Meeting Title: Brainforge x Matthew Good Project Sync Date: 2025-09-03 Meeting participants: Matthew’s Circleback, Uttam Kumaran, Matthew Good
WEBVTT
1 00:03:52.720 ⇒ 00:03:53.680 Matthew Good: Yo.
2 00:03:55.250 ⇒ 00:03:56.000 Matthew Good: Dop, dude.
3 00:03:56.000 ⇒ 00:03:56.890 Uttam Kumaran: left, dude.
4 00:03:57.200 ⇒ 00:03:57.610 Matthew Good: How are you?
5 00:03:57.610 ⇒ 00:03:58.390 Uttam Kumaran: everything.
6 00:03:58.940 ⇒ 00:04:01.529 Uttam Kumaran: Good. Good, I’m working… I’m working on, like…
7 00:04:01.860 ⇒ 00:04:09.899 Uttam Kumaran: mapping out our services, our, like, demos, our… a bunch of, like, internal company stuff, finally.
8 00:04:09.900 ⇒ 00:04:12.910 Matthew Good: That’s always a good feeling to, like, get to do that.
9 00:04:13.040 ⇒ 00:04:24.869 Uttam Kumaran: I know, but dude, you know what my problem is, is, like, I shift… people keep slacking me, so I keep shift-tapping back to… to Slack, to, like, do basic stuff, but…
10 00:04:25.590 ⇒ 00:04:36.559 Uttam Kumaran: what I do feel blessed by is there are other people that I’m like, hey, someone’s asking me for this? You should be asking that person nowadays. That person is the first one to escalation, and…
11 00:04:36.560 ⇒ 00:04:46.260 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to do that so, like, egregiously, where I feel like people are probably getting annoyed, because now they Slack me, and I’m like, oh, that person is…
12 00:04:46.330 ⇒ 00:04:48.139 Uttam Kumaran: The person you should go to, not me.
13 00:04:48.140 ⇒ 00:04:54.040 Matthew Good: You’re just, like, ketoing off, like, messages that people want you to do. So, dude, that’s… that’s good, though. That’s hard.
14 00:04:54.040 ⇒ 00:04:55.059 Uttam Kumaran: It is good.
15 00:04:55.330 ⇒ 00:05:08.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, you know, we… we’re bringing on, like, kind of a couple people in, like, what I would consider, like, leads. Like, we have one person now that’s helping with operations, so Rico, who handles, like, all of our contracts. Any sort of, like.
16 00:05:09.250 ⇒ 00:05:29.019 Uttam Kumaran: like, my account needs set up, or blah blah blah, go to that person. Great. Yeah. We now have one person now that’s also gonna be kind of helping us. He’s fractional, but helping us with the content. So, now he’s gonna be the first point of review for, like, anything that goes on LinkedIn, right, that goes on the site, or, like, if we’re publishing, like, something on YouTube.
17 00:05:29.020 ⇒ 00:05:42.539 Uttam Kumaran: I’m also, like, not… like, I’ll watch it, and I’ll be like, this looks pretty good, but I’m not also… my feedback isn’t gonna be great. So I’m like, now that person, if they have questions, they can escalate to me, and I know their escalation will be, like, 10 times
18 00:05:42.650 ⇒ 00:05:57.490 Uttam Kumaran: more specific on what they need from me. Right. So we’re adding… we’re adding that. I think we still don’t have that on the sales side, though. Yeah. Meaning, like, we have people that can draft, like, emails and, like, do basic stuff in CRM, but we don’t have, like.
19 00:05:57.690 ⇒ 00:06:07.940 Uttam Kumaran: a good middle ground person, so we’re bringing on somebody. Very fingers crossed, she’s, like, the one. She’s actually here in Austin, like, North Austin, which is also, like, a really, really killer.
20 00:06:08.180 ⇒ 00:06:11.539 Matthew Good: Some in-person time, probably, to, like, train her up and get her going.
21 00:06:11.540 ⇒ 00:06:13.719 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and sales is more of an art.
22 00:06:13.990 ⇒ 00:06:14.390 Matthew Good: Yeah.
23 00:06:14.390 ⇒ 00:06:17.899 Uttam Kumaran: You know, then, like… follow this SOP, it’s like…
24 00:06:18.640 ⇒ 00:06:27.159 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so… yeah, so we’re kind of fleshing out that class of people, and then we’re doing it on the engineering side, too. Yeah. Yeah.
25 00:06:27.160 ⇒ 00:06:31.959 Matthew Good: Yeah, it’s a good feeling, man. We’re… we’re in, like, a similar spot where, like, we have…
26 00:06:32.070 ⇒ 00:06:37.509 Matthew Good: we have two… I mean, really, as of a month and a half ago, I realized, like, oh, we need to make, like.
27 00:06:37.890 ⇒ 00:06:48.410 Matthew Good: two… one of our, kind of, deck designers and one web designer, like, they should be officially now team leads. They should be managing people, like, officially in the org structure, because they were, like, de facto doing that.
28 00:06:48.410 ⇒ 00:06:49.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
29 00:06:49.180 ⇒ 00:07:06.660 Matthew Good: And now it’s like… so now we have, like, a weekly team leads, everyone knows kind of, like, what’s going… and I’m… we’re not… Rafael and I are, like, managing certain things that are, like, super high prio, short timelines, but they have, like… they’re, like, that middle layer of management that percolates up. But now I’m like, because we kind of lifted them up.
30 00:07:06.880 ⇒ 00:07:12.089 Matthew Good: There’s some, like, lower-level work that we still have that we need to, like, backfill in with information.
31 00:07:12.090 ⇒ 00:07:21.520 Uttam Kumaran: See, dude, that you can keep subbing people in and out. What I would recommend, too, is, have those new leads do the first round screens.
32 00:07:21.690 ⇒ 00:07:28.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, 100%. I was texting, actually, one of our… Because I saw your JD that you put up yesterday, and I was actually gonna send it to…
33 00:07:28.970 ⇒ 00:07:46.250 Uttam Kumaran: a couple friends, but yeah, like, I’m having those people, the leads now, do the screens. Yeah. And you know, the other thing we did is, when you put up… I don’t know if you guys are putting up jobs on… if you’re putting up jobs on LinkedIn, but I’m actually having people submit Loom screens. Like.
34 00:07:46.500 ⇒ 00:07:51.559 Uttam Kumaran: So, so, like, because sometimes I get, like… we put some jobs on the link, we’ve got, like, hundreds of people.
35 00:07:51.560 ⇒ 00:07:53.799 Matthew Good: I then go in, I select the people that I’m like.
36 00:07:53.920 ⇒ 00:08:11.030 Uttam Kumaran: roughly their profile looks decent, then what they… I need them to submit something on Loom. And a couple things. One, it’s so much easier for me to take a look at, like, a 5-minute Loom video and be like, good, bad, versus, like, sitting on and, like, I can’t do bad anymore. Second is,
37 00:08:11.370 ⇒ 00:08:14.160 Uttam Kumaran: just the fact that they have to figure out how to install Loom.
38 00:08:14.160 ⇒ 00:08:14.910 Matthew Good: Yep. Yes.
39 00:08:14.910 ⇒ 00:08:31.919 Uttam Kumaran: sit there and say something into a camera with nobody, like, that’s a good… like, you’ll realize some people who are good with remote shit versus others, so we’re, like, not going back. I’m not doing any… if you don’t have the ability to do that, then you’re already fried. Like, there’s no way.
40 00:08:31.920 ⇒ 00:08:33.120 Matthew Good: Yeah, there’s no way I’d want to.
41 00:08:33.120 ⇒ 00:08:33.539 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
42 00:08:33.549 ⇒ 00:08:50.889 Matthew Good: Dude, that’s a great idea, because I was texting Andrew our Webley, because it’s… I need a junior for him, we need a junior for him, and he was like, I already have an idea of, like, a good take-home exercise. I was like, okay, great, perfect, because… I mean, I’m not a graphic designer myself, so I was just going to figure out something with Rafe, and then having a lume screen is good, because I don’t want to burn his…
43 00:08:50.890 ⇒ 00:08:58.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me send you, like, our current… like, what our current one is. You guys can probably use that for…
44 00:08:58.390 ⇒ 00:08:59.490 Matthew Good: Yeah, thank you.
45 00:08:59.490 ⇒ 00:09:05.910 Uttam Kumaran: like, inspo. I basically… we just have, like, 5 questions, and I roughly, I’m like.
46 00:09:06.540 ⇒ 00:09:09.680 Uttam Kumaran: Try to answer these as best as possible.
47 00:09:11.430 ⇒ 00:09:15.309 Uttam Kumaran: Let me find the actual jobs…
48 00:09:15.930 ⇒ 00:09:21.969 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, this is an example for a… for our sales coordinator…
49 00:09:32.480 ⇒ 00:09:34.289 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll send it to one spot.
50 00:09:37.930 ⇒ 00:09:39.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so check this out.
51 00:09:39.750 ⇒ 00:09:44.549 Uttam Kumaran: basically, it’s all set up with Notion, but this is our, like.
52 00:09:45.110 ⇒ 00:09:52.880 Uttam Kumaran: our JD in Notion, and then we then have them go and submit, this form.
53 00:10:02.590 ⇒ 00:10:03.539 Matthew Good: Oh, I see.
54 00:10:03.800 ⇒ 00:10:18.569 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s, like, that’s our… like, so we have… we built our careers page, just on Notion. Yeah. And then, so this is… this is the exact thing that goes onto LinkedIn as well, and then on LinkedIn, as people apply, I basically am like, okay, this person’s good, this person’s good, and I… you can mark them as, like, good.
55 00:10:18.780 ⇒ 00:10:37.020 Uttam Kumaran: Rico on my team, like, every few days, looks at who’s good, and then DMs them from my LinkedIn account, like, hey, we gave them a really, really nice message, which is like, hey, love your application, we’re getting so many that we… and we’re a small team, so we’re trying to prioritize the best people.
56 00:10:37.150 ⇒ 00:10:49.320 Uttam Kumaran: We have this link, this loom screen that does exactly that. It’s also a great way for you to stand out. Here’s the link. So then it filters, like, does one more filtering, and then I can beg through at 2X, like.
57 00:10:49.940 ⇒ 00:10:59.839 Uttam Kumaran: loom screens, and then be like, this person’s good, good, good. You know? And then also, it gives the person who’s gonna screen them also, like, a little bit of a leg up, where you’re not asking, like.
58 00:11:00.140 ⇒ 00:11:01.940 Uttam Kumaran: super basic questions.
59 00:11:01.940 ⇒ 00:11:08.069 Matthew Good: Yeah, you get the, like, baby stuff out of the way, and then you get to actually, like, meet of, like, can you do this job? Do I want to work with you?
60 00:11:08.270 ⇒ 00:11:09.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
61 00:11:09.760 ⇒ 00:11:16.359 Uttam Kumaran: Some people just, like, don’t pass the vibe test just straight on Zoom, on Loom. Yeah. And I’m like, we would have wasted time.
62 00:11:16.510 ⇒ 00:11:17.890 Uttam Kumaran: pocketing them, you.
63 00:11:17.890 ⇒ 00:11:22.690 Matthew Good: Yeah, this is great, dude, this is super helpful, thank you. I, I, we’ve just been, like, tossing things up, and, like.
64 00:11:22.990 ⇒ 00:11:23.800 Matthew Good: I mean, yeah.
65 00:11:23.800 ⇒ 00:11:25.179 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s how, that’s how it is.
66 00:11:25.180 ⇒ 00:11:29.789 Matthew Good: It’s a whole other beast. I’m like, now… I get it, a big org, that’s like a…
67 00:11:29.790 ⇒ 00:11:30.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
68 00:11:30.770 ⇒ 00:11:35.909 Matthew Good: Dude, it’s… I mean, I feel lucky because we’ve gone this far without recruitment, but I’ve had to, like.
69 00:11:35.910 ⇒ 00:11:49.949 Uttam Kumaran: innovate a little bit in this way, because I don’t want to hire… we will have to hire, like, some… someone to do this, because… but, like, I don’t know, there’s also a lot of AI I want to do, where if there’s some flow like this, where people can loom, and then something gets into Slack.
70 00:11:50.370 ⇒ 00:11:59.150 Uttam Kumaran: You know? And then the biggest thing is, like, you just wanna… there’s just so many people on the market, dude. So many. And so many people that will…
71 00:11:59.480 ⇒ 00:12:04.709 Uttam Kumaran: just spice up their resume, or LinkedIn, or, like, look decent on paper, and they fuck up.
72 00:12:04.820 ⇒ 00:12:12.449 Uttam Kumaran: And you have to find a way to not waste time on those people, like, you, especially. Which is… because I was interviewing every single person, like.
73 00:12:12.600 ⇒ 00:12:16.780 Matthew Good: I was just screaming at people, like, I’m like, dude, why the fuck am I doing this?
74 00:12:17.710 ⇒ 00:12:33.610 Matthew Good: Dude, I didn’t realize until I threw that up yesterday, and we’re still, I mean, like, yeah, we gotta get a couple LinkedIn job postings up. There’s, like, Palette is another thing that I’ve seen people use for, like, job postings, but I was, like, it didn’t really hit me until yesterday of, like, so many fucking people are.
75 00:12:33.610 ⇒ 00:12:35.269 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, when people.
76 00:12:35.270 ⇒ 00:12:40.419 Matthew Good: Talk about the market being down, or people… you know, I’m like, yeah, okay, you know, sure, but, like, I’m not…
77 00:12:40.420 ⇒ 00:12:43.569 Uttam Kumaran: No, dude, people with, like, good titles, like, past titles, like.
78 00:12:43.570 ⇒ 00:12:44.130 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah.
79 00:12:44.130 ⇒ 00:12:51.630 Uttam Kumaran: are, like, not in a job. It’s really… in technology, it’s very… like, we put up a job for project management.
80 00:12:51.630 ⇒ 00:12:52.590 Matthew Good: Person.
81 00:12:52.590 ⇒ 00:13:03.330 Uttam Kumaran: And I got, like, 1,700 applicants on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you have to put a budget, so we put the lowest, which is, like, 8 bucks a day. And on other jobs, we typically may get, like.
82 00:13:03.620 ⇒ 00:13:10.380 Uttam Kumaran: a couple per day, like, 3 to 5 per day. On the PM, we got, like, so much.
83 00:13:10.530 ⇒ 00:13:22.660 Uttam Kumaran: And I realize it’s because, dude, the PMs are, like, just kind of, like, pencil… most of the people are, like, pencil pushers. Like, they don’t really have any other edge, versus they’re like, yeah, I’ve set out meetings, I’m, like, decently organized, I’m like.
84 00:13:23.080 ⇒ 00:13:31.219 Uttam Kumaran: Yep. I don’t want that, like, this P… like, I, like, fundamentally don’t really believe in, like, project management. I think it’s, like, people need to just be organized.
85 00:13:31.220 ⇒ 00:13:32.919 Matthew Good: But if anything, we need, like.
86 00:13:32.920 ⇒ 00:13:36.310 Uttam Kumaran: People that can be project managers across multiple projects.
87 00:13:36.390 ⇒ 00:13:38.110 Matthew Good: Not just, like, one.
88 00:13:38.110 ⇒ 00:13:46.360 Uttam Kumaran: No, no. And then I meet the people, and they’re, like, not that good, and so, yeah, it’s really, really tough. I think today, Oracle had, like, a bunch of layoffs, and…
89 00:13:46.570 ⇒ 00:13:52.799 Uttam Kumaran: Marketing, sales, and project management are, like, the first. They get ripped out.
90 00:13:52.800 ⇒ 00:13:58.340 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, dude, it’s been insane. Our 2PMs are great, but we’ve got them… they’re, like, friends of Rafei’s, that he just, like…
91 00:13:58.340 ⇒ 00:13:59.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
92 00:13:59.020 ⇒ 00:14:10.129 Matthew Good: trains them up, they know how to, you know, and they do well, like, they don’t have, like, a prototypical PM background, but honestly, I feel like sometimes finding those people is better, because they’re hungry, like, they’re coming from, like.
93 00:14:10.480 ⇒ 00:14:16.230 Matthew Good: Sometimes a service-based, like, they were working in… at restaurant, like, you know, minimum wage stuff, and they’re like.
94 00:14:16.230 ⇒ 00:14:27.359 Uttam Kumaran: No, but also, if they could take your title, right, you’re giving them the title and the credibility. Yeah. And then they just… you just need someone that’s hyper-organized and is willing to, like, trudge through figuring it out.
95 00:14:27.360 ⇒ 00:14:27.880 Matthew Good: Yep.
96 00:14:27.880 ⇒ 00:14:28.620 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
97 00:14:28.620 ⇒ 00:14:31.680 Matthew Good: Yeah, which is in short supply, I feel like.
98 00:14:31.680 ⇒ 00:14:32.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
99 00:14:32.750 ⇒ 00:14:35.050 Matthew Good: Dude, but I know we’re gonna chat about.
100 00:14:35.050 ⇒ 00:14:36.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
101 00:14:36.360 ⇒ 00:14:40.690 Matthew Good: like, keep an eye… I mean, would love to keep working with you guys.
102 00:14:40.690 ⇒ 00:14:41.280 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
103 00:14:41.280 ⇒ 00:14:49.600 Matthew Good: The thing is to figure out, like, the right surface area of, like, taking what we have now and kind of, like, the next iteration.
104 00:14:49.750 ⇒ 00:14:56.409 Matthew Good: if, like, we say, like, this was, like, the walk iteration, what would be, like, the crawl iteration?
105 00:14:56.720 ⇒ 00:14:59.919 Matthew Good: I think… I mean, we talked about a couple different things.
106 00:15:00.220 ⇒ 00:15:02.740 Matthew Good: last time. I think…
107 00:15:04.170 ⇒ 00:15:14.879 Matthew Good: So, I don’t… I don’t have a specific, like, bulleted-out list. I think the main thing is, like, just formatting of, like, being able to really copy and paste something directly into Notion, or just pipe it into Notion, formatted… Sure.
108 00:15:15.100 ⇒ 00:15:15.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
109 00:15:15.770 ⇒ 00:15:24.049 Matthew Good: that’s a lot of the actual manual work that I’m still doing, so that’s, like, pretty high prio, in terms of, like, when I think about the product. And then…
110 00:15:24.280 ⇒ 00:15:31.319 Matthew Good: being able to give you guys, like, on my end, being able to update… like, I guess that’s my question, like, how does updating…
111 00:15:31.700 ⇒ 00:15:40.789 Matthew Good: those prompts and, like, the knowledge base work. Because, like, right now, in a workbench, like, I have the prompt that I’ve meta-prompted with chat, and I’m, you know, making copies of that template.
112 00:15:40.980 ⇒ 00:15:47.710 Matthew Good: But if I want to go and change the actual core prompt, I have to go back to the template, like, go in, edit it, which is fine.
113 00:15:47.710 ⇒ 00:15:55.320 Uttam Kumaran: and redo it. So on this one, we can actually… I can give you access to where we set this up in N8N. You can go in and see all the prompts, and modify.
114 00:15:55.320 ⇒ 00:15:56.910 Matthew Good: That’d be… I’d love that, yeah.
115 00:15:56.910 ⇒ 00:16:12.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so for a lot of clients, they’re not that sophisticated, so they just… I’m just like, give us any feedback, and we will start to work on those, but I can give you access to those. We can also show you how to then change a prompt, rerun it, see the output, and then you can just do that very frequently.
116 00:16:12.390 ⇒ 00:16:20.939 Uttam Kumaran: right there, in N8N, so that’s something we can do. The formatting piece, I think totally we can do it, as well. I just wanted to make sure that, like.
117 00:16:21.080 ⇒ 00:16:35.230 Uttam Kumaran: like, this is still, like, a core area of figuring out, and that you’re the right person to, like… because I… like, for example, if you give us feedback every day, we would iterate every day. But that’s the thing that I’m sort of like, okay, I know we could…
118 00:16:35.230 ⇒ 00:16:41.420 Uttam Kumaran: I think our… the iteration cycles were, like, every week or so, and we definitely, like, I think could have used.
119 00:16:41.460 ⇒ 00:16:43.169 Matthew Good: It’s partly, like.
120 00:16:43.170 ⇒ 00:16:48.029 Uttam Kumaran: our fault, but partly, like, I want to make sure if there’s other people on your team, that we can start to get looped in.
121 00:16:48.030 ⇒ 00:16:52.010 Matthew Good: I can ask them to keep testing and trying. Even if they’re more junior.
122 00:16:52.010 ⇒ 00:16:56.959 Uttam Kumaran: At least they can meet with us a couple times a week and, like, try things, you know?
123 00:16:56.960 ⇒ 00:17:01.600 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, the rev cycles on my end were slower.
124 00:17:01.720 ⇒ 00:17:04.930 Matthew Good: I mean, there was some travel involved, but it…
125 00:17:04.930 ⇒ 00:17:05.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
126 00:17:06.300 ⇒ 00:17:08.339 Matthew Good: I totally hear what you’re saying.
127 00:17:08.599 ⇒ 00:17:17.630 Matthew Good: So the guy I’m gonna bring on, kind of to our discussion about hiring just a second ago, I’m gonna have him sit in on some sales calls tomorrow, like, some onboarding calls tomorrow.
128 00:17:17.630 ⇒ 00:17:30.730 Matthew Good: and start to use these tools, because we had… we finished up, like, a sprint of decks, where, like, we got the V… I got the V1s out, and then now, these products are, like, in Figma, and we’re, like, you know, it’s kind of, like, fine-tuning, tightening the script, so I’m not using…
129 00:17:30.730 ⇒ 00:17:49.990 Matthew Good: you know, that kind of model, and then we’re gonna hit another wave, kind of within the next, like, week and a half, two weeks of a couple things get across the line, and then we have some website stuff and some deck stuff. So I want to kind of slot him in to start using that, and I would give him this tool, and be like, hey, this is a tool, I want you to use it as, like, a V1,
130 00:17:49.990 ⇒ 00:17:52.170 Matthew Good: Show me what it puts out for you.
131 00:17:52.170 ⇒ 00:17:53.060 Matthew Good: Yeah.
132 00:17:53.450 ⇒ 00:17:57.139 Matthew Good: And… and I’ll have to still be pretty involved, because he…
133 00:17:57.510 ⇒ 00:18:07.319 Matthew Good: he’s smart, and he can figure things out, but he’s never worked in tech before, so I’m gonna have to bring up the speed of, like, this is what a good seed deck would look like versus Series B. He’ll get it, no problem.
134 00:18:08.130 ⇒ 00:18:18.409 Matthew Good: But that’s kind of, like, where we’re at and… where we are at in terms of bringing on someone to kind of, like, help me, like, quickly iterate on… on those V1s.
135 00:18:19.010 ⇒ 00:18:19.700 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
136 00:18:19.900 ⇒ 00:18:20.380 Matthew Good: Yeah.
137 00:18:20.380 ⇒ 00:18:36.600 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing was, like, I know we… we had that one ask about that Notion automation, too. Like, we can totally do that, I just don’t think we… and I can… we can work directly, I forgot, his name on your team, but we can work directly with him, not Raph, the other… the other guy.
138 00:18:36.600 ⇒ 00:18:43.979 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, Daniel was helping out with… so, okay, so that’s a good point. So the Notion thing, Rafe totally rebuilt our task board.
139 00:18:45.230 ⇒ 00:18:57.620 Matthew Good: And we’re, like, in the process of migrating from, like, the old one, which was just, like, it was good, but, like, we scaled pretty quickly, and it was just, like, too chaotic for the amount of deal flow that we had. So now we have a new one that will show not just, like.
140 00:18:57.620 ⇒ 00:19:17.110 Matthew Good: broken down by, like, company and sub- because, like, sometimes we’ll have a company that will, like, we’ll do a deck with them, then it’ll be a site, and then it’ll be, like, there’s multiple, kind of, different projects within each project, there’s different, like, due dates and dependencies, and then also, like, load per person. So, like, if I’m, like, Andrew’s swamped right now, and I’m trying to close a deal, I’m like, okay, we can’t kick this off till a week and a half.
141 00:19:17.110 ⇒ 00:19:23.189 Matthew Good: So, that… and I… he’s been, like, the main… he’s been building that, and it’s, like, now it’s live.
142 00:19:23.190 ⇒ 00:19:25.890 Matthew Good: Now we’re just basically moving everything
143 00:19:26.090 ⇒ 00:19:29.520 Matthew Good: over, so I don’t… I don’t know specifically.
144 00:19:29.520 ⇒ 00:19:31.139 Uttam Kumaran: That’s all tied up.
145 00:19:31.140 ⇒ 00:19:33.400 Matthew Good: we would need. Okay.
146 00:19:34.620 ⇒ 00:19:35.480 Matthew Good: So, but we’re not…
147 00:19:35.480 ⇒ 00:19:36.080 Uttam Kumaran: they’re…
148 00:19:36.080 ⇒ 00:19:36.680 Matthew Good: Yeah, go ahead.
149 00:19:36.680 ⇒ 00:19:47.799 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, another thing we could also do is, like, one, I think the sessions where we just, like, watch your workflow were very helpful. Another thing we could do is, like.
150 00:19:48.060 ⇒ 00:20:00.169 Uttam Kumaran: do that with the new guy that’s starting, and basically, whatever you task him with, just, like, watch his workflow and do that. The other thing is, we could… like, I think your time is best spent with us, and, like.
151 00:20:00.310 ⇒ 00:20:03.900 Uttam Kumaran: Where to find the opportunities for automation.
152 00:20:03.900 ⇒ 00:20:04.580 Matthew Good: Yeah.
153 00:20:04.580 ⇒ 00:20:18.630 Uttam Kumaran: and then we work with whoever on the team is gonna execute that, and then we just ask them for feedback and get them to do it. Like, I think that’s a much better use of time, where if you… if me and you sit for, like, 30 minutes or an hour.
154 00:20:18.630 ⇒ 00:20:26.219 Uttam Kumaran: like, a week, and just, like, tell me through the business where… okay, here’s… after this deck moves here, typically, like, 5 hours of time that go to this.
155 00:20:26.880 ⇒ 00:20:46.260 Uttam Kumaran: X amount of touchpoints, I’ll then say, okay, perfect. Like, we’ll build a proof of concept around a few more areas. That way, we can start to poke at other things. Like, I think we have a good grasp of, like, this first piece. I think if we work with the new guy that’s coming on, it’ll get better and better. But I want to keep…
156 00:20:46.260 ⇒ 00:20:53.469 Uttam Kumaran: finding some new opportunities, you know, that I know are sitting there, but I think it’s probably…
157 00:20:53.710 ⇒ 00:21:03.300 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of like what we’ve seen from other clients, it’s just hard to see, like… if you don’t know exactly how it can be automated, it may be hard to see, like, that it’s even possible.
158 00:21:03.430 ⇒ 00:21:08.549 Uttam Kumaran: But there are a lot of things that are possible that I think may just not be really obvious.
159 00:21:08.550 ⇒ 00:21:11.359 Matthew Good: there’s, like, unknowns… unknown unknowns on my end, where I’.
160 00:21:11.360 ⇒ 00:21:11.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
161 00:21:11.850 ⇒ 00:21:15.039 Matthew Good: have the technical expertise to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I could automate that.
162 00:21:15.040 ⇒ 00:21:15.500 Uttam Kumaran: like that.
163 00:21:15.500 ⇒ 00:21:24.329 Matthew Good: I’m like, there’s probably some way I could do this, I just, like, don’t know about the tools, like, I don’t know how to stitch them together, and it’s not my domain.
164 00:21:24.620 ⇒ 00:21:37.139 Matthew Good: But from, like, an organizational standpoint, like, from the top, it’s like a high… it’s a high… I mean, obviously, like, there’s daily sales and getting money in the door and stuff like that, but, like, the long term, it’s the… probably the biggest priority, because…
165 00:21:37.270 ⇒ 00:21:51.139 Matthew Good: at the end of the day, I don’t want to be running. Like, you know, it’s a fucking grind, and I don’t want to be… I don’t want to be doing, like… I want to start to decouple my time and money, and it already is a little bit, but more and more so. So I agree. I think…
166 00:21:51.610 ⇒ 00:21:59.550 Matthew Good: Well, I mean, you let me know, like, how you guys are working in terms of, like, bandwidth, workflow, stuff like that. I think I’m onboarding this guy this week, and then he’ll really.
167 00:21:59.550 ⇒ 00:21:59.980 Uttam Kumaran: Which one?
168 00:21:59.980 ⇒ 00:22:07.310 Matthew Good: I think hitting the ground running Thursday, Friday, and then into Monday. And then…
169 00:22:07.610 ⇒ 00:22:15.669 Matthew Good: I wonder if we can… well, I mean, I want to, like, defer to how you guys engage, too, because I want to make this, like, worth your time and while.
170 00:22:16.560 ⇒ 00:22:18.309 Matthew Good: So yeah, I’ll pause there.
171 00:22:18.310 ⇒ 00:22:33.150 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I think that a great way to do this would be if your goal is to basically have this guy come in and become, like, the lead executor of… is kind of the goal, like, he’s…
172 00:22:33.190 ⇒ 00:22:42.480 Uttam Kumaran: gonna take… like, what would be success for this person? Like, are they taking on 80% of the tasks, no escalation? Like, kind of what is… and I guess, like, tell me how this…
173 00:22:42.890 ⇒ 00:22:49.460 Uttam Kumaran: I see this person is more on, like, this sort of, like, copy strategy side versus, like, the low-level design side, or, like.
174 00:22:49.460 ⇒ 00:22:53.469 Matthew Good: Yeah, they’re not a designer. He’s not a designer.
175 00:22:53.810 ⇒ 00:23:09.520 Matthew Good: like, copy execution workflow. Like, I want him to basically execute that workflow and come to me with, like, a weekly update or, you know, whatever the update of, like, here’s the V1 that I built with such and such a tool, I need you to look at it, and then, you know, provide feedback, and then he can go from there.
176 00:23:10.850 ⇒ 00:23:23.999 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so then, what if the best route is we wait until that guy starts, what you can tell him is, like, hey, we have Brainforged team, we’re gonna… I wanna work with him to basically map out the entire flow, like, visually.
177 00:23:24.030 ⇒ 00:23:36.270 Uttam Kumaran: And then I want… what he’s gonna… he’s gonna do, and he’s gonna learn, is, like, he’s gonna give you… he’s gonna work on things, he’s gonna give it time for you to feedback, start to learn that process. At every step of the way, we want to try to accelerate him.
178 00:23:36.410 ⇒ 00:23:44.329 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Which is, like, starts off as, okay, this collection of these resources, putting into this for this V1 of the outline. Once the outline is done.
179 00:23:44.370 ⇒ 00:23:57.460 Uttam Kumaran: what is the next piece? Okay, let’s work with… I’ll work… we can work directly with him at his time to map that out, because he’s going to need to do that anyways. I don’t know whether that’s written somewhere, but he probably needs to write down details and create those SOPs.
180 00:23:57.460 ⇒ 00:23:57.900 Matthew Good: Yeah.
181 00:23:57.900 ⇒ 00:24:07.470 Uttam Kumaran: And then we work with him on, like, okay, what is this next piece? Can we leave him… and his time is gonna be much more available to give us that feedback. Like, that’s something that I think…
182 00:24:07.990 ⇒ 00:24:19.380 Uttam Kumaran: like, would be a much better way for us to guarantee that this, like, has a direct impact on his output. And what you want to see is that, like, yeah, maybe it would have taken him 3 months, like, ramp to your speed.
183 00:24:19.420 ⇒ 00:24:30.379 Uttam Kumaran: and maybe it’s still not at your speed. Instead, like, we cut that time faster, and he ends up being able to do more, you know, with these tools. Like, that’s the KPI I want to make sure to hit.
184 00:24:30.620 ⇒ 00:24:41.029 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I agree. Okay, awesome. So I’m gonna onboard him. I mean, today I’m setting up his email and everything, and doing a lot of stuff. Got a couple calls, I want him in tomorrow.
185 00:24:41.030 ⇒ 00:24:42.600 Uttam Kumaran: What is his schedule like?
186 00:24:42.800 ⇒ 00:24:45.940 Matthew Good: Yeah, it’s a good question. So Wednesdays, it’s still, like, a part-time.
187 00:24:45.940 ⇒ 00:24:46.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
188 00:24:46.630 ⇒ 00:24:49.499 Matthew Good: You know, Wednesdays, because he has… he has…
189 00:24:49.820 ⇒ 00:25:00.120 Matthew Good: he’s in a full-time role, full-time, he wants to transition out, so I told him, I was like, let’s just run this for, like, a month, month and a half, see how it goes, see how, you know.
190 00:25:00.490 ⇒ 00:25:04.459 Matthew Good: We are, and stuff like that, and, like, we could possibly transition to full-time.
191 00:25:04.690 ⇒ 00:25:08.019 Matthew Good: But it’s, like, Monday, Tuesdays, and then Thursdays and Fridays.
192 00:25:08.020 ⇒ 00:25:08.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
193 00:25:09.100 ⇒ 00:25:12.760 Matthew Good: So I… and I told him when we onboard, I was like,
194 00:25:13.220 ⇒ 00:25:30.639 Matthew Good: like, I know you’re still in a role, so, like, if there’s, like… I’m not expecting you to, like, make a ton of meetings in the middle of the day, right? Yeah. You know, I would love, like, just executional help to start, and then if, like, we’re gonna move onwards, we can talk about that. But that’s kind of his schedule. And I can get hours. I’m gonna get hours from him, specifically.
195 00:25:30.640 ⇒ 00:25:49.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, for us, if we can at least get, like… if we can get two touchpoints with him, or, like, anyone on your staff that’s, like, execution, that, you know, I don’t want them to bill hours, and then you have to pay for that, but, like, if anyone’s on execution, you’re like, I want to find out how to automate the stuff this person is doing, or I want this person to be…
196 00:25:49.660 ⇒ 00:25:50.580 Matthew Good: like…
197 00:25:50.580 ⇒ 00:26:06.779 Uttam Kumaran: Because the thing that I’m finding, too, is, like, we have the ideas, but we’re… we’re not going to be doing the things long-term. The only way the automations work is if the people doing it are using the automations, because we’re going to be the most gung-ho about it, and, like, try to use it, but…
198 00:26:06.890 ⇒ 00:26:15.839 Uttam Kumaran: I think what you’ll find is if he’s using the AI tools, it’s gonna speed that up, and it’s really nice that you’re gonna push that on him, like, day one, right?
199 00:26:16.310 ⇒ 00:26:22.800 Uttam Kumaran: And so, if there’s anyone in the company that you think is like, hey, you should spend an hour with a brain force team every week, find out how to automate your shit.
200 00:26:23.040 ⇒ 00:26:28.629 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I would love to have those people looped into something that we can do more regularly, locally.
201 00:26:28.710 ⇒ 00:26:31.819 Matthew Good: And then on my side, we do a mix of listening.
202 00:26:32.400 ⇒ 00:26:43.279 Uttam Kumaran: prototyping, and then getting these proof of concepts out in multiple different areas. What you’ll see from us is, like, this could be automations on Slack, this could be automations on Notion.
203 00:26:43.280 ⇒ 00:26:55.909 Uttam Kumaran: But then we have a couple more things to demo, and you see… we see the feedback from people that are way less understanding of the entire process than you are, which means they’re gonna find out, like, edge cases.
204 00:26:55.930 ⇒ 00:27:02.079 Uttam Kumaran: Because they’re not even gonna have… they’re not gonna know exactly… they’re not gonna be able to deal with the imperfections really well.
205 00:27:02.080 ⇒ 00:27:10.370 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it, okay. The other two quick things, like, just in terms of working on, like, the…
206 00:27:10.740 ⇒ 00:27:27.519 Matthew Good: like, the… I guess the automation as it exists now, is the formatting in Notion on export, or, like, somehow linking that. Yes. And then, somehow making it… and maybe it’s not possible, I’m not sure, but, like, making it such that you can drop in PDFs, as opposed to, like…
207 00:27:27.520 ⇒ 00:27:28.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
208 00:27:28.020 ⇒ 00:27:29.460 Matthew Good: rich tax. I feel like those…
209 00:27:29.460 ⇒ 00:27:33.939 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll add, we’ll add all the file formats you need.
210 00:27:34.050 ⇒ 00:27:50.149 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll also improve the, like, we have a couple things. I have, kind of, the next set of tickets, like, ready to go. So the couple things. So one, we’ll improve the file format. Second, I’m gonna change it so it doesn’t send out the entire thing every time you make an update, it’ll just…
211 00:27:50.150 ⇒ 00:28:00.519 Uttam Kumaran: explain to you what was changed. Also, like, do you… how adamant are you on, like, this being in Slack versus, like, us building a quick little interface? Do you care?
212 00:28:02.050 ⇒ 00:28:02.820 Matthew Good: the.
213 00:28:02.820 ⇒ 00:28:11.000 Uttam Kumaran: Because, like, we can then build, like, the canvas plod, like, a very simple thing, so that you can edit things in there.
214 00:28:11.290 ⇒ 00:28:13.419 Uttam Kumaran: We can keep going in Slack, too.
215 00:28:13.490 ⇒ 00:28:17.369 Matthew Good: My team asked me, and I said, like, I sort of push for Slack, does…
216 00:28:17.890 ⇒ 00:28:22.329 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s the… it’s the easiest starting point.
217 00:28:22.610 ⇒ 00:28:29.880 Matthew Good: Yeah, 100%. I think Slack… Slack felt like the… felt… feels like the easiest starting point. Okay. I think as we…
218 00:28:30.280 ⇒ 00:28:32.949 Matthew Good: you know, go onwards, though. It’s like, Slack is…
219 00:28:33.920 ⇒ 00:28:35.740 Matthew Good: Like, Slack’s chaotic. Like, if I’m going.
220 00:28:35.740 ⇒ 00:28:36.090 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.
221 00:28:36.090 ⇒ 00:28:39.430 Matthew Good: to, like, do writing, I’m, like, also seeing all my notifications on the left side of.
222 00:28:39.430 ⇒ 00:28:40.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, no, it’s horrible.
223 00:28:40.640 ⇒ 00:29:00.409 Matthew Good: ringing me, and I’m like, oh, fuck, I need to do that thing. Whereas, like, when I go into Workbench, I’m like, DND, I’m in there, just kind of, like, jamming. I imagine that’s how people code. So, and I don’t know, I mean, let me know what that would, like, cost to make that happen, but, like, in the crawl, kind of walk, or run version of this, walk, run is, like.
224 00:29:00.810 ⇒ 00:29:13.989 Matthew Good: some sort of, like, toolkit where we have basically a mirror of Claude, but, like, with all art on the back end, all the stuff that we’ve built, and then there’s a way to, like, kind of keep… because things get messy in threads, right? I’m like, wait, what… what deck was this again? Was this, like.
225 00:29:13.990 ⇒ 00:29:14.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
226 00:29:14.660 ⇒ 00:29:30.330 Matthew Good: or, like, what, you know, is this Series B? What company? Like, it just will get chaotic. Yeah. And I could see that being a… I mean, I would struggle with that, and he for sure will be like, okay, whoa, you know, first of all, first time in this Slack, what the fuck’s going on? Yeah, yeah. So…
227 00:29:30.850 ⇒ 00:29:31.480 Matthew Good: Yeah.
228 00:29:31.480 ⇒ 00:29:44.549 Uttam Kumaran: surprised that kind of the wave right now is really, like, this, like, kind of personalized software, and this is, like, what we built for ourselves. We built, like, our own platform, where we have our clients listed, and we can chat with meetings and stuff like that.
229 00:29:44.550 ⇒ 00:29:45.840 Matthew Good: Yeah. I think we should…
230 00:29:45.840 ⇒ 00:29:48.350 Uttam Kumaran: we should keep going on Slack and kind of stretch it.
231 00:29:48.460 ⇒ 00:29:55.590 Uttam Kumaran: But ideally, I would like to get you… my also thing is, like, I want to get you out of Workbench. Like, it’s similarly…
232 00:29:55.690 ⇒ 00:30:11.780 Uttam Kumaran: how I think about myself, I spend a lot of time still in ChatGPT, and my goal is, like, anything I’m doing in ChatGPT can totally be used by anybody in the company, and so I want to move my use cases out to something that is more open, you know? And so, that’s something that we can also consider.
233 00:30:11.780 ⇒ 00:30:22.429 Uttam Kumaran: So, how about… how about this? I think, like, I would love… if you’re… if you’re okay with it, I think we can consider… continue at the same rate. We’re roughly doing, like, anywhere from, like, 30 to 40 hours. I think the pacing was fine.
234 00:30:22.430 ⇒ 00:30:32.369 Uttam Kumaran: it’ll just be 5K, and we can just continue to do that. I think in the… if we… if I can… if I start that, then I’m gonna have them make all those file support changes.
235 00:30:32.490 ⇒ 00:30:47.189 Uttam Kumaran: And then you tell me, like, if, like… and tell me what your availability is like to… because I still think, like, it would be great for me and you to spend, like, even just, like, a half hour a week. So, like, what… tell me… but tell me a time where you’re, like, not in the thick of things.
236 00:30:47.190 ⇒ 00:30:51.370 Matthew Good: Yeah. And, like, you could just, like, opine on, like, where the automation.
237 00:30:53.520 ⇒ 00:30:58.189 Uttam Kumaran: what middle of the week is brutal, like, I’d rather have your other guys be doing that middle of the week.
238 00:30:58.190 ⇒ 00:30:58.540 Matthew Good: Yeah.
239 00:30:58.540 ⇒ 00:30:59.730 Uttam Kumaran: But,
240 00:31:00.060 ⇒ 00:31:06.950 Uttam Kumaran: like, I just want to talk about what other opportunities are there for automation, and hear from you. Yeah.
241 00:31:07.890 ⇒ 00:31:12.410 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, maybe let’s do, like, a Thursday morning, or, like, Friday, it could be Friday.
242 00:31:12.540 ⇒ 00:31:15.269 Uttam Kumaran: I’m down to do Friday. Friday?
243 00:31:15.270 ⇒ 00:31:27.559 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, Friday, like, around, yeah, 9.30, 9, 9.30 PST, or whenever… I mean, I’m most… Fridays… I try to keep Fridays pretty wide open from, like, no minimal sales calls and stuff like that.
244 00:31:27.560 ⇒ 00:31:41.730 Uttam Kumaran: We could even do this, like, literally just, like, on the phone, on Zoom, like, go for a walk, but I just want to, like, I want to start to dissect the business and start to give my team, like, a canvas of, like, all the different flows.
245 00:31:41.730 ⇒ 00:31:54.009 Uttam Kumaran: And then what I want to… basically what I want to come do, and this is something that we’re trying for a lot of clients, is coming to you with a roadmap of, like, here are the things that we heard as the priority, here are the KPIs that affect, and here’s the feasibility of automation.
246 00:31:54.120 ⇒ 00:32:01.049 Uttam Kumaran: And then that is, like, something that we can get feedback on. And then who, apart from you, is gonna be, like, the primary user?
247 00:32:03.140 ⇒ 00:32:08.989 Uttam Kumaran: So I think, like, if we can just spend, like, 30 minutes a week on that, I think you’ll get a lot of… we’ll get a lot of value out of that.
248 00:32:08.990 ⇒ 00:32:09.340 Matthew Good: Yes.
249 00:32:09.340 ⇒ 00:32:16.740 Uttam Kumaran: Starting next week, we can add whoever from your side, the new guy, into something with us, maybe an hour or two a week.
250 00:32:16.740 ⇒ 00:32:17.260 Matthew Good: Yeah.
251 00:32:17.260 ⇒ 00:32:31.249 Uttam Kumaran: So if he sits… if he sits with Mustafa and just, like, rips through it, they’ll rip through every… everything. I think where Mustafa was jammed is… I was giving him feedback, but I’m like, well, I’m not sure yet, the team’s out, and I was like, we’ll just keep… keep shipping it. So, I want to make sure we get it right.
252 00:32:31.250 ⇒ 00:32:48.439 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Fridays looks good. I mean, if you have toss a hold on whenever, and we can just, like, phone call or walk or something like that, and then I’m getting him onboarded this week, so then next week we can get some time. I’ll tell him to get some time with you guys. I’ll be there for that first one, too, just to, as he, like, gets, gets rolling.
253 00:32:48.670 ⇒ 00:32:50.859 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, back a second. Cool.
254 00:32:51.290 ⇒ 00:32:59.210 Matthew Good: Sick, and then, yeah, in terms of the other stuff, like, send me over, like, just like last time, invoice or whatever, and then get that fulfilled right away, and, keep going.
255 00:32:59.820 ⇒ 00:33:01.469 Uttam Kumaran: What else can help us?
256 00:33:04.000 ⇒ 00:33:04.940 Uttam Kumaran: designers.
257 00:33:05.100 ⇒ 00:33:09.280 Matthew Good: Yeah. Yeah, if you know any graphic designers… like, junior web designers…
258 00:33:09.280 ⇒ 00:33:12.129 Uttam Kumaran: Like, if they’re here, or if they’re anywhere, like…
259 00:33:12.530 ⇒ 00:33:15.719 Matthew Good: I mean, generally, Canada… Canada…
260 00:33:15.970 ⇒ 00:33:35.639 Matthew Good: stateside, or, like, near, like, Eastern Europe. But they could be anywhere. Like, if they’re good, they can be anywhere. Yeah, that’s, like, probably the highest priority for me right now, operation, is, like, free net… because, like, our lead web designer now is, like, working on some, like, really cool, like, neurotech…
261 00:33:35.640 ⇒ 00:33:38.739 Uttam Kumaran: Are you guys doing Webflow stuff, or Framer, or what’s the…
262 00:33:38.740 ⇒ 00:33:58.259 Matthew Good: he, like, we build most things in Webflow, but he does a lot of, like, 3D animation work, and stuff like that, but he’s doing, like, higher priority clients, and then he has to, like, shift back to, like, low… pretty, like, low-level tasks, and he was, like, dude, the context switching. He’s like, sometimes it’s nice to just, like, turn my brain off and do this, but other times it’s just, like, brutal, and I was like, I totally get that.
263 00:33:58.260 ⇒ 00:34:17.899 Uttam Kumaran: How much are you guys paying for either of those roles right now? Like, for the low-level designer, and then for, like, the sort of, like, Webflow guy? Because I’ve… we’ve interviewed a bunch of both. I have some, like, near-shore, offshore webflow people that are, like, I turn to a lot of them, because a lot of them are low, and I found some, like, decent people.
264 00:34:18.310 ⇒ 00:34:19.900 Uttam Kumaran: In case you need prep.
265 00:34:19.909 ⇒ 00:34:21.769 Matthew Good: Are they devs or designers?
266 00:34:24.389 ⇒ 00:34:31.709 Uttam Kumaran: I would say most of them I brought on just for development. They will all say they can do design, that’s for you to suss out.
267 00:34:31.710 ⇒ 00:34:32.029 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah.
268 00:34:32.030 ⇒ 00:34:38.400 Uttam Kumaran: My stuff was so… my stuff was, like, I’m not really basic. Yeah. Mostly I use them for develop… for development.
269 00:34:38.409 ⇒ 00:34:47.410 Matthew Good: Okay. Yeah, we have, like, 3 or 4 developers that we use. Okay. They’re, like, Eastern Europe slash, like, offshore, and then…
270 00:34:47.870 ⇒ 00:34:55.509 Matthew Good: that the guy, like, the web designer that I’m referring to is, like, our team lead. He’s great. He’s, like, web designer, 3D animation, rendering, stuff like that.
271 00:34:55.760 ⇒ 00:34:57.079 Uttam Kumaran: He’s like a designer designer, yeah.
272 00:34:57.080 ⇒ 00:35:05.710 Matthew Good: Yeah, we just need someone to, like, take the low-level graphic design stuff from, like, a lot of retainer clients that just, like, is a monthly kind of cadence, take that off his plate.
273 00:35:05.710 ⇒ 00:35:06.280 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
274 00:35:06.280 ⇒ 00:35:08.560 Matthew Good: So if you run across anyone, definitely let me know.
275 00:35:08.930 ⇒ 00:35:10.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, alright.
276 00:35:11.500 ⇒ 00:35:12.200 Matthew Good: Cool.
277 00:35:12.470 ⇒ 00:35:14.680 Uttam Kumaran: What about you? Anything else I can help you on?
278 00:35:15.370 ⇒ 00:35:22.909 Uttam Kumaran: Man, yeah, like, if you meet… if you’re meeting clients that are, like, have…
279 00:35:22.990 ⇒ 00:35:39.380 Uttam Kumaran: we’re not trying to do a lot of startup work, but if you meet clients that raise a bunch of money, I’m willing to make an exception, because they’ll actually… they’ll actually pay. But yeah, if you see people… if you meet people that are struggling with data, struggling with sort of the similar stuff that we’re doing for y’all, where they’re like.
280 00:35:39.630 ⇒ 00:35:41.139 Uttam Kumaran: Need to find a way to…
281 00:35:41.280 ⇒ 00:35:52.519 Uttam Kumaran: put AI into their business. That’s a lot of what we’re doing. So we’re running AI workshops, we’re also running, like, ChatGBT, like, cloud enablement stuff, like, we’re gonna help all your people in your org just, like.
282 00:35:52.790 ⇒ 00:36:12.530 Uttam Kumaran: get to the point where they’re just using this for every… for just, like, random shit that they’re doing. Yeah. And we’re doing, like, workshops where we come in, we do… I would say it’s… it’s a lot larger, more formal. These are for, like, bigger companies, where we bring in, like, the CFO, like, everybody into a room, and, like, do… like, hash out, like, a ton of problems, leave with a couple proof of concepts. Yeah.
283 00:36:12.880 ⇒ 00:36:13.760 Matthew Good: Great.
284 00:36:13.760 ⇒ 00:36:14.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
285 00:36:15.350 ⇒ 00:36:33.670 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to. We’re doing that over the phone now. I met a guy who was doing workshops at Accenture for a while, and, like, we’re now partnering to sort of bring that to some of these bigger… but dude, some of these companies are so… these are, like, big industrial companies, like, super slow. They have a lot of politics, so just us getting in the room.
286 00:36:33.670 ⇒ 00:36:41.559 Uttam Kumaran: me being there, and can, like, get them to a couple of ideas that are actually worth trying. And they’re doing basic stuff, they’re like, we need, like, basic…
287 00:36:41.560 ⇒ 00:36:59.529 Uttam Kumaran: someone to input something in an ERP, and it happens 100,000 times a day. Yeah. Like, it’s like a great set of problems, but they have… they’re so technologically illiterate. But also, we’re helping a lot of, like, startups. Like, we’re working with Default right now, which is, like, a B2B startup outside of…
288 00:36:59.530 ⇒ 00:37:00.320 Matthew Good: Yeah.
289 00:37:00.320 ⇒ 00:37:06.900 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re… they’re one of our clients. We’ve worked with Bolt. I got an intro into Cognition yesterday.
290 00:37:06.910 ⇒ 00:37:07.650 Matthew Good: Nice.
291 00:37:07.650 ⇒ 00:37:08.769 Uttam Kumaran: That’d be huge, that…
292 00:37:09.260 ⇒ 00:37:21.049 Uttam Kumaran: So we’ve done a lot of B2B SaaS stuff, so, like, product analytics is a huge thing we do, so people can’t measure how people are onboarding, signing up, using their products.
293 00:37:21.120 ⇒ 00:37:32.509 Uttam Kumaran: we have, like, basically a product analytics sprint that we do, where we implement Amplitude or Mixpanel, get them, like, information on what their customers are doing in the platform, how do they retarget them for marketing, upsell.
294 00:37:32.540 ⇒ 00:37:40.930 Matthew Good: Interesting. Do you have, like… and you might have sent it to me already, but do you have, like, all the sprints and, like, packages codified in some sort of, like, PDF or Dropbox?
295 00:37:40.930 ⇒ 00:37:41.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
296 00:37:41.850 ⇒ 00:37:43.440 Matthew Good: I think about introing you, I’m like.
297 00:37:44.030 ⇒ 00:37:44.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
298 00:37:44.470 ⇒ 00:37:45.690 Matthew Good: And whatever, but then I.
299 00:37:45.690 ⇒ 00:37:46.340 Uttam Kumaran: Let me give you stuff.
300 00:37:46.340 ⇒ 00:37:47.990 Matthew Good: How to frame it.
301 00:37:47.990 ⇒ 00:37:53.520 Uttam Kumaran: I can give you… I can give you the verbiage, I can give you what to send, and yeah, I’ll send that to you.
302 00:37:53.520 ⇒ 00:37:57.250 Matthew Good: Okay, yeah, send me, like, yeah, any sort of, like, collateral that you guys have, or.
303 00:37:57.250 ⇒ 00:38:04.390 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re… and typically, it’s, like, this is going to, like, a head… at the smaller startups, it’s the CEO, but typically, it’s, like, usually head of growth, or…
304 00:38:04.390 ⇒ 00:38:05.500 Matthew Good: Product growth.
305 00:38:05.550 ⇒ 00:38:10.150 Uttam Kumaran: product growth leads, CPO,
306 00:38:10.890 ⇒ 00:38:30.099 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, some of them don’t have head-end data, but if they have data, that’s usually it. Usually, those are the people that care most about, like, operations, AI, and data. It could also be, like, an operations person or a CFO for the AI side. But I’ll also send you, like, a couple decks and a couple things, and a couple blurbs.
307 00:38:30.100 ⇒ 00:38:37.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, please do. Yeah, if anyone… if that’s it. Like, I don’t think you don’t… I don’t… I hope you don’t have to explain it too much, but that’s basically it. People are having trouble.
308 00:38:37.870 ⇒ 00:38:44.239 Uttam Kumaran: measuring their business or finding a way to actually, like, do AI shit today, that’s where we can help.
309 00:38:44.460 ⇒ 00:38:47.900 Matthew Good: Got it. Okay. Awesome. Yeah, send that over to me, and then…
310 00:38:48.070 ⇒ 00:38:57.929 Matthew Good: I mean, yeah, startups and sweet spot would be, like, you just raised a Series A, or a big round, and now you’ve just hired a head of growth, the person’s coming on board, they’re like, what the fuck is going on? This is a rocket ship, I need help. Or…
311 00:38:57.930 ⇒ 00:39:05.729 Uttam Kumaran: They’re gonna struggle to set up their data infrastructure, get the right tools, hire the right people, and they’re gonna fuck up really badly.
312 00:39:05.730 ⇒ 00:39:06.879 Matthew Good: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
313 00:39:06.880 ⇒ 00:39:19.239 Uttam Kumaran: You know? So that’s where we usually get called in, is like, either they’ve acquired another company, in this sort of startup world, they’ve acquired a company, they’ve raised a bunch of money, they brought on, like, a senior person. We need that person, because we need their time.
314 00:39:19.390 ⇒ 00:39:19.880 Matthew Good: Yeah.
315 00:39:19.880 ⇒ 00:39:36.520 Uttam Kumaran: and they need help making vendor decisions, setting up initial systems, maybe they need help hiring additional people, training existing analysts onto their new stack, and doing that now, not, like, 6 months from now. So typically, for the startup, you work with time is the problem. Yeah, it always. Yeah.
316 00:39:36.520 ⇒ 00:39:37.080 Matthew Good: Cool.
317 00:39:37.340 ⇒ 00:39:46.919 Matthew Good: Sick, okay, I’ll look out for that, and then invoice as well, I’ll get that fulfilled, and then, I’ll add Micah when he joins to the Slack, and then we’ll coordinate some time to chat.
318 00:39:46.920 ⇒ 00:39:48.469 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Take care.
319 00:39:48.470 ⇒ 00:39:49.740 Matthew Good: Thanks, man. Alright, man.
320 00:39:49.740 ⇒ 00:39:51.660 Uttam Kumaran: Talk to you soon.