Suggestions
Neha Puri
Influencer Marketing - Founder at VAVODIGITAL - Influencer Marketplace
Professional Background
Neha Puri is an accomplished entrepreneur and the dynamic Founder & CEO of Vavo Digital, a cutting-edge self-service influencer marketplace that connects brands with over 20 categories of social media influencers. With a keen understanding of the rapidly changing marketing landscape, she recognized the importance of micro and nano influencers in driving brand engagement and enhancing ROI. At Vavo Digital, she has successfully created a platform that not only helps small and medium-sized businesses discover the right influencers but also capitalizes on the untapped potential of middle-tier influencers.
With her visionary leadership, Neha has led Vavo Digital to become a go-to resource for brands looking to amplify their campaigns through authentic advocacy and transparent collaboration. Her commitment to harnessing technology to streamline the influencer marketing process provides valuable insights for businesses eager to improve their brand recall and returns on investment. The platform serves as a testament to her ability to not only adapt to market demands but also shape them, making Vavo Digital an innovative player in the influencer marketing domain.
Education and Achievements
Neha's educational background laid a robust foundation for her entrepreneurial ventures. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), specializing in Business Studies with First Honors from G.D Goenka World Institute. Further enhancing her credentials, she pursued a Masters of Marketing & Strategy at the prestigious University of Warwick - Warwick Business School. Additionally, she obtained a Diploma in Digital Marketing from Oxford College of Marketing, equipping herself with essential skills in the digital realm that are critical for success in today’s marketing environment.
Neha’s entrepreneurial journey began at a young age. At just 24, she founded her first startup, CyberChef, a home-cooked food delivery platform operational in major urban centers such as Delhi, Gurgaon, and Mumbai. Under her stewardship, CyberChef thrived for two years before she successfully sold the business.
Following this initial success, Neha joined Movenpick Ice Cream India as the Head of Franchise and Business Development. Demonstrating her exceptional business acumen, she played a pivotal role in opening eight Movenpick stores across India within just six months, showcasing her ability to scale business operations rapidly.
After her fruitful tenure at Movenpick, Neha returned to her roots in Mumbai, where she identified a gap in the market and launched a gourmet gifting business targeting Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. This venture was borne from her insights into consumer behavior, particularly among individuals with high disposable incomes seeking unique gifting options.
And now, with Vavo Digital, Neha Puri continues to build on her remarkable journey, committed to innovating within the influencer marketing sector. Her rich experience across various business segments can serve as an inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs and brands alike.
Achievements
- Founder & CEO of Vavo Digital: Pioneering a self-service influencer marketing platform that centers small and medium-sized businesses, promoting partnerships with micro and nano influencers.
- Co-Founder of The Official Gift Co: Established a premium gifting solution that catered to market demands for high-quality products with a personal touch.
- Marketing Manager at Movenpick Ice Cream: Successfully launched and expanded the Movenpick brand in India by opening eight stores in a remarkably short time frame.
- Founder of CyberChef: Embraced the entrepreneurial spirit early on by creating a successful startup that catered to the rising demand for home-cooked meals across major Indian cities.
Through her journey, Neha Puri exemplifies the balance of creative vision and strategic execution, making her a leader in both marketing and entrepreneurial circles. Her passion for connecting brands with meaningful influencers demonstrates her forward-thinking approach to modern marketing and her commitment to empowering businesses to reach their fullest potential.
Highlights
In companies where productivity has increased by 50%, creativity has doubled, and employee satisfaction is at an all-time high, one surprising change stands out: ditching the outdated obsession with time tracking.
Too many managers are stuck in an outdated paradigm, fixating on: • When employees clock in • How long they sit at their desks • Micromanaging daily schedules
But we’ve hired smart, capable professionals. Treating them like children who need constant supervision is not just demeaning – it's counterproductive.
However, it's crucial to maintain a balance. While micromanagement is detrimental, companies still need to ensure discipline and focus on key priorities. The goal is to empower employees while aligning their efforts with organizational objectives.
That’s why one needs to focus on result-focused management:
-
Shift your metrics: Focus on project milestones, work quality, and client satisfaction instead of hours logged.
-
Embrace flexibility: Allow flexible hours and remote work when possible. Trust employees to manage their time effectively.
-
Cultivate a culture of trust: Communicate openly about priorities and challenges. Reward results, not face time. Promote work-life balance and well-being.
Companies like Netflix, Basecamp, and Atlassian have implemented results-only work environments (ROWE) with remarkable success.
They report higher employee engagement, better outcomes, and a more dynamic, innovative workplace culture.
What's one positive outcome you've experienced (as a manager or employee) when given more autonomy at work?
#Leadership #EmployeeEmpowerment #WorkplaceCulture
Entrepreneurship is not all about workations and being the boss. If you think it is, here’s why you should reconsider your idea of starting a business.
There are approximately 582 million entrepreneurs across the globe. (The Hill)
And I can guarantee that the ones who had this in mind while pursuing it have been struggling to keep up with this all-day job.
Because entrepreneurship is not synonymous with this flexibility. Unlike our employees, we can’t take a no-digital-device day off.
Even if we are away from our business, team members need access to us to keep the workflow smooth and going.
Here’s what you should be aware of before considering this path:
We have a never-ending to-do list We make work our best friend because we don’t get time to meet our friends. Work-life balance doesn’t exist for us.
One of the pros we get is to work from anywhere and everywhere.
As an employee, you can be absent for a while and the tasks can still get completed.
But it’s not the same with founders; our minds are literally at work most of the time even if we are not.
So, will you still choose the flexibility of entrepreneurship?
#entrepreneurship #balance
People also viewed
Related People
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.