Meeting Title: Uttam <> Holly: Brainforge Partnerships Date: 2025-05-16 Meeting participants: Holly Condos, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:32.280 ⇒ 00:00:33.410 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! Holly!
2 00:00:39.810 ⇒ 00:00:40.860 Holly Condos: Can you hear me?
3 00:00:41.050 ⇒ 00:00:42.259 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I can hear you.
4 00:00:42.590 ⇒ 00:00:43.879 Holly Condos: Oh, awesome!
5 00:00:44.120 ⇒ 00:00:45.179 Holly Condos: How are you?
6 00:00:45.180 ⇒ 00:00:46.950 Uttam Kumaran: Good! How are you? How’s everything?
7 00:00:48.090 ⇒ 00:00:53.369 Holly Condos: It’s a little crazy. Sorry I’m not on camera, but I’m I’m at my Vermont house.
8 00:00:54.850 ⇒ 00:00:56.260 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, no! Lovely.
9 00:00:56.760 ⇒ 00:00:59.586 Holly Condos: Not there actually right this minute, but
10 00:01:00.400 ⇒ 00:01:08.460 Holly Condos: We we bought it like a couple of years ago, and then we had type freeze
11 00:01:08.940 ⇒ 00:01:15.770 Holly Condos: which caused about $30,000 worth of damage, which we’re still chasing the insurance company for.
12 00:01:16.040 ⇒ 00:01:21.969 Holly Condos: And then the house was built in 1969. So some of it
13 00:01:22.100 ⇒ 00:01:26.669 Holly Condos: was, you know, remodeled and modern, and some of it wasn’t so.
14 00:01:26.670 ⇒ 00:01:27.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
15 00:01:27.040 ⇒ 00:01:34.889 Holly Condos: In January. I had been waiting for a year for this contractor to redo one of the Master Bath.
16 00:01:35.540 ⇒ 00:01:39.730 Holly Condos: and he started in January. It was supposed to be an 8 week project.
17 00:01:40.120 ⇒ 00:01:45.510 Holly Condos: He was still working as of last week, and.
18 00:01:45.510 ⇒ 00:01:46.330 Uttam Kumaran: My gosh.
19 00:01:46.330 ⇒ 00:01:50.383 Holly Condos: So that’s like 5 months, right? And then
20 00:01:52.070 ⇒ 00:01:54.100 Holly Condos: I’m gonna shut my window here in a second.
21 00:01:55.700 ⇒ 00:02:03.520 Holly Condos: The I don’t know what happened, but like we used him for some other work right.
22 00:02:03.670 ⇒ 00:02:05.599 Holly Condos: But when I got here
23 00:02:05.870 ⇒ 00:02:10.719 Holly Condos: and I took a look at the shower it was like, Oh, my God, it looks like a Kindergartner did it.
24 00:02:10.720 ⇒ 00:02:11.750 Uttam Kumaran: Wow!
25 00:02:11.951 ⇒ 00:02:12.909 Uttam Kumaran: So how did you find?
26 00:02:12.910 ⇒ 00:02:13.789 Uttam Kumaran: And this guy.
27 00:02:18.870 ⇒ 00:02:21.339 Holly Condos: So, Vermont. I don’t know if you’ve ever been.
28 00:02:21.340 ⇒ 00:02:24.600 Uttam Kumaran: I spent some time in New Hampshire. I spent a lot of time in New Hampshire.
29 00:02:25.600 ⇒ 00:02:27.780 Holly Condos: Okay, very similar. It’s very similar.
30 00:02:28.050 ⇒ 00:02:36.569 Holly Condos: Right? So so there are contractors. But they don’t advertise a lot, you know, not like California. My other house in California
31 00:02:36.810 ⇒ 00:02:37.690 Holly Condos: and
32 00:02:39.300 ⇒ 00:02:41.180 Holly Condos: So I found him.
33 00:02:42.420 ⇒ 00:02:49.110 Holly Condos: I think, on Facebook. But the people around here, like put recommendations in their Facebook and like I said.
34 00:02:49.720 ⇒ 00:02:51.019 Holly Condos: do some other words.
35 00:02:51.910 ⇒ 00:03:00.829 Holly Condos: so I don’t know if he, I’m thinking maybe he developed a substance abuse problem because it was like night and day in the work.
36 00:03:01.050 ⇒ 00:03:02.300 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, man!
37 00:03:02.850 ⇒ 00:03:03.560 Holly Condos: Anyway.
38 00:03:06.010 ⇒ 00:03:13.969 Holly Condos: As a result, I’m not in my home office. I I just went to home depot to get some more stuff because my older son
39 00:03:14.250 ⇒ 00:03:25.689 Holly Condos: is having a bachelor party at the house starting next Wednesday, and so my husband and I are trying to like, you know. Get this bathroom done enough that they can at least use it.
40 00:03:25.960 ⇒ 00:03:30.599 Holly Condos: and then, you know, we’ll deal with the crappy tile work later.
41 00:03:31.850 ⇒ 00:03:38.270 Uttam Kumaran: Well, we could totally. We could. We totally could do this another time. I don’t want to take time away while you’re like getting everything sorted out.
42 00:03:39.000 ⇒ 00:03:44.070 Holly Condos: So let me also just say, and I have not had a chance to look at what you sent me yet.
43 00:03:45.400 ⇒ 00:03:48.970 Holly Condos: And so maybe, you know, we should just read.
44 00:03:49.120 ⇒ 00:03:54.489 Holly Condos: We should set another time for next week. But, like, how is your schedule? Just tell me how things are going.
45 00:03:54.630 ⇒ 00:03:56.019 Holly Condos: Looks like you’re busy.
46 00:03:56.440 ⇒ 00:04:02.880 Uttam Kumaran: It’s it has been very busy. I actually, I’m taking my 1st vacation in a while next week, and.
47 00:04:02.880 ⇒ 00:04:03.789 Holly Condos: Oh, good!
48 00:04:04.670 ⇒ 00:04:07.579 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ll be in Argentina for a wedding. Actually.
49 00:04:07.580 ⇒ 00:04:09.979 Holly Condos: Oh, that sounds super fun!
50 00:04:09.980 ⇒ 00:04:14.580 Uttam Kumaran: So that should be very nice. But things have been very busy, you know, since we talked
51 00:04:15.138 ⇒ 00:04:20.019 Uttam Kumaran: we went really balls to the wall, and a lot of sales and partnership.
52 00:04:21.149 ⇒ 00:04:21.459 Holly Condos: Good.
53 00:04:21.649 ⇒ 00:04:26.009 Uttam Kumaran: I know. I know I appreciate you supporting everything on Linkedin, and we’re just doing
54 00:04:26.129 ⇒ 00:04:37.799 Uttam Kumaran: a lot of co-marketing, trying to do events. Sort of you know. I have some notes from our conversation, but A lot of what what you told me, which was to think about
55 00:04:38.089 ⇒ 00:04:51.599 Uttam Kumaran: who we’re partnering with and like what the value is for them, where where we’ve really executed on and but so, as you know, it’s a sell, you know I’ve always thought about selling to other sellers is a longer sales process than selling to the
56 00:04:51.779 ⇒ 00:04:55.330 Uttam Kumaran: decline sometimes. So it’s it’s right definitely
57 00:04:55.330 ⇒ 00:05:18.060 Uttam Kumaran: take in time to nurture the relationships. But again, you, as soon as you start doing that. You know some doors open up so kind of in a couple of ways we have, we’ve we’ve been able to get, I would say. The ultimate measurement of like, the success is like, are we getting leads from partners right? Or is there some partner attributed revenue? And so we’ve we’ve been able to actually get like, now, a couple coming in through the door. But again, we’ve only been really putting pressure.
58 00:05:18.060 ⇒ 00:05:18.720 Holly Condos: Oh, good!
59 00:05:18.720 ⇒ 00:05:40.399 Uttam Kumaran: For like 2 months. So I think we’ve. We’ve now have some partners where we’ve talked to a bunch, and we’re signing paper so that they’ll bring us in on stuff and we can start working with them. The lovely thing about us is, I think, the speed at which we are can do and speed at which we actually like put assets together. And, like
60 00:05:40.680 ⇒ 00:05:49.949 Uttam Kumaran: the types of clients we have, and our expertise in AI is making us very attractive partnerships to a lot of larger companies that just couldn’t move as fast
61 00:05:50.450 ⇒ 00:05:54.340 Uttam Kumaran: as us right? And so trying to just think about it.
62 00:05:54.340 ⇒ 00:05:56.699 Holly Condos: Okay. What? What would you say?
63 00:05:58.720 ⇒ 00:05:59.510 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead! Got it!
64 00:06:00.410 ⇒ 00:06:01.370 Holly Condos: Are you still there?
65 00:06:01.960 ⇒ 00:06:02.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
66 00:06:02.817 ⇒ 00:06:05.109 Holly Condos: What would you say is your average?
67 00:06:05.940 ⇒ 00:06:11.950 Holly Condos: Okay? What would you say is your average sales cycle like from the time you meet someone
68 00:06:12.680 ⇒ 00:06:15.310 Holly Condos: closing paper and delivering.
69 00:06:15.760 ⇒ 00:06:26.950 Uttam Kumaran: It’s usually a month and a half to 3 months, and which I think is it’s pretty fast.
70 00:06:27.930 ⇒ 00:06:28.320 Holly Condos: Super, fast.
71 00:06:28.320 ⇒ 00:06:32.029 Uttam Kumaran: These are deals. These are deals that are like anywhere from
72 00:06:32.190 ⇒ 00:06:45.759 Uttam Kumaran: 15 to like 30 k. So as we go higher, 30 KA month, so as it goes higher, it’ll slow down. But that’s where I’m like, I want to rely. We’re we’re we’re our whole goal is just to move.
73 00:06:46.150 ⇒ 00:06:50.080 Uttam Kumaran: you know, Upmarket, meaning we I. And when some of those we’re gonna need a partner,
74 00:06:50.920 ⇒ 00:06:51.370 Holly Condos: Right.
75 00:06:51.370 ⇒ 00:07:08.909 Uttam Kumaran: But also at minimum. I just wanna kind of ride their coattails of marketing and ride their coattails, of being able to to promote us and like I’m I’m actually, you know, we’re only a crew of 15, and I’m seeing us get on the radar of a lot of big firms. Anecdotally.
76 00:07:09.870 ⇒ 00:07:10.830 Holly Condos: Which that’s awesome.
77 00:07:10.950 ⇒ 00:07:14.529 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s it. Like, for me, at least, just knowing that that’s happening.
78 00:07:15.003 ⇒ 00:07:22.950 Uttam Kumaran: Leaning in on Linkedin as a great channel for that, and then taking advantage of like a lot of friends we’ve made along the way, you know, to do co marketing and to do
79 00:07:23.260 ⇒ 00:07:25.929 Uttam Kumaran: events and take advantage of that.
80 00:07:27.030 ⇒ 00:07:28.702 Holly Condos: That’s great. So
81 00:07:29.520 ⇒ 00:07:31.299 Holly Condos: Would you say that?
82 00:07:31.870 ⇒ 00:07:36.879 Holly Condos: And I might have asked you this at Biplican. So sorry, but I don’t remember if I did.
83 00:07:37.070 ⇒ 00:07:37.800 Uttam Kumaran: No no problem.
84 00:07:37.800 ⇒ 00:07:50.540 Holly Condos: That. That your what you guys bring to the table is is like, not specific
85 00:07:50.800 ⇒ 00:07:55.280 Holly Condos: to Google Cloud, or you know, a specific cloud.
86 00:07:55.520 ⇒ 00:07:58.459 Holly Condos: I mean, it’s it’s across the board, right? Like
87 00:07:58.880 ⇒ 00:08:03.469 Holly Condos: it doesn’t matter what the customer is using currently is that right?
88 00:08:03.470 ⇒ 00:08:09.330 Uttam Kumaran: That is, that is correct, you know. I think our positioning evolved in a couple of ways. One we started focusing
89 00:08:10.740 ⇒ 00:08:34.050 Uttam Kumaran: less on just, hey, we’ll do any data. We’ll automate anything to just we’re really focused on helping people grow revenue. So it’s all like revenue optimization understanding your customer better understanding, product, profitability or service line profitability. So what this isn’t is like heavy on like marketing, efficiency measurements heavy on customer service reporting or analytics. So we want to sort of be
90 00:08:34.179 ⇒ 00:09:03.330 Uttam Kumaran: a tied to top line revenue growth. Second, is we. We focus now on like 5 or 6 industries where we have customer wins and ideally, where there it’s underserved market, right? So we’re finding some good opportunity in legal in home service. And we have some. Of course, we’ve done a lot of work in e-commerce and sas but those there’s a lot of competition. And so we’re trying to find more positioning there and then, I would say, the 3.rd
91 00:09:03.730 ⇒ 00:09:31.909 Uttam Kumaran: The wrong of positioning for us is at some point. We’ll have to make decision on one hyper scaler like Microsoft or or Amazon or Google. We haven’t done yet. We’ve worked with all 3 of those in implementing solutions. You know that advice I got from. you know, another advisor of ours is helping us kind of like. Think about Microsoft is. He’s just like you just have to kind of pick one and and kind of orient the company towards that, you know, and so
92 00:09:32.080 ⇒ 00:09:37.490 Uttam Kumaran: I I know we’ll I I assume you know we’ll have to do that at some point.
93 00:09:37.941 ⇒ 00:09:42.579 Uttam Kumaran: you know, just to make ourselves more attractive, and to to have that specialization.
94 00:09:43.120 ⇒ 00:09:46.319 Uttam Kumaran: As we go for larger and larger contracts.
95 00:09:47.810 ⇒ 00:09:55.760 Holly Condos: Yeah, I I I agree with that for the most part, although I I think that the next
96 00:09:57.040 ⇒ 00:10:01.680 Holly Condos: 12 to 18 months it may
97 00:10:03.360 ⇒ 00:10:07.350 Holly Condos: may change that idea, or that approach.
98 00:10:07.450 ⇒ 00:10:09.750 Holly Condos: And I say that because
99 00:10:13.540 ⇒ 00:10:16.479 Holly Condos: you know just just the adoption of
100 00:10:17.920 ⇒ 00:10:24.029 Holly Condos: the whole agentic ecosystem into these various hyperscalar clouds.
101 00:10:24.510 ⇒ 00:10:32.660 Holly Condos: It is pivotal right? And so the challenge. So my customers are across the board, right? I don’t
102 00:10:32.800 ⇒ 00:10:43.590 Holly Condos: specialize in one I have one customer who is a Google Premier partner. He’s been around for about 12 years.
103 00:10:43.740 ⇒ 00:10:47.600 Holly Condos: He’s trying to break out of the 25 mil revenue zone.
104 00:10:47.600 ⇒ 00:10:48.070 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
105 00:10:48.457 ⇒ 00:10:57.370 Holly Condos: And kind of struggling with that. He is a a coder. 1st and foremost, he and his buddies at the University of Michigan.
106 00:10:57.530 ⇒ 00:11:01.099 Holly Condos: basically, you know, taught themselves a lot about
107 00:11:01.570 ⇒ 00:11:04.809 Holly Condos: various languages, etc. So that’s
108 00:11:04.940 ⇒ 00:11:08.860 Holly Condos: you know, they’re they’re and they’re coders, developers at heart.
109 00:11:10.850 ⇒ 00:11:15.660 Holly Condos: But again, with the emergence of the gigantic ecosystem.
110 00:11:15.840 ⇒ 00:11:17.799 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you know, I think.
111 00:11:18.210 ⇒ 00:11:20.130 Holly Condos: I think that.
112 00:11:20.470 ⇒ 00:11:26.169 Holly Condos: And they all right. They all have their own thing. Right? My co-pilot.
113 00:11:26.710 ⇒ 00:11:33.760 Holly Condos: Yes, Google. And so why would that next? In April.
114 00:11:33.980 ⇒ 00:11:37.330 Holly Condos: The big buzz that then was
115 00:11:40.810 ⇒ 00:11:51.680 Holly Condos: in within Google Workspace. You can. The customer can, have different agents who do different tasks, collaborate
116 00:11:53.320 ⇒ 00:11:59.690 Holly Condos: and service now, who arguably, isn’t in the same space as the Big 3.
117 00:12:00.120 ⇒ 00:12:04.260 Holly Condos: They so I just came from that conference. They
118 00:12:05.840 ⇒ 00:12:07.919 Holly Condos: Pat, are you familiar with service now?
119 00:12:08.280 ⇒ 00:12:13.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, oh, I I actually I wasn’t. I interned at service now, actually in Santa Clara? Yeah.
120 00:12:13.800 ⇒ 00:12:16.230 Holly Condos: Oh, my, gosh, okay, so yeah, you know.
121 00:12:16.947 ⇒ 00:12:21.320 Holly Condos: But so the I should have bought some stock back then, like, that’s my perfect.
122 00:12:21.320 ⇒ 00:12:22.490 Uttam Kumaran: Biggest mistake.
123 00:12:24.400 ⇒ 00:12:28.709 Holly Condos: Yeah, you you should. I mean, it’s never too late. But it’s.
124 00:12:28.710 ⇒ 00:12:31.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that company’s a behemoth.
125 00:12:31.760 ⇒ 00:12:38.860 Holly Condos: It’s pretty high up now, but maybe in the next dip you can get some but anyway, they
126 00:12:39.790 ⇒ 00:12:46.550 Holly Condos: so they their big message in May was, or earlier this month was
127 00:12:47.170 ⇒ 00:12:57.160 Holly Condos: okay. Yes, we have the platform. And yes, we’re moving into the Crm space because they kind of want to take over workday.
128 00:12:57.550 ⇒ 00:12:58.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
129 00:12:58.408 ⇒ 00:13:05.770 Holly Condos: And they want to expand on the customer. Us. Ui and the customer success piece of the platform.
130 00:13:05.880 ⇒ 00:13:10.179 Holly Condos: But with now assist, which is their basic agent.
131 00:13:10.500 ⇒ 00:13:24.400 Holly Condos: They’ve developed analysis to not only compete with Gemini, but there are connectors to various 3rd party.
132 00:13:25.180 ⇒ 00:13:31.120 Holly Condos: Right? So so because all these things are sort of converging at once.
133 00:13:31.980 ⇒ 00:13:35.259 Holly Condos: I like, I said earlier, I’m wondering.
134 00:13:35.580 ⇒ 00:13:38.950 Holly Condos: you know. Will, will there be
135 00:13:39.240 ⇒ 00:13:42.260 Holly Condos: like a move by the 3 big guys
136 00:13:43.320 ⇒ 00:13:49.110 Holly Condos: to work together more. I mean, they all have collaboration to some extent right.
137 00:13:49.370 ⇒ 00:14:06.299 Holly Condos: They all play nice with each other in the sandbox, but at the end of the day they want to be number one. They they want to be, you know. They want to be generating most revenue garnering the market. And I I just. I’m wondering if that’s gonna have to converge in some way. I just don’t know.
138 00:14:06.670 ⇒ 00:14:11.989 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I I agree. You know, I think, this. That’s the problem. Because for me, I’m an engineer, and
139 00:14:12.350 ⇒ 00:14:19.350 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t really feel loyal to anyone I would use, whichever one is the best for the the task at hand.
140 00:14:19.852 ⇒ 00:14:37.099 Uttam Kumaran: But you know I get advice from other engine, like if I ask that engineer, I get that. If I ask people who are on the partnerships or sales side of these sort of it, service firms, they’re like dude. Just pick one and run with it. You know. So for me, I I’m I’m sort of weighing.
141 00:14:37.570 ⇒ 00:14:44.949 Uttam Kumaran: you know that I I don’t think they’re all. I think they’re all fairly similar in their offerings. I think the one probably way to look is
142 00:14:45.070 ⇒ 00:15:06.250 Uttam Kumaran: to start looking at how they’re incentivizing their salespeople, for example, I think, Microsoft their their way. They incentivize their folks. Some people do on based on consumption. Some people are doing just based on new Logos, or getting these new products in the door. And so for me, I’m like, look if I’m the only person in town doing like Microsoft fabric
143 00:15:06.490 ⇒ 00:15:12.000 Uttam Kumaran: and implementing azure. AI, you know. Maybe that’s an advantage. Right? So.
144 00:15:12.430 ⇒ 00:15:13.280 Holly Condos: Yeah.
145 00:15:13.830 ⇒ 00:15:25.229 Uttam Kumaran: I I’m I’m sort of thinking I’m sort of thinking about, and of course you know what what they want is they want to bring on a partner that’s gonna drive consumption and and leave like with an actual
146 00:15:25.410 ⇒ 00:15:27.289 Uttam Kumaran: like, something that that works
147 00:15:28.080 ⇒ 00:15:28.650 Holly Condos: Right.
148 00:15:28.930 ⇒ 00:15:33.269 Uttam Kumaran: And part of that is like bringing deals to them. But part of that is also just saying, like.
149 00:15:33.420 ⇒ 00:15:39.689 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, here’s like, Here’s who we are, and why you should consider bringing us onto something, because we’ll make you look good.
150 00:15:40.086 ⇒ 00:15:46.183 Holly Condos: And but they don’t want. They see. The thing is, they don’t want you to go and be like, well, we’re gonna do azure. AI! But then I’ll do Gemini.
151 00:15:46.910 ⇒ 00:15:47.940 Uttam Kumaran: At that last mile.
152 00:15:47.940 ⇒ 00:15:51.880 Holly Condos: Exactly. They won’t say that.
153 00:15:51.880 ⇒ 00:15:52.780 Uttam Kumaran: That, but.
154 00:15:53.760 ⇒ 00:16:02.360 Holly Condos: But yes, you understand, that is the idea. So again, most of my customers are, you know, they picked one, if you will.
155 00:16:02.360 ⇒ 00:16:03.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
156 00:16:03.360 ⇒ 00:16:13.429 Holly Condos: But then they but then they have Fomo right. My customers are like well, but you know we have this whole untapped market over here that if we did aws.
157 00:16:13.560 ⇒ 00:16:21.520 Holly Condos: then, you know, we would bring in all this revenue, and it’s really the same thing. It’s just under a different umbrella holly, and I’m like, yes, but
158 00:16:22.400 ⇒ 00:16:23.639 Holly Condos: it’s not possible.
159 00:16:23.640 ⇒ 00:16:36.179 Uttam Kumaran: Distraction, and it’s the cost of just like reorienting your business right like for me, that just becomes a cool. Everything becomes branded towards Microsoft. We try to do Microsoft events like we’ll put out stuff just about Microsoft like
160 00:16:36.430 ⇒ 00:16:52.529 Uttam Kumaran: that’s where you know. For me. I I just know. I think we may have to decide. But so what we’re what we’re kind of doing is we’ve we’ve kind of, I think, have a good positioning on the capabilities and like sort of the outcomes people can expect. The 3rd position I think we’re focusing more on is just the industries.
161 00:16:53.098 ⇒ 00:16:56.370 Uttam Kumaran: Where can we build up case studies in
162 00:16:56.874 ⇒ 00:17:06.610 Uttam Kumaran: just like at least 3 to 5 where we know that that’s where we play. I don’t think we need to go fully, you know. I think the vixel folks would
163 00:17:06.780 ⇒ 00:17:19.030 Uttam Kumaran: would continue to push us to say like, Hey, pick a couple to to focus on, and so kind of the way we’re hedging against that is, we’re almost doing like month long promotions towards 1 1 of those right? So, for example.
164 00:17:19.373 ⇒ 00:17:43.940 Uttam Kumaran: we have a we have some some prospective leads in legal. Well, for those we’re developing legal, related proof of concepts cool. So what we’re gonna do is I’m gonna connect with as many legal people in Austin. We’re gonna sort of build like some momentum towards legal get do something partnered with a legal like vendor. Put the proof of concepts, and almost just like brand ourselves towards that for a fixed period of time. To then test whether
165 00:17:44.000 ⇒ 00:17:49.479 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Of course, like they have budget, they have urgency, and they actually like, understand what we’re selling.
166 00:17:51.110 ⇒ 00:17:55.469 Uttam Kumaran: You know. And and I think we we have a great case study in home services now.
167 00:17:56.170 ⇒ 00:17:56.830 Holly Condos: Okay. Good.
168 00:17:56.830 ⇒ 00:18:15.289 Uttam Kumaran: I have a background in in, in real estate. I worked at wework. So we have a lot of data and and stuff we could do there and then. The AI thing is really what’s pulling us, I think, up, regardless of the industry. That’s what’s garnering the eyeballs. And then the fact that we also do the data work gives us this like.
169 00:18:15.390 ⇒ 00:18:22.619 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, you can do like you. Actually, we’re focused on just getting the right context to AI through a lot of our data engineering work.
170 00:18:23.820 ⇒ 00:18:28.579 Holly Condos: Yeah, I. And and I think that’s good. I think you’re going along a very smart path.
171 00:18:30.230 ⇒ 00:18:35.619 Holly Condos: So, okay, so if legal is one of the industries that you want to focus on.
172 00:18:36.080 ⇒ 00:18:43.279 Holly Condos: I can definitely make some intro for you. I originally was a paralegal, and I went to law school here.
173 00:18:43.280 ⇒ 00:18:44.070 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, wow! Okay.
174 00:18:45.536 ⇒ 00:18:54.100 Holly Condos: My older son, the one who’s getting married. His 1st startup, which was, I don’t know 6 years ago now. 5 or 6 years.
175 00:18:54.310 ⇒ 00:19:05.410 Holly Condos: He he basically created it. It was really the beginning of an agent, if you will. Right. So he created the back end
176 00:19:06.278 ⇒ 00:19:11.170 Holly Condos: for, like temp, legal templates, and brief, so that.
177 00:19:11.170 ⇒ 00:19:11.900 Uttam Kumaran: I see.
178 00:19:11.900 ⇒ 00:19:23.400 Holly Condos: Rather rather than having to create a brand new document every time you just would, you know you would download the app from the from the app store.
179 00:19:23.690 ⇒ 00:19:35.439 Holly Condos: You’d pay the subscription for the year, and then, you know, you need a motion to dismiss. So you pull it in, and it’s for client, you know, 1,700, and it pulls all the info in for you.
180 00:19:36.327 ⇒ 00:19:44.000 Holly Condos: So really the early stages, right of of kind of where we’re at now, as far as legal formatting goes.
181 00:19:44.922 ⇒ 00:19:52.570 Holly Condos: And he got purchased by my case, which was then purchased by
182 00:19:53.920 ⇒ 00:20:00.283 Holly Condos: shoot. It’s a PE firm. I I’ll think of it like I can send it to you if you care. But anyway, so
183 00:20:00.830 ⇒ 00:20:07.399 Holly Condos: So you know, I think he’s a good example of how there is a real need
184 00:20:08.110 ⇒ 00:20:12.950 Holly Condos: in that industry. And I think you are. Your timing is good.
185 00:20:12.950 ⇒ 00:20:18.359 Holly Condos: Yeah, because a lot of firms are. Finally, you know most of the partner, not most.
186 00:20:18.510 ⇒ 00:20:21.539 Holly Condos: Some of the partners are kind of old school like
187 00:20:22.090 ⇒ 00:20:32.099 Holly Condos: I ha! I know I have a colleague who still has this. He has a secretary, and the secretary prints his emails out and he reads them on paper. I mean, it’s terrible.
188 00:20:32.100 ⇒ 00:20:34.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, we’re the folks we’re talking to
189 00:20:34.820 ⇒ 00:20:37.170 Uttam Kumaran: doing things that are stone age. It’s just insane.
190 00:20:37.880 ⇒ 00:20:43.129 Holly Condos: So so it’s there’s a real need there. And I think because of the younger
191 00:20:44.024 ⇒ 00:21:02.739 Holly Condos: contingent of the legal world, especially at some of the major firms across the country or for the world, for that matter. You know, they get it. The the younger people are like, okay, guys, we need to. We need to automate. We need to maximize efficiency here, right? Because
192 00:21:03.000 ⇒ 00:21:05.720 Holly Condos: with Chat Gbt and some of the other tools.
193 00:21:05.830 ⇒ 00:21:15.949 Holly Condos: I mean, even though I wouldn’t trust it completely, and a human in the loop is still required. It can cut out a lot of paralegal work. Now, right? You can have
194 00:21:16.420 ⇒ 00:21:26.249 Holly Condos: you can have an agent do research right? I mean, it’s just it’s you. Just the law firms need to jump on the train and get with it. So I think your timing is good.
195 00:21:26.974 ⇒ 00:21:31.020 Holly Condos: But I can help not only with potential clients, but
196 00:21:31.200 ⇒ 00:21:39.219 Holly Condos: I also know a guy who he’s a service. Now, partner he’s in, I think, New York City or
197 00:21:39.500 ⇒ 00:21:41.250 Holly Condos: New Jersey, one or the other.
198 00:21:41.520 ⇒ 00:21:44.460 Holly Condos: He’s probably 5, 4, or 5 years old.
199 00:21:45.174 ⇒ 00:21:49.375 Holly Condos: and the company, I mean. And he
200 00:21:50.190 ⇒ 00:22:03.520 Holly Condos: he said that that legal is an area that they are really getting a lot of a lot of drive through so. But they need somebody like you with the AI piece.
201 00:22:03.520 ⇒ 00:22:14.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s the thing that in house they have. No, they just don’t have any talent to do this. What the other thing we found is there has from the top it has to be like a imperative to to do something.
202 00:22:14.590 ⇒ 00:22:15.400 Holly Condos: Exactly right.
203 00:22:15.400 ⇒ 00:22:29.900 Uttam Kumaran: Go into an org where they’re not interested. It’s our job becomes really impossible. So that’s why we’re, you know, in we’re we’ve in real estate. So we’re thinking about real estate legal. We have some inroads into insurance as well, and then home services.
204 00:22:29.900 ⇒ 00:22:30.380 Holly Condos: Okay.
205 00:22:30.380 ⇒ 00:22:45.109 Uttam Kumaran: But anything that I were noticed. Really, document heavy is really ripe for a lot of automation. Second thing is like, I wanna play where there’s less competition. So I don’t go like avoiding the really hot b 2 b Sas.
206 00:22:46.490 ⇒ 00:22:58.470 Uttam Kumaran: Consumer apps. Ecom, you can like skip a lot of like what the the agencies are gonna go after and instead, go after. Okay, like, where is there actually budget towards? I think that’s the biggest thing is.
207 00:22:58.470 ⇒ 00:22:58.890 Holly Condos: Right.
208 00:22:58.890 ⇒ 00:23:10.867 Uttam Kumaran: Legal because of how fragmented it is, and sometimes they don’t have it budgets, or it’s not like they can’t. They don’t see the Roi and that investment. That’s sort of what we’re up against.
209 00:23:11.210 ⇒ 00:23:11.800 Holly Condos: Yeah.
210 00:23:11.800 ⇒ 00:23:15.380 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and that may just be a better pricing exercise. But
211 00:23:15.670 ⇒ 00:23:32.389 Uttam Kumaran: also, again, if client, if we can help, for example, in real estate. If we can help you accelerate your deal flow and your deal volume, and the pace at which deals move through or get disqualified, and that’s a direct hit into like, okay, I can take on more capacity without having to hire someone. So
212 00:23:32.390 ⇒ 00:23:53.189 Uttam Kumaran: we’re more gearing towards that. And the other interesting thing I’ll share is, you know, we there’s a client here in Austin, called ABC. Home and Commercial. They’re a large home and commercial service business, one of the largest here in Central Texas, and we deployed AI agents into their customer Service Department, where their customer service reps actually, instead of now control fing across
213 00:23:53.330 ⇒ 00:24:01.569 Uttam Kumaran: 5 or 10 different spreadsheets and docs when they’re on the phone with clients. And they’re like, Hey, a squirrel died in my shed. Is that like covered under my policy.
214 00:24:02.617 ⇒ 00:24:31.400 Uttam Kumaran: They’re able to just ask a chat bot, and we developed a very cost, effective solution with them. We took all their documents, restructure them. Put them into one. You know, clear, concise sort of did some bunch of knowledge engineering work added evaluations, observability. We’re reporting on their data. And now we signed a model with them where they’re almost signing up for like a phone plan where we had an initial implementation. And then they’re buying a set amount of chat sessions per month.
215 00:24:31.930 ⇒ 00:24:32.730 Holly Condos: Oh, wow!
216 00:24:32.730 ⇒ 00:24:43.220 Uttam Kumaran: And so, instead of me thinking about it like a consulting where they’re buying hours, or like a sas where you’re buying seats, you’re almost buying. You’re almost buying
217 00:24:43.330 ⇒ 00:25:10.730 Uttam Kumaran: like the value right? The value is in your customer service, Rep. Being able to say, I don’t know the question. I don’t want to put this person on hold or call them back, which is like a high chance of churn. And so let me just ask this AI agent that sits in their Google Workspace has all the access to the stuff, and then they are able to use those questions to then improve their knowledge base. Right. So and then for me, on my side, like I’m able to assign a fixed price recurring revenue deal, and then our job.
218 00:25:10.730 ⇒ 00:25:11.060 Holly Condos: Yes.
219 00:25:11.060 ⇒ 00:25:26.009 Uttam Kumaran: To like, fulfill it for really less. And it’s not. It’s closer to deploying a custom piece of software. But the AI stuff is very easy to maintain, and it’s not that complicated. If you’re able to do it right?
220 00:25:26.665 ⇒ 00:25:46.019 Uttam Kumaran: For us. Now, I’m like, Okay, cool. We should just go target a bunch of the bigger home service companies. And then they get this like usage value based pricing where it’s much closer to the value, because at some point I was actually gonna say, why don’t we charge? Based on? If you’re if you’re actually able to upsell that customer on the same call when they call for help.
221 00:25:46.130 ⇒ 00:25:46.640 Uttam Kumaran: right?
222 00:25:47.110 ⇒ 00:25:47.580 Holly Condos: Yeah.
223 00:25:47.580 ⇒ 00:25:49.680 Uttam Kumaran: And right. It’s much closer to the value.
224 00:25:50.398 ⇒ 00:25:53.540 Holly Condos: But we’re so we’re trying new things. I guess. Long story short is like.
225 00:25:53.540 ⇒ 00:25:54.930 Holly Condos: that’s awesome. I love it.
226 00:25:54.930 ⇒ 00:25:55.665 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
227 00:25:57.250 ⇒ 00:26:01.730 Holly Condos: Do you think that? Like? Wh, what is your
228 00:26:02.360 ⇒ 00:26:10.219 Holly Condos: well, do you have an ultimate goal of being acquired? Or are you you guys just kind of seeing how things unfold.
229 00:26:10.500 ⇒ 00:26:25.850 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s the that’s the goal. And I think we’re we’re basically working backwards from there. I’m not sure whether this is directly aligned towards like a PE firm, or whether this is aligned towards like one of the gsis. But we are working towards that outcome.
230 00:26:26.440 ⇒ 00:26:27.040 Holly Condos: Okay.
231 00:26:27.480 ⇒ 00:26:32.100 Uttam Kumaran: But you know, today we haven’t raised any money. So it’s sort of been like.
232 00:26:32.400 ⇒ 00:26:40.570 Uttam Kumaran: just like money in. And then we reinvest, and we get great great people in the company. But this is also where, like I’m starting to.
233 00:26:40.730 ⇒ 00:26:53.390 Uttam Kumaran: I just want to orient our company towards that outcome. And it’s nice where, if we have some clarity on that, then I just sort of at least can try to work backwards from there and then make this outcome for us, and, like the core, you know, employees in the company.
234 00:26:54.120 ⇒ 00:26:55.790 Holly Condos: Right. Okay, that’s cool.
235 00:26:56.402 ⇒ 00:26:59.829 Holly Condos: Well, it sounds like you’re doing great. And I’m I’m
236 00:27:00.210 ⇒ 00:27:03.370 Holly Condos: proud to hear it. It sounds great. But thank you.
237 00:27:03.370 ⇒ 00:27:08.229 Holly Condos: Let’s let me. So let’s do this. Just going forward. I’ll look at what you sent me, because.
238 00:27:08.230 ⇒ 00:27:08.570 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
239 00:27:08.570 ⇒ 00:27:10.469 Holly Condos: I would like to do that much.
240 00:27:10.640 ⇒ 00:27:17.640 Holly Condos: and then and then why don’t we visit again and and let me give you
241 00:27:18.060 ⇒ 00:27:26.260 Holly Condos: some recommendation or a list of law firms and and legal, and then I also think
242 00:27:26.380 ⇒ 00:27:34.649 Holly Condos: the guy the service. Now, partner I mentioned. I’ll have a chat with him and see if he wants to. Maybe talk with you.
243 00:27:34.650 ⇒ 00:27:34.990 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
244 00:27:35.284 ⇒ 00:27:43.539 Holly Condos: And bring you in on some of their deals, because I know, like I said, he’s penetrating legal, and I think he might be a little bit overwhelmed.
245 00:27:43.750 ⇒ 00:27:44.640 Uttam Kumaran: Interesting.
246 00:27:44.640 ⇒ 00:27:45.300 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
247 00:27:45.300 ⇒ 00:27:50.219 Holly Condos: Right. And then my Google partner in New York. So
248 00:27:50.810 ⇒ 00:27:54.205 Holly Condos: I think it could be an interesting conversation.
249 00:27:54.820 ⇒ 00:28:00.389 Holly Condos: and he is. He’s a young CEO. He’s like 33, I think.
250 00:28:01.108 ⇒ 00:28:10.440 Holly Condos: And he’s but he acts like a really old curmudgeony guy, so let me just socialize. I know he’s he’s I love him, but he’s tough.
251 00:28:10.440 ⇒ 00:28:12.159 Uttam Kumaran: The old soul. That’s what they say.
252 00:28:12.160 ⇒ 00:28:15.109 Uttam Kumaran: He’s tough with anything new, right?
253 00:28:15.420 ⇒ 00:28:16.590 Holly Condos: And he.
254 00:28:17.370 ⇒ 00:28:26.929 Holly Condos: he! And and he’ll be like, well, why can’t we do this? And my comment always to him? Because I’m trying to help him optimize his operations and workflow.
255 00:28:26.930 ⇒ 00:28:27.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
256 00:28:27.300 ⇒ 00:28:33.349 Holly Condos: And trying to get things off of his plate and help him delegate and empower the team.
257 00:28:33.350 ⇒ 00:28:35.369 Uttam Kumaran: Story story of my life. Yes.
258 00:28:36.760 ⇒ 00:28:39.369 Holly Condos: Well, you seem a lot more open than he is.
259 00:28:39.671 ⇒ 00:28:42.990 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, my gosh! Since day I’ve been wanting to hand off
260 00:28:43.200 ⇒ 00:28:48.158 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, look I I feel really lucky we have great people now that I can
261 00:28:48.650 ⇒ 00:29:13.509 Uttam Kumaran: share the wealth of some of our challenging problems. But then I wanna I need to go do the next. I need to run into the next burning building at any moment. Right? And that’s able to do a couple of things a time. I I want to do that. And then, yeah, I mean any of those intros. I’m happy to talk and then tell me how I can be helpful like I mean, this is like very, very generous. I I mean, I know I didn’t get to ask like, how you work with businesses as well, but like
262 00:29:13.931 ⇒ 00:29:20.679 Uttam Kumaran: I mean like I would love to find a way to keep you in, you know, in our camp, as we’re like growing.
263 00:29:20.928 ⇒ 00:29:24.910 Holly Condos: Yeah, no, I would. I would love to do that. And even you know, I think
264 00:29:25.170 ⇒ 00:29:29.869 Holly Condos: I think right now, because you’re at 15, and I think it sounds like.
265 00:29:30.130 ⇒ 00:29:34.350 Holly Condos: you know, you’re in a good workflow.
266 00:29:34.350 ⇒ 00:29:34.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
267 00:29:35.710 ⇒ 00:29:42.520 Holly Condos: I I think it. Probably. You know you probably aren’t in a position to bring someone like me on yet.
268 00:29:42.730 ⇒ 00:29:43.300 Uttam Kumaran: Correct.
269 00:29:43.300 ⇒ 00:29:46.849 Holly Condos: From a consulting basis. Right? Like I don’t. I don’t work.
270 00:29:47.180 ⇒ 00:29:50.179 Holly Condos: I’m not an employee to anyone other than myself.
271 00:29:51.012 ⇒ 00:29:53.139 Holly Condos: But I think that.
272 00:29:54.020 ⇒ 00:30:01.419 Holly Condos: you know. Let’s just keep talking. What? I find, what I to answer your question just briefly what I find happens.
273 00:30:01.830 ⇒ 00:30:05.880 Holly Condos: and this has kind of been a challenge for me as as a founder.
274 00:30:06.715 ⇒ 00:30:10.519 Holly Condos: I have, you know, I I started out with a message
275 00:30:10.720 ⇒ 00:30:16.910 Holly Condos: and a purpose and intention, and that was basically, you know, to help
276 00:30:17.230 ⇒ 00:30:26.619 Holly Condos: new entrepreneurs get off the ground. Well, what does that mean? Right? Like, set up their company like, set up the operational infrastructure.
277 00:30:27.199 ⇒ 00:30:31.749 Holly Condos: And and I do do that to some extent. But what happens is.
278 00:30:32.150 ⇒ 00:30:35.739 Holly Condos: you know, I I start talking, and I start working with
279 00:30:36.170 ⇒ 00:30:56.649 Holly Condos: the customer. And then, oh, can you just like negotiate this contract? Because contract is in? You know the thing that I’ve done for so many years? That sort of in my back pocket, and I kind of tried to step away from it, but it keeps coming up, which is fine, right? It’s it’s easy. I enjoy doing it. I just didn’t want to only do that.
280 00:30:57.387 ⇒ 00:31:01.360 Holly Condos: So I guess my point is, what happens is that
281 00:31:01.490 ⇒ 00:31:03.720 Holly Condos: I kind of like jump on
282 00:31:03.850 ⇒ 00:31:14.099 Holly Condos: the train of my customer of of the company, and just kind of help figure out, and I tend to stay and stick
283 00:31:14.240 ⇒ 00:31:21.799 Holly Condos: rather than just doing one project and leaving, I mean, I certainly have. You know, 5 or 6 people that I’ve done various things like that with.
284 00:31:22.080 ⇒ 00:31:22.990 Holly Condos: but
285 00:31:23.350 ⇒ 00:31:42.530 Holly Condos: you know, for the most part I I tend to because I care, and I get jazzed and interested and excited. And so I tend to stay in some capacity, figuring out the next piece of the journey. So I think you know, I sense that with you 2, and I think that
286 00:31:43.103 ⇒ 00:31:54.060 Holly Condos: I think we can figure out how I can help going forward. But for now I you know I’m good learning. I I tend to try to take in a lot of information, and just.
287 00:31:54.350 ⇒ 00:31:55.670 Holly Condos: you know. Get.
288 00:31:56.170 ⇒ 00:32:05.529 Holly Condos: get a feel of what you’re what you’re thinking, and how things are going and what’s working, what’s not working. And I love that you’re trying things, because I think that’s what you have to do.
289 00:32:05.790 ⇒ 00:32:13.818 Holly Condos: And so let’s just let’s just keep talking. But for the short term, let me look at what you said, and let me get
290 00:32:14.280 ⇒ 00:32:18.514 Holly Condos: Let me make a few phone calls, and then I’ll get a list of
291 00:32:19.870 ⇒ 00:32:30.709 Holly Condos: of law firms and potentials, and I don’t know some. Some people want to see it 1st before I do an intro, and I’m happy to do that right in case there’s any conflict.
292 00:32:30.710 ⇒ 00:32:31.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
293 00:32:31.532 ⇒ 00:32:36.610 Holly Condos: But I think we just start getting some conversations flowing, and see what happens.
294 00:32:36.810 ⇒ 00:32:56.039 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s do that. I mean, I’m in the same boat for me. I just I wanna make sure we we get every day we get to make decisions, and I just try to make them as accurate as possible and learning about partnerships and learning about this sort of sales. Motion is new. But for us, I’m like, Okay, how can I? How can I get through the growing pains as fast as possible and build.
295 00:32:56.040 ⇒ 00:32:56.810 Holly Condos: Something repeated.
296 00:32:56.810 ⇒ 00:33:04.019 Uttam Kumaran: Meeting, and so talking to folks like you is is extremely valuable, even just conversations like this, let alone, you know, giving us some help on.
297 00:33:04.020 ⇒ 00:33:04.600 Holly Condos: Happy, to.
298 00:33:04.600 ⇒ 00:33:06.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, perfect.
299 00:33:07.240 ⇒ 00:33:10.849 Holly Condos: Alright. Well, why don’t I just touch base
300 00:33:11.010 ⇒ 00:33:20.410 Holly Condos: with you? Once I review the partner stuff, I mean, maybe you know, maybe we talk at the end of next week or beginning of the next the week. Well, when are you going to argent.
301 00:33:20.410 ⇒ 00:33:23.687 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’ll be there Wednesday to
302 00:33:25.960 ⇒ 00:33:48.710 Uttam Kumaran: Wednesday to Friday, so I’ll how about the the end of next week? I’ll just put something on the calendar, and if it works out we can, we can do it or we can move it from there and then. Yeah, it’s not like a ton of documents, and it’s nothing crazy. I just sort of wanted to get your gut instinct on it, and I already know there’s some stuff in there that we could just total low hanging fruit. But hopefully, you’ll see sort of like where we’re going. And
303 00:33:49.555 ⇒ 00:33:50.220 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
304 00:33:51.390 ⇒ 00:34:07.590 Holly Condos: That sounds great. Yeah. So yeah, put put a placeholder for us, and maybe what we do is, you know, we just have like a a standing check in at some point. Let’s see how that unfolds, because we may want to talk before that. But let’s
305 00:34:07.800 ⇒ 00:34:10.529 Holly Condos: for sure talk when you get back from Argentina.
306 00:34:10.949 ⇒ 00:34:19.599 Holly Condos: I may shoot you a question or a comment. Before that, you know that again will just be something on our list to talk about when we when we meet up
307 00:34:20.233 ⇒ 00:34:26.899 Holly Condos: and then, like, I said, I’ll make a few phone calls and gather some lists. The other thing I do at conferences.
308 00:34:27.540 ⇒ 00:34:35.290 Holly Condos: cause, you know, like you can you can get the list of well, you can sign into the conference app
309 00:34:35.570 ⇒ 00:34:38.399 Holly Condos: and say that you want to network with everyone there.
310 00:34:38.510 ⇒ 00:34:41.500 Holly Condos: and what I try to do is extract some
311 00:34:41.699 ⇒ 00:34:49.369 Holly Condos: portion of that list every time I go to a conference. And yeah, it’s a lot of called names. But what I find is that I typically
312 00:34:49.540 ⇒ 00:35:11.969 Holly Condos: know someone that knows someone that knows someone. And then it’s a connection, and you never know. I mean, sometimes those work, sometimes they don’t, but I’m just. I’m a hunter, and I’m always looking for something. So in my mind. I’ve got you, and I’ve got you know, my other clients, and I’ve got whoever. And then I see something, and I’m like, Oh, that would be good for Brainforge.
313 00:35:12.180 ⇒ 00:35:18.839 Holly Condos: So you know, I think there’s a lot of possibility. Once we kind of get going, and we just keep talking.
314 00:35:19.330 ⇒ 00:35:20.389 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.
315 00:35:21.470 ⇒ 00:35:26.730 Holly Condos: Alright, sir, I appreciate your your time. Sorry I again wasn’t on camera, but.
316 00:35:26.730 ⇒ 00:35:27.830 Uttam Kumaran: No no problem.
317 00:35:28.230 ⇒ 00:35:32.380 Holly Condos: I don’t have a I don’t have it set up in the car. I need to figure that out.
318 00:35:32.900 ⇒ 00:35:37.070 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s fine. No problem at all. Thank you so much. And best of luck with the house stuff.
319 00:35:37.250 ⇒ 00:35:41.530 Holly Condos: Thank you, thank you, and I hope you have a good weekend, and enjoy enjoy the wedding.
320 00:35:41.660 ⇒ 00:35:43.110 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, appreciate it. Talk soon.
321 00:35:43.390 ⇒ 00:35:44.829 Holly Condos: I’ll talk to you next week.
322 00:35:44.830 ⇒ 00:35:45.390 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.