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Carl Winans
Co-Founder and CEO of Rebound, the world’s first AI-powered chatbot that pulls your Amazon and Shopify seller data into one place, giving you instant access to the metrics that matter.
Professional Background
Carl Winans is a multifaceted entrepreneur, designer, inventor, and technology enthusiast with an impressive portfolio that spans various sectors including advertising, interactive design, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. His career began while he was still a student at Michigan State University, where he launched into freelance work, showcasing his early passion for creativity and innovation.
After graduating with a degree in Advertising from Michigan State University, Carl founded RIPE Interactive in 1998. This endeavor marked the beginning of his journey in building businesses that fuse technology with thoughtful design. His leadership role at RIPE Interactive established him as a significant player in the digital landscape of Michigan, setting the stage for his future ventures.
In 2003, Carl, alongside four friends, co-founded Elemental, an interactive firm dedicated to harnessing local talent and creativity in the face of the challenging economic climate in Michigan. The firm thrived under his guidance, forging a strong reputation for delivering innovative digital solutions.
Carl's entrepreneurial spirit further propelled him to establish Deep Canvas in 2009, focusing on creating cutting-edge web and mobile experiences. Recognizing the transformative potential of immersive technology, Carl refocused Deep Canvas in 2016 to prioritize projects involving virtual and augmented reality, positioning the company at the forefront of emerging tech trends.
In 2014, he co-founded Mega Tiny Corporation, where he invented the groundbreaking anti-gravity phone case. This innovation, made with a unique nano-suction material, revolutionized the market by allowing users to securely attach their devices to smooth surfaces without adhesive.
By early 2018, Carl's vision extended to helping businesses navigate the complexities of e-commerce. He co-founded Elevate, a company dedicated to assisting brands in scaling their presence on Amazon. That same year, after the acquisition of Deep Canvas by ICON Technology Studio, Carl served as the Director of Mixed Reality, overseeing projects that bridged the gap between the physical and digital worlds.
In July 2020, Carl took his wealth of experience to launch Rebound, an AI startup that empowers business owners to streamline their operational metrics. Through Rebound, users can engage in intuitive conversations with their data, moving beyond cumbersome dashboards to gain insights that matter. The startup illustrates Carl's ongoing commitment to leveraging technology to foster user-friendly solutions for businesses.
Education and Achievements
Carl Winans holds a degree in Advertising from Michigan State University, where he developed a robust foundation in communication arts and sciences. His time at university was transformative; not only did he engage in his studies, but he also demonstrated entrepreneurial flair by designing and selling t-shirts from his dorm room. This early venture into business underscored his creative abilities and motivated him to delve deeper into the world of startups and design.
Throughout his career, Carl has accumulated notable achievements, starting with RIPE Interactive and extending through various startups. Under his leadership, Deep Canvas received recognition for its innovative approaches before its acquisition by ICON Technology Studio. The anti-gravity phone case from Mega Tiny Corporation garnered industry attention, establishing Carl as a visionary inventor with a knack for identifying market needs and fulfilling them.
Associations and Roles
Carl's illustrious career includes a range of leadership roles and advisory positions. He currently serves as the Co-Founder and CEO of Rebound, where he combines his passion for AI and entrepreneurship. Previously, he was a Technology Advisor at OCULAR3D SYSTEMS, further enhancing his profile in technology consultancy. His role as an Advisor at Elevate highlights his commitment to supporting other businesses in an e-commerce context.
Carl’s diverse experience also includes co-founding Folktellers Universe and acting as the Co-Founder and CMO of Elemental. His early attempts at establishing creative firms reflect a strong dedication to building environments where creativity can flourish. As the former Director of Mixed Reality at ICON Technology Studio, Carl contributed to pioneering mixed reality projects that shaped how technology interacts with user experiences.
Personal Interests
Beyond his professional acumen, Carl has a passion for travel and the creative arts, including a stint as an amateur stand-up comedian in his college days. This blend of interests not only fuels his creativity but also informs his approach to design and innovation. Carl’s enthusiasm for technology and storytelling resonates in each of his projects, illustrating the depth of his commitment to integrating thoughtful design with pioneering solutions in the tech landscape.
In summary, Carl Winans exemplifies the spirit of entrepreneurship through his varied and dynamic career in technology, design, and innovation. His journey from a freelance designer to a successful startup founder illustrates his resilience and drive to create impactful products and services. Through Rebound and his previous ventures, Carl is not only shaping the future of business technologies but also inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs and creatives with his unique blend of skills and vision.
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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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- 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.
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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.
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.