Meeting Title: Brainforge x Interlude Project Sync Date: 2025-09-17 Meeting participants: Rico Rejoso, Uttam Kumaran, Justin Breshears
WEBVTT
1 00:01:22.410 ⇒ 00:01:23.560 Justin Breshears: Hey, team.
2 00:01:25.070 ⇒ 00:01:25.889 Uttam Kumaran: Hey guys.
3 00:01:26.470 ⇒ 00:01:27.869 Uttam Kumaran: Just at this,
4 00:01:28.190 ⇒ 00:01:36.009 Uttam Kumaran: at this conference today, running around, so I may just listen in and chime in, just preparing for a couple meetings.
5 00:01:37.740 ⇒ 00:01:39.320 Justin Breshears: Okay.
6 00:01:40.070 ⇒ 00:01:51.680 Justin Breshears: Yeah, no worries. Yeah, I didn’t know that you were available at this time, so I put you as optional, because I just, you know, wanted to get your… any input that you had on this, but just trying to get up to speed on these two projects.
7 00:01:52.580 ⇒ 00:01:53.320 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.
8 00:01:54.490 ⇒ 00:02:02.519 Justin Breshears: Okay, so, Rico, fill me in. Where are we currently at? I mean, we can start at either one that you want, so you let me know.
9 00:02:04.190 ⇒ 00:02:08.999 Rico Rejoso: Sure, if you also have, like, any questions in regards to the project right now.
10 00:02:09.130 ⇒ 00:02:12.060 Rico Rejoso: As we go through it. Let me just share my screen.
11 00:02:13.020 ⇒ 00:02:19.079 Rico Rejoso: All I can point is to the linear that we have for, boat projects.
12 00:02:26.920 ⇒ 00:02:37.549 Rico Rejoso: Okay, so, this is Interlude, let’s go with Interlude first, I don’t know,
13 00:02:41.000 ⇒ 00:02:57.349 Rico Rejoso: We’re on the second place for Interlude, contract has been signed as well. I think the main issue that, I’ll have for Interlude right now is, adding more of the FAS and confirming with, my staff regarding this one, since
14 00:03:00.540 ⇒ 00:03:19.200 Rico Rejoso: this is all what I have, created based on the previous meeting that we have, and confirmed with Mustafa. So I haven’t really come up or, confirmed which one should be added for this cycle or for next cycle as well. But checking in with the hours based on the effort, and the points that we have.
15 00:03:19.220 ⇒ 00:03:22.470 Rico Rejoso: For the second, I think Mustafa’s pretty well set up for now.
16 00:03:22.980 ⇒ 00:03:30.819 Rico Rejoso: So, probably we’ll have the, planning meeting for this one, where we will set it for next week, or for next sprint.
17 00:03:35.470 ⇒ 00:03:39.849 Justin Breshears: Can you… did you add me to this linear project?
18 00:03:41.850 ⇒ 00:03:44.020 Rico Rejoso: My bad, I’m sorry, less than the idea.
19 00:03:44.920 ⇒ 00:03:47.320 Justin Breshears: Yeah, give me a second follow along here.
20 00:03:50.760 ⇒ 00:03:52.819 Rico Rejoso: Let me add you to default as well.
21 00:03:53.620 ⇒ 00:03:54.430 Justin Breshears: That’d be good.
22 00:04:03.840 ⇒ 00:04:05.870 Justin Breshears: Points. Thank you.
23 00:04:06.630 ⇒ 00:04:07.290 Rico Rejoso: Yep.
24 00:04:09.640 ⇒ 00:04:15.449 Justin Breshears: Okay, so looking in here, we’re not managing it under projects, we’re managing…
25 00:04:16.310 ⇒ 00:04:20.039 Justin Breshears: Just, by issues in the backlog, is that right?
26 00:04:20.230 ⇒ 00:04:22.519 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, right now for…
27 00:04:22.960 ⇒ 00:04:32.670 Rico Rejoso: I mean, for default, we can have, like, since we have 3 work streams under default, need to categorize which project those are under, too. So,
28 00:04:33.210 ⇒ 00:04:46.300 Rico Rejoso: that I… that haven’t been done yet. For Interlude, we don’t, I think there’s only one specific… one project that we’re working on under Interlude, so no need to create for one, or if we should be creating one project under Interlude as well.
29 00:04:51.010 ⇒ 00:04:53.090 Justin Breshears: Yeah, that’s one thing that…
30 00:04:53.690 ⇒ 00:04:58.849 Justin Breshears: I think deserves a bigger conversation around how we manage these, because I’ve noticed, like.
31 00:04:59.520 ⇒ 00:05:15.349 Justin Breshears: In Insomnia, we have, like, 3 different projects going on, and they’re all, like, under the current contract, but it’s, like, kind of making it harder to see the full picture of the work that’s being done, when they’re all, like, split up like that on Linear, so…
32 00:05:15.670 ⇒ 00:05:22.690 Justin Breshears: That’s one thing that I think I want to spend some time thinking about, like, what’s the best way to track it if it’s just, like, all under…
33 00:05:22.830 ⇒ 00:05:26.399 Justin Breshears: One project that’s based on just, like, the time period.
34 00:05:26.500 ⇒ 00:05:28.540 Justin Breshears: Of the current contract.
35 00:05:29.160 ⇒ 00:05:33.320 Justin Breshears: Versus, like, separating it out via word streams.
36 00:05:33.820 ⇒ 00:05:40.789 Justin Breshears: I’m not sure what the right answer is on that, but I have noticed that being a little confusing on insomnia as far as
37 00:05:41.360 ⇒ 00:05:45.560 Justin Breshears: Managing the different… Tasks that we have going on.
38 00:05:46.650 ⇒ 00:05:48.870 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I don’t think we have a, like, super…
39 00:05:49.720 ⇒ 00:05:54.800 Uttam Kumaran: put together an answer. I think we’ve… some situations, we’ve done it based on the work streams.
40 00:05:55.180 ⇒ 00:05:58.259 Uttam Kumaran: In some situations, we just have, like, a single project.
41 00:05:58.510 ⇒ 00:06:02.940 Uttam Kumaran: You know, I think, like, you know, in the past.
42 00:06:03.200 ⇒ 00:06:13.640 Uttam Kumaran: consider, like, if you consider a project, like, more milestones in, it’s sort of, like, based on the number of points. I think I’m open either way. I mean, at our size, we don’t have
43 00:06:13.770 ⇒ 00:06:17.260 Uttam Kumaran: Like, multiple concurrent contracts with the same…
44 00:06:18.170 ⇒ 00:06:21.099 Uttam Kumaran: You know, client. So, for the most part.
45 00:06:21.240 ⇒ 00:06:30.360 Uttam Kumaran: you can assume a single contract, and so I think aligned towards… it could be aligned towards, like, the stakeholder, right? Because if there’s different points of contact.
46 00:06:30.570 ⇒ 00:06:36.680 Uttam Kumaran: It could also be aligned towards a work stream if there’s enough work for each, but…
47 00:06:36.930 ⇒ 00:06:39.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I agree, I don’t think we’re too defined there.
48 00:06:42.090 ⇒ 00:06:58.540 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I… I would almost say that we should just have, like, a project set up for the contract that is, like, so we have, like, a 3-month contract, like, we have this date to this date is this project, and then, like, tracking all the work within milestones there.
49 00:06:59.090 ⇒ 00:07:00.000 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
50 00:07:00.550 ⇒ 00:07:05.949 Justin Breshears: I mean, I think I might… because that’s, like, kind of the next process thing that I want to look at, is, like.
51 00:07:06.520 ⇒ 00:07:18.540 Justin Breshears: how we set up the project. So, like, I kind of tackle the, like, handoff from sales to delivery in those initial docs, and now I’m trying to look at, like, okay, how do we set up the project plan from there?
52 00:07:18.820 ⇒ 00:07:23.510 Justin Breshears: And I think this is one of the aspects of that that I think might help streamline things.
53 00:07:23.960 ⇒ 00:07:31.609 Justin Breshears: Anyway, that’s, beside the point here. So, on Interlude, how many hours per week
54 00:07:31.970 ⇒ 00:07:34.819 Justin Breshears: Are we spinning as a team? This one?
55 00:07:38.580 ⇒ 00:07:40.119 Rico Rejoso: Based on allocation.
56 00:07:41.120 ⇒ 00:07:41.779 Uttam Kumaran: There we go.
57 00:07:41.950 ⇒ 00:07:45.150 Rico Rejoso: Yeah. Based on allocation or,
58 00:07:45.450 ⇒ 00:07:47.819 Rico Rejoso: On average, on what we’re currently…
59 00:07:48.030 ⇒ 00:07:50.960 Rico Rejoso: Are we, I mean, spending right now?
60 00:07:56.060 ⇒ 00:07:59.809 Uttam Kumaran: I think probably based on, like, what the actuals are, right?
61 00:08:00.020 ⇒ 00:08:00.630 Rico Rejoso: Yeah.
62 00:08:04.220 ⇒ 00:08:05.230 Rico Rejoso: Because.
63 00:08:05.230 ⇒ 00:08:11.720 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I guess, like, what… in the contract, like, what’s the goal target of hours that we’re trying to spend?
64 00:08:11.950 ⇒ 00:08:14.640 Justin Breshears: Versus, like, the actuals, both would be good to know.
65 00:08:14.640 ⇒ 00:08:25.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so this… so this is a fixed contract for just 5K, where there is a… there is a… yeah, so, you know, there is… I think we have a max…
66 00:08:25.670 ⇒ 00:08:31.430 Uttam Kumaran: cap in the contract, but that’s… so I think Mustafa should be spending
67 00:08:31.710 ⇒ 00:08:35.229 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I think he’s usually sitting anywhere from 5 to 10 hours, but I think you can…
68 00:08:35.370 ⇒ 00:08:39.529 Uttam Kumaran: You can tell me… Enrico, like, what the actuals have been so far.
69 00:08:40.130 ⇒ 00:08:44.290 Rico Rejoso: Yes, for the app, we’re actually spending, like, around an average $15.
70 00:08:44.430 ⇒ 00:08:45.530 Rico Rejoso: Hours week.
71 00:08:46.340 ⇒ 00:08:53.550 Rico Rejoso: Based on the tickets that were assigned to Mustafa on each other’s cycle. I mean, Tss…
72 00:08:53.840 ⇒ 00:08:56.780 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, 8 to… I’m sorry, 8 to 12 hours.
73 00:08:56.910 ⇒ 00:08:58.260 Rico Rejoso: In between those.
74 00:08:59.200 ⇒ 00:09:11.790 Rico Rejoso: Okay. But right now, there were, like, more works that, came in, than we have, like, around 13, 15 hours. Since, this is… I mean, I started off the week with a one-week sprint.
75 00:09:11.880 ⇒ 00:09:30.299 Rico Rejoso: I also informed myself regarding this one, so we have, like, 13 hours for this week. So on average, we’re, like, since if we’re aiming for 150, based on the fixed contract, and as what you discussed with me just earlier, we should be having, like, around 33 hours a month max.
76 00:09:30.600 ⇒ 00:09:31.270 Rico Rejoso: to be able.
77 00:09:31.270 ⇒ 00:09:31.840 Justin Breshears: Right.
78 00:09:32.110 ⇒ 00:09:35.850 Rico Rejoso: Being within the, within the 5,000.
79 00:09:38.030 ⇒ 00:09:48.030 Justin Breshears: Yep, that’s… I did the quick calculator math on that as well. So, if we’re spending 8 to 12, let’s call it an average of 10 per week, we’re slightly over that, but not too far off.
80 00:09:50.530 ⇒ 00:09:52.569 Justin Breshears: Like… sorry, go ahead.
81 00:09:52.860 ⇒ 00:09:57.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I think for this client, we haven’t had, like, sort of the backstop of, like.
82 00:09:58.350 ⇒ 00:10:06.720 Uttam Kumaran: okay, what do we want to achieve this week? And sort of like, okay, let’s push this off to week 2, let’s push this off into week three.
83 00:10:07.400 ⇒ 00:10:18.470 Uttam Kumaran: kind of the goal, if I can even just speak about what we’re doing for this client. So, we are coming in and automating one part of their workflow. Interlude is a design agency, so they…
84 00:10:18.550 ⇒ 00:10:30.279 Uttam Kumaran: have client intake, and they develop decks and branding materials for startups that are raising money. And so part of their process is intake, so they have interviews and questionnaires, and
85 00:10:30.380 ⇒ 00:10:34.530 Uttam Kumaran: They build a sort of a lo-fi outline of a deck.
86 00:10:34.670 ⇒ 00:10:43.889 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re automating that process with AI. And so, there is a bit of Slack work, there’s a bit of work into Notion, and there’s some, like, logic work.
87 00:10:44.120 ⇒ 00:10:55.550 Uttam Kumaran: So the work is actually pretty clearly scoped now, and Sam and Mustafa have a clear sense of, like, the direction. There is two, sort of, stakeholders here.
88 00:10:55.660 ⇒ 00:11:11.620 Uttam Kumaran: Matthew Good is this… is, like, one of the CEOs of the company, and so he is sort of our, like, he signs the checks, but is also not, like, directly involved in using the automation. Micah…
89 00:11:11.750 ⇒ 00:11:20.139 Uttam Kumaran: who started recently, is actually, like, our core user, and so the requirements are kind of coming from solving Micah’s problem.
90 00:11:20.200 ⇒ 00:11:37.129 Uttam Kumaran: I am meeting with Matthew every Friday. This will actually be the first Friday where we have it on, like, a recurring schedule, so happy to have you there, or change it to the time that works. In that situation… in that Friday meeting, I’m both talking at a high level about our delivery, so kind of doing
91 00:11:37.300 ⇒ 00:11:46.029 Uttam Kumaran: Justin, a little bit of what you mentioned, which is like, okay, here’s what we did this week. And then also, I’m trying to build up a case for,
92 00:11:46.540 ⇒ 00:11:50.129 Uttam Kumaran: A larger scope for next month, because right now we’re just on month to month.
93 00:11:50.310 ⇒ 00:12:03.229 Uttam Kumaran: Well, we’ve been on this plan for about 2 months. What we realized last month is that we just couldn’t get much time with Matthew, because he’s very, very busy and was traveling, and so I told him that, hey, we’re not succeeding because
94 00:12:03.350 ⇒ 00:12:19.610 Uttam Kumaran: of the fact that it’s, like, we’re not technically doing this stuff. The feedback from their team has been so intermittent that we never had enough time to actually build our stuff out. So, we were given access to another member of their team, Micah, who we’re working kind of directly with now.
95 00:12:19.860 ⇒ 00:12:24.529 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s kind of, like, the state of the world from, like, the, you know, the client complex.
96 00:12:26.380 ⇒ 00:12:28.019 Justin Breshears: Yeah, that’s helpful. Appreciate it.
97 00:12:30.350 ⇒ 00:12:36.850 Justin Breshears: Okay, so we have… kind of the clear requirements and implement from, like,
98 00:12:37.010 ⇒ 00:12:39.950 Justin Breshears: I guess the goal will be to try and figure out how we can
99 00:12:40.420 ⇒ 00:12:48.579 Justin Breshears: accomplish those efficiently in slightly less hours to get to that… that margin that we want, but it’s all…
100 00:12:48.810 ⇒ 00:12:50.950 Justin Breshears: Currently laid out here in linear, right?
101 00:12:53.110 ⇒ 00:12:53.890 Justin Breshears: Pretty cool.
102 00:12:53.890 ⇒ 00:12:55.230 Rico Rejoso: Yeah,
103 00:12:55.430 ⇒ 00:13:08.050 Rico Rejoso: Added all here based on the previous meeting as well, on linear and on backlog, so we just need to confirm, usually I confirm with Mustafa in regards to the next, thing that he was working on, so we can align the tickets on that sprint as well.
104 00:13:08.960 ⇒ 00:13:14.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think another thing, to do here is to also work with Sam.
105 00:13:14.330 ⇒ 00:13:25.730 Uttam Kumaran: and think about, like, what the end state is. I think part of, like, the thing we’re seeing when we come into some of these AI clients is just, like, the scope tends to expand, because
106 00:13:25.810 ⇒ 00:13:43.579 Uttam Kumaran: they keep adding new stuff on. So I think it is helpful to understand, like, what is possible, and then use the constraint to then build towards, okay, what is the system gonna look like? Because as the team uses it, they’re gonna start asking for more stuff, and the scope is gonna creep.
107 00:13:43.780 ⇒ 00:13:50.680 Uttam Kumaran: Which is kind of what hap… what happens when you’re just like, what else do you want? But I want to make sure that we have a clear target for the month.
108 00:13:50.870 ⇒ 00:14:02.240 Uttam Kumaran: And then I can continue to pitch Matthew on, like, oh, here’s, like, the backlog of stuff we want to build. So I think that’s the corrective behavior we need here, is, like, to build out the backlog.
109 00:14:02.620 ⇒ 00:14:06.600 Uttam Kumaran: And then to also… so I… that’s what… that’s what I’ll assist with, is, like.
110 00:14:06.700 ⇒ 00:14:24.060 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll talk to… we’re gonna talk to Matthew every Friday, and I’m gonna build that backlog and that rich, you know, set of things that we can tackle, even beyond this work stream. And then similarly, what is our target for the end of the four weeks? And making sure we hit that on the nail, and then we’ll have enough set up to get the renewal, for sure.
111 00:14:25.320 ⇒ 00:14:36.350 Justin Breshears: That’s exactly what I’m trying to, like, come at the angles as I’m getting up to speed on these projects, is, like, not just allowing, like, yes, yes, yes, like, we’ll just take on all this extra work, you know?
112 00:14:36.350 ⇒ 00:14:53.189 Justin Breshears: But trying to be like, okay, like, how can we get done, like, what we committed to in a decent margin, but then look ahead to, like, the next contract, like, okay, this is, like, where we need to be monthly, cost-wise, to pitch them to handle the rest of this.
113 00:14:53.290 ⇒ 00:14:56.840 Justin Breshears: So I’m trying to, like, help reframe these, like.
114 00:14:57.120 ⇒ 00:15:04.100 Justin Breshears: The way we look at these projects, because right now, like we’ve talked about, it’s just everybody saying yes to work.
115 00:15:04.510 ⇒ 00:15:04.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
116 00:15:04.960 ⇒ 00:15:18.849 Justin Breshears: So that’s what I’ve started doing on Insomnia, that’s what I’m trying to get at here. I think your help, Utam, on that, like, the scoping part of, you know, for the next contract will be valuable for now, while I manage, like, just kind of where we’re at right now.
117 00:15:19.660 ⇒ 00:15:29.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, 100%, so I’m gonna… I’ll be able to, on any clients, as long as we have a clear sense of, like, where we’re gonna be this week, I will get you the backline, so don’t worry about that.
118 00:15:29.290 ⇒ 00:15:45.410 Uttam Kumaran: And as, like, I’ll start noting down what those projects are, and then as we feel comfortable with the existing work, we can spend time taking that idea and building it out into tickets, and then ideally doing that before renewal. So that’s… that is, like, I can promise you that. I think…
119 00:15:45.620 ⇒ 00:15:49.570 Uttam Kumaran: what I’m sort of me taking care of is, like, the day-to-day stuff.
120 00:15:50.180 ⇒ 00:16:09.360 Uttam Kumaran: we’re… we’re shipping, and then also being able to… when we deliver for a client, like, the stuff on a weekly basis, anything… stuff they ask to make a jurisdiction on, like, okay, is this stuff that we already agreed on, or is this… is this out of scope? And then to just toss it back, and then we’ll compile that all into the case for the next contract.
121 00:16:09.560 ⇒ 00:16:25.920 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. The renewal this time happened mainly because I felt like we didn’t have enough shots on goal with the sprint system we built, because Matthew and the team just weren’t as available. Partly, I felt like it was a little bit on us, because we didn’t set, like, we tried to… we were…
122 00:16:25.990 ⇒ 00:16:31.870 Uttam Kumaran: we came in to accomplish this, and we did it. Instead, we were like, well, we got pretty close, but we didn’t get time with you, and so…
123 00:16:32.010 ⇒ 00:16:36.450 Uttam Kumaran: In the middle, I think this… this… the overall, though, I think…
124 00:16:36.560 ⇒ 00:16:49.869 Uttam Kumaran: you… you’re gonna be able to achieve your margin on this project. I think a lot of the scope that we took on can be pushed. I think it’s… that’s gonna be the forcing function that you’re gonna tell Sam and Mustafa that’s like, we only have this amount of time, so…
125 00:16:50.020 ⇒ 00:16:54.369 Uttam Kumaran: Any nice-to-have feature cannot, like, has to get pushed off.
126 00:16:54.670 ⇒ 00:17:00.479 Uttam Kumaran: Because we have a budget of time. And I’m gonna use that to then sell the next contract, you know?
127 00:17:02.430 ⇒ 00:17:13.540 Justin Breshears: For sure. Cool. Well, then that’s my commitment on that to, monitor and report to you on, you know, like, what’s coming in and what’s… what’s feasible to do, and then, like, work with you then on…
128 00:17:13.640 ⇒ 00:17:16.780 Justin Breshears: What needs to go in the current sprint, what needs to get pushed.
129 00:17:17.440 ⇒ 00:17:20.579 Justin Breshears: Okay. I will… I’ll start monitoring that. Cool.
130 00:17:20.790 ⇒ 00:17:32.019 Justin Breshears: What is the current cadence that y’all have, both internally with the team? Do you, run stand-ups and check in, or what’s the current cadence there?
131 00:17:33.360 ⇒ 00:17:34.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Rico, go ahead.
132 00:17:34.390 ⇒ 00:17:35.790 Rico Rejoso: Yes.
133 00:17:36.720 ⇒ 00:17:47.400 Rico Rejoso: I mean, we do, stand-up during, Tuesday and Thursday. We do planning on Friday, Mustafa and I do, planning, during Friday for Interlude.
134 00:17:47.720 ⇒ 00:17:58.159 Rico Rejoso: For grooming, we also insert that during the planning session, since we don’t have much to look at as well. So this is the first grooming session that we’ll be having after this meeting, which…
135 00:17:58.270 ⇒ 00:18:00.950 Rico Rejoso: entails interview and report as well.
136 00:18:05.170 ⇒ 00:18:05.780 Justin Breshears: Okay.
137 00:18:05.900 ⇒ 00:18:15.320 Justin Breshears: Can you make sure that I’m invited to all the current cadence, and then, you know, I can take a look at, like, calendars and make sure that it lines up for starting next week?
138 00:18:15.740 ⇒ 00:18:24.760 Justin Breshears: Sure. And adjust where I need it. Yeah, get me on the case, and then you have the meeting with Interlude on Friday, Zutam.
139 00:18:24.950 ⇒ 00:18:29.760 Justin Breshears: what… What kind of other external cadences do we have?
140 00:18:30.080 ⇒ 00:18:36.299 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the… so, yeah, so I have that Friday meeting. Right now, it’s just scheduled at noon, Central.
141 00:18:36.480 ⇒ 00:18:45.359 Uttam Kumaran: Matthew’s pretty flexible, so I can move it to any time on Friday. And I know Sam and Mustafa are meeting directly with Micah.
142 00:18:45.470 ⇒ 00:18:52.669 Uttam Kumaran: like, I don’t know whether that is, a fixed weekly meeting, or that’s ad hoc. It’s a good question for them.
143 00:18:54.830 ⇒ 00:19:00.040 Uttam Kumaran: But I think those two would be important. Like, I think Matthew can be optional at the meeting with Micah.
144 00:19:00.290 ⇒ 00:19:10.259 Uttam Kumaran: But certainly, I want to make sure we get FaceTime with Matthew once a week on Friday, both for the purpose of, like, hey, here’s what… we’re seeing great feedback from
145 00:19:10.630 ⇒ 00:19:14.260 Uttam Kumaran: Micah, we’re hitting our targets, and then…
146 00:19:14.600 ⇒ 00:19:25.920 Uttam Kumaran: part of what I pitched him on is also, like, he, as the founder of his company, is even having trouble, like, understanding where the opportunities for AI is. So, for me, it’s basically doing, like.
147 00:19:26.010 ⇒ 00:19:41.750 Uttam Kumaran: a backlog-building session with them. So it’s a great opportunity for us to be like, what we’re doing for you currently rocks, let’s talk about more stuff. And so that’s kind of, like, what Friday is going to be, which is, like, maybe a short demo, and then mostly discussion about, like, what other opportunities.
148 00:19:42.110 ⇒ 00:19:46.419 Justin Breshears: Yeah, beautiful. And that’s stuff that we should be doing on every project with our clients, like…
149 00:19:46.590 ⇒ 00:19:49.250 Justin Breshears: Talking yes about that. Oh, so funny.
150 00:19:49.560 ⇒ 00:19:54.230 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly, because the AI stuff, too, is so new that…
151 00:19:54.360 ⇒ 00:20:01.510 Uttam Kumaran: sometimes we… it’s hard to get enough scope without coming in and doing some discovery as part of the SAL.
152 00:20:01.690 ⇒ 00:20:17.409 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s the challenge, but you’re right, like, again, I think for Robert and I to go spend time saying, like, hey, we’re crushing it, like, what else can we do for you? We can go do, like, we’re good at that, we can go do that, and that’s, like, that’s the layup, you know, that’s the alley.
153 00:20:18.360 ⇒ 00:20:19.070 Justin Breshears: For sure.
154 00:20:20.450 ⇒ 00:20:26.180 Justin Breshears: Okay, do you have any kind of cadences with default, then, with the client that we won’t be in on?
155 00:20:26.360 ⇒ 00:20:44.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so let’s talk about… let’s talk a little bit about default. So, this is a client… I’ll give you a little bit of the business background. So, Caitlin Vaughn is, kind of, like, a little bit all over the place. She’s… she’s one of their key employees. She’s not, like, leadership, but she’s, like, one rung below, so she helps them, like.
156 00:20:44.170 ⇒ 00:20:47.210 Uttam Kumaran: Product, she’s helping on go-to-market,
157 00:20:47.400 ⇒ 00:20:52.160 Uttam Kumaran: And so, default is an inbound, lead.
158 00:20:52.160 ⇒ 00:21:08.930 Uttam Kumaran: router. So, if you think about Brainforge, our website, people come on the website and they want to book a call, or they download a form. All of that information, as soon as they hit, like, I want to talk to somebody, has to get routed. So in our case, it’s only two salespeople, and we’re not, like, high volume, but imagine
159 00:21:09.000 ⇒ 00:21:19.679 Uttam Kumaran: folks that are getting 30, 40, 50 leads in a day, you need to route them to the appropriate salesperson with their right enrichment. So, it is an inbound routing workflow form school.
160 00:21:19.730 ⇒ 00:21:32.860 Uttam Kumaran: They just raised a bunch of money recently. Caitlin’s actually a good friend of mine from Austin. I’ve known her… I’ve known her since I kind of started Brainforge, actually, and she was running a similar business, and then Deepaw was one of her clients, and then…
161 00:21:32.860 ⇒ 00:21:43.389 Uttam Kumaran: She ended up going to work for them full-time. So she… they brought us on just a few months ago, and they have done… they were kind of in a spot where, one, they have no measurement of their product.
162 00:21:43.750 ⇒ 00:21:48.389 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, like, they have rough understanding of, like, how many customers they have, and, like.
163 00:21:49.070 ⇒ 00:22:05.500 Uttam Kumaran: who the biggest ones are, but no key product analytics. So, like, what buttons are getting pressed, what parts of the product are getting used or not used, who are their top customers, what is the activity of their customers, what is a funnel through the product, so they have very low visibility into their product.
164 00:22:05.540 ⇒ 00:22:25.389 Uttam Kumaran: Second thing is, they also wanted our help on the AI side to help them go to… help their go-to-market. So, work stream number two is working with their revenue operations team on helping them enrich their own leads, right? People that want to, by default, helping them enrich and triage those.
165 00:22:25.440 ⇒ 00:22:42.220 Uttam Kumaran: And so it’s a little… so those are kind of, like, the two primary work streams that we’re conducting right now. In addition, I am also available as a data solutions architect for their, back-end team. So I did some meetings initially in the contract.
166 00:22:42.270 ⇒ 00:22:56.239 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve… we kind of gave them a bunch of strategic advice, now I’m not sort of doing much on that work stream, but I’m available in case they just need help. But again, that’s… that’s more just, like, ad hoc my time. This is a pure hourly contract right now.
167 00:22:56.530 ⇒ 00:23:01.460 Uttam Kumaran: I am discussing with them on what the next phase is gonna be.
168 00:23:01.620 ⇒ 00:23:06.769 Uttam Kumaran: Very nicely, this is a 250 an hour client, which is great.
169 00:23:06.890 ⇒ 00:23:12.450 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m… I’m assuming that they’re gonna want to move to something more fixed.
170 00:23:12.670 ⇒ 00:23:20.580 Uttam Kumaran: But we’ll see. Like, I’m not exactly sure. I’m not gonna raise my hand to sign up for that, unless they’re, like, really adamant about that, but…
171 00:23:20.710 ⇒ 00:23:24.539 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like this… this one, you know, we have some margin on.
172 00:23:24.900 ⇒ 00:23:38.250 Uttam Kumaran: kind of… there’s… there’s kind of, like, let’s just talk about the two work streams that are product analytics, and product reporting, and then let’s talk about go-to-market and AI enrichment. So for the product analytics, on our side, Henry is involved.
173 00:23:39.940 ⇒ 00:23:57.299 Uttam Kumaran: And, Mustafa, is involved. So Henry is handling the setup of Amplitude. Amplitude is a, like, product analytics software that we… you might have heard Amplitude a couple times now. We do Amplitude for default, we do it for Ellie, we’ve done it for a bunch of other clients.
174 00:23:57.370 ⇒ 00:24:11.160 Uttam Kumaran: Where you just set up product events. So, like, when someone clicks on something, it fires an event, and you can use Amplitude to measure that. So, Henry is a subject matter expert in product analytics and in Amplitude, so he’s the core engineer there.
175 00:24:11.210 ⇒ 00:24:14.669 Uttam Kumaran: We have one, sort of, counterpart engineer
176 00:24:14.710 ⇒ 00:24:32.210 Uttam Kumaran: called… named Deshaal on their team, but he may be switching, so there’s a little bit of figuring out right now. Caitlin mentioned that he may be moving off of, like, our… our initiatives, so I’ll have to decide that. So Henry works directly with him, and Caitlin is our stakeholder for the product analytics room.
177 00:24:32.300 ⇒ 00:24:40.899 Uttam Kumaran: So what she’s looking for is, she’s provided Henry with almost a list of 20 or 30 questions she has about the product, and Henry is sort of systematically working
178 00:24:41.060 ⇒ 00:24:53.300 Uttam Kumaran: through those. Henry can provide you with a spreadsheet that he’s using to sort of track, and then ideally, those should all reflect as tickets in linear. I’m not sure yet.
179 00:24:53.380 ⇒ 00:25:04.549 Uttam Kumaran: Henry is really, really communicative, can walk you through that whole process, like, I think you’ll… and feel free to hit him with any questions, about amplitude and sort of, like, what the goal is there.
180 00:25:04.690 ⇒ 00:25:07.350 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe I’ll pause there about that work stream.
181 00:25:07.470 ⇒ 00:25:11.500 Uttam Kumaran: does that make sense? About the product analytics side?
182 00:25:12.320 ⇒ 00:25:19.529 Justin Breshears: Yeah, and it’s super helpful, if I can get, you know, that spreadsheet from Henry, then I can just cross-reference and make sure we’re tracking in here.
183 00:25:20.650 ⇒ 00:25:21.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.
184 00:25:22.570 ⇒ 00:25:23.689 Justin Breshears: I’ll follow up with him.
185 00:25:24.280 ⇒ 00:25:31.259 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, cool. So that’s on the product analytics side, and then we have, the,
186 00:25:31.810 ⇒ 00:25:39.450 Uttam Kumaran: the go-to-market AI side. So Mustafa is actually working on this side. So this is using a tool called Clay.
187 00:25:39.560 ⇒ 00:25:45.329 Uttam Kumaran: Clay is a… is a customer enrichment workflow automation tool.
188 00:25:45.390 ⇒ 00:26:01.249 Uttam Kumaran: there are a thousand of these, Clay is just one of the big ones, but you’re gonna hear workflow automation, like, a thousand times in this company. But, yeah, so we use Clay for, helping them with a range of things. Primarily, what we do for them is
189 00:26:01.310 ⇒ 00:26:19.270 Uttam Kumaran: they have a list of about, like, they have thousands and thousands of leads, and they want help enriching and triaging and identifying which leads have the highest propensity to converse, and also they have various types of customers, and so we’re building them sort of like a signals-based platform where they can
190 00:26:19.300 ⇒ 00:26:39.169 Uttam Kumaran: Understand, like, based on firmographic signals, like the employee counts, the sales team counts, whether they raised money recently, where they’re located, whether they’re remote or not, like, they can put these… they add… they figure out these properties of these leads, and then they can basically filter them and assign them to their sales team to go attack.
191 00:26:39.330 ⇒ 00:26:56.040 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’re building those, like, signal, you know, part of that, where we have helped them build and find the different sources of information, attaching it to those leads in their CRM, which is HubSpot, and then making it available for their sales team to report on.
192 00:26:56.850 ⇒ 00:26:59.579 Uttam Kumaran: This is a little bit of, like, a new…
193 00:26:59.710 ⇒ 00:27:06.619 Uttam Kumaran: area of the world, so we’ll take a little bit of, like, understanding, but, like, again, I don’t… I think, like, they’re still dealing with, like.
194 00:27:06.770 ⇒ 00:27:13.669 Uttam Kumaran: Roughly, they have way too many leads, they want to understand, like, who do they hit first, and, like, in what way should they hit them? Like.
195 00:27:13.850 ⇒ 00:27:18.550 Uttam Kumaran: For example, if you go after, like, a, a company like
196 00:27:18.850 ⇒ 00:27:33.999 Uttam Kumaran: like, let’s say you go up for a company like Brainforge, we have two salespeople, and both of them are running the company. They’re not a good fit for default, because we probably wouldn’t pay as much, and it’s not… it’s not… they… they’d rather us just go through self-service versus signing us a salesperson.
197 00:27:34.070 ⇒ 00:27:50.499 Uttam Kumaran: You also may have a company like, let’s say Gusto, right? It’s a big HR platform. Gusto is, like, would actually need, like, a lot of sales help, because they’re an enterprise customer, there’s probably a lot of compliance to go through, there’s probably a big roadshow they have to do, so…
198 00:27:50.610 ⇒ 00:27:57.250 Uttam Kumaran: they want to identify what type of pester we are, and then basically decide on what the activities are related to.
199 00:27:57.370 ⇒ 00:28:08.109 Uttam Kumaran: So on this work stream, Ryan, I forget Ryan, I forgot his last name, starts with a D, he is our core stakeholder,
200 00:28:08.340 ⇒ 00:28:24.939 Uttam Kumaran: And the other person that we work directly with, which, who reports to Ryan, is this guy named Lev. And so Lev is sort of, like, our counterpart, meaning, like, we’re kind of working directly with him in Slack every day, and then we present to Ryan typically once a week.
201 00:28:25.450 ⇒ 00:28:27.850 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s been the cadence, and is that, like.
202 00:28:28.050 ⇒ 00:28:42.860 Uttam Kumaran: we… I didn’t… we didn’t know before, like, who the… who the core people were gonna be, and so now, it’s, like, Lev and Caitlin are, like, kind of the core stakeholders we’re building towards. Those are people… those are people we want to build a good relationship with, except neither of them actually signed the checks.
203 00:28:42.880 ⇒ 00:28:50.829 Uttam Kumaran: Victor, who’s our CTO, signs the check. And so I have the relationship with Victor, but because they’re a small startup.
204 00:28:50.910 ⇒ 00:28:53.220 Uttam Kumaran: Victor doesn’t have much context.
205 00:28:53.380 ⇒ 00:29:09.099 Uttam Kumaran: Around exactly, like, what’s going on. So, the risk in this client is exactly what you probably know I’m gonna say, is that we could have solved the problem for these guys, but if Victor never hears about it, or never sees it, in fact, him, he’s gonna be like, well, I don’t know what we’re paying for.
206 00:29:09.250 ⇒ 00:29:10.609 Uttam Kumaran: And so my job…
207 00:29:10.610 ⇒ 00:29:11.210 Justin Breshears: abilities.
208 00:29:11.210 ⇒ 00:29:14.669 Uttam Kumaran: To go spend time, yeah, to go find time
209 00:29:14.940 ⇒ 00:29:17.450 Uttam Kumaran: every couple weeks, or every week with Victor.
210 00:29:17.740 ⇒ 00:29:30.480 Uttam Kumaran: And for me to have artifacts in my hand where I can go say, hey, Victor, this is what we ship, Caitlin loves it, Ryan loves it, Leh loves it, what else you got going on inside the company, right? So that’s…
211 00:29:30.850 ⇒ 00:29:42.020 Uttam Kumaran: that is not happening right now. I am calling Victor after, like, not speaking with him for, like, 2 weeks, but we Slack back and forth here and there, but I haven’t had, like, a formal, sort of.
212 00:29:42.260 ⇒ 00:29:44.550 Uttam Kumaran: Thing with him in a minute.
213 00:29:45.730 ⇒ 00:29:46.580 Justin Breshears: Okay.
214 00:29:47.170 ⇒ 00:29:51.079 Justin Breshears: Yeah, that’s key. You gotta make sure the guy who pays the money is happy.
215 00:29:51.080 ⇒ 00:30:08.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. Although, like, I’ve asked them, you know, since your last message, I asked them very… I asked Caitlin, because all of them, they’re actually… they’re very, very busy, and part of the reason we don’t work with a lot of startups, because it’s sometimes hard to get folks on the phone, but they… our work has been very, very well received.
216 00:30:08.710 ⇒ 00:30:13.590 Uttam Kumaran: So, I know we’re not, like, on the chopping block, or there’s not, like, Immediate, like, risk.
217 00:30:13.790 ⇒ 00:30:28.780 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s something that, like, I would want… I want to know, like, 100%, versus, hey, how are we doing, to, like, Caitlin, you know? So, we still need to ask Caitlin and Ryan that, but I want to also go straight to the horse’s mouth and ask, yeah.
218 00:30:29.640 ⇒ 00:30:33.820 Justin Breshears: For sure, and that’s why I want to also set up, like, a formalized status report.
219 00:30:34.010 ⇒ 00:30:41.799 Justin Breshears: That can be sent out to, like, everybody, because, those, those type of victors in… in our project world.
220 00:30:41.910 ⇒ 00:30:50.100 Justin Breshears: They’re the ones that, you know, they’ll digest that format and kind of stay up to date that way, and then it’s coming directly from
221 00:30:50.440 ⇒ 00:30:58.929 Justin Breshears: you can’t really… you can’t really count on their teams, like, saying everything that’s going on to their uppers. I’ve seen that way too many times.
222 00:30:58.930 ⇒ 00:31:04.859 Uttam Kumaran: Correct, correct. And sometimes, like, we don’t get the benefit of the doubt, you know, we’re not in the room, so…
223 00:31:04.860 ⇒ 00:31:08.010 Justin Breshears: Right, you don’t know how they’re framing what we’re doing, too, and…
224 00:31:08.010 ⇒ 00:31:08.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
225 00:31:08.400 ⇒ 00:31:12.949 Justin Breshears: If their job security’s on the line, the first thing they’re gonna do is throw the contractor under.
226 00:31:12.950 ⇒ 00:31:15.859 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s throw us. Exactly, exactly.
227 00:31:17.160 ⇒ 00:31:17.790 Justin Breshears: Okay.
228 00:31:18.020 ⇒ 00:31:20.600 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. So I have to jump to… I have to…
229 00:31:20.600 ⇒ 00:31:21.070 Justin Breshears: Yeah.
230 00:31:21.070 ⇒ 00:31:22.520 Uttam Kumaran: a sales meeting?
231 00:31:22.740 ⇒ 00:31:30.079 Uttam Kumaran: Can I… can you… any follow-up questions, I… if you want to hit me in Slack, or I can call you right after this ends, it’s about 30 minutes.
232 00:31:30.680 ⇒ 00:31:44.040 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I’m gonna… I’m gonna type up some stuff in Slack, maybe Rico can fill in for me, just, like, project specifics or whatever, and we can follow up there. But yeah, Utom, I do want to chat with you, later when you have time.
233 00:31:44.040 ⇒ 00:31:44.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
234 00:31:44.430 ⇒ 00:31:46.400 Justin Breshears: Yeah, let me know… let me know when you’re free.
235 00:31:46.990 ⇒ 00:31:47.800 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, perfect.
236 00:31:47.800 ⇒ 00:31:50.609 Justin Breshears: On an unrelated topic. Okay.
237 00:31:50.610 ⇒ 00:31:52.099 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
238 00:31:52.790 ⇒ 00:31:54.110 Justin Breshears: Cool. Thank you.
239 00:31:54.110 ⇒ 00:31:54.939 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, guys.
240 00:31:54.940 ⇒ 00:31:55.690 Rico Rejoso: Thank you.
241 00:31:56.200 ⇒ 00:31:56.780 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.