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Wes Kao
Co-founder of a newco funded by First Round Capital
Professional Background
Winnie Kao is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovator in the field of educational technology. As the co-founder of a pioneering edtech company, she has made significant strides towards creating the first platform dedicated to cohort-based courses, aimed at transforming how education is delivered and experienced. Winnie's passion for leveraging technology to enhance learning has led her to immerse herself deeply in the startup ecosystem, embodying the spirit of mentorship and community-building.
Winnie's career trajectory has been impressive, showcasing her expertise in marketing, brand management, and education. She began her professional journey as an analyst at Gap Inc., where she developed a keen eye for market trends and consumer behavior. Winnie continued to build her skills in brand management while working at global powerhouse L'Oréal, and later at Bare Escentuals, where she honed her marketing acumen and strategic thinking. Her experience at these renowned companies laid a strong foundation for her future endeavors.
Education and Achievements
Winnie received her B.S. in Business Administration from the prestigious University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. This educational background provided her with a solid grounding in business principles, which she has applied throughout her career. Her time at Berkeley equipped her with critical thinking skills and an understanding of the complexities of business operations, positioning her as a leader in the entrepreneurial space.
Post-education, Winnie served as the Head of Digital Marketing at Flite, a company that was later acquired by Snapchat. This experience marked a turning point in her career, allowing her to showcase her ability to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of digital marketing. She was instrumental in developing innovative marketing strategies that propelled Flite to new heights, demonstrating her capability to adapt in a fast-paced environment.
Her entrepreneurial spirit truly shone when she co-founded and served as the Executive Director at Seth Godin's altMBA, a transformative educational program designed to empower leaders across various sectors. This experience not only solidified her reputation as a thought leader in the edtech space but also helped her develop a nuanced understanding of cohort-based learning — a concept she is now dedicated to advancing through her current venture.
Notable Contributions
Beyond her entrepreneurial ventures, Winnie has also contributed to the startup ecosystem through her mentorship roles. She has served as a mentor at Backstage Capital, a venture capital firm that supports underrepresented founders, and at WeWork Labs, helping aspiring entrepreneurs navigate their early-stage startups with guidance and insights. These roles highlight her commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion within the entrepreneurial community.
Winnie's participation as a Global Solutions Program Fellow at Singularity University is yet another feather in her cap. There, she engaged with fellow innovators and leaders tackling some of the world's most pressing challenges through technology and entrepreneurship. This experience enriched her perspective on global issues and the role technology plays in solving them.
Through her newsletter, which can be accessed at WesKao.com, Winnie shares her insights, experiences, and thought leadership with her audience, empowering them to embrace the innovative opportunities in the ever-changing landscape of education and technology. Her commitment to lifelong learning and her passion for fostering community among educators and entrepreneurs make her a respected figure in the industry.
Highlights
Getting buy-in 101:
🚫 "Trust me. I've done this many times."
✅ "I'm recommending X because [evidence, data points, thought process]. I saw something similar play out with [previous example], so I believe we need to be mindful of Y. This matters because Z."
I used to assume my colleagues should trust me because I was the subject matter expert, and my conclusions felt obvious to me.
Instead, I would get push back, lots of questions, and skeptical comments.
I realized what was obvious to me, was often extremely non-obvious to people outside my own head.
Now, my default is to spend a few seconds to share my logic:
-> Share what's informing my recommendation -> Share how I arrived at my conclusion -> Share why I picked X over other alternatives
I became a lot more compelling once I realized it was my responsibility to help others understand why X was the best path forward.
This doesn't have to be intense. It's as simple as sharing your recommendation, then adding a "because."
It takes an extra 15 seconds to explain your rationale. It can save you hours of friction from avoidable back-and-forth and misunderstandings.
IMO When folks have trouble being concise, the problem isn't usually the delivery.
The problem is you actually don't know your idea as well as you think you do.
Words are the final expression and the way you communicate with others, but the problem isn't the words--the problem is words represent ideas, arguments, decisions, and thinking.
If you aren't sure what you think, it's hard to describe it clearly to someone else.
Therefore, the solution isn't surface-level wordsmithing.
The solution is getting clear on your main point.
When you are clear on your main point, expressing it concisely becomes much easier.
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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.