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Fernando Labastida
What's your Startup Book marketing strategy? I'll help you craft a Startup Book that designs a new category, and enables you to spread the word about it so you can become the only provider your market thinks of.
Professional Background
Fernando Labastida is a dedicated marketing professional and content strategist who has significantly impacted organizations across the United States and Latin America. With a career that spans various leadership positions, Fernando has excelled in applying the "media as marketing" philosophy, which hinges on leveraging a company’s unique insights and expertise to create valuable and differentiated content. This strategic approach helps businesses build loyal audiences by transforming casual consumers into dedicated community members who actively engage with the brand.
Fernando’s diverse experience includes serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at We Are The Robots Inc., where he led innovative marketing strategies that enhanced the company's visibility and audience engagement. In addition, he played critical roles across several organizations such as Category Thinkers and uStudio, showcasing his ability to elevate brand narratives in a compelling manner.
Throughout his career, Fernando has founded and co-founded notable ventures that reflect his passion for content and marketing. One of these is Startup Book Marketing, which focuses on helping emerging businesses succeed through strategic marketing communications. He also played a pivotal role at Escritor.Digital, a company dedicated to assisting writers in harnessing the digital landscape for their work's promotion.
Fernando's commitment to content marketing is evident in his founding of Content Marketing Latam and Content Propulsion, both aimed at enhancing the marketing capabilities of organizations in Latin America. His extensive background in financial services marketing at Softtek underscores his versatility and ability to adapt marketing strategies across various sectors.
Education and Achievements
Fernando Labastida’s academic journey has also contributed immensely to his career. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from The University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s degree in Geography from the University of California, Davis. This educational foundation has enabled him to gain insights into cultural dynamics and geographical influences, equipping him with a unique perspective when it comes to marketing and content strategies.
His achievements are not just limited to positions. Fernando has been a thought leader in the marketing space, advocating for a content-oriented approach that transcends traditional business methods. He believes that organizations can significantly add value through effective communication and engagement strategies, thereby encouraging more sustainable community relationships with their audiences.
Notable Contributions
Some of Fernando's most notable contributions include:
Transforming content marketing practices within organizations by implementing strategic initiatives that focus on audience engagement and loyalty.
Developing content strategies that turn company insights into marketable assets, thereby elevating brand perception and customer trust.
Establishing himself as a go-to consultant for businesses seeking to enhance their marketing strategies, demonstrating his expertise through actionable insights and proven methodologies.
Fostering community building through targeted outreach strategies that extend a brand's reach while solidifying its audience base.
Fernando Labastida remains a credible source of knowledge in the marketing and content creation fields, frequently sought after for his insights into integrating media with strategic marketing goals. His philosophy of creating an owned audience — an asset that companies can harness without relying on third-party platforms — has positioned him as a forward-thinking leader in the field.
Highlights
What is category design, and why does it matter? The Category Pirates (Chris Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, and Nicolas Cole), in their latest book “The 22 Laws of Category Design,” say it best:
"Category design is about the exponentially different. It’s about creating different futures by creating new and different business categories. Category design is not about competing. It’s about creating."
When you design a new category, you don’t compete with other companies within a category.
You don’t try to be the number one company in an existing category.
“Competition” - a word that has been drummed into those of us who live in capitalist societies since we were too young to remember - is eliminated in category design.
Category design is a paradigm shift. You don’t become “more competitive” or “beat the competition.”
You eliminate the competition.
In his first book about category design, “Play Bigger,” Chris Lochhead, with co-authors Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, and Kevin Maney, explained that when designing a new industry category, you define a problem the market previously didn’t know could be solved.
When you identify, and market, the problem, you define a new category.
Your company then gets associated with the solution to that problem.
In a key passage from “Play Bigger,” Lochhead et al said:
"Once the public understands the problem, people latch on to the most popular solution. Given all of the product and service choices people must make, it can get too burdensome to research every offering. So we pick the leader. Global networks, search engines, and social media allow everyone to quickly identify the top solution. Almost as soon as the problem - the category - is well understood, customers find the most popular solution and flock to it. Especially for digital products and services, there is no reason for anyone to settle for what they see as second or third best. Everyone who wants the best can get the best, instantly. The perceived best takes almost all the market share; second best manages to hold on to enough to keep going, and the rest get pretty much nothing."
Focus on this last sentence: “The perceived best takes almost all the market share; second best manages to hold on to enough to keep going, and the rest get pretty much nothing.” (Think Coke vs Pepsi, Google vs Bing, or McDonald’s vs. Burger King).
(This is an excerpt from my soon-to-be-released book, "The Startup Book: How to Write a Book That Designs a New Market Category & Positions You as The Leader", available for pre-sale on Amazon now).
6 Startup Books Written by Software Companies.
Some of the most successful software companies have written books as part of their growth strategy (well, not the companies themselves, but their founders). I call these books “startup books.”
What's a startup book?
A startup book is a book you write to design a new market category and spread the word about it into the marketplace of ideas.
The end result of your startup book is to clearly lay out the argument for your new approach.
And in the process, you design a new category.
Here are 6 startup books written by software company founders:
- Inbound Marketing, by Dharmesh Shah & Brian Halligan
Probably the most famous startup book.
They wrote it in October 2009. Google Trends shows a significant uptick in searches for the term “Inbound Marketing” on October 2009. And it went up from there.
The book, their world famous blogs, and the Inbound conference, put the term Inbound Marketing on the map.
- Rework, by Jason Fried & David Henemeier Hansson
Fried and Henemeier Hansson, co-founders of 37Signals and Basecamp, wrote Rework, their first book of four books.
They talk about building a company in an unconventional way, essentially throwing out the rule book and paving the way for a wave of lean startups.
In fact, Rework set the stage for the lean startup revolution, before Eric Ries wrote The Lean Startup.
And it just so happens that Basecamp, their first product, was one of the first project management platforms perfectly designed for the work Ries and Henemeir Hansson describe.
- Customer Success, by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman & Lincoln Murphy
Mehta, Steinman and Murphy, the founders of Gainsight, the first platform specifically designed for customer success professionals, wrote the book about this burgeoning category.
And of course their platform benefited from the rise of the category, which shows a steady uptick on Google Trends, from 2016 onward.
- Purpose, by Gina Banchini
Bianchini, founder of Mighty Networks, wrote about how companies today must infuse purpose and community into their business model.
Christopher Lochhead told me in an interview for my book that over the next five years, companies without a Mighty Network (or any private community platform), will be comparable to companies without websites.
- Virtual Selling, by Thomas Siebel
Written in 1996 by the founder of Siebel Systems, the first CRM platform before Salesforce took over the category in 2000, Virtual Selling launched the CRM revolution.
- Enterprise Artificial Intelligence, by Nikhil Krishnan
Another Thomas Siebel company, C3 AI, the folks that coined the term Enterprise AI, wrote the book on the topic.
Krishnan, a Phd, Group Vice President of Products at C3 AI, a former McKinsey consultant, and Columbia University professor was commissioned to write the book, giving the book unassailable authority in the marketplace.
What other startup books by software companies have you read? Tell me!
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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.