Meeting Title: Brainforge x Insomnia Project Check-in Date: 2025-12-09 Meeting participants: Amber Lin, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:01:57.850 ⇒ 00:01:59.030 Robert Tseng: Hello!
2 00:02:00.540 ⇒ 00:02:01.740 Amber Lin: Hi there!
3 00:02:02.400 ⇒ 00:02:07.549 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I’m gonna update our link now. I don’t know why it’s always, like, Thursday, so weird.
4 00:02:07.550 ⇒ 00:02:16.950 Amber Lin: When you move it, I think when you move it and don’t update the meeting room, I don’t know, I guess the Zoom meeting room is just set for Thursday, so I never moved.
5 00:02:16.950 ⇒ 00:02:18.690 Robert Tseng: Oh, I see.
6 00:02:19.060 ⇒ 00:02:19.410 Amber Lin: Yeah.
7 00:02:19.410 ⇒ 00:02:21.160 Robert Tseng: Alright, well, I just updated it, hopefully that doesn’t happen.
8 00:02:21.160 ⇒ 00:02:21.480 Amber Lin: Okay.
9 00:02:21.480 ⇒ 00:02:23.590 Robert Tseng: In the future. Yeah.
10 00:02:24.060 ⇒ 00:02:30.610 Amber Lin: I was gonna say, recently, your fist has been very stylish. I went into the stand, I was like, oh, Robert has a new fit today.
11 00:02:31.560 ⇒ 00:02:33.299 Amber Lin: Yesterday, it was really cool, too.
12 00:02:33.680 ⇒ 00:02:37.240 Robert Tseng: Thanks, yeah, I just came back from Asia, so my mother-in-law got me a bunch of stuff.
13 00:02:39.380 ⇒ 00:02:42.800 Robert Tseng: I don’t buy any of my own clothes or accessories, you just gotta…
14 00:02:42.800 ⇒ 00:02:44.219 Amber Lin: That makes so much sense.
15 00:02:45.060 ⇒ 00:02:51.390 Amber Lin: Every time I go back home and come back, and people are like, where did you get this? I was like, you can’t get this, I’m sorry.
16 00:02:51.390 ⇒ 00:02:55.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, it’s just crazy how cheap things are there.
17 00:02:56.310 ⇒ 00:03:03.619 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and I mean, the quality’s really good, too, so I just… I don’t really buy anything in the States anymore. Unless I’m thrifting, yeah.
18 00:03:03.640 ⇒ 00:03:06.019 Amber Lin: Yeah. Yeah.
19 00:03:06.230 ⇒ 00:03:07.690 Amber Lin: Cool! Yeah.
20 00:03:07.690 ⇒ 00:03:08.710 Robert Tseng: I…
21 00:03:10.940 ⇒ 00:03:15.139 Amber Lin: So, I just drank the whole bottle of coffee, so my brain’s loading.
22 00:03:15.140 ⇒ 00:03:15.840 Robert Tseng: Oh, all good.
23 00:03:16.220 ⇒ 00:03:17.199 Robert Tseng: shaken up, yeah.
24 00:03:17.320 ⇒ 00:03:25.579 Amber Lin: Yeah, I… I did the analysis outline, or I tried to do that when I was doing the strategy deck, hence why it took so much time.
25 00:03:25.820 ⇒ 00:03:26.530 Robert Tseng: No worries.
26 00:03:26.530 ⇒ 00:03:27.260 Amber Lin: And…
27 00:03:27.450 ⇒ 00:03:41.809 Amber Lin: I realized that the in-between of making those outlines is between actual doing the analysis versus on the ground, versus what I did before for consulting, which is essentially, revenue is, like.
28 00:03:42.340 ⇒ 00:03:46.739 Amber Lin: Profit is revenue minus cost level of high-level understanding.
29 00:03:47.330 ⇒ 00:03:55.690 Amber Lin: The whole section in between was a new land, and it was quite hard. Oh, what… what can I actually do?
30 00:03:56.400 ⇒ 00:04:01.080 Amber Lin: Give people fancy theories of, like, oh, you can do this, too, maybe.
31 00:04:01.290 ⇒ 00:04:01.760 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
32 00:04:03.250 ⇒ 00:04:03.770 Amber Lin: So…
33 00:04:03.770 ⇒ 00:04:16.489 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, you gave, like, real recommendations to Birdie, and she actually deployed them, and you get to, like, measure kind of, like, how your experiments went, so, like, it’s, like, a different level of, like, influence. You know, you’re not.
34 00:04:16.490 ⇒ 00:04:17.309 Amber Lin: I just, like…
35 00:04:17.310 ⇒ 00:04:33.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, you’re… yeah, we have to be able to communicate all levels. Like, the high-level strategy, like, the C-suite is… they’re not going to look at the details. But then we also need to kind of, like, drive action with the… with the, like, mid-level managers that are actually deploying, like, these solutions.
36 00:04:33.260 ⇒ 00:04:46.719 Robert Tseng: And then we kind of also have to, like, measure the impact, because we have to brag about ourselves, otherwise nobody’s gonna brag for us. So it is like a, you know, it’s… it’s… I understand that it’s… it’s a lot to… to, like, to basically.
37 00:04:46.720 ⇒ 00:04:55.080 Amber Lin: So much new stuff. Yeah, I’m looking at new experience we can implement for later December, and it’s like, I don’t know what to…
38 00:04:55.190 ⇒ 00:04:58.090 Amber Lin: I don’t know what to put down. Yeah.
39 00:04:58.680 ⇒ 00:04:59.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
40 00:04:59.600 ⇒ 00:05:03.560 Robert Tseng: Well, I mean, hopefully you enjoy this process, like, I will say that, like.
41 00:05:03.830 ⇒ 00:05:10.260 Robert Tseng: you know, for what it’s worth, like, this insomnia experience is, like, very unique. Like, there’s no… I mean, I can’t even…
42 00:05:10.550 ⇒ 00:05:11.310 Robert Tseng: like…
43 00:05:11.650 ⇒ 00:05:31.600 Robert Tseng: you know, for you to be able to jump into this client and be able to, like, kind of produce this type of insight, get this type of visibility, is, like, kind of unheard of, like, at this… for a client this size. Like, they’re a $650 million business, and now you’re gonna help start writing emails directly to the CEO that he’s gonna open, right? So, like.
44 00:05:31.600 ⇒ 00:05:33.000 Amber Lin: I know, it’s crazy.
45 00:05:33.000 ⇒ 00:05:38.870 Robert Tseng: You would never… you would, like… I don’t think I was able to do anything like that for the first 4 years of my career, yeah.
46 00:05:39.270 ⇒ 00:05:47.589 Amber Lin: Yeah. Yeah, I remember you said you were talking to the CEO. I was like, wow, Robert’s talking to the CEO of Insomnia. That’s so cool.
47 00:05:48.160 ⇒ 00:05:59.799 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, now, now you… well, I guess the message will come from my account for now, but, like, yeah, you’re gonna basically help me, shift, shift the stakeholder up to him, so…
48 00:06:00.140 ⇒ 00:06:15.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, hopefully… I know it’s kind of been, like, pretty political, like, in Insomnia, it’s kind of like, oh, we lost the CMO, and then the VP of Marketing, whatever, so there’s kind of, like, this… you know, you’re seeing kind of how we navigate the.
49 00:06:15.360 ⇒ 00:06:19.390 Amber Lin: Kind of, like, change management part of the… this… this consulting work, and…
50 00:06:19.480 ⇒ 00:06:38.100 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s not just about doing good work, it’s also finding the right stakeholder, and how do we actually do that? Like, how do we get people on our side, and stuff like that. And, yeah, you know, that’s… that’s the kind of situation we’re stuck in, in insomnia right now. And it’s… it is kind of like, it’s uncertain what it will be, like…
51 00:06:38.350 ⇒ 00:06:54.120 Robert Tseng: I’m hoping that, you know, we’ll get, like, a message out to the CEO, kind of this week, hopefully tomorrow or something, and yeah, like, he’ll end up becoming, like, a fan of Brainforge and, like, extend the contract if he has the authority to.
52 00:06:54.120 ⇒ 00:07:03.650 Robert Tseng: But, like, I don’t know. It’s also possible that he will just be like, yeah, never mind, we’ll just end with you guys, end of the month. So, it’s kind of like a weird inflection point where
53 00:07:03.650 ⇒ 00:07:09.189 Robert Tseng: It’s less about doing new work, and it’s more about just, like, making sure that
54 00:07:09.210 ⇒ 00:07:17.559 Robert Tseng: the work that we’ve done is communicated in a way that, like, gets people on our side. So, I think I just, you know, I just want to kind of share that, like.
55 00:07:17.590 ⇒ 00:07:27.799 Robert Tseng: Yeah, when you first joined, you know, on this client, you were, like, kind of cranking out a bunch of analysis, but now it’s like, you’re not really needing… we don’t need to do it at the same pace. Like, we have to just keep.
56 00:07:29.610 ⇒ 00:07:40.940 Robert Tseng: you know, make it more digestible, and to share it with different people. So, that’s kind of, like, where I feel like the stage we are in this engagement. So,
57 00:07:41.120 ⇒ 00:07:46.780 Robert Tseng: the stuff that you’re doing with Birdie, like, yeah, you’ll keep kind of, like, influencing her and, like, you know.
58 00:07:47.020 ⇒ 00:08:04.929 Robert Tseng: I mean, both Bertie and Matt were on that call, and they both said good things about working with Brainforce and working with you specifically, so, you know, I think it’s… that’s a good sign. You just kind of do what you can to keep pushing… pushing them there. But then, yeah, we’ve got to roll up the insights to… to… to the executives, so that’s,
59 00:08:05.110 ⇒ 00:08:09.940 Robert Tseng: I wanna… I mean, I’m hoping to spend some time, kind of…
60 00:08:10.270 ⇒ 00:08:14.320 Robert Tseng: We’re working with you to get that message out, probably tomorrow.
61 00:08:14.320 ⇒ 00:08:15.410 Amber Lin: Okay. Yeah.
62 00:08:15.730 ⇒ 00:08:17.579 Amber Lin: I have that…
63 00:08:17.700 ⇒ 00:08:28.319 Amber Lin: I have that slide that has all the analysis. How is it different from, just a summary of what we did? Because we do have a high-level summary of that.
64 00:08:28.320 ⇒ 00:08:42.409 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, I think it’ll be a lot of the same. So, yeah, I probably would go back to the Slack messages that you sent to the team, and then I’d also reference the slides, but I’d probably just make it, like, kind of a very more simple format. It’s just, like.
65 00:08:42.770 ⇒ 00:08:43.579 Robert Tseng: you know.
66 00:08:43.799 ⇒ 00:08:49.750 Robert Tseng: bullets, sub-bullets, and, like, just so good full bullets, but, like, kind of just written out in, like, an email brief format, so…
67 00:08:50.280 ⇒ 00:08:56.400 Robert Tseng: It’s probably… the message will probably look closer to Slack, but we just gotta make sure that it has,
68 00:08:57.490 ⇒ 00:08:58.910 Robert Tseng: the takeaway…
69 00:08:59.290 ⇒ 00:09:12.609 Robert Tseng: a little bit of context on, like, the hypothesis, kind of, like, that one message that you had sent previously, I think that was, like, a perfect message from the Chief of Staff. Like, I’m basically just gonna take that, and I’m gonna roll it up into… I’m gonna move it into an email, and .
70 00:09:12.610 ⇒ 00:09:13.440 Amber Lin: Gotcha.
71 00:09:13.440 ⇒ 00:09:26.649 Robert Tseng: anything else that we need to, like, kind of attach to that to build the story? Like, I think those two… those two analyses that we had shared in the message to Lisa is a good… that’s a good block to use, but, like, I gotta just assemble the other blocks.
72 00:09:26.650 ⇒ 00:09:27.460 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay.
73 00:09:27.460 ⇒ 00:09:27.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
74 00:09:27.790 ⇒ 00:09:30.219 Amber Lin: Sounds good, sounds good. That gives me, like, a…
75 00:09:30.410 ⇒ 00:09:33.129 Amber Lin: A main thread of the outline to think about.
76 00:09:33.360 ⇒ 00:09:34.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
77 00:09:37.070 ⇒ 00:09:44.270 Amber Lin: I’m thinking of what… I had a lot of questions, and hence why it’s hard to think about where to start.
78 00:09:44.270 ⇒ 00:09:47.040 Robert Tseng: Okay, no worries, just for a starting point.
79 00:09:47.040 ⇒ 00:09:52.600 Amber Lin: Yeah, I guess I was making the different analysis outlines, and
80 00:09:53.150 ⇒ 00:10:06.330 Amber Lin: when there’s so many aspects of what we can do, like, how do you… how did you end up picking owned channels specifically? Because when I looked at it, there’s different stuff…
81 00:10:06.410 ⇒ 00:10:21.959 Amber Lin: stuff within the own channel, there’s a different… each life cycle has its own analysis that can be done, and then there’s the FDA and different stuff. We never really also… never really looked at the actual sales data that connects all the channels.
82 00:10:22.030 ⇒ 00:10:30.129 Amber Lin: We did not look at store data. And then on the marketing spend side, we didn’t look at that either.
83 00:10:30.230 ⇒ 00:10:31.210 Amber Lin: Yeah.
84 00:10:31.820 ⇒ 00:10:36.100 Amber Lin: And, there’s the forecast, the more advanced stuff with the forecasting.
85 00:10:36.360 ⇒ 00:10:48.180 Amber Lin: predictive product performance and all that. Like, among all of these, how did you end up picking owned channel? And in specific, how… why do we start with lifecycle?
86 00:10:49.150 ⇒ 00:10:56.709 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, we picked that because it was the easiest to get started with, I think.
87 00:10:57.180 ⇒ 00:10:58.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like…
88 00:10:58.450 ⇒ 00:11:02.320 Robert Tseng: when we first entered, I tried to get access to paid, because, like, I felt like, you know.
89 00:11:03.530 ⇒ 00:11:08.430 Robert Tseng: with Eden, like, they wanted us to only be doing stuff in paid, at Fed.
90 00:11:08.430 ⇒ 00:11:09.470 Amber Lin: Yeah.
91 00:11:10.500 ⇒ 00:11:14.960 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I felt like there was just so much resistance for us to kind of get what we wanted there.
92 00:11:15.100 ⇒ 00:11:22.470 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think it’s really… in the discovery process, we’re kind of listing… we’re going broad to see, like, all the different areas we can hit.
93 00:11:22.890 ⇒ 00:11:29.799 Robert Tseng: then as I’m, like, pressure testing, like, where we can go after, like, the path of least resistance was, like, life cycle. That’s… that’s it.
94 00:11:29.800 ⇒ 00:11:30.770 Amber Lin: I think.
95 00:11:32.360 ⇒ 00:11:47.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So we go there, I know they’re under-supported, and then also, like, it’s quick… we can quickly build up expertise there. So, like, I now… I think the team kind of talks about it, how, you know, we’re like a lifecycle expert at the team. So that’s the position I’m gonna take now.
96 00:11:47.170 ⇒ 00:11:59.230 Robert Tseng: when we’re talking to… to the, talking to the CEO, but, I mean, I do want… I do want to work in other… other stuff. Like, I… I think life cycle, clearly you can see the revenue that it drives is, like, not…
97 00:11:59.660 ⇒ 00:12:05.010 Robert Tseng: It’s not the most, so I would prefer to go after POS data or something else.
98 00:12:05.280 ⇒ 00:12:09.679 Robert Tseng: But yeah, point of sale, yeah, I think that’s… that was just a bit harder.
99 00:12:10.300 ⇒ 00:12:11.490 Robert Tseng: as well.
100 00:12:11.700 ⇒ 00:12:23.400 Robert Tseng: The finance team already kind of does some reporting there. I don’t think they’re doing analysis, they’re just doing, like, daily store reporting, or whatever. Like, daily reporting, it’s like sales reporting by store.
101 00:12:25.100 ⇒ 00:12:33.549 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, like, that’s an area I would like to go into, but, we just… we just don’t have access to it. So.
102 00:12:33.550 ⇒ 00:12:38.780 Amber Lin: I do think we have their sales order data from Holistics.
103 00:12:39.390 ⇒ 00:12:41.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but it doesn’t, like.
104 00:12:42.550 ⇒ 00:12:43.959 Amber Lin: Doesn’t have customer information.
105 00:12:43.960 ⇒ 00:12:46.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it doesn’t have customer information. So.
106 00:12:46.660 ⇒ 00:12:49.300 Amber Lin: How would that be possible, though, if…
107 00:12:49.410 ⇒ 00:12:56.009 Amber Lin: Like, how are we supposed to do analysis on it if there’s no connection to who this customer is?
108 00:12:56.730 ⇒ 00:13:03.540 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah, so, like, the way that they were doing these, like, Monday, like, readouts before was…
109 00:13:03.730 ⇒ 00:13:19.990 Robert Tseng: they would look at lifecycle, or they would look at the marketing tracker and say, okay, these are the campaigns we launched, now let’s go and look at these finance reports and see what store or, like, you know, where did sales, like, kind of go up and down. It’s just, like, completely.
110 00:13:19.990 ⇒ 00:13:20.620 Amber Lin: B.
111 00:13:21.390 ⇒ 00:13:27.360 Robert Tseng: You’re just… you’re just triangulating, like, we… we spent money here, so we saw money go up here, like, oh.
112 00:13:27.360 ⇒ 00:13:28.170 Amber Lin: I guess the impact.
113 00:13:28.170 ⇒ 00:13:29.830 Robert Tseng: like that. Like, that was it. That was, like.
114 00:13:30.610 ⇒ 00:13:46.770 Robert Tseng: that’s what they’re doing, and I think that’s why the CEO came in, he sat on this call for 2 weeks, and he was like, this is useless, let’s just cut this off. So, yeah, I think that’s probably why we stopped… stopped meeting, because he was like, how did we have… like.
115 00:13:46.900 ⇒ 00:14:03.770 Robert Tseng: the VP of Finance, VP of Marketing on this call, I’m like, this is… this is the insight that we’re getting, like, it’s just… it’s not really useful, in my opinion. So, which I… I get it, yeah. So I do think they need, like, customer-level data. Like, they just… they need customer… they need a customer data model, kind of similar.
116 00:14:03.770 ⇒ 00:14:09.070 Robert Tseng: So what we’ve done for Eden, we can trace everything down to the… every transaction to a customer, like.
117 00:14:09.070 ⇒ 00:14:10.549 Robert Tseng: We need to have at least that.
118 00:14:10.680 ⇒ 00:14:22.060 Robert Tseng: I’m sure it exists, like, in Insomnia’s data, it’s just not all put together in a unified customer data model, so it’s hard to do any analysis on top of that.
119 00:14:23.050 ⇒ 00:14:25.050 Robert Tseng: yeah.
120 00:14:25.710 ⇒ 00:14:26.570 Amber Lin: I see.
121 00:14:27.400 ⇒ 00:14:35.930 Amber Lin: Interesting. So, when you asked me to make the outline for the analysis,
122 00:14:36.810 ⇒ 00:14:43.130 Amber Lin: I try to sort of give each section a little bit of thought of how this would turn out.
123 00:14:43.310 ⇒ 00:14:55.420 Amber Lin: But I think I’m not really seeing the through line through everything, what should go first and what’s second. A lot of it feels like it could be attacked at the same time.
124 00:14:55.500 ⇒ 00:14:56.330 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
125 00:14:56.810 ⇒ 00:15:02.930 Amber Lin: Is that normal, or is there, like, something that’s usually more of a priority before something else?
126 00:15:03.740 ⇒ 00:15:09.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think we just… yeah, so I think this is kind of, like, how do we, like, actually sequence our projects, like.
127 00:15:14.380 ⇒ 00:15:15.530 Robert Tseng: I think…
128 00:15:22.910 ⇒ 00:15:31.899 Robert Tseng: It’s tough because you don’t have, like, an executive sponsor to, like, kind of give you direction on, like, what they care about the most. Like, that’s the easiest way to prioritize,
129 00:15:32.350 ⇒ 00:15:46.959 Robert Tseng: If we had to, like, kind of redo it all from our own brain, then yeah, I think that’s why it’s important to opportunity size, and then, like, kind of decide where to go after, right? So, on the lifecycle stuff, like, you did the whole segmentation analysis, and then we did, like, a paid campaign breakdown.
130 00:15:47.220 ⇒ 00:15:48.580 Robert Tseng: And so…
131 00:15:48.670 ⇒ 00:16:06.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, we know that, okay, the biggest thing that’s gonna move the needle is, like, driving first to sec… like, driving second-order purchases. So that is, like, that’s the… that’s the goal, and, like, that’s the objective. So we should focus our… anything around lifecycle around… around… around that.
132 00:16:06.220 ⇒ 00:16:12.180 Robert Tseng: On the email side, on the campaign breakdown side, you’re able to say, look,
133 00:16:13.440 ⇒ 00:16:32.790 Robert Tseng: email… there’s email fatigue, this is… it’s… email, campaigns have, like, dropped in efficiency. If we were to make it more efficient, by whatever percentage, like, this is… this is what’s gonna move the needle the most. We know that 70% of, like, the…
134 00:16:32.880 ⇒ 00:16:35.989 Robert Tseng: the, is, is, of, of, tr… of…
135 00:16:36.090 ⇒ 00:16:42.269 Robert Tseng: Of messages sent are through email, so, like, email is the biggest, like, Thing to move.
136 00:16:42.460 ⇒ 00:16:58.030 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, we should be focusing on email and email campaign optimization. So, to me, those are, like, two ways that we already, like, did the prioritization within lifecycle that, like, they didn’t tell us to do it that way, but, as you’re doing these analysis, like.
137 00:16:58.080 ⇒ 00:17:15.060 Robert Tseng: you, you’re going from top down, you’re figuring out, like, where… like, what… which direction is… is worth… is worth, focusing on. So, I do think that, you know, maybe you don’t… you don’t see it that way, but you… you are… you are already kind of doing prioritization, at least within the lifecycle world.
138 00:17:15.060 ⇒ 00:17:24.380 Robert Tseng: For other, like, types, for the other, like, kind of buckets of work that we could do, yeah, you kind of have to just, like, kind of go back up again and figure out, well, where…
139 00:17:24.380 ⇒ 00:17:38.339 Robert Tseng: where are they spending the money on the paid side? Like, you know, if they feel like their attribution or their tracking is off by whatever percent, you know, that’s… that’s pretty significant if you can identify 30% of your customers, so…
140 00:17:38.890 ⇒ 00:17:45.440 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, so you’re basically kind of reusing this framework over and over again of, like.
141 00:17:46.070 ⇒ 00:17:59.340 Robert Tseng: Making some assumptions to, like, size the opportunity within a particular, kind of channel, and then you’re kind of deciding, or you’re recommending, like, which… which,
142 00:17:59.820 ⇒ 00:18:11.430 Robert Tseng: channel to… or which segment, or whatever to focus on. So I… I think that’s… that’s kind of the pattern, that we can apply across all of these different types of analysis.
143 00:18:11.430 ⇒ 00:18:18.160 Amber Lin: I see. That’s very cool. I think that… that could be distilled down to, like, a framework we approach, because I…
144 00:18:18.160 ⇒ 00:18:18.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
145 00:18:18.620 ⇒ 00:18:25.070 Amber Lin: spoke with Utam, and I think we want… we always wanted to make analysis assets, I think…
146 00:18:25.750 ⇒ 00:18:32.659 Amber Lin: we want Ashreya to make her product analytics stuff, and I think now that we get more people in, we can start that back up again.
147 00:18:32.660 ⇒ 00:18:33.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
148 00:18:33.430 ⇒ 00:18:38.249 Robert Tseng: Product analytics is tough. It’s less, like, tops down, it’s more bottom-up.
149 00:18:38.420 ⇒ 00:18:38.880 Amber Lin: Oh, my boy.
150 00:18:38.880 ⇒ 00:18:52.710 Robert Tseng: what I mean by that is, like, product analytics typically works from, like, you just need to watch, like, what users are doing. So, sessions, session replays, like, going in there, looking at creating user journey flows, you’re trying to, like.
151 00:18:53.020 ⇒ 00:18:57.700 Robert Tseng: From observing user behavior, figure out what the best, like.
152 00:18:58.020 ⇒ 00:19:03.110 Robert Tseng: path is. And then you’re, like, kind of reverse engineering, like.
153 00:19:03.410 ⇒ 00:19:05.739 Robert Tseng: The metric you want to move is conversion rates.
154 00:19:06.910 ⇒ 00:19:21.099 Robert Tseng: been… and I was having this conversation with Greg, and he’s, like, kind of giving me a couple of his hypotheses. He’s like, well, one, we can look at, you know, new users in the past 30 days, and look at what they’re doing.
155 00:19:21.100 ⇒ 00:19:35.889 Robert Tseng: like, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, and it’s like, okay, that gives you a good sense of, like, of the new users that are coming in, like, what share of them are actually engaged. So that’s one approach. And then I kind of told them, well, another approach is, like, look at the most engaged users already, so…
156 00:19:35.930 ⇒ 00:19:50.999 Robert Tseng: Look at the enterprise users, the people who have been with the product the most, and then kind of look back to the beginning of their journey. Like, what got them to start getting… using the product? And then he’s like, oh, okay, yeah, so, like, that’s another… that’s another way to do it.
157 00:19:51.000 ⇒ 00:19:58.580 Robert Tseng: And so it’s less about, like, sizing the opportunity, and then, like, kind of drilling into it from the top down, but you’re more, like, trying to, like.
158 00:19:59.180 ⇒ 00:20:12.539 Robert Tseng: well, if you could look at everybody’s activity, like, where do you start? And, like, I think there are… there’s maybe some… there’s some principled approach for, like, how you go and figure out, like, what’s the fastest way to find
159 00:20:12.650 ⇒ 00:20:24.709 Robert Tseng: like, the best customer journey, and, like, I… yeah, I think that’s… that’s, that’s, like, there’s, you know, I gave him some… I gave him some ideas on, on, from, on, on, on that side, yeah.
160 00:20:24.710 ⇒ 00:20:35.359 Amber Lin: That’s so cool. Wow. I imagine it would be different for, say, finance or operations, or more… for example, like the Eden Pharmacy side, like.
161 00:20:35.410 ⇒ 00:20:37.439 Robert Tseng: Yeah. When we do that.
162 00:20:37.440 ⇒ 00:20:41.280 Amber Lin: is this still a bottoms-up or top-down approach? Like…
163 00:20:41.320 ⇒ 00:20:43.179 Robert Tseng: high level, what is that like?
164 00:20:43.500 ⇒ 00:20:59.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s… it’s… I think it’s neither, actually. So, pharmacy or, like, ops… ops reporting is different. It’s all about, like, SLA measurement, or, like, kind of… you’re saying, like, okay, you want to know, like, what average performance looks like across.
165 00:20:59.730 ⇒ 00:21:04.120 Amber Lin: Like, whatever, like, across the entire set. So it is very much about.
166 00:21:04.540 ⇒ 00:21:10.179 Robert Tseng: really focused on defining what the common business metric is, and making sure it’s being tracked, right?
167 00:21:10.750 ⇒ 00:21:14.840 Robert Tseng: For, like, pharmacies, if you have a multi… you have a large pharmacy network, what…
168 00:21:14.870 ⇒ 00:21:17.120 Robert Tseng: What does it mean for, like, when…
169 00:21:17.120 ⇒ 00:21:36.860 Robert Tseng: how long is an order spending in a pharmacy? Is it, like, when it… when the order is placed, it hits the pharmacy system, and then when it’s, like, scanned out by, like, the… by the 3PL that picks it up? Well, even those two endpoints, like, look different across pharmacies, because maybe BASC has a native integration with that pharmacy, and it gets that order instantly.
170 00:21:36.960 ⇒ 00:21:46.269 Robert Tseng: But if they don’t, and it has to go through, like, a CSV upload or export, there’s, like, some manual kind of, like, process there, well, that needs to be considered, and, like.
171 00:21:46.290 ⇒ 00:22:02.079 Robert Tseng: well, that… that’s… that’s not really gonna be the same, like, kind of timestamp. So you need to, like, normalize, like, what does that… what does that milestone look like across all the pharmacies, and make sure that’s being tracked, consistently, or at least, like, we have some way to, like, normalize it.
172 00:22:02.250 ⇒ 00:22:17.909 Robert Tseng: And then, like, you know, on the back half, it’s like, okay, like, the package gets scanned and picked up, which, well, that… I mean, I know from logistics, that’s different. Like, USPS, they pick up, and then they scan at their facility. FedEx, they scan right away on site, so, like.
173 00:22:17.910 ⇒ 00:22:18.600 Amber Lin: It’s like…
174 00:22:18.600 ⇒ 00:22:24.870 Robert Tseng: Things like that, where we had to, like, bake in, some assumptions around, like, what…
175 00:22:25.680 ⇒ 00:22:45.070 Robert Tseng: what, like, it meant for, like, for, like, a… for a package to leave… leave the warehouse, like, when I was working in this industry. So, UPS, FedEx, and USPS all had to be accounted for differently. So, anyway, it’s like, because operational tracking isn’t neces… is… can be, like…
176 00:22:45.270 ⇒ 00:22:49.490 Robert Tseng: It can just… you’re basically… you’re trying to, like, match
177 00:22:49.780 ⇒ 00:23:06.549 Robert Tseng: certain milestones that you’re setting, but then, like, they’re… they’re tracked all, like, in so many different ways, you need to, like, figure out ways so that they’re actually comparing apples to apples, and then being able to consistently measure that across… across the business. Like, that’s… that’s step one for operational reporting.
178 00:23:06.550 ⇒ 00:23:11.629 Robert Tseng: And, like, step two, or, like, kind of the next… the next phase after that is,
179 00:23:12.590 ⇒ 00:23:21.030 Robert Tseng: being able to, like, identify, like, the outliers, right? Like, who are the ones that are below… who are,
180 00:23:21.090 ⇒ 00:23:31.280 Robert Tseng: what… which shipments are taking more than 3 days to, to, like, leave the… leave the warehouse. And, like, you’re just trying to, like, find these, like, problem sets of orders.
181 00:23:31.280 ⇒ 00:23:41.810 Robert Tseng: and you’re working with the business team to, like, kind of figure out, like, what… like, why is this happening? Why are these orders being delayed, right? And, like, that’s kind of the, I think.
182 00:23:41.810 ⇒ 00:23:55.180 Robert Tseng: how you end up, like, impacting the operational metrics, because you’re able to identify segments where the data doesn’t really make sense. It’s like, an order shouldn’t be taking 5 days to ship out of the warehouse. What’s happening here?
183 00:23:55.490 ⇒ 00:24:06.490 Robert Tseng: you’re working with the business teams to go figure out what happened there, and then they’re gonna basically try to eliminate the issues. So, I think that’s kind of what operational reporting is really about.
184 00:24:06.490 ⇒ 00:24:12.439 Amber Lin: That’s so interesting. So each… Side of the business is a completely different.
185 00:24:12.560 ⇒ 00:24:19.789 Amber Lin: Framework to approach, because it sounds operations is a lot of… see what’s actually… measure what’s…
186 00:24:20.010 ⇒ 00:24:24.079 Amber Lin: actually happening accurately, versus product analytics is a lot of…
187 00:24:24.290 ⇒ 00:24:28.740 Amber Lin: There’s a lot of stuff happening, but to find the right one.
188 00:24:29.020 ⇒ 00:24:32.279 Amber Lin: Yeah. Marketing is sort of just…
189 00:24:33.820 ⇒ 00:24:38.970 Amber Lin: Even more extrapolated, going to figure out where to even focus on.
190 00:24:39.590 ⇒ 00:24:40.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
191 00:24:42.600 ⇒ 00:24:43.400 Amber Lin: Wow.
192 00:24:44.030 ⇒ 00:24:51.929 Amber Lin: Yeah, that’s… that’s very, very interesting, because I… I realized when you said Henry is more on the operations side, I do realize
193 00:24:52.550 ⇒ 00:25:03.410 Amber Lin: it’s a very different type of analysis that happens there. When I was trying to do the inventory stuff as well for Honey Stingers, a lot of…
194 00:25:03.650 ⇒ 00:25:07.619 Amber Lin: Just figuring out what’s… What’s actually happening?
195 00:25:08.080 ⇒ 00:25:11.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Henry’s good at figuring out what’s actually happening, and, like, trying to, like.
196 00:25:11.870 ⇒ 00:25:22.659 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, see where things are broken. I don’t think he’s good at, like, kind of the top-down, like, I don’t think he knows that opportunity size. And then, like, bottoms up, he also, like, doesn’t really know how to, like.
197 00:25:22.930 ⇒ 00:25:38.059 Robert Tseng: like, he’ll just spend a lot of time on it, but, like, he doesn’t have a very, like, principled way to do it. So, I think, well, anyway, everyone has different strengths. I don’t expect everyone to be good at all three. Like, I think it’s very rare that people have even touched all three. So…
198 00:25:38.280 ⇒ 00:25:43.959 Robert Tseng: I mean, I try not to overwhelm you, but I guess you are kind of getting exposure to all three to some extent.
199 00:25:43.960 ⇒ 00:25:59.269 Amber Lin: It’s very… it’s very interesting, and it’s… it’s just that in the start, there’s a lot coming in, but on the marketing side, I’ve done… I’ve already repeated the same, like, conversion analysis for both Honey Stinger and Insomnia, so…
200 00:25:59.270 ⇒ 00:25:59.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
201 00:25:59.690 ⇒ 00:26:06.400 Amber Lin: It’s starting to… starting to repeat itself, so it’s… things are starting to connect the dots for me.
202 00:26:07.390 ⇒ 00:26:07.980 Amber Lin: Yeah.
203 00:26:08.190 ⇒ 00:26:16.480 Amber Lin: That’s very cool. I actually have the… I’m talking to… what’s his name? The product analytics person.
204 00:26:16.860 ⇒ 00:26:18.369 Robert Tseng: Oh, Venkat, or Venk? Yeah.
205 00:26:18.370 ⇒ 00:26:19.899 Amber Lin: Vancara? I don’t…
206 00:26:20.130 ⇒ 00:26:38.780 Amber Lin: I butchered his name. Venkada, I’m talking to him later. I know you’re also talking to him. Is there a specific topic that you recommend me talking with him with? Because I know you will also ask him of, like, his expertise and all that. I don’t really want to overlap, so he has to talk about it 3 times.
207 00:26:39.010 ⇒ 00:26:48.249 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I mean, I’ll probably go through a specific exercise with him, like, I think that’s how I’m gonna pick his brain, like, yeah, but I think he is a marketing analytics guy.
208 00:26:48.740 ⇒ 00:26:50.090 Robert Tseng: Yeah, he…
209 00:26:50.090 ⇒ 00:26:56.419 Amber Lin: Use I’m saying is mostly product analytics, I think he want… at least we want him to do product analytics.
210 00:26:56.740 ⇒ 00:26:57.110 Robert Tseng: Okay.
211 00:26:57.110 ⇒ 00:27:00.050 Amber Lin: So…
212 00:27:00.410 ⇒ 00:27:05.989 Amber Lin: So I don’t, like, I’ve not done product analytics, so I don’t really know what to ask him.
213 00:27:06.760 ⇒ 00:27:12.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I… I guess… I know, like, our interview process is kind of, like, disconnected.
214 00:27:12.890 ⇒ 00:27:13.250 Amber Lin: No kidding.
215 00:27:13.250 ⇒ 00:27:14.180 Robert Tseng: I think this… Yeah.
216 00:27:14.180 ⇒ 00:27:18.270 Amber Lin: That’s why I want to make sure I don’t ask the same questions you do, and I…
217 00:27:18.540 ⇒ 00:27:22.129 Amber Lin: Essentially, I hope to get more information so that you can
218 00:27:22.260 ⇒ 00:27:25.419 Amber Lin: Find what best to ask him, so…
219 00:27:25.420 ⇒ 00:27:25.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
220 00:27:25.950 ⇒ 00:27:32.589 Amber Lin: I’ll just let him list out all the stuff he’s done before, and I’ll just try to note them down as much as possible.
221 00:27:33.650 ⇒ 00:27:47.369 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I try to understand his range, like, kind of knowing that there are these different types of analysis, like, where he’s stronger and where he’s weaker in. I think you should just pick something that he talks about, and just ask him to talk about that project specifically, and just keep…
222 00:27:47.370 ⇒ 00:27:56.290 Robert Tseng: kind of, like, exploring that with him. Like, I think, you know, you could ask for his range, and then if he says, like, yeah, I’m really good at one thing, then yeah, you just, like, kind of…
223 00:27:56.290 ⇒ 00:28:07.399 Robert Tseng: let him… let him talk about that, like, really drill into that project, and then kind of see, like, is he actually good at it, or is he just bluffing? So, with, like, the Shreya situation.
224 00:28:07.540 ⇒ 00:28:09.259 Robert Tseng: I mean, I don’t want to take…
225 00:28:09.540 ⇒ 00:28:16.830 Robert Tseng: I mean, well, I thought she was bluffing. Like, I was, like, telling the child, like, do not… she does not know what she’s talking about.
226 00:28:17.160 ⇒ 00:28:20.309 Robert Tseng: But, whatever, like, Uten made that decision at the time, and…
227 00:28:20.410 ⇒ 00:28:34.760 Robert Tseng: I mean, it was obvious. But, like, I… so I think you get a lot… you learn a lot from people, from, like, how they talk about their work. If they don’t say anything very specific, then they don’t really know what they’re talking about, so I think you should, yeah, really just…
228 00:28:35.010 ⇒ 00:28:44.059 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’d just be curious to learn from him, I guess, even. I think I… that’s how I would approach it, if I were interviewing for a peer. So, I think that’s kind of how I approached it.
229 00:28:44.170 ⇒ 00:28:47.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, the types of questions I’ll ask them will be very different, like, I think.
230 00:28:47.170 ⇒ 00:28:47.540 Amber Lin: Okay.
231 00:28:47.540 ⇒ 00:28:59.539 Robert Tseng: like, kind of how he will, like, run a project, different stages of analysis and stuff, like, and how he influences stakeholders. Like, I think that’s where I will… I will ask him.
232 00:28:59.540 ⇒ 00:29:05.799 Amber Lin: Okay, okay. Because I also wanted to ask him, does he frame analysis, does he con…
233 00:29:06.000 ⇒ 00:29:09.199 Amber Lin: Outline analysis, and then get approval from
234 00:29:09.440 ⇒ 00:29:15.310 Amber Lin: Buy-in from the stakeholder, but if you’re asking that, then they’ll just focus more on the… how he does it.
235 00:29:15.700 ⇒ 00:29:18.219 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, I would just focus more on… Okay. Yeah.
236 00:29:18.220 ⇒ 00:29:22.949 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good. Thank you for your time, this was very, very insightful. I was…
237 00:29:22.950 ⇒ 00:29:23.800 Robert Tseng: Great, yeah, no.
238 00:29:23.800 ⇒ 00:29:26.319 Amber Lin: I’ve been hearing about those analyses for a long time.
239 00:29:26.740 ⇒ 00:29:35.359 Robert Tseng: Good, yeah, no, I think you’re seeing patterns, like, I think you’re doing great, Amber, we appreciate you, so I know that, you know, obviously Utam trusts you a lot, so…
240 00:29:35.530 ⇒ 00:29:51.370 Robert Tseng: whenever we have a new client, he’s always like, I want Amber to be on that client, and I mean, I kind of have to fight back a bit, and like, I don’t… I don’t think we can… I don’t want… I don’t want to take her off some of these clients yet. So, but, yeah, I think… I think you’re… I think you’re doing a good job, so…
241 00:29:51.370 ⇒ 00:29:57.770 Amber Lin: Thank you, and thank you for teaching me. I’ve learned a lot from the past, just, 2 months already.
242 00:29:58.090 ⇒ 00:30:02.549 Amber Lin: Wow, it’s only been 2 months, that’s crazy. I’ve only started on late October, so it’s…
243 00:30:02.550 ⇒ 00:30:03.080 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
244 00:30:03.080 ⇒ 00:30:03.859 Amber Lin: 2 months.
245 00:30:04.120 ⇒ 00:30:04.930 Robert Tseng: Nice. Yeah.
246 00:30:05.500 ⇒ 00:30:07.230 Amber Lin: Cool. Alright.
247 00:30:07.490 ⇒ 00:30:08.770 Robert Tseng: Bye! Talk to you later. Bye.
248 00:30:08.770 ⇒ 00:30:09.789 Amber Lin: Back to you.