Meeting Title: Bonsai x Robert Tseng Hiring Discussion Date: 2025-08-25 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Rachel Kulig - Bonsai
WEBVTT
1 00:05:32.980 ⇒ 00:05:34.400 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Hi, can you hear me?
2 00:05:35.190 ⇒ 00:05:36.630 Robert Tseng: Hey! Hey, Rachel!
3 00:05:37.090 ⇒ 00:05:46.709 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Hey, how are you? Sorry, sorry, Zoom… Zoom issues. We’re a Google, shop, so I have all the Google stuff, but I don’t really ever use Zoom.
4 00:05:46.920 ⇒ 00:06:01.429 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I get it. I mean, even Zoom for us is, like… I feel like it’s getting slower and slower to, to join. I have to, like, click the join, like, 3 minutes before for me to join on time, or whatever, so, like, I…
5 00:06:02.190 ⇒ 00:06:10.129 Robert Tseng: I… I don’t know why these… I mean, Teams is a whole thing as well, so, like… Yeah. I do think Google is the easiest one to use, though.
6 00:06:11.060 ⇒ 00:06:14.299 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, I agree. I mean, maybe I’m, …
7 00:06:14.790 ⇒ 00:06:18.029 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: A little jaded, because that is what we use every day, so….
8 00:06:18.450 ⇒ 00:06:20.350 Robert Tseng: Oh, I see. Yeah.
9 00:06:20.710 ⇒ 00:06:26.439 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah, thanks for hopping on this call. I really appreciate, you taking the time to do it.
10 00:06:26.680 ⇒ 00:06:39.580 Robert Tseng: yeah, I guess I’m just, like, looking back at my first message I sent out to you, and trying to recall, like, what specific questions I had, but… yeah, I guess I… what caught my eye… I met Mike, like, maybe a couple years ago, when I first started my company, and
11 00:06:39.750 ⇒ 00:06:41.000 Robert Tseng: I guess…
12 00:06:41.330 ⇒ 00:06:48.189 Robert Tseng: I got introduced to Bonsai through, like, a friend of mine who was a PM at a company in Philly, and…
13 00:06:48.310 ⇒ 00:06:57.870 Robert Tseng: thought he had a great experience working with you guys, and so I kind of had that on my radar. It’s like, bond size may be, like, something I want… aspire, like, my team to kind of….
14 00:06:58.050 ⇒ 00:07:05.139 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: to take after, I guess, so… Yeah. I mean, I guess I don’t know too much about, like, your role and everything, I just saw that you’re….
15 00:07:05.140 ⇒ 00:07:13.739 Robert Tseng: your… I mean, I saw your title, it seems like you do some sort of PMing work for Bob Sci, and that’s a function that we’re trying to build out right now, and…
16 00:07:13.840 ⇒ 00:07:25.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah, just wanting to better kind of understand, you know, at your scale, and, like, in your function now, kind of what you do, and just see what we can kind of learn for… for, like, my team, I guess.
17 00:07:26.050 ⇒ 00:07:33.279 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Cool. Yeah, I will give you an overview of my role at Bonsai, and then maybe what would help me
18 00:07:33.420 ⇒ 00:07:42.890 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: after you hear is an overview of your company and team, and then any, like, specific questions that come out of my little spiel that I’m gonna tell you.
19 00:07:42.890 ⇒ 00:07:43.270 Robert Tseng: Sounds good.
20 00:07:43.270 ⇒ 00:07:43.870 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Okay.
21 00:07:44.260 ⇒ 00:08:03.430 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: So, I’ve been at Bonsai for about 2 years now. I started… I got hired as a program manager. I have experience in the construction and manufacturing project management world, and so when I first got hired at Bonsai, they really wanted somebody to come in and help standardize
22 00:08:03.430 ⇒ 00:08:14.320 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: everything that they do. When I started working at Bonsai, we were really more of a consulting firm. Now, we’re a product. We’ve, like, totally rebranded, we’ve built this product.
23 00:08:14.350 ⇒ 00:08:23.140 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, so when I… when I came in and started program managing, like, every client was different, every contract was different.
24 00:08:23.250 ⇒ 00:08:28.930 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And so… pretty early on in my role at Bonsai, I realized that
25 00:08:29.460 ⇒ 00:08:32.539 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: The program manager role should be technical.
26 00:08:32.740 ⇒ 00:08:33.740 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: …
27 00:08:34.020 ⇒ 00:08:46.839 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I was working, basically, in between the internal client teams and the tech team as, like, that liaison to make sure, like, those stages of the project happen at, you know, all the program management things.
28 00:08:47.120 ⇒ 00:08:48.879 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And I was like.
29 00:08:48.990 ⇒ 00:08:54.910 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: this is… like, this is a challenge. This needs to be… this role needs to be technical, right? And so then…
30 00:08:55.150 ⇒ 00:08:57.700 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Everybody was like, yep, we agree.
31 00:08:57.880 ⇒ 00:09:15.999 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And I started some training, and the role really evolved from there. I became a technical program manager, and then towards the end of last year into this year, I have my new role now, which is Data Operations Engineer, so…
32 00:09:16.280 ⇒ 00:09:17.420 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: …
33 00:09:17.570 ⇒ 00:09:25.390 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I guess my little spiel to you as you’re, like, building out your program manager, project management, or, like, even product manager.
34 00:09:25.710 ⇒ 00:09:39.109 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: team and roles is, like, you might start with one role, and it might turn into something else. You might think that you need, like, this one thing, and as you have an expert in their field come in, they’re like, hey, I really think that you need to bring in this, so…
35 00:09:39.280 ⇒ 00:09:50.969 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: as a startup, I’m sure you know, your teams all work across each other, everybody does a little bit of everything. It’s not like, you know, those Fortune 500 companies where
36 00:09:51.160 ⇒ 00:09:54.679 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: You have one title, and you have one lane, and you stay in one lane.
37 00:09:55.600 ⇒ 00:10:01.410 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: So, yeah, my role really evolved into onboarding, data onboarding.
38 00:10:01.510 ⇒ 00:10:12.370 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And so I started to take over those, like, roles and responsibilities, and now it’s really…
39 00:10:12.560 ⇒ 00:10:23.840 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: So I kind of do, like, a plethora of things. My main thing is data onboarding. As we started building the product, it was, okay, how do we productize data onboarding?
40 00:10:24.000 ⇒ 00:10:34.480 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And then, like, how do we standardize that across all boards? So I still work on SOPs internally, and my main focus is data onboarding and then productizing that.
41 00:10:34.950 ⇒ 00:10:37.769 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I will pause there. Do you have any questions?
42 00:10:38.550 ⇒ 00:10:49.589 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, thanks for… I totally forgot that Bonsai had, like, transitioned to a product company, too, which I thought was interesting. I haven’t talked to… I didn’t… haven’t talked to Mike since, so I haven’t asked him, like, why that happened, but that’s a whole other…
43 00:10:49.710 ⇒ 00:11:05.980 Robert Tseng: conversation. I think you’re pretty spot on with kind of, like, yeah, we’re at a stage now, a lot of people wear different hats. Yeah, some context for, like, kind of my team. So we’re about 18 people at this point. We have one PM, one full-time, she’s kind of a project manager, but…
44 00:11:05.980 ⇒ 00:11:25.689 Robert Tseng: She kind of just does a lot of different things, and kind of maybe what you were describing, yeah, very much the liaison between engineering and then, clients, really. So, internal… we have, like, internal teams as well that kind of, like, run, like, our sales, marketing, basically non-client-facing kind of roles. We have, like, a couple
45 00:11:25.730 ⇒ 00:11:38.070 Robert Tseng: more junior kind of coordinators for that, I guess. So, I’m not too worried about that. I just… but I think I… I hear you on the… it’d be really helpful if that person had technical background, because our current PM does not.
46 00:11:38.100 ⇒ 00:11:52.529 Robert Tseng: And so, I guess what I had in my mind, I can send you some… I can send you, like, the JD that we put together and get your feedback on it or something, but it is, like, we want, like, a mid-level, senior, like, technical PM kind of person.
47 00:11:52.610 ⇒ 00:12:00.920 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I’ve interviewed, like, a bunch of people at this point. Honestly not been too impressed with, kind of, like, more…
48 00:12:01.030 ⇒ 00:12:03.679 Robert Tseng: Because some people that advise me, you know, go in.
49 00:12:03.860 ⇒ 00:12:09.500 Robert Tseng: inter… talk to people who have PMT kind of certifications, and, like, this and that, and …
50 00:12:09.610 ⇒ 00:12:21.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t know, I think there’s something about working with data engineers, specifically, that’s, like, not the same as, like, software PMP, like, enterprise software PMP, or…
51 00:12:21.680 ⇒ 00:12:25.940 Robert Tseng: Like, other… other types of projects, like,
52 00:12:26.110 ⇒ 00:12:28.200 Robert Tseng: What’s missing to me is that the…
53 00:12:28.310 ⇒ 00:12:32.370 Robert Tseng: the requirements for data work. Maybe you know this, but it’s like…
54 00:12:32.370 ⇒ 00:12:51.230 Robert Tseng: A lot of it is just, like, getting more context up front, and they’re not… the engineering requirements that you’re scoping out, and, like, you’re… it’s not a traditional PRD. It’s not necessarily, like, there are clear features for everything. Oftentimes, like, you’re just given an open-ended question, and you kind of have to be able to triage both sides, like, on the
55 00:12:51.440 ⇒ 00:13:06.809 Robert Tseng: engineers know what they need in order to think in, like, different, like, levels of, like, modeling to, like, then reports, and then the stakeholder side, also needing to understand, like, you know, why they’re asking that question, what’s, like, the thing they’re trying to measure, and having that business analyst, kind of.
56 00:13:06.810 ⇒ 00:13:13.190 Robert Tseng: kind of, like, hat as well, which RPM does have, and she’s great at that, but just doesn’t speak to the engineering side, which has been
57 00:13:13.190 ⇒ 00:13:17.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, that’s kind of where we’re at.
58 00:13:17.240 ⇒ 00:13:22.130 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Summarize the challenge for every company, anywhere, everywhere.
59 00:13:23.330 ⇒ 00:13:37.629 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: No, yeah, that’s… I mean, I definitely felt that in my role. I was, like, I was not technical, I came from a construction manufacturing background, and so I was like, yeah, like, I need these skills to be able to do exactly all of the things that you just listed. I think, …
60 00:13:38.110 ⇒ 00:13:40.850 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: For me, and obviously it depends on
61 00:13:41.050 ⇒ 00:13:50.809 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: the company and the client, and how you want to scale, and where you want to go. The biggest thing, at least when I was even interviewing for Bonsai, I was like, I want to work for a company
62 00:13:51.410 ⇒ 00:13:59.919 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Where everybody has different backgrounds, and can bring that experience and, like, solve whatever the challenges that we’re trying to solve, right?
63 00:13:59.970 ⇒ 00:14:07.609 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I didn’t want to work for somebody who just cookie-cutter, oh, you have a PMP, you’re gonna do it the same way that you did it at that company.
64 00:14:07.630 ⇒ 00:14:20.880 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Like, that’s not how you build new products, that’s not how you… right? And so that was one thing that I really liked about Bonsai when I was interviewing. Everybody came from such different backgrounds. And so then the other thing that I’m hearing, maybe…
65 00:14:20.990 ⇒ 00:14:26.319 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: When you’re interviewing, Maybe you take somebody who doesn’t have technical experience, but
66 00:14:26.520 ⇒ 00:14:29.539 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Wants that, like, has that drive to learn that.
67 00:14:29.590 ⇒ 00:14:47.460 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: that’s okay, right? I mean, again, I don’t know, like, where you are in the stage of, do you need somebody who can, like, literally jump in day one and take the reins? It’s probably not going to happen with anybody that you hire, right? Because they need to understand the business and understand why you’re asking the stakeholder for certain things, …
68 00:14:47.960 ⇒ 00:14:49.170 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And so…
69 00:14:49.830 ⇒ 00:14:59.309 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: that’s what they did with me, right? I didn’t have any of the technical experience, and I learned it on the job. So that would be maybe my recommendation of, like.
70 00:14:59.650 ⇒ 00:15:02.759 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Maybe you don’t need somebody who has that technical
71 00:15:03.530 ⇒ 00:15:09.049 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: experience, or maybe they only have a little bit of it, if they’re… if they’re willing to. For me, it’s…
72 00:15:09.840 ⇒ 00:15:12.120 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Those skills can be taught.
73 00:15:12.560 ⇒ 00:15:20.809 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah. But the, like, those soft skills… soft skills, like, can’t be taught, right? So you need somebody who has the drive and the willingness to, like.
74 00:15:21.370 ⇒ 00:15:22.500 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: learned those.
75 00:15:22.650 ⇒ 00:15:24.340 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Things that you need for the job.
76 00:15:25.030 ⇒ 00:15:28.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree on that. …
77 00:15:28.650 ⇒ 00:15:47.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m curious, I mean, now that you’re in a more data operations, seems like the more technical role, so kind of like the solutions architect, almost, like, where you’re kind of, you know, core customer, you need to get them integrated into your platform. Seems like you’re… seems like you’ve become quite technical from over the past couple years then. Yeah, I guess, like, what…
78 00:15:48.870 ⇒ 00:15:55.079 Robert Tseng: If you were to… because not everybody will have that drive or willingness to want to go and be technical, and …
79 00:15:55.900 ⇒ 00:16:03.529 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, how would you filter… I mean, how… if you were to interview for yourself, I guess, like, for your… like, if you’re trying to hire yourself back… back then, like, what would… Yeah.
80 00:16:03.660 ⇒ 00:16:04.799 Robert Tseng: What would you have asked?
81 00:16:04.800 ⇒ 00:16:05.160 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah.
82 00:16:05.710 ⇒ 00:16:07.949 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: It’s hard, right? …
83 00:16:08.550 ⇒ 00:16:24.919 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: That’s a really great question. Some of the things that we’re doing at Bonsai, we’re actually doing, like, paid interview work. So, like, it’s kind of like, we’ll onboard somebody as a contractor, be like, hey, we’re gonna give you X amount of hours, and we’re gonna give them a project, and we’ll see how they do.
84 00:16:24.980 ⇒ 00:16:32.689 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: That’s one route that you could try. Another thing, I think, if I was interviewing for somebody, is just…
85 00:16:34.450 ⇒ 00:16:37.290 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I… and I… I know when you interview.
86 00:16:37.920 ⇒ 00:16:52.000 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: people can say whatever they want in the interview, right? It’s like, until you really hire somebody that you get to, like, understand that. But I think it’s really maybe tailoring your questions to your business, and then also, I think I would, ask, like.
87 00:16:52.240 ⇒ 00:16:55.569 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: if this happened, what would you do, questions. And, like.
88 00:16:55.570 ⇒ 00:16:55.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
89 00:16:55.950 ⇒ 00:16:59.109 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: You can literally use examples that you’ve had.
90 00:16:59.540 ⇒ 00:17:01.960 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: At your company. …
91 00:17:02.100 ⇒ 00:17:15.019 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And then it’s also… it’s kind of just, like, right, it’s culture. It’s like, do they fit in well with the team? It’s, like, communication. How are they, like, responding? How are they answering our questions? How would they communicate? I’m not a huge…
92 00:17:15.780 ⇒ 00:17:24.209 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Advocate of, like, the… 5-6 interview process, and, like, the take-home test, and, like, the, …
93 00:17:24.680 ⇒ 00:17:39.019 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: like, that whole, you know, thing, was like, I think I had 3 interviews, and then they were like, okay, you’re hired. But I do like the, we will… we will pay you for your time, and give you a small project at sea.
94 00:17:39.390 ⇒ 00:17:40.120 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: how that is.
95 00:17:40.120 ⇒ 00:17:40.660 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
96 00:17:41.150 ⇒ 00:17:43.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we actually do that, so I think, ….
97 00:17:43.980 ⇒ 00:17:44.460 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Cool.
98 00:17:44.460 ⇒ 00:17:47.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, we just… we don’t have time to do, like, 5 or 6 rounds of the person.
99 00:17:47.830 ⇒ 00:17:48.279 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I know.
100 00:17:48.280 ⇒ 00:17:51.110 Robert Tseng: It’s better to just put them on, like, a project and….
101 00:17:51.110 ⇒ 00:17:51.430 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah.
102 00:17:51.430 ⇒ 00:18:05.890 Robert Tseng: how they do, yeah. And I mean, definitely joining a team at this size, like, you kind of have to be willing to jump into the deep end and figure things out, so that’s… it kind of is self-selective. Some people don’t want that, and we don’t really kind of move forward with them anyway.
103 00:18:06.050 ⇒ 00:18:10.390 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I think I am on the same wavelength on that.
104 00:18:10.960 ⇒ 00:18:20.540 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, it would be, like, asking those kind of experience questions, too, of… or some sort of, like, pointed question, like, if this were to happen, like, what would you do? Yeah.
105 00:18:21.220 ⇒ 00:18:21.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
106 00:18:22.010 ⇒ 00:18:24.910 Robert Tseng: I’m curious more from, like, your…
107 00:18:25.140 ⇒ 00:18:37.589 Robert Tseng: So yeah, I guess you did… before you switched to, I guess, products, while you’re still in services, yeah, like, what was the learning curve like for you? Like, kind of how… like, if you were to, kind of.
108 00:18:37.920 ⇒ 00:18:45.579 Robert Tseng: outline an onboarding plan for yourself again, to… but, you know, doing it better? Like, what… how would you have done it? Yeah.
109 00:18:45.580 ⇒ 00:18:46.390 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah.
110 00:18:46.560 ⇒ 00:18:52.659 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: as a… As a… when we were a consultant, or would you ask as a product?
111 00:18:52.660 ⇒ 00:18:53.979 Robert Tseng: Well, as a consultant, yeah.
112 00:18:53.980 ⇒ 00:19:00.799 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: As a consultant? Yeah. Yeah, this has definitely been a pain point at Bonsai, and I feel like
113 00:19:01.100 ⇒ 00:19:04.359 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Personally, we haven’t totally solved it.
114 00:19:04.520 ⇒ 00:19:10.430 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: … My… if I were to give myself an onboarding
115 00:19:11.240 ⇒ 00:19:17.440 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: like, in shorter process. I think I would do, like, a 30, 60, 90-day Goals?
116 00:19:18.190 ⇒ 00:19:23.650 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I would do… Training, or like a…
117 00:19:23.810 ⇒ 00:19:34.119 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: intro meeting with everybody across the team, with the small teams, like, Bonsai is, like, 20 people, that’s sustainable. I know once you start to get a little bit
118 00:19:34.140 ⇒ 00:19:46.619 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: bigger than that, it’s not as sustainable, so maybe interviews with people, or I’m saying interviews, not interviews, but, like, just a 30-minute meeting, with people who you are going to work with. I think it’s really important to understand
119 00:19:47.260 ⇒ 00:19:48.090 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: What?
120 00:19:48.150 ⇒ 00:19:50.590 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Everybody at the team does.
121 00:19:50.590 ⇒ 00:20:14.360 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And especially as a program manager, and where I can rely on those team members, like, what the roles and responsibilities are for each person, like, expectation, even working time, if… I don’t know if your team works remote, but, like, our team works across the U.S, so we’re all in different time zones, so even understanding, like, where those people are in different time zones, and knowing when the best time is for me to communicate with them online.
122 00:20:14.810 ⇒ 00:20:21.800 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: That, I think, is really important. I find that even now, people will be like, hey, Rachel, can you do this thing? And I’m like.
123 00:20:22.080 ⇒ 00:20:26.850 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: that’s not my role, I’m gonna, like, pass it over to, you know, one of other team members.
124 00:20:27.390 ⇒ 00:20:31.600 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: … And then… This is…
125 00:20:31.990 ⇒ 00:20:42.569 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: harder with consulting, but as a product, one of my ideas for new onboards is to go through our product and create, like, an FAQ doc.
126 00:20:42.720 ⇒ 00:20:47.430 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Because they can do that hands-off, they don’t need to have a meeting with somebody.
127 00:20:47.430 ⇒ 00:21:04.019 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And then it’s actually a tool that we can use in the future to be, like… because it’s kind of like a lens through a client… like, our client’s lens, because I’m in my… the product all day, right? Like, you’re probably in your work all day. So sometimes we miss the little things that a new hire might, see, so…
128 00:21:04.030 ⇒ 00:21:16.799 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Even if you’re… if you’re consulting instead of productized, maybe, you know, you have them look at a contract and pull out, like, any questions that they get from a contract, or they can compare a few contracts and… and some sort of…
129 00:21:17.010 ⇒ 00:21:23.079 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I think, … Non-needed work that they can do themselves.
130 00:21:23.290 ⇒ 00:21:28.450 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: But then you can also use in the future to scale and improve your procedures.
131 00:21:28.920 ⇒ 00:21:29.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
132 00:21:29.760 ⇒ 00:21:36.279 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, I think that makes sense. And then, like, as you were doing consulting work, …
133 00:21:36.710 ⇒ 00:21:45.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I guess… I mean, our engagements are typically, like, 3 months minimum, so they’re, like, 3 to 6 months, I would say, is kind of the average, and then…
134 00:21:45.800 ⇒ 00:21:49.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah, for us, like, we typically… …
135 00:21:51.160 ⇒ 00:21:57.079 Robert Tseng: I mean, yeah, we run… we run sprints with our engineers, the PM is typically…
136 00:21:57.270 ⇒ 00:22:13.350 Robert Tseng: yeah, responsible for creating the tickets, also, yeah, like, getting… getting story points assigned with… with engineers, and then kind of just managing, like, our planning and allocation. We have those types of meetings on a weekly basis, so they’re pretty much kind of just, like.
137 00:22:13.570 ⇒ 00:22:29.909 Robert Tseng: controlling how… the velocity of, like, how fast we work on projects and how much work we take on. Yeah, and so, I’m curious if that’s kind of how, like, your role was before, when you were… when you guys were still servicing the company, and …
138 00:22:30.180 ⇒ 00:22:36.409 Robert Tseng: yeah, I guess, how have things… like, how did the structure kind of evolve over time? Yeah.
139 00:22:36.410 ⇒ 00:22:39.509 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, so when we were in consulting.
140 00:22:40.250 ⇒ 00:22:48.220 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: the… yeah, I was basically the point person for… Whatever the, next…
141 00:22:48.810 ⇒ 00:22:58.499 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: you know, like, step is in the project to meet whatever the deliverable was. Now, a lot of our contracts were different, so we didn’t really have, like, a set,
142 00:22:58.930 ⇒ 00:22:59.990 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: project.
143 00:23:00.680 ⇒ 00:23:14.469 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: steps 1 through 10 that we can copy. So, we had… in the past, we don’t use Monday anymore, but we had Monday, and it’s basically like, yeah, building out a project board, assigning the right person, and then, also understanding how long each
144 00:23:14.570 ⇒ 00:23:24.389 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: step in the process might take, and so, like, communicating with that person who’s assigned to it to see… to try to get an estimate. We… didn’t…
145 00:23:24.600 ⇒ 00:23:37.439 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: start doing, like, morning daily stand-ups with the whole team until we productized. We had internal client meetings with the team members that were on that project.
146 00:23:37.770 ⇒ 00:23:47.879 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And so each meeting we went through, hey, here’s where we’re at, here’s where we need to be at, here’s, you know, the future plan, is there any… whatever, blockers, all of the things that you go through.
147 00:23:48.020 ⇒ 00:23:49.420 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: In those meetings.
148 00:23:49.540 ⇒ 00:23:57.239 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And then, as my role evolved, I started to step away from the
149 00:23:57.790 ⇒ 00:24:07.249 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: program manager responsibilities, because now, as a product, I still do believe that we should have program managers.
150 00:24:07.800 ⇒ 00:24:08.749 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: But as a…
151 00:24:08.990 ⇒ 00:24:20.400 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: product now, it is… it is much, much, much more standardized. And as a small team, everybody kind of owns their part in
152 00:24:21.270 ⇒ 00:24:38.220 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: the time… the roadmap, and so we’re kind of… because we’ve been working together for a while now, we haven’t had a ton of new hires. Only new hires we’ve had this year are in sales, so… product… I mean, there’s three of us. There’s myself and two other people. So… and then the client team, same thing. We’ve only got, like.
153 00:24:38.860 ⇒ 00:24:48.469 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: three other, … we’ve got, like, two other EMs and, like, a performance marketing. It’s a really small team, so we kind of all are in sync now, product-wise.
154 00:24:48.940 ⇒ 00:25:01.499 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: But, as we scale, I have been saying, like, we need to probably get another program manager, we need to build out some, … Anyways, I think I am on a tangent, and maybe didn’t totally answer your question.
155 00:25:01.500 ⇒ 00:25:05.710 Robert Tseng: No, no, all good. Yeah, no, that was helpful, to hear, like.
156 00:25:06.330 ⇒ 00:25:13.899 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, what… how it was structured before, how your role evolved. Maybe if we had time for a couple more questions, one would be.
157 00:25:14.020 ⇒ 00:25:18.350 Robert Tseng: What do you think the highest, like, what was the most…
158 00:25:19.500 ⇒ 00:25:22.250 Robert Tseng: And yeah, I can clarify if you need me to, but I…
159 00:25:22.360 ⇒ 00:25:30.739 Robert Tseng: what, like, what was the most, like, highest leveraged part of your role? Like, how do you feel like the… it really, like.
160 00:25:30.990 ⇒ 00:25:36.819 Robert Tseng: Like, what did it really unlock for the organization, you feel? Like, …
161 00:25:37.550 ⇒ 00:25:44.280 Robert Tseng: Yeah, maybe it’s not just a function of your role, maybe it’s just, like, that was you, and you, like, had some… something that you brought to it, like… I’m…
162 00:25:44.520 ⇒ 00:25:47.740 Robert Tseng: Trying to, like, articulate, …
163 00:25:48.290 ⇒ 00:25:54.549 Robert Tseng: like, this is what you could do, like, this is what the impact of you, like, that you could have on our team, because sometimes I feel like
164 00:25:55.170 ⇒ 00:26:09.609 Robert Tseng: it’s hard for people to imagine themselves, especially in a, like, startup where things are not as clear… clear-cut, and… but it’s, like, it’s something that people care about. Like, they’re gonna join a smaller company because they want to have an impact, and they want to….
165 00:26:09.610 ⇒ 00:26:10.090 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah.
166 00:26:10.090 ⇒ 00:26:17.289 Robert Tseng: part of this journey, and, like, kind of see something, so I just want to… yeah, I’m just curious, like, kind of how you would answer that.
167 00:26:17.690 ⇒ 00:26:25.330 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, my… so my… sweet spot where I, like, really enjoy what I do.
168 00:26:25.480 ⇒ 00:26:29.100 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: is… Understanding…
169 00:26:29.560 ⇒ 00:26:37.139 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: the full picture of what we’re trying to accomplish, right? So for Bonsai, we, we do a marketing measurement.
170 00:26:38.030 ⇒ 00:26:39.080 Robert Tseng: And then….
171 00:26:39.240 ⇒ 00:26:47.469 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: How can we not only, like, scale that for every client, any business, any market.
172 00:26:47.650 ⇒ 00:26:52.379 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And then also, I mean, I’m a big, like, operations person, so I’m like.
173 00:26:52.770 ⇒ 00:27:01.750 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Oh, on client A, we’re doing it this way, but on client B, we’re doing it this way. I love when I can be like, hey, why can’t we do it this way for client A and client B?
174 00:27:01.750 ⇒ 00:27:03.740 Robert Tseng: And so that’s kind of, like.
175 00:27:04.490 ⇒ 00:27:17.950 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: even from program management to where I am now in, you know, data operations engineering, or customer engineering, I still do that. That’s, like, my big unlock for me.
176 00:27:18.080 ⇒ 00:27:19.210 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: …
177 00:27:20.170 ⇒ 00:27:39.340 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And part of that, now as… as we’ve prophesized, is, like, also, how do we make it easier for the client? Because it’s not easy, right? The client is coming to us because they have a problem, or, like, right, like a business problem. And so, in the past, when I started, when we were in consulting, it was…
178 00:27:39.930 ⇒ 00:27:48.030 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: very confusing for the client, sometimes even for the internal teams, and now as we’ve productized, it just…
179 00:27:48.030 ⇒ 00:28:00.999 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: That’s… I don’t know. That’s, like, me. That’s what I like seeing, like, oh, I, like, I, like, built this product, or, like, I made this thing easier for the client, or I made this thing easier for the internal teams, or I made this thing easier for me, too.
180 00:28:01.000 ⇒ 00:28:01.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
181 00:28:01.850 ⇒ 00:28:02.990 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, does that….
182 00:28:03.780 ⇒ 00:28:05.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
183 00:28:05.020 ⇒ 00:28:05.410 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Okay.
184 00:28:05.410 ⇒ 00:28:10.589 Robert Tseng: It also sounds like you liked the change to a product, like, you prefer it being a product, yeah.
185 00:28:10.590 ⇒ 00:28:11.700 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And not really….
186 00:28:11.700 ⇒ 00:28:14.969 Robert Tseng: Services was, like, kind of too chaotic or whatever for you.
187 00:28:15.600 ⇒ 00:28:17.359 Robert Tseng: Yes, it was.
188 00:28:17.920 ⇒ 00:28:24.879 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I don’t know, we’ll see what we get. We’ve been… we’re still on the services, for now, I…
189 00:28:25.040 ⇒ 00:28:28.009 Robert Tseng: I definitely can see why being
190 00:28:28.270 ⇒ 00:28:37.910 Robert Tseng: working on one thing and doing it, like, kind of having more standardization that kind of makes it… it makes it easier to scale. It is hard to scale services, because everything is so bespoke.
191 00:28:38.400 ⇒ 00:28:52.769 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, you could definitely, though… I mean, I believe that you could definitely standardize to a point, even as a… even as a service… service. Like, in my last role in manufacturing, we manufactured stainless steel pools.
192 00:28:52.770 ⇒ 00:28:58.549 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: And all of the pools were custom, but the steps in order to… like, the steps from…
193 00:28:59.310 ⇒ 00:29:04.799 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: When project management first got a new project to, like.
194 00:29:05.600 ⇒ 00:29:14.109 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: the fit… the build finish, like, I could… I helped standardize all of those procedures, because even though
195 00:29:14.360 ⇒ 00:29:16.710 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Each pool was custom.
196 00:29:16.870 ⇒ 00:29:21.109 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: there’s still, like, a certain step that you need to take, right? Like.
197 00:29:21.580 ⇒ 00:29:30.589 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: it was so long ago now, I’m like, what did I do? But, like, I have to talk to engineering to, like, give them the plans, and then they draw the plans, and then I have to mark up the book. Like, there’s still…
198 00:29:31.380 ⇒ 00:29:32.660 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: You could still…
199 00:29:33.090 ⇒ 00:29:38.680 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I’m not gonna call it productizing, but you could still, like, standardize, build SOPs, even if, I think you have
200 00:29:39.050 ⇒ 00:29:47.719 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: a custom, … some sort of, like, service. Do you find that your services are…
201 00:29:49.280 ⇒ 00:29:58.299 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: like, generally the same? Is, like, the concept is the same, and maybe just the business or the use case is different across clients?
202 00:29:59.030 ⇒ 00:30:08.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think, we’ve worked with enough clients now that, like, there are definitely… there’s… there are patterns to, kind of, like, what we do with folks, …
203 00:30:08.860 ⇒ 00:30:18.849 Robert Tseng: So, I mean, I didn’t really explain too much what we do, but, we are, like, a data engineering and AI engineering kind of company, so…
204 00:30:18.980 ⇒ 00:30:31.369 Robert Tseng: data engineering-wise, it’s all kind of the same. You just throw all your data in a single place, you have to do some modeling, do lots of reports. So, different organizations are at different stages of that process, and, I think that part is…
205 00:30:31.620 ⇒ 00:30:39.180 Robert Tseng: consistent, but yeah, it’s just that every… because the business… it’s in the nuances of how the businesses are different that, like, make
206 00:30:39.240 ⇒ 00:30:55.360 Robert Tseng: it a more challenging, project, and it does get… it does get very… it can get complicated, because every organization is different. They may define the same metric that you’ve seen 50 times, like, differently. So, yeah, but then the AI stuff is much…
207 00:30:55.370 ⇒ 00:31:06.129 Robert Tseng: more cookie cutter. It’s just, like, someone that wants a chatbot, they want a co-pilot, they want integrations or whatever, automation. It’s like, it’s more of a classic engineering problem,
208 00:31:06.210 ⇒ 00:31:10.360 Robert Tseng: But yeah, the data stuff is actually harder, in my opinion, so… Yeah.
209 00:31:10.820 ⇒ 00:31:23.260 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, yeah, we find all of the time. So basically, for Bodzai, I bucket data into, like, 3 groups, marketing, analytics, and business.
210 00:31:23.870 ⇒ 00:31:27.000 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: I have been able to, …
211 00:31:27.870 ⇒ 00:31:38.039 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: basically, our product now, we built Connect Cards, so clients can go self-authenticate their own data pipelines for, …
212 00:31:38.150 ⇒ 00:31:40.350 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Their marketing and their analytics.
213 00:31:40.500 ⇒ 00:31:45.350 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Business is always a thing that is very, very custom, as you’ve said, like, their purchase?
214 00:31:45.510 ⇒ 00:32:00.430 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: their purchase definition might be different from the next client, from the next client, from the next client. That is something that is on the roadmap to kind of productize where maybe we have an input form in our product where the client can specify their own definitions.
215 00:32:00.430 ⇒ 00:32:08.999 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Sometimes we build the data definition table for that because they don’t have the definitions, so I definitely, understand that that is
216 00:32:09.000 ⇒ 00:32:20.780 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: there’s always going to be that complexity. There’s never going to be, at least in Bonsai and maybe your business, we’re never going to be 100%, like, product size. We’re never going to be 100% standard, and I think that’s something that
217 00:32:21.050 ⇒ 00:32:25.109 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: As you’re on… as you’re hiring people, that’s just…
218 00:32:25.230 ⇒ 00:32:30.069 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: people need to be okay with that. If they’re not okay with it, then they’re not a good fit for the company, right?
219 00:32:30.550 ⇒ 00:32:31.150 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
220 00:32:31.760 ⇒ 00:32:44.460 Robert Tseng: Okay, I mean, I would love to chat more, honestly, but I… I do have to jump to another call. I’m curious if you’d be open to, like, kind of even advising on, like, some candidates come through, if I just, like…
221 00:32:44.530 ⇒ 00:33:01.149 Robert Tseng: I mean, obviously, we could do something, or we want to pay you as, like, an advisor or something. Yeah, because you do have that industry experience, and, like, if we’re talking to someone, I’ll just kind of just want to get your opinion on it. I don’t know, I can… I can… I can brainstorm a bit on that, but …
222 00:33:01.390 ⇒ 00:33:11.679 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I also saw that you’re New York-based, so I don’t know, like, thank you for this conversation. Hopefully, like, we get to kind of chat… chat more. I’m also in New York, so, yeah, would love to learn more.
223 00:33:12.170 ⇒ 00:33:25.549 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Yeah, absolutely. Write something up, let me know what you’re thinking. I’m definitely open. I’m actually on the West Coast right now. I travel full-time, like, in an RV, but we could chat about that more later. Oh, awesome. Okay, cool.
224 00:33:25.550 ⇒ 00:33:27.560 Robert Tseng: Alright, well, thank you so much for your time, Rachel.
225 00:33:28.220 ⇒ 00:33:29.440 Rachel Kulig - Bonsai: Thank you. Bye.