Meeting Title: ABC Project Strategy Sync Date: 2026-01-08 Meeting participants: Clarence Stone, Henry Zhao, Robert Tseng, Amber Lin, Elizah Joy, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:49.630 ⇒ 00:00:51.099 Henry Zhao: Hi, Clarence, how are you?
2 00:00:51.730 ⇒ 00:00:53.010 Clarence Stone: Hey, what’s up?
3 00:00:53.120 ⇒ 00:01:02.269 Clarence Stone: I am… man, I’m so busy, I can’t believe it’s only just the first week of January. Yep.
4 00:01:02.270 ⇒ 00:01:04.660 Henry Zhao: Yup, definitely like that.
5 00:01:05.810 ⇒ 00:01:08.160 Clarence Stone: How about you, Henry? How’s everything going?
6 00:01:08.160 ⇒ 00:01:09.879 Henry Zhao: Good, thank you so much.
7 00:01:12.090 ⇒ 00:01:13.890 Clarence Stone: How are the projects?
8 00:01:14.480 ⇒ 00:01:15.869 Henry Zhao: Good, much better now.
9 00:01:15.870 ⇒ 00:01:18.390 Clarence Stone: Nice. Did you do anything cool over the break?
10 00:01:19.190 ⇒ 00:01:21.399 Henry Zhao: No, just relaxed, which I really needed, so…
11 00:01:21.700 ⇒ 00:01:22.440 Clarence Stone: Nice.
12 00:01:24.370 ⇒ 00:01:25.889 Henry Zhao: What about you?
13 00:01:25.890 ⇒ 00:01:31.159 Clarence Stone: horrify you, by the way. It is, like, it is actually cold here today in Texas.
14 00:01:31.430 ⇒ 00:01:32.740 Henry Zhao: Oh, oh, really?
15 00:01:32.740 ⇒ 00:01:38.960 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and it’s been, like, super weird. Like, yesterday it was foggy.
16 00:01:39.400 ⇒ 00:01:41.240 Clarence Stone: For, like, half of the day.
17 00:01:42.650 ⇒ 00:01:43.500 Henry Zhao: Oh, okay.
18 00:01:43.860 ⇒ 00:01:45.649 Henry Zhao: You’re in your Austin, right? Yeah.
19 00:01:45.900 ⇒ 00:01:46.650 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
20 00:02:00.010 ⇒ 00:02:00.820 Henry Zhao: Hey, Robert.
21 00:02:01.440 ⇒ 00:02:02.199 Robert Tseng: Hey, guys.
22 00:02:03.370 ⇒ 00:02:13.229 Robert Tseng: Terrence, I, I like, I mean, I love seeing you on our, on our calls. I just, like, I, I feel like you’re, you’re spending more time with us, which is.
23 00:02:13.230 ⇒ 00:02:14.170 Clarence Stone: Yes.
24 00:02:15.680 ⇒ 00:02:16.260 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
25 00:02:17.000 ⇒ 00:02:19.940 Robert Tseng: I have to ask… I have to ask the question, though.
26 00:02:19.940 ⇒ 00:02:20.340 Clarence Stone: Okay.
27 00:02:20.340 ⇒ 00:02:22.720 Robert Tseng: I’m curious, your last name, like…
28 00:02:23.010 ⇒ 00:02:23.979 Clarence Stone: Oh. Are you…
29 00:02:23.980 ⇒ 00:02:26.769 Robert Tseng: How… how did you get a last name like that?
30 00:02:27.010 ⇒ 00:02:29.530 Clarence Stone: Direct translation. Sure.
31 00:02:30.250 ⇒ 00:02:30.990 Robert Tseng: Oh.
32 00:02:31.460 ⇒ 00:02:32.210 Robert Tseng: Do you speak Chinese?
33 00:02:32.860 ⇒ 00:02:34.289 Clarence Stone: Not really.
34 00:02:34.290 ⇒ 00:02:34.970 Henry Zhao: Oh.
35 00:02:34.970 ⇒ 00:02:37.800 Clarence Stone: I need more Burgys.
36 00:02:38.310 ⇒ 00:02:43.310 Clarence Stone: Okay. Wow. My sisters speak really great Chinese.
37 00:02:43.310 ⇒ 00:02:47.790 Robert Tseng: Wow. Okay, well, you happen to be on the call with the only Chinese speakers on.
38 00:02:47.790 ⇒ 00:02:49.139 Clarence Stone: Of course, but…
39 00:02:49.330 ⇒ 00:02:53.010 Henry Zhao: Now we know Chinese are the most, punctual and brain torch.
40 00:02:54.610 ⇒ 00:02:56.000 Robert Tseng: That is so cool.
41 00:02:56.000 ⇒ 00:03:04.040 Clarence Stone: Tell me anything secret, I will probably understand it, I just won’t be able to respond to you. I see. Wow.
42 00:03:05.550 ⇒ 00:03:13.440 Robert Tseng: Because I know a lot of, yeah, people with the SHI, like, last name, like, she or whatever, it’s pretty common, but, I mean, Stone is, like.
43 00:03:13.550 ⇒ 00:03:15.459 Robert Tseng: That’s… that’s cooler.
44 00:03:16.270 ⇒ 00:03:21.730 Robert Tseng: I almost thought maybe you were adopted by Native Americans or something, because they tend.
45 00:03:21.730 ⇒ 00:03:28.589 Clarence Stone: Any benefit to my life, because sometimes I play the I’ve Been Adopted card, and it worked really well in the army.
46 00:03:28.590 ⇒ 00:03:33.149 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s, that’s sick. I like that.
47 00:03:41.720 ⇒ 00:04:01.480 Robert Tseng: I mean, this’ll probably be pretty quick. I mean, if Utom and them are not joining, we’ll kind of just jump around. Once again, like, the strategy piece is still kind of picking up, so maybe, I mean, on this call, Amber would talk about ABC. Are you, EP on anything else, Amber?
48 00:04:02.630 ⇒ 00:04:08.260 Amber Lin: Right now, just ABC, but when Honey Sting Our Stars, I’ll do that as well.
49 00:04:08.610 ⇒ 00:04:09.690 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool.
50 00:04:09.860 ⇒ 00:04:14.550 Robert Tseng: I’m going to go back to… R.
51 00:04:15.810 ⇒ 00:04:22.140 Robert Tseng: Sure. All right. Well, unless other people show up, I think what we’ll do then is we’ll just go through
52 00:04:22.330 ⇒ 00:04:39.450 Robert Tseng: the ABC piece, just because, like, I can also speak to some of the updates that are moving around there. And then… yeah, I guess, like, even though we have the Eden stand up, Henry, maybe we could just spend some time going over the doc that you had shared. So, I think we can kind of break from…
53 00:04:39.570 ⇒ 00:04:43.040 Robert Tseng: From the… Okay. Usual in that, in that sense.
54 00:04:43.910 ⇒ 00:04:47.949 Robert Tseng: Okay, so, yeah, you wanna… kind of…
55 00:04:48.140 ⇒ 00:04:55.440 Robert Tseng: I mean, I honestly haven’t been keeping up with the linear for ABC, because it just is kind of crazy, like, unlike other clients, there’s just so many…
56 00:04:55.440 ⇒ 00:04:57.250 Amber Lin: Yeah.
57 00:04:57.250 ⇒ 00:05:01.979 Robert Tseng: it’s related to Andy, but, like, I don’t really know if your team is still using it.
58 00:05:02.700 ⇒ 00:05:19.139 Amber Lin: Yeah, we just made a Gantt for Andy, so Sam will use that later, but I think what we’ll do for the discovery work is once we clean the Notion doc up a little bit more, we’ll create a Gantt and then clean up the linear.
59 00:05:19.420 ⇒ 00:05:27.459 Amber Lin: But I can speak to what I’ve been doing, and I know Zoan has started looking at the data, so…
60 00:05:27.950 ⇒ 00:05:33.250 Amber Lin: I guess today, I mainly looked at… so, very basic question, how is revenue…
61 00:05:33.600 ⇒ 00:05:40.840 Amber Lin: distributed across services, across branches. So I have that analysis done.
62 00:05:41.270 ⇒ 00:05:52.129 Amber Lin: And today, I’ll be looking at where’s the growth coming from, where’s the shrinkage coming from, because I can use the same service sales data.
63 00:05:52.480 ⇒ 00:06:01.609 Amber Lin: to answer that. I think Zora would be able to look at the marketing channels,
64 00:06:01.810 ⇒ 00:06:10.759 Amber Lin: the ROAS, which channel drives the most traffic, to answer those basic questions, I think is what we’re trying to do this week.
65 00:06:11.210 ⇒ 00:06:12.080 Amber Lin: Yeah.
66 00:06:12.080 ⇒ 00:06:15.039 Robert Tseng: pull up that doc that Utam shared yesterday? Yeah, I can.
67 00:06:15.040 ⇒ 00:06:20.209 Amber Lin: see it. I can send it to you. I’ll send it in the…
68 00:06:23.490 ⇒ 00:06:24.380 Amber Lin: Cool.
69 00:06:27.600 ⇒ 00:06:33.620 Robert Tseng: We also just have, like, 3 ABC folders in Google Drive, so, like, I don’t really know. Yeah.
70 00:06:33.620 ⇒ 00:06:34.330 Amber Lin: Yeah.
71 00:06:35.200 ⇒ 00:06:38.429 Amber Lin: Yeah, I sent it to you on Slack DMs.
72 00:06:38.890 ⇒ 00:06:39.530 Robert Tseng: Okay.
73 00:06:42.210 ⇒ 00:06:46.899 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, it’s in an ocean, I see. Okay, I was looking in the wrong place.
74 00:06:47.260 ⇒ 00:06:51.350 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, okay, sure. Yeah, so…
75 00:06:53.320 ⇒ 00:06:56.409 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Sorry, you can keep going, I just wanted to follow along.
76 00:06:56.840 ⇒ 00:07:01.519 Amber Lin: Yeah, and hopefully today, if I can…
77 00:07:02.210 ⇒ 00:07:15.430 Amber Lin: So, if we answer these basic questions, hopefully at the end we can tell them why they’re not growing in a growing industry, because that’s something they’ve been wondering about, and I think that’s on their top of mind.
78 00:07:15.720 ⇒ 00:07:17.099 Amber Lin: Yeah, well.
79 00:07:17.100 ⇒ 00:07:20.859 Robert Tseng: What do you find about the distribution of revenue across services?
80 00:07:21.250 ⇒ 00:07:22.070 Amber Lin: So…
81 00:07:22.830 ⇒ 00:07:35.070 Amber Lin: So, distribution across services, first thing is that some… so services like HVAC is also very high, it’s almost as high as residential pests, which is their main service.
82 00:07:35.070 ⇒ 00:07:51.979 Amber Lin: Especially in Austin, they’re… they contribute about the same amount of revenue, so I don’t know if they know that, because it seems… sounds like they’ve never looked at distribution of their services, ever. So if they never looked at it, then this gives them some direction of,
83 00:07:51.980 ⇒ 00:07:56.680 Amber Lin: What might be more in demand and what they have not been focusing on.
84 00:07:56.710 ⇒ 00:08:12.230 Amber Lin: Yeah. And I think the second finding is that, in especially smaller branches, the top services are slightly different than Austin, though in… so in the very small branches, like Waco or Rio Grande.
85 00:08:12.390 ⇒ 00:08:31.280 Amber Lin: They’re a lot smaller, but, commercial is very big in those two branches. Commercial took up 50% in Waco. So, I was thinking that this is likely because there’s more commercial competitors in Austin, because all their commercial is from organic growth. So…
86 00:08:31.470 ⇒ 00:08:38.220 Amber Lin: Maybe that could tell us what, what they should be cautious of when,
87 00:08:38.539 ⇒ 00:08:55.819 Amber Lin: putting more advertising into commercial, because I know they… they would like to, tap that market, but they just haven’t been able to systematically do that, so that could give us some strategy to advise them on, hey, if this is the market you want to go into, what can you do?
88 00:08:57.090 ⇒ 00:08:58.600 Amber Lin: Yeah.
89 00:08:59.000 ⇒ 00:09:02.500 Robert Tseng: Okay, so you’re seeing everything on the revenue perspective?
90 00:09:03.110 ⇒ 00:09:09.410 Robert Tseng: Because you have the finance data, and then, what, Zoran is only looking at GA. How is he… how’s he gonna find marketing spend and all that? That’s…
91 00:09:09.410 ⇒ 00:09:14.179 Amber Lin: No, we have marketing budget, so we have a follow for that. Oh, you have that. Okay.
92 00:09:15.680 ⇒ 00:09:22.279 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. I mean, yeah, I think these are the basic questions to ask. Yeah, I think there are some things that we’re bringing in
93 00:09:22.400 ⇒ 00:09:33.750 Robert Tseng: So, like, actually, if you guys… I think we’re trying to, bring Cutter on, onto, onto this… onto this to help with the… with the discovery here, because I think he…
94 00:09:33.750 ⇒ 00:09:35.380 Amber Lin: What? Whoa.
95 00:09:35.530 ⇒ 00:09:36.210 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
96 00:09:37.220 ⇒ 00:09:38.810 Amber Lin: I don’t want to eat it?
97 00:09:38.810 ⇒ 00:09:41.740 Henry Zhao: Yeah, I caught her from Eden, yeah. Yeah, we were all shocked, like…
98 00:09:41.740 ⇒ 00:09:42.870 Amber Lin: What?
99 00:09:43.170 ⇒ 00:09:45.110 Amber Lin: I thought he… Eated.
100 00:09:45.300 ⇒ 00:09:49.740 Robert Tseng: Oh, no, he left, so, yeah, time to get him. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay.
101 00:09:49.740 ⇒ 00:09:50.750 Amber Lin: Cool.
102 00:09:50.750 ⇒ 00:10:06.389 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I mean, I think our team likes working with him, and he likes working with us, so, like, it should… it should be good. But, I mean, I don’t know, we’ll see. I’m just saying, that might be another kind of person that gets introduced probably in the next… we’ll see how fast it moves. But yeah, I think…
103 00:10:06.460 ⇒ 00:10:13.380 Robert Tseng: Just, like, on marketing strategy and, like, kind of just carving out a piece there. I think he’ll probably be able to help with that.
104 00:10:14.070 ⇒ 00:10:14.760 Amber Lin: Cool.
105 00:10:15.340 ⇒ 00:10:15.910 Robert Tseng: Okay.
106 00:10:16.470 ⇒ 00:10:20.210 Robert Tseng: And then… Yeah…
107 00:10:20.520 ⇒ 00:10:37.250 Robert Tseng: Alright, so that’s… makes sense. So, yeah, I mean, externally, like, what are we… what are we doing? Like, I don’t… I don’t… I’m not… I guess I’m not really in the… in the regular calls with them, but, like, yeah, are we waiting for any more access to things? Like, anything that we should be…
108 00:10:37.760 ⇒ 00:10:41.999 Robert Tseng: pushing the CSO on, which… Tom, like, I would just send that feedback to him.
109 00:10:42.350 ⇒ 00:10:49.170 Amber Lin: It sounds like we got most of it. We have Evolve and Dream, so…
110 00:10:49.180 ⇒ 00:11:07.240 Amber Lin: not exactly sure what we’re still missing. We do have a call with the clients today. Even though it’s about Andy, we probably would still talk a little bit about Discovery, and once we have just a little bit more insights, we’re gonna make, like, a interim deck, and then…
111 00:11:07.240 ⇒ 00:11:09.809 Amber Lin: Try to get them on a call.
112 00:11:10.300 ⇒ 00:11:14.979 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. I think I’ll be more helpful once we’re actually reviewing the analysis.
113 00:11:14.980 ⇒ 00:11:15.620 Amber Lin: Yeah.
114 00:11:16.360 ⇒ 00:11:16.940 Robert Tseng: Okay.
115 00:11:17.450 ⇒ 00:11:30.199 Robert Tseng: Cool. Utam just joined, I’m just, we just ran through the ABC update. She just kinda shared about what, her and Zoran have been working on, and then, I guess you guys have a touchpoint with them today, so, nothing…
116 00:11:31.310 ⇒ 00:11:36.600 Robert Tseng: Okay, I think that’s… that’s kind of… that’s, like, the summary of what… what we discussed there.
117 00:11:40.440 ⇒ 00:11:41.100 Robert Tseng: Right.
118 00:11:45.640 ⇒ 00:11:54.680 Robert Tseng: Right. I’m assuming he heard that. If not, it’s fine. Yeah, I think other than that, other strategy that we could kind of talk about first…
119 00:11:55.080 ⇒ 00:12:00.319 Robert Tseng: I guess there’s a lot of Element stuff coming up, like, Ujam, did you want to talk about Element?
120 00:12:01.870 ⇒ 00:12:03.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know.
121 00:12:03.280 ⇒ 00:12:05.670 Robert Tseng: Like, 4 calls booked over the next 2 days, so…
122 00:12:05.860 ⇒ 00:12:11.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so this call today is gonna be focused on retail.
123 00:12:11.490 ⇒ 00:12:16.490 Uttam Kumaran: I do have some things prepared for an agenda that I can get out.
124 00:12:16.710 ⇒ 00:12:22.980 Uttam Kumaran: On my side, I’m primarily, of course, interested in, like, all the data sources, how they’re using
125 00:12:23.090 ⇒ 00:12:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: Spins data, Emerson data, but I…
126 00:12:28.780 ⇒ 00:12:33.960 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, kind of just learning a little bit about the retail side of the business and, like, growth goals.
127 00:12:34.130 ⇒ 00:12:39.630 Uttam Kumaran: I think an output, you know, it’s kind of similar to our other discovery calls.
128 00:12:39.910 ⇒ 00:12:45.439 Uttam Kumaran: Where we’re just asking questions. Okay. So I can send you… I can… if you’re gonna be there, I can send you the,
129 00:12:45.830 ⇒ 00:12:46.910 Uttam Kumaran: our agenda.
130 00:12:48.090 ⇒ 00:12:54.240 Robert Tseng: I will join there, although it does kind of bleed into my Vixel call, so I’ll probably drop off early after the Vixel call.
131 00:12:54.240 ⇒ 00:13:09.920 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. Yeah, we may not need the whole time anyways. I’m just… I’m trying to cross off some things on the data engineering side. And then, yeah, I mean, I think we’re gonna… we’re starting to land data, and we’re starting to model, and so they’re gonna start foaming at the mouth for…
132 00:13:10.220 ⇒ 00:13:13.869 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what’s going… questions of what’s going on.
133 00:13:14.060 ⇒ 00:13:16.110 Uttam Kumaran: I do have, like.
134 00:13:16.410 ⇒ 00:13:22.859 Uttam Kumaran: Probably 10 of their, like, the questions we’ve heard from her, like, over and over and over and over.
135 00:13:23.010 ⇒ 00:13:27.979 Uttam Kumaran: That I would love to… Collaborate on getting…
136 00:13:28.310 ⇒ 00:13:36.310 Uttam Kumaran: you know, answered. So, I think that’s where… I’ll need support from… From this service line.
137 00:13:37.950 ⇒ 00:13:38.500 Uttam Kumaran: So…
138 00:13:38.500 ⇒ 00:13:39.180 Robert Tseng: Okay.
139 00:13:39.180 ⇒ 00:13:43.050 Uttam Kumaran: we probably are… like, I can probably buy us another week.
140 00:13:43.350 ⇒ 00:13:48.739 Uttam Kumaran: But we are landing everything and starting to build out the core data mart.
141 00:13:49.210 ⇒ 00:13:54.089 Uttam Kumaran: on the data engineering side, like, the next thing for us is to start to get into BI world.
142 00:13:54.210 ⇒ 00:14:00.920 Uttam Kumaran: But, we… Like, there’s data sitting there that can start… we can start to
143 00:14:01.230 ⇒ 00:14:05.729 Uttam Kumaran: put together analysis on, and that’s… that’s… I would actually, like, that’s where…
144 00:14:06.180 ⇒ 00:14:12.999 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to, like, move Shivani towards, to kind of get it out of my… out of the data engineering world.
145 00:14:13.100 ⇒ 00:14:18.620 Uttam Kumaran: Cause she’s not really helpful, like, micromanaging us on this side. There’s, like, nothing that…
146 00:14:18.790 ⇒ 00:14:20.569 Uttam Kumaran: We’re just doing our normal stuff.
147 00:14:20.960 ⇒ 00:14:30.109 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. There’s, like, no creativity, so… But again, we may need to think about… but there’s also… there’s also multiple areas, right? So there’s retail.
148 00:14:30.240 ⇒ 00:14:41.939 Uttam Kumaran: there is, like, marketing advertising stuff. There is wholesale. They are very much concerned about the commercial side of their business, but not very much looking… they don’t…
149 00:14:42.270 ⇒ 00:14:47.090 Uttam Kumaran: She’s gonna consistently tell us, don’t focus too much on marketing.
150 00:14:47.220 ⇒ 00:14:54.469 Uttam Kumaran: But I can tell that, like, if we get nuggets and good slides for them, they’re gonna be very, very happy to kind of bubble those up, so…
151 00:14:55.710 ⇒ 00:14:57.099 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the story there.
152 00:14:58.980 ⇒ 00:15:07.600 Robert Tseng: Okay. Well, I mean, I guess if I’m helping with the service line there,
153 00:15:08.430 ⇒ 00:15:17.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess I… call-wise, I can… like, when do we want to basically, like, kind of…
154 00:15:18.360 ⇒ 00:15:20.720 Robert Tseng: I can tee it all over again.
155 00:15:20.720 ⇒ 00:15:25.059 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I can tee it up today as, like, Our plan for next week.
156 00:15:25.300 ⇒ 00:15:25.950 Robert Tseng: Okay.
157 00:15:26.200 ⇒ 00:15:31.740 Uttam Kumaran: that will buy us a little bit of time. I’m gonna put in those, kind of, like.
158 00:15:31.950 ⇒ 00:15:35.030 Uttam Kumaran: Questions that we’ve heard over and over, get her to just check it off.
159 00:15:35.240 ⇒ 00:15:40.169 Uttam Kumaran: And then… Yeah, it’s, it’ll kind of open that up for us.
160 00:15:41.150 ⇒ 00:15:41.780 Robert Tseng: Okay.
161 00:15:42.390 ⇒ 00:15:44.089 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m interested, kind of like.
162 00:15:44.400 ⇒ 00:15:49.589 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like if you can work on those, that would be sick. I don’t know if, like…
163 00:15:50.030 ⇒ 00:15:53.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if we end up not doing Honey Stinger, then, like…
164 00:15:53.620 ⇒ 00:15:54.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.
165 00:15:54.020 ⇒ 00:15:58.219 Uttam Kumaran: buys you some more time. If we end up not doing a readme, that buys you some more time.
166 00:15:58.440 ⇒ 00:15:59.080 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
167 00:15:59.080 ⇒ 00:16:04.949 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, like, Yeah, and then I’m… I also mentioned, like, I’m interested in talking to Cutter about
168 00:16:05.470 ⇒ 00:16:08.620 Uttam Kumaran: This is, like, his size kind of shop, and…
169 00:16:08.620 ⇒ 00:16:09.340 Robert Tseng: Yep.
170 00:16:09.340 ⇒ 00:16:15.320 Uttam Kumaran: I want to just give them the Google Drive and be like, let me know, and tell me when to patch you in. So…
171 00:16:16.240 ⇒ 00:16:16.620 Robert Tseng: Okay.
172 00:16:16.620 ⇒ 00:16:17.960 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll try to call him, too.
173 00:16:18.530 ⇒ 00:16:24.240 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah, yeah, actually, I should probably just connect you to tech. He’s super responsive over text, but I gave him your email as well, so…
174 00:16:24.240 ⇒ 00:16:28.019 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fine. I was gonna ask Henry, Henry, how did you like working with Cutter?
175 00:16:28.180 ⇒ 00:16:28.730 Uttam Kumaran: Good?
176 00:16:28.730 ⇒ 00:16:31.720 Henry Zhao: I liked it. It was, like, difficult at first, but then, like.
177 00:16:31.900 ⇒ 00:16:33.960 Henry Zhao: Once you build a rapport, he’s really great to work with.
178 00:16:34.250 ⇒ 00:16:39.170 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. That’s what everybody, I feel like, on our side has… like, I’ve never had any trouble with him, yeah, so…
179 00:16:39.170 ⇒ 00:16:39.790 Henry Zhao: No.
180 00:16:40.170 ⇒ 00:16:41.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
181 00:16:41.470 ⇒ 00:16:44.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we have a chance, Henry, so maybe if I’ll.
182 00:16:45.240 ⇒ 00:16:46.579 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll let you know how it goes.
183 00:16:46.970 ⇒ 00:16:47.660 Henry Zhao: Okay.
184 00:16:48.710 ⇒ 00:16:49.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
185 00:16:51.870 ⇒ 00:16:54.989 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Then…
186 00:16:56.200 ⇒ 00:17:12.540 Robert Tseng: The other stuff, yeah, I mean, we have, like, Greg on… Greg and I are doing the README call later today, so we’ll see how that goes. Tiny Stinger proposal went out, strategy-wise, so, that’s also for tomorrow, so that’s… that’s that. Insomnia, I did speak with,
187 00:17:12.869 ⇒ 00:17:25.039 Robert Tseng: Eli’s, yesterday. Yeah, they’re just kind of on a holding pattern right now. I threw another hold for next week, but otherwise, you know, whatever, it is what it is.
188 00:17:25.760 ⇒ 00:17:40.039 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think their biggest priority is trying to, like, backfill, a couple leadership spots for them, for themselves, so they’re not really, like, trying to start anything new right now until they can get that, get that over.
189 00:17:40.720 ⇒ 00:17:43.729 Robert Tseng: yeah, and then…
190 00:17:46.380 ⇒ 00:17:54.209 Robert Tseng: I guess, on the HEDRA side, I know I left a comment there, I don’t… maybe you guys already talked about it in the data stand-up.
191 00:17:55.440 ⇒ 00:17:58.079 Uttam Kumaran: We didn’t really talk about it. I think…
192 00:17:58.690 ⇒ 00:18:02.070 Uttam Kumaran: I, I mean, I saw your message,
193 00:18:02.640 ⇒ 00:18:03.420 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah.
194 00:18:03.420 ⇒ 00:18:08.299 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Wish is the interim, sort of, CSO. He’s, like, running it, because it’s… he’s really, like.
195 00:18:08.730 ⇒ 00:18:11.790 Uttam Kumaran: So he called Sandra, they built that kind of together.
196 00:18:12.010 ⇒ 00:18:18.940 Uttam Kumaran: I see. So, I don’t necessarily think he just rode in through over the… threw it over the hump, like, I think he did get, like, a lot of her input.
197 00:18:19.290 ⇒ 00:18:20.330 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
198 00:18:21.770 ⇒ 00:18:24.210 Robert Tseng: Well, I just… I saw them, like, you know.
199 00:18:24.210 ⇒ 00:18:24.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
200 00:18:24.570 ⇒ 00:18:25.450 Robert Tseng: basically.
201 00:18:26.060 ⇒ 00:18:42.260 Robert Tseng: having a Slack conversation, not… without a wish, being like, is this worth it? Oh, I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s like, well, I mean, if there was a clear, like… I mean, I’m assuming that we had a reason to move forward with it, so I don’t… I guess I wasn’t part of the conversation. I just… that just didn’t look very good from…
202 00:18:42.260 ⇒ 00:18:48.900 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think it’s fair. I think one thing that I didn’t, like, I don’t think are,
203 00:18:49.180 ⇒ 00:18:52.050 Uttam Kumaran: I think our actual, like, scope doc
204 00:18:52.340 ⇒ 00:18:53.879 Uttam Kumaran: Could have been a lot better.
205 00:18:53.990 ⇒ 00:18:59.030 Uttam Kumaran: Like, this doesn’t align up with, like, our…
206 00:18:59.210 ⇒ 00:19:17.359 Uttam Kumaran: typical, format. Like, there’s no exact summary or anything up top, so I’m… that’s the feedback I’m gonna give, is that this… this is, like, not in line at all with, I mean, I… I reviewed it from, like, the technical side, but he didn’t add… Yeah, yeah. …any feedback from… so I’m… my feedback is gonna be, like.
207 00:19:17.560 ⇒ 00:19:22.409 Uttam Kumaran: this part is, like, total miss. Like…
208 00:19:22.590 ⇒ 00:19:28.150 Uttam Kumaran: the CEO’s gonna open this and read this first part and be like, what’s good? Like, I don’t… you know?
209 00:19:28.490 ⇒ 00:19:35.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And then we’re gonna die because Sandra can’t, in the one message, explain the value, so…
210 00:19:35.780 ⇒ 00:19:41.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I’m in the dock right now, you know, yeah, so…
211 00:19:41.380 ⇒ 00:19:45.140 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the feedback I’m just gonna… I’m just gonna… I’m just gonna send through.
212 00:19:45.580 ⇒ 00:19:46.180 Robert Tseng: Okay.
213 00:19:47.970 ⇒ 00:19:56.529 Robert Tseng: Cool. Alright, then… Yeah, I think that’s… that’s it. That’s all we got for… for now.
214 00:20:00.180 ⇒ 00:20:00.780 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
215 00:20:01.330 ⇒ 00:20:01.900 Robert Tseng: Yep.
216 00:20:03.530 ⇒ 00:20:06.020 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, Clarence, you wanna stay on? We can chat.
217 00:20:06.020 ⇒ 00:20:07.000 Clarence Stone: Yeah, sure.
218 00:20:07.180 ⇒ 00:20:08.470 Uttam Kumaran: Alright. Okay.
219 00:20:08.470 ⇒ 00:20:09.020 Robert Tseng: Alright.
220 00:20:09.360 ⇒ 00:20:10.380 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you.
221 00:20:10.380 ⇒ 00:20:11.100 Henry Zhao: Bye, guys.
222 00:20:14.670 ⇒ 00:20:21.519 Uttam Kumaran: Okay… What do we have to chat about?
223 00:20:21.520 ⇒ 00:20:28.409 Clarence Stone: so am I yesterday, but I am reactivating everyone. Everybody is moving and doing stuff now.
224 00:20:28.410 ⇒ 00:20:32.320 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, no, no, you’re fine. I think it’s, look, it’s just…
225 00:20:32.540 ⇒ 00:20:40.560 Uttam Kumaran: first week of this thing, so everybody’s… I think everybody’s doing a good job. I’m still continuing to delegate. Demi is, like, doing a great job.
226 00:20:40.830 ⇒ 00:20:41.460 Uttam Kumaran: So…
227 00:20:41.460 ⇒ 00:20:43.889 Clarence Stone: Check what I just dropped in the ABC chat.
228 00:20:45.610 ⇒ 00:20:47.330 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, in the Discovery?
229 00:20:47.330 ⇒ 00:20:47.930 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
230 00:20:49.310 ⇒ 00:20:51.950 Clarence Stone: That’s TAM for pest control by county.
231 00:20:52.500 ⇒ 00:20:54.380 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, dude, exactly.
232 00:20:56.420 ⇒ 00:20:58.729 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and dude, I… yesterday, I was…
233 00:20:58.970 ⇒ 00:21:03.859 Uttam Kumaran: asking all the different AI services about ABC, like, they’re not doing a good job on that.
234 00:21:04.000 ⇒ 00:21:11.789 Uttam Kumaran: We just talked to their web dev agency today. They’re good, they just have no direction, so they haven’t done anything. So, yeah, it’s…
235 00:21:13.080 ⇒ 00:21:16.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m gonna send an email to them this morning with some stuff, so…
236 00:21:16.750 ⇒ 00:21:24.980 Clarence Stone: So, I think the one big thing I want to chat with you about is how we want to shape the multi-project, single-client.
237 00:21:26.000 ⇒ 00:21:26.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
238 00:21:26.600 ⇒ 00:21:36.310 Clarence Stone: structures. Cuz… Xuron’s running into that with… Eden.
239 00:21:37.840 ⇒ 00:21:46.800 Clarence Stone: Right? He’s the CSO, but… like, he told me that he does a presentation with the main Eden project.
240 00:21:47.310 ⇒ 00:21:55.059 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but see, he… but he fumbled the… he’s fumbling what is actually going on. He has a stakeholder, Mitesh, who is kind of like…
241 00:21:55.870 ⇒ 00:21:58.740 Uttam Kumaran: The head of marketing tech, or something.
242 00:21:58.920 ⇒ 00:22:01.109 Uttam Kumaran: Who he works directly for.
243 00:22:01.110 ⇒ 00:22:01.500 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
244 00:22:01.500 ⇒ 00:22:05.920 Uttam Kumaran: And then Robert… presents to the CEO,
245 00:22:06.310 ⇒ 00:22:09.810 Uttam Kumaran: Part of his work, and others’ work streams.
246 00:22:10.030 ⇒ 00:22:18.120 Uttam Kumaran: In addition, Robert also owns some of the underneath work streams, right? So, what I told Zoran is.
247 00:22:18.340 ⇒ 00:22:25.909 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, you need to prep for your slides with Mitesh, and then you also… who’s the… who’s his direct stakeholder, and then you also…
248 00:22:26.030 ⇒ 00:22:37.930 Uttam Kumaran: either you need to, one, at least make sure Robert is prepped to when he presents the CEO on your section, or call Robert and say, let me present my fucking section. What’s… you know, so I said, like.
249 00:22:38.030 ⇒ 00:22:55.440 Clarence Stone: Now all the pieces fit together. I think he doesn’t have a good relationship with Mitesh, and we need to sort of patch it out, because Zoran told me, kind of sheepishly, that Mitesh doesn’t want to have one-on-ones with him, and he’s like, it’s because all the things that I’m sharing with him goes into Robert’s slide anyway.
250 00:22:56.910 ⇒ 00:22:58.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I was like, that’s.
251 00:22:58.050 ⇒ 00:23:02.999 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so now I understand why he’s, he’s, he’s, like.
252 00:23:03.000 ⇒ 00:23:09.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so he’s doing, like, a 3-slide thing for Mitesh. You need to do a 10-slide, hour-long thing just for Mitesh.
253 00:23:09.230 ⇒ 00:23:12.479 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, boil it down for the bigger deck, yeah, exactly.
254 00:23:12.480 ⇒ 00:23:19.250 Clarence Stone: So, I think, how do you want to move forward? Like, I think Robert needs to know this.
255 00:23:19.250 ⇒ 00:23:30.560 Uttam Kumaran: Well, you can just… you can send in the CSO channel, and you can have a discussion there, you can get all of them on the call to… Robert’s not gonna care. Robert’s gonna say, build a relationship with Mitesh.
256 00:23:31.040 ⇒ 00:23:33.259 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think we should either…
257 00:23:33.950 ⇒ 00:23:36.530 Uttam Kumaran: like, we should have just pushed Zoran into…
258 00:23:36.960 ⇒ 00:23:41.470 Uttam Kumaran: doing that with Mitesh, treating that meeting as something completely different.
259 00:23:41.700 ⇒ 00:23:42.380 Clarence Stone: Okay.
260 00:23:42.510 ⇒ 00:23:43.570 Clarence Stone: Okay.
261 00:23:43.570 ⇒ 00:23:44.499 Uttam Kumaran: That makes sense.
262 00:23:44.500 ⇒ 00:23:52.620 Clarence Stone: Yeah, because, like, I don’t like it when it starts to weave into things, and the way he presented it to me was like, oh, I normally just present with the main account anyway.
263 00:23:52.620 ⇒ 00:23:54.360 Uttam Kumaran: No, but see, that’s cause it’s like, they don’t…
264 00:23:54.360 ⇒ 00:23:55.099 Clarence Stone: I was just like…
265 00:23:55.100 ⇒ 00:23:56.749 Uttam Kumaran: getting… they have to… they have to grow.
266 00:23:56.750 ⇒ 00:23:58.449 Clarence Stone: He’s on mute!
267 00:23:58.450 ⇒ 00:24:03.849 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, no, no, I think he’s trying… I think he’s just… this is just their… we’re all engineers, so…
268 00:24:04.120 ⇒ 00:24:12.369 Uttam Kumaran: he’s like, oh, it’s duplicate. And I’m like, no, no, no, like, this is, like, this isn’t the opportunity, bro, like, you need to win both.
269 00:24:12.370 ⇒ 00:24:20.500 Clarence Stone: Okay. Yeah. So, so I, I think, same, same question, but in a different way about CERF, right? So, like.
270 00:24:20.930 ⇒ 00:24:29.989 Clarence Stone: How… how do we want… to position surf, so that he’s actually giving you 20K worth of, like, ROI.
271 00:24:29.990 ⇒ 00:24:36.660 Uttam Kumaran: Well, this is the thing, so this… I told… I called him and I said,
272 00:24:38.060 ⇒ 00:24:47.800 Uttam Kumaran: I called him and said, for this Remo thing, I said, just… we need to just… just do this one. But I said, I want him to work with Brainforge longer term, and I want him to be…
273 00:24:48.290 ⇒ 00:25:07.480 Uttam Kumaran: I want him to come on as CSO on as many clients as we can. So I said, here’s a couple things. One is, we’re going to be selling some deals where I want you to come and assist in the SOW process and in the sales process. So as those come up, I’m kind of banking on you coming in and doing that.
274 00:25:07.650 ⇒ 00:25:09.870 Uttam Kumaran: The second piece is…
275 00:25:10.240 ⇒ 00:25:23.370 Uttam Kumaran: I want, like, I kind of want him to start to host a call where we look through his past Rolodex, or his contacts, and he can start proposing things that Brainforge should go after. He’s totally open to working with us.
276 00:25:23.370 ⇒ 00:25:27.519 Clarence Stone: That makes sense. Yeah.
277 00:25:27.520 ⇒ 00:25:33.790 Uttam Kumaran: He actually… he tried to do a Brain Forge on his own, and it’s… it’s very hard, like, it’s just not… yeah.
278 00:25:33.900 ⇒ 00:25:36.039 Clarence Stone: So here’s my thing, dude, like…
279 00:25:36.500 ⇒ 00:25:43.100 Clarence Stone: I don’t think we should create a structured process for this, because… This is, like.
280 00:25:43.100 ⇒ 00:25:48.379 Uttam Kumaran: He’s in a Greg situation, where Greg needs to sell these deals in order to come on.
281 00:25:48.380 ⇒ 00:26:01.759 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so it’s like, it’s different from the current structure that we’ve created for your existing CSOs, that’s what I’m trying to say, but I don’t know if we should formalize this, because do we want this to be a repeated pattern on how you hire CSOs?
282 00:26:02.080 ⇒ 00:26:08.199 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think this is a pattern for, like, how we’re bringing on X… how we’re bringing on active freelancers, or active…
283 00:26:08.440 ⇒ 00:26:08.900 Clarence Stone: Okay.
284 00:26:08.900 ⇒ 00:26:20.399 Uttam Kumaran: consultants, and, like, how do they transition in, is, like… and how do you… how are you a CSO with no clients? So what you do is, you’re all your… no, but all you’re focused on is go-to-market.
285 00:26:20.660 ⇒ 00:26:25.810 Uttam Kumaran: You’re either helping us with active deals, or you’re bringing in new deals, until you get the opportunity to work on them, you know?
286 00:26:26.150 ⇒ 00:26:35.130 Clarence Stone: Yeah, okay, so… so now the… I think the… the crucial conversation is, do you want to pay them as CSOs, even though they don’t have the book?
287 00:26:36.620 ⇒ 00:26:40.529 Uttam Kumaran: Well, like, he’s just getting hourly.
288 00:26:41.040 ⇒ 00:26:47.099 Uttam Kumaran: like… He’s just getting hourly, right, to just work with us and stuff. So, for now, yes.
289 00:26:47.380 ⇒ 00:26:51.289 Uttam Kumaran: For now, yes. Like, I don’t think we have enough leverage to be like.
290 00:26:52.390 ⇒ 00:26:57.720 Uttam Kumaran: sell your way into us, it’s like, I’ll give you whatever, like, just collaborate with us.
291 00:26:57.830 ⇒ 00:27:01.549 Uttam Kumaran: So again, more of what I’m biasing for is getting shit off my plate.
292 00:27:02.230 ⇒ 00:27:06.370 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I think… so the structure is then…
293 00:27:06.620 ⇒ 00:27:15.370 Clarence Stone: you come in as a CSO hourly, until you’re a CSO on at least 3 accounts, and then that becomes… like, then you actually become a full-on CSO.
294 00:27:16.490 ⇒ 00:27:17.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
295 00:27:17.520 ⇒ 00:27:37.409 Clarence Stone: Okay, and in between, in order to accomplish you getting staffed on all of these accounts, you have to be very active on the market side, right? Like, sitting in on calls, listening in on where your capability is going to be in offering, and then having your own sessions, and trying to pull people in to put together offers for new clients.
296 00:27:37.410 ⇒ 00:27:37.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
297 00:27:37.830 ⇒ 00:27:45.290 Clarence Stone: Right. Okay, cool, that makes sense. Oh, I mean, I can write this up for you, it’s not… Offers…
298 00:27:49.530 ⇒ 00:27:54.969 Clarence Stone: Dude, because, like, in the car yesterday, I’m like, hang on, like, he’s freaking awesome.
299 00:27:55.580 ⇒ 00:28:02.490 Clarence Stone: But, like… He just doesn’t have a book to bring over.
300 00:28:02.920 ⇒ 00:28:07.960 Uttam Kumaran: No, he… he… well… Well, like, I think he does.
301 00:28:08.270 ⇒ 00:28:13.249 Uttam Kumaran: again, I just think these guys are not, like, consultants, dude. They’re coming from an engineering…
302 00:28:13.470 ⇒ 00:28:18.439 Uttam Kumaran: They’re coming from engineering worlds. They don’t… they’re not realizing that everyone… every one of their contacts
303 00:28:18.770 ⇒ 00:28:25.909 Uttam Kumaran: is a sale, and they need to facilitate the… they need to start selling those people. Like, it’s actually a lot dumber than you think.
304 00:28:27.340 ⇒ 00:28:28.700 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like, it’s…
305 00:28:28.850 ⇒ 00:28:34.759 Uttam Kumaran: like, they’re just not putting… they’re not understanding… I mean, this is part of the reason, like, he wasn’t able to scale his own business, because he’s not…
306 00:28:35.030 ⇒ 00:28:37.989 Uttam Kumaran: He can’t. He’s just not… does not operate in that way.
307 00:28:39.420 ⇒ 00:28:40.990 Clarence Stone: Okay, yeah,
308 00:28:41.220 ⇒ 00:28:50.659 Clarence Stone: I think that makes sense. Like, we just treat him like a CSO, like any other right now on the projects that he’s sitting on. It’s going to be on him to drive
309 00:28:50.810 ⇒ 00:28:56.329 Clarence Stone: you know, a separate call where he talks about what his Rolodex looks like and what opportunities exist.
310 00:28:56.700 ⇒ 00:29:00.619 Clarence Stone: Like, I’m not gonna structure a call and tell him how you should handle that meeting.
311 00:29:02.450 ⇒ 00:29:04.709 Clarence Stone: Do you want me to, though?
312 00:29:05.210 ⇒ 00:29:06.490 Uttam Kumaran: I would suggest…
313 00:29:06.490 ⇒ 00:29:09.380 Clarence Stone: So much hand-holding you, Tom, this is the thing.
314 00:29:09.670 ⇒ 00:29:11.649 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but dude, it’s like, I can’t go…