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Joe Rhew
I help Seed-Series A founders with ops - ex-YC / Uber
Professional Background
Joe Rhew is a seasoned professional with a wealth of experience helping early stage startup founders achieve product-market fit through data-driven insights. With a background that encompasses various roles in both startup environments and established companies, Joe has a unique perspective on building businesses from the ground up. As the Fractional Head of Operations at joerhew.com, he leverages his extensive knowledge in operations and strategy to guide startups in navigating their growth challenges, making data accessibility a cornerstone of his approach.
Before venturing into his current role, Joe had an impressive tenure at Uber, where he played pivotal roles as the Head of Marketplace Operations, Business Operations, and Rides Country Lead in diverse regions like Canada and Korea. His contributions to Uber Eats Canada were particularly notable, as he was instrumental in streamlining operations which led to measurable improvements in efficiency and user satisfaction. His experience at Uber provided him with valuable insights into scaling businesses effectively in highly competitive markets.
Joe's entrepreneurial spirit is reflected in his co-founding role at Tyltgo, a company that was part of Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch. This experience deepened his understanding of the startup lifecycle and instilled a passion for nurturing innovation in budding entrepreneurs. As a former Registered Partner at Integromat and Community Builder at Ops Hacks, he has consistently demonstrated a commitment to fostering community and collaboration among innovators and business leaders.
Education and Achievements
Joe Rhew graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the prestigious University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business. This robust educational foundation has equipped him with a strong analytical mindset and a deep understanding of the financial intricacies involved in both startup and corporate worlds.
From his beginnings at Morgan Stanley and Citi as an Investment Banking Analyst, Joe has honed his expertise in financial analysis and strategic investment, which has proven invaluable throughout his career. His analytical capabilities not only serve him in operations and strategy but also benefit the startups he coaches by providing them with a framework for data assessment.
In addition to his financial prowess, Joe has also served as a Sergeant in the Republic of Korea Army. This experience instilled in him a sense of discipline, leadership, and dedication that he carries into every facet of his professional life. The skills learned in the army have contributed to his dynamic leadership style and his ability to mentor and guide teams effectively.
Achievements
Across his diverse career trajectory, Joe Rhew has consistently achieved notable milestones that highlight his commitment to excellence and innovation. At Uber, he was recognized for his exceptional operational strategies that significantly improved market performance. His role as the Head of Marketplace Operations at Uber Eats Canada allowed him to implement processes that facilitated meaningful growth and operational efficiency.
At Tyltgo, as Co-founder and COO, Joe played a crucial role in shaping the company's vision and operational strategies, helping it gain traction in the competitive startup landscape. His success in this venture illustrates his ability to not only identify market needs but also to take decisive action that aligns products with consumer demand.
Joe’s ability to discover insights in data sets him apart in his field, enabling startup founders to make informed decisions swiftly. This impact is evident in the feedback and success stories of the entrepreneurs he has guided towards achieving product-market fit, further solidifying his reputation as a reliable resource in the startup ecosystem.
Overall, Joe Rhew remains passionate about empowering startup founders, harnessing the power of data to transform insights into impactful decisions. His rich educational background, diverse professional experiences, and commitment to driving success for others make him a remarkable figure in the realm of entrepreneurial development.
Highlights
I started learning programming 2 years ago. Despite what everyone says about how AI is going to make programming obsolete, it was the single best decision I've made in my career.
I learned just enough of the fundamentals before ChatGPT 3 came out. With a solid enough foundation, I've been able to use AI to literally 10x the speed at which I learn programming.
Disclaimer: I'm still not a great programmer.
But I've been able to apply programming directly and indirectly in every facet of the business at The Workflow Company to, again, 10x the business.
e.g.: Campaign experimentation ▶ Wrote backend code to set up a database which powers an analytics tool Copywriting ▶ Use the approach I honed debugging to iterate on AI prompts Marketing ▶ Built out our landing page using Webflow, a low-code tool
As a relatively new entrant in an industry that used to be a late adopter of tech, just the little bit of programming knowledge I've gained is giving us a meaningful enough point of differentiation and edge.
Based on my experience, I believe the future success of most agencies will depend on the ability to create an incredibly narrow internal software tools to deliver 10x the value vs. other non-tech-enabled competitors.
Agencies will be one of the first groups to adopt this approach as their business depends on it. But we will see a similar adoption across all knowledge workers.
More business and people, augmented by AI, creating software to 10x their productivity.
And all of this is going to be much easier to execute if you have a baseline understanding of programming.
So despite what everyone says, if you're on the fence about learning programming, I say go for it. I don't think you'll regret it.
Here's a v0 of the email campaign analytics app we've been building at The Workflow Company.
What the app does under the hood:
- Pings a dozen API endpoints to get campaign data at the individual email level
- Stores all that data in Supabase
- Exposes API endpoints that can be triggered to send a webhook to Slack for a custom time period
- Sends aggregated campaign data as the initial message
- Replies to the thread with individual campaign data
Like I said, it's just v0.
What we can see (Slack message) isn't much, but excited for things we can start building atop the database + backend server we've had to create first.
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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.