Meeting Title: Brainforge-Weekly-Kickoff Date: 2024-09-03 Meeting participants: Nicolas Sucari, Uttam Kumaran, Patrick Trainer, Ryan Luke Daque
WEBVTT
1 00:00:12.090 ⇒ 00:00:13.010 Nicolas Sucari: Hi guys.
2 00:00:13.300 ⇒ 00:00:14.000 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
3 00:00:14.820 ⇒ 00:00:15.689 Nicolas Sucari: How are you?
4 00:00:15.940 ⇒ 00:00:18.020 Uttam Kumaran: Good sorry. We’re just a bit late.
5 00:00:19.060 ⇒ 00:00:19.790 Nicolas Sucari: Worry
6 00:00:23.190 ⇒ 00:00:24.100 Nicolas Sucari: hi pat.
7 00:00:25.080 ⇒ 00:00:25.790 Patrick Trainer: Hey!
8 00:00:28.030 ⇒ 00:00:29.220 Ryan Luke Daque: Hello! Hello!
9 00:00:29.540 ⇒ 00:00:30.320 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
10 00:00:32.330 ⇒ 00:00:33.030 Nicolas Sucari: Hey, Ryan.
11 00:00:33.740 ⇒ 00:00:35.299 Ryan Luke Daque: Hello! How’s everyone?
12 00:00:36.100 ⇒ 00:00:36.560 Patrick Trainer: Doing, good.
13 00:00:36.560 ⇒ 00:00:37.140 Uttam Kumaran: No.
14 00:00:38.140 ⇒ 00:00:39.010 Nicolas Sucari: Doing, good.
15 00:00:39.450 ⇒ 00:00:41.409 Patrick Trainer: How’s your your infection?
16 00:00:42.680 ⇒ 00:00:50.090 Ryan Luke Daque: Yeah, it’s it’s a lot better. It’s still not. Yeah. It’s still not fully healed. But it’s yeah. It’s a lot better now.
17 00:00:50.320 ⇒ 00:00:51.580 Patrick Trainer: Good to hear. It’s better.
18 00:00:54.370 ⇒ 00:00:58.960 Ryan Luke Daque: Still have to go back to the doctor this Friday for another
19 00:00:59.800 ⇒ 00:01:02.040 Ryan Luke Daque: check up! Follow up! Check up!
20 00:01:07.720 ⇒ 00:01:13.309 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I think it’s just gonna be us today. So yeah, I guess a couple of
21 00:01:13.490 ⇒ 00:01:16.318 Uttam Kumaran: things for this week. So one
22 00:01:17.300 ⇒ 00:01:20.810 Uttam Kumaran: I guess I’ll just share something that we’ve been
23 00:01:21.640 ⇒ 00:01:23.220 Uttam Kumaran: working on that. I think.
24 00:01:23.230 ⇒ 00:01:28.819 Uttam Kumaran: Nico, you just messaged me about. But we have made some better updates to our.
25 00:01:28.870 ⇒ 00:01:41.630 Uttam Kumaran: We have like a bit of like a zoom automation that’s happening right now. So basically in slack, me and Nico are in, we have like a meeting notes. Or basically, we just get like automated meeting notes
26 00:01:41.800 ⇒ 00:01:48.999 Uttam Kumaran: for everything which is great after. And after this meeting, for example, I’ll get a slack, which is basically like what we talked about
27 00:01:49.010 ⇒ 00:01:50.690 Uttam Kumaran: and action items.
28 00:01:50.970 ⇒ 00:02:04.119 Uttam Kumaran: which is amazing. The next thing that we’re doing is gonna make this a bit open to everybody. So if you’re in a meeting, and this, this will probably be the 1st meeting, or we test out this works. We have mapped.
29 00:02:04.310 ⇒ 00:02:08.720 Uttam Kumaran: and I don’t actually know if everybody’s here. But we map slack ids to email addresses.
30 00:02:08.750 ⇒ 00:02:22.659 Uttam Kumaran: So basically, once you once you’re in a meeting and the AI recognizes that you’re in a meeting because Zoom will say this email is in it. We have the emails mapped to a slack id and then everybody should be getting messages from the slack bot.
31 00:02:22.670 ⇒ 00:02:25.719 Uttam Kumaran: which is just like, sorry this is really, it’s hard to see. But
32 00:02:25.830 ⇒ 00:02:29.880 Uttam Kumaran: you should be getting like information about action items. Basically
33 00:02:30.251 ⇒ 00:02:38.120 Uttam Kumaran: like everybody who’s in the meeting will get a message that’s like, here’s a summary of the meeting that you were in. And here’s the action items. Basically
34 00:02:38.731 ⇒ 00:02:44.019 Uttam Kumaran: again, this is also going to that channel. And it’s all these are going into notion. So
35 00:02:44.220 ⇒ 00:02:49.580 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve basically gone to like pretty good fidelity on like, Hey, you’re in a meeting.
36 00:02:50.150 ⇒ 00:02:56.989 Uttam Kumaran: What do we even talk about? What am I supposed to be doing? All that we’re in a really really great spot.
37 00:02:58.074 ⇒ 00:03:02.970 Uttam Kumaran: We also continue working on this jobs post scraper.
38 00:03:04.530 ⇒ 00:03:06.559 Uttam Kumaran: workflow. So in slack
39 00:03:07.454 ⇒ 00:03:08.999 Uttam Kumaran: there is a
40 00:03:09.932 ⇒ 00:03:12.280 Uttam Kumaran: sales job postings
41 00:03:13.880 ⇒ 00:03:17.830 Uttam Kumaran: channel where basically, if you post a job posting and a
42 00:03:17.840 ⇒ 00:03:22.119 Uttam Kumaran: rocket emoji this ends up going to
43 00:03:22.320 ⇒ 00:03:35.950 Uttam Kumaran: it goes to Zapier, and then a zapier goes to relevance relevance, looks up the company on Apollo, Googles them and finds out who the hiring managers are, then writes an email to them.
44 00:03:36.903 ⇒ 00:03:42.209 Uttam Kumaran: and then that email not only gets threaded, but then it also gets put into
45 00:03:42.743 ⇒ 00:03:49.450 Uttam Kumaran: this Google Sheet, this Google Sheet. Then once a week I’m pushing this into Apollo after I like review
46 00:03:49.630 ⇒ 00:03:50.150 Uttam Kumaran: at.
47 00:03:50.150 ⇒ 00:03:54.180 Patrick Trainer: At the end of that email. It hadn’t brackets. Your name
48 00:03:55.190 ⇒ 00:03:56.349 Patrick Trainer: is that.
49 00:03:56.920 ⇒ 00:04:02.239 Uttam Kumaran: We’re we’re working on the no, we’re working on the miguel today is working on the
50 00:04:03.890 ⇒ 00:04:06.939 Uttam Kumaran: like message syntax. Basically, I was like.
51 00:04:06.940 ⇒ 00:04:10.119 Patrick Trainer: So all, all of the people that we’ve sent that email to.
52 00:04:10.120 ⇒ 00:04:11.359 Uttam Kumaran: We haven’t said that name.
53 00:04:11.750 ⇒ 00:04:13.830 Patrick Trainer: Oh, okay. Okay. Good.
54 00:04:14.350 ⇒ 00:04:17.370 Uttam Kumaran: But I just wanted to share that this was working
55 00:04:17.792 ⇒ 00:04:25.209 Uttam Kumaran: today I message him, and he’s working on actual what the message is, because right now these are like super generic AI messages.
56 00:04:25.210 ⇒ 00:04:25.570 Patrick Trainer: Right.
57 00:04:25.570 ⇒ 00:04:29.870 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna take the all the copywriting stuff that we did for the other emails and apply it here.
58 00:04:30.040 ⇒ 00:04:31.649 Uttam Kumaran: And these will be really crisp.
59 00:04:32.470 ⇒ 00:04:41.290 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s working really? Well, this morning me, Abigail and Pat worked today. And we basically figured out how to get
60 00:04:42.230 ⇒ 00:04:43.249 Uttam Kumaran: how to get.
61 00:04:43.550 ⇒ 00:04:46.579 Uttam Kumaran: how to filter start with a campaign idea
62 00:04:46.620 ⇒ 00:04:53.180 Uttam Kumaran: filter to a bunch of contacts in Apollo, and then those get sent to Hubspot. Hubspot then scores them
63 00:04:53.460 ⇒ 00:05:03.349 Uttam Kumaran: and tells us like here are the highest people that we should that have the highest propensity, you know, to convert basically is kind of the the goal. And then
64 00:05:03.560 ⇒ 00:05:09.020 Uttam Kumaran: well, the next piece that we’ll work on this week is, how do those people get from Hubspot into instantly?
65 00:05:09.584 ⇒ 00:05:16.525 Uttam Kumaran: With a message? So we have about 24,000 like export contacts.
66 00:05:17.280 ⇒ 00:05:20.149 Uttam Kumaran: today or tomorrow, I’ll probably set a goal of like
67 00:05:20.730 ⇒ 00:05:25.139 Uttam Kumaran: we want to try, basically with 24,000 per year.
68 00:05:25.170 ⇒ 00:05:27.690 Uttam Kumaran: So roughly like 2 k per month.
69 00:05:27.730 ⇒ 00:05:37.989 Uttam Kumaran: So we’ll think about how we wanna if we want to have 3 to 5 campaigns running with a certain conversion rate, we need to hit this amount of people right like, that’s kind of how we’ll set a high level goal.
70 00:05:38.740 ⇒ 00:05:40.679 Patrick Trainer: Sorry is it? 24,000 like
71 00:05:40.760 ⇒ 00:05:43.179 Patrick Trainer: per calendar year per like.
72 00:05:43.180 ⇒ 00:05:44.210 Uttam Kumaran: Calendar, year.
73 00:05:44.600 ⇒ 00:05:45.770 Patrick Trainer: Okay, so.
74 00:05:45.770 ⇒ 00:05:46.640 Uttam Kumaran: April.
75 00:05:46.640 ⇒ 00:05:49.580 Patrick Trainer: It’s it’s September, so so we can.
76 00:05:50.150 ⇒ 00:05:53.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we actually have a lot like, I haven’t used any. And I got.
77 00:05:53.740 ⇒ 00:05:54.679 Patrick Trainer: Not a ton of them.
78 00:05:54.930 ⇒ 00:05:57.346 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, exactly. You’re totally right.
79 00:05:59.060 ⇒ 00:06:01.989 Uttam Kumaran: If you go to plan overview, you’ll see.
80 00:06:03.660 ⇒ 00:06:06.150 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. April 3.rd April 3.rd
81 00:06:06.600 ⇒ 00:06:07.050 Patrick Trainer: Sweet!
82 00:06:07.200 ⇒ 00:06:11.190 Uttam Kumaran: So we actually, yeah, you’re right, we actually can rip through a lot of these.
83 00:06:11.230 ⇒ 00:06:15.270 Uttam Kumaran: I just wanna think about like setting like
84 00:06:15.640 ⇒ 00:06:17.730 Uttam Kumaran: rough conversion rate goals.
85 00:06:18.260 ⇒ 00:06:25.710 Uttam Kumaran: basically like low end and high end. And then basically take the low end and be like cool. If we’re at this run rate, we’re not going to run out of credits.
86 00:06:26.030 ⇒ 00:06:28.879 Uttam Kumaran: and that way we can turn it up and down as we need.
87 00:06:30.900 ⇒ 00:06:32.710 Uttam Kumaran: And then I got a really great
88 00:06:32.970 ⇒ 00:06:37.900 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve got a really great discount. I got like $700 off of all, though.
89 00:06:38.020 ⇒ 00:06:40.070 Uttam Kumaran: but next year’s bill is going to be
90 00:06:40.440 ⇒ 00:06:42.840 Uttam Kumaran: a lot, so
91 00:06:44.080 ⇒ 00:06:44.960 Uttam Kumaran: there’s probably.
92 00:06:44.960 ⇒ 00:06:47.190 Patrick Trainer: Like, gonna be a new product out that’ll.
93 00:06:47.680 ⇒ 00:06:49.840 Uttam Kumaran: At that point. I’ll call them for that, too.
94 00:06:49.840 ⇒ 00:06:50.240 Patrick Trainer: Oh!
95 00:06:50.640 ⇒ 00:06:53.037 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’ll find another one. We’ll just.
96 00:06:53.380 ⇒ 00:06:56.109 Patrick Trainer: I need to churn Sas apps and
97 00:06:56.430 ⇒ 00:06:57.030 Patrick Trainer: no.
98 00:06:57.030 ⇒ 00:06:59.119 Uttam Kumaran: I mean and oh, the other thing I did
99 00:06:59.895 ⇒ 00:07:01.560 Uttam Kumaran: and again, like.
100 00:07:02.340 ⇒ 00:07:04.020 Uttam Kumaran: I just like.
101 00:07:04.060 ⇒ 00:07:16.379 Uttam Kumaran: I just try to be very transparent, and I feel like I’m the only one looking at all this, anyways. But if anyone is interested you can now see all the tools we use for the most part, all the tools we use and the cost.
102 00:07:16.470 ⇒ 00:07:18.140 Uttam Kumaran: the billing frequency.
103 00:07:18.420 ⇒ 00:07:22.349 Uttam Kumaran: and basically, like Mrr, the the monthly cost and the annual cost.
104 00:07:23.570 ⇒ 00:07:29.349 Uttam Kumaran: I will some of these you probably aren’t aware of, because these are like back office things like flow flies or bookkeeper.
105 00:07:30.860 ⇒ 00:07:38.929 Uttam Kumaran: there’s some other stuff on the recruiting side. So I’ll actually probably put in a brief description of like what these are. But you can basically kind of see
106 00:07:39.800 ⇒ 00:07:41.700 Uttam Kumaran: outside of headcount
107 00:07:42.680 ⇒ 00:07:47.589 Uttam Kumaran: for the most. And outside of like ad hoc stuff where I’m like, I just buy something to test it out.
108 00:07:48.100 ⇒ 00:07:50.130 Uttam Kumaran: What it costs to kind of like
109 00:07:50.350 ⇒ 00:07:52.100 Uttam Kumaran: for all of our software.
110 00:07:52.510 ⇒ 00:07:55.090 Uttam Kumaran: The way this is gonna go is
111 00:07:55.140 ⇒ 00:07:57.940 Uttam Kumaran: when when these come, some of these are monthly.
112 00:07:58.340 ⇒ 00:08:02.519 Uttam Kumaran: we will probably be able to save 25%. Just moving this to annually
113 00:08:02.680 ⇒ 00:08:09.160 Uttam Kumaran: and then on the annual renewal is when we’ll basically be like cool. Do we want to stick with house? Why do we want to renegotiate.
114 00:08:09.830 ⇒ 00:08:17.219 Uttam Kumaran: The nice thing is, you can see that it takes up. It’s about like 40, probably 40 to 60 tools to run like a business like this
115 00:08:17.270 ⇒ 00:08:19.159 Uttam Kumaran: just kind of like crazy.
116 00:08:19.535 ⇒ 00:08:23.190 Uttam Kumaran: Some of these are client tools, right? Like 5 trend.
117 00:08:23.230 ⇒ 00:08:25.829 Uttam Kumaran: Some of these are things that we use like zoom.
118 00:08:26.673 ⇒ 00:08:30.450 Uttam Kumaran: Some of these are free. But I again, it’s just like
119 00:08:30.700 ⇒ 00:08:33.700 Uttam Kumaran: I want to put in anything where we have a presence into here.
120 00:08:33.980 ⇒ 00:08:35.159 Uttam Kumaran: because
121 00:08:36.120 ⇒ 00:08:46.600 Uttam Kumaran: otherwise it’s like, impossible to understand, like what all the things we’re we’re leveraging are. And I even include things like art. I include anything that would be an equip equipment. Right? So for us.
122 00:08:46.860 ⇒ 00:08:49.686 Uttam Kumaran: like again, if you were, if you were
123 00:08:50.160 ⇒ 00:09:08.700 Uttam Kumaran: a construction worker, you have your vest, you have your helmet, you have your tools. This is all of our equipment. So anything it’s like, I mean, I should put my phone on here like your. It’s all these things about how what it takes to actually do. This job needs to get in here. And so that’s kind of all the stuff that I’ve listed here. But also again.
124 00:09:08.920 ⇒ 00:09:12.039 Uttam Kumaran: all of these we’re constantly looking to reduce
125 00:09:12.300 ⇒ 00:09:15.019 Uttam Kumaran: and leverage AI to replace.
126 00:09:15.190 ⇒ 00:09:16.090 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
127 00:09:17.700 ⇒ 00:09:25.369 Uttam Kumaran: I would say. A lot of this also is you’ve been our current bill is probably 50% of what it should be, because I’ve just picked
128 00:09:25.720 ⇒ 00:09:30.989 Uttam Kumaran: like very cheap tools. And Renego negotiated as hard as I I could.
129 00:09:31.050 ⇒ 00:09:39.530 Uttam Kumaran: So next year, when this bill next year, like at least in 6 months, some of these we’re gonna are going to go higher because we’re going to lose some of those discounts. So.
130 00:09:41.230 ⇒ 00:09:54.470 Uttam Kumaran: and some of these are running on family plans. I’m running like as I’m like. I’m just like, for example, one password is on like a family plan, because it’s not a user base. Some of these are like Apollo. We’re we’re just trading off my account.
131 00:09:54.670 ⇒ 00:09:57.960 Uttam Kumaran: Those are some things that again over cost mitigation
132 00:09:58.050 ⇒ 00:10:01.509 Uttam Kumaran: we’re doing. But I wanted to share with you guys roughly, like
133 00:10:02.110 ⇒ 00:10:04.100 Uttam Kumaran: the software side of this business.
134 00:10:04.476 ⇒ 00:10:10.160 Uttam Kumaran: And when we add new tools. This is what we’ll look at it right? I want to look at a stack rank, and then
135 00:10:10.420 ⇒ 00:10:14.670 Uttam Kumaran: the other thing is, when we it all goes back to the automation side.
136 00:10:15.000 ⇒ 00:10:20.280 Uttam Kumaran: How far can we leverage Zapier windmill to basically build
137 00:10:20.360 ⇒ 00:10:24.200 Uttam Kumaran: some of these processes right? And in here
138 00:10:24.230 ⇒ 00:10:25.830 Uttam Kumaran: we’re actually starting to measure
139 00:10:25.860 ⇒ 00:10:27.330 Uttam Kumaran: the amount of tasks
140 00:10:27.640 ⇒ 00:10:29.909 Uttam Kumaran: I have a good like I actually
141 00:10:30.160 ⇒ 00:10:33.890 Uttam Kumaran: did the calculation for our plan. It’s about 5 cents
142 00:10:34.170 ⇒ 00:10:35.130 Uttam Kumaran: a Zap
143 00:10:37.380 ⇒ 00:10:43.219 Uttam Kumaran: and then, on relevance to it’s about point 0 0 2
144 00:10:43.640 ⇒ 00:10:45.570 Uttam Kumaran: cents per agent run.
145 00:10:45.930 ⇒ 00:10:49.850 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re going to start measuring the cost to actually run some of these automations as well.
146 00:10:50.150 ⇒ 00:10:56.859 Uttam Kumaran: And then, ideally, I would think Windmill is basically like the cheapest we’re going to get in terms of like lowest headache.
147 00:10:57.040 ⇒ 00:11:00.819 Uttam Kumaran: So some of these will probably move to Windmill eventually, but these are fine now.
148 00:11:00.820 ⇒ 00:11:03.629 Patrick Trainer: This is pretty interesting, because you can see
149 00:11:03.710 ⇒ 00:11:06.219 Patrick Trainer: essentially like the margin on.
150 00:11:06.470 ⇒ 00:11:08.490 Patrick Trainer: like what they’re charging for. AI.
151 00:11:09.030 ⇒ 00:11:09.840 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly.
152 00:11:09.840 ⇒ 00:11:13.439 Patrick Trainer: Like like with relevance, like we’re seeing the
153 00:11:14.370 ⇒ 00:11:17.559 Patrick Trainer: less than a cent like a thousandthth of a cent. But.
154 00:11:17.560 ⇒ 00:11:19.099 Uttam Kumaran: The one thing actually.
155 00:11:19.100 ⇒ 00:11:22.470 Patrick Trainer: When, like Chat Gpt is like a hundred 1,000th of a cent.
156 00:11:22.470 ⇒ 00:11:27.939 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly so. The only thing I don’t happen here is that’s a really good point. Is that relevance
157 00:11:28.010 ⇒ 00:11:29.440 Uttam Kumaran: and Zapier
158 00:11:30.050 ⇒ 00:11:33.220 Uttam Kumaran: have our Openai Key cause they’re using it for stuff.
159 00:11:33.270 ⇒ 00:11:36.939 Uttam Kumaran: So I actually need to add the cost of that here as well.
160 00:11:37.747 ⇒ 00:11:42.460 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s very low. It’s maybe 10 bucks a month or something like that. But yeah, they’re
161 00:11:43.080 ⇒ 00:11:49.879 Uttam Kumaran: they’re they’re charging on top of it. But again, what I for all these things, basically, it’s like proof of concept
162 00:11:50.150 ⇒ 00:11:52.070 Uttam Kumaran: right like, is it just working?
163 00:11:52.320 ⇒ 00:12:02.230 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s kind of what we’re doing on the sales side, right? It’s like, can we move? Can we filter Apollo, get them in Hubspot. Get an email out proof of concept. Mvp. Is like cool. Can that happen
164 00:12:02.530 ⇒ 00:12:07.899 Uttam Kumaran: just by kicking one thing off? And then, like a version one is like, can we do that for 3 or 5 at a time?
165 00:12:07.970 ⇒ 00:12:09.969 Uttam Kumaran: So the whole we are.
166 00:12:10.600 ⇒ 00:12:15.860 Uttam Kumaran: We’re doing this for the whole company itself. We are in this situation. We’re the client.
167 00:12:15.870 ⇒ 00:12:22.419 Uttam Kumaran: but we are like for me, my task for Miguel and for everybody, is like, How do we run this
168 00:12:23.040 ⇒ 00:12:25.150 Uttam Kumaran: very, very lean, very, very cheap.
169 00:12:25.450 ⇒ 00:12:34.330 Uttam Kumaran: because our ability to grow and our ability to get better access to capital really helps. And also, again, the nice thing is like.
170 00:12:34.430 ⇒ 00:12:39.270 Uttam Kumaran: if I go speak to people on the business side. I’m actually like, very forward with, like, yeah, we are like
171 00:12:39.480 ⇒ 00:12:41.000 Uttam Kumaran: constantly eating
172 00:12:41.360 ⇒ 00:12:46.659 Uttam Kumaran: like eating away at cost in this business by implementing things like that.
173 00:12:46.700 ⇒ 00:12:52.090 Uttam Kumaran: And so you can see we have a ton of stuff that we’re going to constantly be doing, and Miguel has been really, really helpful. There.
174 00:12:52.570 ⇒ 00:13:00.269 Uttam Kumaran: that’s the the second angle, or whatever the 5th angle. I don’t know how many angles I have, but the next thing we’re doing on this is
175 00:13:00.300 ⇒ 00:13:03.760 Uttam Kumaran: this is basically how we’re going to build the AI side of our business.
176 00:13:03.780 ⇒ 00:13:06.350 Uttam Kumaran: So right now in us
177 00:13:06.390 ⇒ 00:13:29.639 Uttam Kumaran: applying these internally, we will then go and begin to market these externally right. This is the whole pitch where we started off as a really data focused business. And the second thing is as we start to leverage AI for data needs for internal needs will then become a bit of like, okay, how do we actually start marketing AI services. This is one of the key ways, not only to learn how to do it and learn the pitfalls, but
178 00:13:29.760 ⇒ 00:13:31.270 Uttam Kumaran: actually say, like cool
179 00:13:31.680 ⇒ 00:13:39.300 Uttam Kumaran: like we have a. We have a Zoom Meeting thing. And for each of these I’ve Google. And we could we now figure out how much it costs for us to run it?
180 00:13:39.950 ⇒ 00:13:44.710 Uttam Kumaran: Does the product exist, or what are the competitors? And then, like, what can we go to market with right? So
181 00:13:44.790 ⇒ 00:13:48.509 Uttam Kumaran: all of these in itself. There, there’s multiple multiple products.
182 00:13:48.770 ⇒ 00:13:51.259 Uttam Kumaran: basically sitting in plain sight just in this.
183 00:13:51.520 ⇒ 00:13:53.399 Uttam Kumaran: in this notion board already.
184 00:13:55.630 ⇒ 00:14:00.169 Uttam Kumaran: so that’s kind of everything. This week. We have a couple of
185 00:14:00.260 ⇒ 00:14:02.969 Uttam Kumaran: clients that were kind of like waiting on finding out
186 00:14:05.660 ⇒ 00:14:08.839 Uttam Kumaran: whether they’re going to close or not. So we’re going to see
187 00:14:09.504 ⇒ 00:14:16.419 Uttam Kumaran: this week. What happens there? The biggest stuff otherwise is we’re waiting on a renewal from Stella.
188 00:14:16.888 ⇒ 00:14:18.879 Uttam Kumaran: That should happen this week.
189 00:14:19.796 ⇒ 00:14:21.660 Uttam Kumaran: We’re also in talks
190 00:14:22.140 ⇒ 00:14:26.090 Uttam Kumaran: to kick off a contract with this company called Javi Coffee.
191 00:14:26.530 ⇒ 00:14:28.490 Uttam Kumaran: They’re like big on Tiktok.
192 00:14:28.820 ⇒ 00:14:30.150 Uttam Kumaran: They’re just like a
193 00:14:31.350 ⇒ 00:14:33.790 Uttam Kumaran: coffee concentrate type. Company
194 00:14:35.450 ⇒ 00:14:36.560 Patrick Trainer: When are when are they
195 00:14:36.770 ⇒ 00:14:37.710 Patrick Trainer: closing?
196 00:14:38.306 ⇒ 00:14:40.880 Uttam Kumaran: This week we have a proposal out to them.
197 00:14:41.535 ⇒ 00:14:42.150 Uttam Kumaran: and
198 00:14:42.330 ⇒ 00:14:47.090 Uttam Kumaran: and basically, they’re gonna it’s gonna be like, kind of a 0 to one thing again.
199 00:14:47.490 ⇒ 00:14:48.280 Uttam Kumaran: So.
200 00:14:48.675 ⇒ 00:14:49.069 Patrick Trainer: Sweet!
201 00:14:49.985 ⇒ 00:15:03.969 Uttam Kumaran: It’ll it’ll be kind of like it’ll be kind of like Stella. What kind kind of like cool parts it’s like we. They don’t have Snowflake. They’re they have an amplitude. We’ll be working with Robert from Pungo again. And then basically
202 00:15:04.893 ⇒ 00:15:11.779 Uttam Kumaran: they want to do Snowflake. They want to bring in their shopify and Amazon data to build, to build consolidated sales reporting
203 00:15:11.850 ⇒ 00:15:14.770 Uttam Kumaran: and then ideally layer on rail on top.
204 00:15:16.270 ⇒ 00:15:26.470 Uttam Kumaran: so we’re gonna see whether they close this week and hopefully get started in the next 2 weeks, I think on the actual modeling side, Brian will come in and own that
205 00:15:27.777 ⇒ 00:15:30.950 Uttam Kumaran: and then the rest of us will just support, like
206 00:15:31.190 ⇒ 00:15:34.819 Uttam Kumaran: Pat will probably run the script again for Snowflake
207 00:15:35.130 ⇒ 00:15:37.110 Uttam Kumaran: hopefully make some improvements again there.
208 00:15:37.600 ⇒ 00:15:41.770 Uttam Kumaran: if they want real ideally, this will be the this will be probably we can.
209 00:15:41.940 ⇒ 00:15:47.819 Uttam Kumaran: We have a bit of a real onboarding script, but we’ll do it. We’ll try to beef that one up as well.
210 00:15:50.180 ⇒ 00:15:53.339 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, hopefully, this gets closed
211 00:15:53.660 ⇒ 00:15:56.590 Uttam Kumaran: trying to think if there’s anything
212 00:15:57.500 ⇒ 00:15:58.550 Uttam Kumaran: else, it’s like.
213 00:15:58.550 ⇒ 00:16:00.980 Patrick Trainer: Almost millennial. Landing, page.
214 00:16:02.408 ⇒ 00:16:05.320 Nicolas Sucari: Yeah, just for coffee.
215 00:16:05.320 ⇒ 00:16:08.069 Uttam Kumaran: They’re growing a very, very fast right now. Actually.
216 00:16:08.500 ⇒ 00:16:09.610 Nicolas Sucari: It looked nice.
217 00:16:11.150 ⇒ 00:16:11.880 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s.
218 00:16:11.880 ⇒ 00:16:13.929 Patrick Trainer: Coffee any? Is the coffee any good?
219 00:16:14.540 ⇒ 00:16:19.249 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ll try to get. I’ll if we. If this closes, I’ll ask them for some stuff for the team.
220 00:16:20.676 ⇒ 00:16:26.980 Uttam Kumaran: I just know? I asked, like some of my friends, and they’re like, Yeah, I see them on Tiktok all the time. I don’t know how we go if you see them.
221 00:16:28.780 ⇒ 00:16:38.759 Uttam Kumaran: but they spend like hundreds of thousands of dollars. They actually spend millions of dollars a month on Tiktok, but some days itself they spend like hundreds of thousands of dollars on Tiktok.
222 00:16:38.760 ⇒ 00:16:43.329 Patrick Trainer: Tiktok is making so much money like. It’s absurd.
223 00:16:46.580 ⇒ 00:16:49.029 Patrick Trainer: I’m not on Tiktok so, but.
224 00:16:49.210 ⇒ 00:16:50.479 Uttam Kumaran: I actually just
225 00:16:50.720 ⇒ 00:16:53.800 Uttam Kumaran: created our company profile on Tiktok and stuff like that.
226 00:16:54.900 ⇒ 00:16:57.409 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I did have one more thing to share. So
227 00:16:57.530 ⇒ 00:17:00.829 Uttam Kumaran: I also set up our beehive.
228 00:17:01.080 ⇒ 00:17:03.850 Uttam Kumaran: So if you go to blog dot brainforce that AI,
229 00:17:03.860 ⇒ 00:17:05.719 Uttam Kumaran: you should see this.
230 00:17:06.683 ⇒ 00:17:07.430 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t.
231 00:17:09.780 ⇒ 00:17:11.190 Uttam Kumaran: I hit subscribe.
232 00:17:11.420 ⇒ 00:17:20.340 Uttam Kumaran: I think this this is just the page right now and then. What we’re gonna do is in beehive. I will start to set up
233 00:17:20.630 ⇒ 00:17:27.620 Uttam Kumaran: the actual homepage. The nice thing is, I don’t. I think we’re going to start with like just simple branded page, and then
234 00:17:27.700 ⇒ 00:17:29.579 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll do more of our branding.
235 00:17:31.480 ⇒ 00:17:33.120 Nicolas Sucari: This is living in workflow.
236 00:17:33.950 ⇒ 00:17:38.109 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, this isn’t love. Flow beehive actually controls.
237 00:17:38.690 ⇒ 00:17:39.370 Nicolas Sucari: Okay.
238 00:17:39.370 ⇒ 00:17:41.410 Uttam Kumaran: Big HUD controls the subdemand.
239 00:17:42.090 ⇒ 00:17:45.769 Uttam Kumaran: and then eventually, once we get our design done for the blog.
240 00:17:46.090 ⇒ 00:17:48.410 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll just have beehive, be the content
241 00:17:48.790 ⇒ 00:17:50.880 Uttam Kumaran: portion and the actually mailing
242 00:17:51.140 ⇒ 00:17:52.170 Uttam Kumaran: side.
243 00:17:54.626 ⇒ 00:17:56.650 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing is.
244 00:17:56.750 ⇒ 00:17:59.900 Uttam Kumaran: I updated. We have some nice new
245 00:18:01.410 ⇒ 00:18:03.070 Uttam Kumaran: like Linkedin
246 00:18:04.100 ⇒ 00:18:04.889 Uttam Kumaran: headers.
247 00:18:07.733 ⇒ 00:18:11.069 Uttam Kumaran: So you can let me know what you think about that
248 00:18:11.520 ⇒ 00:18:12.480 Uttam Kumaran: that
249 00:18:12.820 ⇒ 00:18:16.670 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. We’ll see if we change the copy, but these are pretty nice, I think.
250 00:18:19.015 ⇒ 00:18:20.690 Uttam Kumaran: And then we also have
251 00:18:21.120 ⇒ 00:18:23.409 Uttam Kumaran: desktop wallpapers that I had made.
252 00:18:26.660 ⇒ 00:18:30.330 Uttam Kumaran: if you take a look at sales assets.
253 00:18:45.594 ⇒ 00:18:47.715 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, maybe that one step
254 00:18:50.520 ⇒ 00:18:55.600 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. I was on a call with somebody, and they had a very nice wallpaper that they were doing like the virtual background on. And I was like.
255 00:18:55.770 ⇒ 00:18:57.079 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we need those.
256 00:18:58.655 ⇒ 00:18:59.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
257 00:19:00.970 ⇒ 00:19:02.829 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know what the design
258 00:19:03.280 ⇒ 00:19:08.793 Uttam Kumaran: Inspo was for this. I basically was like, I want a desktop wallpaper. I think it looks decent.
259 00:19:10.165 ⇒ 00:19:12.090 Uttam Kumaran: But if anybody wants this
260 00:19:12.770 ⇒ 00:19:14.950 Uttam Kumaran: and wants to make their desktop wallpaper.
261 00:19:15.950 ⇒ 00:19:18.540 Uttam Kumaran: I will share this. I’ll share this with everybody in slack.
262 00:19:25.120 ⇒ 00:19:29.459 Uttam Kumaran: I was serious about everything needs to be branded. Everything needs to be branded.
263 00:19:30.270 ⇒ 00:19:31.170 Uttam Kumaran: How
264 00:19:46.120 ⇒ 00:19:47.060 Uttam Kumaran: cool!
265 00:19:48.610 ⇒ 00:19:55.550 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s most of the updates, I guess the only other thing. I guess I’ll share this. And maybe this is more
266 00:19:56.080 ⇒ 00:19:57.962 Uttam Kumaran: food for thought.
267 00:19:59.050 ⇒ 00:20:04.130 Uttam Kumaran: was, I was listening to a really good podcast about this concept of like agency.
268 00:20:04.220 ⇒ 00:20:07.629 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, Pat, maybe you’ve heard of it. I was talking a little bit to
269 00:20:08.110 ⇒ 00:20:10.410 Uttam Kumaran: rhyme about it this morning.
270 00:20:10.869 ⇒ 00:20:17.981 Uttam Kumaran: But I was reading this really good thread about it on twitter and maybe I’ll just share. I’ll share with you guys
271 00:20:18.840 ⇒ 00:20:19.540 Uttam Kumaran: on
272 00:20:20.290 ⇒ 00:20:21.300 Uttam Kumaran: in slack.
273 00:20:21.970 ⇒ 00:20:24.309 Uttam Kumaran: and maybe you can just pull it up and like.
274 00:20:25.170 ⇒ 00:20:28.910 Uttam Kumaran: read along or take a look at some of the examples. But
275 00:20:28.920 ⇒ 00:20:36.299 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I I just. I was thinking a lot about like how we foster like high agency folks at Brainford, but also like how
276 00:20:36.860 ⇒ 00:20:38.779 Uttam Kumaran: people look at their own work.
277 00:20:39.264 ⇒ 00:20:42.799 Uttam Kumaran: With like a high agency mindset. Really, what it means is like
278 00:20:43.250 ⇒ 00:20:50.150 Uttam Kumaran: one of the ways you describe. It is like the way you recognize, like a high agency person is like, if you were in jail.
279 00:20:50.340 ⇒ 00:20:54.460 Uttam Kumaran: and you had one phone call to call somebody to get you out. Who would you call?
280 00:20:54.590 ⇒ 00:20:56.010 Uttam Kumaran: That person
281 00:20:56.410 ⇒ 00:20:59.399 Uttam Kumaran: is likely like a very high agency person.
282 00:20:59.760 ⇒ 00:21:01.930 Uttam Kumaran: and I thought that was a really nice example.
283 00:21:01.940 ⇒ 00:21:10.220 Uttam Kumaran: which is like, Okay, you’re in jail like, who do you call to? Just like, figure this situation out to try to get you out or something. Another good example is like
284 00:21:10.420 ⇒ 00:21:12.050 Uttam Kumaran: you have 2 people
285 00:21:12.130 ⇒ 00:21:13.839 Uttam Kumaran: that are stuck on an island.
286 00:21:14.696 ⇒ 00:21:16.720 Uttam Kumaran: And one person takes
287 00:21:16.790 ⇒ 00:21:22.339 Uttam Kumaran: cuts on a tree and builds a thing that says help. Another person cuts on the tree and then builds a boat
288 00:21:22.670 ⇒ 00:21:25.440 Uttam Kumaran: right like that’s like another good example
289 00:21:25.680 ⇒ 00:21:28.960 Uttam Kumaran: of that. So I don’t know I was. I thought a lot about
290 00:21:29.040 ⇒ 00:21:32.300 Uttam Kumaran: look. The business that we’re trying to build, I’ve always said, is
291 00:21:32.702 ⇒ 00:21:42.389 Uttam Kumaran: one of like, Hey, we have like, we’re Async. People know what they need to do. We’re really focused on output. But all that really is kind of just building like a
292 00:21:42.410 ⇒ 00:21:46.080 Uttam Kumaran: high agency business, right? It’s where everybody is
293 00:21:46.100 ⇒ 00:21:49.849 Uttam Kumaran: in charge is their own boss and our boss of their own domain.
294 00:21:50.010 ⇒ 00:21:52.160 Uttam Kumaran: And you know, I think
295 00:21:52.220 ⇒ 00:22:07.660 Uttam Kumaran: we, we through clients that we work with. And I think a lot of this is actually due to just being a remote company where we’re not all in the same room together, where high like having high agency, actually matters a ton right to be able to actually
296 00:22:08.200 ⇒ 00:22:23.409 Uttam Kumaran: own the your own arena, and then also be like proactive in that you’re like actively asking for feedback, actively saying, what else can we do? Is the kind of nature that we’re trying to cultivate right? It’s something that that I try to do. But of course.
297 00:22:23.794 ⇒ 00:22:33.859 Uttam Kumaran: it’s something that I want everybody to feel really comfortable doing, but also encourage and actually share that it’s necessary, right, like for us to continue to be super pro async.
298 00:22:33.930 ⇒ 00:22:39.589 Uttam Kumaran: to be super pro remote, and to basically come to meetings and be super
299 00:22:39.700 ⇒ 00:22:45.200 Uttam Kumaran: like I don’t want to say, not professional, but like to this, for this situation be very chill
300 00:22:45.310 ⇒ 00:22:48.060 Uttam Kumaran: like that’s the thing that really needs to happen.
301 00:22:48.912 ⇒ 00:22:55.227 Uttam Kumaran: So I I don’t know. I I listen to a really great podcast about it. And if anyone else has any thoughts on that
302 00:22:55.700 ⇒ 00:23:00.945 Patrick Trainer: So another example of that, like in a past company, they called it
303 00:23:01.750 ⇒ 00:23:07.449 Patrick Trainer: 100, like when you’re trying to get something done right. They called it $100 problems.
304 00:23:07.780 ⇒ 00:23:20.049 Patrick Trainer: And so if, like, you needed a tool or needed to buy something, and it was under or like some Sas software or whatnot, and it was a hundred bucks or or less, like 100 bucks a month like
305 00:23:20.200 ⇒ 00:23:24.190 Patrick Trainer: you. Add the agency to just go and buy it and get your shit done
306 00:23:24.601 ⇒ 00:23:28.210 Patrick Trainer: otherwise, like I’ve been at other companies where, like
307 00:23:28.390 ⇒ 00:23:29.930 Patrick Trainer: it’s, I had to
308 00:23:29.950 ⇒ 00:23:36.059 Patrick Trainer: get something that was like 20 bucks a month. It took 3 weeks to go through all of the like the red tape.
309 00:23:36.070 ⇒ 00:23:38.750 Patrick Trainer: and I was just kind of like sitting around like
310 00:23:38.840 ⇒ 00:23:46.069 Patrick Trainer: doing not that thing when and then like. Finally the fucking it. Guy like got around to it and was like.
311 00:23:46.070 ⇒ 00:23:46.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
312 00:23:46.450 ⇒ 00:23:51.860 Patrick Trainer: Oh, yeah, you go ahead and buy it and it’s like there’s so much wasted time there. So like
313 00:23:52.000 ⇒ 00:23:57.899 Patrick Trainer: the agency was like, you see something like, just go and get it like, just do it.
314 00:23:58.850 ⇒ 00:24:06.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s something. I think we should. Maybe I I can definitely materialize as something real in terms of, yeah, I mean, you guys know if we need something I’m just like.
315 00:24:06.410 ⇒ 00:24:10.680 Uttam Kumaran: go for it. But maybe I should. Actually, I’ll create maybe something in notion that’s just like
316 00:24:10.820 ⇒ 00:24:20.999 Uttam Kumaran: that’s probably 50 bucks $50, and then we’ll get to a hundred. But but then it makes basically, it’ll be like, Yeah, just buy or buy it and ping me or
317 00:24:21.040 ⇒ 00:24:44.199 Uttam Kumaran: and but the other, another example is like, you know, I’ve done this at companies where? Yeah, you’re waiting. And you’re just like fucking. I’m gonna buy it my own money, and then I’ll just figure it out later. That’s the sort of energy that we want. Not that like, I want people spending their own money, but it’s more of like whatever it takes to just get through the issue. And you know, we’ll figure out the details on the end of it. So I think certainly like the $50
318 00:24:44.430 ⇒ 00:24:45.550 Uttam Kumaran: problem.
319 00:24:45.630 ⇒ 00:24:48.769 Uttam Kumaran: It’s something that I want to take on. Let’s do that.
320 00:24:48.850 ⇒ 00:24:56.409 Uttam Kumaran: You know, the other thing is like, I think the way we get feedback in this business and for me is in slack right? It’s slack and talking to everybody.
321 00:24:56.701 ⇒ 00:25:06.100 Uttam Kumaran: And we don’t do a ton of meetings. So the biggest thing and I was talking to Ryan about this is trying to see that energy like in slack, where people have questions or have issues.
322 00:25:06.120 ⇒ 00:25:16.569 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to know that people are huddling and getting through stuff. We’re small companies. There’s not like a ton of people. And I know everybody has like different working styles. But you guys see me, I’m like constantly trying to send stuff.
323 00:25:16.820 ⇒ 00:25:18.969 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the sort of stuff that I really
324 00:25:19.500 ⇒ 00:25:27.119 Uttam Kumaran: gives me a lot of confidence in the team and then allows me to basically continue to go after stuff is seeing that sort of work that
325 00:25:27.520 ⇒ 00:25:30.699 Uttam Kumaran: that shows that everybody has high agency over the things
326 00:25:31.210 ⇒ 00:25:36.130 Uttam Kumaran: you know, that that they’re doing. So that’s the only thing I think for this week that I would encourage is that
327 00:25:36.140 ⇒ 00:25:40.749 Uttam Kumaran: people think about in their own arena, or the the things that they’re tackling like. How do you have
328 00:25:40.850 ⇒ 00:25:48.460 Uttam Kumaran: high agency? I think a lot of this stuff also. You know now that, especially Nico’s here, we have some layers between clients.
329 00:25:48.948 ⇒ 00:26:02.089 Uttam Kumaran: There’s this. There’s commonly. And this happens internally, too, internally. When we’re at companies where there’s this concept of like waiting, you know, to be told what to do. And that’s also something where there is something to that. Yeah, we need some direction.
330 00:26:02.100 ⇒ 00:26:08.519 Uttam Kumaran: But also Nico’s job isn’t entirely like, here’s what to do. Go build a widget and give it back to me.
331 00:26:08.790 ⇒ 00:26:14.700 Uttam Kumaran: It’s actually, I would more prefer it to be like, Hey, I did this thing. Go, communicate to the client, or show.
332 00:26:14.750 ⇒ 00:26:25.019 Uttam Kumaran: go, show the client that we did this right and even for us, internally, right for a lot of the stuff, you know. Pat, that me you and Abigail are doing. We’re the client right?
333 00:26:25.030 ⇒ 00:26:35.879 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s something where it’s like showing that like, hey, we just did this for us. And this is the benefit it’s gonna make. And even for us. We know that like, Hey, there’s some stuff that moves the needle, and there’s some stuff that doesn’t
334 00:26:36.100 ⇒ 00:26:39.459 Uttam Kumaran: right. So how do you continue to think about for our company
335 00:26:39.860 ⇒ 00:26:41.580 Uttam Kumaran: what moves a needle?
336 00:26:42.029 ⇒ 00:26:44.420 Uttam Kumaran: And this is something that I do every day. But I’ve like.
337 00:26:44.620 ⇒ 00:26:59.209 Uttam Kumaran: What I’m realizing is that I’m very much, just a human being. And so we, this whole thing requires a village to kind of push this thing this thing through. And on average, I want us to look left and right and to say, Hey, on average, today we were a high agency business.
338 00:26:59.550 ⇒ 00:27:05.419 Uttam Kumaran: right? And this doesn’t need to be. Every day doesn’t need to be every single person every day. If it’s 1 thing I realize, like, consistency
339 00:27:05.640 ⇒ 00:27:12.090 Uttam Kumaran: is really really hard. But on average every week are we getting better every day. Can we describe?
340 00:27:12.350 ⇒ 00:27:17.629 Uttam Kumaran: You know, the people around us and yourself as like a high agency person in this business, and
341 00:27:18.080 ⇒ 00:27:34.899 Uttam Kumaran: that alone is gonna compound over time. Right? Like we’ve we’ve gone really, really far. And we’re getting a ton of stuff inbound. And again, things are a lot easier now than they were last year. So I think it’s just continuing to push that. So I’d encourage you to read
342 00:27:35.080 ⇒ 00:27:36.580 Uttam Kumaran: that twitter thread
343 00:27:37.280 ⇒ 00:27:38.010 Uttam Kumaran: and
344 00:27:39.060 ⇒ 00:27:42.240 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, anything. Any thoughts. Let me know.
345 00:27:45.940 ⇒ 00:27:46.730 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
346 00:27:47.150 ⇒ 00:27:50.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Otherwise I think pretty normal week, I think.
347 00:27:50.280 ⇒ 00:27:54.310 Uttam Kumaran: Probably Pat and Abigail try to schedule some more time, but maybe we can chat in slack and
348 00:27:54.940 ⇒ 00:27:56.470 Uttam Kumaran: we can just
349 00:27:56.540 ⇒ 00:27:59.140 Uttam Kumaran: try to work on some stuff, Async. And then.
350 00:28:00.040 ⇒ 00:28:02.140 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I think the rest of the week is pretty solid.
351 00:28:03.440 ⇒ 00:28:04.260 Uttam Kumaran: sweet.
352 00:28:05.360 ⇒ 00:28:06.150 Uttam Kumaran: cool.
353 00:28:06.590 ⇒ 00:28:08.979 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Thanks, guys, I appreciate it.
354 00:28:09.660 ⇒ 00:28:10.680 Ryan Luke Daque: Thanks. Everyone.
355 00:28:11.250 ⇒ 00:28:12.720 Nicolas Sucari: Thanks, guys. Bye-bye.