events, focusing on marketing strategies, sales effectiveness, and the broader tech startup landscape. His warm and approachable personality makes him a favorite among attendees, eager to learn from his experiences.
In conclusion, Ash Ali embodies the essence of entrepreneurship and innovation. With a rich history that spans over two decades, his journey is a testament to the power of resilience and creativity. He continues to inspire numerous individuals through mentoring, investments, and thought leadership in the startup community, driven by his mantra to embrace one's unique journey and identify the 'unfair advantages' that lie within. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a sales leader seeking to enhance your team, or simply someone interested in the dynamic world of tech startups, Ash Ali’s insights and expertise are invaluable resources. Connect with him to share ideas and explore the exciting prospects of the entrepreneurial landscape.
Highlights
Decide you career carefully if you want flexibility.
Had a chat with a good friend who's an emergency doctor in A&E.
I asked him, "How do you handle such crazy shifts?"
He shot back with, "How do you work for yourself?"
That got me thinking... I put in long hours too, weekends included.
But here’s the thing: it feels different when you have the autonomy to decide your own schedule versus being told when to work.
Maybe it's just my personality, but I've realised that the real measure of good work isn’t about the hours spent.
It's about the quality of the outcome.
As a creative, I know that inspiration doesn’t run on a clock.
I can be unproductive for hours and then, bam, a brilliant idea hits me in 10 minutes.
That spark can be game changing.
This just reinforces how crucial autonomy is in our jobs.
It’s about giving people the freedom to work in ways that bring out their best.
Now, some roles, like being a doctor or pilot, demand certain shifts and hours, otherwise, it just won’t work.
I mean, I don't exactly want a flexible working pilot who decides not to turn up on schedule!
But on a more serious note, if your'e deciding on your career, keep this in mind for the future.
#flexibleworking #careers #sundaythoughts
As founders, we often feel the pressure to be first to market with a “new” idea.
But history shows us that being first doesn't guarantee success.
🔍 Google wasn’t the first search engine
🎧 iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player
☁️ Dropbox wasn’t the first cloud filesystem
📊 Excel wasn’t the first spreadsheet
💻 Dell wasn’t the first PC manufacturer
🌐 Facebook wasn’t the first social network
📡 Cisco didn’t invent the router
Yet, they dominate their markets.
The key to their success?
Innovation, superior execution, timing, and understanding customer needs.
Focus on delivering exceptional value and continuously improving.
So don’t worry about your idea having been done before or thinking that customers even care if you say your the first.
It’s not about being first, it’s about being the best.
♻️ Repost if this resonated with you. 🔔 Follow me, Ash Ali for more. 💬 I respond to all Direct Messages.
#sundaythoughts #innovation
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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.