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Manoj Andhappilly
Head of Engineering, Data Connectivity Platform at LiveRamp Holdings Inc.
Professional Background
Manoj Andhappilly is a distinguished startup technologist with over 20 years of versatile industry experience that embodies a remarkable journey across multiple sectors, including finance, healthcare, social networking, and advertising technology. His extensive expertise as a software engineer and director of engineering has been instrumental in driving innovation and growth at various startup companies, significantly contributing to their success and sustainability.
In his pivotal role as the first employee and Director of Engineering at Motif Investing Inc., a fintech company known for disrupting traditional investing strategies, Manoj played a crucial role in laying the technological foundation that led to its acquisition by Charles Schwab. His deep understanding of fintech not only showcases his capacity for high-stakes problem solving but also his talent for building systems that are both robust and user-friendly.
Manoj's strong background in security and compliance is exemplified through his work at Medem Inc., where he engineered cryptographically secure healthcare services that adhered to HIPAA regulations. This experience culminated in Medem’s successful acquisition by Medfusion, which later joined the ranks of Intuit, demonstrating Manoj’s ability to navigate complex regulatory environments while prioritizing user safety and data privacy.
His tenure at Piczo Inc., a teenage social networking platform, is another highlight of his career. As an early engineer and architect, Manoj contributed to the development of a platform that peaked with over 10,000 registrations a day, showcasing his agility in scaling technology solutions for rapidly growing user bases.
Furthermore, at Brand.net, Manoj engineered real-time monitoring solutions for advertisement delivery, marking his proficiency in creating high availability systems that maximize operational efficiency and enhance user experience, ultimately leading to Brand.net's acquisition by Valassis Communications.
In his role as Director of Engineering at oDesk Inc., now known as Upwork Inc., he adeptly managed a globally distributed team, reflecting his strong leadership capabilities and his commitment to fostering collaboration in diverse work environments. His extensive experience with remote teams highlights his understanding of the modern workforce and the evolving dynamics of teamwork in the digital age.
Education and Achievements
Manoj's academic credentials are impressive and align perfectly with his professional endeavors. He earned a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from The University of North Dakota where he focused on econometrics, regression analysis, and forecasting methods. This educational background provides him with a solid grounding in analytical thinking and quantitative analysis, skills that are essential in the technology and startup landscape.
Before pursuing his Master's degree, he earned a Bachelor's in Mathematics from St. Thomas College in Thrissur, India, and studied Computer Applications at the Government Engineering College in Thrissur. His rich educational journey has equipped him with a robust analytical framework and a deep understanding of computational theory, which he has applied throughout his career.
To further his skill set, Manoj continues to embrace lifelong learning—currently delving into the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. His commitment to learning is evident through his recent explorations into Bitcoin, Elliptical Curve Cryptography, and advanced machine learning concepts, highlighting his dedication to staying at the forefront of technological advancements.
Skills and Expertise
Manoj is well-rounded in his engineering capabilities, showcasing a diverse skill set that includes multi-threaded concurrent programming, non-blocking input/output systems, security, and cryptography primitives, as well as proficiency in various front-end JavaScript frameworks. His comprehensive knowledge not only allows him to contribute to the technical aspects of product development but also empowers him to act as a strategic leader within organizations.
His ability to marry technical expertise with business acumen is reflected in his prior positions as a Consulting Software Engineer at Avaya and various director-level roles across notable organizations, such as Symphony.Com and oDesk Inc. This blend of skills positions him uniquely within the tech landscape as a catalyst for innovation and efficiency.
Achievements
- Technology Leadership: As the first employee and Director of Engineering at Motif Investing Inc., his leadership ensured the successful development of integrative fintech solutions that attracted significant investment and led to acquisition by Charles Schwab.
- Healthcare Innovation: Manoj's architecture for HIPAA-compliant healthcare services at Medem exemplified his ability to build systems that safeguard patient data while enhancing access and usability.
- Scalability Solutions: His foundational work at Piczo Inc. during its explosive growth period highlights his expertise in creating scalable architectures capable of supporting high traffic and active user engagement.
- Global Team Management: Manoj's experience leading remote teams at oDesk Inc. underscores his competencies in team dynamics, collaboration, and remote innovation management.
- Continuous Learning Advocate: Demonstrating a lifelong commitment to education, Manoj is actively pursuing knowledge in blockchain and cryptography, reflecting the importance he places on aligned learning with evolving technology trends.
In conclusion, Manoj Andhappilly’s impressive career trajectory, backed by a solid educational foundation and a fervent passion for lifelong learning, positions him as an influential figure in the world of startup technology and innovation. His multi-faceted expertise in security, engineering, and team leadership aligns perfectly with the needs of modern businesses, ensuring his continued relevance in an ever-evolving industry landscape.
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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.