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Akshat Gupta
Pricing strategy at Okta| Advisor at Bessemer | Formerly Airtable, Stripe, Salesforce
Professional Background
Akshat Gupta is a seasoned technology professional with extensive expertise in the rapidly evolving landscape of B2B SaaS (Software as a Service) product and pricing strategy, as well as product-led growth methodologies. His career trajectory is a testament to his deep understanding of the technology sector, particularly in the areas of growth strategy and monetization.
Throughout his impressive career, Akshat has held several key positions within some of the most prestigious organizations in the technology and consulting industries. Notably, he served as the Senior Director and Head of Monetization and Pricing Strategy at Okta, where he significantly enhanced the company's pricing frameworks and strategies to drive revenue growth. His role at Okta contributed to enhancing their value proposition in the market and aligning their products effectively with customer needs.
Before contributing his talents to Okta, Akshat was an Operating Advisor at Bessemer Venture Partners, where he advised portfolio companies on growth strategies and effective monetization practices. His insight and strategic guidance helped companies refine their business models and enhance their market reach.
Akshat's prior experience also includes pivotal roles at leading tech firms such as Airtable, Stripe, Salesforce, and Microsoft. At Airtable, he worked as the Product Management Lead focusing on product-led growth and monetization. His innovative approach helped propel Airtable's adoption in the market. At Stripe, as the Pricing and Growth Strategy Lead, Akshat's work was instrumental in redefining pricing strategies that not only maximized revenue but also aligned with customer expectations and market trends.
Notably, his tenure at Salesforce saw him hold various strategic positions, including Director of Product and Pricing Strategy and Senior Manager of Go-To-Market Strategy and Operations. In these capacities, he was pivotal in crafting strategies that embraced product innovation while considering customer insights and market dynamics. Furthermore, he started his illustrious career as a Manager in Product Strategy and M&A at Microsoft and an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company, where he honed his analytical and strategic skills that would pave the way for his future successes.
Education and Achievements
Akshat Gupta's academic foundation is as impressive as his professional background. He completed his Master of Science in Management Sciences and Engineering at the esteemed Stanford University, where he gained invaluable insights into business practices, technology management, and strategic engineering. His time at Stanford not only equipped him with cutting-edge knowledge but also allowed him to engage with leading minds in the technology industry, fostering a network that would benefit his career.
Earlier in his educational journey, Akshat earned his Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing and Automation from the Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, a program that provided him with robust engineering principles and a strong grounding in technology applications. Additionally, he completed his primary education at the reputable Delhi Public School – R. K. Puram, which nurtured his analytical thinking and leadership abilities from a young age.
Achievements
Akshat Gupta's achievements throughout his career are noteworthy and reflect his capabilities as a leader in the SaaS industry. His strategic contributions to pricing and growth have enabled organizations to realize substantial revenue increases, optimize their market strategies, and create sustainable business operations.
His ability to implement product-led growth strategies has positioned the companies he has worked with at the forefront of their respective markets. Akshat’s work has not only focused on enhancing immediate profitability but has also emphasized creating long-term value for stakeholders by ensuring that pricing strategies reflect true customer value and promote adoption.
In addition, his analytical prowess has helped shape the product strategies of major tech firms, ensuring that new product offerings resonate with customers and embrace evolving market technologies. His collaborative approach in cross-functional teams highlights his commitment to fostering innovation and adaptability – qualities that are increasingly important in the fast-paced tech landscape.
Akshat remains a thought leader in the realm of B2B SaaS, frequently connecting with peers and sharing insights that help push the industry forward. His journey is a great inspiration for aspiring professionals looking to make their mark in technology and product strategy, reflecting the potential one can achieve through a combination of education, experience, and a steadfast commitment to excellence.
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Clay 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.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
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Clay 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, Clay 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 Clay 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 Clay 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.
Clay 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. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay 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.
Clay 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. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay 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. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay 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. Clay'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.
Clay 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. Clay 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, Clay 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.
Clay 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.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay 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. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay 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 Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay 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, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay 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. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay 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.
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Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay 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.
Clay'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. Clay 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 Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay'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, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay 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 Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.