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Keith Davison
Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ Plerion (Exited founder)
Keith Davison is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader who currently serves as Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Plerion, a cloud security company.1 Here's a comprehensive overview of his background and experience:
Professional Experience
Keith has over 18 years of experience in building and leading startups.2 His most notable achievements include:
Co-founding Cloud Conformity:
- In 2016, Keith co-founded Cloud Conformity, a public cloud infrastructure security, compliance, and governance platform.1
- The company was acquired by Trend Micro in October 2019 for $100 million.2
Leadership at Plerion:
- After the Cloud Conformity exit, Keith co-founded Plerion, where he currently serves as Co-Founder & Co-CEO.1
- Plerion focuses on helping customers identify and address critical cloud security risks.2
Other Roles:
- Partner & Group CCO at Paloma, a venture studio in Australasia.1
- Board Advisor & Investor for companies like Authsignal.1
- Angel Investor in various startups, including Hometime, Chipper Cash, Mr Yum, and others.1
Education
- Commerce degree in Business Management and Business Law from the University of Otago (2004-2006).1
- Post-Graduate Certificate in Management from AGSM @ UNSW Business School (2014-2015).1
- Company Directors Certification from the Institute of Directors in New Zealand (2022).1
Skills and Expertise
Keith's expertise lies in:
- Building and scaling startups
- Global sales strategy and execution
- Cloud technology and security
- Venture building and investing
Personal
Keith is based in New Zealand and has international work experience, including roles in Australia, the UK, and managing global accounts.1
Highlights
So, what do revenue teams really care most about at early stage ventures:
➡ Generating revenue, hitting sales target & hitting top of funnel targets ➡ They care way more about short term vs long term pipeline building in general, especially at early stage startups ➡ Retaining & growing happy customers and growing wallet share ➡ Brand recognition & customer advocacy over time
However, things are harder than ever in the field:
🎃 For younger companies, leads, leads, leads continue to be genuinely hard to generate at scale with old methods generating less ROI 🏓 Outbound sales efficacy is dropping fast & sales teams struggle to innovate, adapt & evolve to new techniques 🎾 Rise of AI to automate & generally speed up productivity creates downstream challenges around individual skillsets, results generated but also getting teams to adopt these effectively is hard 🥊 Buying behaviour continues to evolve fast, sellers struggle to adapt & find this challenging to navigate 🎳 Remote work impacts day to day motivation, it's easier to move at a slower pace, work becomes is less fun, its lonely & as a result the lack of in person energy impacts performance in the end 🌏 Meeting prospects & customers face to face again, alot of reps have forgotten how to hit the road & get active, this is a big opportunity for everyone in 2024 🏟 Building community, relationships & a core following is a must but reps live in the moment and think short term so struggle to operationalise this 🦄 B2B brand building is generally under invested in, in early stage companies 🍍 B2B nurturing is stale, no real innovation in methods & approaches I think this is a big opportunity 🔔 Getting meaningful ROI on marketing activities has always been hard & experimenting on new channels & new ideas in practice is tough with the extreme short term focus of revenue teams 🖍 Everyone is expected to do more with less but very few know how to do this 🍄 Obviously tough macro market conditions compound all these challenges ➡ Multiple roles in the typical revenue machinery are under the microscope to deliver results 💠 Very little time is invested in genuinely new channels for growth & experimentation so status quo remains 🔸 With the rise in remote selling, managing relationships is challenging 🍑 It's hard to maintain your teams focus on your ideal customer profile as attention always drifts
Mastering the craft of generating revenue is a never ending journey of discovery, hard work and persistence and never stays the same year to year!
What else do you see to add to this list?
#startups #growth #sales #revenue
Something I deeply believe in when running teams at early stage venture backed startups is "what are the core operating principles" we all hold ourselves accountable to on daily basis. At Plerion we have a set of values / principles for the company, for our product / engineering teams & the commercial team. I wanted to share with you:
"The Plerion Commercial Credo"
- Discipline, extreme focus & consistency are the only key to success
- Customer outcomes & others first, always. This is not about you.
- Help each other, collectively we can win, alone we can’t
- Humbleness & integrity, no compromise
- Continuous learning to achieve leading product & market knowledge
- Trust as a default, don’t lose it! You get it once
- Own your business, analyse the data, focus on the metrics
- Love ecosystem selling, it will help you win
- Excellence is not a skill, its an attitude
- If you’re going through hell, keep going
With every team i've had the pleasure to lead we always embedded similar operating principles. The way we operationalise these principles is twice a week in internal meetings we randomly pick 1-2 people and ask them to recite these + ask for examples of how they saw the credo deployed in that given week both positive and negative and this way it allows us as a group to live and breath these principles and debate them. My belief is, this gives our group a true identity and a connection to each other that makes us both better people but better business contributors as well.
What do you do? What's worked or not worked for you?
#venture #startup #cloudsecurity #founders
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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
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- 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.