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Jon Flugstad
Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company
Professional Background
Jon Flugstad is a dynamic professional with a strong foundation in both business and political science. He boasts an impressive career trajectory that showcases his expertise and dedication to influencing policy, business strategy, and research. With a rich background that includes significant roles at premier organizations, Jon has demonstrated exceptional analytical skills and a deep understanding of the intersection between politics and business.
Throughout his career, Jon has held notable positions beginning with his role as an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading management consulting firm. In this capacity, he contributed to various projects that required strategic thinking and rigorous research methodology, equipping him with valuable insights into government operations and business practices.
Before his tenure at Booz Allen Hamilton, Jon served as a Research Consultant at the esteemed Harvard Kennedy School of Government. This role allowed him to engage in important research initiatives that aimed to shape public policy and elevate civic engagement. His experience at Harvard further honed his ability to analyze complex problems and develop solutions that resonate across various stakeholders.
Jon's expertise in government relations was further exemplified during his time as a Research and Government Relations Associate at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the leading think tanks in Washington, D.C. Here, he was instrumental in conducting research that informed critical discussions on public policy issues, thereby contributing to the development of effective, research-based policy recommendations.
Education and Achievements
Jon Flugstad's educational background is notable, beginning with his undergraduate studies in Political Science at Wheaton College. At Wheaton, he developed a solid understanding of political theories and systems, which laid the groundwork for his future endeavors in both the public and private sectors. His passion for understanding the complexities of governance and political decision-making propelled him into his graduate studies.
He further enhanced his credentials by pursuing a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) at the prestigious Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. The Haas School is known for its emphasis on innovation, entrepreneurial thinking, and effective leadership. Jon's time at Berkeley not only provided him with advanced business acumen but also equipped him with the tools necessary to navigate challenging business environments effectively.
Achievements
Jon's career reflects a commitment to excellence and a passion for public service that is evident in his professional engagements and academic pursuits. His work has consistently focused on bridging the gap between government and business practices, advocating for policies that improve efficiency and accountability in both arenas. With a strong analytical skill set and hands-on experience in consulting and government relations, Jon remains a thought leader in his field. His experiences working with top-tier institutions, coupled with an exceptional educational background, position him as a valuable asset in any organization looking to make an impact.
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Highlights
𝗣𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 (𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮) 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿 🤝
You come to LinkedIn for relationship advice … I’m here for you.
How do you pick the right foundational technology partners to build a thriving retail media business? What makes the right relationship?
One-stop partners present capability and margin tradeoffs. The pitch is unicorns, but reality doesn’t live up - which is why media networks are strategically insourcing across business and tech capabilities.
But the ‘gameboard’ for partners gets complex quickly. So how do you select the right partners?
6 must-haves ⬇
👁 𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻. Media network leaders know best where the world will be in 5 years. Will the partner do more than plug holes on current issues? Is their vision congruent with yours? Do they push your vision? Know if they want to have kids before you get married :-)
☁ 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵. The promise of commerce media is in the power of 1P data for performance and measurement. Surveys of advertisers indicate performance as THE top differentiator. Ask for specifics about team, technology, architecture - and align the best tech with your highest value assets. Can they deliver their pitch? Remember, you’re competing with Big Kids on the Block (Google, Meta, Amazon).
🏰 𝗺𝗼𝗮𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴. 1P data is your moat. Enabling tech should maximize its use and build your asset for monetization. If a partner wants you to transit your 1P and transaction data to their platform and sell it… guess what, you’re the product.
💪 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲. Don’t get handcuffed by tech giants or agencies with controlling stakes - limiting tech investment, agility, and their ability to be part of a modular stack. Foundational partners should enable your priority ad products, enable flexibility in campaign types, and fully align incentives with your success
⏩ 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱. Look for all-around-agility. Is the platform stood up fast? Is GTM fast? Do they respond quickly? How quick are new releases? Velocity, velocity, velocity – hitch your cart to the fastest horse.
🤟 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘃𝗶𝗯𝗲𝘀. It matters! A lot. Pick the partner with ‘spiritual alignment.’ Trust, credibility, and a sense of service - will they be there for you when things are hard? Perhaps a little ‘hippity-dippity’ for LinkedIn, but it’s true
Finally, in my experience building 7 media networks, be wary of offerings that sound too good to be true – i.e., ‘built-in turnkey demand’ or ‘solves all of your tech and operational issues.’ Yield! Identity! Millions of profiles! Keep an appropriate dose of skepticism and ask for specific details. You’ll find sleight of hand to downright misdirection.
So here’s to you 🥂 - may you have future retail media relational bliss.
#commercemedia #retailmedia #digitalmarketing
CC: Moloco, Nikhil Raj
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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.