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David Cooper
Co-Founder + CFO/CTO at WellnessBackPack
Professional Background
David B. Cooper is a highly respected and innovative leader in the realms of entertainment and sports accounting, with a focus on creating long-term customer relationships through strategic data collection and communications. With over 30 years of experience, David has honed his expertise in designing 'offer engines' that effectively connect fans with the products and experiences they crave. His unique philosophy that values fans as the real decision-makers in the purchasing process has allowed him to excel in industries characterized by rapid changes and competitive pressures.
Throughout his extensive career, David has achieved remarkable milestones that showcase his ability to leverage data and technology for significant impact. Notably, he set two world sales records for ticket sales, proving his prowess in understanding audience demand and operational efficiency. By facilitating the fastest sellout of Pearl Jam tickets via phone—48,000 tickets sold in just 21 minutes—and achieving the largest sellout at the Daytona 500 ISC Motorsports/NASCAR with 330,000 tickets, David demonstrated his knack for strategic marketing and customer engagement.
In addition to his notable accomplishments in ticket sales, David's current project, DIRECT to FAN, embodies his commitment to providing innovative solutions that enhance fan experiences. This venture focuses on proximity marketing and digital prizes, strategically using geo-fenced retail locations to engage fans. By aligning the interests of fans and artists, the initiative seeks to drive foot traffic to sponsor locations while ensuring fans enjoy free prizes, showcasing the blend of entertainment, technology, and marketing in his approach.
Education and Achievements
David's educational background includes a degree in Management Information Systems (MIS), coupled with studies in accounting and computer science, from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. This foundation provided him with a robust understanding of the intersection between technology and finance, which he has applied throughout his career.
His professional journey is equally impressive, marked by an array of leadership roles and entrepreneurial initiatives. David is the co-founder and CFO/CTO of WellnessBackPack, a company dedicated to improving health and wellness through innovative solutions. As a former writer for BREAKINGaBAND.com, he utilized his insights to analyze the evolving landscape of the music industry in the digital age. David’s rich history includes his role as the founder of DIRECTtoFAN, which underscored his passion for connecting fans directly with artists and enhancing the overall entertainment experience.
David's entrepreneurial spirit is also reflected in his various founding roles in multiple companies. He founded FoxMan.com, a venture aimed at pioneering solutions in the entertainment sector, and served as a consultant for Redbox through Foxman, contributing to this well-known brand's growth trajectory. His involvement with PlayerMade - Made Group and Mobile Access Credentials further demonstrates his versatility and dedication to fostering innovation in market accessibility and customer engagement.
Notable Achievements
David B. Cooper's professional journey is adorned with several significant accomplishments that reflect his deep understanding of customer needs and his ability to drive change within the industry. His two world sales records in ticketing speak volumes about his skill in sales and marketing, particularly in high-pressure environments common to the entertainment and sports industries. The successful execution of these monumental ticket sales not only showcases his individual prowess but also his ability to harness data effectively for substantial business outcomes.
Additionally, David has played a pivotal role in shaping the ticketing landscape, particularly for major events in the entertainment sector. As the former Founder and Chief Technical Officer for ticketing at NASCAR/ISC Motorsports, he applied his vision and technical expertise to develop systems that have revolutionized how audiences engage with sporting events. His founding of Fox Entertainment System (FES) and contributions to Fox Productions (FoxPro) are further testaments to his entrepreneurial drive and commitment to enhancing accessibility in entertainment.
David's passion for innovation also shines through his role as the Technical Director and Ticketing Manager for the renowned band Pearl Jam at Fillmore Mercantile Inc. His strategic approaches in this capacity have provided fans with seamless experiences while ensuring the band's ticketing operations are efficient and effective.
In conclusion, David B. Cooper embodies a rare blend of expertise in accounting, technology, and customer engagement, all of which has propelled him to the forefront of the entertainment and sports industries. His commitment to creating valuable fan experiences and leveraging dat
Highlights
What is your definition of community?
When I talk about "community communications," it's more than just a phrase for me; it's a deeply rooted concept in my experience. Recently, someone asked me, "What is community?" Instinctively, I answered that it’s a like-minded group of people focused on a common cause, with communication as the key.
In my early days in entertainment, community meant fan clubs. The goal was to connect directly with the band for more official info and exclusive stuff. This evolved into a transactional digital or virtual community, where fans could not only communicate directly with the artist/team but they could also buy music, merchandise, and sometimes even tickets directly from the artists or their teams from anywhere in the world anytime.
Over the past half dozen years, my focus ln communications has shifted from entertainment to education. Here, the community revolves around local school wellness and safety. When a student calls out for assistance or help, particularly with wellness or safety challenges, the response time is crucial. I've found that 90% of these calls are wellness-focused and are best handled by those already trained in wellness and on-site—the school staff. Direct communication between students and local staff can be measured in seconds, whereas other school safety solutions often take minutes to hand-off the message until it reaches the correct staff member to be notified of the urgent message.
In this context, the common cause is school wellness and safety, and once again, direct communication is the key. This principle of immediate, effective communication within a community has been a guiding force throughout my career, from entertainment to education.
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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.