Meeting Title: Brainforge Sales Role Interview Date: 2025-08-26 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Justina Spinn
WEBVTT
1 00:00:08.710 ⇒ 00:00:09.600 Justina Spinn: Bye!
2 00:00:09.990 ⇒ 00:00:11.040 Robert Tseng: Hi, Justina.
3 00:00:11.230 ⇒ 00:00:12.139 Justina Spinn: How are you?
4 00:00:12.140 ⇒ 00:00:19.210 Robert Tseng: Good, how are you? Sorry for, the delay. Wait, how did… do you get the link? Because I just, sent it to you?
5 00:00:19.370 ⇒ 00:00:26.670 Justina Spinn: Yeah, well, I just emailed you about that, because I was like, I hope this is the right link. I just hopped into the one from Thursday, and I was like, fingers crossed.
6 00:00:26.670 ⇒ 00:00:41.209 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I’m sorry, I guess when Rico moved the invite, he didn’t move the link. Good deduction. I was trying to, like, send it to you, but it wasn’t saving to the invite, but then I saw that you had joined, I was like, I guess it worked, so…
7 00:00:42.260 ⇒ 00:00:58.319 Robert Tseng: No worries! Cool. Well, yeah, thanks for taking the time to jump on a call with me. I didn’t actually do too much catching up with Uten beforehand, so I’d love to just kind of hear, like, where you are at in kind of this stage, what you’ve talked… who you’ve talked to, like, what…
8 00:00:58.320 ⇒ 00:01:14.179 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, kind of what you think the role is, and then, I guess, what you can expect from me is, I think I typically just bring the perspective of… I’ll kind of walk you through some scenarios of, like, what it’s actually like being in this role on the job, and then, kind of give you some time for questions.
9 00:01:14.420 ⇒ 00:01:16.280 Justina Spinn: Okay, sounds great.
10 00:01:16.420 ⇒ 00:01:21.149 Justina Spinn: I have spoken with Utsam, am I saying his name right?
11 00:01:21.150 ⇒ 00:01:22.130 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Udam, yeah.
12 00:01:22.150 ⇒ 00:01:34.330 Justina Spinn: Okay, yeah, so, just, like, briefly, kind of, you know, just, like, through LinkedIn, basically sent him over my information, and that’s really it. Oh, okay, okay.
13 00:01:34.330 ⇒ 00:01:51.770 Justina Spinn: Yeah, so I haven’t gotten too far into the process or anything like that, really just kind of going off of what, was on the job listing, and all of that. So, yeah, I can kind of tell you, like, why I think that it might be a good fit, if you want me to, like, go into that.
14 00:01:51.770 ⇒ 00:02:02.219 Robert Tseng: Oh yeah, I think that’s… yeah, what we… I’m happy to hear a bit about your background, what kind of about it, and then I’ll kind of pull up some things on the side so I can get ready to share with you as well.
15 00:02:02.220 ⇒ 00:02:11.880 Justina Spinn: Okay, great. Yeah, so my background is kind of a blend of sales operations, sales development, and teaching.
16 00:02:11.880 ⇒ 00:02:26.359 Justina Spinn: And I think that that has given me a pretty strong foundation for a role like this. So in sales operations at Just Right Reader, I have owned HubSpot basically from start to finish, kept our pipeline organized.
17 00:02:26.360 ⇒ 00:02:39.089 Justina Spinn: Built dashboards and reports, made sure that, like, the communication between, leads and customers never slipped through the cracks and everything was logged on there properly. …
18 00:02:39.100 ⇒ 00:02:50.209 Justina Spinn: in SDR and MDR roles at Brightwheel and Seesaw, I generated and qualified leads. I followed up with, like, inbound requests.
19 00:02:50.320 ⇒ 00:02:58.499 Justina Spinn: And managed it, like, the cadence between, like, email and phone calls and that, that kind of thing. So…
20 00:02:58.500 ⇒ 00:03:11.350 Justina Spinn: I’m pretty used to, like, moving opportunities forward and supporting sales reps in that way. And then, as a teacher, I learned how to communicate very clearly, stay organized.
21 00:03:11.350 ⇒ 00:03:21.310 Justina Spinn: And just, like, create materials that keep people engaged. So across all of these experiences, I’ve become pretty comfortable with, like, CRMs.
22 00:03:21.630 ⇒ 00:03:30.980 Justina Spinn: reporting, process improvement, especially finding, like, small manual tasks that I can streamline.
23 00:03:30.980 ⇒ 00:03:47.680 Justina Spinn: I’ve also leaned on AI tools in my current role, to help me research prospects, to help come up with, like, creative solutions to problems, to, like, draft outreach and summarize notes.
24 00:03:47.790 ⇒ 00:04:06.689 Justina Spinn: So yeah, between all of that, reading the job description, just felt like a really great, you know, next move for me. I’m looking forward to stepping into an industry that’s not education, because that’s where I’ve been since I left the classroom, so I’m looking to explore
25 00:04:06.850 ⇒ 00:04:18.200 Justina Spinn: other areas, and, AI is definitely, like, a booming field, and I’m excited to learn more about that. And then, with you guys being
26 00:04:18.200 ⇒ 00:04:31.329 Justina Spinn: a startup, that’s definitely, like, my bread and butter. I love it. Whenever I started at Just Right Reader, there was, like, 15 people there, and so it was really, like, being able to help build, like.
27 00:04:31.470 ⇒ 00:04:37.899 Justina Spinn: processes and all of that is something that I really enjoy. So, yeah.
28 00:04:37.900 ⇒ 00:04:52.050 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. No, thanks for the overview. Very, very thorough, and yeah, I think it does sound like it’s a good fit in terms of background-wise, so I just want to affirm that as well. Yeah, we’re about 15 people right now, yeah, recently kind of got HubSpot set up.
29 00:04:52.050 ⇒ 00:05:14.199 Robert Tseng: no one’s really a true expert, so it’s reassuring that, kind of, you feel like you have a good handle over everything there. Yeah, I guess, like, just to kind of give an overview of, like, Brainforge, and… yeah, so we’re a services company, so I’m not exactly sure, kind of, on the education side, like, sounds like, I mean, obviously you have service experiences, direct services as being a teacher, maybe on the product side as well.
30 00:05:14.200 ⇒ 00:05:39.199 Robert Tseng: And yeah, so for us, we’re a technical services company, and I think some interesting, kind of, differences would be, like, yeah, we’re not… because we’re not, like, selling a product, I think, like, every… like, I think this role is crucial, because, like, learning how to communicate, how we can meet the specific problem that the client is facing is, I mean, that’s where a lot of the time goes into.
31 00:05:39.200 ⇒ 00:06:03.249 Robert Tseng: So I would say that the sales cycles are… or kind of the sales motions, I mean, sorry, are more bespoke, and yeah, I kind of drive the messaging around all of that right now. So, you know, any of the outbound campaigns that we run, they’ve all been kind of, like, set up, and kind of I do all the content there, and so I think I’m really looking for somebody who has kind of ideas, and wants to be able to…
32 00:06:03.700 ⇒ 00:06:19.529 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and part of it is, like, execute, and, like, we have some volume targets, and we can kind of go in through that, and we can talk about, like, you know, how we enable, our team to really kind of go after some of these core benchmarks that we’ve set. But then also, like.
33 00:06:19.530 ⇒ 00:06:32.589 Robert Tseng: yeah, you know, we’re… our processes are always evolving, so I think on a weekly basis, there’s a opportunity for you to kind of bring your ideas to the table, and we’ll really just be able to talk it out. So, I think that’s kind of, …
34 00:06:32.590 ⇒ 00:06:36.349 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s, I would say, something that,
35 00:06:36.440 ⇒ 00:06:52.490 Robert Tseng: may or may not make you uncomfortable, I’m not sure. Like, I think, some people just kind of want to be assigned and just, like, knock out tickets, I guess, but that’s not really what we’re looking for here, so I just wanted to be that… make that clear. Right. Yeah, no, that’s… that’s definitely something that I’m looking for. I love that I can, like.
36 00:06:52.490 ⇒ 00:07:00.220 Justina Spinn: put my input in there, and, you know, we can, like, collaborate and that kind of thing, and, like, see what’s gonna be the best for the company, so… Okay, cool.
37 00:07:00.250 ⇒ 00:07:14.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and so I guess, like, you know, for the full sales cycle, I mean, I’m not gonna kind of do… break… break it all down, but I would say that the immediate need is more leaning towards, like, that first touch, first couple touches. Okay. So I would say that, like.
38 00:07:14.540 ⇒ 00:07:23.009 Robert Tseng: rather than thinking about it, like, in 3 different product lines, I think we have service lines, maybe. We have, like, small, you know, these are just, like, …
39 00:07:24.010 ⇒ 00:07:38.160 Robert Tseng: kind of lead to close times, you know, were pretty short, and it’s like, we believe that if we just hop on one call, we can close these types of clients. And then there’s more, like, kind of, you know, that mid-market, kind of bigger, bigger client, where we’re, …
40 00:07:38.600 ⇒ 00:08:03.400 Robert Tseng: doing some strategy, but also having to build out an engineering roadmap. It’s a pretty involved kind of sales process, where we probably need someone on the engineering side to kind of function as a sales engineer with us, and be able to put forth, like, a deck, might take multiple touchpoints with the client before we actually close them. So that’s, like, another motion. And the third one, which is really the one that, like, takes the longest, these are, like, enterprise clients.
41 00:08:03.400 ⇒ 00:08:25.569 Robert Tseng: that, you know, we may do, like, a pilot with them for, like, an entire month before we end up, like, kind of moving into, like, a more structured, longer-term engagement. That one will have, like, Utam and Mimi, like, our fingerprints will be all over it, because we’re really involved in those deals. So, yeah, I think, you know.
42 00:08:25.570 ⇒ 00:08:28.129 Robert Tseng: Obviously, like, if you kind of think about…
43 00:08:28.130 ⇒ 00:08:51.960 Robert Tseng: you know, the first category is a lot easier to close, and so we do think that it is really just, like, making sure we have enough volume in our pipeline to be able to get to book meetings. That’s, like, the main metric that I look at, and so I… the metric that I hold our sales team to is, we need to book 10 meetings a week. If we can do that, then, like, I think everything kind of follows, like, falls downstream from that. So…
44 00:08:51.960 ⇒ 00:08:54.720 Robert Tseng: And I’d be there to support you to kind of
45 00:08:54.720 ⇒ 00:09:17.689 Robert Tseng: kind of show you all the different levers that we have to be able to drive towards 10 meetings. We have… we do LinkedIn outreach, email we’re slowly turning back on. We’re not actually doing cold calling right now. We kind of shut it off a quarter ago, but am open to it. But yeah, I think, like, the… your starting point would really be just really in LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, and HubSpot, or kind of like our…
46 00:09:17.690 ⇒ 00:09:22.419 Robert Tseng: You know, that… that kind of motion is probably the most, most…
47 00:09:22.420 ⇒ 00:09:35.620 Robert Tseng: most used right now, and then I think email is something that will be nurtured, as well. So yeah, I think that’s, you know, just letting you know that’s kind of where things start, but there’s, like, a wide range of other channels that we’ve wanted to kind of tap into.
48 00:09:35.620 ⇒ 00:09:44.080 Robert Tseng: And then as far as, like, the team that would be supporting you, we do have somebody who actually builds lead lists. So, there is, like.
49 00:09:44.080 ⇒ 00:10:00.180 Robert Tseng: not necessarily managing down, but, like, laterally, you have a couple people supporting you as well. So you have Ryan on our team, who’s, … yeah, he’s really good at AI and automation, and so if you just kind of describe the kind of thing that you want him to go get, like…
50 00:10:00.180 ⇒ 00:10:24.410 Robert Tseng: education companies, 200 to 500 people, that are in, like, Texas or something, and this type of persona, he’ll get… he’ll get you the lead list. And so, I think that way, you don’t have to spend so much time doing lead research and stuff like that. And, like, just once you get the leads, maybe we have to… we have to qualify or QA it a bit between you and me, because not every lead that he gives us is actually one that we would go after.
51 00:10:24.410 ⇒ 00:10:33.579 Robert Tseng: And then we actually have to go and, like, hit those leads, pretty much. So, that’s kind of how I can… how I would, you know, describe you working with, like, Ryan.
52 00:10:33.580 ⇒ 00:10:47.290 Robert Tseng: And then, on the other side, we have Hannah on the, kind of, design marketing side, so she understands all things Brainforge branding and sales assets, like, yeah, I think, you know, we have a lot of different
53 00:10:47.610 ⇒ 00:10:56.029 Robert Tseng: you know, case studies and, decks and one-pagers for various ways that we talk about our work.
54 00:10:56.210 ⇒ 00:11:08.210 Robert Tseng: Especially because technical services is, like… it’s not super visual, so we just have a lot of different visuals that we try to, you know, make it easier to digest, like, what we do. …
55 00:11:08.340 ⇒ 00:11:32.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think it’s just… you get to see that light bulb moment with the client when they pick up something that we give them. They’re like, oh yeah, this is exactly what we need, but it’s not always the most, like, it’s not the easiest thing that rolls off the tongue. So, I think, yeah, I mean, it’s expected that there will be a bit of a learning curve, and I think it’s helpful that you don’t come from industry, so you’re not, like, you know, just tossing jargon around just for the sake of it, because our buyers are really not
56 00:11:32.810 ⇒ 00:11:34.119 Robert Tseng: data people as well.
57 00:11:34.530 ⇒ 00:11:35.900 Robert Tseng: They wouldn’t be working with us, so….
58 00:11:35.900 ⇒ 00:11:37.040 Justina Spinn: Right?
59 00:11:37.040 ⇒ 00:11:51.459 Robert Tseng: It’s actually not a disadvantage for you. So, yeah, so I think, like, Hannah would be able to kind of work with you and give you, kind of direct you to any of the assets that you would need, just to kind of, like, spruce up the messages that we send.
60 00:11:51.540 ⇒ 00:11:57.749 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’ll just kind of pause there. Kind of how does that sound so far? Like, any questions on that?
61 00:11:58.180 ⇒ 00:12:04.590 Justina Spinn: Honestly, that all sounds really interesting, and definitely, like, my background would…
62 00:12:04.840 ⇒ 00:12:13.019 Justina Spinn: would be a good fit there. So that’s all helpful information to know. … I guess, like…
63 00:12:13.630 ⇒ 00:12:22.989 Justina Spinn: What are kind of, like, your… your… give me, like, an example of, like, a smaller type of client that you guys might go after, and then, like, an enterprise kind of client.
64 00:12:23.250 ⇒ 00:12:38.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah, sure. So, like, a small client… so these ones, yeah, a lot of these are inbound, actually, so… Okay. Sometimes, it’s, like, just, like, a referral from, like, one of our partners, so I think…
65 00:12:39.210 ⇒ 00:12:54.549 Robert Tseng: yeah, this role will be working more closely with me, but, you know, Utama and I both kind of play… put on sales hats, but I would say he’s a lot more focused on growing our partner network. The way that we think about our growth strategy is, yeah, we need to have our own motion to, like, go direct to kind of, like.
66 00:12:54.550 ⇒ 00:13:04.839 Robert Tseng: cold contacts as well, but then, we need to just have a lot of friends at Brainforge as well, and so UTAM is, like, kind of, like, focused on building up our friend network, I guess, if you can think about it that way.
67 00:13:04.840 ⇒ 00:13:08.079 Robert Tseng: That way, we’ll continue to have
68 00:13:08.080 ⇒ 00:13:31.120 Robert Tseng: we’ll be able to get more warm introductions to folks, rather than, you know, having, like, no connection to them. And so, with these, with these ones, like, they may hear about us by seeing our work on our website, through some of our friends, that are partners of Brainforge, that they may come in. And really, they may just have, like, an urgent, need. And it’s like, our dashboards are broken.
69 00:13:31.490 ⇒ 00:13:37.920 Robert Tseng: We don’t know what to do. Reporting has just been kind of a mess at our company for a while, and we just need some help there.
70 00:13:38.310 ⇒ 00:13:56.879 Robert Tseng: And so, yeah, getting, kind of, doing some scheduling, there is already urgency, there is a clear need there. They may not actually know what the problem is, but they know how to describe their feeling. It just… it just feels like they’re flying blind, they don’t trust things, like, they don’t know… yeah, and that’s kind of… you’ll… you’ll pick up on some of that, those cues.
71 00:13:56.880 ⇒ 00:14:21.520 Robert Tseng: They’ll hop on a call with me, and in that first call, I typically just try to structure the problem for them and, like, kind of show them a couple things. Like, we have a couple demos that we can show… show them of examples of dashboards that we’ve built, or automation that we’ve built, if they’re saying, like, oh, getting this and that takes so long, and, like, you know, we want to use AI but don’t know how, and we have a… we have a bunch of demos that we can… that we can pull out of
72 00:14:21.520 ⇒ 00:14:27.199 Robert Tseng: of our bag, to just… to show on a call. From there, they’re usually, you know.
73 00:14:27.200 ⇒ 00:14:50.170 Robert Tseng: well, we try to pick something that, you know, they would actually be excited about, and then… then after that, we’re just shooting over a proposal. So, those are pretty… pretty straightforward. It’s just, like, a one- or two-pager, some fixed scope, typically. And, yeah, that’s… and then that’s that. They… we just kind of negotiate a bit of the terms, and then we expect them to sign off of that. Okay.
74 00:14:50.170 ⇒ 00:14:58.390 Robert Tseng: So that, that’s pretty much it. It’s just kind of, like, doing the booking, getting the booking scheduled, and then maybe some of the proposal back and forth afterwards, and then that’s it.
75 00:14:58.390 ⇒ 00:14:58.750 Justina Spinn: Okay.
76 00:14:58.750 ⇒ 00:15:08.549 Robert Tseng: On the enterprise side, like I mentioned, it’s a bit more complicated. Typically, it’s like, okay, there’s a really big opportunity, it’s just like, …
77 00:15:08.720 ⇒ 00:15:28.649 Robert Tseng: you know, a company that we’re talking to, they’re, like, a publicly traded, like, food delivery service… like, we have an AI directive from our chief, you know, information officer in this, you know, 7-plus person company, and, you know, they… they just don’t know what to do with that. And so.
78 00:15:28.650 ⇒ 00:15:52.640 Robert Tseng: because they don’t exactly know what to do, they’re having us kind of first consult them. We’re kind of maybe billing on an hourly basis for, like, maybe the first two weeks to 4 weeks, and we’re kind of just going in, creating, kind of figuring out what the opportunities are and helping them to prioritize. And so it’s a little bit of a working backwards there, where it’s, it’s like, they pay first for the, for, like, meetings with us, and then we get to a point where.
79 00:15:52.640 ⇒ 00:16:08.419 Robert Tseng: So we kind of present out what a roadmap could look like, tell them, like, what the biggest priority could be, and then afterwards, then we’re kind of just trying to get to the finish line there and sign something that’s a bit more fixed. So, yeah, it’s almost like,
80 00:16:09.110 ⇒ 00:16:31.149 Robert Tseng: Whereas the first one, it starts with, like, a really narrow problem, and then you kind of just go after that immediately. The enterprise typically has, like, a really big ambition that doesn’t really, like, they don’t really know how to translate that into something very practical, and so we’re there kind of helping them to get to that point. But it does take a while. So, yeah, I think that’s typically how that process would work. And then, yeah.
81 00:16:32.000 ⇒ 00:16:33.840 Justina Spinn: Great, thank you.
82 00:16:33.840 ⇒ 00:16:34.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
83 00:16:35.830 ⇒ 00:16:41.800 Robert Tseng: Yeah, any other kind of, like, questions for now, or I have a couple other things that I wanted to share, too.
84 00:16:42.120 ⇒ 00:16:44.930 Justina Spinn: Yeah, I mean, I have a couple of other, like.
85 00:16:45.480 ⇒ 00:16:50.430 Justina Spinn: I don’t know, questions about, like, the company and that kind of thing? I don’t know if you want to save those for the end, or if you want those right now.
86 00:16:50.430 ⇒ 00:16:52.520 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, let’s talk about the company, yeah.
87 00:16:52.520 ⇒ 00:16:56.870 Justina Spinn: Yeah, okay, so I guess, let’s see, …
88 00:16:57.410 ⇒ 00:17:09.510 Justina Spinn: I was kind of… so the job listing mentioned, like, shortening the sales cycle, as, like, a success metric, so what are some of, like.
89 00:17:09.720 ⇒ 00:17:11.270 Justina Spinn: the biggest…
90 00:17:11.450 ⇒ 00:17:16.970 Justina Spinn: pain points that you guys are having right now, like, that you would look for this role to… to fix?
91 00:17:17.650 ⇒ 00:17:25.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think really, … the… Like, I know how many…
92 00:17:26.099 ⇒ 00:17:34.460 Robert Tseng: I know what the drop-offs are at every stage in the sales cycle. I really think that the… it’s just a matter of…
93 00:17:35.260 ⇒ 00:17:42.409 Robert Tseng: like, I think sometimes we send messages that don’t really help nudge to the next stage, and so…
94 00:17:42.410 ⇒ 00:18:02.950 Robert Tseng: I think, maybe to be more specific, it’s like, the first message is pretty straightforward. Like, we have those playbooks, you could just really just copy-paste at this point. But, you know, once we get a response, knowing, like, how to triage that and push… kind of get them one step closer to booking… booking that meeting, yeah, I don’t think that our, you know.
95 00:18:02.950 ⇒ 00:18:26.129 Robert Tseng: personnel have, like, really done a great job of doing that, and, you know, we really… that’s, like, one part of the funnel that I’m really trying to, like, focus on, and partner with this person on. So, yeah, I think there’s something about deals moving faster, you know, moving within three to five days. I mean, I guess that’s kind of… to me, I don’t know how much you can really control that, but, like, we can influence it, definitely, from our side with
96 00:18:26.130 ⇒ 00:18:40.529 Robert Tseng: just timely messages, you know, follow-up and stuff, and so, I do think that, you know, if a lead does stall, it’s totally, like, on us to, like, just keep nudging until, like, we get a response. That’s… maybe that kind of… that’s how we
97 00:18:40.610 ⇒ 00:18:53.240 Robert Tseng: that’s how we typically, approach things. So, yeah, I think that’s… that’s something that I think automation could help, like, just having somebody who has that diligence, that, like, makes sure that nobody’s just kind of, like.
98 00:18:53.710 ⇒ 00:19:05.929 Robert Tseng: floating around as a lead. Like, an inactive lead to me is a dead lead, because, like, we’re not actually doing anything with them. So, yeah, I feel like that’s… that’s something that I’d be looking to… to impact.
99 00:19:06.580 ⇒ 00:19:31.560 Justina Spinn: I love that. That is something that, like, me working in RCRM all the time right now, like, I’m constantly seeing areas for our sales reps to be able to follow up in, and I can, like, nudge the sales rep in my current role and be like, hey, you should do this, this, this, maybe, like, follow up with this person. But it’s really supposed to be the sales manager that’s, like, really driving it home. And so that is something that I really love that you said.
100 00:19:31.560 ⇒ 00:19:35.679 Justina Spinn: because that is something that I’m always like, I need some more follow-up here.
101 00:19:35.680 ⇒ 00:19:36.360 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
102 00:19:36.700 ⇒ 00:19:39.409 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. No, glad we’re on the same page there.
103 00:19:39.410 ⇒ 00:19:50.409 Justina Spinn: Awesome. And then, you kind of… I had, like, a question about collaboration with, like, the teams, but you kind of hit on that already, ….
104 00:19:50.410 ⇒ 00:20:05.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I’ll kind of say more a bit on that. So, I mean, those are kind of two people that you’d probably be working close to talking to on a daily basis. But yeah, I think, you know, Utam’s based in Austin as well, so I think definitely that’s a huge advantage, me, being local and
105 00:20:06.470 ⇒ 00:20:11.909 Robert Tseng: hopefully there’s opportunities for… I mean, it’s a remote company, but, like, hopefully there’s opportunities to…
106 00:20:12.200 ⇒ 00:20:20.690 Robert Tseng: co-work. And… yeah, I mean, I think we’re pretty flat structure, like, there’s no, like, really middle management.
107 00:20:20.690 ⇒ 00:20:21.340 Justina Spinn: Right.
108 00:20:21.340 ⇒ 00:20:39.160 Robert Tseng: it’s just… and for better or for worse, you know, there’s no HR either, we just have to be really direct with each other, and … yeah, like, we do give… we do give feedback to each other all the time, so… Right. Yeah, like, I think it’s definitely not really an organization where you just, like, kind of…
109 00:20:39.160 ⇒ 00:20:47.130 Robert Tseng: get used to your thing, and you can just hide in a corner, and, like, no one bothers you. Like, I think people… we default to having to be really…
110 00:20:47.130 ⇒ 00:20:49.430 Robert Tseng: Proactive, almost like…
111 00:20:49.430 ⇒ 00:21:07.249 Robert Tseng: trying to get in each other’s faces, letting each other know what we were doing, because otherwise, like, there’s no other way. We can’t, like, look over someone’s shoulder and see what someone’s up to. So I think that there’s just, like, maybe some… some of those, differences for being a remote-first company that you’d probably have to get used to.
112 00:21:07.650 ⇒ 00:21:20.619 Justina Spinn: Right, yeah, the… the silos in, like, a current comp… like, my current company, like, whenever it started off, it was like everybody was collaborating across the board, and now that we’ve gotten, like, larger, it’s like everybody’s in these silos, and.
113 00:21:21.050 ⇒ 00:21:26.839 Justina Spinn: still collaborate. We need to still talk and, like, get on the same page with everybody. Yeah.
114 00:21:26.840 ⇒ 00:21:41.400 Justina Spinn: So that’s great. Awesome. And then, I think that what you just said kind of answers this next question, but with you guys being, like, a small, fast-growing team, …
115 00:21:41.640 ⇒ 00:21:45.170 Justina Spinn: What are you guys doing, like, you know…
116 00:21:45.390 ⇒ 00:21:55.080 Justina Spinn: culture-wise, like, what are you doing? Like, what kind of culture are you trying to set up? What are you doing to, like, shape that culture? What does that look like for you guys right now?
117 00:21:55.210 ⇒ 00:22:18.009 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I mean, right now, we just really do bi-weekly, kind of, like, all-hands with our team, to be honest. We’re kind of scattered all around the world, but for the US-based folks, we try to get together quarterly. So, for, you know, up to this point, we just have a higher concentration of people on the West Coast, like Portland and LA, and so…
118 00:22:18.010 ⇒ 00:22:42.629 Robert Tseng: we’ve just been all, like, meeting in LA. I mean, I go to Austin every couple months to, like, split my time sharing with UTOM, but, yeah, I think that’s kind of what I would like to see. Like, I would like our team to be at least meeting together once a quarter for, like, you know, you know, in person, especially for the U.S.-based folks. Right. And then, yeah, beyond that, like, that’s pretty much all we do.
119 00:22:42.630 ⇒ 00:22:48.910 Robert Tseng: like, outside of our… outside of our work. I think for folks that are… are working with…
120 00:22:48.910 ⇒ 00:23:11.269 Robert Tseng: in the same city, like, we definitely encourage people to go and, yeah, we get, you know, get meals together, go out for drinks and stuff like that. So, yeah, like, I just… I just had a couple people who came to New York last week, and we spent a couple days together. So there’s, like, all kinds of this spontaneous stuff going on, but it is really much, like, kind of self-initiated, and…
121 00:23:11.270 ⇒ 00:23:20.879 Robert Tseng: I guess, but if you ask for something, like, we… I mean, we do want people who are culture builders, and I think we’re open to, kind of…
122 00:23:20.880 ⇒ 00:23:24.549 Robert Tseng: you know, Doing, doing more, for… for the team. Yeah.
123 00:23:24.550 ⇒ 00:23:29.770 Justina Spinn: Awesome. That sounds great. Love that. Okay, that’s all my questions.
124 00:23:29.770 ⇒ 00:23:46.700 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Yeah, let me… I’m just, like, scanning through the… the job posting, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything here. Yeah, I think, like, the logistics we don’t have to go over, since you’re already kind of based in Austin. Yeah, I think…
125 00:23:47.620 ⇒ 00:23:55.020 Robert Tseng: our… I guess I’m just curious, like, how soon would you be able to start, and…
126 00:23:55.530 ⇒ 00:23:58.269 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, …
127 00:24:01.170 ⇒ 00:24:20.059 Robert Tseng: yeah, maybe just, like, your timeline preference, like, your logistical preferences. Like, I am based in New York, and Utam’s in… in Austin, so I would prefer, like, to start slightly earlier, just so I get, you know, some of your time as… I mean, well, because you’ve been working with me mostly. Yeah, like, I’m just curious, like, kind of how you thought about that.
128 00:24:20.060 ⇒ 00:24:33.470 Justina Spinn: Yeah, so I am, an early bird, and so I honestly prefer to work, like, 7 to 3 Central Time, so that would probably overlap with you pretty well.
129 00:24:33.470 ⇒ 00:24:36.230 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, that’s… that’s perfect for me, so… Okay.
130 00:24:39.620 ⇒ 00:24:47.080 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, I mean, that clears it up. Yeah, and then as far as, like, kind of how soon would you be able to start?
131 00:24:47.210 ⇒ 00:25:00.010 Justina Spinn: Yes, so I, am currently at another role, and so I’d like to give them, like, the standard, you know, two weeks, give them a heads up, be able to finish off anything there, and then I’d be able to start immediately after.
132 00:25:00.140 ⇒ 00:25:16.740 Robert Tseng: Okay, sounds good. Yeah, well, I mean, I think this is a pretty urgent hire for us, so I think, I don’t know, we are talking to… I forgot how many people are on my calendar, maybe one or two other people. Okay. But yeah, I think we will get back to you very shortly.
133 00:25:16.740 ⇒ 00:25:20.699 Robert Tseng: Probably in the next couple days, and …
134 00:25:20.700 ⇒ 00:25:23.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s… that’s what you could expect from us.
135 00:25:23.680 ⇒ 00:25:26.030 Justina Spinn: Okay, awesome. Thank you so much.
136 00:25:26.030 ⇒ 00:25:30.870 Robert Tseng: Cool. Alright, yeah, thanks for taking the time, Justina. Sorry for the rescheduling, and….
137 00:25:30.870 ⇒ 00:25:31.480 Justina Spinn: Oh, you’re good.
138 00:25:31.480 ⇒ 00:25:35.909 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, excited to… we’ll be in touch soon.
139 00:25:35.910 ⇒ 00:25:36.989 Justina Spinn: Okay, thanks, Robert.
140 00:25:36.990 ⇒ 00:25:37.720 Robert Tseng: Okay.
141 00:25:37.720 ⇒ 00:25:38.130 Justina Spinn: Okay.
142 00:25:38.130 ⇒ 00:25:38.590 Robert Tseng: Bye.