Meeting Title: Friday Brainforge Demos & Retro Date: 2025-08-08 Meeting participants: Elissa Mae Cid, Raymund Verzosa, Giselle Agot, Rico Rejoso, Sam Roberts, Henry Zhao, Mustafa Raja, Hannah Wang, Ryan Brosas, Amber Lin, Annie Yu, Uttam Kumaran, Demilade Agboola, Casie Aviles, Robert Tseng, Anne, Awaish Kumar, Vashdev Heerani
WEBVTT
1 00:03:03.300 ⇒ 00:03:06.980 Amber Lin: Oh, hello! Seems that Utah’s not here yet. Oh, there he is!
2 00:03:14.605 ⇒ 00:03:15.700 Elissa Mae Cid: Neither of you.
3 00:03:16.770 ⇒ 00:03:18.290 Elissa Mae Cid: Hello! Good morning.
4 00:03:20.050 ⇒ 00:03:20.940 Amber Lin: Good morning!
5 00:03:20.940 ⇒ 00:03:22.220 Ryan Brosas: Good morning, guys.
6 00:03:22.880 ⇒ 00:03:23.720 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
7 00:03:28.290 ⇒ 00:03:29.080 Robert Tseng: Hey, everyone.
8 00:03:30.980 ⇒ 00:03:32.380 Raymund Verzosa: Busy week.
9 00:03:32.950 ⇒ 00:03:34.459 Uttam Kumaran: It’s great to see everyone.
10 00:03:37.594 ⇒ 00:03:39.650 Uttam Kumaran: How does everyone feel?
11 00:03:40.580 ⇒ 00:03:41.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
12 00:03:42.032 ⇒ 00:03:57.740 Uttam Kumaran: I have. I gave this talk on Tuesday, and my week like hadn’t needed to end there. I’ve been exhausted since then. It was really good, though. I I’ll talk a little bit about it later, but
13 00:03:58.490 ⇒ 00:04:04.038 Uttam Kumaran: that was like the high, and then I was like, Oh, no, I have 3 more days to go
14 00:04:09.000 ⇒ 00:04:12.740 Uttam Kumaran: cool. Who’s who’s leading today? Amber.
15 00:04:13.770 ⇒ 00:04:14.490 Raymund Verzosa: It’s me!
16 00:04:14.490 ⇒ 00:04:16.170 Raymund Verzosa: It’s 8 days.
17 00:04:16.810 ⇒ 00:04:17.320 Amber Lin: Yeah.
18 00:04:17.329 ⇒ 00:04:18.219 Uttam Kumaran: Hooray!
19 00:04:19.559 ⇒ 00:04:25.299 Uttam Kumaran: Does that? I don’t. I don’t know. Maybe you could introduce yourself again, because I feel like you only work with probably half the.
20 00:04:25.300 ⇒ 00:04:25.780 Raymund Verzosa: Oh, yeah.
21 00:04:26.872 ⇒ 00:04:31.440 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe just share who you are. And then, yeah.
22 00:04:32.250 ⇒ 00:04:33.450 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah. So
23 00:04:33.930 ⇒ 00:04:41.209 Raymund Verzosa: Hi, guys, I’m Raymond, very awesome. But you can just call me Ray. I am the video editing guy
24 00:04:41.370 ⇒ 00:04:46.369 Raymund Verzosa: for Brainforge. I do the I work with the marketing team mostly. So yeah.
25 00:04:48.240 ⇒ 00:04:50.530 Raymund Verzosa: and let me just share my screen.
26 00:04:52.870 ⇒ 00:05:03.589 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, all, basically, all our high quality videos are from Ray’s brain. So it’s not something that we could have come up with without him. So yeah.
27 00:05:03.870 ⇒ 00:05:05.529 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, take it away. All right.
28 00:05:06.580 ⇒ 00:05:07.890 Raymund Verzosa: Alright one. Sec.
29 00:05:15.000 ⇒ 00:05:21.130 Raymund Verzosa: Alright. So, hey, everyone so happy. Friday.
30 00:05:21.990 ⇒ 00:05:27.640 Raymund Verzosa: So let’s start it off with the just the icebreaker. So yeah.
31 00:05:28.410 ⇒ 00:05:36.120 Raymund Verzosa: here, so say you woke up tomorrow and had to switch careers entirely. What’s the wildest or most random job you’d
32 00:05:36.440 ⇒ 00:05:37.490 Raymund Verzosa: you?
33 00:05:37.900 ⇒ 00:05:39.819 Raymund Verzosa: You try just for the plot?
34 00:05:40.230 ⇒ 00:05:43.420 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah. So okay, I’ll start it off. So
35 00:05:44.350 ⇒ 00:05:54.450 Raymund Verzosa: fun. Fact about me. Actually, I finished forensics in college. So DNA and all that. But even back then I was already editing videos on the side.
36 00:05:54.700 ⇒ 00:05:59.810 Raymund Verzosa: It was kind of my side hustle. So when I graduated I worked, I worked in a lab.
37 00:05:59.930 ⇒ 00:06:06.750 Raymund Verzosa: So I was there all around on call Guy. I did drug test blood test and even assisted in some couple autopsies. So yeah.
38 00:06:07.180 ⇒ 00:06:13.809 Raymund Verzosa: but I was getting paid way less than what I was making as a freelancer in in my bedroom. So I was like.
39 00:06:14.150 ⇒ 00:06:20.119 Raymund Verzosa: maybe I’ll just stick to cutting videos instead instead of cutting people open. So yeah. So if I
40 00:06:20.920 ⇒ 00:06:28.720 Raymund Verzosa: so if I had to switch careers again tomorrow, I’d probably just go back for to forensic to forensics, just for the flat twist. Yeah.
41 00:06:29.970 ⇒ 00:06:34.040 Raymund Verzosa: yeah, that’s it. Anyways, anyone wanna go next.
42 00:06:36.540 ⇒ 00:06:38.479 Raymund Verzosa: I think Ryan is volunteering.
43 00:06:46.350 ⇒ 00:06:47.470 Ryan Brosas: My
44 00:06:47.870 ⇒ 00:06:58.810 Ryan Brosas: switch random job, that switch career. So yeah for for well, for me. It’s not really
45 00:06:59.050 ⇒ 00:07:18.009 Ryan Brosas: well. Just to like giving like like a quick background for me. So I’m also like a job Hopper. So I experience like a lot of different job. My 1st job is I was a computer shop attendant
46 00:07:18.010 ⇒ 00:07:32.640 Ryan Brosas: and then jumping to like being like a con construction worker, then hopping on to graphic design, then sales so pretty much as you can see. I don’t really have like a straight
47 00:07:33.326 ⇒ 00:07:45.460 Ryan Brosas: direction on careers, so I think more I would be interested on hmm, on
48 00:07:46.096 ⇒ 00:08:08.933 Ryan Brosas: fps like on on the on the on the esports side. I think I would be switching on that because I was also like competitively before I was competing on Fps, on on esports. So I would be, you know, bringing back or focusing on there more.
49 00:08:09.990 ⇒ 00:08:11.459 Uttam Kumaran: What game were you playing?
50 00:08:13.120 ⇒ 00:08:41.000 Ryan Brosas: pretty much. Most of it like counter strike apex legend valorant. I will am current. I was a like a pre-qualifier like competing on a Lds back in 2019. So I stopped playing because it’s kind of like, well, I’m I’m pretty competitive. So it’s it’s not really good on my mental health. So.
51 00:08:41.625 ⇒ 00:08:42.250 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
52 00:08:42.250 ⇒ 00:08:42.775 Ryan Brosas: Yeah.
53 00:08:44.540 ⇒ 00:08:45.770 Uttam Kumaran: That’s wild.
54 00:08:46.060 ⇒ 00:08:47.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. I know Amber played.
55 00:08:48.170 ⇒ 00:08:53.959 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Andrew plays League and some other people that’s awesome.
56 00:08:54.860 ⇒ 00:09:02.430 Amber Lin: Once upon a time. Well, Brian, Casey makes video. Casey likes to make video games. If you want to talk to him.
57 00:09:05.390 ⇒ 00:09:11.160 Amber Lin: I don’t play. My partner plays a lot, so I just mostly watch.
58 00:09:13.680 ⇒ 00:09:15.720 Uttam Kumaran: My girlfriend plays a lot of Sims.
59 00:09:16.010 ⇒ 00:09:26.983 Uttam Kumaran: She’s obsessed with Sims, and then she’ll make she made me in Sims, and then she’ll get mad at me because my SIM is like being annoying.
60 00:09:27.970 ⇒ 00:09:29.399 Robert Tseng: Show us your sin.
61 00:09:30.070 ⇒ 00:09:30.849 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll get. I’ll get.
62 00:09:30.850 ⇒ 00:09:32.449 Robert Tseng: In the random channel. Yeah, give it.
63 00:09:33.660 ⇒ 00:09:34.710 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah.
64 00:09:34.710 ⇒ 00:09:42.550 Uttam Kumaran: she made it. She’s like, it’s very it’s very like true to reality. So my SIM is like
65 00:09:43.150 ⇒ 00:09:57.040 Uttam Kumaran: obsessed with working on on his job, and I’m like you could have given me like any other thing. She made me like a computer programmer, and she’s like your SIM is like not leaving the office ever like sounds about right. I’m like.
66 00:09:57.170 ⇒ 00:10:01.659 Uttam Kumaran: do like. At least you could make him a little bit more well rounded.
67 00:10:04.402 ⇒ 00:10:06.639 Uttam Kumaran: I I don’t know for me.
68 00:10:07.550 ⇒ 00:10:10.279 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if there is like a
69 00:10:10.420 ⇒ 00:10:19.809 Uttam Kumaran: completely random job, although, like, I think, one thing that I’m learning in this job just because I’m having to talk to like in a given week.
70 00:10:19.930 ⇒ 00:10:27.789 Uttam Kumaran: I probably talked to 10 to 15 like new people I’ve never met where I have to pitch them
71 00:10:28.150 ⇒ 00:10:36.080 Uttam Kumaran: on what we do, or ask them for some way to help Brain Forge. And I’m getting extremely good at like
72 00:10:36.710 ⇒ 00:10:49.319 Uttam Kumaran: like just small talk and like getting. So maybe I think something like being in a coffee shop or something where I can interact with like that. Many people I feel like I’m getting good at, like
73 00:10:49.660 ⇒ 00:11:01.579 Uttam Kumaran: getting people on on our side and getting getting them to like. I could probably get them to upgrade to a large coffee or get the pastry probably pretty easy, like my upsell Kpis would probably be.
74 00:11:01.690 ⇒ 00:11:02.999 Uttam Kumaran: I probably crash.
75 00:11:03.480 ⇒ 00:11:04.520 Uttam Kumaran: So
76 00:11:05.370 ⇒ 00:11:11.402 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, that that would be fine. I think that’d be a good use of these small talk skills. I’m learning. So
77 00:11:13.555 ⇒ 00:11:17.029 Uttam Kumaran: maybe I’ll popcorn to Sam.
78 00:11:20.130 ⇒ 00:11:21.243 Sam Roberts: Oh, boy,
79 00:11:22.260 ⇒ 00:11:28.950 Sam Roberts: I’m also someone that jumped around a little bit. My background is in mechanical engineering so I I probably jump
80 00:11:29.360 ⇒ 00:11:35.869 Sam Roberts: somewhere back to like I don’t know. I I liked aerospace when I was studying.
81 00:11:36.390 ⇒ 00:11:37.360 Sam Roberts: I don’t know.
82 00:11:37.490 ⇒ 00:11:41.880 Sam Roberts: Probably something there, a little more hands on, little more physical, like building.
83 00:11:41.880 ⇒ 00:11:45.410 Uttam Kumaran: Well, tell the team like anything you’re working on mechanically these days.
84 00:11:47.970 ⇒ 00:11:51.980 Sam Roberts: Yeah, I mean, I’ve I got really into 3D printing in the past few years.
85 00:11:52.550 ⇒ 00:11:57.300 Sam Roberts: So I still like model and do like 3D CAD design stuff.
86 00:11:57.677 ⇒ 00:12:03.779 Sam Roberts: I had a clock that I was trying to build like a mechanical clock with 3D. Printed parts that is, in
87 00:12:05.450 ⇒ 00:12:12.450 Sam Roberts: semifunctional states. So it’s not quite where I want it. But you know it’s a fun project to pick up every now.
88 00:12:13.770 ⇒ 00:12:23.709 Uttam Kumaran: And, Sam, maybe while I have you on the call, because I gave a brief explanation of you last time. But can you give a little bit of like your backstory, especially your 1st
89 00:12:24.112 ⇒ 00:12:29.240 Uttam Kumaran: job that you’re involved in. I think a lot of people would be interested to hear like a little bit of your background.
90 00:12:30.000 ⇒ 00:12:39.500 Sam Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. So like, I said, I, I had studied engineering, mechanical engineering. I got into startups right out of college. Did a program called Venture for America.
91 00:12:39.640 ⇒ 00:12:42.440 Sam Roberts: That placed me with a startup here in Cleveland.
92 00:12:42.550 ⇒ 00:12:45.550 Sam Roberts: I also had my own company called Bookwork
93 00:12:45.810 ⇒ 00:12:48.730 Sam Roberts: at that point that we were trying to do like
94 00:12:48.980 ⇒ 00:13:00.799 Sam Roberts: matching of college students with part-time work in their field. After that I was doing freelancing web development stuff and started helping out a friend on a Hair Care company.
95 00:13:01.050 ⇒ 00:13:09.690 Sam Roberts: And so I made hair care products for a number of years in the kitchen as a blender for a while with avocados making.
96 00:13:09.690 ⇒ 00:13:10.310 Robert Tseng: Bye.
97 00:13:10.310 ⇒ 00:13:15.850 Sam Roberts: Deep conditioner with fresh avocados, eventually into a big warehouse where I was managing a team, making
98 00:13:16.040 ⇒ 00:13:35.910 Sam Roberts: shampoos and conditioners, and leaving oils and all kinds of stuff and doing fulfillment and online orders and co-packers. It was a very different job than the tech stuff that I’ve now that I left in it of them come back to but yeah. And then, since then I’ve been back in the tech world, I worked in a company in London for a number of years
99 00:13:36.050 ⇒ 00:13:38.169 Sam Roberts: back in Cleveland. Now.
100 00:13:38.891 ⇒ 00:13:40.219 Sam Roberts: Yeah. Back in the.
101 00:13:40.220 ⇒ 00:13:42.360 Uttam Kumaran: What are your what are your.
102 00:13:42.500 ⇒ 00:13:46.599 Uttam Kumaran: what it? What would can you give us like one or 2 hair care tips that you learned
103 00:13:47.312 ⇒ 00:13:52.919 Uttam Kumaran: from your time building, making shampoos and stuff, or like, or, yeah, question, yeah.
104 00:13:52.920 ⇒ 00:13:58.020 Uttam Kumaran: for for immediate follow up would be, what product should we not be buying
105 00:13:59.860 ⇒ 00:14:04.619 Uttam Kumaran: as you can see, I cut all my hair, so I’m probably not the target audience. Really, I’m pretty.
106 00:14:04.620 ⇒ 00:14:05.809 Sam Roberts: Yeah. Well, that’s the thing. I wasn’t.
107 00:14:05.810 ⇒ 00:14:06.170 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of.
108 00:14:06.170 ⇒ 00:14:08.350 Sam Roberts: Good audience, either, for this company, you know.
109 00:14:08.850 ⇒ 00:14:34.099 Sam Roberts: it’s funny, because, like, it was like people with like curly hair were like our target market. So like the curly your hair is, the drier it tends to be, because the oils can’t travel, that it’s very like just oils that you you make don’t travel down so it tends to be dry, which is why we’re making this deep conditioner. That would hydrate the the thing that I learned the most was that, you know, we were trying to sell a subscription
110 00:14:34.200 ⇒ 00:15:01.010 Sam Roberts: to our products, partly because that’s great for making money, but also because the consistency is what matters for keeping your hair healthy. So if you’re someone who has drier hair and gets like breakage and things, you need to really stick with it, because just doing like one deep conditioner treatment is like great. But you got to do it again in 2 weeks, or in a month or it’s it’s a it’s a
111 00:15:01.450 ⇒ 00:15:11.769 Sam Roberts: it’s a lifestyle. When you really get into taking care of your like, especially if you have like curly hair, long, curly hair. It’s crazy. It’s a crazy world that I I did not know much about when I 1st got into it, so.
112 00:15:11.770 ⇒ 00:15:17.719 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna need an sop on how to maintain my hair, because I have no routine for hair.
113 00:15:18.320 ⇒ 00:15:19.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
114 00:15:19.840 ⇒ 00:15:26.780 Sam Roberts: Yeah, I’ve I’ve I’ve fallen out of it a little bit myself. It’s it’s not really. Yeah.
115 00:15:27.600 ⇒ 00:15:28.690 Uttam Kumaran: That’s awesome.
116 00:15:30.510 ⇒ 00:15:32.840 Uttam Kumaran: Feel free to popcorn it to someone.
117 00:15:33.470 ⇒ 00:15:36.199 Sam Roberts: Oh, yeah, who do we got here?
118 00:15:36.710 ⇒ 00:15:38.770 Sam Roberts: Mustafa, are you here? There you are!
119 00:15:40.330 ⇒ 00:15:44.178 Mustafa Raja: Yeah. So previously, I was
120 00:15:45.140 ⇒ 00:15:50.069 Mustafa Raja: in mobile development and web development. So maybe I’ll hop back to that.
121 00:15:50.520 ⇒ 00:15:53.509 Mustafa Raja: I don’t have any other experience. Actually.
122 00:15:54.440 ⇒ 00:15:56.620 Uttam Kumaran: That’s so wild and random.
123 00:15:56.990 ⇒ 00:15:59.085 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
124 00:16:02.390 ⇒ 00:16:02.790 Mustafa Raja: Yeah.
125 00:16:02.790 ⇒ 00:16:05.980 Uttam Kumaran: You gotta do something, do something in the real world. I feel like.
126 00:16:06.940 ⇒ 00:16:12.040 Mustafa Raja: Yeah, really. I’ll I’ll pass it on to Casey.
127 00:16:15.870 ⇒ 00:16:20.899 Casie Aviles: Yeah, I like to imagine a lot of other kinds of jobs that I would have taken.
128 00:16:22.038 ⇒ 00:16:26.730 Casie Aviles: The obvious one is, yeah, a game developer, probably, but
129 00:16:27.110 ⇒ 00:16:31.379 Casie Aviles: I guess the second one is, I might have done something in journalism.
130 00:16:32.930 ⇒ 00:16:37.759 Casie Aviles: I have like a you know. I used to be in the in my school publication before. So
131 00:16:38.240 ⇒ 00:16:43.199 Casie Aviles: something I did before feel free to feel pretty comfortable doing.
132 00:16:45.280 ⇒ 00:16:46.669 Casie Aviles: But yeah, I guess
133 00:16:47.170 ⇒ 00:16:54.970 Casie Aviles: if the 3rd one I’m thinking of is, I don’t know. I’ll probably be be a farmer, too, just to get away from from the computer screen.
134 00:16:56.700 ⇒ 00:16:59.370 Casie Aviles: But yeah, that’s it for me.
135 00:17:03.240 ⇒ 00:17:04.099 Casie Aviles: What else
136 00:17:04.700 ⇒ 00:17:07.760 Casie Aviles: I guess I’ll popcorn to.
137 00:17:13.032 ⇒ 00:17:17.257 Demilade Agboola: So I think if I were to do another job
138 00:17:18.839 ⇒ 00:17:22.179 Demilade Agboola: random fun, random fun. Fact, the
139 00:17:22.919 ⇒ 00:17:29.002 Demilade Agboola: what I always wanted to do like since I was like, maybe 13 was, I wanted to be
140 00:17:30.349 ⇒ 00:17:54.999 Demilade Agboola: an electrical engineer in Mercedes, like an electronics engineer in Mercedes. Like, I really want to like. I really wanted to design their systems. I think they always believe they have some of the best tech in their cars, and I really want to be part of that process that designed that. It’s kind of why I studied electrical electronics engineering. I got disillusioned by that. Or I could actually be a perfume connoisseur. I just thought I saw that I saw the chat. But
141 00:17:55.699 ⇒ 00:18:14.559 Demilade Agboola: I think that was what led me to electrical engineering. And then I found data. And I was like, that’s what I want to do instead. Or I could just start a Youtube channel where I’m just reviewing perfumes. That’s also something I could do. The joke there, for people who might not know is that I have a collection of about 35, 40 perfumes. So
142 00:18:14.759 ⇒ 00:18:18.899 Demilade Agboola: that’s where that that’s where that joke comes from.
143 00:18:20.230 ⇒ 00:18:28.360 Demilade Agboola: I have a lot. My brother has a collection of like 100 perfumes, my elder brother, so you know I still have some ways to go.
144 00:18:29.498 ⇒ 00:18:33.509 Demilade Agboola: I will popcorn over to Annie.
145 00:18:36.710 ⇒ 00:18:39.007 Annie Yu: Yeah. So for me, it’s easy.
146 00:18:39.710 ⇒ 00:18:55.670 Annie Yu: One thing that I do on the weekends is going to estate sale. I’m not sure if estate sale is a thing outside of the Us. But usually it’s like a public sale of a person’s personal belongings, usually at their house, and it could be
147 00:18:56.095 ⇒ 00:19:16.530 Annie Yu: like following their death, or sometimes people divorce bankruptcy and like downsize for earlier retirement. And I love going on estate sales, but I don’t have a large house, so there’s lots of things that I would love to buy, but never got to, because I can’t fit that in my house. So
148 00:19:16.530 ⇒ 00:19:27.160 Annie Yu: if anything. I’m going to be an estate sale liquidator, and then I guess I would then like have a space to store whatever I want to buy.
149 00:19:27.170 ⇒ 00:19:28.000 Annie Yu: but can.
150 00:19:28.000 ⇒ 00:19:31.987 Uttam Kumaran: What? What are some recent? What are some? What are some recent
151 00:19:32.630 ⇒ 00:19:35.209 Uttam Kumaran: things that you’ve gotten like anything cool.
152 00:19:36.413 ⇒ 00:19:49.239 Annie Yu: Like mid century furniture. And there are some like cool, antique jewelry, and just lots of like painting, like, yeah, things that you can’t really see in like the stores nowadays.
153 00:19:50.500 ⇒ 00:20:02.849 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I go. I do a lot of thrift shopping here. And then we we got some like, but I just yeah, maybe I should go to state sales for furniture, because sometimes they don’t have great furniture at thrift stores.
154 00:20:03.940 ⇒ 00:20:10.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, a lot of like for like graphic tees. And like, I know amber also goes to some.
155 00:20:10.430 ⇒ 00:20:16.759 Uttam Kumaran: but it could also be tough, like. I don’t like sifting through like so many clothes they can. I do like
156 00:20:17.390 ⇒ 00:20:20.569 Uttam Kumaran: looking at furniture and stuff like that. It’s it’s really nice.
157 00:20:21.260 ⇒ 00:20:27.149 Annie Yu: Yeah, I would say definitely, highly recommend getting furniture from there, because usually there are.
158 00:20:27.338 ⇒ 00:20:28.089 Uttam Kumaran: Just find it on.
159 00:20:28.360 ⇒ 00:20:29.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, find it on.
160 00:20:29.790 ⇒ 00:20:31.439 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay, nice.
161 00:20:31.440 ⇒ 00:20:34.563 Annie Yu: And there. There’s an estate sale app.
162 00:20:35.010 ⇒ 00:20:39.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that was my next question was, gonna be, are you finding these on Facebook or.
163 00:20:40.350 ⇒ 00:20:57.299 Annie Yu: Yeah, there’s an app dedicated for that. And and they’re usually priced pretty well. And people I love those because people maintain people have been using them, and they usually like take pretty good care of their furniture at home. So it’s it’s definitely a good place to get furniture.
164 00:20:58.620 ⇒ 00:20:59.390 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
165 00:21:02.860 ⇒ 00:21:06.259 Annie Yu: I’ll popcorn to Hannah.
166 00:21:09.020 ⇒ 00:21:10.295 Hannah Wang: Oh,
167 00:21:11.690 ⇒ 00:21:23.810 Hannah Wang: I feel like I would want to do wedding hairstyling. I’m already trying to do wedding photography. But let’s try a different plot. That’s maybe not so different. But
168 00:21:23.960 ⇒ 00:21:27.650 Hannah Wang: I mean, currently, well, I’m like.
169 00:21:27.770 ⇒ 00:21:47.191 Hannah Wang: so I’m like, pretty good with doing hairstyle. So I can braid a lot. I obviously don’t do it on myself, but I can but with other people I was always known as like the person who could braid and do hair, so I would always do my roommates hair like a fishtail braid, or like a Dutch braid or something. So
170 00:21:48.210 ⇒ 00:21:55.119 Hannah Wang: I did do like a couple of bridesmaids, for, like a friend that was getting married last December, I did.
171 00:21:55.120 ⇒ 00:21:55.980 Uttam Kumaran: That’s so. High price.
172 00:21:56.380 ⇒ 00:21:57.880 Uttam Kumaran: Wow! That’s crazy.
173 00:21:57.880 ⇒ 00:22:19.450 Hannah Wang: I know I was like, Why are you asking me to do it? But she’s like, Oh, I trust you. Okay. So I just looked up like Youtube videos. And then I did their hairstyles half up, half down and it was really fun. And I’ve always liked doing hair and curling hair and styling it. I feel like I’m pretty crafty with my hands. So that’s just one area that I feel like
174 00:22:19.450 ⇒ 00:22:32.639 Hannah Wang: I could go into. And it’s fun making things look pretty. I enjoy doing that. So maybe that’s why I’m in design, too, making things look pretty. So yeah, I would be like a hairstyle person, probably not like a
175 00:22:32.830 ⇒ 00:22:35.080 Hannah Wang: haircutor, or what were they called.
176 00:22:35.860 ⇒ 00:22:36.430 Uttam Kumaran: Barbara.
177 00:22:36.430 ⇒ 00:22:40.339 Hannah Wang: When you like a barber. Yeah, I wouldn’t do that. Yeah, I would just
178 00:22:40.770 ⇒ 00:22:44.510 Hannah Wang: hop around to different weddings and do hair. So
179 00:22:45.060 ⇒ 00:22:48.880 Hannah Wang: okay, that’s mine. Amber go next.
180 00:22:54.380 ⇒ 00:23:19.369 Amber Lin: Funny thing. I also have a big collection of perfume, but because I’m so broke I have perfume testers instead of actual perfume. So it was just organizing, because we’re about to move soon, and I have a I have a full box, and it just jingles with all the glass bottles of the testers in there. But I think if if I were to do a different job
181 00:23:20.000 ⇒ 00:23:23.640 Amber Lin: I’ve already done many different jobs. So if it’s not anything
182 00:23:25.220 ⇒ 00:23:30.950 Amber Lin: currently professionally related, I think, could be a stylist
183 00:23:31.260 ⇒ 00:23:45.409 Amber Lin: like a upcycle stylus. Because if you give me a piece of fabric, I have no clue what to do. But if you give me an existing piece of clothing I can make a lot of things out of it. So that’s what
184 00:23:45.790 ⇒ 00:23:47.439 Amber Lin: that’s what I would prefer.
185 00:23:47.440 ⇒ 00:23:49.029 Uttam Kumaran: Do you spinch? By the way.
186 00:23:51.094 ⇒ 00:24:01.050 Amber Lin: occasionally I’m lazy, so I don’t want to stitch, but sometimes, if I don’t stitch, things will fall off so I I have.
187 00:24:01.050 ⇒ 00:24:06.919 Uttam Kumaran: It’s hard to learn. I I need to. I wanted to learn the other day because there’s some stuff I need that I wanted to stitch.
188 00:24:07.110 ⇒ 00:24:23.290 Amber Lin: Oh, I think stitching itself. If you just want to keep things together, it’s not hard. That’s what I do. Anyways, I can’t do any pretty stitching, and hence all my clothes look a little bit Bohemian, because I because I can’t put it together.
189 00:24:24.290 ⇒ 00:24:25.090 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
190 00:24:25.690 ⇒ 00:24:28.150 Amber Lin: Wow! The the comments are crazy.
191 00:24:32.850 ⇒ 00:24:36.249 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. I know we’re at anyone else. Wanna go really quickly.
192 00:24:41.250 ⇒ 00:24:55.979 Henry Zhao: I’ll go really quickly. So I’ve also had a lot of different job. I’ve been a wedding bartender like a piano teacher. A lot of different stuff. So I probably want to try something different, like either be a doctor or maybe work in an airline like route planning, because I think that would be really fun.
193 00:24:57.960 ⇒ 00:24:59.550 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, interesting!
194 00:24:59.820 ⇒ 00:25:02.610 Henry Zhao: If we ever get a airline clients, let me know.
195 00:25:03.587 ⇒ 00:25:06.122 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s only a couple.
196 00:25:07.250 ⇒ 00:25:14.400 Uttam Kumaran: Well, that’d be great. Yeah, that’s awesome. Oh, everybody, a lot of people are have been doing wedding stuff. We have weddings. We have hair.
197 00:25:14.910 ⇒ 00:25:18.790 Uttam Kumaran: We have sort of thrift, upcycle clothing.
198 00:25:20.660 ⇒ 00:25:27.029 Uttam Kumaran: And we have web development. Yes, awesome, awesome mix guys.
199 00:25:28.650 ⇒ 00:25:29.185 Raymund Verzosa: Alright.
200 00:25:30.250 ⇒ 00:25:32.429 Raymund Verzosa: Thanks everyone for sharing. So
201 00:25:33.240 ⇒ 00:25:39.300 Raymund Verzosa: yeah, a quick love share. So I did mention I was in forensics. So let’s look at some dead bodies today?
202 00:25:40.320 ⇒ 00:25:43.670 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah, I’m kidding. So yeah, key phrase.
203 00:25:46.730 ⇒ 00:25:50.040 Raymund Verzosa: alright. So keyframes in video editing.
204 00:25:50.920 ⇒ 00:25:56.280 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah, so what are keyframes? So in video editing, keyframes are just
205 00:25:57.450 ⇒ 00:26:16.470 Raymund Verzosa: keyframes are used to control properties such as position, scale rotation, and opacity. For example, if you want an object to move across the screen, you’d set a keyframe at the starting point, then another where you want it to end. The software automatically fills in the motion in between those 2 points, creating a smooth transition.
206 00:26:17.050 ⇒ 00:26:21.329 Raymund Verzosa: So just think of it like a bookmark that says, Start here and then
207 00:26:22.190 ⇒ 00:26:26.980 Raymund Verzosa: start here and then end here. And then the software will fill in the change.
208 00:26:27.800 ⇒ 00:26:35.879 Raymund Verzosa: And yeah, so why do keyframes matter so without keyframes your edits just kind of like pop into existence?
209 00:26:36.210 ⇒ 00:26:42.569 Raymund Verzosa: Well, it works, but it it kind of feels janky. And with keyframes you can make things
210 00:26:43.000 ⇒ 00:26:46.030 Raymund Verzosa: fade in smoothly, zoom smoothly, and
211 00:26:46.180 ⇒ 00:26:57.739 Raymund Verzosa: it adds a little more polish and makes your video more professional. And yeah, it also holds viewers attention when there’s something moving in the screen. So yeah.
212 00:26:59.560 ⇒ 00:27:03.370 Raymund Verzosa: so here are some examples on what you can animate.
213 00:27:04.610 ⇒ 00:27:17.440 Raymund Verzosa: You can use keyframes to almost animate anything. So position you can move something from left, right up, down, everywhere, and for scale. You can just make something grow and shrink.
214 00:27:17.670 ⇒ 00:27:25.880 Raymund Verzosa: and for opacity you can feed something in or out, and for rotation you can just spin, spin it, and for effects you can just
215 00:27:26.460 ⇒ 00:27:30.219 Raymund Verzosa: make it glow, whatever color you want it to be.
216 00:27:30.750 ⇒ 00:27:36.670 Raymund Verzosa: And there’s other stuff you can do with it. And yeah, so here’s another example.
217 00:27:36.850 ⇒ 00:27:38.700 Raymund Verzosa: So with keyframes
218 00:27:40.004 ⇒ 00:27:47.360 Raymund Verzosa: here in this in the left one the text fades in smoothly, while on the right it just kind of like
219 00:27:47.980 ⇒ 00:27:49.670 Raymund Verzosa: pops out of nowhere.
220 00:27:50.140 ⇒ 00:27:50.970 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah.
221 00:27:51.230 ⇒ 00:27:59.269 Raymund Verzosa: I mean, both can get the message across. But this one feels like feels a little bit more smoother and more on purpose.
222 00:28:00.800 ⇒ 00:28:02.110 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah, so
223 00:28:02.700 ⇒ 00:28:09.219 Raymund Verzosa: so how it actually works. So I can show you guys a quick demo on how it works. So
224 00:28:09.780 ⇒ 00:28:13.539 Raymund Verzosa: here, if you want this circle to move from left to right, you can just
225 00:28:13.740 ⇒ 00:28:18.089 Raymund Verzosa: add a freeframe from the start and move a few frames.
226 00:28:18.380 ⇒ 00:28:22.419 Raymund Verzosa: Move a few seconds and set an endpoint here.
227 00:28:22.630 ⇒ 00:28:28.659 Raymund Verzosa: And you wanted to move over there. So yeah, so when you play it back
228 00:28:29.700 ⇒ 00:28:34.030 Raymund Verzosa: it? Yeah, that’s basically animation right there. And
229 00:28:34.590 ⇒ 00:28:38.340 Raymund Verzosa: so if you want it to move quicker, you can.
230 00:28:38.770 ⇒ 00:28:45.800 Raymund Verzosa: you can just move the endpoint closer to the starting point. So it moves way quicker.
231 00:28:46.860 ⇒ 00:28:55.069 Raymund Verzosa: You can also animate the scale, the rotation, everything. If you want to change the colors and all that.
232 00:28:55.750 ⇒ 00:28:58.430 Raymund Verzosa: So another example is the scale.
233 00:28:59.150 ⇒ 00:29:01.559 Raymund Verzosa: If you want it to like Pop.
234 00:29:02.860 ⇒ 00:29:07.150 Raymund Verzosa: you can start a keyframe where it begins as a small one.
235 00:29:07.540 ⇒ 00:29:09.499 Raymund Verzosa: and then a few frames forward
236 00:29:10.200 ⇒ 00:29:13.250 Raymund Verzosa: begins bigger one, and then a few frames forward.
237 00:29:13.560 ⇒ 00:29:19.460 Raymund Verzosa: It goes back to the normal side. So when you watch it back, it pops in something like that.
238 00:29:19.860 ⇒ 00:29:24.979 Raymund Verzosa: So that’s just key simple animations. That’s right. So
239 00:29:25.860 ⇒ 00:29:33.639 Raymund Verzosa: you probably don’t know you’ll probably be. You’ll probably see them more often now that you have like a
240 00:29:34.010 ⇒ 00:29:39.209 Raymund Verzosa: key understanding of it. So when you see something moving the screen, you can.
241 00:29:39.920 ⇒ 00:29:44.700 Raymund Verzosa: you can tell it’s been keyframed or animated. Something like that.
242 00:29:45.210 ⇒ 00:29:48.360 Raymund Verzosa: I think I can show you guys something I’ve I’m working on.
243 00:29:49.260 ⇒ 00:29:50.279 Raymund Verzosa: Oh, no, wait.
244 00:29:51.140 ⇒ 00:29:53.399 Raymund Verzosa: It’s more. It’s more complex. But
245 00:29:54.510 ⇒ 00:29:58.290 Raymund Verzosa: just an example on what a keyframe can do.
246 00:29:58.750 ⇒ 00:30:03.639 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And also curious. Right? If you use any keyframes, yeah, for for any of our stuff.
247 00:30:03.750 ⇒ 00:30:06.180 Uttam Kumaran: it’d be cool to see that what the end product is.
248 00:30:06.430 ⇒ 00:30:11.470 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah. So this is, this one is a work in progress and just messing around, if
249 00:30:12.210 ⇒ 00:30:17.110 Raymund Verzosa: if if it if it’s good. So yeah, here’s here’s 1.
250 00:30:23.780 ⇒ 00:30:24.340 Uttam Kumaran: It’s crazy.
251 00:30:26.340 ⇒ 00:30:39.020 Uttam Kumaran: What you showed before is so much more simpler than what you just showed. You’re like, yeah, you just do that. And then you get whatever this, this is crazy. Wait! Can you play it? One more time.
252 00:30:39.020 ⇒ 00:30:40.410 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah, for sure.
253 00:30:46.700 ⇒ 00:30:50.589 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah, that’s what I finished just now. Yeah.
254 00:30:50.590 ⇒ 00:30:50.970 Uttam Kumaran: Why?
255 00:30:50.970 ⇒ 00:30:58.803 Raymund Verzosa: There’s there’s there’s like 100 there’s more layers from it. I just. I just merged them down so it looks a little cleaner.
256 00:30:59.590 ⇒ 00:31:04.429 Raymund Verzosa: but there’s like, I think, 15 layers just from that small scene.
257 00:31:04.570 ⇒ 00:31:05.320 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah.
258 00:31:05.610 ⇒ 00:31:13.910 Uttam Kumaran: Is there anything in in our? Is there anything in our existing Youtube or clips where you can show like the end to end
259 00:31:14.690 ⇒ 00:31:17.120 Uttam Kumaran: like how it, how it ends up, rendering
260 00:31:17.980 ⇒ 00:31:20.400 Raymund Verzosa: I don’t. I don’t think I
261 00:31:21.390 ⇒ 00:31:36.879 Raymund Verzosa: I have it rendered cause I have this pre pre rendered cause playing it like live. It’s like, it’s laggy as well. So I had this one ready. But yeah.
262 00:31:37.950 ⇒ 00:31:45.239 Raymund Verzosa: it’s I actually use different software for that one cause the the logo animations are like.
263 00:31:45.470 ⇒ 00:31:51.410 Raymund Verzosa: mostly done in after effects. So yeah, this one is just just the basic ones.
264 00:31:54.650 ⇒ 00:32:01.169 Raymund Verzosa: Right? So yeah, I think that’s that’s just a basic key framework.
265 00:32:02.050 ⇒ 00:32:09.030 Raymund Verzosa: And yeah, here’s some small key takeaway. So key keyframes
266 00:32:09.180 ⇒ 00:32:16.869 Raymund Verzosa: let you control stuff. They make static edits feel more alive. And they’re super simple. But
267 00:32:17.550 ⇒ 00:32:22.800 Raymund Verzosa: but yeah, they even the smallest touch of motion, can level up your video a lot.
268 00:32:23.440 ⇒ 00:32:27.089 Raymund Verzosa: And yeah, that’s it. Thanks for listening
269 00:32:32.090 ⇒ 00:32:32.760 Raymund Verzosa: right?
270 00:32:36.450 ⇒ 00:32:37.839 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, Ray. That’s great.
271 00:32:37.840 ⇒ 00:32:38.970 Raymund Verzosa: Yeah. Thanks.
272 00:32:42.830 ⇒ 00:32:48.359 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, feel free if you want to just hit slideshow and then can just run through these
273 00:32:53.100 ⇒ 00:33:03.359 Uttam Kumaran: great so I’ll give you a brief update on what we’re thinking about for August. So if I can give you a little bit of a reflection of July
274 00:33:03.980 ⇒ 00:33:29.920 Uttam Kumaran: we had a great new client logo month, a couple of particular clients, insomnia, cookies, spark, plug, interlude, all sign and started. We also start sign and started our work with default. We started and and finished up the 1st set of work for Fan Stake, and just today
275 00:33:30.010 ⇒ 00:33:35.219 Uttam Kumaran: finished up the work for Plan medicare, and they want to move forward on the next phase. So
276 00:33:35.530 ⇒ 00:33:38.929 Uttam Kumaran: I think I list like 5 or 6, you know.
277 00:33:39.380 ⇒ 00:34:04.060 Uttam Kumaran: that it was really really incredible month for new Logos. I think one of the challenges, of course, is like as we get more work, we have to fulfill. And so we are now, you know, in the phase of like, how do we build process when we move from 6 or 7 clients to 1314, 15 clients? So the kind of the spotlight is on. The delivery squad on how we do that.
278 00:34:04.346 ⇒ 00:34:32.840 Uttam Kumaran: But there’s also a lot of reflection on how we replicate these results month after month. Right? So we had several clients, a lot of those clients we actually started talking to 2 months ago or 3 months ago. And they moved into the 1st phase, which is just like the 2 to 4 week trial, and then we move them into a large longer engagement. We have an additional 4 or 5 that are in that mode right now. And so our goal is to just make sure we can get those. So I’m sort of gonna jump around a couple of these bullets. But
279 00:34:33.300 ⇒ 00:34:40.776 Uttam Kumaran: our goal for this quarter is to try to hit 110,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
280 00:34:41.280 ⇒ 00:35:04.050 Uttam Kumaran: Mrr is not a great like. It’s not technically recurring because these are contracts. But it’s let’s just say these are typically contracted revenue. We’re currently at about 70, grand in in revenue. The other thing is like, we’re not just here to hit our total revenue goals. We need to make sure that
281 00:35:04.504 ⇒ 00:35:12.280 Uttam Kumaran: a couple of things could happen. One. We can start building some cash for the business to go to go into the bank.
282 00:35:12.730 ⇒ 00:35:20.120 Uttam Kumaran: Couple of reasons. This is important. One. It smooths out payroll, and payroll delays, which I know is affects everyone here.
283 00:35:20.676 ⇒ 00:35:36.310 Uttam Kumaran: Second is allows us to build up actually like a balance for the business and a balance sheet for unexpected expenses like legal finance or actually have cash to go do things
284 00:35:37.014 ⇒ 00:35:57.730 Uttam Kumaran: and then so the really, the goal here is, how do we achieve 40% gross margin? And so for the folks that have worked on financial data. You know that gross margin is the total amount of revenue that comes in minus the cost to service that revenue. Right? So, for example, I just bought this book on Amazon. Right? So this book, let’s say, cost
285 00:35:58.090 ⇒ 00:36:11.770 Uttam Kumaran: it cost me 10 to make the gross margin on. That is 50% right? But what is not accounted for in that gross margin is the tax
286 00:36:11.820 ⇒ 00:36:22.360 Uttam Kumaran: is the sort of all the sales and customer acquisition costs they have to pay to acquire me. It’s purely just the cost to develop the product?
287 00:36:22.797 ⇒ 00:36:48.520 Uttam Kumaran: And so the reason why we aim for 40% is because after 40, there are series of things that continue to eat into margin. So 40% is really the team that executes on the task. But we also have our sales marketing, finance, legal operations work that help to support the entire company. Right? So that is another rung of margin. Typically, that’s what’s called Sg and A, which is sales
288 00:36:48.520 ⇒ 00:36:56.850 Uttam Kumaran: general and administrative expenses. And then we have tax, and then we can achieve, you know, let’s see what’s called profit.
289 00:36:56.910 ⇒ 00:37:14.399 Uttam Kumaran: So 40% is a great goal for us to look for, to start to build a sustainable business around, I would say to date, we have hovered around 20 to 30%. But at the moment I think we’re as our revenue starts to eclipse, we actually are not bringing on
290 00:37:14.520 ⇒ 00:37:22.070 Uttam Kumaran: more non like engineer expenses. As much as possible. So
291 00:37:22.340 ⇒ 00:37:31.119 Uttam Kumaran: all that being said, is to have 40% goal. Here, I think, is is going to be healthy. And it’s something that we’re going to be looking for the delivery team to try to achieve
292 00:37:32.490 ⇒ 00:37:47.700 Uttam Kumaran: another couple of things that we did. So we we created this system called Aors and Okrs. Aors are areas of responsibility. So in the company we have, you know, roughly, 50 to 100 different processes that have that happen outside of client work.
293 00:37:48.267 ⇒ 00:38:03.919 Uttam Kumaran: You know. And so for all of those, we will have basically owners, sops and and ability to kind of split responsibilities. Similarly, on Okrs, and kind of going to the next bullet we’re starting to, you know. Use this sort of Monday planning.
294 00:38:04.030 ⇒ 00:38:08.329 Uttam Kumaran: you know, day to kick off planning around engineering
295 00:38:09.480 ⇒ 00:38:29.122 Uttam Kumaran: project management sales, partnerships, operations and then finance so that it sets the week off with a ton of clear action items. The biggest kind of factor here is just time is incredibly limited. And as as my time and Robert’s time goes incredibly
296 00:38:30.064 ⇒ 00:38:55.919 Uttam Kumaran: is is incredibly more allocated towards sales, it’s very, very hard to do these during the week, and so Monday is a great day for us to do these, and so I think what you’ll see across the board if you’re in meetings at Brainforge. We want to see meetings happen with agendas where people can give async updates, and we actually take our the benefit of what it of what we are, which is a remote company and use it to streamline these. So people aren’t stuck in meetings.
297 00:38:56.437 ⇒ 00:39:23.302 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last picture on the bottom. So I gave a talk. This week on Tuesday, at about 40 people here in Austin, at the Omni Hotel. There’s a Co working spot on the 16th floor. That’s pretty famous here in Austin. Just about how we’re thinking about pairing. All of our data work and how we want to try to aim to help companies make better decisions and more decisions more and make more decisions.
298 00:39:23.890 ⇒ 00:39:47.579 Uttam Kumaran: it was a really great presentation really amazing feedback. We had a lot of people scan our QR codes come up to me. Asking for next steps. So it was just, you know, great ability for us to actually do things like this here in Austin and you know, I want to thank the whole team for helping me prepare for this and getting this, you know, off the ground, and I think the reception was really really great, so
299 00:39:48.860 ⇒ 00:39:49.740 Uttam Kumaran: cool.
300 00:39:52.560 ⇒ 00:40:15.963 Uttam Kumaran: So I kind of wanted to do a couple of team updates. So one I wanted to introduce Giselle. Giselle is on the call here. Giselle is joining as a Pm. Coordinator, a Pm. Team to date has only been amber so it’s really really great to see another face associated with project management. Of course Robert and I are also doing a fair bit of project management. But
301 00:40:16.580 ⇒ 00:40:22.569 Uttam Kumaran: Most likely we are doing a very poor job compared to what our standards are for project management. So very excited to have
302 00:40:22.680 ⇒ 00:40:34.547 Uttam Kumaran: Giselle giselle has a long background in sort of client work. And Pm. Work. But maybe Giselle. Let you just give maybe a a brief introduction, maybe personal introduction.
303 00:40:35.040 ⇒ 00:40:41.709 Uttam Kumaran: you don’t need to focus too much on the on professional side, but also just say Hi to everybody, and and yeah, really excited to have you.
304 00:40:42.100 ⇒ 00:40:57.960 Giselle Agot: Yeah, Hi, everyone. I’m so happy to be here. I’m so happy to see all of you. I did. During our interview with amber. I was telling her that I love meetings like team meetings, same as this one, because this is one way to really you know. Have a relationship with the team.
305 00:40:57.960 ⇒ 00:41:22.949 Giselle Agot: And yeah, I’m your new Pm coordinator. And I’ve been working with project management for a total of already 8 years, but in different types of business. This is actually my 1st time doing AI. But I’m really happy to be here. I’m happy to learn more. And yeah, when I had the meeting with Autumn and Mustafa the other day. I was like, Oh, my gosh! They’re all geniuses
306 00:41:22.950 ⇒ 00:41:32.179 Giselle Agot: here, so I have to really keep up so hopefully, I’ll be able to grasp everything and keep up with the team. And yeah, I’m just happy to be here.
307 00:41:33.870 ⇒ 00:41:54.660 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome, well, really, really excited to have you. And I think for everybody who’s on client projects. We all know that project management is the 1st line of defense for for all of us on the delivery side. And so it’s an area that we’ve been wanting to invest in for a long time, and I think Amber and Alex have done a good job at building. You know the
308 00:41:55.082 ⇒ 00:42:04.599 Uttam Kumaran: Pmo and hopefully, it’s it’s your onboarding, I think is the 1st new person that we’ve on board to that so ideally through this whole process.
309 00:42:05.001 ⇒ 00:42:22.120 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna learn sort of what is working, what is not working and then look forward to onboarding the next project manager so incredibly crucial role. The other thing I wanted to talk to was a couple of team departures. So this is something that I know in a lot of companies is always really awkward, or sort of goes underneath.
310 00:42:22.320 ⇒ 00:42:25.669 Uttam Kumaran: What do you say, like ghost goes swept under the rug.
311 00:42:26.089 ⇒ 00:42:53.050 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s something that, and all the startups that I’ve been part of. I don’t think they ever did a great job with talking about people leaving let alone addressing it, but also not kicking people out the door on their way out. And that’s something that I don’t want to do at all. Here at Brainforge. So both Miguel and Ryan are leaving this week.
312 00:42:53.450 ⇒ 00:43:16.159 Uttam Kumaran: And when people leave the company, you know it, it can be for a multitude of reasons, you know. Commonly. It could be either, for hey? We’re in a different spot. As a company. We’ve changed a lot of our processes, and also the pace of which we’re working on is changing. Additionally, we’re all human beings. So a lot of folks just want to accelerate their career change jobs
313 00:43:16.160 ⇒ 00:43:24.130 Uttam Kumaran: move to a different field. Additionally, there can always be personal, you know, considerations. Everybody here has families. Everybody here has
314 00:43:24.517 ⇒ 00:43:29.560 Uttam Kumaran: you know things they want professionally and personally for their lives. And so
315 00:43:29.790 ⇒ 00:43:34.969 Uttam Kumaran: part of running a business, I would say for me when I talk about what’s hard about Brainforge.
316 00:43:35.010 ⇒ 00:43:56.159 Uttam Kumaran: It’s the my favorite part, and the hardest part is always the team. It. It’s what I wake up thinking about. But it’s also commonly the most stressful part, because I know everybody here is taking, you know, valuable time from their life. To spend time working on on the company.
317 00:43:56.554 ⇒ 00:44:09.169 Uttam Kumaran: But additionally, the way that capitalism and business pushes you to think is to to be really impersonal. And so I think we’re always fine tuning. You know the balance here on
318 00:44:09.502 ⇒ 00:44:30.749 Uttam Kumaran: creating a team structure and camaraderie, but also understanding that it is a business to run. I think we have a ways to grow still. But I just wanted to share that. Both of those folks were incredibly crucial to our team’s success. Ryan was the 1st person that actually came onto Brainforge. This was back in December of 2023.
319 00:44:30.750 ⇒ 00:44:59.629 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s been incredibly important for our team. And Miguel is the 1st person on the AI team. That actually helped establish our AI function and work directly with me in September and August of last year. Basically just worked directly with me to build everything in AI. So both of them are were incredibly important, and people that I’m sure will will have an opportunity to work with again. But if you have any notes for them, please feel free to connect with them and and share that with them.
320 00:45:01.470 ⇒ 00:45:02.340 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
321 00:45:02.870 ⇒ 00:45:04.269 Uttam Kumaran: Go to next slide.
322 00:45:05.540 ⇒ 00:45:30.799 Uttam Kumaran: So 2 folks that we’re still recruiting for. And and now, you know, opening up a new opportunity for so on the recruiting side, it typically takes us 2 to 3 months to recruit new folks. So it’s something that we try to do a little bit preemptively. Right now we are in the middle of recruiting for a mid level. Pm, we have a few people. But again, if anyone fits that bill in your life that you think would be interested, feel free to
323 00:45:31.253 ⇒ 00:45:35.069 Uttam Kumaran: feel free to send to Rico or put in the recruiting channel.
324 00:45:36.200 ⇒ 00:45:40.910 Uttam Kumaran: Additionally, we are starting to recruit for a product or a business analyst.
325 00:45:42.390 ⇒ 00:45:46.035 Uttam Kumaran: And so the Jd is up on our career site.
326 00:45:46.760 ⇒ 00:46:06.960 Uttam Kumaran: ideally, this, this person goes to reducing a lot of stress off of Annie’s plate, which I know she’s stretching across several clients to to help build analysis, and help on the really the client facing work as well as removing some stuff off of Robert’s plate as well, so really excited to be having this Jd. Open
327 00:46:09.680 ⇒ 00:46:14.139 Uttam Kumaran: cool, and I’ll kind of breeze through. Maybe, Rico, we can go to the next slide.
328 00:46:14.810 ⇒ 00:46:37.739 Uttam Kumaran: So I kind of talked about these 3 clients. I know we’re sort of towards the back end of of time. So I just want to kind of talk through. We have these 3 clients that started interlude, which is a creative studio for venture backed startups. We’re helping them build an AI agent that is helping with their client intake and design process plan. Medicare is a Medicare brokerage firm.
329 00:46:38.098 ⇒ 00:46:57.840 Uttam Kumaran: They. They wanted some help building a series of automations around their top salesperson and fan stake is a sports staking product where you can basically put money up for players to move across teams. They’re implementing their 1st data infrastructure. So data, warehouse data models, bi tool. And so we’re assisting there.
330 00:46:59.760 ⇒ 00:47:12.110 Uttam Kumaran: And then this next slide is something that I’m gonna sort of steal a little bit of Robert’s thunder. But I also want to give credit to the entire sort of go to market sales team. So Hannah, Ryan.
331 00:47:12.110 ⇒ 00:47:38.740 Uttam Kumaran: Sid, and Robert. We’ve been improving week over week pretty tremendously on the sales side. You know what started off as mainly just me and Robert going to calls and figuring stuff out now has a significant amount of process and and muscle behind it. So here are sort of the go to market operations that we are doing and tracking right now. So everything, from Linkedin comments to posting, to partnerships, to just strategic sales.
332 00:47:39.411 ⇒ 00:47:42.930 Uttam Kumaran: And really the goal is twofold one is to
333 00:47:43.120 ⇒ 00:47:56.149 Uttam Kumaran: get Robert and I out of the driver’s seat on as much as possible and put us in the driver’s seat on where we’re much needed. Our superpowers are in going to those sales meetings and
334 00:47:56.160 ⇒ 00:48:16.190 Uttam Kumaran: and closing them and dancing right? And I think everything around those are where we need help. And so I think the team has done a good job over the last 2 weeks on, or getting themselves organized around this but here are all of our targets, and you can see, I think we’re sort of probably 50% the through but look forward to most of these being green
335 00:48:16.210 ⇒ 00:48:19.129 Uttam Kumaran: next week. But if anyone has any questions on these
336 00:48:19.463 ⇒ 00:48:32.599 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a great channel. Sales go to market where we’re talking about this. But this is where we’re taking off the we’re taking off the hat of. Okay, we’re gonna go to one sales meeting on like, how do we sell as a whole? And so like
337 00:48:32.730 ⇒ 00:48:39.889 Uttam Kumaran: I. I can’t tell you how how long it’s been since I’ve been looking forward to seeing a slide like this. This is this is really great.
338 00:48:43.910 ⇒ 00:48:49.029 Uttam Kumaran: And then, on account management. Yeah, I I think we have a
339 00:48:49.611 ⇒ 00:48:54.249 Uttam Kumaran: you know, as Robert mentioned solid space of green status accounts.
340 00:48:54.898 ⇒ 00:49:22.961 Uttam Kumaran: I think we have a couple of accounts that just need more pressure. And this is where I think, Giselle, I’ll be looking for support from you where I’ve been either myself or Robert have been doing the project management. But of course, like we, it’s just, it’s just really difficult for us to both. Keep the heartbeat on these products. Continue projects continue to sell and execute. So I think we’ll we will start to see these start to get better. But
341 00:49:23.550 ⇒ 00:49:31.129 Uttam Kumaran: Our job is to go. Make sure that we can secure expansions and and execute the work on time. And then for any.
342 00:49:31.240 ⇒ 00:49:55.759 Uttam Kumaran: for any clients that are having difficulties. That’s also where we need to step in. But I think the work that Amber has done on Eden, ABC. Home and urban stems, and keeping them sustained as as clients, has helped us to go get more. But now that we’ve got more they need to all move to green as well. And so all of these things right, establishing the Project management office, establishing all these go to market motions.
343 00:49:55.770 ⇒ 00:49:59.880 Uttam Kumaran: This is how we actually scale from 10 clients to 20 to 50.
344 00:50:00.211 ⇒ 00:50:29.139 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not gonna be like treating every client individually and not having process. We are gonna start to have run books and systems on the way we treat this right? And so our path towards that 110 K is is clear to me today. I I don’t think it was as clear to me a few months ago. And so what’s gonna be necessary is that we keep the heartbeat going. And so the Monday meetings for everybody who has a part of those to come prepared.
345 00:50:29.455 ⇒ 00:50:52.504 Uttam Kumaran: Is really important. But additionally, if you’re on a client. It’s to show you where your work is actually bubbling up into, and how your work every day really matters our ability to sell the next client and sell at a renewal, or go to a client and sell a contract that was 3 times the size relies on the everyday work that everybody on the the team is doing. So.
346 00:50:53.150 ⇒ 00:50:56.220 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I’m I’m I’m excited. We’re we’re getting. We’re getting better.
347 00:51:00.790 ⇒ 00:51:07.599 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe we can skip these and just go to the marketing slide.
348 00:51:10.860 ⇒ 00:51:17.389 Hannah Wang: Yeah. So for marketing, there’s a lot of motion. So for partnerships.
349 00:51:17.834 ⇒ 00:51:22.509 Hannah Wang: There’s new vendor and agency partners. That are in the works. And then
350 00:51:22.940 ⇒ 00:51:29.589 Hannah Wang: I guess an exciting thing is that we’re planning an activation with glimpse. So an activation is basically like a strategic
351 00:51:29.760 ⇒ 00:51:57.177 Hannah Wang: event. That we? Kinda we’re planning to Co. Host with glimpse and glimpse is, an it’s like an AI deduction management type of platform for Cpg Cpg brands and Cpg means consumer packaged goods. So I know there’s a lot of lingo there that I’m also learning. So that’s exciting. It’s gonna be in Chicago.
352 00:51:58.020 ⇒ 00:52:13.889 Hannah Wang: near an event that Robert is going to. He’s going to shop talk in the fall in September, I think. In Chicago. So where I met up with someone from the glimpse team who works on the partnership and kind of event
353 00:52:14.290 ⇒ 00:52:18.750 Hannah Wang: side. And so that was cool kind of kicking that off. This is kind of the first, st
354 00:52:18.830 ⇒ 00:52:44.883 Hannah Wang: I guess. Push that we’re doing for more promotional event based things and then for design, and and I are still cranking out the new design. So thank you. And for working hard on that and we’re gonna kick off the development part of that next week with Arushi, who helps out with our web dev stuff. But I also learned that a lot of you do web dev. So if I have questions. I’m gonna reach out to you guys.
355 00:52:45.340 ⇒ 00:52:52.029 Hannah Wang: And then, lastly, campaigns. As Utah mentioned, he gave a talk at
356 00:52:52.180 ⇒ 00:53:09.263 Hannah Wang: it was called tech into Kayla and from that we basically strategize to create a free 1 h workshop offering as lead magnet. That workshop is kind of the work that we’re doing with a company called Superposition
357 00:53:09.790 ⇒ 00:53:28.790 Hannah Wang: and kind of partnering there. So we’re gonna re strategize all of our call to actions and all of our links and follow up things to include this workshop. So just keep that in mind for everyone in the sales and more outreach side. And
358 00:53:28.910 ⇒ 00:53:30.259 Hannah Wang: yeah, I think that’s it.
359 00:53:31.650 ⇒ 00:53:36.779 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I think we should have the probably some part of the website next week, right to share.
360 00:53:37.810 ⇒ 00:53:45.449 Hannah Wang: I think so. Yeah, I told Arushi to start the homepage in the Nap bar. So that’ll be that’ll be hopefully done by end of week. Next week.
361 00:53:46.050 ⇒ 00:53:46.640 Uttam Kumaran: Okay?
362 00:53:53.620 ⇒ 00:54:11.050 Uttam Kumaran: Great, yeah. I maybe I could start kick off with with shout us, I just want to give a shout out to new folks. So Sam Giselle Vashtev I know it’s not easy joining our company. There’s a lot going on. We are a lot bigger than we seem
363 00:54:11.743 ⇒ 00:54:34.430 Uttam Kumaran: and but it takes, I think, the the work that you guys are all doing to build sort of documentation, to really go deep and see everything, and to take your time, you know, to not only set yourself up for success, but also to set up the next person behind you, and sort of like reach a hand back to whoever is joining next.
364 00:54:34.869 ⇒ 00:54:45.420 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s great like, I I mean, you guys are are all rock stars bring a wealth of of knowledge. And so it’s it’s really great to see our team growing. And
365 00:54:45.880 ⇒ 00:55:01.829 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I I’m pumped to see all the stuff that you guys achieve. So for me, really, honestly, it it gives us just like a lot less anxiety, so that we can continue to go south and make sure that we get really amazing clients. And so, yeah, I appreciate you guys.
366 00:55:11.760 ⇒ 00:55:14.160 Uttam Kumaran: Any other shout outs this week.
367 00:55:16.320 ⇒ 00:55:21.326 Hannah Wang: I know Kyle left one in the team channel.
368 00:55:22.570 ⇒ 00:55:35.170 Hannah Wang: He said. Shout out for the urban stems team and their effort in bringing the technical design document alive. It’s been super helpful to be able to see what’s coming and what framework we are proposing. So yeah, shout out to
369 00:55:35.360 ⇒ 00:55:36.970 Hannah Wang: Gergenstein’s team.
370 00:55:39.190 ⇒ 00:55:44.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we plug for that. We have a great technical design document template in notion.
371 00:55:44.190 ⇒ 00:55:47.659 Uttam Kumaran: So if you are embarking on a new technical design. Please use that.
372 00:55:48.440 ⇒ 00:55:50.180 Uttam Kumaran: It’s pretty well organized.
373 00:55:54.900 ⇒ 00:56:03.619 Hannah Wang: I guess. Shout out to Sid and Ryan for helping with the sales go to market stuff. I know it was a lot, and I’m also still learning. But
374 00:56:03.810 ⇒ 00:56:09.549 Hannah Wang: we’ll we’ll get there eventually. So just keep pushing. Yeah.
375 00:56:10.240 ⇒ 00:56:17.560 Uttam Kumaran: It’s getting better every week like I can tell that you guys are are really learning. And I I message Robert, yesterday that it’s been such a
376 00:56:17.720 ⇒ 00:56:36.240 Uttam Kumaran: see change over the past 3 weeks, and I know it’s it can be. It can feel like a lot of new stuff. But it’s I guarantee you, it’s it’s a lot easier than you think. It just takes some time to try it out. So the 1st 20% of these new things are. Gonna be hard, but it’s it’s it’s paying off already.
377 00:56:45.340 ⇒ 00:56:46.010 Hannah Wang: Anyone. Else.
378 00:56:46.590 ⇒ 00:56:47.950 Hannah Wang: Anything. Yeah. Yeah.
379 00:56:47.950 ⇒ 00:56:49.430 Uttam Kumaran: Any other shout outs this week.
380 00:56:54.190 ⇒ 00:56:56.499 Hannah Wang: Doesn’t have to be a big thing. It can be
381 00:56:57.580 ⇒ 00:57:02.420 Hannah Wang: something that seems small. But it’s it’s really not so.
382 00:57:04.540 ⇒ 00:57:10.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think probably for me. I’ll probably I’ll probably shout out to Annie this week.
383 00:57:11.690 ⇒ 00:57:31.739 Uttam Kumaran: I know you’re working on several clients, but also kicked off some stuff on the coaching side with Brian, which I’m really excited. I think you’ll be one of the 1st people to to sort of do that. And it’s hopefully a program that we can run for for other folks. You know. And I know we’re we’re onboarding. We, I would say, compared to
384 00:57:32.150 ⇒ 00:57:44.640 Uttam Kumaran: traditional consultancies and even teams. As everyone knows. Here we move very fast. And so it’s often, I think, underappreciated like how quickly we, what we expect from everybody.
385 00:57:45.171 ⇒ 00:57:59.280 Uttam Kumaran: But also that is our also our edge in the in the market, you know. So I know it’s not easy to hop on a new client and take on new stuff. But I’m glad that you know, you’ve been able to crush that work. And yeah, I appreciate it.
386 00:58:04.310 ⇒ 00:58:04.820 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
387 00:58:04.820 ⇒ 00:58:14.360 Hannah Wang: I have one other shout out, sorry for Rico. Real quick. Thank you for handling all the admin logistical type of things that
388 00:58:14.900 ⇒ 00:58:30.350 Hannah Wang: took a lot of brain energy for me to do for some reason before you were here. So it’s helpful to be able to just tag you and be like, can you help with this? So appreciate you juggling all these things and kind of kind of having like a touch everywhere? Yeah, it’s really helpful.
389 00:58:30.470 ⇒ 00:58:39.289 Hannah Wang: because for some reason, those like logistical admin things it’s just like, I don’t know. It’s hard to do on top of everything else that we all do so.
390 00:58:39.620 ⇒ 00:58:40.950 Hannah Wang: Yeah, I appreciate you.
391 00:58:44.090 ⇒ 00:58:44.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay?
392 00:58:45.410 ⇒ 00:58:52.710 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Well, if no other shout outs, Yeah, thanks everyone. We’ll be back in 2 weeks to talk. If you have anything need for me feel free to slack
393 00:58:53.237 ⇒ 00:59:07.379 Uttam Kumaran: and yeah, hopefully, I think next week we’ll be sharing some updates on the website. So I’m I’m excited to see that. And then, yeah, let’s see. I also by next week, hopefully, have 2 more clients. We have some people like right on the edge. So that’s what I’m I’m excited for. So
394 00:59:09.160 ⇒ 00:59:12.200 Uttam Kumaran: cool. Okay, thanks. Everyone for the time. Appreciate it.
395 00:59:12.940 ⇒ 00:59:14.250 Hannah Wang: Thanks. Guys, happy Friday.
396 00:59:15.440 ⇒ 00:59:16.050 Rico Rejoso: Guys.
397 00:59:17.470 ⇒ 00:59:17.920 Demilade Agboola: Okay.