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Steve McConnell
Owner/Advisor at Rain Dog Financial, Author of Code Complete, Chairman at Construx Software
Steve McConnell is the founder and Owner/Advisor of Rain Dog Financial, an investment planning and management company located in Bellevue, Washington.13 With a background as a long-time software business owner, McConnell established Rain Dog Financial to provide practical, tax-aware guidance to index investors.1
Professional Background
McConnell has experience in the investment industry, having previously worked at the Russell Company on high-end investment tools for institutional clients in the 1990s.1 He leverages his deep background in forecasting and incorporates Nobel prize-winning work from various economists and researchers to develop his investment planning method.1
Approach to Investment Management
Steve McConnell's approach to investment management is characterized by:
- Personal touch: He values getting to know his clients personally, listening carefully to their goals and circumstances.1
- Analytical rigor: As a self-described "numbers guy," he applies complex mathematics to create tailored solutions for each client's unique situation.1
- Transparency: McConnell is willing to explain the mathematical aspects of his approach to interested clients while keeping it behind the scenes for those who prefer simplicity.1
Services Offered
Rain Dog Financial provides:
- Investment planning
- Wealth management
- Practical, tax-aware guidance for index investors1
Personal Information
Steve McConnell brings a wealth of personal experiences to his role, including:
- Starting and managing multiple businesses
- Navigating personal life events such as marriage, divorce, and losing a parent
- Raising two children and six dogs1
As of the most recent information available, McConnell is the owner of a 3-year-old golden retriever named Cooper.1
Steve McConnell can be contacted via cell phone at (425) 440-8777 or by email at steve@raindogllc.com.4 His LinkedIn username is stevemcc, as mentioned in the query.2
Highlights
My new company is Rain Dog Financial, an investment planning and management company located in Bellevue, Washington: https://raindogllc.com.
For those who have followed my software career, this might seem like a change in focus, but I see it as a natural evolution. I see investment planning as a forecasting problem, which means I get to extend the forecasting skills I've acquired from my work on software estimation and covid forecasting.
This is also a closing of the circle. Before founding Construx, I worked at Russell Investments on investment analysis software. The original business plan for Construx was to provide custom software development to the financial services industry.
Last year, I reviewed the tools that financial planners use to advise their clients, and I did not find any that, in my view, handled the investment forecasting part of financial planning with adequate rigor. Lack of tax awareness is also a common weak spot. I've spent the last year and a half building my own tool that I believe handles many aspects of investment planning, forecasting, and tax implications better than any of the other tools that are commercially available to financial planners.
I've always prided myself on taking a No BS approach to software development, and that has not changed.
I believe 95-99% of the common advice about investing is B.S. Rain Dog Financial's investment philosophy is centered on index funds and ETFs because the data is so clear that it is almost impossible for investors to outperform index funds. However, the specifics of how people invest in index funds leave room for an advisor to add value.
Finally, after 25 years of working with business teams, I'm ready for a shift to working with people on life issues that matter to them personally.
Check out our website at https://raindogllc.com to see more about our investment strategy and the kinds of individuals and families we work with.
Rain Dog Financial is a tradename of Rain Dog LLC.
As you might have guessed based on how infrequently I’ve been posting about software, I’ve stepped away from day-to-day involvement in Construx Software, leaving the company in the capable hands of Mark Nygren, Steve Tockey, Earl Beede, Jenny Stuart, Brian Daugherty, MSE, Mark Griffin, Melissa Frakes, Tonya Rimbey, and others – most of whom have been with the company for 20 years or more.
I remain majority owner of Construx and chairman of the board. A part of my heart will always be with Construx, and I know the company will continue to offer the same high quality service we have worked so hard to provide for the past two decades.
For the past several months I’ve been concentrating on a new venture. It has a small software component and a larger forecasting component, though it is not about either software or forecasting, per se. It picks up some threads of work I was doing before I started Construx, and I feel a renewed sense of energy and purpose. I’ll post a more specific announcement about it early in the fall.
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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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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.