Meeting Title: Uttam <> Sheldon - Brainforge-CSM Date: 2024-11-08 Meeting participants: Sheldon Anderson, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:04:04.290 ⇒ 00:04:05.230 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
2 00:04:05.230 ⇒ 00:04:06.330 Sheldon Anderson: Hey! How are you?
3 00:04:06.330 ⇒ 00:04:07.590 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! How are you?
4 00:04:07.790 ⇒ 00:04:08.810 Sheldon Anderson: Pretty good.
5 00:04:09.220 ⇒ 00:04:10.260 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything?
6 00:04:10.820 ⇒ 00:04:13.099 Sheldon Anderson: You know, it’s been really busy.
7 00:04:13.500 ⇒ 00:04:15.230 Sheldon Anderson: you know, work school.
8 00:04:15.330 ⇒ 00:04:17.560 Sheldon Anderson: We have mice in the house right now. So.
9 00:04:17.560 ⇒ 00:04:18.510 Uttam Kumaran: From now.
10 00:04:19.600 ⇒ 00:04:20.300 Uttam Kumaran: I’m sorry.
11 00:04:20.300 ⇒ 00:04:21.810 Sheldon Anderson: It back under control.
12 00:04:22.503 ⇒ 00:04:24.716 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, that sucks I
13 00:04:25.440 ⇒ 00:04:30.020 Uttam Kumaran: I’m very lucky. I we just had. I just had, like I left to go on a cruise.
14 00:04:30.350 ⇒ 00:04:46.480 Uttam Kumaran: Finally took a vacation, and then, when I came in, there’s just a bunch of flies in the house. So that was my, that was my little infestation problem, but I got it under control. I bought an outdoor flies after, and I put it inside the house, and it worked perfectly.
15 00:04:46.480 ⇒ 00:04:47.140 Sheldon Anderson: Turn down.
16 00:04:47.730 ⇒ 00:04:52.340 Uttam Kumaran: That worked in the house didn’t burn down. You do hear like loud zaps
17 00:04:52.440 ⇒ 00:04:55.940 Uttam Kumaran: throughout the day, but it’s kind of satisfying. It’s like
18 00:04:56.000 ⇒ 00:05:01.070 Uttam Kumaran: it’s it’s you’re like, okay, it’s someone. Someone’s doing their job around here. So.
19 00:05:01.960 ⇒ 00:05:08.869 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, totally. I know your Linkedin profile says you’re in Austin these days, but I’m getting beach vibes right now.
20 00:05:09.180 ⇒ 00:05:20.179 Uttam Kumaran: Beach vibes. Oh, that’s really great! No, I am in Austin. This is just in this. I just have a little bit of an office. But you are right. It is kind of like. Does seem like South Carolina.
21 00:05:20.390 ⇒ 00:05:23.580 Uttam Kumaran: like beach some some kind of beach vibes.
22 00:05:24.240 ⇒ 00:05:26.520 Uttam Kumaran: That’s just the decor.
23 00:05:27.090 ⇒ 00:05:31.480 Sheldon Anderson: Come into the Austin area for Christmas. My sister lives in Pflugerville.
24 00:05:31.480 ⇒ 00:05:33.010 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay. No. Way.
25 00:05:33.010 ⇒ 00:05:36.270 Sheldon Anderson: So we’re gonna be stopping there for about a week.
26 00:05:36.630 ⇒ 00:05:40.340 Sheldon Anderson: I I guess we’re gonna go check out that big water park
27 00:05:40.540 ⇒ 00:05:42.129 Sheldon Anderson: one day and
28 00:05:42.190 ⇒ 00:05:44.489 Sheldon Anderson: and probably see the city.
29 00:05:44.720 ⇒ 00:05:56.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if you if you’re here just let me know if I’m around, would love to say Hi, like, get a coffee or something. Or and then, if you guys need any places to go or I have a lot of friends that visit really often. So I I have like a whole
30 00:05:56.950 ⇒ 00:06:04.949 Uttam Kumaran: list of like. Here’s cool stuff that’s interesting to do in case you guys need it. But if you’re going with your sister she’s probably a good tour guide, so.
31 00:06:04.950 ⇒ 00:06:07.840 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, she she’s a great tour guide. She takes all of her
32 00:06:08.270 ⇒ 00:06:10.090 Sheldon Anderson: girlfriends out to
33 00:06:10.170 ⇒ 00:06:13.979 Sheldon Anderson: magnolia silos and all that stuff.
34 00:06:13.980 ⇒ 00:06:14.780 Uttam Kumaran: Nice
35 00:06:15.890 ⇒ 00:06:36.410 Uttam Kumaran: awesome. Well, yeah, I mean, thanks for thanks for your message. I mean, yeah, I every time I’m in an Uber, I think about our project. Because I see flow code still. And how’s how’s stuff at like T-mobile and like? And then also tell me it’s like octopus. It’s now part of T-mobile. How? Where was your like?
36 00:06:36.580 ⇒ 00:06:39.790 Uttam Kumaran: How did that whole thing work with T-mobile and the company.
37 00:06:40.270 ⇒ 00:06:51.369 Sheldon Anderson: Sure. So I was a Csm. Over at Octopus, and then they acquired us in January 2022, and they kind of merged us together with their.
38 00:06:51.440 ⇒ 00:06:56.099 Sheldon Anderson: They started an advertising arm, and they merged this in over there.
39 00:06:56.270 ⇒ 00:07:07.759 Sheldon Anderson: So essentially, they still have their main product, which is creating audiences based on 1st party data app usage. For example, I have
40 00:07:08.180 ⇒ 00:07:24.539 Sheldon Anderson: like lots of sports apps on my phone so they can target me to deliver me Budweiser ads, or or whoever might be interested across the the open exchange on the Internet. And then the Rideshare piece comes in as a new source of inventory for T-mobile
41 00:07:25.090 ⇒ 00:07:30.159 Sheldon Anderson: and then, nowadays we’re also working on T-mobile Tuesday. That’s the
42 00:07:30.960 ⇒ 00:07:45.940 Sheldon Anderson: you know, a huge loyalty program forever. They’ve been. It’s been kind of like a lost leader for them, just giving away free stuff. But but we finally convinced them to put it into our platform as well. So, starting to make a little bit of of sales over there.
43 00:07:46.150 ⇒ 00:07:59.820 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. And then how like, what? When did you start the Mba program? And like, how? What was the decision around that I’m interested because my, I have a few friends that are just starting to do. Mbas. But yeah, like, like, if, how did you?
44 00:07:59.920 ⇒ 00:08:06.810 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, yeah, what was your? What was the interest in that like? What was the what was your thought on it now that you’re almost almost to the end? So.
45 00:08:08.230 ⇒ 00:08:09.780 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah. So I think.
46 00:08:10.100 ⇒ 00:08:19.440 Sheldon Anderson: of course, part of it was driven by by family planning and decisions. I got married around the time that we got acquired and and
47 00:08:20.860 ⇒ 00:08:26.280 Sheldon Anderson: she’s in school as well doing a master’s of computer science. So I figured, why not?
48 00:08:26.330 ⇒ 00:08:35.129 Sheldon Anderson: And then also, like, you know, career growth and and seeing what’s next. At the time when I started, I was thinking like.
49 00:08:36.359 ⇒ 00:08:43.150 Sheldon Anderson: You know, not too urgent looking for a job even now. Not too urgent. Things are good.
50 00:08:44.000 ⇒ 00:08:50.909 Sheldon Anderson: but it’s it definitely kind of opened me up to new ideas and new challenges.
51 00:08:51.290 ⇒ 00:09:07.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, makes sense. And then I mean, I guess I’ll tell you a little bit about Brainfort. So yeah, I you know, I was at flow code for about 2 years I left, and then was leading product development at a startup called Prequel, also based in New York. Kind of around that time. When I started I moved here to Austin.
52 00:09:07.836 ⇒ 00:09:09.963 Uttam Kumaran: And I love it here. But don’t don’t
53 00:09:10.454 ⇒ 00:09:19.459 Uttam Kumaran: so a lot of my business comes from a lot of connections in in New York. And yeah, after about a year of that, I kind of was just like, I kind of want to go do my own thing. So I quit
54 00:09:19.918 ⇒ 00:09:25.590 Uttam Kumaran: and then was like, Okay, I’m gonna set aside like a few months just to figure it out. I think the biggest thing for me was
55 00:09:25.945 ⇒ 00:09:30.829 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Can I do something that is bigger than myself, like I can go get
56 00:09:31.145 ⇒ 00:09:50.450 Uttam Kumaran: you know, a couple of like data contracts. And I work in data. And I’m a data engineer. So I was able to get a couple of clients that way. And then basically my goal was, okay, can I start to build a team around client service, and data? I mean, this is also around the time that a lot of the AI stuff started coming out like Chat Gpt, and so I followed a lot of that closely, and
57 00:09:50.470 ⇒ 00:10:17.522 Uttam Kumaran: I guess on the on slowly started to build a data side of the business. So we hired an engineer and hired a project manager. We have a few engineers now and then. Started really getting interested in, how can we actually use AI internally? So we use AI for a lot of stuff automating our company and like keeping expenses low, but also allowing us to do more with less, and then basically realize, like, Oh, this is actually something that we can start to sell as well. So we kind of have, like 2 parts of the business,
58 00:10:18.103 ⇒ 00:10:33.439 Uttam Kumaran: data and AI automation and so we have a variety of clients across both. The business is only, you know I I kind of quit around April formally got all the paper signed around July, but so like, probably like a year year and a half old.
59 00:10:33.819 ⇒ 00:10:46.400 Uttam Kumaran: We’re about like 10 people like distributed everywhere and around the world. On one hand, I think it’s it was just hard to get really like cost, effective technical talent here in the Us.
60 00:10:46.750 ⇒ 00:11:07.890 Uttam Kumaran: because it’s just like it’s just me. And it’s I haven’t. Don’t have any external funding. So just building the business from like, I’m the bank which is, which is tough. At the same time. Yeah, I got I got really lucky and found some amazing people. You know, that are in Argentina that are in the Philippines. And and you never have really expanded our network globally. So we have.
61 00:11:07.890 ⇒ 00:11:34.139 Uttam Kumaran: you know, again, like half the company is on the engineering and the client delivery side. And then we do have a full time designer. You know which the site and all of our content. I really am impressed with what we’ve been able to do. And then, you know, we have a full time content person. So all of our socials and things like that. And then we’re also, you know, starting to do things on email marketing sales. So just like rounding out. But it really the you know, the the state of the company right now is, we’re
62 00:11:34.638 ⇒ 00:11:40.200 Uttam Kumaran: we. I feel really positive about our ability to execute work on clients. I feel really positive about our operations.
63 00:11:40.210 ⇒ 00:12:02.085 Uttam Kumaran: We’re really in a mode where we’re trying to grow our revenue where we’re trying to get new clients on. And then I would say, the immediate next step and the step. We’re also definitely not doing right now is on like account management, upsell, cross, sell, and like client success, which I know is like your bread and butter. That’s really the next 2 areas where I have to think about something to do.
64 00:12:02.570 ⇒ 00:12:26.529 Uttam Kumaran: to be honest, it’s it’s not from a lack of not wanting to do. It’s just, you know, we do what you can with the, with the money that I have and you know all the money basically that we’re making on the engineering services is going back into sales. However, I feel like we have a really good engine now, and you know, I think we should start seeing results in the next month or 2, and really hopefully start to drive our clients.
65 00:12:26.530 ⇒ 00:12:35.859 Uttam Kumaran: The number of clients we’re working on up. Of course, that means that we’re gonna need a couple more engineers to execute. But then we’ve done all almost nothing on client
66 00:12:37.250 ⇒ 00:12:46.729 Uttam Kumaran: like client success. But really on, really on like retention and upsell, we’ll have really great retention. But I think that’s just kudos to like the work we’ve done. It’s not really like.
67 00:12:46.940 ⇒ 00:13:08.184 Uttam Kumaran: It’s there hasn’t been really any like specific motion or or sops around like that. And I also do think that you know, when we engage with clients. And you know, I know I haven’t talked to any specifically about the technology and stuff like that. But when we engage with clients, we typically sign like 3 to 6 month agreements. And we’ve seen people stick on with us for more than a year now.
68 00:13:08.460 ⇒ 00:13:37.389 Uttam Kumaran: and really just try to over exceed their expectations. But we never we. We’re always in this like what’s next to execute mode. We rarely have a chance to step back and kind of look at all the stuff we’ve done. Understand? Like, you guys happy with the direction, is there anything you want to change? Is there anything other more. Is there more stuff you want us to do for you? Which I bet you is 100% the case, because for for my team, I tell my team we want to be better than their best employee, not only in execution, speed, but in communication.
69 00:13:37.430 ⇒ 00:13:50.229 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s our goal. And so, of course, you know, if you have a for most people, if they have a really great employee, they’re like, I want to give this person more responsibility, and I think we are sitting on like for sure, lost, you know. Revenue opportunities.
70 00:13:50.532 ⇒ 00:14:12.609 Uttam Kumaran: There and then. Additionally, I think referrals and word of mouth is a is a great channel for us and ability to have that relationship with clients to get. That is great. A lot of those relationships are through me. Which, if you looked at my calendar, you would throw up because I have no time to like nurture, and, and, you know, take advantage of those. And so it’s definitely like
71 00:14:12.760 ⇒ 00:14:35.330 Uttam Kumaran: Cs is some Cs and account management is is something that you know, I started thinking about this month. But yeah, that’s just like, kind of a brain dump of of where we are so interested in any perspective. There, or also, I mean, I’m very curious on like what you’re what you’re even thinking of, career wise and you know. Somehow we can work together. That would be really, really cool. So.
72 00:14:36.100 ⇒ 00:14:45.760 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, of course. As I’m kind of wrapping up the program, starting to look around a bit more. Big companies, smaller companies.
73 00:14:45.850 ⇒ 00:14:47.450 Sheldon Anderson: essentially like.
74 00:14:48.468 ⇒ 00:15:01.282 Sheldon Anderson: You know, my job is great, but I feel like my team is kind of stagnant, as far as like promotion, cycle and and things like that comes along as well. So probably the right time to start looking around a bit more.
75 00:15:02.470 ⇒ 00:15:11.808 Sheldon Anderson: looking at both the account management, maybe making the switch over to the brand management side of things as well, something that I’m interested in, and then maybe add Ops,
76 00:15:12.620 ⇒ 00:15:18.420 Sheldon Anderson: But I’m certainly open to a ton of ideas or opportunities as long as it makes sense.
77 00:15:18.420 ⇒ 00:15:18.880 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
78 00:15:20.770 ⇒ 00:15:34.429 Sheldon Anderson: One thing that came to mind like I don’t know what your plan is, as far as funding goes. If you’re seeking funding if you’re waiting until the product is more built out. But I think it could be helpful like
79 00:15:34.660 ⇒ 00:15:44.500 Sheldon Anderson: if I pair you up with my old CEO. I think he might have some good contacts as far as like Vcs. And and things like that go to.
80 00:15:44.860 ⇒ 00:15:54.569 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we’re so we’re completely like a service organization. So not it’s not. We’re we’re not building any like b 2 b software at the moment. But I mean again.
81 00:15:54.680 ⇒ 00:16:23.369 Uttam Kumaran: I’m I’m down to talk to whoever, even if I get even a 1% of advice on how to do this better. That would be amazing. But yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I’m I’m kind of. I’m in a I’m in kind of like one position where we’ve made it this far, with no external funding, however, you know, in order for me to bring on, you know, amazing talent, especially on the sales side, like on the engineering side, we’ve been able to get away with some fractional talent here and there, same on the content side, and and but on
82 00:16:23.370 ⇒ 00:16:43.160 Uttam Kumaran: on the sales side. We really need some dedicated folks, not only on like on like going after new accounts, but also certainly on like nurturing existing so we will have to make some strategic hires that we’ll, we’ll need some more revenue and cash to go to go do that. So I’m always debating what’s possible.
83 00:16:43.730 ⇒ 00:16:52.360 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. But again, it’s so hard, because it’s like a mostly just day to day. And we kind of like, I’m just sprinting for what we can do. But I also do think about like, what’s the next step
84 00:16:52.380 ⇒ 00:17:00.790 Uttam Kumaran: we want to get, for example, like, you know, I want to see how we could triple the amount of clients that we serve. But then, how can we do that in a way where we’re not like
85 00:17:00.850 ⇒ 00:17:17.009 Uttam Kumaran: tripling our expenses. But also to go from what it was just me to a couple of people to. Now we have a bunch of people like we do have the processes and organization in place to scale, which I’m really proud of. But it’s like, how long is it gonna take to get us? The next
86 00:17:17.290 ⇒ 00:17:18.420 Uttam Kumaran: point, you know.
87 00:17:19.560 ⇒ 00:17:22.887 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, I I totally understand that. And I’m sure it’s
88 00:17:23.349 ⇒ 00:17:29.070 Sheldon Anderson: exciting to see that growth, and probably stressful like you said to be the bank holder, as well.
89 00:17:29.815 ⇒ 00:17:30.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
90 00:17:31.891 ⇒ 00:17:43.829 Sheldon Anderson: But yeah, the the main reason I reached out like I I saw your Linkedin post, I think about Chatgpt a couple of days ago. And I, you know, 1st of all, like you, said, the content looks great. I think.
91 00:17:43.830 ⇒ 00:17:45.130 Uttam Kumaran: I appreciate that.
92 00:17:45.130 ⇒ 00:17:47.872 Sheldon Anderson: Making the website looks awesome, too.
93 00:17:48.620 ⇒ 00:17:49.840 Sheldon Anderson: so kind of
94 00:17:50.580 ⇒ 00:17:54.109 Sheldon Anderson: as I’m getting to that next step. Just kind of poking my head into some places
95 00:17:55.330 ⇒ 00:18:01.410 Sheldon Anderson: I figured we we worked together previously, and and on flow code, and
96 00:18:01.710 ⇒ 00:18:04.520 Sheldon Anderson: might be worth reaching out. I don’t know. Like
97 00:18:04.600 ⇒ 00:18:06.319 Sheldon Anderson: the immediacy of
98 00:18:06.730 ⇒ 00:18:11.649 Sheldon Anderson: when I would make a change, or what other options are out there right now. But.
99 00:18:11.650 ⇒ 00:18:12.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
100 00:18:12.570 ⇒ 00:18:13.790 Sheldon Anderson: Figured I’d reach out.
101 00:18:14.190 ⇒ 00:18:16.560 Uttam Kumaran: No, I appreciate it, and you know, I would say.
102 00:18:16.620 ⇒ 00:18:20.179 Uttam Kumaran: like again, I worked for startups my whole career. This is
103 00:18:20.410 ⇒ 00:18:29.570 Uttam Kumaran: as startup as it gets, I would say, compared to like Vc back startups. This isn’t like a psychotic place to work. This will like
104 00:18:29.600 ⇒ 00:18:35.539 Uttam Kumaran: we’re making money and everybody’s getting paid. I will say this is definitely like where
105 00:18:35.660 ⇒ 00:18:40.139 Uttam Kumaran: the person that would come into something on the Cs side would totally be like building from the ground up.
106 00:18:40.757 ⇒ 00:18:46.649 Uttam Kumaran: You know, which is different than walking into a team where maybe there’s things to improve or like.
107 00:18:46.910 ⇒ 00:18:57.359 Uttam Kumaran: or you know, or you know again, us enterprise as large as T-mobile. However, there are a lot of benefits to coming in where there’s no bureaucracy, and it’s basically like.
108 00:18:57.660 ⇒ 00:19:14.150 Uttam Kumaran: figure it out. And also, I think, not only like long term benefits, but being able to build out a team or build out processes the way you want to do it, and the last thing is like, I care a ton about our clients and anything I can do to to make them.
109 00:19:14.150 ⇒ 00:19:29.244 Uttam Kumaran: you know, love us and recommend us. Is my number one objective. We do that right now through our execution, speed and the quality. But there’s a lot of ways that I think you know that are pro. The clients that are win win for the clients in our business
110 00:19:29.610 ⇒ 00:19:37.839 Uttam Kumaran: to kind of invest there. But it is going to be slow, I think, to your point, like, I don’t think we’re in a position right now that we can invest in that dedicated
111 00:19:37.880 ⇒ 00:19:48.209 Uttam Kumaran: role. But it’s something that to complete the pie of all the things we need for a really great service organization. We’re gonna need someone that’s on like
112 00:19:48.270 ⇒ 00:20:06.939 Uttam Kumaran: on that where it’s almost like it is like account management, less of like the day to day execution, but more of like look at. Let’s take a look at the wins we’ve had. What else can we do for you? Who else can you introduce us to like? That is something that is so needed, and that’s really locked in. That’s like I’m doing it ad hoc.
113 00:20:07.020 ⇒ 00:20:25.790 Uttam Kumaran: whenever I can get a chance to but but again that role lives and dies on us doing a great job on the execution side, so you can’t have a conversation of doing more if we suck on the engineering. So it’s just like one foot after the other. But also curious about like, you know, even
114 00:20:26.053 ⇒ 00:20:38.440 Uttam Kumaran: you know, this is probably something we’re gonna try to invest some sort of dollars and time in the next 3 months. But curious, even if you have any thoughts on, like, what are some processes or ways that we could even try to like dabble in
115 00:20:38.530 ⇒ 00:20:41.430 Uttam Kumaran: trying to establish some sort of Cs
116 00:20:41.787 ⇒ 00:20:50.699 Uttam Kumaran: a customer success process, even if that some of that responsibility goes on to me, or maybe the project manager. But curious, after hearing kind of the stuff we’re doing
117 00:20:50.830 ⇒ 00:20:54.949 Uttam Kumaran: like W. If you were to be like with walk in a situation where there’s like no Cs
118 00:20:55.000 ⇒ 00:20:58.520 Uttam Kumaran: motion like what would be some of the things that you would try to do.
119 00:20:59.750 ⇒ 00:21:01.159 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah. So I think
120 00:21:02.080 ⇒ 00:21:16.290 Sheldon Anderson: I would ensure that we have some sort of. And you might have this already. But some sort of project management software like Jira or confluence we use confluence to pretty much document every cell and kind of
121 00:21:16.610 ⇒ 00:21:20.764 Sheldon Anderson: be able to type out the intricacies of each campaign.
122 00:21:21.380 ⇒ 00:21:27.869 Sheldon Anderson: The sales team uses salesforce to keep track of their pipeline and and sales funnel that way.
123 00:21:28.495 ⇒ 00:21:29.725 Sheldon Anderson: And then
124 00:21:31.360 ⇒ 00:21:36.680 Sheldon Anderson: Before at Octopus we were using a mixture of Jira and Asana.
125 00:21:36.760 ⇒ 00:21:39.030 Sheldon Anderson: We were using those tools to kind of
126 00:21:41.020 ⇒ 00:21:45.039 Sheldon Anderson: assigned tasks between the creative team, between
127 00:21:45.050 ⇒ 00:21:46.470 Sheldon Anderson: what we need
128 00:21:46.590 ⇒ 00:21:48.740 Sheldon Anderson: like reporting for the client.
129 00:21:48.740 ⇒ 00:21:49.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
130 00:21:49.440 ⇒ 00:21:51.280 Sheldon Anderson: That. So I think.
131 00:21:51.930 ⇒ 00:21:54.170 Sheldon Anderson: having some sort of structure.
132 00:21:55.186 ⇒ 00:21:57.729 Sheldon Anderson: or documentation is important.
133 00:21:57.860 ⇒ 00:21:58.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
134 00:22:00.000 ⇒ 00:22:04.390 Uttam Kumaran: We have a lot of that in notion. We basically run, we have kind of like a client
135 00:22:04.630 ⇒ 00:22:26.311 Uttam Kumaran: portal where it’s like we have the tasks we’re working on again. We have a lot of tools that we use to get the data stuff done. So it’s like links to like the tools where you can log in but yeah, I mean, I I would say, like on the project management side, because that’s what I I used to do a flow code. We’re pretty good in that. We have, like we have, like weekly meetings. We have internal meetings.
136 00:22:26.790 ⇒ 00:22:30.897 Uttam Kumaran: or we do show and tell. We send out updates on Friday.
137 00:22:31.730 ⇒ 00:22:33.909 Uttam Kumaran: you know, it’s a decent process.
138 00:22:34.150 ⇒ 00:22:35.522 Sheldon Anderson: So I guess
139 00:22:36.480 ⇒ 00:22:44.050 Sheldon Anderson: So when we get a new advertiser we have a sales team, they’ll hand off the contract to me or to my team.
140 00:22:44.644 ⇒ 00:22:51.560 Sheldon Anderson: And then we’ll set up a confluence page that says, this is what the contract says. This is
141 00:22:51.730 ⇒ 00:22:54.210 Sheldon Anderson: where the creatives are. This is.
142 00:22:54.210 ⇒ 00:22:54.580 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
143 00:22:54.580 ⇒ 00:22:58.099 Sheldon Anderson: How many impressions need to be delivered. Flight dates.
144 00:22:58.100 ⇒ 00:22:58.530 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
145 00:22:59.560 ⇒ 00:23:00.880 Sheldon Anderson: everything like that.
146 00:23:00.990 ⇒ 00:23:02.300 Sheldon Anderson: And then
147 00:23:02.780 ⇒ 00:23:08.103 Sheldon Anderson: throughout that time we’ll work with the client to make sure we get all the assets we need from them.
148 00:23:09.760 ⇒ 00:23:12.979 Sheldon Anderson: need to have very clear kpis.
149 00:23:13.160 ⇒ 00:23:13.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
150 00:23:14.690 ⇒ 00:23:19.259 Sheldon Anderson: If the Kpis change midway through that can things can definitely get complicated?
151 00:23:19.280 ⇒ 00:23:20.370 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah.
152 00:23:21.310 ⇒ 00:23:22.549 Sheldon Anderson: And then
153 00:23:22.750 ⇒ 00:23:35.890 Sheldon Anderson: wrapping it all up with weekly reporting and end of campaign reporting and then using those insights to say, Hey, this is what’s working. Well, maybe you can invest more here.
154 00:23:35.920 ⇒ 00:23:37.020 Sheldon Anderson: or
155 00:23:37.120 ⇒ 00:23:42.750 Sheldon Anderson: this is something that isn’t working so well, maybe we shift this focus to something else.
156 00:23:43.120 ⇒ 00:23:52.069 Uttam Kumaran: And then how do you guys have, like a different responsibility between the people that are running the campaigns, and then people that are owning like, maybe those conversations about like delivering
157 00:23:52.250 ⇒ 00:23:57.370 Uttam Kumaran: cause. Of course, like we have engineers, we didn’t have project managers. But then there’s almost like a
158 00:23:57.540 ⇒ 00:24:02.710 Uttam Kumaran: hot, I think about like something higher than that which is like looking holistically like, Hey, we’ve been.
159 00:24:02.790 ⇒ 00:24:14.840 Uttam Kumaran: We’re coming up on the end of our like. Our 3 month contract. Here’s like where we’re at. What do we want to do? That sort of conversation like, Do you guys do anything consistently and like a on a cadence that’s like that at that level.
160 00:24:16.110 ⇒ 00:24:16.570 Sheldon Anderson: So.
161 00:24:16.570 ⇒ 00:24:19.049 Uttam Kumaran: Like a Qvr. Maybe I don’t know what the
162 00:24:19.380 ⇒ 00:24:20.199 Uttam Kumaran: you know.
163 00:24:20.990 ⇒ 00:24:23.360 Sheldon Anderson: So we usually start each campaign out
164 00:24:23.550 ⇒ 00:24:27.339 Sheldon Anderson: a week or 2 or 3 beforehand with the
165 00:24:27.510 ⇒ 00:24:34.080 Sheldon Anderson: with an internal kickoff call, where we get all the stakeholders together and say, This is what you need to do. This is what you need to do.
166 00:24:34.180 ⇒ 00:24:41.730 Sheldon Anderson: And then, after the campaign wraps up we might have one of those like post-mortem meetings to talk about
167 00:24:41.810 ⇒ 00:24:45.374 Sheldon Anderson: what we can do better. We also do
168 00:24:46.160 ⇒ 00:24:55.690 Sheldon Anderson: have a weekly call with the Ad. Ops team where they’ll report back to us this, how each campaign is doing this is how it’s pacing
169 00:24:56.198 ⇒ 00:25:02.030 Sheldon Anderson: and then it’ll allow the account managers to give feedback or ask questions.
170 00:25:02.650 ⇒ 00:25:03.889 Sheldon Anderson: and then
171 00:25:04.990 ⇒ 00:25:13.169 Sheldon Anderson: just our team client success will have, like a bi-weekly meeting for for trainings or for knowledge, sharing.
172 00:25:13.580 ⇒ 00:25:14.740 Sheldon Anderson: benting.
173 00:25:15.090 ⇒ 00:25:16.236 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah.
174 00:25:17.010 ⇒ 00:25:23.469 Uttam Kumaran: And then are you? Is, is it? If for client success? Is it more about like renewal and expansion? Is it more
175 00:25:23.700 ⇒ 00:25:27.629 Uttam Kumaran: about churn like, what are the kpis on your guys to side that you like.
176 00:25:27.820 ⇒ 00:25:29.890 Uttam Kumaran: you guys track towards like your
177 00:25:30.160 ⇒ 00:25:31.410 Uttam Kumaran: your org.
178 00:25:31.940 ⇒ 00:25:35.329 Sheldon Anderson: It. It’s really interesting. I think they kind of have us.
179 00:25:37.050 ⇒ 00:25:39.079 Sheldon Anderson: I think they kind of have us
180 00:25:39.690 ⇒ 00:25:41.190 Sheldon Anderson: go off of revenue
181 00:25:41.400 ⇒ 00:25:42.290 Sheldon Anderson: like
182 00:25:42.410 ⇒ 00:25:48.149 Sheldon Anderson: we are technically included within the sales team. So sales
183 00:25:50.490 ⇒ 00:25:54.720 Sheldon Anderson: for example, I’m paid 70% base salary, 30%,
184 00:25:55.460 ⇒ 00:25:58.480 Sheldon Anderson: like commission bonus target.
185 00:25:58.630 ⇒ 00:25:59.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
186 00:25:59.140 ⇒ 00:26:00.580 Sheldon Anderson: So if we
187 00:26:01.450 ⇒ 00:26:08.560 Sheldon Anderson: quarterly, if we hit our sales goals, that’d be 100. That kind of unlocks 100 of the bonus that we have
188 00:26:08.610 ⇒ 00:26:09.810 Sheldon Anderson: set up
189 00:26:10.508 ⇒ 00:26:15.559 Sheldon Anderson: and then if we outperform, there’s there’s some bonuses that come along there.
190 00:26:17.380 ⇒ 00:26:21.489 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s not more direct than just like part of the whole teams like.
191 00:26:23.030 ⇒ 00:26:26.569 Uttam Kumaran: you know, like accomplishment, basically on the on a sales target.
192 00:26:27.190 ⇒ 00:26:27.975 Sheldon Anderson: Right?
193 00:26:29.260 ⇒ 00:26:44.359 Sheldon Anderson: I don’t have a specific revenue target for myself. We’re going off of like the entire sales organization’s revenue target. Sometimes it it kind of feels misaligned a little bit because my team’s not actually selling. We are doing like renewals.
194 00:26:44.610 ⇒ 00:26:45.110 Sheldon Anderson: We’re.
195 00:26:45.110 ⇒ 00:26:49.490 Uttam Kumaran: Preventing churn, right? Like, basically or preventing like loss. Yeah.
196 00:26:50.330 ⇒ 00:26:58.270 Sheldon Anderson: We are doing renewals, and like when we do get renewals a lot of times, the seller might get some credit for that, because it’s their account.
197 00:27:00.090 ⇒ 00:27:04.969 Sheldon Anderson: and then they’ll always give us our kudos as well like if we’re doing a good job. I know.
198 00:27:06.040 ⇒ 00:27:06.840 Sheldon Anderson: like
199 00:27:07.060 ⇒ 00:27:13.749 Sheldon Anderson: clients that renew end over end like it seems more like my client than the salesperson client at that point.
200 00:27:13.750 ⇒ 00:27:14.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
201 00:27:14.809 ⇒ 00:27:17.679 Sheldon Anderson: But overall it goes back into the same bucket.
202 00:27:17.680 ⇒ 00:27:18.740 Uttam Kumaran: Bucket. Yeah.
203 00:27:19.040 ⇒ 00:27:40.009 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I mean, for for me now is like we, we set. Really, really, I’m trying to set really, really tight incentives. And again, we’re a data company. So for me, it’s like, just measure it. And like, let’s set that set that set it at the group level. And like if we hit it or we don’t, we can adjust so I’m trying to think of ways to do that. The other thing is like at the moment.
204 00:27:40.010 ⇒ 00:27:49.649 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we’re gonna we’re trying to bring on our 1st like, kind of like, Bdr, basically. And I’m thinking at the moment it’s gonna have to be mostly comp based.
205 00:27:49.650 ⇒ 00:28:13.790 Uttam Kumaran: like mostly incentive, based, and like either no base or like something. The nice thing with it is is like for me. I’m like aggressively like, if you if we sell, you’ll get a lot of the deal, and then kind of moving towards something where now there’s base. And there’s this. But I’m starting to set those goals now. But same thing on the I want to. Almost. I want to set some process, even for everybody to to get credit for that, like from the engineers
206 00:28:13.790 ⇒ 00:28:26.449 Uttam Kumaran: to the project managers. Everybody should have some incentive based, I do think, in engineering. They never do this, because I think a lot of people will say, Well, it’s hard to measure
207 00:28:26.590 ⇒ 00:28:54.409 Uttam Kumaran: like lines of code. There’s just all these excuses when in fact, I think it’s actually super easy to understand or to to understand. Like, maybe you can’t say how this one ticket impacted the renewal, but they should benefit in some way for the project going well. And so we’ll have some level of like. Maybe this is a group target versus if you’re on the sales side or from the customer success side, and they do a renewal. Then there is a larger push there. So that’s the I think the nice thing about
208 00:28:54.686 ⇒ 00:29:07.700 Uttam Kumaran: being in my spot is, I’ve been on the data side about setting goals and doing Comp for sales. And so I’m like, there are some easier ways of like just making sure that it’s aligned. And we’re a small company. So I’m not worried about like
209 00:29:07.850 ⇒ 00:29:33.319 Uttam Kumaran: 10,000 people. It’s like, it’s just 10 people who’s probably gonna have one Cs person and one Sdr, or like a mix, you know. And so it’s easy to. And then for me, it’s like, though I just care where the company winning, and I would love, and for me the only target is revenue. I really am not so interested on like making a huge profit in the short term. It’s really just growing our client base and the amount of money we bring in. So for me, I’m like it’s
210 00:29:33.520 ⇒ 00:29:35.650 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll just work with the people to set really
211 00:29:35.720 ⇒ 00:29:40.300 Uttam Kumaran: goals there, and it’s like everybody eats if we hit it like. That’s it, you know.
212 00:29:41.040 ⇒ 00:29:44.359 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah. It sounds like something exciting that you’ve stumbled across.
213 00:29:45.230 ⇒ 00:29:51.159 Uttam Kumaran: It’s it’s taking a lot of work. But we’re hanging in there. So.
214 00:29:51.960 ⇒ 00:30:06.879 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, I know it’s interesting. Because I was looking on your website. And in in Team Mobile’s all hands meetings. They always say we want to become a AI enabled data driven company. And then that’s right there on your website. So I thought that was very.
215 00:30:06.880 ⇒ 00:30:34.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if you want to. If you want to pitch us to cut, you cut you a referral fee. But no, it’s it’s something that I do think we’ve made a lot of impact for a lot of clients. And we’re seeing success. I think it’s just how do I pour gas where where it needs it. The other thing is like, if you have it. If you have, you know other people in your network that you think would be interested, not only just talking about the services we do, but you think would give us any good advice about running a Sales or
216 00:30:34.560 ⇒ 00:30:39.119 Uttam Kumaran: Cs. Or that could be interested in chatting with me, that I would love that cause. I
217 00:30:39.310 ⇒ 00:30:43.429 Uttam Kumaran: you know, similar to that. I just have so many questions about the right ways of doing this.
218 00:30:43.907 ⇒ 00:30:47.840 Uttam Kumaran: That is, it’s all I learned a lot in these conversations. So.
219 00:30:48.660 ⇒ 00:30:49.990 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, I agree. I
220 00:30:50.260 ⇒ 00:30:57.439 Sheldon Anderson: I think a lot of my classmates being in the DC area. They’re all like government contractors. It seems like.
221 00:30:57.440 ⇒ 00:30:59.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, accenture. Deloitte. Yeah.
222 00:30:59.980 ⇒ 00:31:04.758 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve a lot of my friends that are there are still. They work. They’re they’re in
223 00:31:05.170 ⇒ 00:31:09.210 Uttam Kumaran: our Linkedin. And yeah, they all work. For you know, one of the Big 4, basically.
224 00:31:10.700 ⇒ 00:31:39.779 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah. And then, I think mostly the like. Our octopus team is still intact. With the exception of 2 people. Our old chief revenue officer. He got laid off last year. And then he landed at another out of home place. But I know he was thinking about changing from that job just because it’s not a good fit, and he told me he was interested in getting into consulting or advising, so maybe I’ll
225 00:31:39.840 ⇒ 00:31:43.519 Sheldon Anderson: I’ll reach out to him to see if he’s interested in talking.
226 00:31:44.146 ⇒ 00:31:46.610 Sheldon Anderson: you guys. And then
227 00:31:48.230 ⇒ 00:31:54.380 Sheldon Anderson: then one of the sellers that that he hired followed him over to that other company as well. So
228 00:31:56.890 ⇒ 00:32:07.959 Sheldon Anderson: yeah, I’ll keep an eye out within T. Ads, we have a a team that’s kind of dedicated towards AI, so it’s it’s worth making a connection there as well. I think
229 00:32:08.890 ⇒ 00:32:11.329 Sheldon Anderson: I don’t know. T-mobile is just so big and complex.
230 00:32:11.700 ⇒ 00:32:12.270 Sheldon Anderson: Indeed.
231 00:32:12.270 ⇒ 00:32:23.099 Uttam Kumaran: We’re we’re small. We’re small beans. But you know again, it’s like even to have a conversation with someone. And for us we’re really on the edge of a lot of technology like we’re using stuff that
232 00:32:23.240 ⇒ 00:32:28.021 Uttam Kumaran: come out comes out like within the month, sometimes for clients. So
233 00:32:28.670 ⇒ 00:32:33.319 Uttam Kumaran: you know, all the conversations I have with people that are actually implementing are always really fun. And usually they’re like.
234 00:32:33.520 ⇒ 00:32:38.289 Uttam Kumaran: you guys are really on the ball, like, maybe we should try something, so you never know.
235 00:32:38.570 ⇒ 00:32:42.039 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, yeah, of course. I think the hard part with
236 00:32:42.090 ⇒ 00:32:43.769 Sheldon Anderson: T-mobile is like
237 00:32:44.620 ⇒ 00:32:47.049 Sheldon Anderson: data security issues.
238 00:32:47.050 ⇒ 00:32:47.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
239 00:32:47.670 ⇒ 00:32:48.320 Sheldon Anderson: Hmm!
240 00:32:49.960 ⇒ 00:32:52.150 Sheldon Anderson: I don’t know but it’s worth worth a shot.
241 00:32:52.430 ⇒ 00:33:03.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And then, you know, of course, like, please keep in touch. I mean, you’ll see our stuff on Linkedin. But let me know how I can be helpful. Again. I know we’re like really early in in our journey, but
242 00:33:03.310 ⇒ 00:33:10.310 Uttam Kumaran: there’s anyone I can help con connect you with but I would love to, you know, kind of continue to let you know how we’re doing. And
243 00:33:10.681 ⇒ 00:33:18.000 Uttam Kumaran: you know, if we do. If we do decide to invest in Cs like you’re, I’ll you’ll be the 1st one I call but again, like.
244 00:33:18.000 ⇒ 00:33:18.620 Sheldon Anderson: They did that.
245 00:33:18.620 ⇒ 00:33:21.059 Uttam Kumaran: I I appreciate all the advice, and even just like
246 00:33:21.250 ⇒ 00:33:26.820 Uttam Kumaran: sharing like kind of like what you’ve done. It’s given me a lot of ideas on how we can architect it on our end. So.
247 00:33:27.190 ⇒ 00:33:32.469 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, that’s great to hear. Certainly interested in in chatting more to kind of mind, share
248 00:33:32.610 ⇒ 00:33:34.249 Sheldon Anderson: or brain forge. I guess.
249 00:33:34.728 ⇒ 00:33:36.162 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s it.
250 00:33:37.130 ⇒ 00:33:43.999 Sheldon Anderson: And then, yeah, I’ll keep you updated. Moving forward career, wise definitely.
251 00:33:44.390 ⇒ 00:33:46.910 Sheldon Anderson: keep looking around. And
252 00:33:46.920 ⇒ 00:33:48.659 Sheldon Anderson: I think the hard part
253 00:33:49.010 ⇒ 00:33:53.900 Sheldon Anderson: with going back to a startup at this point is, I think my family’s in the stage of like.
254 00:33:54.140 ⇒ 00:33:54.930 Uttam Kumaran: 100%.
255 00:33:54.930 ⇒ 00:33:56.629 Sheldon Anderson: Buying a house eventually. So that’s.
256 00:33:56.630 ⇒ 00:33:57.050 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
257 00:33:57.050 ⇒ 00:33:59.009 Sheldon Anderson: That’s the hard part there. But.
258 00:33:59.010 ⇒ 00:33:59.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
259 00:33:59.980 ⇒ 00:34:18.189 Uttam Kumaran: even even like, look if we even if we start to bring on someone and even to have you advise, and we can cut something there like for me. It’s just stacking the deck as much as possible to help us succeed, and you know you have a ton of valuable information in like a really technical, you know, sector.
260 00:34:18.190 ⇒ 00:34:38.519 Uttam Kumaran: So you know, I’m sure there’s some way we could do something, but I totally get it like this is not like a stable place at the moment, like I won’t be like other startups and lie about that like for me, this is still. But again, it’s we’re making money. It’s not like a non revenue generating operation. It’s just it’s taking its time. So.
261 00:34:38.699 ⇒ 00:34:46.759 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah, yeah, it seems very exciting. I was. When I messaged you I was in my operations management class learning about stock outs.
262 00:34:46.929 ⇒ 00:34:48.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
263 00:34:48.969 ⇒ 00:34:50.859 Sheldon Anderson: Study. I was like, Oh, that’s interesting!
264 00:34:50.860 ⇒ 00:35:03.139 Uttam Kumaran: That’s crazy. Yeah. I mean, we that was an awesome project. And we basically, they didn’t get target wasn’t giving them information on like when their stuff was out of stock. But you can go on target.com and see that.
265 00:35:03.160 ⇒ 00:35:20.530 Uttam Kumaran: but like to go on there, click on the right thing. Get get the right information, get in a structured way. It was taking that one person was just basically like Spot checking randomly. And I’m like we could totally do that for you. And we there’s like this new company that that could. You can spin up basically browsers. And we use this. It’s called Browser base. And
266 00:35:20.680 ⇒ 00:35:28.400 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, so we did it. And it works perfectly. We just delivered it to them. Actually, like, I mean, we’re working with the enterprise like that. There’s all these like
267 00:35:28.510 ⇒ 00:35:35.789 Uttam Kumaran: restrictions and stuff. So we finish it like about a week or 2. But it’s taken like a few months to kind of get it into their system and stuff, but
268 00:35:35.800 ⇒ 00:35:43.620 Uttam Kumaran: it crushed it. And like we’re, we’re looking forward to working with Vitaco on more stuff. And it’s a great case study for us. So yeah, thank you. That’s
269 00:35:44.370 ⇒ 00:35:45.849 Uttam Kumaran: project. Yeah.
270 00:35:46.830 ⇒ 00:35:48.539 Sheldon Anderson: Walmart, and then Kroger, and then.
271 00:35:48.540 ⇒ 00:36:05.799 Uttam Kumaran: I know. So that’s what we’re doing. We started an email campaign going after other people that are selling and target. But we’re gonna start to just say, because again, like, yeah, it’s a that’s a tough problem, because that’s a problem no control over. And the retailer really doesn’t care, because they have, like a hundred different thousands of different people that are doing that.
272 00:36:05.970 ⇒ 00:36:12.579 Uttam Kumaran: But you can find out that like some places selling out. And you want to get them some stuff because some of their people are gonna buy something else.
273 00:36:13.050 ⇒ 00:36:18.739 Uttam Kumaran: you know, using on that potential revenue. So yeah, that’s awesome that you were interested in that class reading about that.
274 00:36:19.490 ⇒ 00:36:22.679 Sheldon Anderson: Yeah. Totally well, great to connect, I’ll be sure to.
275 00:36:22.680 ⇒ 00:36:23.100 Uttam Kumaran: Stand!
276 00:36:23.100 ⇒ 00:36:28.429 Sheldon Anderson: And and I’ll reach out if I’m able to to sneak away when we’re down in Austin as well.
277 00:36:28.580 ⇒ 00:36:30.850 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Totally. Thanks, Shelvin, I really appreciate it.
278 00:36:31.010 ⇒ 00:36:32.100 Sheldon Anderson: Great catching up.
279 00:36:32.100 ⇒ 00:36:33.100 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, talk, soon.