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Judd Marcello
B2B Exec Search at Hunt Club | 3x CMO | Advisor
Judd Marcello is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in marketing and executive search. He currently serves as an External Board Member for the CU Boulder Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative since September 2023. His role involves advising on innovation and entrepreneurship strategies at the university.
Marcello has a notable background as a three-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), where he led marketing initiatives for various global brands and technology companies. He has transitioned into executive recruitment, currently holding the position of Practice Lead for B2B Go-To-Market Executive Search at Hunt Club. In this capacity, he assists CEOs, venture capitalists, and private equity firms in identifying and placing marketing and sales leaders who can drive innovation and sustainable growth.13
His professional journey spans over three decades, with expertise in B2B and B2C marketing across multiple industries including SaaS, consumer packaged goods, and consumer electronics. Marcello has worked in diverse markets including the UK, Americas, Australia, and Asia-Pacific, and has built high-impact teams focused on brand awareness and revenue growth.132
Highlights
Start-ups are hard – we don’t call them “end-ups” for a reason. If we knew where they’d end up, we’d know what to do next.
This thought, which I shared in a recent internal company message, has been on my mind. I want to expand on it. This post is about mindset.
The start-up journey begins with optimism, ambition, and vision, yet inevitably, pain arises. This pain, whether external barriers or self-inflicted wounds, isn’t just hardship – it’s a chance to improve, to find a better way.
I’ve worked in start-ups since 2009, been CMO at a few, and now I partner with many as an exec recruiter. My background affords me a unique perspective on start-ups and their challenges and opportunities. As an ex-operator/exec recruiter, I have a deeper appreciation of the start-up landscape and a better understanding of a critical aspect of their journey – the complex process of talent matching, especially at the executive level.
The start-up journey isn’t so different from the individual career journey. Careers start with optimism, ambition, and drive, yet inevitably, pain arises. In my daily interactions with start-up execs, these parallels become evident.
Each time you start a job search, it brings pain. We’ve all been there – updating resumes, tapping networks, trying to stay “productive,” rejection, and navigating through uncertain job markets.
Careers are hard, too.
Those pains are growth opportunities for finding roles that help us realize our full potential. Embracing these pains is a struggle, but the struggle is the reward.
My career, influenced by numerous U.S. and international relocations due to my wife's promotions, is a testament to this. With each move, I had to find the next gig, build trust, establish myself, and do it again. It was daunting but also a chance to find out what I was capable of and how much more I could achieve in my career.
These experiences taught me the value of persistence, adaptability, and resilience, which are vital in start-up and career journeys.
The truth is that careers are like start-ups of one.
Start-up and career journeys require the same mettle. Whether in start-ups or careers (or a career in start-ups!), the key is the same: embracing the struggle. The struggle is the reward - a sense of overcoming a new challenge and reaching a new milestone in the journey.
Start-ups and careers are hard. If we knew where they’d end up, we’d know what to do next.
Stay focused, embrace the struggle, and find reward in achieving growth - in your business and career.
Post Script
Most people in my network are in start-ups, and many of you are looking for your next job/leader. If you need guidance or an objective ear, DM me, and I’ll make time for you.
It's a busy time of the year on both sides of the search. To employers and seekers alike, stay active while others sleep.
If this resonates, share your thoughts with others who may be deep in the struggle to learn from. Thanks.
#career #startups
How can you mend the broken relationship between the #CEO and #CMO?
This is the gist of a recent post by a former CMO, now CEO, Mark Stouse (link in comments). You should follow Mark. His content is excellent and always inspires passionate conversations.
Mark details interviews with CEOs and CFOs about their frustrations with the CMO role. It's a bit jarring and, unfortunately, somewhat true. That said, there is fault on both sides. The lament of the CMO is a tale stoked by those CMOs who are always on the defensive and CEOs who don't truly know what they want from marketing or understand the discipline,
This isn't always the case, but these factors contribute to why the relationship breaks down in the first couple of years of working together.
I was a marketing operator for nearly thirty years - B2C, B2B, 3x CMO, exec team member. Now, I am in executive search focused on placing GTM roles, specifically CMOs. I describe it as “from B2B executive to B2B executive search.”
I work with CEOs looking to hire their next CMO and CMOs looking for the right situation where they can thrive. I love playing this role and the unique perspective I have.
I like to think that based on my “been-there-done-that” perspective, I quickly establish trust and credibility with both parties. The more I generate, the better relationships I help create. It’s my job, but I also feel altruistic based on my history as a CMO and my CEO relationships.
Three imperatives should be addressed when hiring your next CMO or finding your next CMO gig. Each can be viewed from the point of view of a CEO and CMO.
The CMO is a business leader first. CMOs, you must elevate your profile within the exec team. The CEO needs a GTM business partner who understands how to manipulate marketing to deliver consistent, positive results (top and bottom line). CMOs, stop trying to defend marketing (and your job). As a CMO, you must be objective and think and act like a CEO/Investor/business leader.
Clarify the role of marketing. It sounds nuts, but marketing’s role is not often clear. What is the role of marketing in the organization? Is the rest of the exec team aware of it and aligned? Is marketing resourced accordingly to ensure success? How is marketing held accountable to KPIs and financial rigor? You can’t hire the right CMO or find the right company if you can’t answer these fundamental questions.
GTM strategy is critical to CMO success. Everything marketing does is downstream of the GTM strategy. If the GTM strategy is weak, marketing results will be weak. If CMOs want to get off the defensive, they should have a primary voice in the GTM. This is how to establish yourself as a business leader and build credibility by executing the resulting marketing plan to deliver value throughout the funnel.
The opportunity cost of not investing in addressing these imperatives before hiring or joining as a new CMO is significant. It can derail the growth of your business and your career.
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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.