Julian: Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Raffaele Colella CEO of Mindmesh. Mindmesh is the virtual desk that puts you in control, centralized work notes to do and meetings jump in in an instance back with your team. And Raffaele, thank you so much for being on the show.

I'm really excited to chat with you. You know, I, I know you've had a lot of success in your career and, and you've worked on products that really. A unique way to really bring people together and also bring information together. So I'm so fascinated to you know, jump into your background and your experience, but, but before we start all that what were you doing before you started Mindmesh?

Raffaele: Well, first of all, Julian, thank you so much for having me. It's really, it's really fun. Having a chance to, to chat with you or join your community of founders. So what was I doing before this? I was at Google. I was product you know, the product lead for the Google News app, the Android app. And and we did that during the.

The relaunch that we did or Google News through Google IU in 2018. So that was a lot of fun because we took a app we didn't have many releases in 2017, and we get to rebuild it from the. You know, ground up at Google Scale. So it was a large team with, I think the, we had six designers with engineers and we got to prototype a lot.

So there was an internal startup at Google, so it was a lot of fun. I did that and then, you know, kept running. We did for another couple of years. And then I wanted to do another startup because I did one a few years ago, which actually brought me to Google because we are acquired there and so. To the startup bag and so I needed to go back to the founder spot

Julian: I love that. What was, what was about the product and the process? How was it different from going building startup than you went through this acquisition? How was the transition like, you know, going into a larger company like Google. And what was the impact of then having the resources that you had there?

What were some of the benefits? And then also what were some things that maybe weren't so beneficial as, you know, moving to a large company, sometimes, you know, you're, you're met with some with some more barriers. Then, you know, with a startup you can kind of just run forward until you crash, pick yourself back up and, and continue on.

But tell me a little bit about the transition and what were some of the pros and cons?  

Raffaele: Yeah, I mean in when it's a startup it's almost, there is no protection to the, to the world outside. It's like you're running on a scooter and it's a, it's just a little tiny frame. And so you can you can explode your face, but you can also have You feel all the breeze on you and yeah, so you know, you talk with users directly.

You go meet anybody you want. You are very much exposed. You can, you can, if you like, you can pivot everything that you have as an impact because in day to day, if you don't go to work, Maybe lots of things are not happening. Well, when it's a big company. If you're not there for a couple of weeks maybe people don't almost notice.

Of course you know, your team is bit different. So in a startup, you're really relevant. In a large company, necessary less. That's the, that's the first thing. On the other end, a big company gives you that kind of stability. So sometime it's good a certain point in your career to have a moment where you can rest a moment and focusing things that are also very much in the big picture.

You know, working on news, Google, especially in that time of the fake news and so was super interesting. , but then I need to go back doing my own thing. Also, doing a startup internally there is really nice because you have, again, as I said huge resources in market research, reach and so on. On the other end, then you know, because you are part of a larger organization, which has a lot of visibility and responsibility within the industry, the users and so on.

Then there are a lot of, you know you know, red line that you cannot cross while in a case of a startup, you know, if you think about it, Facebook and its inception and you try to few years to keep this, this idea of let's break things and a startup is always break things. Maybe, Oh, I don't have too many users.

I can, you know, I can pivot all this way, I can do these other things. While in a large company, you're gonna do these kind of things.  

Julian: Yeah, it, it's so fascinating. Looking back at your background, you you know, built a company, I think it was Cannonball mm-hmm. that was taking information and, and bringing it into one centralized location for users.

And then again, with, with Mindmesh, it's kind of a similar concept. What is fascinating to you about, you know, kind of conceptualizing and, and kind of collecting a large bit of information and bring it into a source. And also, One thing, how do you keep your users from being overwhelmed by the information that you're collecting?

Because I think for me at least, you know, it's great to have, you know, a stream of, of newsletters in my inbox, but you know, after a certain amount, I, I get information overload and, and it's difficult if I could do it?

Raffaele: Interesting enough, you know, interfaces are, UX is different depending on. The country you are in, you know Japan is very minimalistic In the Western world we have a good balance.

But when you look at places like maybe India, Southeast Asia, the ui, it's a bit more noisy or China. So there the more the me, which is not the case for us, we tends to be a little bit overwhelmed. I think with interfaces it's really finding that that kind of. Right. Point of equilibrium where you are feeling that you are step by step, you are discovering new things and the, the media lends itself to expand your experience but not to overpower it, right?

Yeah. And so it's also thinking how you go from the experience that we've understood for. You know, hundreds of years in the physical world and now that thing changes because you are in digital and user get to experience that in a place where maybe there is also a lot of context switching with what are you seeing beyond your screen?

Maybe if you are in a mobile phone, what are you doing while you are looking at that app? And so I think it's a right, it's intellectual, it's very interesting and intriguing. That's why I wanted to do that in the last 15 years of my life. Yeah. Not the last 15 years, but in the last 15 years.  

Julian: Yeah. What's the what's the process to, to finding that equilibrium?  

Raffaele: I think well there is a lot, always a user research trying to understand you know, speaking a lot with user and. And what are their problems and also how do they do things normally? I think that's another interesting point of view.

You know, once I took I heard about this concept about lead user and basically there is this You know, academic of entrepreneurship. Like now his name is Eric Al. He's 80 years old. He's super famous and basically he, he, he shows that the majority of the products that they then are commercialized by some company reality.

They already existed because they've been hacked by somebody. And so you can see that in. Stream sports, but you can also see it in I don't know, in very complex machinery that even in healthcare, that somebody hacked together because the wife needed the kind of treatment on the lungs. And this was an engineer with acoustic background and so on.

And for what we are building, for example, we spoke with hundreds of people in product and not only, And so we try to see, okay, what are your problems in. This all contact switching, all this jar notification between all these application between, you know, between slacks, all the meetings that you have, all the places that you run around and so on.

But how do you do things right now? Like how do you act the system for yourself? And so trying to find also the best practices of the users gives you a lot of idea. And I think that helps in finding that equilibrium. Like what does make sense for.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I, I love the, the piece of user research, I think is, is what makes a lot of, you know, companies successful. A lot of, a lot of products you know, products that are, are extremely effective on what they, they target to do.  

Raffaele: What, you know, or, or, or at least gives us ideas. No. Then the word geniuses, like Steve Jobs, he say, We don't need to ask. We know, but in our case, , we are, we are more like human, so we need to ask the users a lot.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Being that you work in both, you know, y European and, and us. What are some of the differences selling into both that you've seen in your experience? And also the, is there a large difference in the types of users, or are they very similar? Markets, you know, curious about your personal experience, you know, building and, and growing and, and selling into both markets.

Raffaele: I think in the us you know, people are in business, they're much more direct. And so while in in front, in Europe, in general, in France, there is a bit more of Things they need to come together because of maybe you know I don't know how to articulate this, but it, it's the, the, the relationship, it's not, sometime, it's not immediate.

It's changing. It's changing a lot because there is a new breeze of, you know, newer company and startups, which are becoming scale ups in most European countries. But the, the velocity and the theism it's speaking up, but often is not the same in us, in the USS generation has been like that. While in Europe, you still find a lot of companies that maybe they're not, they've never been like that because they were born in a bit of a different digital.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Kind of the, the both economic and I'm, I'm assuming the velocity of technology kinda influence the you know, the, the impact or I guess the speed at which a lot of these companies built. I'm, I'm, I'm curious in terms of Mindmesh, tell us a little bit more about, you know, what, what the product does who your target audience is and how it's able to solve the problem that it aims to solve.

Raffaele: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically the product wants to be, wants to give you the big picture. The big picture of like everything that it matters to you and then you need to focus on, And so we started like Centralizing the work wherever it comes from. It could be this like notification, it could be the meeting notes.

Yeah, it could be the email that you don't have time to, or set comments from drive, or you know, Jira or or, or notion. And because you have this big picture, then you're able to quickly. You know, triage and decide what am I gonna work right now when I wanna, for later, when maybe I need to block time for?

And and that point, you, you know, you, you can focus, you can make sure that basically you are in, in line with what you should be doing. And so if focus on today, but then you zoom out, you see what you Actually, Let me super quickly give you a demo here. Yeah. Gonna share my screen.  

Yeah. You know, you know, I, I'm, I'm. I dialed in from the old continent, right? So, so tied recollection. But basically, this is my me, You see my me is this desk, this is my, today, the way stuff comes in today, it's either because, you know, you you create a new card. And so basically, you know, I say for example, I know review p Rd, or.

You look at your calendar, which is here, and so this is our conversation. And so you can drag eventing and you start to create notes, right? Oh, see? And so you know, Julian, blah, blah. Maybe you tell me to I don't know review designs because you gimme an idea. And so I can. Turn this into, into, to do.

And so this becomes a new card and the new card will be here. This is my inbox. And the way things also make make it to the inbox is because you clip them in. So for example, let's go into my Gmail and , You know, I have a video for Loom. From Loom. I'm not gonna look at it right now, but I can send it to my desk, right?

And so in my desk, which is basically here, you see, you have your Gmail, or this could be the same coming from you know, Slack or anywhere. And so you can either decide to work on, on, on this thing right now, and so it goes to the center of your desk, or you can ooze it for any time in the next coming days.

Or actually, you can even schedule it on calendar. And so let's say that I wanna work on this thing after I call, I put it here and this sync with my Gmail calendar all the time. So this is what I'm gonna be doing today. And then if I wanna zoom out, I have the. You see on my week. So this is Michael, Linda, and these are all the things that has news and so on.

And you can move them around. You can schedule another day. You can and so basically this. And then when you wanna review the process that you are doing, basically this is a bit of a gi up kind of view, and you say, Okay, these are all the kinds you completed every. And so on. And then you have these sideboards where basically you organize content.

And so these are a little bit like, you know, some command boards and so this is one of the people work here in the team. And so these are all the things that he's been working on. And this is pretty much Mindmesh .  

Julian: Yeah. What, what in the. Things organized on the side of the mesh is, are those different projects? Like, is that more project focus?

Yeah. Yeah. And are you collaborate with other team members on those projects and kind of, We all kind base. Nice.  

Raffaele: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've been dog food collaboration inside for a long time and also better with, you know, Yeah. Some users and we start to open it up possibilities in the, in the coming weeks to, you know, have shared views, collaborate on cards, share this stuff to.

Assigned task because in a very interesting use case, for example, actually I share it again, is when, when you are in you, when you

Are in meeting notes, right? Mm-hmm. , because you see let's assume that, so this is an action items of our meeting review design. Let's assume that we are in the same team, and so in this case, I could assign you write this thing. Yeah. So let's say that for example, you were Jeremy, and now this would go in your inbox and you say that I assigned you to do this thing.

And so this is a very good way because often. you know, stuff is leaping through the crack and it's written in different documents and it dies there.

While in this case when in my me, you elect to. Something into a new task. He brings it up in information hierarchy. And so those are the kind of things in the equilibrium of design that we are discussing that. Yeah, those touches, they make sure that you you are solving people problems because one of the problem of people is not to write stuff down, but it's the recall is that where are those things?

How do stuff, you know, how the dots that I, you know, I paint in how do they connect? So my me helps you connecting things. Putting context back together and and it's a big journey and we're super excited about it.  

Julian: Yeah, I, it's interesting, I feel like a lot of companies who, you know, work on products that collect a lot of information and put into a centralized place, they go one of two ways.

And I'm curious on which way you are aiming to go. One is that they start creating their own kind of suite of whether it's documents, technology or, or other project tracking tools rather than you know, Right now where I think yours is in right in between, which is like creating a certain suite of like project management tools, but also integrating a lot of information like calendar.

I mean, I think we all have headaches on keeping track of information on our calendar, especially adding events. The fact that it was so quickly, easily to add events from from your task list to your calendar, I think for me that was pretty, that was pretty exciting. Cause I know how difficult that, that is for me.

But what way are you kind of focusing on going in regards to the technology? Are you looking to start creating a suite of, of I guess features or. Software that are gonna be built into Mindmesh or mm-hmm. , do you kinda want to continue growing the expansion of collaborating with different.  

Raffaele: The second the, the latter because you know, startups need to focus for us, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. If there are things that Google Docs does, great, people should use Google Docs or if, you know, they like, use their notion and so on. But what this application Miss in a way, it's giving people the, the, the overview, the big picture. Yeah. That's what we, we wanna be the connector in a, in a way we wanna be like this intelligence that it's you know, finding users wherever they are.

And so, There is this possibility. You see there was that blue button in Gmail that you click and then it's there. Then it can become more automated. But this layer that basically is accompany you in the different application. You do your work there, but then it goes in a place that you can see. And so for example, if I can give you another example here, if I go back to sharing, and now this

Is my Google calendar. Right? Right. And you see this is this is our event and this is the card that I created. So you see the card that had in Mindmesh, which is this card here, he carried over there. And so is this stuff that. you can, you can enter in and out of the system and it doesn't matter where you do work because that could be UG Karina, then you find it there, and so it becomes a bit like your brain is the place where you make sure that has your back.

You can download your thoughts. You know, one famous methodology, get things done. It says that the brain is not made to all information, but more to, to think, to conceptualize, to innovate, and so on. And so you need a place where you can write stuff down, where you knows that your things are. And so Mesh tries to mimic, to map all your connection between events and so on, to to make you go faster and to be more productive.

Julian: Yeah. I, for, I love that saying. I don't know where that came from. But yeah, if you, if you remember where that came from, that's fascinating. Where, you know, the brain is kind of an area where you creatively think you abstract, and then the storage of that information to, to really progress and continue to think should be somewhere else.

That's fascinating. I think, you know, one founder pulled. A long time ago to use Evernote to keep a lot of, you know, the information, maybe journaling somewhere centralized, that I didn't have to, you know, actively always recall that information. And it's been super helpful in, in having a more free to abstract mind.

And so, I mean, it's incredible how your technology is so smoothly integrating and capturing information and then also, you know, able to move that information freely, kinda like, like a organism and a body.  

Raffaele: Yeah. Yeah. If you like, if you like the Evernote of the world, they've been pioneers because they've been the first application for individual productivity outside, outside the, the place that were dedicated to help individuals, you know, keep track and so on.

Actually, I, I did. I had some relationship with ever, not with my first company, because we were an email client and so ever not reached out because they wanted to integrate with all email clients. Because say when people are creating content and they wanna backfill it, it needs to go there now. Yeah.

What Mindmesh does, it takes, if you like, the best practices that of the Evernote of the Todoist, of all those applications, which are very solid, but are very much anchored in the personal productivity and brings them to the workplace so that, you know knowledge workers can, we really care a lot about their individual workflow, but we also wanna start to connect them with their colleagues.

And so helping them cruise across the stack of application that they use, Slack, gmail, Notion Drive, Figma Mirror, and so forth.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about the traction that you're seeing, You know, how many users are, are using your product, What are the what are some kind of reviews and benefits that, that your user has expressed that have helped them, Whether it's a number or, or whether it's just anecdotes.

Tell us a little bit about, you know, who is using your product? What's their experience like, and, and what are some positive benefits that your users have expressed to you as a company?

Raffaele: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in term of users, we think that by the end of the year we will surpass notion and maybe double them. No, I'm joking.

That was a joke. No. So we launched in product and six months ago we were, you know, the product of the second product of the week. And so we saw a lot of traction, early traction from you know, these early adopters. You know, like productivity thing and so on. And we still have a lot and we discover many everyday discoverers.

And so we have an early community and it's, it's very rewarding because this is a product that people use all the time. You know, it's not this is something that sometime I tell to people that maybe we discuss to come work with us and so on. This is not a banking app that you use once, or this is.

Product that you use all the time. And that's one of the exciting thing about building these things that you dog food it all the time. Like I use it probably six, seven hours a day. And these are the kind of users that we see from our engaged user. And so a lot of people saying that, you know, I'm kind of disorganized person and this is helping me keep in track.

Yeah. Um, ,, it's the place that I start trusting with with my thoughts and so on. And so that's, that's kind of really cool. And I think we, we are finishing soon this first phase of you know understanding individual use case. We're getting very deeper in some redesign and we're launching a 2.0 super shortly.

And so. Point there will be 2023 going, you know, attacking the entire world. That's, that's a bit the plan, you know, team collaboration and and a number of different, you know, business proposition.  

Julian: Yeah. What are some of the biggest challenges that, that you face today?  

Raffaele: I would say that one thing is you know, when people come in, it's basically it's having understood the mix of the acquisition.

So the mix of the audience coming in Of co organic is always very you know it's a cont it's, there is always like a very nice continuity and we feel good about that, but we are starting to put much more content out there to start really educate user and so on. And so it's really like saying the people who come in that they're not tourist, but the people that they under, that they have the need for the project point.

And so we're starting to build. Pipeline of content out there for, for that. And also we have been changing very recently, actually we're launching it tomorrow, a new tutorial heavily inspired by superhuman that I think I've been some kind of pioneer in doing slick things and so on. And and so, so those are certain areas.

We, we are still, we still need to do improvements, but I think we're improving and very excited about also the pipeline there. Yeah. And then you know, it will be all the product let grow kind of a journey that we are at the beginning of that. And so there will be a discovery. There is a lot of literature out there.

Companies are doing it, and it's really interesting and and we'll see. We, we ask many people to collaborate with others, but this is something that, yeah, we gonna, we are start doing right now. And so we'll be exciting to see how people use the product and so on. You know, when we put it out six months ago on product.

it was made for product managers in our mind, but then it started to abused by a lot of people who were not in product because they had the same context. Switching problematics. You know, they, they all work up in the morning. They had all these notifications, like, and then they need to run to a meeting and then to another meeting.

And if you don't prepare this meeting in advance, you're. Killed because at some point you cannot hold those information here. And then at some point, as soon as you can, you think you can catch some breath. There is something which is exploding. Could be a P zero and Jira or something else, and so on. And so those people, it turns out they're not only you know, product manager, but they are.

You know, engineering managers, there are people in ops, there are people in marketing and so on. And so the user, Mindmesh became much more horizontal that we were thinking, and so now we are being excited. We'll be excited about start to connect these people and do stuff together.  

Julian: Incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I love, I love how the, the use case is really growing and, and branching out into, you know, all the different I guess stakeholders in, in, in teams, right?

Which is, which is ultimately we, we wanna come to a, a consensus or a location that we can all collaborate and get things done together, because it is hard amongst all the platforms to keep track of information, but also to execute and, and complete that information and know that it's completed which are some of the challenges even, you know, my team faces as well.

If everything goes well, what's the long term vision for for the product?  

Raffaele: I think there is a space for a large company in this in what we're trying to build that it's really a connector of all these applications. Yeah, because you know, and so we are inspiring, become in becoming the company.

I, I think our DNA is very strong. Our company culture is strong. The co-founding team, at least the other hand, not say myself, but it's very strong. No, we have a very good early team and I think we're having fun. And so we have a shot in you know going above and beyond and that's what we are working for.

We have great. Stores who helped us from the beginning. So we are building everything with the mindset of trying to be, I don't know, a Tesla productivity or an apple of productivity, like a very good company and, and will see. Startups are always a journey. I already one and you know, their journeys, but you know, are very excited.

You know, we learn a bit from the best we did Y Combinator. We also did another program in Europe, Entrepreneur First, which is very interesting. Yeah. And you know, we and so we are playing day by day and getting our hands dirty and fighting a good fight.  

Julian: Yeah, that's, that's incredible. You know, I always like to ask this question for both in inspirational resources for myself, but also for my audience.

Whether it was throughout your career or currently now, what books or people have influenced you or, or are currently influencing you right now?  

Raffaele: People who have influenced me. I I would say it's more people who I met directly than people I read about. Yeah. Like, I'm not gonna tell you I know Steve Jobs or something like that.

Even though of course, you know, you, you, you have those kind of models and And those are like some materials, like some stars that they, they go in the sky, I would say. You know, when I was, for example at I did my MBA at mit, there were a few professors. We do my stay in touch. We do actually worked also as investor that they've been very like one with our board and our lead angel, his name is Ed Roberts, has been one of the first Academic entrepreneurship is the first semester in HubSpot in a number of company like those, and the guy seen a lot of things around the block.

So that is somebody who's been always a mentor and a coach for me. But then also I will say the, the, the peer that I had in my class at the time, many of which did startups. And so we brought them together and we still talk to to. To each other. And today, I would say, you know, I just spent a lot, so much time discussing with my co-founder, and I think we learn from each other and we disagree with each other.

But because all those disagreement things gets better because yeah. It's like, it's a very positive tension in coming up with the result that is better what you fought alone very often. Yeah. And so I think I also learned from him.  

Julian: Yeah, I love, I love that I learned a lot from my co-founder as well.

And, and it is a little bit of friction in, in those relationships, but it's also it's always so purposeful because, you know, it's, it's never about the individual. It's about the company and the entity and, and it's like that philosophy and that goal,  

Raffaele: you know, you're super invested and you think about that all day long and yeah, you know, this is, Start a number of co, like you think about this thing all the time.

So it's normal, it's like a marriage. There is some friction and so on. But if you know, you have you have trust and you know, you it's not only trust, but also you you. Recognize that that person is very good at what he does and so I think even when you think that they're wrong or they've been wrong in, in, in something, then you look at the big picture and you realize it's still a pretty good deal to work with them.

Julian: Yeah, . Exactly. Exactly. Well, Thank you so much for being on the show. I'm, I'm so excited to share this to my audience and, and really tap into the Mindmesh tool. I, I, I definitely gonna download it myself to really organize my, my disorganize. I, I realize how many things don't cooperate within my process, so I hope the audience can, can use it as well.

But last bit is where can we find you? Where can we be support the vision, the product? Give us your, your website, your LinkedIns, your. Where it can be a part of Mindmesh and, and and the vision that you're, you're pushing towards?

Raffaele: Yep. So mindmesh.com. This website is gonna, is being redesigned a lot, but it's gonna stay the same address, . And then if you go on Twitter, I mean Mindmesh com, that's where you really can get started is me, Ra called C, and then this is Mindmesh. Which is our angle, follow us in contact.

But again, Mindmesh.com is where you wanna start. Your journey, basically.  

Julian: Incredible. Well, thank you so much Raffaele, for being on the show, giving us your journey through, you know, multiple startups and also, you know, identifying ways that, that you're helping kind of create an ecosystem where people can be productive. And I hope you enjoyed yourself and again, thank you for being on the show.

Raffaele: It's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me, Julian.  

Julian: Of course.