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Jonathan Rabb
Founder of Watch The Yard // Harvard Nieman Fellow
Professional Background
Jonathan Rabb is a remarkable figure in the field of digital media and audience engagement, utilizing his extensive experience to help brands connect with Black college-educated professionals and students across the United States. As the founder of Watch The Yard, he has established a premier platform that serves as a central hub for the historically Black fraternity and sorority community, along with the broader Black college experience. Since its inception in 2014, Watch The Yard has garnered an impressive following, attracting over a million unique visitors each month. Jonathan’s adeptness at cultivating digital spaces ensures that the voices and stories of African American students are not only heard but celebrated.
In addition to Watch The Yard, Jonathan has extended his influence by launching WatchTheBands.com, a site dedicated to the culture and artistry of Black marching bands. This initiative highlights Jonathan's commitment to showcasing the multifaceted aspects of the Black college experience, further solidifying his role as a leader in the digital environment dedicated to African American culture and the college demographic.
Education and Achievements
Jonathan's educational background is rooted in a deep commitment to understanding the intersections of technology, culture, and media. He was honored as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he focused on business and journalism. His studies at Harvard not only reinforced his journalistic skills but also opened doors to strategic media initiatives essential for audience development in today’s digital landscape.
Furthermore, Jonathan embodies a strong international perspective, having earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in German and International Relations from the University of Minnesota. He amplified this educational experience through his studies in Journalism at Freie Universität Berlin, where he delved into digital audience development during his time as a Fulbright Scholar. His work in Berlin solidified his understanding of global media dynamics and audience engagement strategies, enabling him to implement these strategies effectively in the U.S. media landscape.
Notable Contributions and Roles
Jonathan’s professional journey is marked by a diverse range of impactful roles in the entertainment and media industry. He began his career as a red carpet reporter for prestigious events in Hollywood, utilizing his charisma and journalistic expertise to engage audiences. Additionally, his experience as a host for The CW and Radio Disney enriched his skills in live event hosting and audience interaction.
As the former CEO of Watch The Yard, Jonathan expertly led the organization in providing authentic, relevant content to its audience. His strategic insight into social media marketing and production, accrued during his tenure as a producer/director at Kevin Frazier Productions, Inc. - HipHollywood.com, further enhanced the brand's visibility and reach.
Jonathan’s endeavors also include his role as a Fulbright Resident focused on Production and Audience Development for YouTube Original Channels at UFA LAB as well as his position as a Research Grantee with the U.S. Department of State through the Fulbright Young American Journalist Program. These experiences allowed him to engage critically with digital content creation while studying innovative approaches to building communities through media.
In addition to his impressive body of work, Jonathan has contributed to various organizations, demonstrating his leadership and commitment to advancing the narratives of Black culture in the digital sphere. Through initiatives stemming from his multifaceted career, Jonathan remains devoted to empowering voices and fostering engagement in meaningful ways.
Achievements
- Founder of Watch The Yard – Leading platform for Black college experiences since 2014, with over a million monthly visitors.
- Founder of WatchTheBands.com – Expanded influence into the realm of Black marching bands.
- Nieman Fellow at Harvard University – Focused on business and journalism, cementing his expertise in audience engagement.
- Fulbright Scholarship recipient – Engaged in audience development research and digital media studies across international platforms.
- Played pivotal roles in notable media companies, enhancing engagement strategies in high-profile roles as a reporter and host.
Jonathan's journey exemplifies a deep commitment to understanding and harnessing the power of digital media to elevate underrepresented voices while building engaged communities.
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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
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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.
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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.
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