Meeting Title: Brainforge x Honey Stinger: Kickoff Date: 2025-11-03 Meeting participants: Byron Pittam, Uttam Kumaran


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1 00:00:19.900 00:00:20.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!

2 00:00:22.820 00:00:24.099 Byron Pittam: How’s it going?

3 00:00:24.100 00:00:25.410 Uttam Kumaran: Good, how are you?

4 00:00:25.670 00:00:26.680 Byron Pittam: Good, ma’am.

5 00:00:28.760 00:00:33.410 Uttam Kumaran: Glad to get started. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure we got access to…

6 00:00:34.330 00:00:39.210 Uttam Kumaran: at minimum, Amazon stuff, but we can get all 3… of those…

7 00:00:39.500 00:00:41.500 Uttam Kumaran: That would be a win today.

8 00:00:41.920 00:00:46.569 Byron Pittam: Yeah, that should be no problem. We’re vendor central, just to make sure we’re clear on that.

9 00:00:46.570 00:00:48.169 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10 00:00:48.170 00:00:51.969 Byron Pittam: Okay, and then it should be, you want you, or do you want the… that alias?

11 00:00:52.470 00:00:54.250 Uttam Kumaran: The alias would be great.

12 00:00:55.690 00:00:56.460 Byron Pittam: That’s not a problem.

13 00:00:56.460 00:00:57.320 Uttam Kumaran: problem.

14 00:00:58.440 00:00:59.250 Byron Pittam: Yeah.

15 00:00:59.750 00:01:04.950 Byron Pittam: Yeah, we had a contractor, whatever, last, last summer.

16 00:01:05.150 00:01:09.810 Byron Pittam: And yeah, they just weren’t… like, our IT person was just not pumped on having a…

17 00:01:09.840 00:01:15.870 Uttam Kumaran: That’s… I get it, I mean, like, I, we also care a lot about security, and I’m… we…

18 00:01:16.140 00:01:19.980 Uttam Kumaran: I’m just like, whatever’s easiest to do here.

19 00:01:20.540 00:01:26.140 Uttam Kumaran: So… I mean, the most secure thing is everybody gets their own access, it’s just…

20 00:01:26.810 00:01:30.900 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we could do it if that’s what we need to do, I don’t mind, but .

21 00:01:30.900 00:01:31.430 Byron Pittam: York.

22 00:01:33.160 00:01:35.310 Byron Pittam: Oopsie, well, we need to…

23 00:01:35.310 00:01:42.130 Uttam Kumaran: You tend to be thankful that you did it. It’s like insurance, you know? You tend to be thankful, so, I’m fine.

24 00:01:43.300 00:01:48.179 Byron Pittam: I don’t know why you need Kindle publishing rights, but we can make sure that happens too.

25 00:01:52.110 00:01:54.870 Byron Pittam: You don’t need non-compliances, that’s just annoying.

26 00:02:00.010 00:02:01.809 Byron Pittam: Product management, yes.

27 00:02:01.940 00:02:07.440 Byron Pittam: Promotions and marketing… Returns, I don’t think you need returns.

28 00:02:09.370 00:02:13.100 Byron Pittam: Shipment notifications and previous shipments, I… I don’t know if that’s all…

29 00:02:15.870 00:02:18.899 Byron Pittam: Okay, we can start there, and you let me know if you need anything else.

30 00:02:19.520 00:02:23.430 Byron Pittam: Scent, and then Klaviyo.

31 00:02:24.320 00:02:24.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

32 00:02:25.840 00:02:34.080 Byron Pittam: We have two workspaces. We have the, the wholesale side of things, and we have the… let me see, like, the D2C side of things.

33 00:02:34.350 00:02:51.630 Byron Pittam: just very different lists, very different messaging overall. The wholesale side of things is super small, like, you know, 2,500 accounts or so in there. I don’t know if that… it seems like all the stuff we’re doing in Amazon and stuff would… we wouldn’t need anything in the wholesale side of things, but just know that there’s… there is that side as well.

34 00:02:51.630 00:02:52.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

35 00:02:53.070 00:02:54.510 Byron Pittam: If you need anything else.

36 00:03:00.810 00:03:06.100 Byron Pittam: And then there’s Klaviyo, and then Walmart Connect is just weird to me.

37 00:03:06.260 00:03:10.110 Byron Pittam: Let me… I’ll share this.

38 00:03:25.140 00:03:28.130 Byron Pittam: Also does this thing where it fakes you out for a while.

39 00:03:29.560 00:03:30.320 Byron Pittam: Okay.

40 00:03:32.670 00:03:35.630 Byron Pittam: So, we have all of these different accounts.

41 00:03:35.890 00:03:37.260 Byron Pittam: Which is just weird.

42 00:03:39.360 00:03:47.000 Byron Pittam: But, we will… Log into… let’s go into the… let’s go into the start here.

43 00:03:47.560 00:03:50.930 Byron Pittam: No, let’s not start there, then.

44 00:03:55.310 00:04:05.470 Byron Pittam: But yeah, I don’t like how they did all this… this new products section and everything else. It makes things kind of… kind of confusing, because you can’t… used to be able to just toggle between display and search here in the brand.

45 00:04:05.470 00:04:06.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

46 00:04:06.200 00:04:21.149 Byron Pittam: now you gotta toggle through them here, which is weird. But yeah, I don’t… like, this is where access becomes an issue. Like, Xperis is our old media partner, they’re no longer around. Okay. So those should hopefully go away. And then the other…

47 00:04:21.220 00:04:29.520 Byron Pittam: But we should only have 3, right? Sponsored search, DSS, off-site, and then… and then the brand builder.

48 00:04:30.280 00:04:31.539 Byron Pittam: For the brand shop.

49 00:04:33.580 00:04:36.569 Byron Pittam: So… I don’t know exactly which one.

50 00:04:37.120 00:04:38.490 Byron Pittam: Let’s see what’s in here.

51 00:04:38.760 00:04:40.280 Byron Pittam: No report, okay.

52 00:04:41.890 00:04:44.229 Byron Pittam: This is how I generally have to do it.

53 00:04:44.230 00:04:48.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, as long as whatever has the performance on it.

54 00:04:49.220 00:04:49.620 Byron Pittam: Yeah.

55 00:04:49.620 00:04:50.390 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s see.

56 00:04:55.440 00:04:58.920 Byron Pittam: So I think both of those is the brand shop, though.

57 00:05:03.350 00:05:05.870 Byron Pittam: Here’s the ser- or here’s the display.

58 00:05:06.520 00:05:07.370 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great.

59 00:05:08.030 00:05:09.820 Byron Pittam: I can add you there.

60 00:05:10.960 00:05:12.969 Byron Pittam: Think… where is it now?

61 00:05:15.330 00:05:19.300 Byron Pittam: There used to be… Huh.

62 00:05:20.890 00:05:26.629 Byron Pittam: Used to be here Do you see it anymore? Am I missing something?

63 00:05:40.020 00:05:40.930 Uttam Kumaran: Don’t…

64 00:05:44.020 00:05:45.170 Uttam Kumaran: No.

65 00:05:45.340 00:05:50.850 Byron Pittam: Oh, man. Manage profile and account. Okay, that was a different… Okay, whew!

66 00:05:50.850 00:05:51.340 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

67 00:05:51.340 00:05:52.130 Byron Pittam: Ow.

68 00:05:52.640 00:05:55.009 Byron Pittam: You gotta click on something to click on something.

69 00:05:55.390 00:05:56.390 Byron Pittam: Boom.

70 00:06:00.810 00:06:04.669 Byron Pittam: Okay, let’s do Verain and Forge.

71 00:06:05.090 00:06:06.610 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, great.

72 00:06:06.950 00:06:13.640 Byron Pittam: And then you do… I think standard will be fine here, huh? You see anything in here?

73 00:06:13.640 00:06:17.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, as long as we can export, we don’t really need to…

74 00:06:20.720 00:06:22.379 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that seems fine.

75 00:06:22.380 00:06:23.459 Byron Pittam: Yeah, okay.

76 00:06:28.780 00:06:32.970 Byron Pittam: Okay, so now you have all accounts.

77 00:06:34.110 00:06:35.409 Byron Pittam: Which should be good.

78 00:06:40.050 00:06:41.010 Byron Pittam: I don’t know, yeah.

79 00:06:41.860 00:06:44.089 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Yeah, I’m just gonna log in and check.

80 00:07:31.050 00:07:34.480 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I got the Amazon invite, and then…

81 00:07:36.170 00:07:39.730 Uttam Kumaran: I got the Klaviyo invite, and then…

82 00:07:40.360 00:07:45.479 Uttam Kumaran: Walmart, I don’t think I got an invite, but maybe I just should try logging in.

83 00:07:46.540 00:07:48.160 Byron Pittam: It takes a second sometimes.

84 00:07:49.200 00:07:54.910 Byron Pittam: Walmart’s definitely the slowest one, where I’ll get, like, 54 emails afterwards, like, did you mean to send this email?

85 00:07:56.270 00:07:57.689 Byron Pittam: Yeah, yeah, I think so.

86 00:07:58.490 00:08:01.880 Uttam Kumaran: I can see whether it comes in, if not, I’ll… I’ll let you know.

87 00:08:02.420 00:08:11.280 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, what kind of, like… I guess another question is, I mean, we didn’t ask this before, is has there been any sort of setup on, like,

88 00:08:11.940 00:08:19.369 Uttam Kumaran: Dropping data anywhere, like, what would we basically do is try to land some data into, like, a little bit of a data warehouse.

89 00:08:19.500 00:08:23.110 Uttam Kumaran: And then, for… Some of our analysis.

90 00:08:23.220 00:08:28.259 Uttam Kumaran: Has there been any… do you know if IT has done any work on anything that sounds like that?

91 00:08:28.260 00:08:32.039 Byron Pittam: We can ask, I mean, I can ask our IT guy, but, I mean…

92 00:08:32.580 00:08:37.899 Byron Pittam: not to the level you guys use, like, you know, OneDrive and stuff like that, but not anything that would.

93 00:08:37.909 00:08:38.469 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

94 00:08:38.590 00:08:39.220 Byron Pittam: Handle this one.

95 00:08:39.220 00:08:41.309 Uttam Kumaran: I want to make sure if they don’t have one.

96 00:08:41.520 00:08:47.750 Uttam Kumaran: if there won’t exist, then we can leverage that. If not, then, yeah. And then, I’ll… kind of like our…

97 00:08:47.750 00:08:50.230 Byron Pittam: Most of our MO is, like, we just do…

98 00:08:50.300 00:08:59.770 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna drive towards outputs, and then if we can make any recommendations on infrastructure, like data infrastructure, we totally will, and then we can talk about

99 00:09:00.260 00:09:05.879 Uttam Kumaran: What options there are for, like, a data warehouse if you need it, or a tool to move data around.

100 00:09:05.880 00:09:06.740 Byron Pittam: In Germany?

101 00:09:06.850 00:09:10.389 Uttam Kumaran: But for the most part, it’s all kind of depending on budget and

102 00:09:10.720 00:09:16.380 Uttam Kumaran: how many people are going to leverage it, and that’s also something I’m happy to talk to IT about.

103 00:09:16.380 00:09:16.760 Byron Pittam: Fantastic.

104 00:09:16.760 00:09:18.680 Uttam Kumaran: Just for whatever cloud you’re on, so…

105 00:09:19.900 00:09:31.829 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, so we’ll sort of send a couple things, probably in Slack, and then plan on chatting on Friday. Robert’s at a conference today, but I’m glad I just wanted to catch you today while I could get access to everything that’s usually, like.

106 00:09:32.810 00:09:36.370 Uttam Kumaran: Where the delays end up, and then, yeah, we’ll start poking at stuff this week.

107 00:09:36.720 00:09:41.269 Byron Pittam: On the… I do need access to Shopify or anything as well? Does that help?

108 00:09:42.200 00:09:47.890 Uttam Kumaran: That would be great. You can also send Shopify… Honestly, I would probably send…

109 00:09:47.890 00:09:48.320 Byron Pittam: I’m sorry.

110 00:09:48.320 00:09:48.670 Uttam Kumaran: That’s not…

111 00:09:50.140 00:09:59.209 Uttam Kumaran: You can send it directly to my Brain Forge. I don’t think we have… we have a Facebook agency account. We… I don’t think… I don’t know if we have a Shopify agency account.

112 00:10:01.700 00:10:05.929 Byron Pittam: Hmm… Well, let me know. I can just… you’re just your pers… your… your work.

113 00:10:05.930 00:10:07.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, the Brainforge email, yeah.

114 00:10:07.960 00:10:11.270 Byron Pittam: Okay. Or, sorry, the alias, or yours?

115 00:10:11.270 00:10:13.799 Uttam Kumaran: Mine. Yeah, my Brainforge email would be great.

116 00:10:13.800 00:10:14.440 Byron Pittam: Gotcha.

117 00:10:15.060 00:10:19.200 Uttam Kumaran: Just because we have a bunch of Shopify getting managed through that.

118 00:10:22.490 00:10:31.410 Byron Pittam: We also have the two Shopify websites as well, right? That’s why we kind of split the Flavio out with the B2B. I gave you access to both of those as well, so you can kind of see those.

119 00:10:31.410 00:10:31.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

120 00:10:32.380 00:10:43.300 Byron Pittam: I don’t, yeah, based on kind of what we’re working on, I don’t think the… it really… the other one will matter much, you know, because even if they convert there, it doesn’t really impact anything else we’re doing.

121 00:10:43.540 00:10:44.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

122 00:10:44.120 00:10:44.660 Byron Pittam: Sweet.

123 00:10:46.110 00:10:48.600 Byron Pittam: Where are you? No users.

124 00:10:57.010 00:10:57.700 Byron Pittam: Yeah, so that’.

125 00:10:57.700 00:11:05.150 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the biggest thing we’re gonna start by doing, is just looking at what outputs we can get for orders and customers from each… from all three of those, and then…

126 00:11:05.390 00:11:06.810 Uttam Kumaran: See how we can stitch.

127 00:11:08.180 00:11:14.469 Uttam Kumaran: So we’ll probably end up starting with some smaller subset, and, like, kind of see what the…

128 00:11:15.090 00:11:20.500 Uttam Kumaran: overlap is, and then we can do something for more historical data.

129 00:11:20.500 00:11:21.050 Byron Pittam: Yep.

130 00:11:21.050 00:11:24.849 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, like, our primary objective is to get this stuff back into Klaviyo, so…

131 00:11:25.380 00:11:28.220 Byron Pittam: Okay, great, I think that’ll be perfect.

132 00:11:28.880 00:11:29.550 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

133 00:11:29.550 00:11:38.000 Byron Pittam: Online editor seems very… Let me show you this.

134 00:11:40.130 00:11:42.070 Byron Pittam: Seems very restrictive here.

135 00:11:42.710 00:11:50.209 Byron Pittam: Online store, like, you don’t have any order, or product, or catalog, or… Give the marketing.

136 00:11:50.210 00:11:56.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for Shopify, it’s really just read-only access on… If you unclick Analytics.

137 00:11:57.810 00:12:00.709 Byron Pittam: Or, like, do the drop-down on analytics.

138 00:12:00.920 00:12:03.799 Byron Pittam: Where is it? Oh, down here, okay. Oh, so you have that, okay.

139 00:12:05.470 00:12:10.199 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for the most part, we’re just gonna be exporting, like, aggregates, so I’m not gonna be… we’re not gonna…

140 00:12:10.950 00:12:17.789 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, ideally, what would be helpful is, like, if… what we may do is, like, kind of look at a customer across all three.

141 00:12:18.060 00:12:21.720 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So if there is an ability to, like, look at an order.

142 00:12:21.820 00:12:23.969 Uttam Kumaran: And look at a customer account, that’s…

143 00:12:24.160 00:12:25.879 Uttam Kumaran: That would be great as well.

144 00:12:25.880 00:12:28.860 Byron Pittam: We’re not going to be creating orders or anything.

145 00:12:29.440 00:12:31.519 Byron Pittam: I can change your permissions.

146 00:12:32.620 00:12:38.249 Byron Pittam: I don’t remember… the previous person set up all these new roles, which were just weird.

147 00:12:42.660 00:12:48.380 Byron Pittam: Let’s see… Maiden missions.

148 00:12:50.520 00:12:51.470 Byron Pittam: Oh, yeah.

149 00:12:51.600 00:12:52.460 Byron Pittam: Okay.

150 00:12:53.190 00:12:57.589 Byron Pittam: Alright, yeah, looks like you can. This even allows you to edit code, which is fun.

151 00:12:57.780 00:13:03.610 Byron Pittam: Like, oh, wow, that’s a big deal. You can’t make a draft order, but you can edit our code, so…

152 00:13:03.800 00:13:09.520 Uttam Kumaran: You know, God forbid I go, you know, have you looked at the Shopify code? It’s like…

153 00:13:10.290 00:13:16.650 Uttam Kumaran: not… does not… it’s, like, not great. It’s, like, scary. You don’t want to be in there.

154 00:13:16.900 00:13:21.009 Byron Pittam: Yeah, you’re just, oh, great, this is 400,000 characters for our website.

155 00:13:21.520 00:13:24.929 Byron Pittam: No wonder it’s loading at 50% of the speed that they want it to load at.

156 00:13:24.930 00:13:25.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

157 00:13:26.020 00:13:31.839 Byron Pittam: Yes. Okay. Well, let me know if that’s not enough, we can kind of… I can get some new… new ones going on.

158 00:13:32.300 00:13:32.920 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

159 00:13:33.220 00:13:37.559 Byron Pittam: Walmart just sent me a note that it… that somebody got access, so hopefully you got the same.

160 00:13:37.560 00:13:40.499 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I just saw the Shopify come in, and then…

161 00:13:40.790 00:13:47.390 Uttam Kumaran: There’s the Walmart. Okay. So yeah, I’ll get into all this. I’ll probably just send a note confirming that we can see what we need.

162 00:13:47.590 00:13:52.309 Uttam Kumaran: And then probably get back to you. Yeah, and if Slack is fine, let me know. We can also email.

163 00:13:52.610 00:13:53.420 Uttam Kumaran: like.

164 00:13:54.340 00:13:59.709 Uttam Kumaran: whatever’s easiest. If you’re like, hey, I don’t… it sucks to jump between slacks, we can email everything, it just depends.

165 00:13:59.710 00:14:05.120 Byron Pittam: Yeah, I just gotta make sure I make the effort, because now I have too many workspaces now.

166 00:14:05.120 00:14:16.719 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I also am in so many, so… I mean, we could also, like… yeah. Worst case, if we don’t get ahold of you, I’ll send an email, and then that Friday meeting is just, like, for us to just be, like, no matter what.

167 00:14:16.720 00:14:17.380 Byron Pittam: Yep.

168 00:14:17.380 00:14:21.210 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna find a way to chat every week. That’s usually… Yeah.

169 00:14:21.910 00:14:28.289 Byron Pittam: Yeah, it was just weird, I tried to do this previously with, with, with, Max and team.

170 00:14:29.530 00:14:35.059 Byron Pittam: And yeah, it was one of those where it, like, tried… it forced me into the pay model, and then…

171 00:14:35.060 00:14:35.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

172 00:14:36.140 00:14:41.879 Byron Pittam: you’re… you’re on a free trial, and then, like, a free trial, and I’m like, oh, it was a free trial, and then now we’re done.

173 00:14:42.400 00:14:53.559 Uttam Kumaran: because we work with so many externals, it’s like, we… there’s no way we cannot do it. And then we still have, like… but it gets even worse, like, we have some clients that are like, oh, we’re only on Teams.

174 00:14:53.750 00:14:59.800 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re like, you want us to, like, meet you on your teams? And I’m like, okay, I guess that’s what…

175 00:14:59.970 00:15:05.210 Uttam Kumaran: what we’ll have to do. Email is the ultimate, like, backstop for everything, so…

176 00:15:05.210 00:15:05.830 Byron Pittam: Totally.

177 00:15:06.220 00:15:06.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

178 00:15:07.120 00:15:12.579 Byron Pittam: Easy enough. But yeah, okay. Yeah, Slack… Slack should be good, I just don’t…

179 00:15:12.580 00:15:13.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

180 00:15:13.040 00:15:15.600 Byron Pittam: Just constantly just trying to upsell you on everything.

181 00:15:17.010 00:15:18.680 Byron Pittam: feels like, oh my god, I don’t… I don’t wanna…

182 00:15:19.020 00:15:21.640 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the world, that’s just… that’s just being on…

183 00:15:21.640 00:15:22.500 Byron Pittam: Fair, yeah.

184 00:15:22.500 00:15:24.909 Uttam Kumaran: On digital… in digital world, on any side.

185 00:15:24.910 00:15:25.929 Byron Pittam: No, dude, I think so.

186 00:15:25.930 00:15:27.330 Uttam Kumaran: It’s horrible.

187 00:15:27.490 00:15:30.259 Byron Pittam: BMW went too far, finally.

188 00:15:30.260 00:15:31.290 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, I hear you.

189 00:15:31.290 00:15:36.200 Byron Pittam: where they were gonna, like, pay… you were gonna pay for, like, their heated seats? A subscription for heated seats? It’s like, no.

190 00:15:36.200 00:15:39.340 Uttam Kumaran: Or it’s gonna have to read you a 30-second ad before you hear it.

191 00:15:39.340 00:15:43.310 Byron Pittam: You sure you want heated seats? You gotta listen to this.

192 00:15:43.310 00:15:44.859 Uttam Kumaran: You’re, like, freezing.

193 00:15:45.180 00:15:46.960 Byron Pittam: Pharmaceutical commercial.

194 00:15:46.960 00:15:50.650 Uttam Kumaran: an Athletic Greens ad, just, like, sitting in your car.

195 00:15:53.120 00:15:56.639 Byron Pittam: Okay. Well, let me know anything else we need.

196 00:15:56.920 00:16:01.640 Byron Pittam: Yeah, hopefully I’ll have a new hire here as well in the next,

197 00:16:02.140 00:16:04.650 Byron Pittam: I don’t know. Maybe 2 weeks, hopefully less than.

198 00:16:04.650 00:16:05.330 Uttam Kumaran: Great.

199 00:16:05.560 00:16:07.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect. Alright, I’ll be in touch.

200 00:16:08.180 00:16:09.030 Byron Pittam: Thank you.

201 00:16:09.250 00:16:10.750 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you. Bye.