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Ben Tzou
Builder at Stealth Startup
Professional Background
Ben Tzou is an accomplished technology professional with extensive experience in various high-impact roles across a multitude of industries. He has honed his skills in software engineering, machine learning, and risk management, contributing to prestigious companies and innovative startups. Ben has a balanced blend of technical expertise and leadership experience, which he has effectively leveraged throughout his career in different engineering and managerial roles.
Ben began his career as a Senior Software Engineer at Workday, where he contributed to the development and enhancement of software solutions tailored for business needs. His expertise in creating scalable software architectures and overseeing the software development lifecycle laid a strong foundation for his future roles.
His journey took him further as he became a Technology Fellow at UCLA Technology Development Group, where he collaborated on transformative projects aligning academia with the tech industry. This position showcased his ability to bridge complex concepts and solutions to real-world applications in technology, emphasizing his adaptability and innovative mindset.
After his tenure at UCLA, Ben joined Collective Health as a Tech Lead. Here, he played a pivotal role in creating solutions that streamline healthcare benefits for employees and employers. His leadership skills shone through as he guided teams in developing pioneering technologies that focus on enhancing user experience and improving overall efficiency.
As his career progressed, Ben transitioned into a crucial position at DoorDash as a Senior Engineering Manager focusing on Fraud (Risk) management. His deep understanding of risk assessment and mitigation strategies allowed him to implement robust solutions to protect the platform and its users effectively. His role at DoorDash not only solidified his reputation as a leader in risk management but also showcased his ability to navigate and resolve complex technical challenges.
Building on his success, Ben further advanced his career as an Engineering Lead in Marketing at OpenStore. In this position, he utilized his software engineering skills to craft marketing solutions that significantly impacted the startup's growth trajectory.
Most recently, Ben expanded his horizons by working as a Builder at a Stealth Startup, where he continues to apply his technical prowess in an innovative and dynamic environment, contributing to the creation of groundbreaking solutions that have the potential to disrupt traditional market paradigms.
Education and Achievements
Ben Tzou's academic background includes rigorous training in diverse scientific and technical disciplines. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Molecular and Cell Biology from the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. This diverse educational foundation not only reflects Ben's intelligence but also his capacity to synthesize the intricacies of biological systems with the analytical lens of economics.
Following his undergraduate studies, he pursued a Master of Science degree in Computer Science with a focus on Machine Learning at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His advanced studies in this cutting-edge field enabled him to acquire a deep understanding of algorithms, statistical modeling, and data analysis—skills that are increasingly essential in today’s technology landscape.
In addition to his formal education, Ben has also partaken in valuable experiential learning opportunities. He served as an NSF Fellow, where he shared his knowledge as a high school Computer Science Teacher at the San José Unified School District. This role highlights his passion for education and mentorship, as he aimed to inspire the next generation of tech-savvy individuals.
Ben has also contributed to groundbreaking research in clinical trials for immunotherapy at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy. This experience underscores his commitment to leveraging technology in life sciences, affirming his ability to work at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and innovation.
Achievements
Over the course of his career, Ben Tzou has achieved notable success in various domains of technology and leadership. His positions have allowed him to be at the forefront of innovation, crafting solutions that tackle complex problems while driving significant improvements in efficiency and performance.
Some of the key achievements in Ben’s career include:
- Innovation in Software Solutions: Developed and implemented robust software solutions at various companies, enhancing user experience and operational efficiency.
- Leadership in Risk Management: Led initiatives at DoorDash that significantly reduced fraud risk, safeguarding the platform and its users while ensuring compliance with industry standards.
- Pioneering Work in Healthcare: Contributed to the design and development of healthcare platforms at Collective Health that streamline customer-facing operations, thereby improving overall client satisfaction and process efficiency.
- Educational Impact: As a high school CS teacher, Ben has influenced the lives of countless students, guiding them towards technology careers and advocating for the relevance of computer science education in today’s job market.
- Research Contributions: His involvement in clinical trials for immunotherapy reflects his commitment to advancing scientific knowledge and improving patient outcomes through innovation in healthcare technology.
Furthermore, Ben's collaborative approach and team-oriented mindset have made him a valued asset wherever he has worked. He embodies the qualities of a passionate technologist, innovator, and mentor, aiming to inspire those around him while contributing to meaningful projects that drive real-world impact.
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Clay 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, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
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:
- 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
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.
Nexus is Clay'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.
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.
Clay 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 Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay 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, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
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.