Meeting Title: ABC Project Pricing Strategy Sync Date: 2026-02-04 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:17.260 ⇒ 00:00:19.560 Uttam Kumaran: Super socks. Coffee.
2 00:00:20.610 ⇒ 00:00:23.979 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so kind of the flow I’m thinking about is basically…
3 00:00:24.350 ⇒ 00:00:30.690 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna lead with your commercial stuff. That’s gonna just, like, hit them over the head really, really hard.
4 00:00:30.900 ⇒ 00:00:40.600 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’ve rearranged it a little bit, and then we’re gonna get into top of funnel acquisition, so kind of Zoran stuff, and then we’ll get into
5 00:00:40.730 ⇒ 00:00:41.810 Uttam Kumaran: Revenue?
6 00:00:42.040 ⇒ 00:00:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: And then… I’ll weave in stuff about like… The data platform.
7 00:00:49.620 ⇒ 00:00:56.410 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’ll drive right into pricing, and Robert worked on the pricing. I’m gonna also leave the conversation a little bit with
8 00:00:56.910 ⇒ 00:01:04.219 Uttam Kumaran: Like, some of the high-level questions we talked about in the first meeting with them, and lead with…
9 00:01:04.220 ⇒ 00:01:17.590 Uttam Kumaran: what I learned, like, quotes from people at ABC from our discovery process. Nice. Which, literally, people were, like, so worried. Everybody was super worried about, like, what’s gonna happen, and that there’s not clarity.
10 00:01:17.630 ⇒ 00:01:19.840 Uttam Kumaran: And I almost want to…
11 00:01:20.360 ⇒ 00:01:28.180 Uttam Kumaran: put that in front of the CEO, kind of like Undercover Boss style, which is like, we found all these things. Yeah. So,
12 00:01:28.510 ⇒ 00:01:30.779 Uttam Kumaran: I actually… I actually am, like…
13 00:01:32.860 ⇒ 00:01:40.390 Uttam Kumaran: part of this, I don’t want to, like, I’m gonna make sure everything has a slide, but I think a lot of this
14 00:01:41.540 ⇒ 00:01:44.620 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll be… really, we’re selling him.
15 00:01:44.630 ⇒ 00:02:04.349 Uttam Kumaran: And Matt, the CFO, so we’ll have to just talk to him. Yeah. Like, face-to-face, you know? Yeah, that’s what it ends up being. Yeah, so I’m not actually… like, and that’s also just more of how I work, like, I care so li- like, in my sleep, we can go through all this, like, I’m not worried about that. This is all gonna be showing, like, our depth. Yeah. And, like, okay, these guys are super legit.
16 00:02:04.400 ⇒ 00:02:06.990 Uttam Kumaran: At some point, if it seems like…
17 00:02:07.310 ⇒ 00:02:11.620 Uttam Kumaran: it’s getting redundant, and we’ll just blast through, and…
18 00:02:13.270 ⇒ 00:02:21.980 Uttam Kumaran: I think mostly me and you in the next hour can prep on how do we talk about the fixed price versus the performance-based.
19 00:02:22.880 ⇒ 00:02:35.620 Uttam Kumaran: how do we talk about it in… how do we, like, use it as a way to differentiate ourselves from any other engagement that they may have? Meaning, like, how can we say, like, this is actually, like, a very unique offering in the market?
20 00:02:35.770 ⇒ 00:02:45.280 Uttam Kumaran: that this is actually much more in your favor, and, like, I really want to do our best to put it into those words and show, like, it’s, like, a complete win-win.
21 00:02:45.410 ⇒ 00:02:51.659 Uttam Kumaran: You know, to continue to have us in this manner, so that’s… that’s, like, kind of how I’m thinking about the whole thing.
22 00:02:51.790 ⇒ 00:02:58.650 Uttam Kumaran: Because he’s not gonna… I don’t think they’re really familiar with typical, like, performance marketing type
23 00:02:58.810 ⇒ 00:03:04.570 Uttam Kumaran: type situation, so I’m less interested in, like, comparing us to them, more interested in sharing
24 00:03:04.700 ⇒ 00:03:12.920 Uttam Kumaran: net-net, like, we want… this is how much it’s gonna cost us to do, but we’re looking to drive this, like, pretty significant ROI. Yeah.
25 00:03:13.460 ⇒ 00:03:19.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think it’ll be fine, because they’ve already done that similar deal with IN, right?
26 00:03:20.070 ⇒ 00:03:40.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so… But the CEO wasn’t as involved with that. Okay. That was me and, like, the CFO. Okay, so maybe that, like, you can start with saying, hey, we already did this with Andy. So I told him that last week. So actually, Steven. Okay. I told him we are going to… I told him how we’re going to propose this. Yeah. But last week, I said we’re gonna propose these…
27 00:03:40.020 ⇒ 00:03:43.619 Uttam Kumaran: kind of, like, two work streams. Some is gonna be fixed, because we’re gonna have to deliver it.
28 00:03:43.670 ⇒ 00:03:47.410 Uttam Kumaran: like, data warehousing, things like that. Some of it’s gonna be performance-based.
29 00:03:47.490 ⇒ 00:03:49.230 Uttam Kumaran: I reminded them, like.
30 00:03:49.430 ⇒ 00:03:58.109 Uttam Kumaran: throughout our engagement, we’ve always tried to do things that are like that, so that you get the ROI as we grow together. Yeah.
31 00:03:58.310 ⇒ 00:04:04.789 Uttam Kumaran: Man, that’s all I wanted. Did you guys work up any fixed pricing for the variable? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good. No, we didn’t.
32 00:04:05.400 ⇒ 00:04:07.430 Uttam Kumaran: You might want to. Okay.
33 00:04:09.170 ⇒ 00:04:10.400 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to.
34 00:04:11.190 ⇒ 00:04:16.759 Uttam Kumaran: Well… okay, well, actually, maybe I think about it. There is… it’s fixed pricing plus a bonus.
35 00:04:18.279 ⇒ 00:04:24.140 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, so, so it’s performance incentive. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s fine. Yeah.
36 00:04:24.870 ⇒ 00:04:31.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I think then the conversation should be mostly, like, you will probably have consultants that come by.
37 00:04:32.040 ⇒ 00:04:36.920 Uttam Kumaran: That, say they’re gonna do something to deliver the technology, but it doesn’t work.
38 00:04:37.070 ⇒ 00:04:38.550 Uttam Kumaran: Right. Yeah.
39 00:04:39.320 ⇒ 00:04:44.769 Uttam Kumaran: Like, let me show you briefly… What these were…
40 00:04:48.940 ⇒ 00:04:54.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we basically are gonna do, like, these fixed fee Like, foundational things.
41 00:04:55.290 ⇒ 00:04:56.570 Uttam Kumaran: Which is, like…
42 00:04:56.720 ⇒ 00:05:06.850 Uttam Kumaran: setting up GA, marketing handoffs, data analytics, and, like, this tooling, and that’s all, like, one price. And then…
43 00:05:07.010 ⇒ 00:05:09.769 Uttam Kumaran: We have, like, this performance-based pricing.
44 00:05:09.890 ⇒ 00:05:10.750 Uttam Kumaran: So…
45 00:05:11.520 ⇒ 00:05:25.040 Uttam Kumaran: The guy and the team that’s gonna execute a lot of this for us, his pricing is about $11K a month for a vertical, and so we were like, okay, it’s gonna be about this, and these are the 3 things that we want to tackle in the first 90 days. Okay.
46 00:05:25.240 ⇒ 00:05:28.619 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, is that… that’s the dude you were talking about? Yeah, Cutter. Nice.
47 00:05:28.750 ⇒ 00:05:29.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
48 00:05:31.540 ⇒ 00:05:37.879 Uttam Kumaran: So him and his team are gonna execute. We work really, really well together. They need us to do the data stuff for this to succeed. Yep.
49 00:05:38.350 ⇒ 00:05:40.720 Uttam Kumaran: And then…
50 00:05:43.730 ⇒ 00:05:46.610 Uttam Kumaran: It’s basically up to them, at minimum.
51 00:05:47.210 ⇒ 00:05:51.510 Uttam Kumaran: Cutter, like, Cutter was like, I can do this, and I’m like, we’re gonna pitch these two as well.
52 00:05:51.980 ⇒ 00:05:54.139 Uttam Kumaran: They can stack her it however they want.
53 00:05:54.460 ⇒ 00:05:57.239 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s gonna be the, kind of the two deals that we did.
54 00:05:57.400 ⇒ 00:06:07.809 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so my initial question here is gonna be, and you’ll probably describe it when you just, like, define the slide, but, like, it’s… so $15K a month.
55 00:06:08.370 ⇒ 00:06:12.989 Uttam Kumaran: How long until they see the 20% traffic increase?
56 00:06:13.120 ⇒ 00:06:15.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I believe we’re gonna do…
57 00:06:16.850 ⇒ 00:06:18.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this is a good question.
58 00:06:19.100 ⇒ 00:06:24.859 Uttam Kumaran: I believe we’re gonna do… 90 days for, like, one vertical.
59 00:06:25.200 ⇒ 00:06:28.100 Uttam Kumaran: So, for GEO and SEO, I think all of that
60 00:06:28.380 ⇒ 00:06:31.729 Uttam Kumaran: we’re hoping is all 90 days. Okay. Yeah.
61 00:06:33.220 ⇒ 00:06:35.119 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s a good point, I can…
62 00:06:37.460 ⇒ 00:06:40.580 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe I can ask Robert really quick how he must sign up on.
63 00:06:54.920 ⇒ 00:07:00.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we basically, our original thing was,
64 00:07:08.240 ⇒ 00:07:10.310 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, actually, it’s all been here.
65 00:07:13.400 ⇒ 00:07:30.310 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it’s the layout, because the way it says it is, like, if you get 80% lead attributions, right, while you’re doing it, you’re gonna charge 15K, and when you get… when you’re done, and you, like, hit the target, you’re gonna charge another 15K.
66 00:07:31.310 ⇒ 00:07:39.089 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. Right? So, I would be like, so how long is it… how many months is it gonna take you then? Right? Because… Yeah.
67 00:07:40.720 ⇒ 00:07:41.380 Uttam Kumaran: Mike…
68 00:07:41.510 ⇒ 00:07:47.689 Uttam Kumaran: if you’re just gonna draw it out for, like, a year, then you also get a bonus at the end of it, like…
69 00:07:49.420 ⇒ 00:08:00.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah, so maybe, like, the bonus definition is, like, 15K with 18% plus… 80% plus achieved if you do it within 90 days.
70 00:08:02.660 ⇒ 00:08:04.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so this is sort of like…
71 00:08:04.810 ⇒ 00:08:08.709 Uttam Kumaran: We broke out in a few different ways, which was, like, high effort, high reward.
72 00:08:09.480 ⇒ 00:08:16.359 Uttam Kumaran: But really, this is where we were, like, we were looking at your… Slide, and basically thinking…
73 00:08:17.000 ⇒ 00:08:22.819 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, like, these are the… these are the first 30 days we want to do these, and then this is 30…
74 00:08:22.960 ⇒ 00:08:29.519 Uttam Kumaran: 30 to 90 days. And then we have a series of, like, Further options to do.
75 00:08:29.790 ⇒ 00:08:34.350 Uttam Kumaran: So… Okay.
76 00:08:34.630 ⇒ 00:08:44.339 Uttam Kumaran: Right, like… I see what you mean. So I would just be like, what if you take a year, and you do it, but, like… So then we can do, like, the 90-day… Yeah.
77 00:08:48.760 ⇒ 00:09:00.659 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s perfect, right? So then you can say, okay, within 3 months, right, you’re gonna give me 80% of leads attributed, and when that happens, I’ll close this out by giving you another 15K. Yeah.
78 00:09:01.350 ⇒ 00:09:02.230 Uttam Kumaran: Deal.
79 00:09:03.980 ⇒ 00:09:06.900 Uttam Kumaran: Right, because then I’ll do the math, it’ll be…
80 00:09:07.160 ⇒ 00:09:09.310 Uttam Kumaran: 45 and then $60K for it.
81 00:09:10.680 ⇒ 00:09:11.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
82 00:09:11.630 ⇒ 00:09:12.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
83 00:09:17.790 ⇒ 00:09:23.070 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, dude, like, I mean, this is, like, what we’re trying to recover, like, conservatively.
84 00:09:25.450 ⇒ 00:09:27.750 Uttam Kumaran: Flip the tube.
85 00:09:28.110 ⇒ 00:09:28.860 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
86 00:09:30.250 ⇒ 00:09:33.579 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, put this… put this here? Put the second one first.
87 00:09:34.450 ⇒ 00:09:50.390 Uttam Kumaran: cancel recovery and win back. Just, like, fucking start number one with saying, hey, we’re gonna make you $600K in recovered earnings per year in the first 30 days, and when we do, you’ll give us 5% of the, you know, incremental recovered value.
88 00:09:51.320 ⇒ 00:09:51.990 Uttam Kumaran: The f-
89 00:09:56.670 ⇒ 00:10:06.439 Uttam Kumaran: What are you doing? Trying to just insert this… ugh, insert this same. Oh, insert up from the second one, or else you’re gonna… it’s gonna be green. Well, I was gonna do the… Oh, yeah, then just…
90 00:10:06.980 ⇒ 00:10:07.740 Uttam Kumaran: Duh.
91 00:10:08.990 ⇒ 00:10:19.900 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, no, no, I meant saying, like, put cancel recovery and win back first, because I think that’s your strong… Oh. Look how much money they’re gonna get, right? So then they’re gonna listen. Okay. Right?
92 00:10:21.810 ⇒ 00:10:28.049 Uttam Kumaran: you just start really strong. It’s like, hey, okay, first off, like, whatever we do, we’re gonna recover 600K for you within 90 days.
93 00:10:29.170 ⇒ 00:10:30.050 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
94 00:10:30.550 ⇒ 00:10:31.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
95 00:10:32.790 ⇒ 00:10:36.069 Uttam Kumaran: And then that just makes everything else, like, it doesn’t even fucking matter.
96 00:10:36.860 ⇒ 00:10:41.050 Uttam Kumaran: Because otherwise, if I looked at the first one, I’d be like, okay, so it’ll be 60K.
97 00:10:42.000 ⇒ 00:10:43.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see what you mean.
98 00:10:49.440 ⇒ 00:11:00.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, here’s how we were… like, these are more examples of, like, potential ROI. I mean, I don’t care much about… some of these things, like, it’s hard, it’s gonna be hard to do, but if we were to do things like…
99 00:11:01.100 ⇒ 00:11:02.839 Uttam Kumaran: Click to buy testing.
100 00:11:02.970 ⇒ 00:11:10.079 Uttam Kumaran: Right? SEO optimization, win back, like, these are all, like, actually pretty significant because of how much they’re losing right now.
101 00:11:11.260 ⇒ 00:11:17.920 Uttam Kumaran: Do you have a backup slide with all those things on it? I’m gonna put, yeah, I’m gonna put that in there. That’ll be super helpful.
102 00:11:20.110 ⇒ 00:11:25.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, because just in case they’re like, hey, we don’t like any of these things, or we just like the first… Like, this is kind of a…
103 00:11:29.440 ⇒ 00:11:30.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
104 00:11:32.940 ⇒ 00:11:34.640 Uttam Kumaran: Right. Yeah, I like that.
105 00:11:35.490 ⇒ 00:11:36.769 Uttam Kumaran: I like that a lot.
106 00:11:38.850 ⇒ 00:11:41.930 Uttam Kumaran: It’s sort of like, I’m sort of a…
107 00:11:42.730 ⇒ 00:11:55.390 Uttam Kumaran: like a doomsday prepper when it comes to meetings like this, where I assume they’re gonna go really poorly, and I sort of just, like, try to think of all the ways that they will, and try to prepare. So I will have… I’ll work on getting this into…
108 00:11:55.660 ⇒ 00:12:08.469 Uttam Kumaran: into a slide if we need. Dude, this is really good. Yeah. I think, like, you should end the deck with this, or, like, just put it in there when you give it to them, because, like, this is what’s gonna get talked about in the boardroom.
109 00:12:08.470 ⇒ 00:12:21.099 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Everything that you’re talking about here, like, the itemized stuff, like, what’s gonna happen when they talk as a group is, like, the CFO is just gonna look at it as one price tag. Yeah. And then he’ll be like, bro, you’re about to spend $400K.
110 00:12:21.520 ⇒ 00:12:31.579 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. Right? Like, what are you getting? Right? Oh, and it’s like, if you give it to Bobby, Bobby just pulls that up, like, easy. Yeah. What are we debating here anymore? Right?
111 00:12:31.760 ⇒ 00:12:32.859 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay.
112 00:12:38.020 ⇒ 00:12:39.320 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
113 00:12:39.730 ⇒ 00:12:52.870 Uttam Kumaran: I feel pretty good. Yeah. So I’ll just… I’ll do that. Let me just… Yeah, that looks good now. The first… the first line, I was little. Okay. Yeah, but that… now when you tell me that I’ll save 600K, I’m listening.
114 00:12:55.850 ⇒ 00:12:56.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
115 00:15:51.430 ⇒ 00:15:57.380 Uttam Kumaran: So, Casey messaged me this morning saying he just wants to be at IC. Okay.
116 00:15:58.910 ⇒ 00:15:59.900 Uttam Kumaran: That’s fair.
117 00:16:00.080 ⇒ 00:16:01.090 Uttam Kumaran: Whatever.
118 00:16:01.470 ⇒ 00:16:07.199 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m gonna… I’m gonna probably end up trying to move him out, I think. Yeah, we need more planners now.
119 00:16:11.980 ⇒ 00:16:12.730 Uttam Kumaran: It’s beyond.