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Emily Wang
Head of Product at Spoke (askspoke.com)
Professional Background
Linda Wang is an accomplished product owner and entrepreneur with an impressive career trajectory that underscores her prowess in product management, strategic execution, and the effective leadership of innovative teams. Currently, Linda serves as the Head of Product at Spoke, a cutting-edge platform dedicated to enhancing workplace communication through a streamlined and user-friendly interface. Her expertise in identifying market needs and translating them into actionable product strategies has consistently led to successful outcomes, positioning her as a respected figure in the tech industry.
With a wealth of experience in some of the most dynamic organizations, Linda's career includes pivotal roles at Intercom, where she escalated from Product Manager to Senior Product Manager. During her tenure, she significantly contributed to the enhancement of customer relationships and engagement, optimizing Intercom's software to align with evolving user needs. Her efforts not only drove product adoption but also fostered a robust community of satisfied users.
Before her impactful journey at Intercom, Linda was a Senior Product Manager at Teespring, where she navigated complex product landscapes and led cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact projects that resonated with users and scaled effectively. Her tenure at Teespring solidified her reputation for driving product innovations that meet and surpass consumer expectations, while also honing her skills in agile development and market analysis.
Linda’s entrepreneurial spirit shines through her founding of Vinobly, an online wine purchasing platform. This venture allowed her to leverage her product management acumen in a startup environment, where adaptability and strategic foresight are essential for success. Her previous experience as a Site Marketing specialist at Sephora and in E-commerce at TATCHA Inc further showcase her ability to drive growth through data-driven decision-making and thoughtful A/B testing strategies, ensuring that marketing efforts resonate deeply with target audiences.
Before venturing into the world of product management, Linda laid a strong foundation in consulting as a member of The Boston Consulting Group. As a consultant and later as an associate, her analytical skills and strategic insights helped shape client strategies and improve operational efficiencies. Her early experiences as a Summer Analyst in the Global Chemicals Group at Citi and an intern at One Source Printing & Graphics equipped her with a diverse set of skills that have seamlessly transitioned into her career in product management and entrepreneurship.
Education and Achievements
Linda Wang's academic journey is marked by her commitment to excellence at some of the world's most prestigious institutions. She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School, where she deepened her understanding of business strategy, product development, and leadership. This rigorous program emphasized case studies and real-world applications, preparing her to tackle complex business challenges head-on.
Prior to her MBA, Linda earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University. This foundational education provided her with critical analytical skills and an understanding of market dynamics that have proven invaluable in her career as a product owner. Her academic achievements reflect her dedication and passion for learning, equipping her with a toolkit that powers her success in multifaceted business environments.
In addition to her academic qualifications, Linda has an extensive record of achievements within her professional roles. Her demonstrated ability to launch successful product features, guide teams through agile environments, and collaborate with stakeholders across various sectors speaks volumes about her leadership capabilities. Linda’s ability to foster innovation and encourage team collaboration has led to her recognition as a pivotal leader in every organization she has been part of.
Achievements
- Head of Product at Spoke: Pioneered product strategies that enhance employee communication and productivity.
- Growth at Intercom: Played a key role in elevating user engagement and satisfaction through innovative product development.
- Leadership at Teespring: Drove the successful launch of multiple product options that enhanced user experience and functionality.
- Founder of Vinobly: Established a startup that leveraged technology to simplify the wine purchasing process, demonstrating her entrepreneurial spirit and innovation.
- A/B Testing Expertise at Sephora and TATCHA Inc: Enhanced marketing strategies through data-driven A/B testing, ensuring effective customer outreach and engagement.
- Consulting Success at The Boston Consulting Group: Provided strategic insights that improved client performance across multiple sectors, showcasing her analytical capabilities and
Highlights
We started Bento in 2020 to solve a problem we called “everboarding”. Basically, how do software products integrate a way for customers to discover the best ways to use that product, and to continue doing so as new features are added, or new use cases emerge.
And over the last 4 years, we built a product that served millions of these end-users. We partnered with our incredible customers to run countless experiments and to rethink their customer onboarding and activation methods, and celebrated with them as they saw success like improving their activation rates by 4 or 5x.
Yet three months ago, I made the difficult decision of winding down our operations and closing this chapter in our journey. The decision was difficult because we had over 18 months of runway and could see profitability around the corner. We had never churned an annual plan customer. Customers were seeing results and excited for their roadmaps ahead.
So why shut down?
We did not find a way to grow fast enough to give me confidence that this would one day be a very large, standalone company. And that was the shared goal of all the employees who joined us, and the investors who backed us, and my goal for putting 100% of my energy into Bento these past years. Surviving, or building a lifestyle business, wasn’t the goal of this particular venture.
Shutting down while we had the runway also meant we could take care of our customers by offering them a smooth transition onto other solutions or internal programs. It meant being able to build out additional features to help them export data. We could take care of the team and help them land in each of their new roles. It meant returning capital to those who believed in us. It meant having the oxygen to do it with integrity and with the values that have guided us each step along the way.
For founders who are in these shoes, or find themselves peering through this fog right now, it is one of the hardest calls to make. When it’s not obvious which path to take, it means you live on the knife’s edge of perseverance and stubbornness. And no founder is not without a healthy dose of both. I’m deeply grateful for the team and advisors who worked with me for weeks and months through this decision and its implications.
There’s nothing I’m prouder of than what we built with our product, business, and culture.
To say goodbye is deeply sad, not simply because we didn’t get to the outcome we all worked so hard for, but because the journey was so meaningful. It was, as one of the Bentosaurs put it: “a Core Memory”.
Thank you to each Bentosaur, to each customer, and to the incredible investors and advisors who cheered us on, showed up to brainstorm and help, and opened countless doors. This journey would have been far less meaningful without you.
As for me, I'm excited to be exploring at the intersection of climate & energy and finding the next great mission to embark on!
Our mission at Bento isn’t just to arm PMs and Designers with the power to create magical onboarding and activation flows – 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥, and in turn, unlock meaningful improvements in conversion metrics and user experience delight.
But what does it mean to be successful?
🏗️ In the early days, it was about giving people an 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞
🎨 Then it was about giving them deeply extensible 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 that would also “just work” with clever defaults.
🛫 Then we made governance and scaling easy with infrastructure like 𝐀𝐢𝐫 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥
But lately, our focus has turned to “𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠”. Why?
🕵️ The more we invite non-engineers into the traditional world of engineering, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬.
So far, we’ve invested in tools that help customers answer questions like:
1️⃣ Why isn't a guide showing up (are targeting rules set incorrectly? Is the guide even launched?)
2️⃣ Why isn’t a guide appearing where you expect it to (are wildcards used correctly? Are you testing on the right URL? Is the target element even on the page?)
3️⃣ Is an element you’re tracking for auto-completion a reliable one? (and can we suggest a better one?)
These investments are critical to giving our customers confidence in relying on Bento to power some of the most valuable parts of their user journey. And they're already saving us a ton of time supporting customers when they have questions.
Stay tuned for more to come!
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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.