2025-07-15_brainforge_x_zac_ooi_career_discussion_12ed55b0

Meeting Title: Brainforge x Zac Ooi Career Discussion Date: 2025-07-15 Meeting participants: Zac Ooi, Uttam Kumaran

---

WEBVTT

1 00:03:26.650 ⇒ 00:03:32.789 Uttam Kumaran: Hey? Sorry about that. Was just on with with a sales lead, and

2 00:03:33.410 ⇒ 00:03:38.600 Uttam Kumaran: you know anything for a dollar. So we stay on for a few minutes, so.

3 00:03:38.600 ⇒ 00:03:40.310 Zac Ooi: No, no worries, no worries, I don’t.

4 00:03:40.310 ⇒ 00:03:41.709 Zac Ooi: I pronounce your name. By the way.

5 00:03:41.710 ⇒ 00:03:42.520 Uttam Kumaran: You, Tom.

6 00:03:42.830 ⇒ 00:03:44.980 Zac Ooi: Utah. Nice to meet you.

7 00:03:44.980 ⇒ 00:03:46.819 Uttam Kumaran: Great to meet you. Man, how are you?

8 00:03:47.200 ⇒ 00:03:48.700 Zac Ooi: Good? How about yourself?

9 00:03:48.700 ⇒ 00:03:52.060 Uttam Kumaran: I’m doing. Well, yeah, it’s been. It’s actually

10 00:03:52.678 ⇒ 00:03:55.760 Uttam Kumaran: it’s been okay this week, not like crazy. But still.

11 00:03:55.760 ⇒ 00:03:56.250 Zac Ooi: Hmm.

12 00:03:56.250 ⇒ 00:04:01.466 Uttam Kumaran: Pretty busy. But yeah, any highlights.

13 00:04:02.690 ⇒ 00:04:11.102 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, like some of our clients we’re starting to get. We’re starting to expand and get into different parts of their business. So that’s good, I think, across all of our clients, you know.

14 00:04:11.700 ⇒ 00:04:15.369 Uttam Kumaran: we are. It seems like we are the constraint like

15 00:04:15.510 ⇒ 00:04:20.049 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. I don’t. I think we’re over exceeding a lot of expectations. I think

16 00:04:20.200 ⇒ 00:04:28.808 Uttam Kumaran: it’s basically our capacity that’s leading to us, not taking on more work, which is a better problem than what it what it used to be.

17 00:04:30.570 ⇒ 00:04:40.310 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I think it’s a lot of time constraint, like, you know, we? We’re we’re starting to delegate more, Robert and I and I spend most of my day either in sales

18 00:04:41.051 ⇒ 00:04:57.250 Uttam Kumaran: or in like sort of strategic company stuff or like marketing. So so I’m spending a lot less time. But it basically needs to be very little time on client stuff. It needs to be like kind of more like navy seal versus like anything that I’m actually assigned, just because

19 00:04:57.430 ⇒ 00:05:04.880 Uttam Kumaran: I sort of am in and out of meetings all day. But it’s getting better. And the team is, the team is amazing. We got extremely lucky with the people that we have. And

20 00:05:05.320 ⇒ 00:05:09.260 Uttam Kumaran: they’re really, really crushing. It’s it’s like blessing. So.

21 00:05:09.800 ⇒ 00:05:22.799 Zac Ooi: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. How many? How many like non engineering, like non product, headcount is is Brainforge right now? It sounds like you’re juggling multiple things. I’m I’m kind of wondering like, who else is around

22 00:05:23.330 ⇒ 00:05:23.850 Zac Ooi: the business.

23 00:05:23.850 ⇒ 00:05:30.529 Uttam Kumaran: So like, yeah, it was Robert and I. And then we have one person on operations. We have

24 00:05:32.340 ⇒ 00:05:40.759 Uttam Kumaran: we have like one. We have like 2 people on marketing and content. Sort of half another half designer, another half like video editor for video stuff.

25 00:05:40.960 ⇒ 00:05:47.850 Uttam Kumaran: We’re so we have a sales coordinator that’s joining she’s part time, so she’s like handling like

26 00:05:47.980 ⇒ 00:05:52.147 Uttam Kumaran: lead. Follow ups hub like making sure Hubspot’s clean

27 00:05:52.610 ⇒ 00:05:56.470 Uttam Kumaran: But apart from from that everyone else is delivery.

28 00:05:57.108 ⇒ 00:06:01.320 Uttam Kumaran: So either project management, data, engineering or AI engineering

29 00:06:03.090 ⇒ 00:06:04.849 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think we have any other.

30 00:06:05.380 ⇒ 00:06:08.539 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re the only like business folks. So.

31 00:06:08.540 ⇒ 00:06:11.370 Zac Ooi: Okay, okay, no cool, cool. I’m just curious. Yeah.

32 00:06:11.977 ⇒ 00:06:16.750 Zac Ooi: and it sounds like you’re having to juggle a lot yourself. And like, I,

33 00:06:17.350 ⇒ 00:06:27.849 Zac Ooi: I mean, I’m at like my call it 3rd 3rd startup now. You know. Not not that many years out of school, but it’s always interesting to see? Like

34 00:06:28.480 ⇒ 00:06:35.739 Zac Ooi: I I mean, I naively thought like, Oh, founders were always spending like 90% of the time in the product. But

35 00:06:36.210 ⇒ 00:06:42.330 Zac Ooi: And then I’m sure founders like have different preferences, and it vary, and the experience varies, or whatever. But it it’s interesting. How

36 00:06:42.570 ⇒ 00:06:43.890 Zac Ooi: almost like

37 00:06:45.140 ⇒ 00:07:04.561 Zac Ooi: not not. I’m trying to think of like the metaphor for this, but it’s like they kind of get stuck on like or hung up on some of the business stuff where it’s like, oh, it’s important, but they don’t really have like a delegator or someone to delegate to, or to have someone like run point on it. And you know, at a more mature org or something you’d start to bring on like a Vp higher, or someone of that caliber.

38 00:07:05.030 ⇒ 00:07:16.130 Uttam Kumaran: So I mean, because, like, so we’re cause we’re not. We’re we’re a complete service business. So all of our stuff. We’re servicing clients where we’re implementing software implementing process and procedure.

39 00:07:16.556 ⇒ 00:07:20.849 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s the same thing, like every client’s the same thing. So the the innovation

40 00:07:20.980 ⇒ 00:07:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: in our my business is in internal

41 00:07:23.790 ⇒ 00:07:51.749 Uttam Kumaran: procedure, and can we deliver for clients faster? So if you were to think about like, what is our product? Our product is our people, and the way we deliver and so, if you think about it that way, then you are right. I am sort of working a lot on that. But frankly, I would say, if you talk to any found, I think sales is the number one. So that was something that we’ve tried to sort of get off of our plate. But I still think that’s probably where majority of my time is going to be, just because

42 00:07:51.870 ⇒ 00:07:55.880 Uttam Kumaran: we need revenue, and we need to grow. And so the more meetings I can take.

43 00:07:56.070 ⇒ 00:08:12.450 Uttam Kumaran: and the more I can sell, I think. It’s better. And then recruiting right? I think that’s where I spend a lot of my time on as well. And then, basically, it’s coaching so like anything I do these days, I try not to do alone, and it’s sort of like I do it for somebody. Then I have them do with me, and then

44 00:08:12.770 ⇒ 00:08:31.330 Uttam Kumaran: they sort of run, and we’re constantly delegating and because there is just no time, and like it’s a risk like if the founders of the company are handling everything, then if something happens to me that’s a risk for the company, right? And so when I think about the business, I tell my team, look if

45 00:08:31.540 ⇒ 00:08:40.610 Uttam Kumaran: I have no ego over the business. I want this to succeed, so my job is to give it away so I can go. You can put me in the position to go work on the

46 00:08:40.880 ⇒ 00:08:50.420 Uttam Kumaran: the biggest fire or the most strategic problem, like, I’m the one pawn on the battlefield that you should just throw into, like the 3rd Degree fire building. Because I will go.

47 00:08:50.820 ⇒ 00:08:52.290 Uttam Kumaran: There’s no one else to do that right.

48 00:08:52.290 ⇒ 00:08:52.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

49 00:08:52.610 ⇒ 00:09:02.409 Uttam Kumaran: I have to be there versus everything else. The moment we do. Once or twice we should find a way to automate or or delegate, but it’s tough because we’re completely bootstrapped. So

50 00:09:02.570 ⇒ 00:09:21.790 Uttam Kumaran: as money comes in, we have to slowly reinvest. And so there are periods of time where we just stuck it up and deal with it. But we’re growing. And so it’s been. It’s been really fun. I mean service business. I I’ve worked in sort of product startups my whole career like Vc back product startups. And so.

51 00:09:21.790 ⇒ 00:09:22.380 Zac Ooi: Go ahead!

52 00:09:22.380 ⇒ 00:09:27.540 Uttam Kumaran: Much different scale, much different sort of financial model.

53 00:09:27.790 ⇒ 00:09:28.420 Zac Ooi: Hmm.

54 00:09:28.420 ⇒ 00:09:33.700 Uttam Kumaran: But also great, like, I think, working with a wide array of clients, not really being

55 00:09:34.040 ⇒ 00:09:38.080 Uttam Kumaran: being opinionated on what we implement, but sort of like picking the best tools for them.

56 00:09:38.290 ⇒ 00:09:53.849 Uttam Kumaran: using what I’ve learned from doing this now, like 40 times, for the next client is great, because you sort of come in like the oracle like, and what what may seem very easy for you, because we’ve done it so many times. They’re like, Oh, my God! I’ve never seen this. And I’m like great. We have like

57 00:09:54.110 ⇒ 00:10:02.360 Uttam Kumaran: perfect procedure for implementing analytics stack or implementing AI agents. And that’s really satisfying, you know. So.

58 00:10:02.820 ⇒ 00:10:09.099 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, no. I going back to your earlier point, though I I appreciate that you you kind of have this like

59 00:10:09.400 ⇒ 00:10:16.719 Zac Ooi: pro delegate pro Co. Like pro coaching mindset, because I think you know truthfully something that I’ve

60 00:10:17.060 ⇒ 00:10:23.579 Zac Ooi: kind of been a bit frustrated with at times in my my past experience has been, I think, leadership

61 00:10:24.010 ⇒ 00:10:29.670 Zac Ooi: honestly hanging on too much to certain problems or certain business problems, and and I think, like

62 00:10:29.920 ⇒ 00:10:33.710 Zac Ooi: they should right for some period of time. But I think, yeah, actually, like

63 00:10:33.940 ⇒ 00:10:37.139 Zac Ooi: they kind of, I don’t know, like a frog boils in the pot.

64 00:10:37.140 ⇒ 00:10:37.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

65 00:10:37.950 ⇒ 00:10:40.399 Zac Ooi: Well, we don’t realize that they’re the bottleneck now, and it’s like.

66 00:10:40.400 ⇒ 00:10:42.670 Uttam Kumaran: Dude. It’s hard, though it’s so hard, cause yeah.

67 00:10:42.670 ⇒ 00:10:43.250 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah.

68 00:10:43.250 ⇒ 00:10:54.479 Uttam Kumaran: I used to think it was sort of malicious, and I think maybe some people they do have a big ego about it. But it is really difficult, dude, because, I was the only person in the company when it was just me.

69 00:10:54.900 ⇒ 00:11:09.590 Uttam Kumaran: And then I was there when I we had one person. I was there when we had 5. I was there. We had 15, and I have to change every time, and so I think some people are good at, maybe one or 2 of those state changes.

70 00:11:09.660 ⇒ 00:11:29.830 Uttam Kumaran: but some of them are tougher. Like, I like, I’m a data engineer like, I like doing data work. I don’t really like sitting on sales calls. I don’t like talking to our accounts. I don’t like doing legal shit like none of that stuff is interesting to me at all. I like, I like engineering like

71 00:11:29.900 ⇒ 00:11:40.529 Uttam Kumaran: the business, like I like investing in AI, and we build AI agents for ourselves. I love that like I’m I’m the project manager for our automation team. So that’s great. Because I am like.

72 00:11:40.770 ⇒ 00:11:45.954 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a huge problem over here. I can connect you with the right people, and we can build some great agents for us.

73 00:11:46.280 ⇒ 00:11:49.550 Zac Ooi: But I but like I also know that.

74 00:11:50.120 ⇒ 00:11:56.730 Uttam Kumaran: I I kind of say this over and over to the team is like, I want to win more than I want to be right.

75 00:11:56.840 ⇒ 00:12:19.050 Uttam Kumaran: and so I don’t care whether I have to sweep the floor if that’s what gets us to the next stage. And so in that similar vein, holding on to whatever I like to do, and what may not be. What the company needs me to do is is a manifestation of that sort of ego, or maybe that fear, or like fear of the unknown. But

76 00:12:19.180 ⇒ 00:12:28.440 Uttam Kumaran: it is like this has to happen every week. You sort of have to give it up. And you know, the big real problem is, is, you have to be okay with people messing up

77 00:12:29.204 ⇒ 00:12:32.110 Uttam Kumaran: and so for me, I’ve been in. I’ve been in really

78 00:12:32.280 ⇒ 00:12:49.343 Uttam Kumaran: sort of tense, startup environments where it was not that friendly for failure, even if people said it was. And so at my company, like you’ll never hear people saying it’s chaotic, or that people there’s no yelling. There’s no like

79 00:12:49.960 ⇒ 00:13:09.930 Uttam Kumaran: Ego, or there’s no real politics in my company, because there doesn’t have to be and so I try to root a lot of that sort of drama out and then really focus on one. We wake up, I’d sell it to clients as number one. We don’t have a business without a client. The team is second right, because our the team is the product.

80 00:13:10.060 ⇒ 00:13:20.129 Uttam Kumaran: right? And so my job at the end of the day. Brain Forge is a broker for great problems from clients to great smart people, that’s all. It is just a broker.

81 00:13:20.540 ⇒ 00:13:28.929 Uttam Kumaran: right? And this is like, if you drag us out right. But of course we do have internal company culture. We have processes. But ultimately, that’s my job. Right? I know

82 00:13:29.730 ⇒ 00:13:48.780 Uttam Kumaran: as a former engineer, I know if I get these guys great problems, they’re gonna love it. If I can solve these tough problems for our clients. We’re gonna get paid just like Accenture deloitte. These guys get paid. And so I have to sort of build that environment. But I I sort of ditch everything else like that I learned in Vc back startups, which is like

83 00:13:49.110 ⇒ 00:13:53.600 Uttam Kumaran: to all the sort of like making shit up and like kind of like

84 00:13:54.230 ⇒ 00:14:20.490 Uttam Kumaran: sort of like. I don’t know. I also am very open with what we struggle with. Like. Again, we have cash issues, because cash comes in and out. We don’t have like. Our okay are sort of settle like, we don’t have budget for a hundred different things. But I will say we’ve never compromised on our work quality, right? So no matter what we deliver, what we say, we will, we over exceed so that way, no matter what happens, we.

85 00:14:20.600 ⇒ 00:14:47.779 Uttam Kumaran: you could go to any of our clients, and they won’t say we didn’t deliver what we said. And then, second is like, I want to be cutting edge, like I want us to do the AI stuff that you’ll you see on Linkedin that you see on Twitter the stuff you don’t see that people are even talking about. I want to be at the forefront. So I like when people ask like, who are our competitors. I’m like Pwc ui deloitte, like those are who I want to compete with, not like the other sort of small consultancy. I don’t think about

86 00:14:47.960 ⇒ 00:14:49.429 Uttam Kumaran: the small consultancies, anyway.

87 00:14:49.430 ⇒ 00:14:50.710 Zac Ooi: No.

88 00:14:50.830 ⇒ 00:14:54.950 Uttam Kumaran: So all those things kind of go into the business. But it’s a lot of ego death.

89 00:14:56.560 ⇒ 00:14:58.150 Uttam Kumaran: It is a lot of that, you know.

90 00:14:58.150 ⇒ 00:15:07.859 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s really interesting. I I could. I could keep asking questions all day here. But what what would be helpful to hear from me, though.

91 00:15:08.120 ⇒ 00:15:19.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just, I just, I’m just interested in your background. I’m interested in, like how you got connected with Robert and sort of like what you guys have been talking about and questions you have about the business. Yeah, like, just here to hear about it.

92 00:15:19.580 ⇒ 00:15:32.749 Zac Ooi: Yeah, totally. Maybe get the Robert thing out of the way, because I I think that’s that’s the most like, non, I don’t know business ee one. No. Actually met Robert through

93 00:15:33.400 ⇒ 00:15:49.079 Zac Ooi: through Flexport. We didn’t get to work together, but we both started in the same like onboarding class. I stayed in San Francisco. He went on to to the La office but

94 00:15:49.260 ⇒ 00:16:05.970 Zac Ooi: stayed in touch throughout, and like he would come back up, since his family lives in San Jose, and we would kind of hang out together and like shoot the shit at the San Francisco office. Truth be told. I think he actually had the harder time at Flexport, because I I got lucky. For some reason they posted me on like

95 00:16:06.190 ⇒ 00:16:29.400 Zac Ooi: some prestigious E account team where we’re literally just serving like one customer, like our entire book of business, is literally like just one account, because that account was just moving so much volume and paying so much to Flexport. But I think Robert had the tough luck of covering like or being assigned to like a mid market account management team, and I mean I saw his book of business, and it was like

96 00:16:29.500 ⇒ 00:16:34.850 Zac Ooi: he was juggling like, I swear, a hundred clients at a time, or something like that. Nice

97 00:16:35.808 ⇒ 00:16:55.349 Zac Ooi: though, interestingly, you know, to kind of segue this, I think Robert ended up transitioning out of that sort of like account management world, and I’m sure he’s spoken to you about his background, and, you know, kind of like self taught pivoting towards like more more analytics and engineering stuff. I ended up

98 00:16:55.810 ⇒ 00:16:58.529 Zac Ooi: kind of staying in like

99 00:16:59.450 ⇒ 00:17:07.850 Zac Ooi: account management, but also, or but broadening out to kind of cover more parts of like the broader go to market

100 00:17:08.170 ⇒ 00:17:18.130 Zac Ooi: side of a business generally, I guess. So specifically ended up going to this like document Startup called Coda, started there as a support.

101 00:17:18.675 ⇒ 00:17:19.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

102 00:17:19.220 ⇒ 00:17:20.644 Zac Ooi: Oh, okay, that’s awesome.

103 00:17:21.000 ⇒ 00:17:24.580 Uttam Kumaran: It’s famous company, I guess, or maybe not. I don’t know if it’s famous, but I know.

104 00:17:24.730 ⇒ 00:17:26.650 Uttam Kumaran: like people know, coda.

105 00:17:27.460 ⇒ 00:17:29.569 Zac Ooi: Yeah, I feel like there’s more people

106 00:17:29.740 ⇒ 00:17:32.049 Zac Ooi: know of. Notion, I guess, is like.

107 00:17:32.050 ⇒ 00:17:37.590 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, of course I know notion, but I you know I don’t like notion. I don’t like any of them. I tried. I want.

108 00:17:37.590 ⇒ 00:17:38.140 Zac Ooi: I forget.

109 00:17:38.140 ⇒ 00:17:42.499 Uttam Kumaran: Something that like has a great SDK and like is programmable and like.

110 00:17:42.750 ⇒ 00:17:45.740 Uttam Kumaran: nothing is really like that. So we use notion.

111 00:17:47.550 ⇒ 00:17:49.579 Uttam Kumaran: Has been around for a while right.

112 00:17:50.090 ⇒ 00:17:52.720 Zac Ooi: Yeah. And I mean they ended up getting

113 00:17:53.120 ⇒ 00:17:56.440 Zac Ooi: acquire, or they would say, it’s a merger, I think.

114 00:17:56.440 ⇒ 00:17:59.900 Uttam Kumaran: Most people would call it an actor. See the drama.

115 00:17:59.900 ⇒ 00:18:00.750 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, like.

116 00:18:00.750 ⇒ 00:18:03.170 Uttam Kumaran: The optics. Yeah, it’s the optics.

117 00:18:03.170 ⇒ 00:18:09.500 Zac Ooi: I mean that being said like fantastic outcome for cool coda. Because.

118 00:18:10.066 ⇒ 00:18:18.360 Zac Ooi: I think Shashir, who is the CEO of Coda, ended up becoming the CEO of grammarly. The acquiring company.

119 00:18:18.360 ⇒ 00:18:20.950 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, no way! So is he still the CEO right now?

120 00:18:21.310 ⇒ 00:18:25.909 Zac Ooi: I’m yeah. I’m pretty sure he’s the CEO, like the the combined grammarly coda. And now she.

121 00:18:25.910 ⇒ 00:18:26.640 Uttam Kumaran: No way.

122 00:18:27.080 ⇒ 00:18:29.257 Uttam Kumaran: This guy. Just they just bought

123 00:18:29.620 ⇒ 00:18:30.460 Zac Ooi: Superhuman.

124 00:18:30.770 ⇒ 00:18:31.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, what?

125 00:18:31.810 ⇒ 00:18:33.119 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, I know.

126 00:18:33.120 ⇒ 00:18:35.770 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s a that’s a level up for this dude.

127 00:18:35.770 ⇒ 00:18:36.540 Zac Ooi: I know so.

128 00:18:36.540 ⇒ 00:18:37.440 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.

129 00:18:37.710 ⇒ 00:18:39.260 Zac Ooi: Like. I think

130 00:18:39.480 ⇒ 00:18:53.269 Zac Ooi: you know, I would go ahead and say, like my personal 2 cents is, I think, notion, ended up winning that market for, like the next gen productivity tool. But I think just like processes share big company, exact.

131 00:18:53.270 ⇒ 00:18:55.660 Uttam Kumaran: Fully finesse. Great. Great job!

132 00:18:56.180 ⇒ 00:18:57.680 Zac Ooi: Exactly no dude when I saw that.

133 00:18:57.680 ⇒ 00:18:58.700 Uttam Kumaran: Superhero like.

134 00:18:58.940 ⇒ 00:19:08.990 Uttam Kumaran: why is grammarly doing, buying? Superhuman? I was like who I thought, what was, who’s bigger than the other, but they’re really going all in and sort of like building some type of Workspace

135 00:19:09.660 ⇒ 00:19:10.350 Uttam Kumaran: product.

136 00:19:10.350 ⇒ 00:19:10.730 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

137 00:19:11.117 ⇒ 00:19:12.280 Uttam Kumaran: You know. So.

138 00:19:12.280 ⇒ 00:19:33.589 Zac Ooi: No, I think I think that’s kind of like. The only obvious thesis that comes out to me is like they’re betting on building their own like suite. And then, you see notion doing this as well right like they’ve launched like a calendar thing like they wanna do project management, and also do wikis, and I think they are also, if not already, looking into an email client or something like that.

139 00:19:33.590 ⇒ 00:19:38.129 Uttam Kumaran: And you’re seeing this air table, too, like air table, is now doing like bolt type stuff.

140 00:19:38.720 ⇒ 00:19:52.360 Uttam Kumaran: and they already had like sort of do everything in air table. I don’t know. I just feel like these guys are pressured. It’s kind of sad where you can’t build products that just do the one thing right. And I do think that’s like kind of

141 00:19:52.660 ⇒ 00:20:04.079 Uttam Kumaran: part of like the Vc curse for a lot of these guys is they rate like when an air table raises like some ungodly amount. Where do you go? Because who’s gonna buy air table

142 00:20:04.210 ⇒ 00:20:14.440 Uttam Kumaran: like there’s like a bit more than a couple of 1 billion dollars. There’s no suitor. So you have to kind of just like pump the money back into something. And it’s kind of sad because I feel like you

143 00:20:14.590 ⇒ 00:20:19.180 Uttam Kumaran: have a bunch of product managers that you get to build something that probably doesn’t get great adoption and

144 00:20:19.290 ⇒ 00:20:29.220 Uttam Kumaran: sort of like crowds. The users that love the product. I think notion is kind of similar. They there’s so basic stuff you can’t do. They don’t have like offline mode. They don’t have like basic database.

145 00:20:29.508 ⇒ 00:20:31.240 Zac Ooi: Desktop app, though, or don’t you.

146 00:20:31.240 ⇒ 00:20:34.530 Uttam Kumaran: No, they do have a desktop app, but you don’t get offline. No, you don’t get.

147 00:20:34.530 ⇒ 00:20:37.719 Zac Ooi: I’m really, oh, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

148 00:20:37.720 ⇒ 00:20:38.650 Uttam Kumaran: No.

149 00:20:38.880 ⇒ 00:20:42.329 Uttam Kumaran: But like again. Then, yeah, they release mail. They just released calendar.

150 00:20:42.460 ⇒ 00:20:43.980 Uttam Kumaran: But also like, look like

151 00:20:44.430 ⇒ 00:20:50.320 Uttam Kumaran: there’s already who’s not? Who’s gonna switch on like Google count, there’s already Google Calendar. It syncs with Google Calendar. So

152 00:20:50.440 ⇒ 00:20:54.170 Uttam Kumaran: like, you’re not really, you’re not really the 1st source of truth. Anyways.

153 00:20:54.709 ⇒ 00:21:06.279 Uttam Kumaran: I just don’t like. I just don’t like the after being, you know. So I worked for we work was my 1st job out of college for a company called Flow Code out of New York. They do like circular QR codes.

154 00:21:07.129 ⇒ 00:21:09.769 Uttam Kumaran: They grew to pretty big company, and then

155 00:21:10.159 ⇒ 00:21:24.930 Uttam Kumaran: I work for a company called Prequel. I was leading product there, but I don’t know. I just didn’t like the games that came with like raising money, and I couldn’t imagine if, like part of my role as CEO, 30% of it was like investor raise money. I don’t think I could do this business.

156 00:21:25.460 ⇒ 00:21:39.750 Uttam Kumaran: That’s that’s like time that would have to come from either my team, my clients, or like the internal work, or I don’t have any personal time anyway. So that’s there’s no other time going on there, you know. So it’s rough. Yeah, it’s rough.

157 00:21:40.230 ⇒ 00:21:45.199 Zac Ooi: That’s yeah. And I I mean, I kind of share your you’re kind of like

158 00:21:45.370 ⇒ 00:21:51.340 Zac Ooi: ruminating, if I I don’t even know if that’s the right word. But like, you’re kind of ruminating here about like, yeah, what is it about?

159 00:21:51.580 ⇒ 00:21:53.300 Zac Ooi: Kind of like the whole.

160 00:21:53.930 ⇒ 00:22:00.200 Zac Ooi: or called the market for for lack of a better phrase like, what is it about the market that incentivizes these like

161 00:22:00.440 ⇒ 00:22:03.909 Zac Ooi: kind of like sprawling expansionist apps that don’t feel like.

162 00:22:03.910 ⇒ 00:22:06.600 Uttam Kumaran: They wanna be a platform. They wanna be the platform.

163 00:22:07.030 ⇒ 00:22:13.800 Zac Ooi: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think you’re right. It is like the Vc incentives, but it doesn’t feel like there’s

164 00:22:14.610 ⇒ 00:22:21.245 Zac Ooi: there’s like a vehicle or a mechanism to fund like focused, concentrated like apps or businesses.

165 00:22:21.660 ⇒ 00:22:22.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

166 00:22:22.280 ⇒ 00:22:29.130 Zac Ooi: Or you have to resign yourself to like running it as like a bootstrapped. You know, company that has to like give up on growth essentially.

167 00:22:29.130 ⇒ 00:22:36.170 Uttam Kumaran: That’s correct. I think so, because for their for the Vc. Model to work, they, if if you have any traction, they need you to 100

168 00:22:36.340 ⇒ 00:22:39.970 Uttam Kumaran: right? Like getting a 5 x is not worth it for them.

169 00:22:40.100 ⇒ 00:22:43.669 Uttam Kumaran: And so I think they push like that’s the feedback I get from a lot of

170 00:22:43.910 ⇒ 00:22:58.319 Uttam Kumaran: other founder friends and things like that as they really push for it. And I don’t know like I don’t. I don’t want to be in a business in that sort of business where you’re like borderline, like selling fraud on like what the vision is for the company. You know. I don’t like that I don’t want to do that.

171 00:22:58.320 ⇒ 00:22:58.650 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

172 00:22:58.650 ⇒ 00:23:14.609 Uttam Kumaran: I. I talk, I say, we’re run. We’re we’re running a humble small business data and analytics consultancy like we have great clients, a lot of which you may have heard of, some of which you may never have heard of, and that’s where I like being like. I don’t need to. I don’t need all that

173 00:23:14.930 ⇒ 00:23:17.800 Uttam Kumaran: stuff going on, because doing this is hard enough.

174 00:23:18.342 ⇒ 00:23:32.717 Uttam Kumaran: But I also think there’s ways to raise strategic funding or raise debt. Capital. That isn’t sort of like so equity heavy to like. Get these things done if you need the money. I mean, building a product is hard. It’s a lot of upfront investment.

175 00:23:33.360 ⇒ 00:23:37.779 Uttam Kumaran: but I don’t know. I I do think that people should look for options versus just going like

176 00:23:38.320 ⇒ 00:23:53.969 Uttam Kumaran: immediately being a go to the Yc. Route or go like, do that like build something that a couple of people are gonna buy and get some traction for a year? If nobody’s buying. Maybe it sucks like, what is a hundred was like a million dollars gonna help you like, you’re gonna spend it all on like 4 people.

177 00:23:53.970 ⇒ 00:23:54.670 Zac Ooi: People on this.

178 00:23:54.670 ⇒ 00:24:01.899 Uttam Kumaran: Done. And you’re gonna screw up their life, too, like I don’t know. I just don’t. I don’t believe in that sort of thing anymore.

179 00:24:02.450 ⇒ 00:24:06.760 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, I no, I I get it. No, I totally get it. I mean.

180 00:24:06.760 ⇒ 00:24:20.359 Uttam Kumaran: I may not be right. Look, I have my opinion, because I’ve just been part of a lot of like kind of these sorts of startups that growth at all costs. And it was really rough internally that it really turned me off to that world. Like, I think, yeah, if I was starting a product company

181 00:24:20.490 ⇒ 00:24:29.209 Uttam Kumaran: like I would probably do it in a much more strategic way and then raise way later. Once we had real traction where I can set the terms of the of the terms of the raise.

182 00:24:29.350 ⇒ 00:24:35.280 Uttam Kumaran: like, where yeah, yeah, get? You don’t give up like tons and tons of control. And yeah.

183 00:24:36.160 ⇒ 00:24:40.950 Zac Ooi: Yeah, that makes sense that makes sense. Let me finish talking about.

184 00:24:40.950 ⇒ 00:24:41.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

185 00:24:41.340 ⇒ 00:24:44.070 Zac Ooi: Selfish because I want you. I want you to be equipped with like.

186 00:24:44.070 ⇒ 00:24:44.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

187 00:24:44.500 ⇒ 00:24:55.680 Zac Ooi: Just the my background. So at coda I started out as that support hire, but I guess busted my ass, and they ended up promoting me to.

188 00:24:55.790 ⇒ 00:25:16.239 Zac Ooi: Well, actually, 1st they sent me on a little tour of duty, you know, to sales kind of doing some like scr like lead qualification stuff. So have a few few skills. There wouldn’t call myself like a full blown a year or something like that. But if you’re looking at like sales automation, like, what are the tools like? What’s a basic crude process to stand up like.

189 00:25:16.590 ⇒ 00:25:28.740 Zac Ooi: you know, I definitely could have some opinions there. But from there I actually ended up getting promoted to product operations role. That was a bit interesting. I was like

190 00:25:29.080 ⇒ 00:25:29.930 Zac Ooi: a 3.rd

191 00:25:29.930 ⇒ 00:25:31.530 Uttam Kumaran: Product operations. Yeah.

192 00:25:32.360 ⇒ 00:25:47.330 Zac Ooi: Great question. I think it. My real answer is, I think it means something different at every company. How I define it over there was, I’d say it was a 3rd like Pmm, like a 3rd sales enablement. And then a 3rd like.

193 00:25:47.330 ⇒ 00:25:48.100 Zac Ooi: Oh, wow! Okay.

194 00:25:48.100 ⇒ 00:26:01.849 Zac Ooi: associate. Pm, where it’s kind of like the Pm. Is like Zach. I don’t want to do this like you. Go do this for me like Zach. I don’t want to have to like set up this demo for, like literally our wealth, largest account of the whole company. Just because I’m like.

195 00:26:02.000 ⇒ 00:26:03.270 Zac Ooi: Yeah, I don’t know. I’m sure I’m sure.

196 00:26:03.270 ⇒ 00:26:04.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

197 00:26:04.010 ⇒ 00:26:07.590 Uttam Kumaran: Pm, yourself, you meet some Pm’s who are like less comfortable being customer facing and stuff.

198 00:26:07.590 ⇒ 00:26:08.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

199 00:26:08.010 ⇒ 00:26:10.470 Zac Ooi: I’m like, well, I guess I got my orders here.

200 00:26:10.470 ⇒ 00:26:17.200 Uttam Kumaran: I would dude. I was like I was like, let me go. I want to present you’re letting them. If I get to present to a client I’m happy, like at

201 00:26:17.930 ⇒ 00:26:26.609 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. You know, I was always and do that at flow code I presented to Adam Silver for for a meeting. It was insane. I was like, Yeah.

202 00:26:26.610 ⇒ 00:26:27.420 Zac Ooi: The a Commissioner, Right.

203 00:26:27.420 ⇒ 00:26:28.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yeah. I’m like.

204 00:26:28.370 ⇒ 00:26:29.409 Zac Ooi: That’s crazy.

205 00:26:29.410 ⇒ 00:26:35.290 Uttam Kumaran: Because now they have all over Nba stadiums and all over sort of Nba. And like

206 00:26:35.440 ⇒ 00:26:43.459 Uttam Kumaran: League and Espn. They put QR. Codes and everything because Md. Has a huge deal with flow code, because they get all the data on like, who’s scanning what? What ads are.

207 00:26:43.460 ⇒ 00:26:44.050 Zac Ooi: Actually work.

208 00:26:44.050 ⇒ 00:26:44.390 Uttam Kumaran: Gang.

209 00:26:44.390 ⇒ 00:26:45.320 Zac Ooi: Who, based on the.

210 00:26:45.320 ⇒ 00:27:07.030 Uttam Kumaran: Scans, and then they could route you and capture your info so like we were pitching them, and then the CEO was like, Yo, do you want to come in and like, do a slide? I was like, Yeah, dude, let’s go. And I was leading our customer. I was leading our analytics product. And I was like, Yeah, duh, I want to talk whatever. I don’t know what. I’m just trying to keep it concise. But that’s awesome, you know.

211 00:27:07.030 ⇒ 00:27:18.961 Zac Ooi: Yeah, I I find it honestly, quite puzzling. And it’s very funny you mentioned this. I think the the guy I was specifically thinking of who like handed me that assignment like he he did great like he left code, and now works at anthropic of all places.

212 00:27:19.210 ⇒ 00:27:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. Yeah.

213 00:27:20.040 ⇒ 00:27:30.629 Zac Ooi: So. But I think I do think it’s interesting that some people shy away from like these customer interactions or engagements. I’m sure you know most of the time comes from. Yeah.

214 00:27:30.630 ⇒ 00:27:30.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

215 00:27:30.960 ⇒ 00:27:43.760 Zac Ooi: Place like, you know, people don’t want to mess up. Or yeah, maybe the client just isn’t the nicest person but I think for me what was valuable about both. Like being a support person and still in the product. Ops. Roles like

216 00:27:43.930 ⇒ 00:27:59.729 Zac Ooi: being customer facing. You’re like kind of this 1st line of empathy on behalf of your company, and just like no 2 ways about it, unless you’re, you know, not empathetic at all. You just naturally build this intuition and understanding of, like what people’s problems are.

217 00:27:59.730 ⇒ 00:28:01.440 Uttam Kumaran: Of information. You’re gonna get back

218 00:28:01.650 ⇒ 00:28:13.699 Uttam Kumaran: on what the problems are so high. Like, I really leaned into doing user interviews. When I was building the analytics product of flow code when nobody in our organization was doing that cause. I read the Marty Kagan book.

219 00:28:13.740 ⇒ 00:28:31.760 Uttam Kumaran: And then I was like, cool. We’re gonna run. We’re running user interviews. We’re doing user research. Everything’s get put in front of a customer advisory person. And it was great. Because, like, they pointed out, really fucking obvious stuff that we missed, that would have totally slipped through. And it was so easy for them to do that and

220 00:28:32.342 ⇒ 00:28:42.169 Uttam Kumaran: and also when I got pushed back on a feature, I could literally be like, they asked this, like, multiple people ask for this. We’re gonna build it like. I don’t care really what you

221 00:28:43.050 ⇒ 00:28:45.819 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and and there’s no, there’s no 2 ways versus like

222 00:28:46.070 ⇒ 00:28:59.919 Uttam Kumaran: sort of having an opinion about. Oh, we should build this feature like nobody requested it. But, like our competitors have it. I’m I’m kind of like our competitors kind of suck at building products, too. Probably. So we shouldn’t look left to right sometimes, you know.

223 00:28:59.920 ⇒ 00:29:03.589 Zac Ooi: Yup. No, I I agree with you. I think honestly that

224 00:29:03.880 ⇒ 00:29:07.260 Zac Ooi: there was like an unhealthy amount of that culture.

225 00:29:07.420 ⇒ 00:29:13.129 Zac Ooi: like a sort of like product designed in an ivory tower sort of culture at coda that.

226 00:29:13.350 ⇒ 00:29:17.690 Zac Ooi: and also combined with just like broader, like coda losing the war to notion that.

227 00:29:17.690 ⇒ 00:29:18.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

228 00:29:18.310 ⇒ 00:29:19.219 Zac Ooi: Ended up

229 00:29:19.450 ⇒ 00:29:42.869 Zac Ooi: push like motivating me to look move on which how I wound up at home now rebranded to light field, where I was like, Okay, I want to go back to like an earlier stage company. I want us to go, or I want to go to a team that isn’t designing an ivory tower, you know, and it was Cherry on top was like, it was an AI presentation company. And

230 00:29:43.050 ⇒ 00:29:44.760 Zac Ooi: that’s what.

231 00:29:45.060 ⇒ 00:30:02.340 Zac Ooi: So I actually started out also in a product operations role at home this time, though, ended up getting promoted to a customer success role. Then, last year, actually, the founders decided to pivot the company actually, as part of that like, literally went from

232 00:30:02.780 ⇒ 00:30:04.890 Zac Ooi: 60 employees to 15.

233 00:30:05.520 ⇒ 00:30:07.040 Uttam Kumaran: No way.

234 00:30:07.040 ⇒ 00:30:07.720 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

235 00:30:07.830 ⇒ 00:30:08.799 Zac Ooi: Oh, my God!

236 00:30:08.800 ⇒ 00:30:09.420 Uttam Kumaran: 5.

237 00:30:10.090 ⇒ 00:30:19.909 Uttam Kumaran: That’s not a pivot like pivot pivot is usually a product change not like a that much people change.

238 00:30:20.400 ⇒ 00:30:21.920 Zac Ooi: I you know I I’ve.

239 00:30:21.920 ⇒ 00:30:26.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? Well, it’s good. It’s good on you. They kept you. That’s great dude. Yeah, you know.

240 00:30:26.360 ⇒ 00:30:33.399 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah. And I think as part of that, just like ended up wearing a lot more hats, you know, ended up touching like

241 00:30:33.850 ⇒ 00:30:39.480 Zac Ooi: a lot more parts of like the product engineering process, like, the way I kind of think about it now is like.

242 00:30:39.780 ⇒ 00:30:41.000 Zac Ooi: I’m kind of like

243 00:30:41.680 ⇒ 00:30:50.379 Zac Ooi: a Csm plus where. Yeah, my mandate is to still make folks successful. But it’s kind of like the scope.

244 00:30:50.690 ⇒ 00:30:51.310 Zac Ooi: or like.

245 00:30:51.310 ⇒ 00:30:55.269 Uttam Kumaran: Well, you kind of like you now can go do that yourself a little bit somewhere.

246 00:30:55.680 ⇒ 00:30:57.340 Zac Ooi: Yeah, exactly. Exactly like there is.

247 00:30:57.340 ⇒ 00:30:58.989 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe no one asked, yeah.

248 00:30:58.990 ⇒ 00:31:03.340 Zac Ooi: Yeah, like the the swim lanes are all gone right, like we’re 15 people like, there’s no.

249 00:31:03.520 ⇒ 00:31:03.880 Uttam Kumaran: Go fish.

250 00:31:03.880 ⇒ 00:31:10.539 Zac Ooi: There’s no solutions engineer to turn to. There’s no like marketing person to turn to like. It’s just it’s just me. So.

251 00:31:10.540 ⇒ 00:31:11.150 Uttam Kumaran: How do you feel?

252 00:31:11.150 ⇒ 00:31:13.700 Zac Ooi: And it’s

253 00:31:15.050 ⇒ 00:31:21.800 Zac Ooi: it’s definitely been like a struggle at times like, I mean to be totally honest like you definitely feel

254 00:31:24.090 ⇒ 00:31:28.329 Zac Ooi: at first.st You feel like constantly uncomfortable where you’re like.

255 00:31:28.540 ⇒ 00:31:31.710 Zac Ooi: This wasn’t in my Jd. I’ve never done this before.

256 00:31:31.710 ⇒ 00:31:32.359 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.

257 00:31:32.360 ⇒ 00:31:36.219 Zac Ooi: Like, should I really be doing this? And I think at a certain point

258 00:31:36.530 ⇒ 00:31:39.670 Zac Ooi: you either decide to quit or you’re like, you know what

259 00:31:40.030 ⇒ 00:31:43.039 Zac Ooi: this is, a proving ground. This is like a testing moment, like.

260 00:31:43.040 ⇒ 00:31:43.640 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.

261 00:31:43.640 ⇒ 00:31:46.830 Zac Ooi: You know, effort like, what do I have to lose?

262 00:31:47.290 ⇒ 00:32:09.780 Zac Ooi: like, okay, maybe the equity value goes to 0 or something like that. But you know, I think the experience and the novelty, and the that you’re getting in return by continuously accepting and embracing, like the challenges, or like the new responsibilities, I think, like at the very least, you decide what you like or don’t like in the long run. At the very best you’re like, oh, discover that I actually can save.

263 00:32:10.010 ⇒ 00:32:18.519 Zac Ooi: Set up a at Gbt. Powered like lead qualification system, you know. Didn’t know I was going to be a Rev. Ops person this week. But here we are, you know

264 00:32:19.030 ⇒ 00:32:19.550 Zac Ooi: why

265 00:32:19.550 ⇒ 00:32:27.919 Zac Ooi: or oh, actually, you know, no one else can write this python script to like clean this customer import data thing.

266 00:32:27.920 ⇒ 00:32:28.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. Yeah.

267 00:32:28.490 ⇒ 00:32:31.739 Zac Ooi: So. Yes, I’ll write my own python script this week. Yes.

268 00:32:31.740 ⇒ 00:32:32.080 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.

269 00:32:32.080 ⇒ 00:32:36.539 Zac Ooi: Figure out how to make Api calls as someone who took like one programming course in college.

270 00:32:36.540 ⇒ 00:32:37.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

271 00:32:37.400 ⇒ 00:32:39.170 Zac Ooi: Withdrew from it anyways, like.

272 00:32:39.360 ⇒ 00:32:58.770 Uttam Kumaran: I do think there’s kind of 2 people like for me. I was always like that where I was always underpaid for the amount of scope I took on, and I always asked for more scope before I I actually really rarely asked for more money, because I was shy but like. So I was always sort of like, can I get more out of this job than

273 00:32:59.980 ⇒ 00:33:14.359 Uttam Kumaran: They’re getting out of me like I always wanted to get more. I wanted to be on the winning part of the equation where I’m like, well, I went to. I was a data engineer at we work, and then I worked in Bi, and then I worked on sort of I was the the lead data person for our entire

274 00:33:14.738 ⇒ 00:33:28.780 Uttam Kumaran: for a bunch of different teams with our entire account management, which is like 250 people. And then I worked on the Ipo right. And I was like 22 working on the Ipo like the data for that stuff. And then I went to flow code as a 1st data engineer. And then I like

275 00:33:29.100 ⇒ 00:33:53.340 Uttam Kumaran: built that whole team from scratch and then went to build the customer facing analytics product. I hadn’t worked in product management before, but I’d worked with a lot of bad product managers. So I sort of knew like what not to do. But again, I don’t know. I know I never had credentials to do any of that stuff. And then, now, this company I don’t. There’s no credit like I just do. I do, literally. There’s it’s like your role, except plus plus plus. There’s like.

276 00:33:53.340 ⇒ 00:33:54.309 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, there’s like, yeah.

277 00:33:54.310 ⇒ 00:33:56.950 Uttam Kumaran: More stuff like that I have to do where I’m like.

278 00:33:57.220 ⇒ 00:34:17.499 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like I’ll figure this one out, you know, and and I don’t know. I do think that being open to that helped me, because I now I’m more stoic about challenges, although, like this level is like is a lot more tense, I would say, because not one thing is hard. It’s just the level of context. Switching is quite dramatic

279 00:34:17.620 ⇒ 00:34:20.149 Uttam Kumaran: beyond anything I did as an employee.

280 00:34:20.590 ⇒ 00:34:20.960 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

281 00:34:20.969 ⇒ 00:34:25.599 Uttam Kumaran: Quite dramatic where it’s even like Pretty, quite a lot for me. And, like.

282 00:34:25.759 ⇒ 00:34:53.669 Uttam Kumaran: you know, I just finish every day for 2 years and never get enough done. But on the flip side we’ve worked with like 30 plus clients. We have a sick team. We’re getting leads at really popular like, we’re really punching above our weight for like a less than 2 year old services business, and so that all shows that okay, we do have something to show. And we’re building a lot of AI for ourselves. And then turning that around for clients which has been working

283 00:34:54.085 ⇒ 00:35:04.809 Uttam Kumaran: and we’re building sort of an AI is in the Company’s DNA. So when you read about like these AI native companies like that’s what we are. I didn’t. I only read about that term in the last like 6 months.

284 00:35:05.145 ⇒ 00:35:05.480 Uttam Kumaran: because

285 00:35:05.480 ⇒ 00:35:30.199 Uttam Kumaran: someone I was talking to my friend. He’s like dude. You’re like an AI native company. And I was like, yeah, I guess because I used it since day one to write emails to draft legal stuff. So I couldn’t afford to do that. And I was figuring stuff out using cursor and Vs code copilot 2 years ago. And so that all being said is like, that’s the business that we’re trying to build. But it I I learned a lot of that stuff from like a very similar position.

286 00:35:30.430 ⇒ 00:35:51.330 Uttam Kumaran: You know that you’re in. And even in our team, like we stretch everybody right. And that part of, I think, being in my position like, I certainly kind of like I don’t do. I do it in a very calculated manner, though, which again, I think many people may not do that. They may just pile stuff onto the team, but I purposely want to find the level that people can reach. Because I do think

287 00:35:51.849 ⇒ 00:35:59.580 Uttam Kumaran: more often than not, people limit themselves. They don’t think they can take on stuff that is outside of their role when in fact, like

288 00:35:59.990 ⇒ 00:36:04.729 Uttam Kumaran: role is just like it’s like a artifact of like a legacy system.

289 00:36:05.280 ⇒ 00:36:06.040 Zac Ooi: Right.

290 00:36:06.040 ⇒ 00:36:22.459 Uttam Kumaran: And again, there has to be. There has to be like some sort of alignment towards you’re not doing 3 jobs and getting paid for one. But why can’t our marketing people come, help me on the partnership side? And maybe come like, do some something else or like, maybe, why can’t our Pm’s help with broader company strategy. It’s like

291 00:36:22.660 ⇒ 00:36:46.020 Uttam Kumaran: they kind of rhyme right? And so that’s where I push strategically to be like we’ll try it. We’ll try. And then, of course, at some some point people need they? They start to burn out, or they need to get caught and we catch them. But that’s what I then we find sort of the limit. And then I allow allow people to really show that like, look, you can do way more than whatever you came in here thinking your role was. And frankly, I need you to, because I don’t want to hire.

292 00:36:46.490 ⇒ 00:36:49.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I would much rather give you the opportunity.

293 00:36:49.990 ⇒ 00:36:58.810 Uttam Kumaran: 10 times out of 10. Then bring in new people. Of course we’re always going to bring in new folks. But I looked internally to find

294 00:36:58.940 ⇒ 00:37:02.730 Uttam Kumaran: if, like, we can start to promote people first, st but do it in a

295 00:37:02.730 ⇒ 00:37:14.719 Uttam Kumaran: where. It’s like a lot lot less like risky for them like, I take the risk off. I’m like, dude worst case. It wasn’t. It’s not how I’m doing it, anyway, so I’ll probably keep doing it. And if you can handle it, then you can handle it, you know.

296 00:37:15.000 ⇒ 00:37:29.879 Zac Ooi: Yeah, no, that sounds like a great culture, like I I think something I’ve definitely struggled with is, you know, like I talk about. You know the company going from 60 to 15 people, and that being an opportunity for me to kind of like, branch out and do other things. But honestly before this gig, like

297 00:37:29.910 ⇒ 00:37:52.490 Zac Ooi: it felt like I was always the other direction. Where? Because I was even whether it was like a Flexport, you know, series F Company, or whatever Coda Series B company, I mean, I’m just using the series. And for, like the scale, or like stage of company, but kind of always felt like, there’s these swim lanes like Zach. We need you to stay in your lane, basically, please don’t stray from it. And it’s kind of like

298 00:37:53.060 ⇒ 00:37:59.330 Zac Ooi: I mean, I don’t know if it’s a company stage thing, even at this point, or just like a personality thing where I feel like I need to

299 00:37:59.510 ⇒ 00:38:10.849 Zac Ooi: find a place where I can kind of flex and like be the generals that I want to be, rather than kind of like continuously being like shoehorned or nudged or boxed in that makes sense.

300 00:38:10.850 ⇒ 00:38:15.119 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think it’s a choice from leadership. I do think it becomes tough like I told my company. Look

301 00:38:15.735 ⇒ 00:38:21.449 Uttam Kumaran: the opportunity that you have right now to Co and work in a department that’s so far away from you

302 00:38:21.740 ⇒ 00:38:24.820 Uttam Kumaran: is really rare, and it’s something that will.

303 00:38:24.820 ⇒ 00:38:25.310 Zac Ooi: Yep.

304 00:38:25.310 ⇒ 00:38:36.700 Uttam Kumaran: By just the nature of companies, start to constrict. I’m still here, and I’m still like pushing for that flexibility. But naturally organizational structures will form with hierarchies and responsibilities.

305 00:38:36.870 ⇒ 00:39:01.139 Uttam Kumaran: But still I kind of want people to be able to touch multiple ways because it smooths it out to when they have a problem. They know the procedures to go fix something in marketing or fix something on the AI team. And so it’s my job to sort of make those connections. But I’m there’s no reason for me to say, oh, you’re just stay over there like I think it’s antiquated. And I think also the AI stuff is really changing a lot of that, like.

306 00:39:01.200 ⇒ 00:39:07.549 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re gonna see individuals with much more leverage to act in, much more. Many more departments.

307 00:39:07.640 ⇒ 00:39:37.040 Uttam Kumaran: Then the classic organizational structure like allows you to. And I’m I think we’re gonna find out the hard way, whether that works or not. Because I need it to work right. If I want to make sure this business. If I could want to find the best talent, pay them above market rate and still have a company that makes more money than the competitors I need to find. That’s the sort of efficiencies that our competitors are never going to do because it’s like some Mba running the consultancy, or it’s like someone who’s never spent any 2 seconds thinking about org structure.

308 00:39:37.210 ⇒ 00:39:51.079 Uttam Kumaran: And you know again, it’s like project management rhymes with like Okr strategy, like people. Some stuff on the marketing side is really similar to some stuff like, if some of our marketing team are really well versed on the assets. We create like case studies, things like that.

309 00:39:51.080 ⇒ 00:39:51.430 Zac Ooi: Yep.

310 00:39:51.430 ⇒ 00:40:00.740 Uttam Kumaran: They should kind of be in some pre sales motion like, because they know what what the asset that the Icp needs to see, because they built all of them right. But like you wouldn’t have that

311 00:40:00.910 ⇒ 00:40:11.900 Uttam Kumaran: stuff happen in a typical, it’d be like, oh, no, no! You have to pass the sales. The sales people don’t care. So they never use the updated assets. You get these problems right because you have these like toss it over.

312 00:40:11.900 ⇒ 00:40:12.270 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

313 00:40:12.270 ⇒ 00:40:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: Things and I don’t wanna do it that way. Yeah.

314 00:40:16.530 ⇒ 00:40:20.879 Zac Ooi: It really feels like it’s like a mindset sort of problem where it’s like.

315 00:40:21.220 ⇒ 00:40:23.320 Zac Ooi: I think folks are almost

316 00:40:23.910 ⇒ 00:40:29.349 Zac Ooi: like they don’t see the upside of their unique situation in a way which is like, you know, you marketing person.

317 00:40:29.480 ⇒ 00:40:33.119 Zac Ooi: I don’t know if you realize it, but you literally have the most context on this.

318 00:40:33.120 ⇒ 00:40:34.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

319 00:40:34.100 ⇒ 00:40:37.110 Zac Ooi: Like you like no one else there, or there’s like I don’t know 20.

320 00:40:37.110 ⇒ 00:40:42.689 Uttam Kumaran: See, you know what? They don’t want to be in front of the customer. And I’m like, Okay, cool. Just draft the email. Then don’t, don’t.

321 00:40:42.900 ⇒ 00:40:49.919 Uttam Kumaran: don’t get on the email, or like, or you know, or find a way, but like and then they may say, Well, I don’t know anything about sales. I’m like.

322 00:40:50.070 ⇒ 00:40:58.110 Uttam Kumaran: guess what this is not. This is like what you’re thinking of us. A version of sales like a car dealership like this is not what that is. It’s.

323 00:40:58.110 ⇒ 00:40:58.810 Zac Ooi: Yeah, and.

324 00:40:58.810 ⇒ 00:41:09.039 Uttam Kumaran: Can you get the right assets into the email, or like, Hey, we’re talking to this customer. They work in home services. Can you go get the home. Can you make sure that we have the Home Service Case study

325 00:41:09.180 ⇒ 00:41:12.789 Uttam Kumaran: that’s getting sent to them because it’s going to increase our odds of closing them

326 00:41:13.030 ⇒ 00:41:16.490 Uttam Kumaran: like those are the. Those are sort of the things that need to happen.

327 00:41:17.160 ⇒ 00:41:18.400 Zac Ooi: Yeah. And I,

328 00:41:18.880 ⇒ 00:41:29.050 Zac Ooi: I definitely think it’s it’s sort of like, or the thing I keep coming back to is it feels like it’s an attitude or personality thing where you kind of you kind of just need to know from the get go that

329 00:41:29.200 ⇒ 00:41:45.539 Zac Ooi: you know, in this person, in the bucket of like my role defines who I am, and I don’t want to like step outside the lines or color outside the lines. Or this person who’s like. I know what my title is. I know what my role is, but you know, if I’m sign me up for, like whatever needs to get done to just like move the business forward.

330 00:41:45.540 ⇒ 00:41:58.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we and we have both types of people, you know, and there are people in the company that I know in bucket one. And that’s fine. I found out, because I tried to push. And we tried to move people around. And I could tell that like, they’re like, Yeah, I just want to clock in.

331 00:41:58.610 ⇒ 00:42:00.589 Uttam Kumaran: do data modeling work clock out.

332 00:42:00.800 ⇒ 00:42:16.636 Uttam Kumaran: but perfectly fine, right? Perfectly fine. There are other people who are like literally anything you need. It could be like yo log into my log into this like log into my linkedin. And DM, this person, because I’m like in a meeting. But we’re gonna miss the sale, or it could be like

333 00:42:16.930 ⇒ 00:42:17.340 Uttam Kumaran: like something

334 00:42:17.340 ⇒ 00:42:25.870 Uttam Kumaran: else. And those people are also what I found is the most interested in using AI to automate their own stuff, and we buy everybody. Any AI.

335 00:42:26.400 ⇒ 00:42:27.620 Zac Ooi: Subscription, or whatever.

336 00:42:27.620 ⇒ 00:42:53.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and we build a lot of internal stuff for them. And they love it because they they’ve been the previous companies. It would be like cheating. You’d have to be tinkering with their own gpts on the side now. No, no, I want to take those and make it available for anybody. Anyone who writes in a statement of work needs to use the Sow Gpt. Now, right anyone like right? And now that’s something that you may have tinkered with. Now we’re going to take it and scale it. So, no matter what

337 00:42:53.990 ⇒ 00:42:56.320 Uttam Kumaran: anyone in the company can use that. And so.

338 00:42:56.790 ⇒ 00:43:01.890 Uttam Kumaran: You’re right. There are these 2 buckets of people. I I found that like I always thought everybody was

339 00:43:02.160 ⇒ 00:43:13.699 Uttam Kumaran: the 1st bucket. There are people who are not the 1st bucket, and you need to kind of lead them to just cruise and like, give them a safe space to do that. And the second people I’m like, basically throwing gasoline on like for better.

340 00:43:13.700 ⇒ 00:43:14.180 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

341 00:43:14.180 ⇒ 00:43:22.909 Uttam Kumaran: You know better for worse. And I’m finding out like, hey? How far? Because ultimately, like I, my schedule is the most chaotic, most context switching.

342 00:43:23.100 ⇒ 00:43:27.849 Uttam Kumaran: I have the biggest fear of failure. I’m dealing with the most unknowns and anyone in the company.

343 00:43:27.960 ⇒ 00:43:28.510 Uttam Kumaran: So.

344 00:43:29.240 ⇒ 00:43:32.700 Uttam Kumaran: Anything that anyone else is doing. We’ve probably done it once.

345 00:43:32.970 ⇒ 00:43:43.130 Uttam Kumaran: most likely we’ve done it many times, so there’s nothing to be afraid of, and I’m like there’s nothing to be afraid of like the stuff I’m looking at. It’s like there’s some stuff to be afraid of.

346 00:43:43.130 ⇒ 00:43:43.630 Uttam Kumaran: but

347 00:43:43.630 ⇒ 00:43:54.529 Uttam Kumaran: there’s nothing to be afraid of and like like, and just try it. And people, I think, break through some of that fear. When you lower the temperature you low. I take I took make it very risk off, or I’m like, try if you

348 00:43:54.640 ⇒ 00:43:56.929 Uttam Kumaran: fuck it up. It’s who cares like we’re I was.

349 00:43:56.930 ⇒ 00:43:57.300 Uttam Kumaran: Can I do?

350 00:43:57.300 ⇒ 00:44:00.609 Uttam Kumaran: Anyways, I was probably gonna fuck it up, too, or not do it at all.

351 00:44:00.880 ⇒ 00:44:03.760 Zac Ooi: Yeah, it’s just I just wasn’t scared to right.

352 00:44:03.760 ⇒ 00:44:10.429 Uttam Kumaran: From that alternative. You know. I think people are more receptive, but some people don’t see their career in that sort of like.

353 00:44:10.540 ⇒ 00:44:25.429 Uttam Kumaran: I always saw it as like Fan, I was, you know, trying to get like multiple rings and trying to like, think about getting like, okay, I wanted to learn how to hire. I wanted to learn some product management and some people just like, I want to go deep on this one thing. Some people want to be like, I want to do marketing. It’s clear in your career

354 00:44:25.530 ⇒ 00:44:36.779 Uttam Kumaran: you’ve done a lot of like, basically product management. You’ve done customer success. You’ve now done like sort of operations, which is basically anything that falls out of any other prequels bucket so.

355 00:44:36.780 ⇒ 00:44:37.190 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

356 00:44:37.190 ⇒ 00:44:44.490 Uttam Kumaran: At all, I guess. Like, is it like even thinking about like our business? And you know, to be really candid, we’re looking for

357 00:44:44.690 ⇒ 00:44:52.699 Uttam Kumaran: folks just like you. We have a lot of different opportunities in our business where I think, you know, you could be really effective. But, like, what do you think is next

358 00:44:53.260 ⇒ 00:45:04.289 Uttam Kumaran: for you. I mean, of course, like this isn’t. We’re not a product company. But I think we are innovative in our space. But yeah, just interested in, like where you see your career. Now that you’ve had sort of this, like

359 00:45:04.670 ⇒ 00:45:08.270 Uttam Kumaran: all these different sort of flavors of of the business.

360 00:45:08.830 ⇒ 00:45:16.659 Zac Ooi: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I’m at a crossroads now where, excuse me, the 2 paths ahead are kind of like

361 00:45:17.530 ⇒ 00:45:29.539 Zac Ooi: I stay in like the startup general Slam, where you know, I keep having this like autonomy and flexibility, and I keep hunting out like 0 to one opportunities, because I just know that

362 00:45:29.760 ⇒ 00:45:30.670 Zac Ooi: they’re

363 00:45:30.970 ⇒ 00:45:36.190 Zac Ooi: so many companies out there that would benefit from someone who’s just like, yeah, don’t care what the problem is. Don’t care.

364 00:45:36.190 ⇒ 00:45:38.710 Uttam Kumaran: I’m nice at air table. Let’s go.

365 00:45:39.260 ⇒ 00:45:44.329 Zac Ooi: Yeah. But then, you know, that’s that’s 1 path. And then I think the other path is

366 00:45:44.820 ⇒ 00:45:45.970 Zac Ooi: kind of like.

367 00:45:46.520 ⇒ 00:45:52.280 Zac Ooi: I I don’t know why, it feels like surrendering in a way, but kind of like surrender, and say like.

368 00:45:53.100 ⇒ 00:45:59.709 Zac Ooi: Call me the Ops operations specialist dude, you know, and like. Put me in the operations, or.

369 00:45:59.710 ⇒ 00:46:02.990 Uttam Kumaran: Too limiting dude. That title is way too limiting for you.

370 00:46:03.310 ⇒ 00:46:08.119 Zac Ooi: Like, but I I do think I do think like the advantage to that one is.

371 00:46:08.240 ⇒ 00:46:14.129 Zac Ooi: you know, that that and that would be to be clear. That would be going to like a big tech company right? And that would be kind of saying like.

372 00:46:14.360 ⇒ 00:46:15.889 Zac Ooi: Sign me up for.

373 00:46:15.890 ⇒ 00:46:19.649 Uttam Kumaran: In the corporate machine like which which you know.

374 00:46:19.780 ⇒ 00:46:24.119 Zac Ooi: We has its own like I would call lifestyle advantages right like.

375 00:46:24.120 ⇒ 00:46:25.109 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally.

376 00:46:25.110 ⇒ 00:46:26.139 Zac Ooi: Like. I don’t know.

377 00:46:26.400 ⇒ 00:46:29.680 Zac Ooi: I’m 28, you know, my girlfriend, and I.

378 00:46:29.680 ⇒ 00:46:33.189 Uttam Kumaran: This is a mental health startups a mental health disaster like.

379 00:46:33.490 ⇒ 00:46:48.749 Zac Ooi: Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. And it’s like, you know, I could. I could go, be Ops journalists start up. My company might blow up. My founder might ask me to do something at 11 Pm. Or I could go. I don’t know. Work at Facebook and have them pay for my girlfriend’s eggs to be frozen right. It’s like

380 00:46:50.960 ⇒ 00:46:51.640 Zac Ooi: being intellectually.

381 00:46:51.640 ⇒ 00:46:53.299 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s for sure.

382 00:46:53.300 ⇒ 00:46:59.380 Zac Ooi: Both. Yeah. So so I think, like, that’s kind of where I feel like I’m at. I think

383 00:47:00.020 ⇒ 00:47:09.660 Zac Ooi: I think, like you know, truth be told, the easier path is like hog in the machine, like, let’s get my wife my girlfriend’s eggs frozen, and you know

384 00:47:10.440 ⇒ 00:47:11.540 Zac Ooi: at least

385 00:47:11.820 ⇒ 00:47:17.330 Zac Ooi: I mean, you know they do layoffs like every other week now, but you know, like kind of lock in some sort of longer term stability.

386 00:47:17.330 ⇒ 00:47:25.701 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, but you also know what you’ve learned from all these startups. Is the politics right? So you’ll be good. There you’ll you’ll you’ll you’ll burrow. Just borrow.

387 00:47:25.990 ⇒ 00:47:35.010 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly, exactly. But you know, at least it’s like, kind of be a cog, and like a safe established stable machine. I think you know the other path is like.

388 00:47:35.320 ⇒ 00:47:43.060 Zac Ooi: go back, roll the dice on another small company, you know, deal with all the drama and chaos there, I think

389 00:47:44.010 ⇒ 00:47:49.939 Zac Ooi: I think, like probably a better fit for my personality, and like recent experience. But

390 00:47:50.150 ⇒ 00:47:52.009 Zac Ooi: you know I have to be honest that, like.

391 00:47:52.010 ⇒ 00:47:52.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

392 00:47:52.620 ⇒ 00:47:57.809 Zac Ooi: It’ll probably be messy, you know. Like, will there be work, life, balance.

393 00:47:58.070 ⇒ 00:47:58.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

394 00:47:58.590 ⇒ 00:48:05.199 Zac Ooi: Like, which I will also say, as someone who’s looking at starting. A family, I think, means a lot more, you know, than it used to, so.

395 00:48:05.200 ⇒ 00:48:16.200 Uttam Kumaran: No, Robert and I talk a lot about it, because I feel like our lives. You know, we started businesses kind of separately and sort of merged in the last 6 months, and our lives have been really like difficult

396 00:48:16.360 ⇒ 00:48:26.619 Uttam Kumaran: for 2 years. I mean, I’ve always worked in startups. This is the hardest it’s ever been like. I don’t think, because one day is harder than the next is that every day has been hard for like a long time.

397 00:48:27.321 ⇒ 00:48:29.280 Uttam Kumaran: And that is very tough.

398 00:48:29.887 ⇒ 00:48:41.280 Uttam Kumaran: And so this quarter in particular, we have a lot of internal projects around giving us back time and leverage, which is why, when I started top of mind for me to think very hard about delegation.

399 00:48:41.390 ⇒ 00:48:52.929 Uttam Kumaran: take the edge off people messing things up the 1st time, because I know that coaching that the Ltv on that is going to be much higher than me sending that next email just getting doing it myself.

400 00:48:53.130 ⇒ 00:49:02.520 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’re we’re doing a lot of that, you know. The other thing about this business is it’s we. I don’t have to run it in the ways that I’ve seen other people do it. And I’ve sort of challenged

401 00:49:02.910 ⇒ 00:49:11.220 Uttam Kumaran: challenge every way that we are running it like we. We use a lot of data in the business. We measure ourselves a lot. We run pretty ethically.

402 00:49:11.779 ⇒ 00:49:16.189 Uttam Kumaran: We’re just grow as sort of as we have budget to grow, not sort. We don’t have

403 00:49:16.670 ⇒ 00:49:18.809 Uttam Kumaran: 10 million in the bank that we just go higher.

404 00:49:19.110 ⇒ 00:49:20.750 Uttam Kumaran: Bunch of strangers, you know.

405 00:49:21.479 ⇒ 00:49:24.130 Uttam Kumaran: We’re completely remote. We have people around the world.

406 00:49:25.680 ⇒ 00:49:43.609 Uttam Kumaran: But I. I also want to be number one. Like I, we are ambitious, like, we hold ourselves to high standards. So it’s different. But yeah, I do think that there’s trade off. I don’t. I don’t know. I think everybody. It’s very hard to see from the outside, but I am very opinionated now, but trying to run a more sustainable business.

407 00:49:44.295 ⇒ 00:49:56.000 Uttam Kumaran: Then I ever have been, because I just didn’t have a choice like I could run my team or like the people that interacted with me. I can sort of lower the tone, but never at the company level. Now. It’s

408 00:49:56.180 ⇒ 00:49:59.159 Uttam Kumaran: pretty chill for most people. Internally, I would say, like.

409 00:49:59.290 ⇒ 00:50:04.710 Uttam Kumaran: I think, it’s like a part. And I would say, even for our client work, we’ve maybe just had like

410 00:50:04.840 ⇒ 00:50:08.109 Uttam Kumaran: couple of tense client meetings this year, but like

411 00:50:08.220 ⇒ 00:50:14.179 Uttam Kumaran: we don’t sort of go with clients that are crazy, and the work we do is great. So but of course it’s not

412 00:50:14.370 ⇒ 00:50:19.449 Uttam Kumaran: a product scale company. It’s a services business, right? So it’s a lot of like

413 00:50:19.960 ⇒ 00:50:33.219 Uttam Kumaran: working the engineering that goes and the operations that goes into like we need sops. We need run books we need, how do we do allocation and headcount? That’s the real like engineering work. And then the innovation happens on new services right? Like.

414 00:50:33.220 ⇒ 00:50:53.109 Uttam Kumaran: For us, the innovation is on like, we’re developing AI agents. Agentic workflows for people in a time where there’s not many other companies that can do that where most of what’s called like context, engineering is just data engineering. So we’re like, we crush it, that that’s all we do. Now, it’s just getting data into an Llm. Which is picking the Llm. Is very, very easy, and then it’s just

415 00:50:53.120 ⇒ 00:51:11.370 Uttam Kumaran: getting it into their getting an output somewhere structured. And so we have a lot of headwinds for us in an industry where there’s a lot of people that are selling AI. They’ve never done anything in production. There’s a lot of companies that are selling like AI Sdr, or like Sas products that don’t do anything at all or like.

416 00:51:11.370 ⇒ 00:51:11.760 Zac Ooi: So.

417 00:51:11.760 ⇒ 00:51:18.820 Uttam Kumaran: Broad. They’re so broad that they don’t serve anybody in particular. And at the same time you have every

418 00:51:19.110 ⇒ 00:51:25.509 Uttam Kumaran: sort of business, every sort of private growing business in America. That’s like, we need something. We need AI.

419 00:51:25.710 ⇒ 00:51:30.979 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re there. And we’re catching some of these guys and it, the messaging is working. So that’s like what

420 00:51:31.160 ⇒ 00:51:34.929 Uttam Kumaran: gets me up motivated every day that, like we’re surfing

421 00:51:35.030 ⇒ 00:51:44.490 Uttam Kumaran: the biggest wave of my career right now, I feel lucky to do that. And we have, like we have great engineering talent internally, that we’re like ripping stuff for clients.

422 00:51:45.107 ⇒ 00:51:46.219 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s been fun.

423 00:51:46.220 ⇒ 00:51:46.550 Zac Ooi: That’s awesome.

424 00:51:46.550 ⇒ 00:51:47.609 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. It’s been good.

425 00:51:48.380 ⇒ 00:51:50.599 Zac Ooi: That’s awesome. It sounds like you’re at a great point right now.

426 00:51:50.910 ⇒ 00:52:01.649 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’ll see. Also, keep keep going. Keep going. We’re growing the business. And you know, we’re it’s it’s it’s been getting a lot better over the last few months, for sure.

427 00:52:02.200 ⇒ 00:52:03.269 Zac Ooi: No, that’s awesome.

428 00:52:03.450 ⇒ 00:52:04.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude.

429 00:52:04.550 ⇒ 00:52:08.370 Uttam Kumaran: Well, let me know. How can I be helpful like? Tell me if there’s anything I can do.

430 00:52:08.760 ⇒ 00:52:15.480 Zac Ooi: Yeah, I actually have to run a little bit. But I think for the last thing I kind of want to ask you about. Tom is

431 00:52:15.750 ⇒ 00:52:18.270 Zac Ooi: kind of like where

432 00:52:18.750 ⇒ 00:52:29.239 Zac Ooi: I mean. I I know it’s like a cliche and dumb question, but kind of like, where do you see Rainforge? In like 5 years, and I, I think you know, to call it out like the spirit of that question. Just like

433 00:52:29.600 ⇒ 00:52:32.750 Zac Ooi: to serve like as you’ve been saying serves this company.

434 00:52:32.970 ⇒ 00:52:41.590 Zac Ooi: You know this tomorrow doesn’t come for free. But, like, what do you want to do with this? For, you know? Like, do you see a long term future for this.

435 00:52:42.190 ⇒ 00:52:57.079 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s a tough question, like, I feel like I’ve always I never. I kind of fell into this business like I wasn’t really interested in starting a business I have was kind of hit. The same options you had. Very coincidentally, I was like I left my last job. I was like, go back to a startup

436 00:52:57.450 ⇒ 00:52:59.749 Uttam Kumaran: kind of like, give my life up for a few years.

437 00:53:00.130 ⇒ 00:53:07.939 Uttam Kumaran: I see what happens, or go to like a Google or something kind of similarly giving a lot up for for a lot. But you know it’s a different pace.

438 00:53:08.326 ⇒ 00:53:16.539 Uttam Kumaran: And I started this business, and purely just because I was able to get a couple of contracts, and I’m like cool. I want to reinvest in and then want to do this for a lot of folks.

439 00:53:17.151 ⇒ 00:53:33.140 Uttam Kumaran: Now, it’s sort of evolved to something I never thought it would be. It’s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be lot more complex. But also we’ve done we built the size of our business in 2 years, with no money working for some great Logos that not many people have done.

440 00:53:33.280 ⇒ 00:53:35.889 Uttam Kumaran: and so like. It’s giving me a lot of faith that, like

441 00:53:36.060 ⇒ 00:53:44.060 Uttam Kumaran: like an outcome from this would be great. I mean, I think the advice I got, and I try to ask advice from people that have built these businesses to like

442 00:53:44.260 ⇒ 00:53:47.620 Uttam Kumaran: north of a hundred 1 million and ask them. They everybody said,

443 00:53:49.100 ⇒ 00:54:04.579 Uttam Kumaran: build a company that you want to keep, and you’ll build something worth selling. And so I do think that we want this. We we do have our eyes on trying to sell this business on what timeline I don’t know, but I think Robert and I both want this to be like meaningful outcome

444 00:54:04.850 ⇒ 00:54:24.799 Uttam Kumaran: for ourselves. And I really want this to be a meaningful outcome for our team, because I’ve worked with a lot of companies and given up everything and didn’t see a dime. And so it would be amazing to make this a really big win for the folks that have stuck with us, and for the folks that continue to take on more responsibility. But again, these aren’t like

445 00:54:24.880 ⇒ 00:54:49.630 Uttam Kumaran: we have to grow this business to be a lot bigger if it’s gonna be something worth selling. But our unique proposition, you know, of course, beyond our people and beyond the Logos is going to be on our process right? And so our innovation that I focus on is, where can we innovate in integrating AI into our delivery, integrating AI into all of the aspects of our company from sales, marketing operations and engineering. And can I run this

446 00:54:49.650 ⇒ 00:55:00.162 Uttam Kumaran: high at higher margin? With higher employee retention. With greater, customer retention, and we’ll be. We’ll be a standout in our category.

447 00:55:01.090 ⇒ 00:55:10.419 Uttam Kumaran: And so that that’s the thing like I I would love to sort of have this be a great outcome, and try to sell this business. I don’t know. I have not done any work towards that. And

448 00:55:11.113 ⇒ 00:55:13.789 Uttam Kumaran: apart from just trying to make a great business. I’ve not done.

449 00:55:13.790 ⇒ 00:55:14.429 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah.

450 00:55:14.430 ⇒ 00:55:14.810 Uttam Kumaran: Bye, bye.

451 00:55:15.380 ⇒ 00:55:41.430 Uttam Kumaran: that’s sort of like our goal. And also, you know, I think, even like for me. I met so many amazing people running this, both like friends of Brainforge employees, advisors that like, if I was to get out of this and go do another thing. Those are the 1st people I would call, but I just realized that, like business and life for me is kind of like one now. And I think for people like, probably me, you, Robert, who like love.

452 00:55:41.520 ⇒ 00:55:47.420 Uttam Kumaran: solve tough problems and be in this world. That’s amazing cause I know if I was gonna do another thing like

453 00:55:47.820 ⇒ 00:55:53.230 Uttam Kumaran: great people that I know I don’t care what we’re doing. I could call because I’d be like, let’s go figure it out together.

454 00:55:54.120 ⇒ 00:55:58.900 Uttam Kumaran: But so that’s probably like where my mind is at longer term. I think in the short term

455 00:55:59.020 ⇒ 00:56:05.590 Uttam Kumaran: we keep, we need to just sell our ass off and continue to get great people. But that’s probably what I’m

456 00:56:06.210 ⇒ 00:56:06.730 Uttam Kumaran: more things.

457 00:56:06.730 ⇒ 00:56:07.105 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

458 00:56:07.480 ⇒ 00:56:09.029 Uttam Kumaran: You know, in like 5 years or so.

459 00:56:09.140 ⇒ 00:56:09.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

460 00:56:10.150 ⇒ 00:56:16.179 Zac Ooi: Yeah, no makes sense makes sense. And yeah, I think for me, actually, the I I kind of. I do have to run in a second here. But.

461 00:56:16.180 ⇒ 00:56:16.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.

462 00:56:16.570 ⇒ 00:56:24.939 Zac Ooi: I’ll spend my last question there on that, because, truth be told, like I kind of get the sense of like what the culture like what the team like, what the attitude is. And

463 00:56:25.380 ⇒ 00:56:30.510 Zac Ooi: I think for me personally, there’s a lot to like and a lot that I appreciate. And I feel like, you know, you’re

464 00:56:30.720 ⇒ 00:56:46.960 Zac Ooi: your past startup experiences have like engendered this like down to earth, this like humility that I think I appreciate and so for me. It’s more direction of like, okay, like a good atmosphere over there like a solid team. It’s kind of question of like, where is the spoke going to, you know.

465 00:56:46.960 ⇒ 00:56:52.609 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yeah, I mean dude. I would tell if you if I if you want me to say we’re going to Mars. I’m not gonna say that, you know.

466 00:56:52.610 ⇒ 00:56:56.340 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, that’s what Adam Newman told me when we were at. We work. So

467 00:56:56.860 ⇒ 00:57:25.300 Uttam Kumaran: I think, like, look in services businesses. These are very boring, consulting businesses, you Bain, Bcg, these guys. But guess what? They don’t innovate at all. Their their services are way worse, and their quality of delivery is way. Worse. They have brand, and the brand is what brings them more business. But nothing they’re doing on the innovation or delivery side is actually anything beyond what we’re doing. And so for us, it’s like the more customers we can get into and show that, like, I think we’ll we’ll get there. But

468 00:57:25.640 ⇒ 00:57:42.310 Uttam Kumaran: it’s a different business model than Sas. But we want to grow this sustainably. And yeah, I mean everybody at our company. I want. I told every single person that, like I did the thing of like going to a company jumping in like 2 years. If I’ve told everybody that look I want, if you join the company, I want you to be here for as long as

469 00:57:42.440 ⇒ 00:57:46.580 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll have us in your life, and that we can continue to deliver for them right, and I.

470 00:57:46.580 ⇒ 00:57:46.910 Zac Ooi: Yeah.

471 00:57:46.910 ⇒ 00:57:54.269 Uttam Kumaran: Again, we have people who come from a lot of different backgrounds, who? Not a I don’t think there’s a traditional consultant in the company, and so.

472 00:57:54.270 ⇒ 00:57:54.970 Zac Ooi: Hmm.

473 00:57:54.970 ⇒ 00:57:59.650 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s great, because we’ve turned everyone into really caring about clients. And

474 00:57:59.910 ⇒ 00:58:04.769 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I I want, if I sell this company, I want everyone to get some real dough, you know. So.

475 00:58:04.770 ⇒ 00:58:05.370 Zac Ooi: Yeah, that’s.

476 00:58:05.370 ⇒ 00:58:07.540 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I I want to happen, you know. So.

477 00:58:08.260 ⇒ 00:58:16.049 Zac Ooi: Yeah, no, that’s that’s awesome. That’s awesome. I didn’t get a chance to ask Robert this, but

478 00:58:16.170 ⇒ 00:58:18.465 Zac Ooi: if you have a Jd. Or something like that,

479 00:58:18.720 ⇒ 00:58:19.120 Uttam Kumaran: Jared.

480 00:58:19.540 ⇒ 00:58:20.220 Zac Ooi: Like I.

481 00:58:20.220 ⇒ 00:58:24.329 Uttam Kumaran: What Jd, can. I gotta get you like 4 Jd’s dude, and you’re gonna pick out of a hat like what.

482 00:58:24.330 ⇒ 00:58:28.280 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, I mean, kind of a dumb question. When I think back to like the first, st like 20.

483 00:58:28.280 ⇒ 00:58:32.749 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, no, no, I mean, let me. We do have some like

484 00:58:32.970 ⇒ 00:58:40.250 Uttam Kumaran: for traditional roles and some interesting sort of roles that we’re thinking about that. Maybe I would love to even just get your feedback on.

485 00:58:40.580 ⇒ 00:58:44.697 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I’ll send some stuff your way. And yeah, if you if you would

486 00:58:45.100 ⇒ 00:58:48.770 Uttam Kumaran: indulge us and take a look at them and and think about it like.

487 00:58:49.100 ⇒ 00:58:50.908 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’d be great, you know.

488 00:58:51.210 ⇒ 00:58:54.857 Zac Ooi: Yeah, I mean, even if I can just give the feedback like, Happy to do that cause

489 00:58:55.300 ⇒ 00:59:16.629 Zac Ooi: like it is very refreshing to hear, like the way you run your company and kind of me, nodding my head and being like you know what this is right, and I think there should be a place for people who are looking right to be like. I don’t want to stay in my lane, I don’t feel like, you know, slotting into being a cog in a machine is the thing for me like it feels like.

490 00:59:16.850 ⇒ 00:59:25.620 Zac Ooi: you know, unless you just know someone and know the right opportunity. It feels like so hard to just find a company that’s willing to just put that on the Jd. Nowadays.

491 00:59:25.620 ⇒ 00:59:30.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I I’m gonna before I send it to you. I’m gonna make sure it’s on the Jd, we are normal.

492 00:59:30.160 ⇒ 00:59:30.719 Zac Ooi: Or I mean.

493 00:59:30.720 ⇒ 00:59:31.500 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, gosh!

494 00:59:31.500 ⇒ 00:59:32.110 Zac Ooi: That’s just a format.

495 00:59:32.110 ⇒ 00:59:33.460 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, I agree.

496 00:59:33.820 ⇒ 00:59:44.699 Uttam Kumaran: I agree, I agree, yeah, yeah, no. We. We’re trying a lot with what I can afford to to do with the money we have, you know. But that’s why, you know, if you talk to anybody at the company, you should

497 00:59:44.850 ⇒ 00:59:51.229 Uttam Kumaran: ask them the same questions. You know, you could figure out whether we actually are doing what we’re saying. But yeah, we’re trying hard, you know. So.

498 00:59:51.750 ⇒ 00:59:55.930 Zac Ooi: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Alright, I’ll look out for those. But.

499 00:59:55.930 ⇒ 00:59:56.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

500 00:59:56.260 ⇒ 00:59:57.680 Zac Ooi: Unfortunately, I have to run.

501 00:59:57.680 ⇒ 00:59:59.779 Uttam Kumaran: No problem, thank you, Zach. Appreciate the time.

502 00:59:59.780 ⇒ 01:00:00.850 Zac Ooi: Great chatting. Thank you.

503 01:00:00.850 ⇒ 01:00:02.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, of course, talk soon.