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Rob Shapiro
VP of Product at Tropic
Rob Shapiro is an Entrepreneurship graduate from the University of Tampa with a strong focus on growth in Entrepreneurship, Social Media, and business development.
With a background in Communications from the University of Pittsburgh, Rob is constantly seeking new challenges to advance personal and organizational goals.
Skilled in Social Media & Commerce, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, Wordpress, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and Basecamp.
Rob has held various roles including Vice President of Product Strategy at Muck Rack, Senior Director of Product Strategy, Director of Product Strategy, Senior Account Strategist, and Account Strategist at Sawhorse Media.
He has also worked as a Business Development Intern at Minnesota Angel Network, a Brand Ambassador with Brain Tattoo Branding, and in various project coordination and sales roles at companies like Herzl Camp, 8thBridge, Inc., Woodard Group, Marketing Bridge, and Magnet 360.
Highlights
I haven’t posted here in a little over a year.
Last time, I shared the news that I was departing from Tropic – it included a perfectly vague description of what I’d be doing next.
In December 2022, I had an idea that maybe I could be working a completely different way. I dedicated a decade to two companies. I got to see a lot. Joining rooms of ~5 people and helping them grow to 250+, watching ARR go from $100 to $25M+, scaling, solving puzzle after puzzle. It was fun and sometimes fulfilling.
Sadly I knew something wasn’t right – the gas in my tank was depleting faster than it was getting refilled. It was a good time for change.
I didn’t do any massive “design your life” exercise, I didn’t launch a website or start a podcast and I didn’t write down a bunch of goals for the year. I started with one.
30 meetings in the first 30 days of 2023.
I ended up with 50.
Those 50 meetings led to my first two clients.
Both B2B SaaS companies looking for help improving their product, building teams, operationalizing development, setting clear vision and blocking/tackling towards major milestones. It was a perfectly weird blend of product, design, operations and executive work – all in service of more effective growth.
Just like that, I was a consultant – and I really liked it.
Fast forward 12 months and by the end of 2023 I’d worked with 11 different CEOs – helping point their boat towards a more clear destination and move faster that direction.
Today, I joined Ofri Kutzi & Tyler Simpson to speak at the A.Team sales kickoff (lmk if you want an intro -- they're amazing). I shared some of my experience shaping products/teams/strategies that have helped companies ranging from those launching their first product to others with hundreds of employees adopting AI.
It hasn’t been a linear journey and I’m not entirely sure where it will take me, but the exposure to different people, pattern matching across teams and helping so many people build is pretty awesome. It's fulfilling, too.
So I'm making things a touch more formal.
I've started a company -- Golden Valley Strategy -- and I'll be building it out a bit more (maybe even a logo and a website?) in the coming months.
Until then, if you have a product/process/strategy puzzle to solve, want to figure out how to actually build better or think your company could grow more effectively – I’m always up for a call or a coffee (I’m in NYC until mid-February, Colorado for most of March and Maryland/Mexico City in April).
Would love to catch up if we’re overdue.
At the end of 2022, I’ll be moving on from Tropic and starting an exciting new chapter in my life.
When I joined this company, David and Justin gave me a goal and the autonomy to turn a company with best-in-class procurement services into a sustainable SaaS business. Together – with a TON of hard work and effort from the entire Tropic team – we’ve done just that.
I’m intensely grateful for the opportunity I had to make an impact.
We’ve grown a team from 15 to nearly 200, launched hundreds of new features, integrations and improvements on a cutting edge platform, and made the purchasing process easier for forward-thinking companies around the world and their employees.
Startups are wild. Going from 0 to 1 is hard. Going from 1 to 2 is rewarding. The inevitable lows are quickly challenged by numerous highs.
We create features, systems, processes and team rituals – all designed to make each other’s lives better and more sustainable. I love building these things – creating something from nothing that hopefully gives people a little more joy and delight each day.
I’ve especially loved doing this at Tropic.
As we enter 2023, my full-time duties with Tropic will subside, but I’ll be transitioning into an advisory role – supporting product strategy, growth and anything else I can do to keep the Tropic rocket soaring.
This shift frees me up to prioritize some adventures, reconnect with friends and family, challenge some of my own assumptions about what work means and truly recharge before diving into my next wild ride (stay tuned for some exciting updates on this front soon).
If you’re reading this and you’re excited about leading product at Tropic, check out the job description: https://lnkd.in/eG3PSn-Z and I’m happy to introduce you to the team here – it is a good one.
If you’re reading this and you want to reconnect, chat about product, startups, a new idea or something else, ping me here and we’ll find some time for coffee.
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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
- 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.