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Chip Pearson
Instigator, Board Member, Founder
Chip Pearson is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader with over 20 years of experience in various leadership roles.12 He is currently the Instigator at Bootstrappers.mn, a business incubator, executive coaching, and investment firm he founded in the Twin Cities area.12
Pearson is best known for co-founding and serving as the former co-CEO of JAMF, a company he built with Zach Halmstad. Under his leadership, JAMF achieved significant success, reaching a multi-billion-dollar valuation and generating revenue exceeding $500 million.12
In addition to his work at Bootstrappers.mn, Pearson has recently taken on the role of CEO at When I Work, a leading provider of shift-based workforce management software. He was appointed to this position in September 2024, bringing his extensive experience to lead the company's next phase of growth.12
Pearson's other notable achievements include:
- Founding The Foundation, a company that has supported local creative agencies for over 20 years.12
- Serving as a board member for When I Work from 2017 to 2021.12
- Joining the board of Kipsu, another software company, in 2021.3
Together with his wife Amy, Chip Pearson launched Bootstrappers.mn to invest in and help grow other software organizations by leveraging their experience and expertise.3
Highlights
Friends! We have scheduled a second celebration of life for Charles here in the Twin Cities on June 23rd. It will be at Town and Country Club in Saint Paul, MN from 2-5pm. We hope this will give you plenty of time to arrange travel and encourage you to join us. We enjoyed seeing so many people at the service in April and hope you will be able to join us again! We will get together at 2pm, enjoy an hour of socializing and greeting old friends and have a small program beginning at 3pm. We would like to encourage everyone to share a story or fond memory during that time. As that concludes we welcome everyone to stay and spend time together with refreshments and snacks. Please spread the message to anyone you can imagine would like to participate. Amy and I hope to see you there and appreciate any effort you can make in joining us!
Charles Stephen Edge Jr.
Charles Stephen Edge Jr, Age 48, of Minneapolis, MN passed away April 20, 2024 of a cerebral aneurysm. Born July 10, 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia to Stephen and Cathy Edge. Charles grew up in Dahlonega where he attended Lumpkin County High School and the University of Georgia in Athens, where he graduated in 1997 with a degree in Sociology and Computer Science and was a member of the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. Charles was a true polymath and was a computer scientist, author, podcaster, musician and artist, making impacts wherever he bent his considerable talents. He was also a devoted son, brother, friend and, most importantly, father to his two children Kace and Violet. Anyone who met Charles knew that these two amazing humans were the center of his world.
Charles’ professional accomplishments and influence were felt around the world. He spent 15 years as the Chief Technology officer of 318 Inc. in Santa Monica and 5 years at Jamf, in Minneapolis. At the time of his death, he was the Chief Technology Officer of Bootstrappers.mn developing a new security product called Secret Chest. He was also the author of over 20 books, including the yet to be published four volume History of Computers. Charles was known throughout the computing and Apple SysAdmin community for selflessly sharing his time and expertise with friends around the world. He maintained three podcasts, including the MacAdmins Podcast and The History of Computing, and over the years spoke at many conferences including Defcon, Blackhat and MacSysAdmin. Colleagues universally recognize his generosity, good humor and incredible intellectual capacity in helping others and solving problems. Quickly writing an app, a script, or bit of code or building a website or database to solve a problem or to satisfy his own curiosity could happen at any time and you tried not to be too surprised by anything he would do. Charles acted ethically and generously with his knowledge and talents and embodied the ideal that with great power comes great responsibility.
Charles leaves a huge hole in the hearts of all who knew him, but none more than his close friends and family. He made his home in the north but went back to Georgia to spend time in Dahlonega with his father Steve and sister Nicole regularly. His devotion to the Georgia Bulldogs never flagged. He was a supportive friend and epic tabletop gamer whose adventures will always be remembered. His most important role, however, will always be that of devoted father. He was incredibly proud of his two children and would do whatever he could to spend time with them, greeting Kace with laser rifles at home or 3-D printing a dollhouse for Violet.
Charles is survived by his children Kace and Violet, father Stephen, sister Nicole Edge and many beloved extended family member and friends. Memorial gathering will be held Saturday April 27, 3-5 p.m. at Town and Country Club, 300 Mississippi River Road, Saint Paul, MN, 55104.
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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.