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Dave Matli
Chief Marketing Officer (fractional) at Exokinetics, Vino Vault, BlockWRK - & other seed/Series A/launch-stage co's via Matli Consulting LLC.
Professional Background
Dave Matli is a distinguished brand-driven product design and marketing leader with extensive experience in launching and growing brands, products, and business lines. With a career spanning over numerous industries, from fintech and healthcare to consumer products and entertainment, Dave has demonstrated a unique ability to blend data-driven strategy with an empathic creative vision. Throughout his career, he has successfully overseen teams in marketing, strategy, creative, social media, and UX design, making significant contributions to companies ranging from seed-stage startups to Fortune 50 enterprises, both domestically and internationally.
Education and Achievements
Dave's academic journey began with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Advertising from the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design, where he honed his skills in creative communication and marketing. Complementing this, he also completed an Associate of Science (A.S.) in Communication and Media Studies from Ventura College. Additionally, he participated in the CEO & Key Executive Leadership program offered by Vistage, where he further developed his leadership capabilities and strategic vision.
Over the years, Dave has accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience that has propelled numerous companies to new heights. Some of his notable achievements include:
- Harry Potter Retail Franchise Rebrand: Dave played a pivotal role in a two-person team that led the rebranding effort of the Harry Potter retail franchise after licensing revenues faced challenges due to the disappointing box office performance of HP2. Within a single year, the franchise emerged as Warner Bros.' most lucrative product licensing entity in history, showcasing Dave's exceptional skills in brand repositioning and value creation.
- Fintech Startup Growth: As part of the leadership team at Parasail Health, Dave contributed to transforming the company from a pitch deck to an impressive $18 million in funding, facilitating access to $400 million in loan capital, and effectively onboarding 3000 providers to the platform. Furthermore, the startup achieved a remarkable user growth of 40,000 monthly users and saw $1 million in loan applications every month, all within just 15 months.
- Westfield Malls Strategy: By facilitating a repositioning strategy for Westfield Malls to be perceived as entertainment destinations rather than mere shopping centers, Dave was able to deliver a notable +13% year-over-year growth in a declining category, demonstrating his insight into consumer behavior and market trends.
- LeapFrog Brand Marketing Success: In his role as Vice President of Marketing & Product User Experience at LeapFrog, he orchestrated a transformation that elevated the brand from the 7th to the 4th position as the “most trusted” brand among mothers within just 12 months. This impressive turnaround occurred after four consecutive years of decline. Dave’s strategies led to enhanced engagement through earned and owned media at reduced costs, proving his proficiency in brand revitalization.
- Cost Reduction and Efficiency: Dave's keen focus on marketing efficiency resulted in a +50% cut in marketing costs across various media channels for LeapFrog. This overhaul not only boosted ROI, video completion rates, social engagement, and click-through rates (CTRs) but also improved employee satisfaction by +13% within a year.
- Global Expansion at Iron Mountain: His expertise in B2B strategy and creative messaging played a significant role in helping Iron Mountain's Entertainment division expand its reach beyond the US. By targeting three new vertical markets, the division experienced a +10% year-over-year growth in enterprise sales globally.
- Capitol Studios Revitalization: Dave's experiential refresh for Capitol Studios resulted in the creation of five new revenue streams, highlighting his innovative approach to brand extensions and experiential marketing.
These case studies and the accomplishments outlined demonstrate not only Dave’s adaptability across various sectors but also his comprehensive understanding of market dynamics and consumer insights.
Professional Experience
In addition to his hands-on achievements, Dave has held numerous prestigious positions throughout his career:
- Founder and Principal Consultant at Matli Consulting LLC: Currently, as a Principal Consultant and Fractional CMO/CPO, Dave specializes in brand/user experience, product launch, and growth marketing, continuing to empower various organizations to achieve their strategic marketing goals.
- Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at ConCntric: In this key role, he was instrumental in developing innovative products and driving the company’s vision forward.
- Chief Marketing Officer at ICOBox: Here, he orchestrated multiple marketing initiatives that significantly enhanced brand recognition and outreach.
- Vice President of Marketing & Product User Experience at Parasail Health: A role where he demonstrated his leadership in producing exceptional user experience and effective marketing strategies.
- Creative Design Director at Sesame Workshop: As Director, he oversaw significant creative projects that reinforced the brand’s position in the children’s entertainment landscape.
- Design Manager at Warner Bros. Entertainment Group: At this global entertainment giant, Dave led initiatives across live-action properties and spent a substantial part of his career contributing to projects that defined pop culture.
- Senior Designer at Saban Entertainment: Dave honed his design skills in this role, pushing boundaries in consumer products and branding initiatives.
- Freelance Senior Designer at Aquent and Art Director at Wongdoody Advertising: In these positions, he showcased his creative versatility and ability to adapt to various client needs and industry shifts.
Conclusion
Throughout his illustrious career, Dave Matli has consistently demonstrated a commitment to excellence in product design and marketing. His ability to synthesize data-driven insights with a creative vision has empowered brands across various sectors to grow and thrive in competitive markets. With a solid foundation in advertising and impactful experiences across many industries, he remains a sought-after expert in the fields of brand management, product design, and user experience. For more information about his accomplishments and how he can help your organization, please visit Matli Consulting.
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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.