Meeting Title: ABC Project Weekly Planning Date: 2026-01-26 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Uttam Kumaran, Mustafa Raja, Greg Stoutenburg, Sheshu Chandrasekar, Amber Lin, Zoran Selinger


WEBVTT

1 00:00:28.530 00:00:29.100 Uttam Kumaran: It is.

2 00:00:38.340 00:00:39.349 Robert Tseng: Nice haircut.

3 00:00:39.350 00:00:40.010 Uttam Kumaran: Aaron?

4 00:00:40.880 00:00:43.920 Uttam Kumaran: Have a na.

5 00:00:44.920 00:00:45.800 Robert Tseng: I can hear you.

6 00:00:45.800 00:00:46.700 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.

7 00:00:47.820 00:00:49.510 Robert Tseng: I said, nice haircut.

8 00:00:49.860 00:00:50.810 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, thanks.

9 00:00:52.430 00:00:53.450 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.

10 00:00:57.670 00:01:01.260 Uttam Kumaran: As I see it in my front yard, it’s, like, completely ice here.

11 00:01:02.920 00:01:05.740 Robert Tseng: Oh, no way! It snowed in Austin, or something?

12 00:01:05.740 00:01:07.250 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like an ice storm.

13 00:01:08.610 00:01:13.300 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s, like, it’s not that much, like, half an inch of ice, though. It’s, like, not…

14 00:01:13.440 00:01:15.470 Uttam Kumaran: Not snow at all, but…

15 00:01:15.990 00:01:16.629 Robert Tseng: I know you can…

16 00:01:16.630 00:01:20.230 Uttam Kumaran: Everything shut down today, like, all of the schools.

17 00:01:20.680 00:01:23.500 Uttam Kumaran: Like, every sort of, like, public…

18 00:01:23.690 00:01:26.239 Uttam Kumaran: public service, or whatever, it’s like…

19 00:01:26.240 00:01:26.950 Robert Tseng: Wow.

20 00:01:27.140 00:01:32.889 Uttam Kumaran: Bows today. I’m gonna still try to ghost… I gotta… I need to get out of the house in, like, 2 days, so… I’m gonna try.

21 00:01:33.730 00:01:35.589 Robert Tseng: Yeah. The truck could take me there.

22 00:01:36.920 00:01:43.950 Robert Tseng: I didn’t know you could… it could, just rain ice, or whatever. Isn’t that just hail? But it sounds like it’s not hail.

23 00:01:43.950 00:01:47.199 Uttam Kumaran: I guess it’s, like, cold enough,

24 00:01:48.790 00:01:52.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t know, it’s basically for, like, 8 hours, it was ice.

25 00:01:52.810 00:01:56.460 Uttam Kumaran: And so, yeah, a lot of stuff is, like, closed right now in town.

26 00:01:56.630 00:01:59.240 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, my office is still open.

27 00:02:04.270 00:02:07.279 Uttam Kumaran: Jess has the day off, like, all the schools are off, so…

28 00:02:07.280 00:02:08.220 Robert Tseng: Oh, wow.

29 00:02:08.530 00:02:09.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

30 00:02:09.699 00:02:10.899 Robert Tseng: Sounds serious.

31 00:02:15.300 00:02:16.859 Greg Stoutenburg: Sup, guys? Have you had a good weekend?

32 00:02:16.950 00:02:17.590 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

33 00:02:17.590 00:02:18.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

34 00:02:18.440 00:02:19.360 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.

35 00:02:20.050 00:02:21.830 Robert Tseng: How’s the winter storm over there?

36 00:02:22.400 00:02:23.670 Greg Stoutenburg: Kids are off school?

37 00:02:23.840 00:02:37.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Yesterday was a blast. There’s nobody out on the roads. At one point, I was driving on the interstate to get back home last night at, I don’t know, about 7 or so, and there was no one on the road at all. It was eerie, and I just…

38 00:02:37.630 00:02:38.790 Uttam Kumaran: Are you driving your bike?

39 00:02:39.170 00:02:44.410 Greg Stoutenburg: No, I… believe me, I’ve thought about it. I have been out… I’ve been out on ice before. I’ve been out on snow before.

40 00:02:44.990 00:02:59.260 Greg Stoutenburg: I should make a correction. I’ve been out of snow before. Riding a motorcycle in snow is a ton of fun. Riding it on ice was the shortest trip to being sideways in a road that I’ve ever had. But I was asking for it. I was out in the… I was out in the woods. I,

41 00:02:59.390 00:03:03.010 Greg Stoutenburg: I invited that. No, this is just in the car.

42 00:03:03.320 00:03:04.130 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.

43 00:03:06.460 00:03:13.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m gonna go try to, drive around, and, like, there’s some flat places, I’m gonna go do some donuts later.

44 00:03:14.260 00:03:15.230 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.

45 00:03:15.230 00:03:23.019 Uttam Kumaran: It’s, like, too… it’s too tempting, and, like, you go, like, 10 minutes this way in Austin, and there’s, like, no… there’s, like, no houses or anything, so…

46 00:03:23.020 00:03:23.700 Greg Stoutenburg: Nice.

47 00:03:24.260 00:03:27.920 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like… I just want to spin around for a sec.

48 00:03:27.920 00:03:31.090 Robert Tseng: I did.

49 00:03:31.090 00:03:36.159 Greg Stoutenburg: My all-wheel drive was great for, like, not sliding off the road, but just really ruins the donut experience.

50 00:03:36.160 00:03:39.160 Uttam Kumaran: You gotta turn it off, you gotta turn all that off. You gotta turn all the…

51 00:03:39.160 00:03:40.099 Greg Stoutenburg: I can. I don’t know.

52 00:03:40.100 00:03:42.530 Uttam Kumaran: All this government regulation switches off.

53 00:03:42.530 00:03:43.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Seriously.

54 00:03:43.630 00:03:47.150 Uttam Kumaran: They’re trying to… they’re trying to regulate your fun.

55 00:03:50.510 00:04:08.060 Greg Stoutenburg: I said a lot of stuff like that yesterday. So, with… my girlfriend’s kids had this tube that’s got, like, an anchor to it, like this, like a strap with, like, a… not a hook, but, like, a… I don’t know, a circle, whatever, I don’t know what to say. So I found an extension cord in their house, and I tied that

56 00:04:08.070 00:04:11.910 Greg Stoutenburg: On one end, and then tied the other end of my car, and just pulled them around the neighborhood.

57 00:04:11.910 00:04:13.460 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.

58 00:04:13.470 00:04:14.030 Greg Stoutenburg: Good timing.

59 00:04:14.030 00:04:16.940 Sheshu Chandrasekar: of… That sounds like a blast.

60 00:04:18.560 00:04:19.579 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I would love that.

61 00:04:20.079 00:04:28.479 Greg Stoutenburg: My dad did stuff like that with me, and I just left off the part where he almost got a reckless driving ticket for it one time, and I was like, I’ll probably be fine.

62 00:04:35.560 00:04:41.630 Robert Tseng: Alright, I guess we can get started. Let’s see…

63 00:04:50.870 00:04:53.320 Robert Tseng: Maybe we start with…

64 00:04:57.800 00:05:00.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, let’s just start with… ABC.

65 00:05:01.980 00:05:05.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I can give an update. So, our…

66 00:05:05.540 00:05:23.639 Uttam Kumaran: Meeting last week went really well. This week, we have… we’re booking time for two additional meetings. One… or, yeah, two additional meetings, one this week, one next week. So this week, we wanted to cover retention, like, reactivation.

67 00:05:23.820 00:05:32.630 Uttam Kumaran: As well as, like, some follow-ups on, like, from the last week’s presentation. And then we also wanted to present a little bit on the commercial side of their business.

68 00:05:32.860 00:05:36.490 Uttam Kumaran: And that’ll kind of be a wrap for, like.

69 00:05:36.910 00:05:44.399 Uttam Kumaran: the core presentations, and then we’re booking time on the 9th for the final presentation.

70 00:05:44.970 00:05:50.120 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think, like, I want to make sure that we,

71 00:05:50.570 00:05:58.290 Uttam Kumaran: are prepared to do that, so I’m gonna… maybe, Amber, I can have you book time between me, you, Clarence, Robert this week?

72 00:05:58.800 00:06:01.300 Uttam Kumaran: For us to review, like.

73 00:06:01.420 00:06:06.030 Uttam Kumaran: sort of what we want… what our goals are for final presentation. Probably need, like, an hour and a half.

74 00:06:06.380 00:06:11.690 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’m gonna get pieces of it from everybody, so… like, Zoran.

75 00:06:12.130 00:06:14.829 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna have a piece, Cutter’s gonna have a piece.

76 00:06:15.320 00:06:20.709 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll… I’ll work with Awash on, like, sort of the data platform piece.

77 00:06:20.810 00:06:26.190 Uttam Kumaran: I already have a bunch of notes written, so I can put together something before the meeting for us to collaborate on.

78 00:06:26.460 00:06:31.500 Uttam Kumaran: And then I think, Robert, where I’m kind of relying on probably you.

79 00:06:31.650 00:06:35.859 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence and sales is, like, how to price, and, like, how to phase it out.

80 00:06:36.430 00:06:40.609 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, if we can do that meeting today, that gives us…

81 00:06:40.890 00:06:46.959 Uttam Kumaran: Sometime between… or if we could do that meeting this week, ideally next 3 days, that gives us some time.

82 00:06:47.200 00:06:50.269 Uttam Kumaran: For me, for us to, like, sort of, like, nail that.

83 00:06:50.320 00:06:52.629 Robert Tseng: Yeah. And then just, like, hit…

84 00:06:53.150 00:06:55.120 Uttam Kumaran: Next week, pretty hard, so…

85 00:06:56.060 00:06:57.910 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, let’s, let’s do it.

86 00:06:58.400 00:07:00.849 Uttam Kumaran: Amber, are you okay on your, like, follow-ups?

87 00:07:03.490 00:07:10.729 Amber Lin: Boom… I think so. My follow-ups are mainly just to refine that model, which I…

88 00:07:10.790 00:07:27.520 Amber Lin: still need help on, either from Clarence or from Robert, so I’ll grab time with you guys. And then other than that, I do want to look at the Evolve and the Dream data, which should help us with, the retention and then cancellation part as well.

89 00:07:29.010 00:07:29.580 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

90 00:07:33.860 00:07:35.000 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great.

91 00:07:45.840 00:07:47.330 Uttam Kumaran: That’s it on ABC, Robert.

92 00:07:47.330 00:07:48.000 Robert Tseng: Okay.

93 00:07:48.330 00:07:52.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean… we have…

94 00:07:53.340 00:07:59.320 Robert Tseng: Default Hedra, elements, and CTA to talk to… talk about left.

95 00:07:59.690 00:08:03.459 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so… yeah, maybe we can talk about Idra. They didn’t…

96 00:08:03.690 00:08:08.770 Uttam Kumaran: get back to us, I think with, like, Any change in pricing?

97 00:08:11.220 00:08:16.869 Uttam Kumaran: So I know, Greg, you’re trying to get access into post-hog. I feel like that type of pressure is…

98 00:08:17.220 00:08:18.299 Uttam Kumaran: It’s fine.

99 00:08:18.630 00:08:28.150 Uttam Kumaran: like, we’ll just keep… we’ll just keep breaking down until we get a firm no. Like, I think that’s fine. It’s clear she’s, like, figuring something out. The nice thing is, I think we’ve given her a lot.

100 00:08:28.330 00:08:43.810 Uttam Kumaran: unfortunately, like, I think the CEO is, like, kind of, like, micromanaging a lot, and they’re probably, like, in a frantic moment. So, I think we’ve done, like, as good a job as we can do, like, trying to put materials in front of them.

101 00:08:43.929 00:08:49.750 Uttam Kumaran: She also, like, part of this is also empowering her to, like, carve out the part of the company that she can manage.

102 00:08:49.870 00:08:56.260 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I feel like she’s probably figuring that out, like, what is her role there, and, like, what is she gonna own?

103 00:08:57.720 00:09:05.150 Uttam Kumaran: this is how it goes with startups, like, I just know the internal politics that are going on, so… we’ll kind of see. Like, I think…

104 00:09:05.530 00:09:08.929 Uttam Kumaran: I think you’re continuing to find something to send every day, so I think that’s fine.

105 00:09:10.270 00:09:15.099 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, and that’s… that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, is just engage a little bit, because it’s like, I…

106 00:09:15.130 00:09:32.940 Greg Stoutenburg: I would love to… I’d love for the angle to be kind of opening their eyes to how much more value they can get from good event tracking and really looking at the right things, and so my thought was, alright, well, if they’ll even just let me to posthog and I can poke around and show something to demonstrate some more value, maybe that’s a… maybe that’s a step forward, but,

107 00:09:33.250 00:09:37.369 Greg Stoutenburg: Short of that, I don’t really… I don’t have a plan B in mind.

108 00:09:37.490 00:09:38.380 Greg Stoutenburg: further… Yeah, I think what.

109 00:09:38.380 00:09:39.700 Uttam Kumaran: Whatever you’re doing is fine, yeah.

110 00:09:45.150 00:09:46.879 Greg Stoutenburg: Should I just keep going down my list, or…

111 00:09:47.060 00:09:47.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.

112 00:09:47.770 00:10:05.680 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, read me, just waiting for Phoebe to get back. You know, she was optimistic a couple weeks ago when we, when Robert and I talked to her. Since then, it was preparing for this board meeting, now we’re after the board meeting, now the weather’s bad. So it kind of seems like there just keeps being a thing that, like, pushes us out a couple more days.

113 00:10:05.680 00:10:10.279 Greg Stoutenburg: But I did talk to her last week, and there was still interest in

114 00:10:10.280 00:10:13.970 Greg Stoutenburg: Some, you know, some revised scope that’ll involve some more

115 00:10:14.010 00:10:18.130 Greg Stoutenburg: Some more reporting, some help with experiments,

116 00:10:18.390 00:10:29.270 Greg Stoutenburg: And kind of just, you know, after chatting with Robert about it, hoping to just find the right way to get a yes on a 10K for 3 months. So, that’s where we’re at now. I’ll check in again today.

117 00:10:30.350 00:10:33.610 Greg Stoutenburg: For Eden,

118 00:10:34.020 00:10:44.799 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, on my part, I’m finally going to get… have a chance to sit down with Ryan today and get an overview of the experiments that they’re running. Zoran put together some slides I’ll be contributing to for the week.

119 00:10:44.950 00:10:48.129 Greg Stoutenburg: Including some work that I did in Customer I.O. last week.

120 00:10:49.180 00:11:03.750 Greg Stoutenburg: And then finally, for defaults, I was corresponding with Nandica on Friday, and then I saw that she chipped in in the channel today. I need to find the right word to be instrumenting as they build Phoenix, which will…

121 00:11:03.820 00:11:16.560 Greg Stoutenburg: which will… I mean, the approach that needs to be taken is, I think, the same way that we would do any 0-1 implementation, except that it’s just going to have to be in a phased kind of way as they continue to get stuff done on their end.

122 00:11:16.790 00:11:27.120 Greg Stoutenburg: I wasn’t quite aware of how far out they actually were from standing up Phoenix until Friday when, when Caitlin showed, like.

123 00:11:27.120 00:11:42.059 Greg Stoutenburg: basically, the onboarding portion of it is stickies in a fig jam, so it’s like, oh, okay, this is… this is going up right now, so I think that’s gonna be one where we just have to be agile and lead the project, but also be responsive to where they are in their development.

124 00:11:45.060 00:11:52.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s… the deadline continues to move, so I wouldn’t take, like, that getting stood up as a blocker for anything.

125 00:11:52.030 00:11:54.340 Greg Stoutenburg: So I would just keep driving, because…

126 00:11:54.340 00:11:57.300 Uttam Kumaran: They said that that was gonna be done… Fab.

127 00:11:57.690 00:12:06.060 Uttam Kumaran: last August, or whenever, September. So it keeps moving. Yeah. It’s more than likely to continue to move,

128 00:12:06.240 00:12:08.000 Uttam Kumaran: So, I would just…

129 00:12:08.360 00:12:28.099 Uttam Kumaran: get it instrumented on the current platform, because they’re losing people right now, you know? So, like, I think this thing happens… this conversation keeps coming back up, like Groundhog Day, every time we call Caitlin, so I would just continue just to reinforce that, like, look, the product is live right now, and you don’t have any visibility. Like, we might as well get this going.

130 00:12:28.240 00:12:38.439 Uttam Kumaran: what they’re gonna then say is, like, again, I just don’t know, sometimes people just, like, trying to look for the reason why this won’t work. They’re gonna say, oh, like, how much do we have to re-architect for the next system?

131 00:12:38.550 00:12:42.070 Uttam Kumaran: And you can say, we’ll have to do that anyways, like…

132 00:12:42.070 00:12:42.690 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.

133 00:12:42.850 00:12:46.299 Uttam Kumaran: So… Yeah, it’s… it’s not, like, that…

134 00:12:46.910 00:13:01.089 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yeah, the conversation that we had on Friday was very much that conversation, because we were going through the onboarding flow in a kind of granular way, before she said, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, this is all gonna change, and, you know, here’s my example of what I’m working on, so…

135 00:13:01.090 00:13:09.360 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just gonna have to be a matter of, here are the things that we know we need to track no matter what, so let’s just get them set up, and then deal with the changes as they come.

136 00:13:10.670 00:13:19.170 Greg Stoutenburg: So, I think that means that there will be a tracking plan that’s just being revised on iteratively for weeks, and we just build as we go.

137 00:13:20.070 00:13:20.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

138 00:13:22.320 00:13:22.960 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.

139 00:13:25.180 00:13:26.280 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, that’s me.

140 00:13:31.850 00:13:38.649 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. I’m not gonna do any other Eden talk until the stand-up note later, so,

141 00:13:39.030 00:13:42.029 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, if we’re… if we’re good, we can… we can call it.

142 00:13:43.280 00:13:47.350 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay. I won’t be on that Eden call, because I’ll be in with Ryan, getting an overview. Yep. Okay.

143 00:13:50.080 00:13:54.129 Uttam Kumaran: And then the, for Element, the retail thing, they want to kick it.

144 00:13:54.710 00:14:00.470 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, if I was to, like, do a mini-retro on that, like, I think we did a good job. I honestly think…

145 00:14:00.710 00:14:07.140 Uttam Kumaran: We’re just playing a game of, like, whack-a-mole with our stakeholder, because she doesn’t really know what it is, like.

146 00:14:07.600 00:14:08.350 Uttam Kumaran: She’s, like, learning.

147 00:14:08.350 00:14:09.600 Robert Tseng: Turning or kicking it.

148 00:14:09.600 00:14:19.130 Uttam Kumaran: Like, they just… they… basically, the feedback from her boss was like, let’s just do it later, let’s focus on landing all the data, and, like, continue our normal plan.

149 00:14:19.440 00:14:20.420 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

150 00:14:20.840 00:14:25.260 Uttam Kumaran: I guess my, like, if I was like, okay, what can we change next time?

151 00:14:26.180 00:14:28.340 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe we should’ve just ripped the deck?

152 00:14:28.470 00:14:31.650 Uttam Kumaran: like… And then sent that over.

153 00:14:31.820 00:14:38.439 Uttam Kumaran: She, like, this is the thing, she says one thing, and then she, like, is clearly wrong about most of it.

154 00:14:38.440 00:14:39.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I’m having to, like…

155 00:14:40.020 00:14:42.039 Uttam Kumaran: almost induced the…

156 00:14:42.840 00:14:50.019 Uttam Kumaran: it’s kind of a weird… I’m almost, like, have to have her fuck something up, and then get her to show her what the right way is.

157 00:14:50.330 00:14:50.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

158 00:14:50.700 00:14:58.490 Uttam Kumaran: Because if I was to say, go for the deck, she would have been like, oh, I need to see an outline first. And then we did the outline, and then it clearly didn’t go through, so…

159 00:14:59.380 00:14:59.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

160 00:14:59.910 00:15:05.330 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of like, this kind of sucks, like, dealing with someone who has no clue what they’re doing, but…

161 00:15:06.500 00:15:07.119 Uttam Kumaran: Trying that.

162 00:15:07.120 00:15:26.209 Robert Tseng: I agree with you. If there was, like, a low… yeah, if we could just pick a piece off and just do the deck, make it something that she could share with her stakeholder, like, have the… yeah, we have to just keep in mind we’re building for the person above her. She’s not the one that’s, like, gonna… he’s not the budget owner, it seems like. She’s just… she’s trying to just, like, middleman, like, what we’re doing, so…

163 00:15:26.210 00:15:31.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that’s… that’s kind of what I… I would… yeah, that’s what I would say.

164 00:15:32.180 00:15:34.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so maybe we can, like, kind of,

165 00:15:35.320 00:15:39.760 Uttam Kumaran: think about how to get more FaceTime with that guy, or whatever, but yeah, she’s like.

166 00:15:40.320 00:15:44.490 Uttam Kumaran: we’re… yeah, that’s exactly how you said it is, right? I mean, I don’t know, maybe…

167 00:15:45.180 00:15:50.909 Uttam Kumaran: like, we rip it anyways, and I just say we had a little bit of free time, so we took… we just did it, and…

168 00:15:51.550 00:16:06.979 Robert Tseng: Yeah, just, like, share it with him, get his feedback. Like, I think it’s… I wanna… I wanna see his reactions, that… because it’s easy for him to just be like, kick it down the line if he doesn’t have anything to react to, but we’re… then we’re not getting any more information from him, and we… we wanna… we wanna get his actual reactions.

169 00:16:06.980 00:16:07.899 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, okay.

170 00:16:07.900 00:16:08.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

171 00:16:12.370 00:16:13.470 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great.

172 00:16:19.350 00:16:21.060 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. I think that’s all I had.

173 00:16:21.530 00:16:23.979 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Alright, see y’all later.

174 00:16:23.980 00:16:25.400 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, thank you.