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Kate Adams
Senior Vice President of Marketing
Kate Adams is the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Quickbase, a position she has held since May 2023. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, she brings over 18 years of experience in technology and marketing to her role. Before joining Quickbase, she served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Validity Inc. from March 2021 to April 2023, where she led significant marketing strategies, including demand generation and brand marketing initiatives.13
In her previous roles, Adams has demonstrated a strong track record in building and leading marketing teams. At Drift, she was instrumental in driving revenue growth by 160% during her tenure and established the demand generation function from scratch.1 Additionally, she has experience in various leadership roles across companies such as SmartBear and Flashnotes, where she contributed to substantial sales growth and rebranding efforts.1
Adams holds a Bachelor's degree in Spanish Language and Literature from Regis College (1999-2003) and has pursued various certifications, including one in Conversational Marketing from Drift.12 Her expertise encompasses a wide range of marketing disciplines, including product marketing, demand generation, and crisis communication strategies.1
Highlights
I was doing an SDR interview, yeah I still do those, why? I think that the people we put on this team is the single biggest decision that we make. One bad hire will take the productivity out of at least one of our insanely talented and impactful managers and potentially affect the productivity of his/her/their peers meaningfully as well. I was reminded of this quote during the interview “we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with”. I think it’s true in your personal life and I know its true in your professional life, I have seen it first-hand and I've seen it time and time again with folks on my team. If we bring bad hires onto our teams they will become one of the top 5 people you will spend time with and it will bring down each of your averages.
This SDR also reminded me of a book called The Messy Middle. If you spend enough time on social media, LinkedIn included, you start to get indoctrinated that the journey to success looks like “How I went from marketing assistant to CMO with 15 exits in 8 years” or “I graduated college, “grinded it out” for 3 years and I just paid off my parents’ mortgage”. You get indoctrinated into thinking that the journey to success looks like the image on the left, when the reality is that real success looks more like this: [Image from The Messy Middle] You might be saying, Kate how could we possibly be in the Messy Middle we are a x year old company. The reality is that there are so many different iterations and therefor journeys within a company. Companies I have been apart of have been through the journey of getting to revenue, the journey of addressing high-velocity high-churn VSB companies, the journey toward verticalization, and some of those companies have been on a few of those journeys. There are going to be days that will be amazing and there are going to be days that will feel really f’ing hard. You must make sure your team sticks together through all the days no matter what the feeling and lean on eachother to figure it out. The reality of this is that it will not just require, but DEMAND we all embrace uncertainty and understand no one has all of the answers, but we are going to figure them out together. It will require that you exhibit resilience and that when you find something that doesn’t work you get back up and find the thing that does. That you all have to work hard in the pursuit of continuous improvement, not perfection, but progress is really what you're after. You just have to get 1% better every single day, did you do something today that is better than how it was when you logged in this morning?
I’m not sure if I wrote this for all of us as much as I wrote it for myself I’m having a few “ouch” days see sections about manual entries and missing discoveries, but I thought that if I was having them then I’m probably not alone right now and I thought we could all use the reminder.
Last week we had our marketing offsite in the Boston office. Sixty of us came together and got alignment around the key company priorities, the key marketing priorities and how we can line up as an organization behind these priorities in order to achieve these goals together. It was a jam packed two days full of education, strategy, brainstorming and connection. One of the things I spoke about during this time was based off of Carol Dweck’s book Mindset. We talked about the criticality of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. How a fixed mindset might say something like, “I’m way too busy with my every day work to come up with brand new ideas and new things to try.” Where a fixed mindset might say “Wow I get to come up with a brand new idea and try something we’ve never done before. I’m gonna book time on my calendar to reserve space for this.” A fixed mindset would might look at our pipeline progress so far this quarter and say “Shoot we have some big gaps, we’re screwed”. Where a growth mindset says “We’re off, but not that far off and now I get to assemble my team together to close this pipeline gap and give us a hot start to H2.” Another thing we talked about during our two days together was the idea that what we actually get to do in tech every day is pretty damn fun. It’s easy when you are staring down a tough month to lose sight of that. Your quota looks 15 feet tall and all you’ve got to get there is a step stool. Or you want to run the “prime rib” of marketing campaigns and what you have to work with is an “Easy Mac” budget. Yeah, you can think about things like that; or you could think about it as… I have a job where I have autonomy to decide how to get to my number. Woah, look at this if I stack a couple of these step stools together I’m a stretch away from hitting my number. You could think about the fact that you go to work at a place every day that either provides you with an office with free coffee, panoramic ocean views, pays for you to get to that office and also buys you lunch every now and again or let’s you work from home and maybe just a few steps away from where you woke up this morning. You’re not on a construction site in the dead of winter or the height of summer trying to get your job done being rushed by a PM because you’re over time and over budget. (To be clear, I am mighty thankful for the folks that are) You’re not sitting across from someone having to give them a terminal diagnosis. (Again thankful for these people too) You’re selling/marketing/accounting for/building/hiring people to build software, so let’s find the joy in that while we have the PRIVILEGE to do it!
#marketing #offsites #mindset #growthmindset #saas
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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.