Suggestions
Justin Emond
Building delightful experiences for brands like Harvard, VMware, Seventh Generation, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and King Arthur Baking Company.
Professional Background
Justin Emond is a prominent figure in the tech and design landscape, known for his exceptional leadership as the CEO and founder of Third and Grove. With a progressive vision, he spearheads a talented team of design-first technologists dedicated to crafting innovative digital experiences that empower leading brands. Under his guidance, Third and Grove has successfully partnered with prestigious clients, including Harvard, VMware, AmorePacific, and King Arthur Baking Company, demonstrating his ability to merge creativity with technology to deliver outstanding results.
Before establishing Third and Grove, Justin built a solid foundation in technology and management. He started his career as a Software Engineer while engaging in freelance work, where he honed his technical skills and gained valuable experience working on various projects. This early phase of his career provided him with critical insights into the tech industry and prepared him for leadership roles.
Justin transitioned into project management at Urban Insight, where he served as a Senior Project Manager. His role involved coordinating complex projects that merged technology and design, ensuring timely delivery and high-quality outputs. His experience in this position laid the groundwork for his future endeavors, establishing a strong business acumen and a proven track record in project execution.
Additionally, Justin held the role of Manager of Information Technology at the University of Southern California, where he acquired firsthand knowledge of managing technological infrastructures in an academic setting. This experience further enriched his portfolio and provided him with insights into the intersection of education and technology.
Justin's commitment to unlocking potential in burgeoning businesses is evident in his previous investments. He has served as an investor at both Mundial Media and Archer Roose, contributing his expertise and knowledge to help these companies flourish. His investments reflect his belief in the transformative power of technology and innovation, and he continues to seek and support promising startups in the tech sector as a seed investor at various ventures.
Education and Achievements
Justin Emond's educational credentials underpin his professional journey. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Southern California, where he developed a keen understanding of human behavior and user experience—qualities that are vital in crafting effective digital interfaces. Additionally, Justin broadened his horizons by studying abroad at The University of Edinburgh, an experience that not only enriched his education but also instilled a global perspective that he applies in his work.
His teaching experience as an Adjunct Faculty member at the University of Southern California allowed him to contribute to the next generation of industry professionals. By sharing his knowledge and experiences, Justin has inspired students and equipped them with the skills needed to thrive in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
Notable Achievements
Justin Emond's professional journey is marked by several notable achievements, including the establishment and growth of Third and Grove. His leadership has positioned the firm as a go-to partner for brands eager to innovate in the digital space. As a thought leader, he continually explores the potential of technology in enhancing user experiences and driving business success.
As a seed investor, Justin is driven by a passion for technology and the potential it holds. He is consistently on the lookout for groundbreaking ideas and transformative solutions, making him a valuable ally for startups aiming to disrupt the tech industry. Justin's enthusiasm for reading also speaks to his commitment to lifelong learning; he welcomes book recommendations that can further inform and inspire his professional endeavors.
tags':['CEO','Founder','Third and Grove','Digital Experiences','Technology','Design','Psychology','University of Southern California','Investor','Software Engineer','Project Manager','Adjunct Faculty','Urban Insight','Information Technology','Harvard','VMware','AmorePacific','King Arthur Baking Company'],
questions':['How did Justin Emond develop his passion for creating digital experiences?', 'What inspired Justin Emond to invest in technology startups?', 'How does Justin Emond approach leadership at Third and Grove?', 'What influence did his psychology degree have on his approach to technology and design?', 'What are some of the key projects Justin Emond has led at Third and Grove?', 'What insights has Justin Emond gained from his experiences as an investor?', 'How has studying abroad impacted Justin Emond’s professional perspective?' ]} assistant to=browser code plaintext= `{
tags':['CEO','Founder','Third and Grove','Digital Experiences','Technology','Design','Psychology','University of Southern California','Investor'
Highlights
What can Warren Buffett, Adam Smith (the father of capitalism) and McDonald’s teach us about DTC ecommerce?
LinkedIn is buzzing about the TURNAROUND SECRETS ebook by Drew Sanocki. It’s full of tactics you can actually use to boost your ecommerce brand.
But three tips stand out, each backed by wisdom from unexpected places.
- ) Don’t become a tech company
Warren Buffett’s wisdom: Stick to your circle of competence. If you’re an ecommerce brand, you’re great at products, marketing, and understanding customers. That’s your superpower and your unfair advantage.
Don’t dilute it by trying to be a tech company too.
2.) Don’t over-optimize for customer satisfaction
Counterintuitive? Maybe. Adam Smith’s law of diminishing returns is 200 years old, and it still holds true.
Focus on high-ROI improvements, then know when to redirect your energy. Think 80/20.
3.) Implement volume discounts
You can’t change consumer behavior, but you can nudge it.
As McDonald’s knows best, a little nudge goes a long way. Encourage customers to buy just a bit more than usual. It’s the “supersize” principle – simple yet effective.
This ebook is definitely worth a look if you haven’t read it yet. Check out the link in comments.
BigCommerce is no longer for sale. What that really means is nobody was interested.
The founders of Panera and Walmart hold the insight into what is really going on with all the drama at BigCommerce that Rick posted this week (link in comments).
In the founder of Panera Bread’s memoir, What Matters, Ron talks about how the competitive advantage of a business is continually being chipped away. You would think this gives BigCommerce an opening, but it doesn’t.
BigCommerce can’t win in a head-to-head fight with Shopify, and Travis knows they can’t win. There’s no way to compete against Shopify's feature velocity and the app ecosystem, even with the slow erosion that every market leader suffers from. BigCommerce just doesn’t have the resources to take advantage of that. This is likely why there weren’t any compelling offers for BigC, once word leaked in the spring that the for sale sign was out.
Only the decades old sage wisdom from Sam Walton shows how to save BigCommerce. When asked by a reporter how any business could possibly compete with the Beast from Bentonville, he said that competing with Walmart is easy. All you have to do is go deep into a particular product category. Walmart can’t go deep anywhere. It’s the Circuit City strategy. And while it worked, it worked.
BigC’s best bet is to choose a very narrow lane and relentlessly pursue that vision. The path to get there will be ugly: lost customers, lost staff, doubt from shareholders, an unruly board. Only time will tell if Brent and Travis can pull it off.
People also viewed
Related People
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.
People also viewed
Related People