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Ethan Smith™
Growth Advisor
Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite, a boutique growth agency specializing in building scalable growth engines for consumer tech companies.
With a strong background in advising and board membership, Ethan has worked with renowned companies like MasterClass, Honey, Ticketmaster, and Thumbtack.
Previously, Ethan held advisory roles at MasterClass, Mucker Capital, Ticketmaster, and Thumbtack.
He also served as the CEO of Sachi and as the Chief Growth Officer at Yummly before its acquisition by Whirlpool.
Moreover, Ethan has experience as a Board Member at BayAreaSearch and as the Director of Product at Yummly.
Ethan Smith brings a wealth of expertise in growth strategies and business development to the tech industry, evident through his diverse roles and affiliations.
Highlights
"AI Answer Optimization" & SEO
- AI Answer Optimization is the new SEO
- Reforge Presentation: https://lnkd.in/d9kKvJSy
- Slides: bit.ly/ai-optimization
- Graphite is launching AI Answer Tracking - https://lnkd.in/d9w8XQjh
Key Points
- AI Search is increasingly used for search and discovery
- Graphite is building strategies to help track and optimize for AI Search
- Optimization for AI Search will likely be similar and an evolution of traditional SEO vs. something entirely different
LLM vs. LLM+RAG
- Early versions of LLMs were based on next-word prediction, which is different from search
- More and more, AI chat and search use RAG+LLM
- RAG (retrieval augmented generation) starts with a search (retrieval), then summarizes/reforms the search as an answer (generation)
- Perplexity has built its own search engine, CoPilot frequently uses Bing, and OpenAI is reportedly building a search engine - so AI Search is moving towards RAG+LLM more and more
- Therefore, optimizing for AI Search starts with optimizing for search using traditional SEO strategies + is an evolution of new optimization strategies
Keyword Research > Question Research
- "Question research" is the new keyword research
- Rather than finding keywords, instead we need to find all the ways people ask questions for our product
- We may target thousands of keywords, but questions vary more than keywords, thus there are millions of variations of questions
- Keyword research can use known data from Google and other keyword tools
- There are no tools to find what questions people ask - new strategies will need to be made to source how people ask questions
- Based on the questions people ask, we create landing pages and content to target questions similar to SEO
Good Content for Questions
- "Good content" in Google SEO is comprehensive and answers the questions users have for that page via the presence of TF-IDF terms, sub-topics, and embeddings
- A landing page that targets a topic in AI Search needs to first understand the thousands of questions users have for that topic, then answer as many of them as possible
- Example - ResortPass's West Hollywood Edition page should answer questions about reserving a cabana, how much does a day pass cost, and what are opening hours
Citation Optimization
- RAG+LLM performs a search, looks at multiple pages, summarizes them, and cites its sources
- Companies can optimize for being cited using SEO strategies similar
- Forbes and NerdWallet can try to optimize for being a citation for "best credit cards" across many variations of credit cards
SERP Tracking > AI Answer Tracking
- SEO tracks single positions for keywords (e.g. I rank #5 for "best credit card")
- AI Answer Tracking is a distribution or frequency across surfaces, question variants, and question runs
- There are no tools that allow companies to track their presence in AI Answers
- Graphite is launching AI Answer Tracking - https://lnkd.in/d9w8XQjh
AI Content & Search - Study
- José Luis Paredes, Gregory Druck, and I conducted a study @ Graphite to assess the prevalence and effectiveness of AI content in Google Search
- We found that 88% of results in Google have little to no AI content, only 12% have high amounts of AI content, and only 3% are fully AI content
- Further, we found that AI content typically underperforms human-written content
- This contradicts the perspective that Google is becoming flooded with AI content and that mass unassisted AI content strategies can be effective in SEO
- We do believe, however, that high-quality AI-assisted content with a human in the loop can perform well in SEO, but we recommend against unassisted low-quality AI content without a human in the loop
- Full Study: https://lnkd.in/ereSfTzv
Methodology & Data
- We selected a set of 2.2k keywords across 10 categories with 12k URLs
- We used originality.ai to measure the prevalence of AI content on each URL and scored URLs as human-written, low AI, high AI, and fully AI
- Crypto, commerce, finance, and local have the most AI content, which makes sense since these are more descriptive categories that may not benefit as much from personal experience
- Food, news, travel, and education have the least AI content, which makes sense since they benefit the most from personal experience
Caveats
- AI detectors are imperfect, and originality.ai is imperfect, so there may be some error in the data, though AI detectors anecdotally tend to overcount AI content vs. undercount
- We did not control for content quality, and high-quality AI content may perform better than low-quality AI content
- Human-written content has a cost, whereas AI content costs little to nothing, so the ROI of AI content may still be compelling even if the overall performance is lower
Opinions
- Google has recently announced guidance around AI content, saying that AI content is OK so long as it’s high-quality
- I suspect that Google has built an internal AI detection algorithm to detect AI content + low-quality AI content
- I think that Google is currently penalizing domains and URLs with a high % of AI content
- Dilemma: If low-quality AI content is effective in SEO, everyone will do this, and Google will become a search engine for LLM responses and thus no longer have a reason to exist - go directly to the LLM
- Dilemma: If LLMs cannot distinguish AI content from human content, LLMs will use LLM outputs as inputs to themselves, which means there will be an infinite loop of LLM’s training on themselves, which results in an infinite loop of derivatives of derivatives thus converging on a single point of view on everything
Comments
- If you have data, examples, or learnings about when AI content can be effective in SEO, please feel free to provide these in the comments
- AI content is a controversial and important subject to evolve how we think about it, please agree or disagree with our opinions in the comments
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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.