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Kate Brodock
Founding Member at Chief
CEO @women2, General Partner @ WFund (Rolling Fund, invest with us!) startups, VC, DEI in tech, @TheBineyard, craft beer & bubbly, hilariousness, life
Highlights
I talk a lot to Founders about effective reporting to their investor base, especially at the early stages. 📊
There are a lot of important reasons why this process should be prioritize, but I want to highlight one that's popped up a few times now that the Fall fundraising season has started.
One of the first places founders - especially those doing well - can and should go when they start a new round is directly to their existing investor base. The second place is the "interested" investor base - investors who may not have come in yet, but have expressed enough interest in what you're building, and have opted in to updates, and you would consider them warm (low-hanging fruit even? Yes.)
In both cases, the likelihood of both investing in your open round is increased significantly if you've been communicating to them on a regular basis (at a minimum once a quarter). Conversely, your chances of losing them increases just as significantly if you have NOT communicated to them.
⭐ To emphasize, in most cases, a LACK of communication is not a neutral, it's a NEGATIVE. ⭐
There is an expectation of a relationship when an investor writes out a cheque to your company. And part of maintaining that relationship, and keeping it "in good standing", is that you're updating them on what's happening with their investment.
You could be killing it, or you could be struggling. Either way, the simple GAP in info will rapidly deteriorate investor confidence, potentially to the point of complete disengagement.
⭐ To emphasize again, it's not the performance you're reporting or not reporting here. It's the basic EXISTENCE OF or LACK OF info that's the first issue. ⭐
This doesn't mean it needs to feel like a report card. Yes, there are certainly power dynamics at play in the industry, but if you think of it first and foremost as the relationship that it is, you can begin to understand what increases and decreases in communication can do to the strength of that connection, to the faith and trust the other person has in your pathway. What does this investor need on their side to keep this relationship strong?
Again, there are many other reasons to keep investors up-to-date on your company - fiduciary responsibility, getting input, owning your story, etc.
But your job as a founder is also to be responsible with the relationship that sits at the center. If you're responsible with it, it'll payback tenfold (follow-on! connections! advise!). If you aren't, it has the potential to detract tenfold (disengaged investors at a minimum, or angry investors who could take any number of actions).
Get good at reporting. Get regular at reporting. Make it part of your job.
I have disappointment in this article.
Firstly, this is not a defense (or lack) of Techstars' leadership, or the direction it's taking, or some of the accounts in this article. Many of you know I've been involved on the edges of Techstars for 10+ years in various program-based activities. I'm not here to comment on the specifics (I know very little).
What I do want to comment on is something very salient in this article, and in accounts of too many women CEOs.
In EVERY case where current leadership was reported on by name, they were ALL women. The current Techstars leadership team is not made up of all women, FYI. And in EVERY case, that woman was highlighted as being not competent for her role at the time when she started. 🤯 Seriously, read it.
In ALL BUT ONE case where the insider (employee or former employee) was either named or was referenced using gender pronouns, they were all men (disclaimer below).
Let me rephrase: Every leader being negatively reported on here is a woman, all were openly questioned by almost an entirely male employee base being interviewed as not being fit for their job from the get go. Right out of the gate.
And here we are, with a story that then piles on failed partnerships and employee turnover without attribution to cause, leaving readers, if we aren't careful, to attribute that to the leadership in question.
Disclaimer: Some of the specific accounts in here aren't what I'd call savory (e.g. the individual account from the former executive assistant of the SVP was the only identifiable woman in the interview set. Her claims shouldn't be ignored and are valid), and again, I'm not here to defend (or not) the specifics.
But it's CRUCIAL to understand these dynamics when we read stories like this, especially about competency.
And also? This entire story failed to highlight the pretty darn basic process happening here, a process that every journalist and reader in this space understands extremely clearly: You have a system that has been built over the two decades that's just plain no longer a startup. It needs to take a new form, often needs new leadership, and new leaders come in with a shake up. People who've been in the system will be uncomfortable, pissed off, in disagreement. They might even leave or get fired. They're probably going to lose some of the power they so enjoyed. THIS IS NORMAL.
The article even suggests that the CEO's appointment came at a time of tumult, that it needed "rescuing" (a time when so many women CEOs are asked to come in - clean up!). It also suggests that power was changing, "fiefdoms" may not look the same. But boy did it breeze through how flipping normal this is, how less dramatic so much of this story actually is.
No, it painted a picture of the incompetency of a group of women execs who messed everything up.
We need to do better. It's 2024.
https://lnkd.in/gmHhGGM7
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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.