Meeting Title: Brainforge x Keith Saver Interview Date: 2025-08-19 Meeting participants: Keith Saver, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:00:57.660 ⇒ 00:00:58.989 Robert Tseng: Hey, good, how are you?
2 00:00:59.150 ⇒ 00:01:00.289 Keith Saver: Pretty good, pretty good.
3 00:01:01.090 ⇒ 00:01:02.910 Keith Saver: How’s, how’s your day gone so far?
4 00:01:03.570 ⇒ 00:01:07.000 Robert Tseng: Going well. Yeah, I think, I just…
5 00:01:08.130 ⇒ 00:01:13.560 Robert Tseng: Doing a lot of different things going on, but, yeah, it’s going well.
6 00:01:13.770 ⇒ 00:01:16.600 Keith Saver: Where are you based out of? Boston.
7 00:01:16.600 ⇒ 00:01:18.380 Robert Tseng: Boston? Okay, cool.
8 00:01:18.380 ⇒ 00:01:19.239 Keith Saver: What about you?
9 00:01:19.380 ⇒ 00:01:20.220 Robert Tseng: I’m in New York.
10 00:01:20.220 ⇒ 00:01:21.530 Keith Saver: Oh, okay, nice, yeah.
11 00:01:21.530 ⇒ 00:01:22.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
12 00:01:23.010 ⇒ 00:01:31.840 Robert Tseng: I guess Bhutan briefed me a little bit on his call, with you, but I guess if you could just catch me up on…
13 00:01:32.850 ⇒ 00:01:40.820 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, your understanding of, like, kind of the role and the opportunity here after your chat with him, I think the way that I would
14 00:01:41.240 ⇒ 00:01:43.880 Robert Tseng: The structure of this call is, …
15 00:01:45.650 ⇒ 00:02:02.189 Robert Tseng: I’ll probably walk you through, like, a hypothetical situation, and then I can answer questions. I think this is not, like, a technical assessment or anything, so I think, just want to give you, like, a better glimpse into, like, what the day-to-day would be like for this role, so, …
16 00:02:02.420 ⇒ 00:02:03.270 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
17 00:02:03.960 ⇒ 00:02:16.220 Keith Saver: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can give you, a little bit of background, I guess. So, yeah, I got, connected with Utam from one of my, previous co-workers.
18 00:02:16.280 ⇒ 00:02:25.860 Keith Saver: So most recently, I was working at Shopify, and so one of my coworkers there, I worked with Utam previously at WeWork, a while ago. And so, …
19 00:02:25.860 ⇒ 00:02:41.969 Keith Saver: I left Shopify actually just a couple weeks ago, basically because I’m also actually trying to start, some of my own things right now, but those are sort of part-time, and so, you know, I was chatting with a friend, and he was like, oh, like, you know, my friend Utah runs Brainforge, and
20 00:02:41.970 ⇒ 00:02:49.379 Keith Saver: they’re looking for, like, people for, you know, either part of full-time, but, like, I’d be only interested in part-time work to maintain enough time to…
21 00:02:49.440 ⇒ 00:03:00.779 Keith Saver: to, you know, work on my own things on the side. So, after that, Utah reached out to me, and then we chatted a little bit, so I got, like, a high-level, like, some high-level overview of, Brainforge, I think, from…
22 00:03:01.520 ⇒ 00:03:04.810 Keith Saver: Like, sort of my perspective on it is, like, …
23 00:03:05.320 ⇒ 00:03:23.359 Keith Saver: like, where my skills and interests probably best fit would be on the, like, product analytics side. Yeah. Like, I’ve worked for, you know, I guess almost a decade now in a sort of variety of analytics and data science roles, chunks in, like, healthcare, and then obviously, you know, Shopify as a little, most recently. Before that, mostly in startups and such. I can give you more detail on whatever, but yeah.
24 00:03:23.360 ⇒ 00:03:29.019 Robert Tseng: Sure, yeah, no, okay, that’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, I think, that sounds good. Yeah, so…
25 00:03:29.430 ⇒ 00:03:36.619 Robert Tseng: I guess to kind of add more color to kind of your kind of recap of Brainforge, so, yeah, I mean, we’ve worked with…
26 00:03:36.920 ⇒ 00:03:45.179 Robert Tseng: a wide range of companies, but I would say our portfolio is mostly CPG, I would say is, like, 50%, and then SaaS, so…
27 00:03:45.290 ⇒ 00:03:46.260 Robert Tseng: …
28 00:03:46.520 ⇒ 00:03:55.520 Robert Tseng: With the CPG clients, on the product… CPG meaning consumer product goods, and then, yeah, for those… for those clients, the analytics need there.
29 00:03:55.600 ⇒ 00:04:12.740 Robert Tseng: It’s probably not what you would typically see in, like, software product analytics. Obviously, like, there’s not as much, like, you know, you’re not launching new features, experimentation is not… it’s like, the product development is, you know, more for, like, the physical product, whatever. So, I think the focus there is more on marketing analytics side.
30 00:04:12.740 ⇒ 00:04:21.159 Robert Tseng: And yeah, I mean, I think we use some of the same tools, mixed panel, Amplitude, etc. But a lot of it is just, like, using
31 00:04:21.250 ⇒ 00:04:30.119 Robert Tseng: a CDP tool to kind of, like, hook up a bunch of data, maybe… maybe push behavioral data into a tool like a mixed panel or Amplitude, and then…
32 00:04:30.130 ⇒ 00:04:46.660 Robert Tseng: yeah, I think those kind of platforms are good for helping clients, like, really do more deeper segmentation than they’re able… than they’d be able to if using, kind of, the alternative, which is just, like, GA4, right? So, yeah, I think for… for those types of clients,
33 00:04:46.940 ⇒ 00:04:50.639 Robert Tseng: I think technically it’s not as challenging, …
34 00:04:50.860 ⇒ 00:05:01.369 Robert Tseng: in terms of, like, the range of skills that you would be needing for that, I think a lot of it is really just learning how to work with non-technical stakeholders and, helping them, like, figure out, like.
35 00:05:01.370 ⇒ 00:05:13.510 Robert Tseng: What are those, like, ideal segments that they could go and retarget, with, you know, in their lifecycle campaigns, and pretty much just try… increase sales, on both the back end,
36 00:05:13.560 ⇒ 00:05:30.129 Robert Tseng: by, kind of capturing more customers, or also on the front end, by, like, being able to, acquire new customers. So, that’s really kind of the work stream on the CPG side. And then on the software side, I think it’s probably closer to, like, your background. I think…
37 00:05:30.300 ⇒ 00:05:48.500 Robert Tseng: it’s probably not as robust as Shopify. I think the companies that we’re working with are more growth stage, like 10 to 100 million in revenue. So, I think a lot of it is just, like, setting up, like, best practices for product analytics. A lot of the tracking is kind of scattered, or they don’t have anything set up.
38 00:05:48.670 ⇒ 00:06:05.039 Robert Tseng: And so I think a lot of it is just kind of governance, getting some of the foundational reports set up. And then, yeah, I don’t know, I think it’s more like 3 to 6 months out before there’s anything really data science-y involved. So I just want to kind of level set on those expectations, just because…
39 00:06:05.370 ⇒ 00:06:19.420 Robert Tseng: I feel like when we interview people who are with data science background, I mean, it’s great, I think you probably could do a lot more than what we do with our clients, but, typically we’re working with, you know, they’re in this early stage where,
40 00:06:19.770 ⇒ 00:06:27.359 Robert Tseng: a lot of it is just, like, getting a lot of the foundational reporting set up. So, yeah, I guess, any thoughts or reactions to that?
41 00:06:28.230 ⇒ 00:06:35.139 Keith Saver: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that’s kind of what I figured, you know, given the size of the companies, like… honestly, before Shopify, I basically just worked in startups.
42 00:06:35.140 ⇒ 00:06:43.110 Keith Saver: and sort of in smaller companies, so I kind of had that experience in, like, before Shopify, I was at this company, Parotherapeutics, for 3 years, and so we were, like, building…
43 00:06:43.110 ⇒ 00:06:58.250 Keith Saver: digital therapeutics, we were, like, the first company to get them through this, like, new FDA pathway, for software as a medical device, and there was a lot of that kind of work, right? Like, we were, you know, we’re, like, one of the first data scientists there, you know, bringing products commercial as we’re going through GTM and launches, and….
44 00:06:58.250 ⇒ 00:06:58.570 Robert Tseng: Sweet.
45 00:06:58.570 ⇒ 00:07:07.269 Keith Saver: It was about, like, setting up that sort of infrastructure. And honestly, part of the reason I went to Shopify was, like, also to see the other side, and, like, understand, like, what a big infrastructure company looks like.
46 00:07:07.270 ⇒ 00:07:07.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
47 00:07:07.670 ⇒ 00:07:13.519 Keith Saver: And so, like, yeah, no, I totally get that. And honestly, I like a lot of the business-facing, like, client-facing and business-facing side.
48 00:07:13.520 ⇒ 00:07:13.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
49 00:07:13.910 ⇒ 00:07:23.670 Keith Saver: you know, or driving that high-level business decision-making, rather than getting, like, super into the weeds with model development or anything, and so I think in that context, like, that sort of client size fits well.
50 00:07:23.980 ⇒ 00:07:42.300 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, I think that’s a great call-out, too, so just to kind of give you a sense of, like, the team structure and how we work with clients, typically. We’re kind of… we deploy, like, pods, we call them, or there’s, like, an engagement lead, typically me or Utah, and now we have, like, somebody new who’s kind of, like, at that level, that’s kind of…
51 00:07:42.660 ⇒ 00:07:58.569 Robert Tseng: from more of, like, an account management perspective, building the relationship, building out the roadmap, and being able to kind of set the constraints on the team, because obviously we don’t have everyone full-time working on a client. Everyone that’s here is kind of working on multiple clients.
52 00:07:58.650 ⇒ 00:08:15.739 Robert Tseng: since you’re… you’d be in a part-time capacity, you’d probably be, like, on one to two, I think would be ideal, is kind of the situation. But, that aside, we do have, then we have an analytics engineer, or data engineer, depending on the needs. Like, that’s… that’s… that’s there, and then one analyst, and so…
53 00:08:15.740 ⇒ 00:08:25.620 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, the leanest possible team would be 3 people. You know, and then we kind of fill in the cracks for some of our larger clients. Like, our largest client, we have, like, 8 people on that client.
54 00:08:25.620 ⇒ 00:08:31.700 Robert Tseng: Which is probably a little too much, but it’s fine. I think that’s just kind of how we do it. We prefer to have, like.
55 00:08:32.340 ⇒ 00:08:41.909 Robert Tseng: 3 senior-level people that are kind of covering all angles, and then we can, like, fill in with specialists, and maybe, like, yep, more junior folks.
56 00:08:41.909 ⇒ 00:08:54.929 Robert Tseng: Along the way, if there are, like, specific needs that come up. So, I guess, like, for this role in particular, I mean, just given your background and everything, we would probably want to see more at, like, that senior level, so kind of the way that you’re describing
57 00:08:54.930 ⇒ 00:08:56.629 Robert Tseng: Kind of your, …
58 00:08:56.630 ⇒ 00:09:04.629 Robert Tseng: you’re, you know, comfortable working and interfacing with, being business-facing, being client-facing, I mean, I think that’s all…
59 00:09:04.820 ⇒ 00:09:08.070 Robert Tseng: kind of part of… part of the role, so I think that’s… that’s good, good to know.
60 00:09:08.330 ⇒ 00:09:27.519 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I thought it would be good to just kind of talk through a situation, and then we can kind of just, you know, treat that as a hypo, and, kind of… yeah, I just want to kind of discuss with you how you would handle the situation, whatever. So, maybe we could spend a few minutes on that, and then, kind of see how that goes. …
61 00:09:27.630 ⇒ 00:09:32.300 Robert Tseng: I would say… Let’s pick, …
62 00:09:34.250 ⇒ 00:09:38.010 Robert Tseng: Yeah, let’s take a situation where, the…
63 00:09:38.920 ⇒ 00:09:50.099 Robert Tseng: Client is a… since your background, I guess you have some health… health experience, so this is, like, a virtual… virtual telehealth, company, that’s, …
64 00:09:50.920 ⇒ 00:09:55.500 Robert Tseng: Basically, I’ve been asking for… a…
65 00:09:56.000 ⇒ 00:09:59.810 Robert Tseng: They’re… they’re pushing for a lot of, you know, you’re… this is like a…
66 00:10:00.080 ⇒ 00:10:16.139 Robert Tseng: marketing leader within a virtual telehealth company. They’re pushing for a lot of, like, new tools that they want to do. I think, kind of the two main objectives are, one, to, reduce customer acquisition costs, because
67 00:10:16.260 ⇒ 00:10:22.009 Robert Tseng: yeah, I guess, like, the channels that they’ve been spending on have been getting more and more expensive, and so,
68 00:10:22.010 ⇒ 00:10:39.640 Robert Tseng: the marketing leader is kind of got some pressure on him to kind of lower… lower… lower CAC, and is trying to diversify across channels. And so he’s… he’s coming to… to the data team, saying, okay, I want to go and activate, like, five… five channels, and here’s all the stuff that I want you guys to be able to, like, plug in.
69 00:10:39.710 ⇒ 00:10:44.119 Robert Tseng: And so, I guess, kind of, you know, if you were kind of the main
70 00:10:44.450 ⇒ 00:10:51.119 Robert Tseng: person, kind of, interacting with him and, trying to prioritize, I guess, how would you, kind of.
71 00:10:51.230 ⇒ 00:10:58.289 Robert Tseng: approach that conversation. Knowing that, our team is already
72 00:10:58.520 ⇒ 00:11:16.239 Robert Tseng: I would say, let’s just say we’re 80% utilized, your engineers or analysts that are kind of working with you, there’s not that much capacity taking on 5, 5 additional, 5 additional channels, like, right now. It’s, like, just not possible. So you need to be able to kind of push back and, break it down for them, like, what?
73 00:11:16.410 ⇒ 00:11:18.789 Robert Tseng: What would work from our side?
74 00:11:19.460 ⇒ 00:11:33.020 Keith Saver: Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first thing is, from, like, a client relationship standpoint, obviously we want to be as positive as possible and, you know, be working with them, and… but also we need to provide that pushback a little bit. So I think that the marketing leader, you know, they’re probably feeling this…
75 00:11:33.020 ⇒ 00:11:43.070 Keith Saver: urgency, especially, you know, a lot of telehealth companies are, you know, probably a smaller size, don’t necessarily have a ton of runway, they’re under a lot of pressure to increase, or, you know, decrease CAC quickly. …
76 00:11:43.070 ⇒ 00:11:50.060 Keith Saver: And they’re probably… so, you’re saying that, yeah, they want to start 5 new channels, and, like, basically, their initial, …
77 00:11:50.410 ⇒ 00:11:51.290 Keith Saver: like…
78 00:11:51.600 ⇒ 00:11:58.950 Keith Saver: intuition is to just, like, try and expand and try a bunch of new channels, and are asking us to do that? Yep. Okay. So the first thing would be…
79 00:11:59.460 ⇒ 00:12:16.619 Keith Saver: on my end… actually, this is a question I also had on how some of the client works, client partnerships work. Like, where is the data hosted? Are we generally working in the partner’s data? Like, in the client’s data? Or are we hosting data ourselves? For context, basically, the first thing I want to do is have an understanding of, like, what data is available on the.
80 00:12:16.620 ⇒ 00:12:17.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
81 00:12:17.000 ⇒ 00:12:19.949 Keith Saver: Marketing channels, and, you know, what can we… what can we look at?
82 00:12:20.280 ⇒ 00:12:32.949 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, that’s a great question to start with. I think, we have a… we… we built out the data warehouse for them. Before we came in, they were just kind of stitching together different things, loving the different Google Sheets.
83 00:12:32.950 ⇒ 00:12:41.430 Robert Tseng: They had, like, maybe some Looker Studio reports kind of plugged into, like, the main channels, Google and Facebook or something. But it’s all kind of just…
84 00:12:42.270 ⇒ 00:12:44.690 Robert Tseng: There’s a lot of, …
85 00:12:46.550 ⇒ 00:12:50.580 Robert Tseng: Fragmentation is not the right word, but, like, it’s just kind of all over the place, yeah.
86 00:12:50.580 ⇒ 00:12:55.799 Keith Saver: Yeah, but we’ve managed to somewhat centralize through building this data warehouse, and, like, now we have some of that
87 00:12:55.950 ⇒ 00:12:58.200 Keith Saver: Data kind of pulled together.
88 00:12:58.200 ⇒ 00:12:58.850 Robert Tseng: Yep.
89 00:12:58.850 ⇒ 00:13:17.719 Keith Saver: For reporting? Great. So the first thing I’d want to look at is, like, one, how many existing channels do we have? And then two, can we estimate CAC for each of those channels? Which I think we should be able to do, hopefully, you know, relatively well if we have that data set up. At a high level, my immediate concern would be, one, starting a bunch of new channels is a bunch of work.
90 00:13:17.720 ⇒ 00:13:29.849 Keith Saver: there’s presumably overhead. I admit I haven’t… I actually haven’t really worked much in marketing analytics, but there’s, like, there should be startup costs for each channel, I assume, and, like, operational costs for each of that. So that in general, I would assume having
91 00:13:29.850 ⇒ 00:13:41.000 Keith Saver: especially in this sort of context, we would probably get more efficiency from going to potentially a smaller number of channels, rather than a large number of channels. So, the first thing I want to look at is, like, in all of our existing channels,
92 00:13:41.000 ⇒ 00:13:51.590 Keith Saver: is there significant variance in CAC across these channels? For example, like, if there’s one or two channels that are… like, let’s say they have 5 existing channels, and there’s 1 or 2 channels that are noticeably cheaper,
93 00:13:51.950 ⇒ 00:14:03.460 Keith Saver: Maybe we would first consider trying to expand our investment in these channels, and stop our more expensive channels, because that would also, you know, if our goal is to decrease costs here, that also
94 00:14:03.720 ⇒ 00:14:12.210 Keith Saver: you know, that also can decrease our operational costs, or rather the client’s operational costs, potentially, you know, for running these channels. I think that…
95 00:14:12.780 ⇒ 00:14:23.919 Keith Saver: I don’t know, but I would guess that as you continue to spend more in one channel, there probably is diminishing returns, and that we’d want to assess that over time, but that would also still, you know, that’s sort of
96 00:14:23.920 ⇒ 00:14:38.320 Keith Saver: there’s the counterweight of decreased operational cost there. So I, you know, want to talk to the marketing leader and understand, like, look, you know, I understand this, but let’s first look at the data, and, you know, encourage that we might be able to get some efficiencies on the operational side by, you know.
97 00:14:38.320 ⇒ 00:14:43.320 Keith Saver: Doing that analysis first, and understanding whether we can expand current to existing channels that are performing better.
98 00:14:44.270 ⇒ 00:14:48.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, no, I think that’s a good… that’s a good starting point. Yeah, I would say, like.
99 00:14:49.030 ⇒ 00:14:56.350 Robert Tseng: yeah, you’re able to go and… you basically have to go and verify whatever they’re saying across different, different channels, like, yeah, maybe, I think…
100 00:14:56.550 ⇒ 00:15:12.840 Robert Tseng: Something that we commonly run into is people throw a lot of strong directional statements at us. They’re like, we need to do this, we need to do that, and we have to be able to break it down and really see, like, what is the data actually… and build it back up, what is the data actually showing us? What are the different levers that we can pull?
101 00:15:12.850 ⇒ 00:15:30.079 Robert Tseng: Right? I think, for a non-technical people, you know, they’re, they’re, you know, they’re shiny object syndrome. They’re just like, okay, this is not working, let’s go grab that new thing and bring it in, right? And I think, being able to, back ourselves out of that corner and not be on the hook for, like, all this new
102 00:15:30.090 ⇒ 00:15:47.559 Robert Tseng: stuff that we have to go and implement and maintain, I think is very, very important. So actually, like, maybe contrary to a lot of stuff that maybe… I kind of use that as an example, because maybe an in-house rule, I mean, things are a little bit more clear cut. Like, whatever you’re given, your directive, you have to just go and do, but…
103 00:15:47.560 ⇒ 00:16:03.679 Robert Tseng: In this situation, we actually have to say no to a lot of stuff, and we have to create the focus, because, ultimately, like, we own our own roadmap, which is different from probably a lot of in-house roles, and yeah, like, there’s gonna be a bunch of people asking for our time and attention, and
104 00:16:03.680 ⇒ 00:16:09.860 Robert Tseng: you know, we… we’re able to… I’m sure we can… we can do a lot of the work, but we have to just…
105 00:16:10.000 ⇒ 00:16:30.029 Robert Tseng: yeah, obviously, we have to operate under the constraints that we have. So, I think that’s, like, you know, I’m not… I’m not going too much… too, too deeply into that, into that scenario. I think, I think your intuition is right. I know you haven’t really worked too much with marketing analytics data, but I think that’s, that’s a, that’s a good, I think that’s… that’s a good, that’s a good starting point, so…
106 00:16:30.030 ⇒ 00:16:36.799 Robert Tseng: I think beyond that, like, how would you evaluate, like, okay, let’s say, let’s assume that,
107 00:16:37.690 ⇒ 00:16:56.349 Robert Tseng: there’s no more questions about CAC on channel anymore. Everybody has, like, an established, like, level of confidence that, you know, what we’re measuring across channels, kind of performance across channels is pretty consistent. There’s good understanding of, like, lifetime value for customers across different product lines.
108 00:16:56.390 ⇒ 00:17:15.580 Robert Tseng: And now, I guess, the directive is, okay, well, we need to go and find ways to increase lifetime value. So, it’s not necessarily going to be from channel diversification anymore, or campaigns, but, like, I guess, how would you kind of be a thought partner to a marketing leader, on an association like that?
109 00:17:16.159 ⇒ 00:17:34.279 Keith Saver: Yeah, absolutely. So, from there, I… from a less-time value perspective, I think that the… the first place I’d look, like, you know, let’s… you know, CAC settled, we’re getting… so that immediate top of funnel is settled, so we’re into sort of the second step of the funnel of, like, immediate engagement. So, some sort of telemedicine product,
110 00:17:34.529 ⇒ 00:17:45.619 Keith Saver: in general, with health products, or with all products, but I’ve definitely seen this with health products a lot, like, patients come in with a certain level of motivation, and
111 00:17:45.799 ⇒ 00:17:53.229 Keith Saver: there’s… so there’s a really sharp, sort of at that point, top-of-funnel drop-off, often.
112 00:17:53.579 ⇒ 00:18:18.209 Keith Saver: like, actually, when I was at Parotherapeutics, and so that was, like, primarily addiction and insomnia, there were, like, kind of one to two points in each program where there was really, really, really high drop-offs in engagement. And so we ended up, you know, spending a lot of our research there. And so, in a similar context here, I would… I would want to look at, sort of, you know, what’s that downstream funnel, but my guess would be, like, let’s say, I don’t know, it’s telemedicine appointments or something like that? Like, there’s probably going to be a very high drop-off of people
113 00:18:18.209 ⇒ 00:18:25.129 Keith Saver: who don’t come back for a second time, or they’re, like… it depends on what kind of product it is, like, whether, you know, it’s getting a prescription or coming back.
114 00:18:25.129 ⇒ 00:18:30.799 Keith Saver: But, immediately looking at that top of funnel, and then based on… looking at…
115 00:18:30.849 ⇒ 00:18:38.179 Keith Saver: it’s basically, like, how well can we predict that? Yeah. And there’s probably pretty quick segmentations for that.
116 00:18:39.169 ⇒ 00:18:55.149 Keith Saver: I don’t know, like, in, you know, one of my last… in… at Para, I remember seeing, for example, like, for the addiction product, like, whether someone completed, like, the first educational module in, like, the first hour is, like, one of the strongest predictors of, you know, what they’re gonna do over the next 3 months. And so in general, I tend to think that there’s really
117 00:18:55.479 ⇒ 00:18:59.939 Keith Saver: strong, really early engagement signals. And I think that…
118 00:19:00.399 ⇒ 00:19:15.079 Keith Saver: one of the other values there is that it also helps gate the amount of analysis that you’re doing. Like, I think there’s a tendency when we’re thinking about LTV, to, like, try and look at that entire life cycle, right? Like, what is that lifetime value? And instead, I think that, like, generally the, sort of.
119 00:19:15.849 ⇒ 00:19:22.359 Keith Saver: highest reward for lowest amount of analytic work there is just really focusing on that, like, first piece of engagement we get.
120 00:19:24.000 ⇒ 00:19:30.619 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think that’s a… I like that, I like that approach. I think you’re bringing in, kind of, your product analytics expertise.
121 00:19:30.620 ⇒ 00:19:48.539 Robert Tseng: And also, like, you know, you have a, you have a stance that’s, like, just focus on the… on early engagement, and that’s, like, gonna be a good signal, for, you know, what could drive LTV. So, I think that’s great. I think that’s, that is kind of a point of view that
122 00:19:48.620 ⇒ 00:20:05.679 Robert Tseng: I think would be valuable to a lot of our other clients as well. So, I’m kind of just switching gears out of this, this situation, but, like, you know, a couple other, companies that we work with, I would say we probably… we have, like, somewhere like 3 to 5 kind of clients that come to us per month that are just, like.
123 00:20:05.770 ⇒ 00:20:13.520 Robert Tseng: hey, we don’t really know, you know, we have all this stuff that’s kind of set up in Product Analytics, but it’s just a lot to, …
124 00:20:14.000 ⇒ 00:20:33.440 Robert Tseng: Like, we don’t really know what we’re getting out of it. And so, I think one of the earlier things that we do, other than kind of auditing, tagging, and tracking, is being able to go in there and make some, you know, make some recommendations for low-hanging fruit. And a lot of that is on early engagement. So, I mean, I feel like if you feel really comfortable in that space, like, there’s a lot of
125 00:20:33.480 ⇒ 00:20:40.290 Robert Tseng: yeah, there’s a lot of opportunity for you here on that as well. Yeah, so I think that’s… that makes sense.
126 00:20:40.470 ⇒ 00:20:48.409 Robert Tseng: I think I want to give… I want to save you some time to, like, ask any additional questions you have, too, so I’m trying to,
127 00:20:48.620 ⇒ 00:20:56.169 Robert Tseng: Yeah, just kind of create one more scenario where, … yeah, let’s say that, …
128 00:20:56.880 ⇒ 00:21:03.660 Robert Tseng: we’re… we’re behind, for whatever reason. Like, things just pick up, we’re behind on our roadmap, … And…
129 00:21:03.770 ⇒ 00:21:10.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, everything kind of feels urgent at a certain point, and you’re… you’re trying to, …
130 00:21:12.920 ⇒ 00:21:21.630 Robert Tseng: you have to… you just have to get out an update, you know, today to the client. Whether or not you’re able to actually do the work is a different story, but, like.
131 00:21:21.630 ⇒ 00:21:39.660 Robert Tseng: How would you… how would you approach a situation where, you already know that their… the client has kind of communicated, that they’re expecting something, and we’re… we haven’t, you know, we’ve… we’ve fallen behind on what we’ve… what we promised to deliver, but, you know, what… what can you do to, like, reset expectations?
132 00:21:41.830 ⇒ 00:21:44.190 Keith Saver: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, …
133 00:21:45.510 ⇒ 00:21:55.909 Keith Saver: the first thing, sort of, like, leading into this that I want to keep in mind is, like, what is going on with, like, what is causing this backlog? And sort of being behind on work. Like, I think that…
134 00:21:56.660 ⇒ 00:21:57.570 Keith Saver: And…
135 00:21:58.410 ⇒ 00:22:17.870 Keith Saver: my experience, one of the most common causes of this is, like, we’re getting a lot of work because we’re not communicating clearly enough with the client early on, to understand, like, what’s actually the most valuable thing. Like, I think kind of what you were mentioning of sort of the, like, shiny object syndrome is very common, and … so, like, you know, I think a common situation that we run into in product analytics is, like.
136 00:22:17.950 ⇒ 00:22:35.490 Keith Saver: there’s a request for a ton of analysis, but it’s because we didn’t do a good enough job of discussing metrics and, like, what the most important low-hanging fruit was ahead of time. So, like, leading up to it, I try and have that contact, but obviously, at this point, we’re in that situation, right? But I think that might kind of influence the tone of how we’re approaching that.
137 00:22:35.490 ⇒ 00:22:51.909 Keith Saver: So for example, like, if that is something that we kind of came back and did a retro, I’d sort of emphasize that, of like, okay, like, we understand that we’re behind, and, like, we want to acknowledge that and be honest with the clients. They don’t feel like we’re, you know, like, completely sugarcoating and, like, you know, kind of trying to paint over it. But also,
138 00:22:51.910 ⇒ 00:22:55.209 Keith Saver: Use this as an opportunity to potentially reset expectations.
139 00:22:55.210 ⇒ 00:23:03.080 Keith Saver: And also understand, use it as an opportunity to talk about, like, how can we prevent this in the future? And, you know, in a lot of cases, I think that is…
140 00:23:03.320 ⇒ 00:23:05.109 Keith Saver: Being, like, appropriately…
141 00:23:05.210 ⇒ 00:23:19.990 Keith Saver: both clear and sort of ruthless ahead of time with prioritization. And so I think that times of, like, being behind can also be an opportunity to reset that. And I think it’s, like, you know, I want to be clear and honest with the client, and then also be very clear and honest with when the next deliverables are actually coming.
142 00:23:20.620 ⇒ 00:23:21.170 Robert Tseng: -Oh.
143 00:23:21.170 ⇒ 00:23:23.829 Keith Saver: and actually deliver them. Because I think it’s sort of that, like.
144 00:23:25.860 ⇒ 00:23:41.040 Keith Saver: you know, whenever you’re behind, you’re sort of at risk of losing trust with the stakeholders, and you want to make sure that that doesn’t continue. And so, I think that the combination of that clarity and communication and setting standards going forward, both for yourself and the relationship with them, and then making sure that your next deliverable comes through.
145 00:23:41.670 ⇒ 00:23:57.400 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think I like that perspective, and just to kind of add on to that a bit, like, so one of the unfortunate things of being, you know, kind of consultants is that we’re always blamed for when things kind of fall behind. And a lot of it isn’t because of us, I think a lot of it is because
146 00:23:57.670 ⇒ 00:24:01.640 Robert Tseng: This analytics is so cross-functional, we’re really dependent on getting context from.
147 00:24:01.640 ⇒ 00:24:02.010 Keith Saver: Yeah.
148 00:24:02.010 ⇒ 00:24:08.989 Robert Tseng: from the client, and maybe we don’t have enough information to make a good decision. We don’t ask… we’re not able to make a best estimate.
149 00:24:09.150 ⇒ 00:24:28.829 Robert Tseng: A good estimate, and then, yeah, so sometimes we do find ourselves in these situations, and yeah, I think the retros become frustrating, because it’s just like, well, if we had known X, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened. But yeah, I think, like you said, just being able to, yeah, just be… just be really honest with the clients that, like.
150 00:24:29.230 ⇒ 00:24:39.450 Robert Tseng: Hey, like, this is… this is not… this is not getting done, but what… you know, if we had… if we could clearly identify the blocker, and then kind of re-update them, kind of…
151 00:24:39.680 ⇒ 00:24:55.330 Robert Tseng: on what an updated timeline would be, and doing that proactively before they even ask, I think that’s… that goes a long way, and just kind of continuing to build that trust. So, I think oftentimes you’ll find that, like, we’re the most organized people on their team. There’s a reason why they need help.
152 00:24:55.380 ⇒ 00:25:07.200 Robert Tseng: Because they weren’t able to do anything without us being there. So, I think we do kind of take some pride in being like, okay, well, we want to be the best community here, on the team, for them, and, you know, that may not really be, like, kind of…
153 00:25:07.200 ⇒ 00:25:26.610 Robert Tseng: on someone’s resume, but, like, that is something that we look for, because I think if you’re going to be able to juggle multiple projects across multiple clients, like, communication is, like, I think the spike that we index for more than, other, other things. So, but it seems like you’re, you know, you think about things in a pretty holistic way, so I… I appreciate that.
154 00:25:26.610 ⇒ 00:25:39.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, anyway, I just wanted to kind of leave you a few minutes to kind of ask any questions you have. I like to better understand kind of, like, your part-time capacity and what you’re… what you’re looking for and things. We’ve worked with some part-time folks, I think
155 00:25:40.110 ⇒ 00:25:50.029 Robert Tseng: it’s… it’s kind of a mixed bag, to be honest, so, like, I… I kind of, like, want to make sure that this is gonna be a good fit. Yeah, I think I’m not gonna bias it too much, but, like, yeah, that’s, …
156 00:25:50.380 ⇒ 00:25:51.090 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
157 00:25:51.430 ⇒ 00:25:52.979 Keith Saver: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that…
158 00:25:53.410 ⇒ 00:26:12.269 Keith Saver: yeah, like, I think to be realistic, that’s also what I’m trying to figure out, is like, you know, what can work part-time, because I also haven’t worked part-time in the past, and I’m trying to, you know, I’m both interested in both, you know, like, I like working in data, and, like, working on more of the data science stuff, while also continuing to leave time for my personal projects. So I think, in general, I’d be open to working up to approximately half-time.
159 00:26:12.270 ⇒ 00:26:12.780 Robert Tseng: Okay.
160 00:26:12.780 ⇒ 00:26:29.049 Keith Saver: When I talked to Utam, he sort of mentioned that, there can be some difficulties in sort of, like, obviously the ideal is, like, a part-time person is probably to have that concentrated in a couple days, and he said that’s probably difficult, but, like, that’s not a… like, that’s negotiable for me, like, I don’t have, like, a hardline stance on that.
161 00:26:29.180 ⇒ 00:26:33.749 Keith Saver: But yeah, I’d say up to probably approximately 20 hours a week would be my max.
162 00:26:34.650 ⇒ 00:26:37.439 Keith Saver: But yeah, I think that…
163 00:26:38.030 ⇒ 00:26:48.820 Keith Saver: Yeah, so in that context, like, you know, whether it’s one or two clients and having more limited in that context definitely makes sense. I’m curious, I guess, you know, what are a lot of the contracts like from, like, for example, like.
164 00:26:49.240 ⇒ 00:27:01.630 Keith Saver: does Rainforest do more of, you know, like, deliverables-based contracts? Or sort of, like, ongoing, as-needed, like, you’re almost sort of, like, part-time working with, you know, in the company, like, type contracts?
165 00:27:01.980 ⇒ 00:27:08.669 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so for our longest contracts that we’ve been with, you know, for more than a year, we basically have replaced their data team, or we are their data team.
166 00:27:08.670 ⇒ 00:27:09.650 Keith Saver: Hmm. Okay.
167 00:27:09.850 ⇒ 00:27:22.370 Robert Tseng: And so, yeah, that… they play… clients pay a flat fee, and they, you know, we… we kind of take on the burden of, like, staffing it as, like, the organization’s needs change.
168 00:27:22.370 ⇒ 00:27:32.169 Robert Tseng: Interesting. So we felt like that’s been, you know… but in order to get there, we do start with something fixed. And so, typically, like, how we work with clients, ends up being something that’s
169 00:27:32.170 ⇒ 00:27:56.269 Robert Tseng: more narrowly scoped in the beginning, obviously, and if it’s on the product analytics side, we do have, like, a workflow. I kind of run those engagements, but it’s really just, like, a tagging and tracking and tracking audit, plus, like, a few key, kind of, reports in whatever product analytics tool they’re showing, just to give them a basic funnel, give them some usage, or get visibility into the top of funnel and, like, basic engagement. And that, like, kind of seals the deal, the first one.
170 00:27:56.290 ⇒ 00:28:05.620 Robert Tseng: And then we typically renew into something that’s more of a retainer, where there’s more open-ended analysis. We get to actually kind of work with them, start making recommendations, and continue to build a roadmap.
171 00:28:05.640 ⇒ 00:28:21.050 Robert Tseng: And then I would say by, like, the third month, you know, if the relationship is going strong, then we may, like, kind of just go and push for, like, a longer-term, like, six-month-plus kind of contract with them. So I would say, like, that’s one, like, motion that’s gonna work well for us.
172 00:28:21.070 ⇒ 00:28:28.280 Robert Tseng: I would say that, like, the problem for me and the bottleneck is that, like, yeah, we may get, like, 4 or 5 of these clients a month, but, like.
173 00:28:28.280 ⇒ 00:28:42.669 Robert Tseng: it’s a lot for me to kind of go in and do those, so I would say that for a part-time person, those would be a great one for you to be able to come and take on. I know what the conversion looks like. I would say one out of 4 currently converts to something that’s more longer-term.
174 00:28:42.670 ⇒ 00:29:06.010 Robert Tseng: And so, if I can at least get somebody to meet… to do what I can do, but if you’re better, I’m sure… I mean, probably better, like, and you can make it 2 out of 4, that’s huge. Like, that would be… that would be a win-win for me. So, and you would continue to get a steady stream of, like, pretty easy, more predictable types of, lines where you’re just kind of going and setting the foundations and getting a quick win, and then you can…
175 00:29:06.010 ⇒ 00:29:23.820 Robert Tseng: I mean, you can choose to stay on if you really like the client, or you can just rotate off and move on to the next one. So that’s, that’s kind of how I could see this… this working, just from, like, I don’t know, the 20 minutes we’ve talked. I mean, how does that sound, or is that… were you looking for more just, like, you want to just stay on one, and just kind of just…
176 00:29:23.820 ⇒ 00:29:26.080 Robert Tseng: Kind of crank, crank, crank things out for them.
177 00:29:26.540 ⇒ 00:29:44.339 Keith Saver: You know, I, I’m actually not sure, I probably have to think about it a little bit. I had initially sort of thought more, probably because it’s also what I’m more used to, sort of being internal, about the, you know, model of, like, you know, sort of being on one longer-term contract. Like, I think a lot of what I enjoy on the data science side is honestly more of the, like, long-term data strategy.
178 00:29:44.340 ⇒ 00:29:46.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Thinking King. ….
179 00:29:46.750 ⇒ 00:30:01.590 Keith Saver: But I also, like, you know, especially at Shopify, actually, it was, like, a very full-stack data science role, and so, you know, I also have that experience, and it’s like, you know, I’d also be open to doing, sort of more of those, like, short-term deliverables and figuring out that early client work. So…
180 00:30:02.550 ⇒ 00:30:10.879 Keith Saver: Yeah, no, that’s only half helpful, to give you a half answer, but I… But no, that makes sense, I think, especially given the organization, that definitely makes sense.
181 00:30:11.230 ⇒ 00:30:24.849 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, as far as the long-term data strategy stuff, it’s fine. Like, it is fun, like, I can go around and be like, oh yeah, I’m, like, fractional head of data for, like, a few companies or whatever, and, you know, maybe that is, like, something that you would love to do, and, you know, I would say it’d be…
182 00:30:25.100 ⇒ 00:30:44.710 Robert Tseng: like, if you can… if you can, like, bring an account from, like, a single, like, from the start to… to a point where they trust you and they want you to be their go-to person, I think that the door is open for you. You could totally run with that. Totally makes sense. And so, I… I feel like that… I… I think I would totally, I would want that as well.
183 00:30:44.710 ⇒ 00:30:54.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so maybe that’s kind of, like, the compromise that we could make, that it’s like, maybe there isn’t, like, a long-term, part-time kind of, like, lead situation that you can step into.
184 00:30:54.520 ⇒ 00:31:04.860 Robert Tseng: But, like, if you can… yeah, if you just kind of work with us for, you know, a couple months, like, you may… you may, you may build that relationship with the client to the point where they want you to be that person.
185 00:31:04.860 ⇒ 00:31:22.689 Robert Tseng: And then, you know, you’re welcome to do that under a Brain Forge, and we will kind of just give you all the support that you need to just kind of stick with that one, and, like, that could work out really well. So, but anyway, we have some flexibility on, like, how we can kind of explore that, but obviously want this to be something that you’re excited about doing.
186 00:31:22.800 ⇒ 00:31:40.989 Robert Tseng: As well. So, I’d love to hear about the projects that you’re working on some other time, but, yeah, anyway, I think, hopefully that gave you a good sense of, like, you know, what the opportunity is, and, you know, hopefully you have some things to think back on, and, yeah, we’d love to stay, kind of, stay in touch and try to see if we can make something work here.
187 00:31:41.200 ⇒ 00:31:45.740 Keith Saver: Yeah, definitely, would love to. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, I appreciate your time, and yeah.
188 00:31:46.330 ⇒ 00:31:51.169 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, great. Thanks, Keith. Really enjoyed this conversation, and yeah, I guess we’ll talk soon.
189 00:31:51.170 ⇒ 00:31:52.330 Keith Saver: Awesome, sounds great. You too.
190 00:31:52.330 ⇒ 00:31:54.199 Robert Tseng: Cool. See ya. Bye.