Meeting Title: Brainforge x Rill Date: 2025-03-05 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Sidd Panigrahi, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:36.470 ⇒ 00:00:37.440 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Sid.
2 00:00:38.160 ⇒ 00:00:39.069 Sidd Panigrahi: What’s going on, Tom?
3 00:00:39.070 ⇒ 00:00:40.419 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! How are you?
4 00:00:41.920 ⇒ 00:00:43.580 Sidd Panigrahi: Good man, busy.
5 00:00:43.580 ⇒ 00:00:46.959 Uttam Kumaran: Thought about you. Today we had a person join who’s a big arsenal fan.
6 00:00:47.350 ⇒ 00:00:51.690 Sidd Panigrahi: Oh, yes, let’s go, especially after yesterday. We’ll be.
7 00:00:51.690 ⇒ 00:00:56.550 Uttam Kumaran: He literally only wears different color arsenal jerseys like he’s like, I don’t have any other clothes.
8 00:00:57.295 ⇒ 00:01:01.370 Sidd Panigrahi: So expensive, taste the way they sound.
9 00:01:01.370 ⇒ 00:01:08.230 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I know he initially. He wore something that was like blue, and I was like I couldn’t tell what team it was. He’s like no alternate jerseys.
10 00:01:08.680 ⇒ 00:01:11.000 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
11 00:01:12.370 ⇒ 00:01:15.849 Sidd Panigrahi: But what’s happening? What’s happening? How? How are things? How’s life.
12 00:01:16.410 ⇒ 00:01:17.510 Uttam Kumaran: Is good. Are you going to decide.
13 00:01:17.510 ⇒ 00:01:18.900 Sidd Panigrahi: South by going to south, by.
14 00:01:18.900 ⇒ 00:01:29.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I’ll be going to a bunch of events. Some stuff I don’t think there’s I don’t know if there’s 1 or 2 things this weekend. But yeah, I’ll be going to a bunch of stuff during the week next week.
15 00:01:29.300 ⇒ 00:01:30.629 Sidd Panigrahi: Oh, wow! Nice! Nice!
16 00:01:31.051 ⇒ 00:01:37.800 Uttam Kumaran: That’ll be great. And yeah, things have been good. Things are getting busier. Like.
17 00:01:38.030 ⇒ 00:01:42.848 Uttam Kumaran: It’s funny, because when I start hiring I realize how many jobs I was doing.
18 00:01:43.510 ⇒ 00:01:52.602 Uttam Kumaran: so it’s good. We are bringing on. 2 Pm’s brought in another. Another 2 engineers
19 00:01:53.380 ⇒ 00:01:58.770 Uttam Kumaran: sort of just like escaping myself from everything and kind of turning everything more repeatable.
20 00:01:58.900 ⇒ 00:02:02.110 Uttam Kumaran: But it took like took a solid like 4
21 00:02:02.520 ⇒ 00:02:06.820 Uttam Kumaran: 4 weeks to sort of get to the last point of hiring, and then, of course, it takes like.
22 00:02:07.290 ⇒ 00:02:08.859 Uttam Kumaran: you know, if we can
23 00:02:10.210 ⇒ 00:02:13.590 Uttam Kumaran: takes 2 weeks for to get people going. But you know, usually like a month.
24 00:02:13.800 ⇒ 00:02:15.549 Uttam Kumaran: And so, yeah, just time goes.
25 00:02:15.550 ⇒ 00:02:17.810 Sidd Panigrahi: Are you hiring prime primarily in North America?
26 00:02:18.793 ⇒ 00:02:25.009 Uttam Kumaran: It depends like for our client facing Tm’s. Yes, engineering. I sort of like
27 00:02:25.450 ⇒ 00:02:33.609 Uttam Kumaran: doesn’t really matter to me. I just think us, there’s some Us data, people that are really good. There’s a lot of very lazy Us data people that I’m like.
28 00:02:34.420 ⇒ 00:02:34.760 Uttam Kumaran: not really.
29 00:02:34.760 ⇒ 00:02:38.280 Sidd Panigrahi: Be recorded, I’ll be. I’ll be like concur. And also
30 00:02:39.260 ⇒ 00:02:41.389 Sidd Panigrahi: it’s like more expensive mistakes if you get the wrong.
31 00:02:41.390 ⇒ 00:02:42.530 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, my, gosh, yeah. Well.
32 00:02:42.530 ⇒ 00:02:43.330 Sidd Panigrahi: Like we.
33 00:02:43.330 ⇒ 00:02:46.669 Uttam Kumaran: Contract, we contract to hire everyone. Because, okay.
34 00:02:46.670 ⇒ 00:02:48.399 Sidd Panigrahi: Great great! That’s what I started doing.
35 00:02:48.400 ⇒ 00:02:58.729 Uttam Kumaran: Not good at interviewing. I sort of. I like people, and so I’m like, so instead I wanted. I’m I kind of like meritocracy. I’m like, show me what you got. If you’re good, and then we’ll it’ll work. I think.
36 00:02:58.730 ⇒ 00:02:59.190 Sidd Panigrahi: Exactly.
37 00:02:59.190 ⇒ 00:03:09.019 Uttam Kumaran: I think we have the leverage now, because I think our where we, our company, and like the way we work, is like a great place to work. If you’re a data person, you get to see a lot of challenges. It’s like.
38 00:03:09.340 ⇒ 00:03:11.859 Uttam Kumaran: not too crazy. It’s not like a it’s not like a
39 00:03:12.020 ⇒ 00:03:18.000 Uttam Kumaran: it’s not crazy startup that like may shut down or like, we’re not like super early, like we know what we’re doing. And so.
40 00:03:18.000 ⇒ 00:03:18.430 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah.
41 00:03:18.430 ⇒ 00:03:20.140 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I’ve leveraged, you know.
42 00:03:20.140 ⇒ 00:03:22.840 Sidd Panigrahi: That’s like, yeah. And I mean, if someone confuses
43 00:03:23.000 ⇒ 00:03:28.360 Sidd Panigrahi: great, I’ll see behind the curtain, I’ll do 20 HA week. You’re like great. Let’s do 20 HA week.
44 00:03:28.500 ⇒ 00:03:28.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
45 00:03:28.870 ⇒ 00:03:34.930 Sidd Panigrahi: To see their work. They’ll see behind the curtain. It works both ways. And then if something works really well, then we’re like, Hey, no, come on full time.
46 00:03:35.310 ⇒ 00:03:39.540 Uttam Kumaran: 100%. And and that can happen in as fast as like one week, or like.
47 00:03:39.540 ⇒ 00:03:40.010 Sidd Panigrahi: Books.
48 00:03:40.010 ⇒ 00:03:42.050 Uttam Kumaran: 2 weeks, 2 weeks in. I’m like.
49 00:03:42.190 ⇒ 00:04:02.889 Uttam Kumaran: all right, this isn’t gonna work out. And it’s it’s great, because it’s such a mutual thing. And yes, saving a lot of expensive mistakes. I mean, the trouble is for really great people like we’re at the stage. We’re hiring like Junior to mid level we’re now sort of, I think we in the next 6 months we will bring on another one or 2, like a version of me, like at a senior level.
50 00:04:02.890 ⇒ 00:04:04.940 Sidd Panigrahi: Manage the team to manage the team. Yeah, I think.
51 00:04:04.940 ⇒ 00:04:09.999 Sidd Panigrahi: yeah. But but again, like, at the moment, I actually feel very okay with that like, I manage.
52 00:04:10.000 ⇒ 00:04:11.990 Sidd Panigrahi: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
53 00:04:11.990 ⇒ 00:04:14.569 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like a tomorrow problem, you know. So.
54 00:04:14.570 ⇒ 00:04:14.910 Sidd Panigrahi: Absolutely.
55 00:04:15.320 ⇒ 00:04:20.780 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah. That’s the way I’ve started doing it. Yeah, I I just hired full time sales engineer who’s
56 00:04:20.980 ⇒ 00:04:24.819 Sidd Panigrahi: who was working with us actually 3 months. I am more like I give it more time. But.
57 00:04:24.820 ⇒ 00:04:29.839 Uttam Kumaran: Good good I can’t afford. I can’t afford to, so.
58 00:04:29.840 ⇒ 00:04:30.350 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah.
59 00:04:30.350 ⇒ 00:04:31.459 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning like over like.
60 00:04:31.460 ⇒ 00:04:37.459 Sidd Panigrahi: I had him for more hours and more and more complex projects, and then I like great. Let’s do full time.
61 00:04:37.460 ⇒ 00:04:39.249 Uttam Kumaran: Background. By the way, like, did he start.
62 00:04:39.250 ⇒ 00:04:52.610 Sidd Panigrahi: He came from. He was a retool, and prior to that he was a looker many years ago. So he was very early engineer at Looker. So it works out right? We need. We need like that skill set to be able to know data and tools. So it’s it’s great.
63 00:04:53.960 ⇒ 00:04:59.169 Sidd Panigrahi: But no, it’s tough. It’s tough to hire, and I mean, I am now actually reaching out to my contacts and
64 00:04:59.280 ⇒ 00:05:01.870 Sidd Panigrahi: South America and your I mean, I’ll.
65 00:05:01.870 ⇒ 00:05:05.400 Uttam Kumaran: I have. I have some. Yeah, I have, like, I’ve I, basically.
66 00:05:05.570 ⇒ 00:05:14.299 Uttam Kumaran: What I did is I really called everybody I knew. That’s hired overseas. And I’m like, Okay, give me the playbook. And I have now, like a pretty good rolodex of like
67 00:05:14.440 ⇒ 00:05:23.180 Uttam Kumaran: firms that are either in like Ukraine or in South America that, like I, what I do is I just send them a Jd. And then they like they send me like a bunch of people.
68 00:05:23.410 ⇒ 00:05:48.579 Uttam Kumaran: It’s tough, though, like some of those I’m I’m no. I’m now starting to be a little bit more picky with, like the types of technologies like, for example, it’s hard to find dbt people. I feel like I’ve gotten. We’ve gotten lucky. And I’ve gotten some good people. But it’s as you get more senior. It’s really really hard, you know. But for junior people, or for sort of mid level, you can really find amazing people. Time zone is a tough thing which makes Latin
69 00:05:48.660 ⇒ 00:05:53.429 Uttam Kumaran: better. There’s people in Asia that work for us that just work around like us.
70 00:05:53.430 ⇒ 00:05:54.769 Sidd Panigrahi: I know it’s tough, but it’s tough.
71 00:05:54.770 ⇒ 00:05:55.480 Uttam Kumaran: For them, so.
72 00:05:55.840 ⇒ 00:05:57.640 Sidd Panigrahi: Don’t want to. Yeah, exactly.
73 00:05:57.640 ⇒ 00:05:58.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
74 00:05:58.140 ⇒ 00:06:04.260 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah. You don’t want. You don’t necessarily want to talk to someone at 2 Am. Their time, you know, like, I don’t care if that person says they’re okay, like
75 00:06:04.660 ⇒ 00:06:07.089 Sidd Panigrahi: long term. It doesn’t work now. It just doesn’t work well.
76 00:06:07.090 ⇒ 00:06:08.439 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, I agree, like.
77 00:06:08.440 ⇒ 00:06:10.009 Sidd Panigrahi: It hurts like.
78 00:06:10.010 ⇒ 00:06:17.069 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, it’s it’s really hard. And then, you know, for me, it’s like, is that a problem with, okay, do we want everyone in the us I can’t afford. I can’t afford that.
79 00:06:17.070 ⇒ 00:06:23.329 Sidd Panigrahi: No, yeah, yeah. I mean, I I look for again. My expectation is, I have. My expectation is to have
80 00:06:23.760 ⇒ 00:06:32.299 Sidd Panigrahi: 4 to 5 h of overlap like whatever don’t. I don’t need you to work all day 4 to 5 h. And actually, it’s easier for you that way versus West Coast west coast is even further beyond.
81 00:06:32.300 ⇒ 00:06:40.740 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, for you guys, it’s really really hard, because even for East Coast you wake up to the nonsense. And then, as you get into your groove. Everybody sort of quit.
82 00:06:40.740 ⇒ 00:06:42.689 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, 2 o’clock. The lights go off, you know.
83 00:06:43.800 ⇒ 00:06:47.750 Sidd Panigrahi: which is okay. That’s why I start my day. All my my meetings start at 7 Am.
84 00:06:47.750 ⇒ 00:06:49.339 Uttam Kumaran: Same. Yeah. Mine’s mines are like.
85 00:06:49.340 ⇒ 00:06:58.480 Sidd Panigrahi: Which is okay, which is okay. I don’t mind it. I don’t need to work at 4 o’clock, when the post, you know, afternoon snooze kicks in, and I need coffee, you know. So it’s great. If that works out.
86 00:06:58.480 ⇒ 00:06:59.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
87 00:06:59.000 ⇒ 00:06:59.789 Sidd Panigrahi: As well.
88 00:07:00.020 ⇒ 00:07:00.380 Uttam Kumaran: No, but it.
89 00:07:00.380 ⇒ 00:07:00.730 Sidd Panigrahi: Out!
90 00:07:00.730 ⇒ 00:07:02.910 Uttam Kumaran: It’s been. It’s been good. And yeah, I think we’re.
91 00:07:02.910 ⇒ 00:07:03.310 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah.
92 00:07:03.310 ⇒ 00:07:11.130 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of our, and I saw Robert join as well. So a lot of our time is now like literally just freeing us up to go do sales
93 00:07:11.720 ⇒ 00:07:16.360 Uttam Kumaran: which is good, which is like we had a big push. We sort of bought ourselves
94 00:07:16.830 ⇒ 00:07:21.350 Uttam Kumaran: some more money, and then we can go make hires and then. Now that’s like next push.
95 00:07:21.460 ⇒ 00:07:22.759 Uttam Kumaran: and then you still.
96 00:07:22.760 ⇒ 00:07:26.520 Sidd Panigrahi: Are you still doing a bunch of the? I know you were doing the AI agents.
97 00:07:26.520 ⇒ 00:07:30.249 Uttam Kumaran: Still are. Yeah, we have we have one client that
98 00:07:30.530 ⇒ 00:07:59.060 Uttam Kumaran: it’s working out really, really? Well. And we just need to sort of scale it to other similar clients that they’re using it for home services. The lovely thing is that client can use a lot of data support, too. So there’s opportunity there. And stuff is. It’s it’s like so new that it’s hard to hire people. But I found some young people that like they’re like, this is all I want to do. And I’m like, Okay, let’s go. Let’s go do it. There’s no like there’s you can’t find. There’s no senior people.
99 00:07:59.060 ⇒ 00:08:00.899 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah, of course. And if you look for that.
100 00:08:00.900 ⇒ 00:08:02.300 Uttam Kumaran: Robbed like.
101 00:08:02.300 ⇒ 00:08:07.440 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, I’ve been doing Llm. Agents for 10 years. I like. Sure you have.
102 00:08:07.440 ⇒ 00:08:14.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I googled it. And I learned it in like 3 months. And now, what am I worth? Like a million dollars like I don’t know.
103 00:08:15.440 ⇒ 00:08:18.240 Uttam Kumaran: and they just use chat, gpt, so I don’t know. It’s like.
104 00:08:18.240 ⇒ 00:08:25.199 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I. I just need someone with intellect who can apply chat gpt to business context.
105 00:08:25.200 ⇒ 00:08:26.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m like 49,
106 00:08:26.800 ⇒ 00:08:31.239 Uttam Kumaran: half your day on Twitter. And then anything that looks cool. Just try it out and see what it works.
107 00:08:31.240 ⇒ 00:08:36.260 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I I Robert, thing. Nice meeting you.
108 00:08:36.260 ⇒ 00:08:36.669 Robert Tseng: Hey, Sid.
109 00:08:36.679 ⇒ 00:08:38.979 Sidd Panigrahi: Where are you? Are you in Austin? Are you in Austin as well.
110 00:08:38.980 ⇒ 00:08:45.400 Robert Tseng: I’m not. I’m in New York. I did see that you went to Usc. So I’m I was. I’m a Trojan as well. So.
111 00:08:45.400 ⇒ 00:08:51.079 Sidd Panigrahi: Oh, nice, nice. Yeah, I did. I did many, many years ago now. But yes, I did go to Sc. And
112 00:08:51.631 ⇒ 00:08:56.460 Sidd Panigrahi: I mean, I’m still a guy. I stayed. I stayed back, and I found ways to stay in Southern California.
113 00:08:56.620 ⇒ 00:08:57.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
114 00:08:57.190 ⇒ 00:09:00.070 Uttam Kumaran: Ways. What do you mean like? It’s so like you’re like dreading.
115 00:09:00.070 ⇒ 00:09:03.559 Sidd Panigrahi: No, no, no, I’m saying I was. I found ways like
116 00:09:03.760 ⇒ 00:09:06.100 Sidd Panigrahi: you like, it’s like, I tried very hard.
117 00:09:06.100 ⇒ 00:09:07.809 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah. Yeah. He tried to stay.
118 00:09:07.810 ⇒ 00:09:09.809 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, it was like, Oh, you’re you’re no, no, no, no.
119 00:09:09.810 ⇒ 00:09:11.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I ended up in San Diego.
120 00:09:11.040 ⇒ 00:09:15.060 Sidd Panigrahi: No, no, no, no, very much. This is all very much by design.
121 00:09:15.590 ⇒ 00:09:33.019 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. Well, I just maybe give a brief intro. So yeah, Sid and I have been talking for a while. I mean, I first, st you know, when I when I 1st was just on pool parts we brought in real, and I was super excited about the product, and then sort of since then I’ve been trying to work on bringing more clients onto real. And
122 00:09:33.020 ⇒ 00:10:00.850 Uttam Kumaran: of course, I think we’ve been trying for a while to talk more about how do we leverage each other? You know we did some marketing stuff together. I think there’s definitely way, more room for us to do more business. And then for context. So Robert and I also. We started working on several deals together. Robert ran a analytics, firm sort of in the mixed panel segment amplitude, sort of world. And of course, we were working on like data modeling data engineering. So we actually just combined firms recently.
123 00:10:00.850 ⇒ 00:10:01.310 Sidd Panigrahi: Awesome.
124 00:10:01.310 ⇒ 00:10:25.620 Uttam Kumaran: And sort of are just tackling sort of this world together. Robert is really, you know, saved my tail, which is owning a lot of stuff on our sales and partnership side and allowing me to sort of go and work on building a team and executing. So I definitely wanted. I’m excited, I think, hopefully. 1st conversation of many. But to talk a bit about what we’re thinking on the partnership side, we’re definitely engaging with several vendors.
125 00:10:25.720 ⇒ 00:10:39.530 Uttam Kumaran: Of course, you know, since the start I mentioned that it’s amazing for us to have vendor relations where we also love the product. I think that’s what’s different than a lot of, you know, other agencies that just ship whatever they get a cut of.
126 00:10:39.640 ⇒ 00:10:40.110 Uttam Kumaran: In fact.
127 00:10:40.110 ⇒ 00:10:40.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, exactly.
128 00:10:40.710 ⇒ 00:10:50.859 Uttam Kumaran: There’s probably much more lucrative ways for us to win even beyond the cut, or even, you know, outstanding that, you know. So I just wanted to get all of us on the call, and
129 00:10:51.243 ⇒ 00:11:00.199 Uttam Kumaran: cedy has a lot of contact, Robert, on our business and sort of all the stuff we’ve been trying with Javi pool bars. Otherwise. So yeah, we can kind of take this, whatever direction.
130 00:11:01.570 ⇒ 00:11:05.959 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, no, I agree. And I mean honestly, end of the day. I’d imagine you just
131 00:11:06.120 ⇒ 00:11:24.710 Sidd Panigrahi: you want to do what is best for the client right? And it should not be like, well, it’s down to 2 tools, and I’m going to do it based on the cut. I get right from a client. Perspective is that trust is, you know you do it. Of course, that’s why it’s yeah, we yeah and I. And we try to put. Obviously, you know, I selfishly will try to put incentives in place, of course, but eventually.
132 00:11:24.710 ⇒ 00:11:25.190 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
133 00:11:25.190 ⇒ 00:11:29.400 Sidd Panigrahi: Our our main goal is to help you be successful, and you want to make you look good.
134 00:11:29.530 ⇒ 00:11:33.120 Sidd Panigrahi: And so that’s sort of the ultimate goal. And then we all win
135 00:11:34.048 ⇒ 00:11:39.311 Sidd Panigrahi: and versus, you know, try to just stack up percentages or
136 00:11:39.750 ⇒ 00:11:40.700 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally.
137 00:11:40.700 ⇒ 00:11:46.380 Sidd Panigrahi: But yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Fully fully aligned there. But yeah, nice to meet you, Robert. Welcome.
138 00:11:46.630 ⇒ 00:11:50.880 Sidd Panigrahi: And I’m I’m excited to work with you. I’ve been, you know. Thumb’s been awesome
139 00:11:51.345 ⇒ 00:12:00.190 Sidd Panigrahi: I think we met last year. Data Council. I don’t have no clue. It was in Austin last year. This is in Oakland. We are actually talking this year. We’re speaking.
140 00:12:00.430 ⇒ 00:12:02.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you guys are running the circuit, which is great.
141 00:12:02.860 ⇒ 00:12:03.260 Sidd Panigrahi: Oh, cool.
142 00:12:04.240 ⇒ 00:12:11.010 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah. Yeah. And then I’m actually gonna be in New York in 2 weeks, too. So I don’t know if you’re in the city. I’m happy to happy to meet up as well.
143 00:12:11.010 ⇒ 00:12:12.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’d love to meet up with you. Yeah.
144 00:12:13.298 ⇒ 00:12:16.370 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, I’m coming for a marketing conference.
145 00:12:18.700 ⇒ 00:12:19.330 Robert Tseng: Oh! Which one.
146 00:12:19.330 ⇒ 00:12:24.109 Sidd Panigrahi: It’s called architecture. Live. It’s it’s actually a 1st time event.
147 00:12:24.320 ⇒ 00:12:24.670 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah.
148 00:12:24.670 ⇒ 00:12:26.390 Sidd Panigrahi: The we know the
149 00:12:27.060 ⇒ 00:12:33.600 Sidd Panigrahi: the persons running. It is like a long time at tech veteran Ali Papara. We know him, and so I’ll be there a day but
150 00:12:34.250 ⇒ 00:12:40.889 Sidd Panigrahi: the one day event, and they clearly don’t give a shit about West Coast people, because on Monday, so I have to spend Sunday traveling.
151 00:12:41.450 ⇒ 00:12:47.979 Sidd Panigrahi: It’s like, or I take the red eye and show up, just, you know, like a ghost.
152 00:12:47.980 ⇒ 00:12:50.829 Uttam Kumaran: It’s kind of odd, right, doesn’t it? Isn’t it? At least on Wednesday.
153 00:12:50.830 ⇒ 00:12:54.564 Sidd Panigrahi: It is Monday, and it’s on Saint Patrick’s Day.
154 00:12:55.310 ⇒ 00:12:55.699 Robert Tseng: Was going to.
155 00:12:55.700 ⇒ 00:12:56.460 Robert Tseng: We’re in green.
156 00:12:58.890 ⇒ 00:13:02.590 Sidd Panigrahi: Like great thanks for being unwelcoming to West Coast people.
157 00:13:03.080 ⇒ 00:13:07.920 Sidd Panigrahi: but I am taking one for the team and spending Sunday away from the family.
158 00:13:10.170 ⇒ 00:13:13.390 Robert Tseng: Maybe I should try to get get into this. Get into this event.
159 00:13:13.780 ⇒ 00:13:16.640 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah, it’s a, it will be a bunch of ad tech people.
160 00:13:17.060 ⇒ 00:13:18.330 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s cool.
161 00:13:18.540 ⇒ 00:13:23.159 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s a 1 day event. So I mean, we actually like from where we are.
162 00:13:23.520 ⇒ 00:13:32.399 Sidd Panigrahi: I like to go to events that are like, not so big like, I’m going to Google next. But I think it’s a useless event for us. It’s 50,000 people there I’ll be. We’ll be lost. We’ll be like.
163 00:13:32.400 ⇒ 00:13:34.610 Uttam Kumaran: We’re in the same boat. We’re yeah, totally.
164 00:13:34.610 ⇒ 00:13:39.229 Sidd Panigrahi: Like, I don’t wanna go to like I’m going to Google next, because I got a free ticket. Sure, I’ll go to Google next.
165 00:13:39.230 ⇒ 00:13:40.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
166 00:13:40.000 ⇒ 00:13:55.620 Sidd Panigrahi: Hop over to Vegas, and it’s you know, it’s an easy trip, but otherwise, then it’s like, I’m not paying the $2,000 for the ticket. I got it for free. So that’s why I’m going but otherwise, yeah, otherwise you’re like lost. You go to the like big events. And you’re just like.
167 00:13:56.760 ⇒ 00:13:57.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
168 00:13:57.920 ⇒ 00:13:58.570 Sidd Panigrahi: So.
169 00:13:59.190 ⇒ 00:14:11.819 Sidd Panigrahi: But anyway, I You know, obviously I’m happy to chat about anything I I would love to get. I don’t know if there’s anything we we did launch, I I will actually post it in the channel we lost. We have a
170 00:14:11.960 ⇒ 00:14:14.810 Sidd Panigrahi: public facing version of canvas dashboards.
171 00:14:14.810 ⇒ 00:14:15.180 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
172 00:14:15.180 ⇒ 00:14:26.370 Sidd Panigrahi: Speaking about. So it’s in the in the build. So you can actually build charts and summary reports, which is probably going to be exciting for the team to see as well. It’s still a Beta version, but still you can use it. You can build.
173 00:14:26.370 ⇒ 00:14:30.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, our team actually did a meeting, I think with some of your product people, yeah.
174 00:14:30.390 ⇒ 00:14:35.359 Sidd Panigrahi: Yes, yes, that’s right. Yeah. So yeah, it’s actually out now. So I’ll I’ll post it.
175 00:14:35.670 ⇒ 00:14:40.060 Sidd Panigrahi: And then, yeah, I was curious. Is there I mean anything I know.
176 00:14:40.230 ⇒ 00:14:45.689 Sidd Panigrahi: There are a few things in flight stack plates and Javi coffee, and
177 00:14:46.130 ⇒ 00:14:48.039 Sidd Panigrahi: I don’t know if there was movement on any of them.
178 00:14:50.520 ⇒ 00:15:03.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess there’s 2 things. So on Stackblitz. Yeah, we’re. We’re basically signing our next renewal. And I think I owe Robert a little bit of the guidance on how we’re gonna propose that we’re basically and ideally, as part of that, we’re gonna
179 00:15:04.030 ⇒ 00:15:11.950 Uttam Kumaran: sign real. I I don’t feel worried about that one at all with Javi. It’s been a little bit rocky. They are.
180 00:15:11.950 ⇒ 00:15:13.459 Robert Tseng: To some of Yeah, please go go.
181 00:15:13.460 ⇒ 00:15:14.830 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, wrap it up. Yeah, go ahead.
182 00:15:15.730 ⇒ 00:15:34.100 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Well, so so, Sid, I think, like we’ve we’ve pitched real to a few clients at this point. So I’m gonna just lump Javi into that. And you know, I think with Javi. Actually, when we landed them as a client like the real Demo kind of helped seal the deal like, you know, it was like, this is the dream state of what your data is going to look like somebody lightning fast. You’re gonna get all these cuts.
183 00:15:34.480 ⇒ 00:15:55.949 Robert Tseng: And yeah, obviously, we’re just using dummy data that we had set up. So it was, it made for a great demo. And then it just it’s just been a long journey to kind of really get their data into a place where we could really do that and along the way, you know, they’ve had a lot of different side quests, or like, they want a very, very bespoke types of analysis reporting. And so I think
184 00:15:56.020 ⇒ 00:16:06.209 Robert Tseng: that’s kind of the trend. That’s the trouble that we’ve had, because along the way, now that I think the data is at a place we’re kind of re showing them real with their live data is gonna be a lot more impactful.
185 00:16:06.210 ⇒ 00:16:09.980 Sidd Panigrahi: Is the data in are they doing snowflake? Is the data in Snowflake? Okay.
186 00:16:12.230 ⇒ 00:16:33.809 Robert Tseng: The problem is, we need a very engaged Coo or CEO, in order to be using this like their Cfo is not using real we tried. It’s just like, not really his kind of thing. He wants everything in pivot tables, like, you know, more traditional bi and so I think it’s just about finding the right advocate in within the client. So I don’t know if you guys can kind of share like you know what.
187 00:16:33.900 ⇒ 00:16:59.940 Robert Tseng: how that, how you how you’ve seen other kind of partners or clients like our customers like really, how do they find? How do they build traction for real and like we’d we’d love to like. Learn learn from that. But like as a sales demo tool, it’s been great like I’ve been. Also, I’ve also pitched clients like for Eden. We ended up getting like they were. I remember the coo there was like, Oh, this is great! I would love to see this, but it’s just like on the roadmap. We haven’t really gotten there yet. So.
188 00:17:00.140 ⇒ 00:17:01.010 Sidd Panigrahi: Got it.
189 00:17:01.140 ⇒ 00:17:06.149 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, I think honestly, the one thing that might be a small tweak that will help is
190 00:17:06.710 ⇒ 00:17:17.239 Sidd Panigrahi: because by default you land, and I’ll actually take this. Now that I’m thinking about it, take something back to the team. So you land on the explore view, right? Which is, you see the tape line charts and the tables, and it’s super fast and it’s great.
191 00:17:18.050 ⇒ 00:17:25.449 Sidd Panigrahi: But like you could actually bookmark certain different views of the table. For example you could tell the Cfo is when you log in by default.
192 00:17:25.599 ⇒ 00:17:36.080 Sidd Panigrahi: Here’s a pivot table that you can drag and drop shit and look at time. Comparisons work. So you don’t need to like. Look at other view that you might not be that excited about. But you work in excel. So you could actually set
193 00:17:36.290 ⇒ 00:17:46.890 Sidd Panigrahi: different views for users that you think will resonate better with them versus telling everyone that. Oh, you start here, and then, of course, you can navigate to this other surface area, but maybe for them
194 00:17:47.010 ⇒ 00:17:56.490 Sidd Panigrahi: I don’t want to call them lazy users. Just love like ads want this as a tool as the interface, and you can say, great. This is your starting information really doesn’t have to be what someone else uses.
195 00:17:56.800 ⇒ 00:18:04.680 Sidd Panigrahi: Someone else uses, you know. Explore someone else uses canvas whatever, but it allows them to have their own view of how they like to consume.
196 00:18:05.130 ⇒ 00:18:06.600 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, consume insights.
197 00:18:07.210 ⇒ 00:18:34.919 Robert Tseng: I think, like the these exacts like they’re they’re not exploring, like, I think, for anything we’ve been there. They just want the snapshot they want the thing that’s just sent to them via email. Or maybe it’s just like something that’s like a slack integration. They just want to see like the the view that they wanted to see. And they just I think we need to like, yeah, create a couple more of those bookmarks. I guess you’re calling them that that might be able to help help with that. Yeah.
198 00:18:34.920 ⇒ 00:18:38.380 Sidd Panigrahi: Sounds. Yeah, and maybe for the Cfo sell him on
199 00:18:39.200 ⇒ 00:18:48.849 Sidd Panigrahi: this tool. Once we set up a you know, a pipeline of sorts, and you can actually the more value for him or her might be like, Hey, we can send alerts, you know, when
200 00:18:48.970 ⇒ 00:18:53.270 Sidd Panigrahi: something drops or changes unexpectedly. So it’s like helps prevent
201 00:18:53.460 ⇒ 00:18:56.949 Sidd Panigrahi: revenue leakage or some operational issue that you might find
202 00:18:57.210 ⇒ 00:19:13.714 Sidd Panigrahi: much later days later, weeks later. And then this allows you to also have it depending on what the infrastructure is. I I don’t know if they’re super sophisticated, and they have a bunch of tools, or you can say, Hey, in your data. We can also set some alerts files. Those are the kinds of things I would sell.
203 00:19:14.260 ⇒ 00:19:15.730 Sidd Panigrahi: sell the Cfo on.
204 00:19:15.980 ⇒ 00:19:16.670 Robert Tseng: Got it.
205 00:19:17.150 ⇒ 00:19:24.479 Sidd Panigrahi: Sounds good. Yeah. Always happy to refund or a 15 min like, if you have a meeting coming up, or you think some things will be.
206 00:19:24.780 ⇒ 00:19:35.990 Sidd Panigrahi: you know. Hey? You want to cover some bases. Always happy to reform, hey? Let’s let’s talk about how you would recommend or pick, you know. Pick pitch something like this like on on the story. So I’m happy to always do a 15 min
207 00:19:36.140 ⇒ 00:19:40.260 Sidd Panigrahi: prep. Calls will help you fully be fully armed, walking into any meetings.
208 00:19:40.580 ⇒ 00:19:49.430 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I mean, so we, I mean, we use we use real internally for all, for all our clients like we, we think it’s just a good kind of like way for us to go and figure out
209 00:19:50.040 ⇒ 00:20:01.902 Robert Tseng: like what we should go. Be be analyzing. And yeah, I mean, I think it’s the yeah, the disk, the disconnect is just like our familiarity with the tool versus like, how do we get our customers to use or get our clients to use it.
210 00:20:02.510 ⇒ 00:20:03.589 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think.
211 00:20:03.700 ⇒ 00:20:13.260 Robert Tseng: yeah. Monthly Monthly Quarterly. We we do like, you know, classic Mbrs and Qbrs with our clients. And I think those are your times when I try to like.
212 00:20:13.740 ⇒ 00:20:15.850 Sidd Panigrahi: Pitch. Okay, yeah. Yeah.
213 00:20:15.850 ⇒ 00:20:32.679 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like real and other things that we want to like. Put on the roadmap like this is, have these conversations again. So definitely for the next one. I mean with Javi. I think they’re coming up in in less in like less than a month. So I would like to. Oh, yeah, I’d love to maybe. Get get that one ready to kind of bring. Bring.
214 00:20:32.680 ⇒ 00:20:40.330 Sidd Panigrahi: Absolutely. Yeah. Let’s do it. Yeah. And then, are you guys going the big event that is coming up? I don’t know. Are you going to shop talk? Are you doing
215 00:20:40.490 ⇒ 00:20:43.769 Sidd Panigrahi: more in like all the shopify and e-commerce clients will be there.
216 00:20:43.770 ⇒ 00:20:59.879 Uttam Kumaran: I’m going to something next week around shopify. I don’t know. There’s like so many emails, because I just know so many people in Austin here in Ecom. I get like a hundred like everybody invited me to like some low key, super exclusive thing that everybody’s going to. So I have to look through my inbox, but I’m going to.
217 00:20:59.880 ⇒ 00:21:00.270 Sidd Panigrahi: Shit.
218 00:21:00.270 ⇒ 00:21:02.778 Uttam Kumaran: One or 2 shopify events.
219 00:21:03.280 ⇒ 00:21:16.619 Sidd Panigrahi: The shop talk is the ginormous one again, it’s a big event. So the risk is you just get lost. But they have that happens in Vegas in end of March, but that’s where that I would, I would say. The playbook that we use is.
220 00:21:17.130 ⇒ 00:21:21.409 Sidd Panigrahi: if you spend enough time on the website, you’ll get a list of companies
221 00:21:21.530 ⇒ 00:21:44.080 Sidd Panigrahi: I would do. I would try to reach out to them and see if you can book meeting, and if you get meetings. Then you go. You can be like I’m gonna be there. I’m gonna blah! Blah! Blah! That’s the playbook we run is to reach out to a bunch of these people. If enough people buy, you can say, Okay, I’m gonna make the trip. And it’s Vegas. So the good thing is, you don’t actually have to go to the event you can be like, hey? Let’s meet at the restaurant, this coffee shop, whatever like on the heels of the venue. You don’t have to be on the floor
222 00:21:44.240 ⇒ 00:22:03.970 Sidd Panigrahi: and spend whatever insane amount they might be talking. So that’s what we shop, Vegas, New York. These are great location that you can just meet people who are there in town without being like or still, like, you know. Yeah, you don’t have to like be in the inside the conference. You can still meet people because they’re not gonna block off the wherever this happens, like they’re not gonna block off the.
223 00:22:04.100 ⇒ 00:22:13.360 Sidd Panigrahi: You know the Mandalay Bay for everyone. Because shop talk is happening. You can still walk around and meet people. So that’s what we do is if it’s interesting. That’s what I would say is, run a playbook of
224 00:22:13.510 ⇒ 00:22:17.379 Sidd Panigrahi: reach out to whatever 5,000 people, and see how many byte.
225 00:22:17.770 ⇒ 00:22:18.440 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
226 00:22:18.610 ⇒ 00:22:28.010 Robert Tseng: I, we are. We are going to commerce next. But that’s in. That’s in June. So probably. Yeah, that’s a great point. We should run that for for any conference that we’re that we’re.
227 00:22:28.010 ⇒ 00:22:37.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m actually gonna that’s actually a really good reminder. I mean, I should we should get some stuff. Maybe Robert will talk tomorrow Friday. I should set a bunch of stuff up for this week in Austin.
228 00:22:39.390 ⇒ 00:22:40.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and it’ll be a.
229 00:22:40.700 ⇒ 00:22:47.069 Sidd Panigrahi: If only one person responds, you can be like, Hey, my plans change. I can’t make it anymore, whatever it’s okay.
230 00:22:47.070 ⇒ 00:22:48.220 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally.
231 00:22:48.220 ⇒ 00:22:56.490 Sidd Panigrahi: You know, honestly, a lot of people actually respond because I was joking like, I think they need to justify their visit. So they say I have 10 meetings set up, so they’ll actually take the meeting.
232 00:22:56.490 ⇒ 00:22:56.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
233 00:22:56.940 ⇒ 00:22:58.030 Sidd Panigrahi: Actually go talk to them, you know.
234 00:22:58.030 ⇒ 00:23:06.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And for me, like, if it’s in Austin or New York, it’s great like in here, it’ll be made like I can meet wherever and if it’s in New York, that’s also really really great. Yeah.
235 00:23:09.061 ⇒ 00:23:18.378 Sidd Panigrahi: So no. So I mean, so I’ve talked. Everyone in e-commerce will be there. I actually don’t know if I’m gonna go because I am in Chicago right after. But
236 00:23:19.100 ⇒ 00:23:22.369 Sidd Panigrahi: yeah, yeah, like, that’ll be. That’s a good event.
237 00:23:22.860 ⇒ 00:23:23.510 Robert Tseng: Okay.
238 00:23:24.100 ⇒ 00:23:26.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Good. Good. No.
239 00:23:26.280 ⇒ 00:23:50.890 Uttam Kumaran: I think another, I think another item, too, and maybe we can continue to talk is, I think, the the stuff we did co-marketing wise, really worked out, too. And actually, I see more of like, okay, can we share leads and sort of do that as definitely more beneficial than anything that we’ll both make on the referral deal, like, I’m much more. I’m like, okay, can we see if we can bring on more clients onto rail? But also, can we start to publish
240 00:23:51.310 ⇒ 00:24:06.349 Uttam Kumaran: stuff together, videos articles, things like that I would love. We’re gonna start teeing up a lot more of that content. Across our 4 vendors that we use. But I think that’s there’s where there’s probably a lot of opportunity to single signal boost.
241 00:24:06.640 ⇒ 00:24:08.209 Uttam Kumaran: you know a lot.
242 00:24:09.590 ⇒ 00:24:16.979 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah 100% it’ll be interesting. The next big content piece we are putting out is I I was pushing for it is
243 00:24:17.330 ⇒ 00:24:22.020 Sidd Panigrahi: will be interesting is we are sort of dunking a little bit on Snowflake in terms of why you need
244 00:24:22.280 ⇒ 00:24:24.300 Sidd Panigrahi: in memory and olap engines for analytics.
245 00:24:24.300 ⇒ 00:24:24.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
246 00:24:24.700 ⇒ 00:24:27.970 Sidd Panigrahi: Snowflake data warehouse. So it’ll be interesting to see how that gets received.
247 00:24:28.080 ⇒ 00:24:31.880 Uttam Kumaran: No, I’m I mean I’m on the same boat. We just haven’t done it, because I have not had time.
248 00:24:31.880 ⇒ 00:24:32.420 Sidd Panigrahi: In my life.
249 00:24:32.420 ⇒ 00:24:35.400 Uttam Kumaran: Honestly feel like we could get away with just
250 00:24:35.750 ⇒ 00:24:41.030 Uttam Kumaran: duckdb or click house, for, like our smaller to mid-sized customers
251 00:24:41.130 ⇒ 00:24:43.919 Uttam Kumaran: who have nobody in the warehouse anyways.
252 00:24:45.260 ⇒ 00:24:46.729 Uttam Kumaran: But I haven’t just I haven’t.
253 00:24:47.090 ⇒ 00:24:53.639 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s like a lingering thesis. I have not tested it out so. But I totally hear you yeah.
254 00:24:53.820 ⇒ 00:24:59.299 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, I think the big big gap we see and I do bring up. I do. Sort of share is
255 00:25:00.020 ⇒ 00:25:04.880 Sidd Panigrahi: many people have challenges like. As you said, they don’t even have Snowflake. They’re just like, help me just
256 00:25:05.130 ⇒ 00:25:08.920 Sidd Panigrahi: set up a data martyr data collection. And then I can at least
257 00:25:09.030 ⇒ 00:25:15.430 Sidd Panigrahi: think about what tools to put on it. So even the setup, I think you’ve done a few of those projects as well. So I think that’s also a.
258 00:25:15.740 ⇒ 00:25:20.329 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, I mean, I’ll I would say a lot of our clients don’t care about Snowflake. They don’t care about Dv.
259 00:25:20.330 ⇒ 00:25:21.777 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
260 00:25:22.260 ⇒ 00:25:26.440 Uttam Kumaran: They only care about the deliverable and the decision that gets made. In fact.
261 00:25:26.440 ⇒ 00:25:26.930 Sidd Panigrahi: Exactly.
262 00:25:26.930 ⇒ 00:25:33.790 Uttam Kumaran: More of the time. I’ve actually tried to move a lot of that to where we don’t speak about it like I don’t want to talk about things that aren’t relevant.
263 00:25:33.790 ⇒ 00:25:34.470 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah, yeah.
264 00:25:34.470 ⇒ 00:25:49.789 Uttam Kumaran: Confuses everyone like at the maybe across the fortune. 2,000 or something like this really matters. But we have large clients in Ecom who again, these are like they’re doing. They’re doing a lot of revenue, and they don’t care at all. You know.
265 00:25:50.580 ⇒ 00:25:53.469 Uttam Kumaran: who the wood warehouse provider is.
266 00:25:53.470 ⇒ 00:25:54.080 Sidd Panigrahi: Yeah.
267 00:25:54.080 ⇒ 00:25:55.750 Uttam Kumaran: They could care less. So like it’s.
268 00:25:55.750 ⇒ 00:25:57.490 Sidd Panigrahi: They could care less exactly.
269 00:26:00.690 ⇒ 00:26:22.349 Sidd Panigrahi: cool, awesome. I have a a hard stop here, so I have to drop. But no, this I’m there. March 1718 19. Robert, if you’re in town, let’s figure out. I think 18th is the most favorable right now. I’m in all day event on 17, th and I have a customer on site on the 19.th But 18th is a Tuesday, so let me know if you’re around, let’s figure out coffee coffee or something.
270 00:26:22.350 ⇒ 00:26:24.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ll be around. Let’s let’s make it happen. Yeah.
271 00:26:24.850 ⇒ 00:26:30.190 Sidd Panigrahi: Okay, I’ll I’ll throw. Let’s throw something on the calendar, so we’ll we’ll have it there and then I’ll see you in person.
272 00:26:30.430 ⇒ 00:26:31.670 Robert Tseng: Okay. Sounds. Good.
273 00:26:31.670 ⇒ 00:26:32.210 Robert Tseng: Awesome.
274 00:26:32.400 ⇒ 00:26:33.840 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome thanks guys.
275 00:26:34.050 ⇒ 00:26:36.160 Sidd Panigrahi: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, bye.