Meeting Title: Brainforge x Cody Tech Partnership Discussion Date: 2025-08-05 Meeting participants: read.ai meeting notes, Lucas Bennington, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:01:33.670 ⇒ 00:01:34.860 Lucas Bennington: Hey!
2 00:01:35.040 ⇒ 00:01:36.070 Lucas Bennington: How are you?
3 00:01:36.690 ⇒ 00:01:37.620 Robert Tseng: Hey, Lucas.
4 00:01:39.270 ⇒ 00:01:40.719 Lucas Bennington: Hey? How’s it going.
5 00:01:40.720 ⇒ 00:01:41.789 Robert Tseng: Good! How are you?
6 00:01:42.490 ⇒ 00:01:48.470 Lucas Bennington: Doing well doing well? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s good good start to the week.
7 00:01:49.580 ⇒ 00:01:53.539 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, I’ve got no complaints. How about you? How are things.
8 00:01:54.040 ⇒ 00:01:58.055 Robert Tseng: Good. Yeah, I think. It’s been a pretty busy summer, but
9 00:01:58.590 ⇒ 00:02:00.364 Robert Tseng: in a good way, I guess
10 00:02:00.660 ⇒ 00:02:01.180 Lucas Bennington: Yeah.
11 00:02:02.070 ⇒ 00:02:21.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we’ve been doing more like conferences this past quarter. And have a couple more in the next month, so we’ll see how that pans out. But yeah, just kind of doing more in person events trying to meet people that way. And it’s so far it’s been. It’s been a good. I think it’s been a better use of our time than just like.
12 00:02:21.040 ⇒ 00:02:21.410 Lucas Bennington: Brilliant.
13 00:02:21.410 ⇒ 00:02:22.336 Robert Tseng: Doing the
14 00:02:22.920 ⇒ 00:02:39.340 Robert Tseng: before. We’re just doing like content and doing a lot of like pitching across like gig platforms and stuff like, I’m not really sure how Bd works for you. But yeah, it was more of like a volume kind of play. And I just feel like in person. Events have given us just
15 00:02:39.620 ⇒ 00:02:46.840 Robert Tseng: better quality. Leads into into new accounts. I guess
16 00:02:47.270 ⇒ 00:03:02.573 Robert Tseng: the sales cycle is a bit longer, but just being able to talk to like 3 or 4 people and like, actually plan out like, here are some strategic accounts. We wanna actually go and meet at these conferences has been, has been a better approach. I think.
17 00:03:02.880 ⇒ 00:03:08.969 Lucas Bennington: That’s awesome. Yeah, you know what? I’m I’m so glad to to hear you say that.
18 00:03:09.602 ⇒ 00:03:16.839 Lucas Bennington: I feel like I have noticed you going to more conferences by spying on you, posting on Linkedin.
19 00:03:17.116 ⇒ 00:03:17.670 Robert Tseng: That’s okay.
20 00:03:17.670 ⇒ 00:03:36.759 Lucas Bennington: Oh, look up, there he is! It’s been something that I’ve been interested in as well a bit more like finding some of the right people. So I feel like, I’ve been like, Okay, there’s this Icp, I really want to target. How do I reach them? I was thinking conferences could be good. Are you going more as like
21 00:03:37.100 ⇒ 00:03:49.629 Lucas Bennington: a sponsor? Or are you going more as like an attendee or a mix of the 2 like, How are you? And like which ones are you targeting like, how? What is that process like? I’d love to pick your brain about it. So it’s something that I feel like could be
22 00:03:49.910 ⇒ 00:03:55.330 Lucas Bennington: good for me to learn more about like, that’s yeah. Something I wanted to learn more about, for sure.
23 00:03:55.330 ⇒ 00:04:06.734 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so like, between my business partner and I like I don’t think you’ve met Uton. But he he goes to all these like technical conferences. So like super niche like
24 00:04:07.100 ⇒ 00:04:29.030 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, like click houses like a data warehouse, one of the up and coming data warehouse. And he’s pretty active in slack communities there. And yeah, just meeting. Just yeah. He’s been going to to those types of events for me. I’ve been going to more like brand centric events, because, like, I think, our Icp now, at least on the
25 00:04:29.030 ⇒ 00:04:49.769 Robert Tseng: consumer product side, is like a company doing 10 million a year in revenue. That’s like trying to grow to 100 million plus or whatever. And we have like one long term client that’s kind of like. Been with us the past year and a half that’s like kind of made like a huge leap. And so I feel like that’s been like a good case study to anchor to
26 00:04:50.358 ⇒ 00:05:00.360 Robert Tseng: so yeah, I think just because of that. And we are basically their data team. Like, I get to go to these brand conferences, representing, like the client, I guess, so. That helps
27 00:05:01.360 ⇒ 00:05:01.900 Lucas Bennington: For sure.
28 00:05:01.900 ⇒ 00:05:02.790 Robert Tseng: Just like.
29 00:05:03.260 ⇒ 00:05:16.039 Robert Tseng: yeah. Otherwise I would have to do do sponsorships like being a services company or whatever but if you’re like representing the brand. And typically they they give you. I mean, you can go to a lot of conferences for free. I think so.
30 00:05:16.040 ⇒ 00:05:18.230 Lucas Bennington: There you go. Yeah, that’s a good way to do it. Yep.
31 00:05:18.230 ⇒ 00:05:28.139 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’s been like a hacky way to to get into more. Say, I’m going to like shop talk next month in in Chicago and a couple more like on the East coast. But
32 00:05:28.430 ⇒ 00:05:47.500 Robert Tseng: yeah, so I think for me, it makes sense to go to these brand conferences, talk to other like heads of marketing or heads of product at at brands, because those are the people I would be selling to and not going to technical conferences. So, yeah, I think that’s we’re we’re kind of, we’re we’re doing 2 different approaches.
33 00:05:47.500 ⇒ 00:05:49.960 Lucas Bennington: Nice. I like that little divide and conquer.
34 00:05:49.960 ⇒ 00:05:50.370 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
35 00:05:50.370 ⇒ 00:06:01.424 Lucas Bennington: We tailor to different skill sets, too. That’s super cool. Yeah, I found for me, like technical conferences are super fun. I’ve loved going to them. I sponsored bubbles last year, as well.
36 00:06:01.760 ⇒ 00:06:02.760 Robert Tseng: I remember seeing that.
37 00:06:02.760 ⇒ 00:06:12.380 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, it was. It was a blast. Yeah, like, I said it was all really enjoyable. However, I do feel like at those conferences is a little bit like
38 00:06:12.580 ⇒ 00:06:34.629 Lucas Bennington: I’m meeting a lot of people like me which is awesome. And I’ve actually made some really good connection from those, but very rarely do I get like new business from those like, it’s everyone like they’re very like intellectually stimulating. But I’m not like, Oh, wow! I just gained like I expanded my book of business a lot here. It’s like, maybe I did form some good partnerships once from going to those like it’s not like a wash. But I would say.
39 00:06:34.860 ⇒ 00:06:41.750 Lucas Bennington: what I’m thinking is like, are there these other things I need to go to, which sounds like a little bit more of like what you’re doing where I’m like.
40 00:06:42.190 ⇒ 00:06:44.800 Lucas Bennington: you know, the businesses I’m trying to target
41 00:06:45.231 ⇒ 00:06:54.889 Lucas Bennington: would never be going to any of those like technical conferences like they. If they did, then they would not need to hire me. Probably. So. Yeah, I definitely.
42 00:06:55.180 ⇒ 00:07:06.584 Lucas Bennington: I was looking at some. There was some expo center thing in La that was trying to sell me a spot. And I was like, Oh, this one doesn’t feel right like this one’s like too far out of my niche. But
43 00:07:07.070 ⇒ 00:07:14.730 Lucas Bennington: and I was like, yeah, like. And I was also like getting way too hard sold that I was like, is anyone even going to go to this conference, or you just like selling sponsorship slots to like
44 00:07:14.910 ⇒ 00:07:16.149 Lucas Bennington: anybody like is.
45 00:07:16.150 ⇒ 00:07:16.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
46 00:07:16.570 ⇒ 00:07:30.139 Lucas Bennington: Is that but yeah, I don’t know. That’s cool. Anyway, I don’t wanna get too distracted for a main purpose. But I love. Yeah, hearing your insights there, I definitely want some more conferences to go to as an attendee. And
47 00:07:30.250 ⇒ 00:07:39.849 Lucas Bennington: yeah, I feel like that format has always kind of worked well for me to meet people that like meet up events and and stuff like that like, you know, like mixers and whatnot. Yeah.
48 00:07:40.410 ⇒ 00:07:41.812 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think.
49 00:07:43.010 ⇒ 00:08:01.838 Robert Tseng: yeah, I don’t know. We can. We can. We can keep jamming on the event stuff like, I think we’re always kind of like thinking through different things that we’re doing. So like one more thing I’ll say on that is, with certain like vendor partners. Now, like we’re. I’m just kind of like what you you’re you’re in bubbles partnership, which I mean super solid
50 00:08:02.160 ⇒ 00:08:21.740 Robert Tseng: ecosystem for you to to kind of build on. But like, I think a lot of the vendors we partner with, they’re like just kinda finding their way like we can’t partner with the snowflakes of the world because they’re like way too big, and they don’t want to work with us. And a lot of these other tools like they just got started like 2 years ago. We have no idea if they’re gonna be alive in the next year or 2.
51 00:08:22.445 ⇒ 00:08:32.319 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think, like for us, like, it’s just we’re we’re doing more like co-hosting events with with them as well. So yeah, like, I think
52 00:08:32.320 ⇒ 00:08:44.019 Robert Tseng: not just going to conferences, but also just putting on like small, like 2020 to 30 person kind of events and just inviting people in our network to that we’re we’re doing. We’re doing that as well.
53 00:08:44.890 ⇒ 00:08:54.809 Lucas Bennington: I like that. Yeah, I think that those events are really good. I haven’t done an event hosted one in about a year now, but we’re like putting it together for the next, maybe
54 00:08:55.000 ⇒ 00:09:04.419 Lucas Bennington: sometime in the next like month or 2, I would say. Like, if we don’t get it locked in. We don’t have a date locked in yet, but like probably I’d say, like early September is what we’re shooting for.
55 00:09:05.400 ⇒ 00:09:09.649 Lucas Bennington: yeah, I feel like those things can be really good opportunities to
56 00:09:09.850 ⇒ 00:09:19.110 Lucas Bennington: meet people. I also just find them really fun, like, it’s just. It’s nice to get people together, kind of like after hours. Thing I really want to do is I want to do like.
57 00:09:19.270 ⇒ 00:09:28.320 Lucas Bennington: And this caters like a good amount to my audience a bit which is like, I really want to do like some sort of like pitch competition, or like.
58 00:09:29.150 ⇒ 00:09:33.530 Lucas Bennington: Like, yeah, like hackathon type thing I also thought would be really fun.
59 00:09:33.530 ⇒ 00:09:33.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
60 00:09:34.237 ⇒ 00:09:47.350 Lucas Bennington: The Icp that we have. The most success with is like startup founders like I’d say we do like we can service that it’s just like it’s just kind of like a tough market. Sometimes of like, you’re always kind of like, just building more and more new products.
61 00:09:47.500 ⇒ 00:09:50.614 Lucas Bennington: But yeah, that is one thing that I
62 00:09:51.370 ⇒ 00:10:12.505 Lucas Bennington: yeah, I would say, it’s kind of like a passion area of mine that I really wanted to do is like some sort of like pitch competition like, have some local people that I know kind of come out and be judges, and you know, especially in a city like Los Angeles. There’s like a pretty, you know. It’s not San Francisco, but it’s like a pretty good startup scene of people with ideas, and we could like maybe scrap together some price
63 00:10:13.140 ⇒ 00:10:16.210 Lucas Bennington: prizes or something like that, that they could be good.
64 00:10:16.910 ⇒ 00:10:17.510 Robert Tseng: Yes.
65 00:10:17.880 ⇒ 00:10:47.150 Robert Tseng: no, I think that’s a great idea. I mean, kind of just segue into like the our our partnership chat like I think. I I sent you some info, just like updates on things that we’ve been doing. But I’m curious, like, yeah. So that event that you put on super targeted for startup founders totally makes sense. I know that you were working with some clients that were kind of using you to do like big digital transformations like. And you’re working with, like the city of Atlanta, right? And something like that. And couple of other like more
66 00:10:47.150 ⇒ 00:11:13.509 Robert Tseng: senior or like kind of like older organizations. I mean, I think we do better with those folks than we do with startups at this point is kind of the way I see it now. So I’m curious, like, if that’s still something that’s in your target zone. And yeah, just trying to figure out like, if we were to partner together like, who who do? We both want to go after? Where there’s like overlap that like we can kind of think about what’s a
67 00:11:13.820 ⇒ 00:11:16.290 Robert Tseng: a good offering to make them. Yeah.
68 00:11:16.290 ⇒ 00:11:20.060 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, that’s a great thanks for setting the stage. With that I would say
69 00:11:20.470 ⇒ 00:11:26.750 Lucas Bennington: you are. You are spot on, I would say we?
70 00:11:26.950 ⇒ 00:11:30.090 Lucas Bennington: We are probably not the best fit for
71 00:11:31.130 ⇒ 00:11:35.009 Lucas Bennington: startup founders, either, in the sense that.
72 00:11:35.150 ⇒ 00:11:44.820 Lucas Bennington: And this is why I’d say, my Icp. Since we’ve talked, you know, since our last meeting, when we talked, you know, kind of like in detail about things as opposed to like more casual messages.
73 00:11:45.010 ⇒ 00:12:05.599 Lucas Bennington: I’ve really pivoted away from targeting startup founders. You can tell that I have some passion and heart. There. It’s like, I really do want to do a pitch competition. Yeah, I want to like stay plugged into that world because I enjoy it. But in terms of building a business it’s extremely difficult to have this kind of stream of new projects that you’re always kind of doing, and then
74 00:12:06.100 ⇒ 00:12:29.480 Lucas Bennington: having those new projects like kind of succeed or fail, a little bit independent to the work that you do as a developer or product designer like there’s a lot that goes into, as you’re aware, launching a successful startup. And while I’d love to say a great product will just carry you all the way there. There’s just so many other pieces that we don’t do or are kind of out of our control.
75 00:12:29.720 ⇒ 00:12:50.390 Lucas Bennington: and honestly like require a level of time, commitment, and energy commitment that people just don’t always want to do like. I don’t know how else to put it than that. Like, we’ll build so many products. And then when it comes to like, actually, people like using it and selling it, and like selling the usage of that tool. They just won’t do it, and I don’t even blame them like I’m not like
76 00:12:50.690 ⇒ 00:13:15.539 Lucas Bennington: sitting there from a place of judgment. It’s just a reality, I’ve observed. And so, while startup founders do represent a portion of our business, I would say, quarter over quarter. It’s just like a shrinking business like we won’t turn away a startup founder project. If you have one, we’ll do a really good job. We’ll build a great product. But in terms of like long term growth, and like what I’m investing dollars and time and effort into where we’re going.
77 00:13:15.970 ⇒ 00:13:38.399 Lucas Bennington: I think that there could be some alignment with what you’ve spoken about. Our most successful products are, I would say, digital transformation and process automation, for I would say, Smbs, more than enterprise. So that could be an area where we maybe deviate. And there’s not as much overlap like, based on the size of company. We’re targeting the ones that we’ve been doing are like.
78 00:13:38.590 ⇒ 00:13:41.999 Lucas Bennington: I would say, 20 to 500 employees.
79 00:13:42.190 ⇒ 00:13:45.459 Lucas Bennington: either as like a subunit of
80 00:13:45.660 ⇒ 00:13:54.629 Lucas Bennington: a bigger company, or that is the whole company itself, building products for them has been super awesome because we have a consultative approach.
81 00:13:54.790 ⇒ 00:14:15.469 Lucas Bennington: And the way the team is set up we can really plug in nicely to what it is they’re doing, understand their operations and build a better X of what they’re already doing. And those companies aren’t so big that they have an in-house development team that we’d be competing with or like kind of like fighting over resources like they’re like, Oh, this is something that makes sense for us to outsource.
82 00:14:15.890 ⇒ 00:14:33.370 Lucas Bennington: do you guys? And also they’re also not so big that when they make an enterprise software purchase that they have. Like all these kind of consulting packages added on by the vendor that would kind of like make our job a little bit irrelevant. So that’s kind of our sweet spot. We’ve done
83 00:14:33.480 ⇒ 00:14:37.116 Lucas Bennington: about 5 projects in that area in the last year.
84 00:14:37.680 ⇒ 00:14:52.309 Lucas Bennington: across industries. We’ve done a couple in insurance construction. film and entertainment was a big one for us as well. We built kind of like a better accounting system that was specifically tailored for their needs at like client portal.
85 00:14:52.490 ⇒ 00:15:00.829 Lucas Bennington: But that is kind of the target customer profile that we’re looking for. And that’s where, when you’d sent over the brain for Brainforge partner Deck.
86 00:15:01.020 ⇒ 00:15:02.509 Lucas Bennington: I was thinking, okay.
87 00:15:02.670 ⇒ 00:15:09.490 Lucas Bennington: it might be a little bit off, like we might be a little bit too small. So that’s why I wanted to talk it through with you guys like of who we’re targeting. But.
88 00:15:09.490 ⇒ 00:15:10.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
89 00:15:10.070 ⇒ 00:15:14.970 Lucas Bennington: We’ve like had tremendous outcomes, like saving hundreds of hours per month, or.
90 00:15:15.560 ⇒ 00:15:22.040 Lucas Bennington: you know, rapidly streamlining a process or making proposals go out the door 200% faster, like
91 00:15:22.500 ⇒ 00:15:25.410 Lucas Bennington: a big one, also is like saving money on Saas costs, like we’ve cut.
92 00:15:25.410 ⇒ 00:15:25.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
93 00:15:25.970 ⇒ 00:15:39.270 Lucas Bennington: Sas budgets by like 70%, because internal tool we built cost a hundred dollars to host per month versus 60 grand a year, whatever. They’re paying licensing fees. So those kinds of projects, I guess, are the ones that
94 00:15:39.330 ⇒ 00:16:01.030 Lucas Bennington: I’m really invested in targeting aligns with my skill. Set my team skill set. And there’s also something I’m really interested in. The main problem I faced is, how do I find more of those people? And that’s where to kind of tie it full circle where I’m like, okay, what conferences could I go to to meet those people who have kind of enabled us to get these 1st 5 projects, because that 1st handful of projects are people who
95 00:16:01.240 ⇒ 00:16:15.080 Lucas Bennington: sought us out almost like by mistake. And then it was like cause they found us through Bubble, and they were like, Oh, we need this app, and we were able to like make it all work out. But to me that wasn’t like a repeatable business model, because it really required them to like.
96 00:16:15.200 ⇒ 00:16:27.510 Lucas Bennington: really needs to say, Oh, we need to go find a developer and stuff like that like, I want to find the people before they think I need to find a developer. Anyway, I’ve gone off for a little bit too long, but I just wanted to give you the update on where I’m at right now.
97 00:16:27.720 ⇒ 00:16:34.009 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that’s that’s great. I mean congrats on on that. I think. It’s it’s great that you’ve been able to
98 00:16:34.110 ⇒ 00:16:43.279 Robert Tseng: find that like once you’ve worked with like a customer that you just really, you think like everything just kind of lines up. Well, you’re like, I just want to find more of them. So.
99 00:16:43.280 ⇒ 00:16:44.109 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, exactly.
100 00:16:44.110 ⇒ 00:16:45.150 Robert Tseng: You found that?
101 00:16:46.230 ⇒ 00:16:58.430 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think for us, like we kind of have a couple of clients that are in that wheelhouse. So like one is our insurance company as well that we work with and then another one is like a home services company. Both of those are kind of, just like.
102 00:16:58.430 ⇒ 00:17:21.869 Robert Tseng: yeah, they weren’t like who we were targeting with our content, whatever. But they just like like you, said they accidentally find their way to you and like, there’s clearly a need. They’re just like they’re just not active in any of the channels that were that we’re like going after, like they’re not on Linkedin. They’re not on Twitter. They’re not on any of these like digital channels like it’s like a home services company in Austin. They have like billboards and stuff, you know, like, so
103 00:17:21.869 ⇒ 00:17:41.700 Robert Tseng: like, how do we? How do we go and find more of those people? Yeah. So I’m like, is it? The cold email. Is it like cold calling like, do I need to go to like a random like home Services Conference in like South Carolina like I don’t. I don’t know like we have to. Yeah, I’ve also been thinking about that, because those clients are easy to work with. I love working with.
104 00:17:42.384 ⇒ 00:17:46.540 Robert Tseng: It’s just hard to scale up, because I’m like I don’t know how to find them. So.
105 00:17:46.870 ⇒ 00:17:51.769 Lucas Bennington: I know that’s where I’ve been. Yep. Same kind of thing for me, because I feel like
106 00:17:52.190 ⇒ 00:17:58.210 Lucas Bennington: that’s where. So that conference I was telling you that was trying to get me to buy a booth was a landscaping conference of all things.
107 00:17:58.210 ⇒ 00:17:58.660 Robert Tseng: Huh!
108 00:17:58.660 ⇒ 00:18:01.330 Lucas Bennington: I was like, you know, it’s like, weirdly.
109 00:18:01.850 ⇒ 00:18:10.683 Lucas Bennington: that could be a good one to go to. I ended up deciding not to do it. So like, I said, with the hard sell, I was like, Yeah, I just don’t want to make a decision right now.
110 00:18:11.120 ⇒ 00:18:38.420 Lucas Bennington: but yeah, I was like I feel like those kinds of things could be a good. And also we never built any landscaping software. So to like have a good pitch, I’d have to like build something for the conference. And I was like, Yeah, that’s just it just doesn’t seem feasible at this very moment. Where, if it was like construction, like, we have something on hand. That we could just like white label. Essentially, yeah, like, those kinds of things are definitely in mind for me because I’m like where I know these people are somewhere. I just gotta find them.
111 00:18:38.750 ⇒ 00:18:39.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
112 00:18:40.060 ⇒ 00:18:52.919 Robert Tseng: Huh? No, I guess like the idea that that gives me is maybe there’s like one of these, like low tech industry kind of conferences that we can, or like any. Some target will set and
113 00:18:53.320 ⇒ 00:18:58.829 Robert Tseng: maybe we just like take some time kind of meeting up to that to brainstorm like, what’s like, an
114 00:18:59.140 ⇒ 00:19:07.280 Robert Tseng: yeah. If we were to show up at the conference like, who would we like? Who would we be like? Obviously like, yeah, we’re not. You’re you’re like the
115 00:19:07.500 ⇒ 00:19:20.980 Robert Tseng: the the no, no code, low code, like automations app builder. And then for us, we want to be like the like this, super easy, like plug and play like, get get the most out of your data. So like, there’s something about like
116 00:19:21.210 ⇒ 00:19:29.080 Robert Tseng: simplicity or tech tech stack consolidation like and just being just like a helpful
117 00:19:29.180 ⇒ 00:19:34.556 Robert Tseng: like, just like text, like, yeah, some sort of like simple text services like,
118 00:19:36.200 ⇒ 00:19:37.620 Lucas Bennington: It’s like boot.
119 00:19:37.620 ⇒ 00:19:47.779 Robert Tseng: People to just show up at. And then, like, yeah, we would just be able to understand, like, just talk, talk to them about like, what what they’re, what they’re interested in building and try to try to get
120 00:19:48.690 ⇒ 00:19:49.109 Robert Tseng: or do that.
121 00:19:49.110 ⇒ 00:19:58.279 Lucas Bennington: Is it like AI modernization? Because here’s this other with this. What you’ve said makes me think of on like, how do we show up. How do we be like.
122 00:19:58.280 ⇒ 00:19:58.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
123 00:19:58.770 ⇒ 00:20:00.340 Lucas Bennington: What do those people see? As asked.
124 00:20:00.340 ⇒ 00:20:00.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
125 00:20:01.670 ⇒ 00:20:04.979 Lucas Bennington: So I do feel like there’s complements in our service offerings.
126 00:20:04.980 ⇒ 00:20:05.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
127 00:20:05.380 ⇒ 00:20:19.830 Lucas Bennington: What I’ve what, I wonder, is, is there something about like all this? I would say, Zeitgeist, about AI in business, but like very limited practical applications that I’ve seen of like.
128 00:20:20.410 ⇒ 00:20:28.069 Lucas Bennington: Here’s how a business is actually using AI, or like even just thinking about products in the AI world doesn’t mean like, Oh, you have to go
129 00:20:28.270 ⇒ 00:20:33.559 Lucas Bennington: plug AI into your business. So I feel like everything I’ve seen in that world right now has kind of been like.
130 00:20:33.880 ⇒ 00:20:41.180 Lucas Bennington: mostly stupid, and not that useful. Still, like, I think there are some pieces where you say, oh, wow! That was really incredible. Feel like it’s mostly just kind of like hype.
131 00:20:41.350 ⇒ 00:20:41.910 Lucas Bennington: But I want to.
132 00:20:41.910 ⇒ 00:20:55.860 Lucas Bennington: There’s this like desire for people who’s like, Okay, I’ve been running my, you know, low tech business for a while. But and I I hear about these things like, I want to kind of like, take the leap ahead, but I don’t know where to start. And like.
133 00:20:56.280 ⇒ 00:21:01.030 Lucas Bennington: you know, I’m I’m worried about it, or maybe I’m concerned that maybe my business will be left behind.
134 00:21:01.100 ⇒ 00:21:26.320 Lucas Bennington: Is there something I can do to kind of like, get my business updated and ready to like, take advantage of these things, even if it doesn’t mean like, Oh, yeah, like, I don’t necessarily want to be the person to be like. I’m gonna set up AI, you know, help desk person for you. I don’t even know how helpful that is with our current tech stacks that exist. But I wonder if there’s something along those lines of like, I want to modernize my business operations by like getting better data, having better processes. Stuff like that.
135 00:21:26.330 ⇒ 00:21:31.800 Lucas Bennington: I don’t know where to begin. AI makes me feel like I need to take some steps towards that. I don’t know. And then, like.
136 00:21:32.000 ⇒ 00:21:42.290 Lucas Bennington: we are kind of like leading that digital transformation. But like digital transformation to me, feel like going from paper to cloud. So now there’s this other thing of like cloud to
137 00:21:42.850 ⇒ 00:21:49.219 Lucas Bennington: whatever the next thing is like. I don’t have a term for that yet. But yeah, I don’t know. That’s what that’s what comes up for me.
138 00:21:49.560 ⇒ 00:21:54.630 Robert Tseng: I see. Yeah, no, I I really like this. I like that direction.
139 00:21:54.820 ⇒ 00:22:07.199 Robert Tseng: I mean just to kind of give you like, give another like industry perspective. You know a lot of boomer businesses. That are on the market now, a lot of small P firms, or like other kind of like
140 00:22:07.310 ⇒ 00:22:22.850 Robert Tseng: funds that are just buying up these businesses. You know, these are landscaping companies, pool pool services companies. We work with a pool services company as well. So between that and the Home Services company, those are the 2 that we’re familiar with. And so there’s all these like, you know.
141 00:22:23.630 ⇒ 00:22:47.740 Robert Tseng: old businesses that are being bought up. And you know, maybe, like the the directive is to, you know, just bump up the margin. And there needs to be additional transformation investment in that I would love to in a dream world. I want to be a part I want to be, you know, thought of when those companies get bought out. And they’re like, Hey, when you want to talk to, you know, maybe it’s like, Yeah, Lucas and Robert about.
142 00:22:47.740 ⇒ 00:23:05.189 Robert Tseng: okay, how do like, what are what are the what’s like the base? What’s like that? What’s that next hump that we need to invest in in the in order to get the Roi, obviously having the clean app, having a very easy scheduling experience. You you would understand all of like the modern, like customer or user kind of.
143 00:23:05.190 ⇒ 00:23:05.640 Lucas Bennington: Yeah.
144 00:23:05.640 ⇒ 00:23:18.950 Robert Tseng: Interface expectations. And then, from a data perspective, it’s like, this is what you would. This is what you need for your reporting and and whatever like, I think that that to me would be like a that would be a dream like a dream. Yeah.
145 00:23:18.950 ⇒ 00:23:24.350 Lucas Bennington: It’d be an amazing partnership, because we basically could help improve
146 00:23:24.700 ⇒ 00:23:31.380 Lucas Bennington: like both ends of business optimization and really get like real roi. For like post
147 00:23:31.420 ⇒ 00:23:57.510 Lucas Bennington: is like it. Could either be pre acquisition, right? Like you’re getting ready to sell. So you need to bump everything up and make it easier to be more plug and play so that you can get a higher valuation, or it’s post acquisition. And the buyers bring us in and say, Okay, you know this team here. They’re excellent. You don’t need to keep them around forever, necessarily, but they’ll like, get you up and running, and then, like you’re now modernized and ready to go.
148 00:23:58.520 ⇒ 00:24:00.790 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, I love that idea. I think that could be
149 00:24:01.060 ⇒ 00:24:09.439 Lucas Bennington: really effective. And we could build strategies, too, that you know, kind of translate from project to project, which I think you know, is really where the expertise could come through.
150 00:24:10.270 ⇒ 00:24:10.605 Robert Tseng: Okay.
151 00:24:10.950 ⇒ 00:24:39.950 Robert Tseng: cool. Yeah. Then, I think what would be next steps, like, I think one. I’ll send you the couple of case studies from the Pool Services and Home Services Company we work with. Just so you have a sense of like the work that we did for them. If you have anything that you can share from, like the construction company. And like kind of this, this, that kind of pro profile. I just want to be able to better profile like, what do we? How do we like talk about? Our our services? And if, like, how do we? How do we pitch that? I think that would be a great next step. And then.
152 00:24:39.950 ⇒ 00:24:45.299 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think I’m gonna go back to like my like marketing team. And I’m gonna
153 00:24:45.620 ⇒ 00:25:09.639 Robert Tseng: you know, we we do talk to some of these like old business buyers or people who are, you know, selling already. So like I have a few names off the top of my head that I’d like to kind of go back to and be like, Hey, I know you’re trying to sell your business. Here’s like a new like thing that we’re doing. Help you to use your valuations like, I just want to test some of the messaging to see kind of how that hits and then, yeah, I think, as far as like events goes.
154 00:25:09.909 ⇒ 00:25:28.250 Robert Tseng: yeah, maybe there’s like an event that we can kind of pick something low stakes, either like, probably around your area or like around my area. We’ll we’ll try to, I think, falls a good time. A lot of people are conferencing then. So if there’s something that we could work towards there, I think that’d be a good one to just test it out.
155 00:25:28.550 ⇒ 00:25:35.332 Lucas Bennington: Awesome. Yeah, I love that. I think that would be that’d be excellent. Yeah, either home or away.
156 00:25:36.000 ⇒ 00:25:43.880 Lucas Bennington: yeah, I think that sounds all those next steps sound fantastic. And yeah, I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation. I feel like
157 00:25:44.330 ⇒ 00:25:49.010 Lucas Bennington: there could be some really good synergies in working together and.
158 00:25:49.010 ⇒ 00:25:49.420 Robert Tseng: Yes.
159 00:25:49.420 ⇒ 00:25:52.630 Lucas Bennington: Complimentary offers both ways. And Yeah.
160 00:25:52.630 ⇒ 00:26:04.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah, there are. There are many people like serving this kind of group of people. So like, I think this is a great opportunity. And you know, since you’re already familiar with it, like I, I would love to kind of go and put push on that a bit. Yeah.
161 00:26:04.540 ⇒ 00:26:06.960 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, let’s do it. Okay, cool.
162 00:26:06.960 ⇒ 00:26:07.600 Robert Tseng: Cool.
163 00:26:08.295 ⇒ 00:26:11.330 Lucas Bennington: Anything else you want to go over while we’re we’re here.
164 00:26:11.598 ⇒ 00:26:34.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So I guess, like, kind of logistically like, I think we’ll maybe we’ll send. I mean, I don’t know if there’s a i guess we probably send you like an nda. Do some like kinda now that it’s a new entity and stuff, so I don’t know whatever we had with Tango probably do a new one for Brainforge. And then I don’t know is email the best for you, or do you? Would you do like a external slack channel where we can.
165 00:26:34.450 ⇒ 00:26:40.429 Lucas Bennington: Do a slack connect? Yeah, I think that’d be great. Yeah, if you just want to invite this email Lucas at Cody Tech.
166 00:26:40.430 ⇒ 00:26:40.840 Robert Tseng: Okay.
167 00:26:41.101 ⇒ 00:26:47.890 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, I think a connection there would be good. We can just kind of bounce ideas and partnerships that I’ve done in the past. I think.
168 00:26:48.030 ⇒ 00:27:07.369 Lucas Bennington: you know, it takes a little bit of like back and forth to get that 1st one going, but then you can find a really good zone to work together in, and I would look forward to setting that up with you. Yeah. And all of our conversations. I just always get the picture of like, I think we could work really nicely together. I just want to find the right place to do it.
169 00:27:07.530 ⇒ 00:27:13.929 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, no. I think partnerships is a big kind of bet that I’m making. Now, I think.
170 00:27:14.400 ⇒ 00:27:24.649 Robert Tseng: yeah, like you said, it takes a while to kind of get off the ground. But it’s fine, I think, just having multiple fronts that we’re kind of going after whichever one gets momentum, you know, we’ll be able to keep going there.
171 00:27:25.400 ⇒ 00:27:27.209 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, that sounds good.
172 00:27:27.350 ⇒ 00:27:29.732 Robert Tseng: Cool. Alright. Well, thanks for your time, Lucas.
173 00:27:30.030 ⇒ 00:27:30.940 Lucas Bennington: Yeah, likewise.
174 00:27:30.940 ⇒ 00:27:38.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ll I’ll have a Hannah set over like the external slack channel and do any of the get get you everything we talked about from today.
175 00:27:38.840 ⇒ 00:27:43.260 Lucas Bennington: Cool sounds good, cool, alright! Talk to you soon, bye.