Meeting Title: Brainforge PM Onboarding and Planning Date: 2025-09-05 Meeting participants: Justin Breshears, Alexander Lubka, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:35.030 ⇒ 00:01:36.410 Alexander Lubka: Hey, good morning, Justin.
2 00:01:40.610 ⇒ 00:01:41.860 Justin Breshears: Good mornin’!
3 00:01:41.990 ⇒ 00:01:42.530 Justin Breshears: How are you?
4 00:01:43.650 ⇒ 00:01:44.870 Alexander Lubka: Doing a lot. Good.
5 00:01:45.810 ⇒ 00:01:48.909 Alexander Lubka: So you guys had fun last weekend, and last Sunday you met up with Utao?
6 00:01:48.910 ⇒ 00:01:54.820 Justin Breshears: Yeah, it was a good time. Poured rain on us, but we stayed dry.
7 00:01:54.950 ⇒ 00:01:58.890 Justin Breshears: We met at, like, a place with mostly outdoor seating, so that was fun.
8 00:01:58.890 ⇒ 00:02:00.140 Alexander Lubka: While it was raining?
9 00:02:00.140 ⇒ 00:02:00.970 Justin Breshears: Yeah.
10 00:02:01.680 ⇒ 00:02:02.630 Alexander Lubka: Classic.
11 00:02:02.630 ⇒ 00:02:07.129 Justin Breshears: Yeah, we found a little… a little overhang, and managed to be alright.
12 00:02:09.229 ⇒ 00:02:10.280 Alexander Lubka: That’s great.
13 00:02:10.460 ⇒ 00:02:13.979 Alexander Lubka: So you’re, like… you said you’re, like, 2 hours from him?
14 00:02:14.200 ⇒ 00:02:15.719 Justin Breshears: Yeah, just about.
15 00:02:16.990 ⇒ 00:02:18.709 Justin Breshears: Not too bad at all.
16 00:02:19.890 ⇒ 00:02:21.689 Alexander Lubka: He loves a good drive, it’s fine.
17 00:02:26.020 ⇒ 00:02:29.289 Alexander Lubka: How was your, rest of your Labor Day and stuff? Did you guys do anything fine?
18 00:02:29.750 ⇒ 00:02:40.450 Justin Breshears: Yeah, it was good. I got to take my family to their first minor league baseball game, so, we saw the Sugar Land Space Cowboys play.
19 00:02:40.450 ⇒ 00:02:41.870 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
20 00:02:42.270 ⇒ 00:02:42.650 Alexander Lubka: They win?
21 00:02:42.650 ⇒ 00:02:43.120 Uttam Kumaran: open.
22 00:02:43.400 ⇒ 00:02:45.529 Justin Breshears: I have no idea.
23 00:02:46.400 ⇒ 00:02:50.000 Justin Breshears: I have a 2-year-old and a 6-month-old, so we left after, like, 3
24 00:02:53.060 ⇒ 00:02:55.690 Justin Breshears: how to get him to bed, so… I don’t know.
25 00:02:55.950 ⇒ 00:03:03.219 Uttam Kumaran: That’s just, like, when I go to baseball, too, that’s usually, like, I help pay attention for a bit, and I’m like, let’s walk around, or something.
26 00:03:03.220 ⇒ 00:03:11.770 Justin Breshears: Yeah, yeah. I’m not a huge baseball guy in general, so it’s really just more about the atmosphere and just having a good time for me. I don’t think I watched a single pitch.
27 00:03:13.220 ⇒ 00:03:19.779 Alexander Lubka: I’m not a baseball guy, but what did get me is the Savannah Bananas are coming to Yankee Stadium next weekend, so I did get tickets for that.
28 00:03:20.280 ⇒ 00:03:24.219 Justin Breshears: Yeah, that’s awesome. I wanna… I wanna go to one of those games. We’ll see my class.
29 00:03:24.440 ⇒ 00:03:25.859 Alexander Lubka: Coming to New York next weekend, guys.
30 00:03:25.860 ⇒ 00:03:29.800 Justin Breshears: Oh, yeah. I’ll fight, no big deal.
31 00:03:30.290 ⇒ 00:03:32.540 Alexander Lubka: So, Tom, you took Justin for some butter service?
32 00:03:33.280 ⇒ 00:03:39.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yeah, sort of like that. We just went to go get, we went to this brewery,
33 00:03:39.550 ⇒ 00:03:43.650 Uttam Kumaran: Near him. Yeah, it was good, but the weather was kind of crazy that day.
34 00:03:44.850 ⇒ 00:03:45.400 Justin Breshears: It was wild.
35 00:03:45.440 ⇒ 00:03:46.689 Uttam Kumaran: Great day, yeah.
36 00:03:46.690 ⇒ 00:03:49.160 Alexander Lubka: I heard it sounded like a great day for you guys to sit outside.
37 00:03:49.480 ⇒ 00:03:51.450 Justin Breshears: Yeah, yeah.
38 00:03:52.260 ⇒ 00:03:55.260 Justin Breshears: It made it cooler, though, with the rain. I’m not complaining.
39 00:03:55.260 ⇒ 00:03:56.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, not bad.
40 00:03:56.520 ⇒ 00:03:58.729 Alexander Lubka: As long as the beers were cold, that’s all that matters.
41 00:04:01.940 ⇒ 00:04:09.009 Justin Breshears: Well, it’s good to be on with y’all. Thanks for, you know, waking up first thing and hopping on here. I’m excited to…
42 00:04:09.320 ⇒ 00:04:17.630 Justin Breshears: to get on with it, talk some details here, so… By the way, the first thing is that Notion page is… is awesome.
43 00:04:17.890 ⇒ 00:04:27.380 Justin Breshears: super helpful, just to, like, frame, you know, kind of what… what you’re expecting, what you’re wanting, so… love that. I added some notes onto the bottom of just…
44 00:04:28.010 ⇒ 00:04:33.179 Justin Breshears: stuff I wanted to talk about so I didn’t forget. But yeah, where do you want to start?
45 00:04:33.180 ⇒ 00:04:45.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I’ll just share that, and then we can go from there. I mean, yeah, hopefully this gives you also a little bit of insight about, like, how we kind of operate, really writing and heavy as much as we can be.
46 00:04:45.720 ⇒ 00:04:57.219 Uttam Kumaran: But I do think that, you know, one of… I think I’m excited that you’re open, sort of, for this, like, fractional opportunity, and yeah, like, let’s just maybe run through this doc and…
47 00:04:57.320 ⇒ 00:04:59.450 Uttam Kumaran: I guess we could s…
48 00:04:59.710 ⇒ 00:05:04.190 Uttam Kumaran: we can kind of start from anywhere. I don’t know, if you had a…
49 00:05:04.500 ⇒ 00:05:07.770 Uttam Kumaran: chance to look at it, Alex, or if you want me to walk through it?
50 00:05:08.460 ⇒ 00:05:12.809 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I looked at it, I put a couple comments, weirdly, because I’m on my way to the Cape, so…
51 00:05:12.810 ⇒ 00:05:13.200 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
52 00:05:13.310 ⇒ 00:05:17.549 Alexander Lubka: I put some weird comments in there, but yeah, let’s go through it.
53 00:05:17.860 ⇒ 00:05:28.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So yeah, just kind of, like, frame the whole document. So, I think the context, you know, everybody’s aware of. I think, one, like, we would love to have you. I think the
54 00:05:28.280 ⇒ 00:05:32.320 Uttam Kumaran: We were… we were in search for someone that’s more, like.
55 00:05:32.430 ⇒ 00:05:41.190 Uttam Kumaran: plug-and-play PM, but I actually think that you’re, like, a really great fit for Brainforge, and I want to find a way to… to loop you in, and then…
56 00:05:41.310 ⇒ 00:05:47.220 Uttam Kumaran: start to scale that up. We are, like, we have a pretty good pipeline.
57 00:05:47.320 ⇒ 00:06:07.099 Uttam Kumaran: And several of our clients that we started in, like, an audit phase are now graduating, so I feel really confident about budget opening up. It’s just, like, not right now. But I think this will give you a good insight into the company, and also hopefully help you make a decision about working with us longer term as well.
58 00:06:07.100 ⇒ 00:06:22.620 Justin Breshears: That aligns with my goals, too. Like, I would love to jump in and be full-time and come work for you, but I totally get, like, timing has to work out on both sides, so happy to do this until that time happens, but that’s the goal that I want to work towards.
59 00:06:22.820 ⇒ 00:06:23.820 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
60 00:06:24.040 ⇒ 00:06:31.310 Uttam Kumaran: And then, so on our side, I think, these are sort of, like, our core focus areas.
61 00:06:31.550 ⇒ 00:06:41.410 Uttam Kumaran: the two, kind of, you know, areas, I think, probably the first is that we do have some active clients that need more PM love.
62 00:06:41.490 ⇒ 00:06:52.619 Uttam Kumaran: And we can talk about, sort of, like, who they are and what the scope is. But right now, I think we’re sitting at around, like, 10 or 11. They’re split between…
63 00:06:52.660 ⇒ 00:07:07.419 Uttam Kumaran: two folks right now, and we have new clients coming on. That being said, you may say, okay, how does someone manage five clients? Well, some of the clients are very, like… it’s like maybe one meeting a week, or super async-heavy,
64 00:07:07.580 ⇒ 00:07:13.170 Uttam Kumaran: And… or, like, I’m… I may be on the client, so, like, I can kind of alleviate some stuff.
65 00:07:13.230 ⇒ 00:07:28.200 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s kind of, like, how we’re balancing. We do, just like most consultants, have a little bit of, like, an 80-20 on, like, where a lot of the revenue comes from, so we do have some heavier clients. That is where, like, Amber is currently focused on.
66 00:07:28.430 ⇒ 00:07:46.900 Uttam Kumaran: And then Rico, who’s another PM on our team, he also has, you know, 2 or 3 clients that he’s working on. But really, like, one of the core areas is just, like, can we alleviate them of, like, one or two of those projects? We can talk about, like, which ones and what the structure is, but,
67 00:07:46.900 ⇒ 00:07:58.390 Uttam Kumaran: a core KPI for me, really, there is, like, reducing Amber’s load. She’s taking on, like, quite a bit. And then also, for context, longer term.
68 00:07:58.390 ⇒ 00:08:09.410 Uttam Kumaran: she’s planning on moving, sort of, more into, like, a chief of staff role in the company. So one of the transitions we want to make here is not, like, a full transition of her off of project management. I don’t think that’ll happen for another…
69 00:08:09.720 ⇒ 00:08:17.579 Uttam Kumaran: For months or so. But I want to start to have her just focused on
70 00:08:17.760 ⇒ 00:08:27.599 Uttam Kumaran: like, the core clients that she’s managing, and then she’s gonna have some time left over to help, sort of, Robert and I with some larger, like, executive ops.
71 00:08:27.800 ⇒ 00:08:34.970 Uttam Kumaran: And so we can talk about that as well. Yeah, team rituals, so this is just, like, normal…
72 00:08:35.179 ⇒ 00:08:45.779 Uttam Kumaran: like, supporting the PM team, also just, like, supporting the team of the clients that you’re owning. PM maturity, so this is also starting to just…
73 00:08:45.780 ⇒ 00:08:59.760 Uttam Kumaran: put some thought into our entire, like, PMO. Right now, Alex, has worked directly with Amber, in, like, an advisory way of, of, like, setting everything up.
74 00:08:59.800 ⇒ 00:09:07.649 Uttam Kumaran: But, again, like, Amber, the number one job for the PMs is to work on clients, so if that stuff blows up, there’s, like, no time for…
75 00:09:07.770 ⇒ 00:09:20.130 Uttam Kumaran: thinking about the larger architecture. So, I think it would be great to start to loop you into those sessions that Alex is doing. This is… these are more short-term, is just deciding on, like, Q4 or OKRs.
76 00:09:20.300 ⇒ 00:09:39.469 Uttam Kumaran: But also potentially starting to coach Amber and Rico, deciding on, like, client success metrics, like, working directly with me to think about, sort of, delivery as a whole. I would say this is more about, like, the program building aspect. And then the last piece, which, like.
77 00:09:39.920 ⇒ 00:09:42.630 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t want to leave out is…
78 00:09:42.840 ⇒ 00:10:02.430 Uttam Kumaran: what I want to try to demonstrate to you is sort of, like, how we’re trying to use AI everywhere, and trying to give you the opportunity to think through automation opportunities and work with our AI team to implement any of those. So, I left it at the bottom because I think out of these four, that’s where it is, but…
79 00:10:02.660 ⇒ 00:10:10.509 Uttam Kumaran: I think that is the most… that is one of the most unique parts about this role, is, like, how much we’re trying to use AI.
80 00:10:10.820 ⇒ 00:10:14.049 Uttam Kumaran: And so I want to kind of give you insight into that as well.
81 00:10:14.630 ⇒ 00:10:15.430 Justin Breshears: I love it.
82 00:10:16.560 ⇒ 00:10:18.149 Alexander Lubka: Is last month something you guys…
83 00:10:18.150 ⇒ 00:10:19.039 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. I’m sorry.
84 00:10:19.240 ⇒ 00:10:24.729 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead. Is AI leverage one something you guys have talked about before, or something you have experience with, Justin, or something that…
85 00:10:24.800 ⇒ 00:10:28.429 Alexander Lubka: It’s just something we’re incorporating into every department.
86 00:10:28.680 ⇒ 00:10:36.610 Justin Breshears: Yeah, we talked about it a lot on Sunday. I’ve got some ideas, but I think a lot of it’ll come from
87 00:10:36.880 ⇒ 00:10:41.220 Justin Breshears: You know, diving into, like, current practices and seeing, you know, where gaps can be filled.
88 00:10:42.040 ⇒ 00:10:43.629 Alexander Lubka: Awesome. Glad to hear that.
89 00:10:44.500 ⇒ 00:10:53.829 Justin Breshears: Yeah, we’re doing a lot of that in my day job, currently, right now, so I think I can pull some of the stuff that we’ve seen success with into what y’all are doing.
90 00:10:54.130 ⇒ 00:10:54.870 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
91 00:10:54.870 ⇒ 00:10:55.540 Alexander Lubka: That’s great.
92 00:10:56.640 ⇒ 00:11:12.400 Uttam Kumaran: And then, the 30-day plan, maybe I’ll just, like… I’ll skip that for now, this is just, like, rough. This is probably more specific. Success metrics we can decide on, but roughly, I think the theme is right, like, reducing Amber’s priority coordination. Right now, she’s, like, hovering between, like.
93 00:11:12.450 ⇒ 00:11:29.559 Uttam Kumaran: 80% and 100% capacity, which is, like, a huge strain, because as ad hoc stuff comes up, it’s quite tense. Also, the team goes from 2 to 3, which is, like, I think a great number for any team. As soon as the team turns 3, I feel like there’s a lot more dynamics and a lot more people to lean on.
94 00:11:29.640 ⇒ 00:11:33.409 Uttam Kumaran: I would say this is the last, except for operations.
95 00:11:34.590 ⇒ 00:11:41.290 Uttam Kumaran: and legal and stuff, and whatever. This is the last team with just two people, so I’m excited, I think, like.
96 00:11:41.610 ⇒ 00:11:57.130 Uttam Kumaran: it will build some camaraderie there. And then, yeah, these are just, like, ensure weekly structured communications for a project, and then talking about 3-5 automation processes, that we could… that are great opportunities.
97 00:11:58.420 ⇒ 00:12:05.469 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I mean, we could… I think I’d love to talk about, sort of, how… what about compensation, and then talk a little bit about
98 00:12:05.620 ⇒ 00:12:11.660 Uttam Kumaran: some of these questions, just… I think our biggest, you know, questions were just, like, kind of, like, what’s availability?
99 00:12:11.920 ⇒ 00:12:23.090 Uttam Kumaran: what… what… what responsibilities on those lists are, like, must-have versus nice stuff, so we can give… we can let you know that. And, like, what does, kind of, success look like?
100 00:12:23.400 ⇒ 00:12:30.890 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, maybe if you want to go through your notes, if you want to just, like, kind of narrate through them, and we can start to make some decisions, happy to.
101 00:12:31.180 ⇒ 00:12:50.870 Justin Breshears: Yeah, for sure. So based on, like, all that you just talked about and laid out, like, we have some pretty defined, like, areas that you want me to jump in, right? So I think, like, a retainer, like, a monthly just fixed cost makes sense model for compensation, versus counting hours and stuff like that. I just don’t like…
102 00:12:50.970 ⇒ 00:12:53.779 Justin Breshears: I don’t think getting into hourly work and feeling like.
103 00:12:54.100 ⇒ 00:13:12.600 Justin Breshears: you know, oh, I just gotta, like, make up some hours. Yes. Not that I would, like, I just… I just don’t like it. I’d rather work on a set amount of deliverables or responsibilities, you know, have a fixed cost. It works for you in that you have predictable fixed costs for me, and… and I have predictable, you know, income and…
104 00:13:12.600 ⇒ 00:13:20.079 Justin Breshears: just know the playbook and the responsibilities there. So that’s what I prefer. I’m open to whatever, but that’s what I would prefer to set up.
105 00:13:20.080 ⇒ 00:13:35.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think at least, like, let’s… once you sort of look through the amount of responsibilities we can estimate, I mean, for us, I think if we could aim somewhere, like, max 20 hours and start there, and we could sort of back into cost there, like, that would probably be my initial goal.
106 00:13:35.670 ⇒ 00:13:42.959 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I think we’re aligned there. That was kind of how I was thinking of it. So that… I think that’s good, and then,
107 00:13:43.210 ⇒ 00:13:44.929 Justin Breshears: You know, the, the, the…
108 00:13:45.030 ⇒ 00:13:58.529 Justin Breshears: thing that I really need, like, need to do at the start is just kind of learn where you’re currently at before I start, like, suggesting this stuff, right? So, that’s where, like, I think taking over a project or two that are maybe…
109 00:13:58.590 ⇒ 00:14:17.669 Justin Breshears: you know, not your, like, crucial 80% clients, but some of the 21’s taking some load off. I think that’d be a perfect place to start, because then I can just kind of see how things are running currently, you know, get up to speed on your practices there, so I’d love to just dive into one or two projects right away, and start learning there.
110 00:14:17.670 ⇒ 00:14:19.740 Uttam Kumaran: I think on… on this piece.
111 00:14:20.040 ⇒ 00:14:23.219 Uttam Kumaran: like, I mean, I guess I’ll kick it to Alex, like.
112 00:14:23.520 ⇒ 00:14:24.960 Justin Breshears: We should…
113 00:14:25.820 ⇒ 00:14:32.030 Uttam Kumaran: mostly have a lot of this in writing, and I think one exercise we could do is, like.
114 00:14:32.350 ⇒ 00:14:44.040 Uttam Kumaran: I… every time we bring on someone new, my ask is that, like, our documentation and the way we onboard gets better. And so, even as part of this exercise, I would love to…
115 00:14:44.150 ⇒ 00:14:56.920 Uttam Kumaran: one, we have a lot of this written, but again, it depends on, sort of, your learning style. Also, I think this paired with, like, maybe, like, one… like, an hour or two hour, just, like, how is delivery going here? A session could be…
116 00:14:57.190 ⇒ 00:14:59.530 Uttam Kumaran: the best route.
117 00:14:59.910 ⇒ 00:15:01.960 Justin Breshears: I don’t know, Alex, what do you think?
118 00:15:02.850 ⇒ 00:15:12.879 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I’d love for you to take a look at whenever you, you know, start. I’d love for you to get the documentation that I have, and just probe it, and…
119 00:15:12.880 ⇒ 00:15:25.250 Alexander Lubka: Any questions you may have. I think what’ll be… is gonna be… what I’m really looking forward to this is, like, having somebody on the ground with, like, your level of experience, because I’m just, you know, not around during the day, and to see, like, how, you know, if you… when you… you’ll start to go to, like, ceremonies with,
120 00:15:25.250 ⇒ 00:15:33.380 Alexander Lubka: Amber and Rico and see how they’re operating, and I just love the perspective, too, of, like, you know, they… you know, I’m not there, so…
121 00:15:33.380 ⇒ 00:15:54.969 Alexander Lubka: They say they’re doing these things, I watch some videos once in a while, recordings of them, but I can’t always tell, you know, how well they’re doing it, and that’s where, like, the training element of it, and having you on the ground will really help, and just say, okay, well, you’re seeing these things, and we can work on the training element of it together. So what I’m thinking is, I have my one-on-one with Amber on Monday. I’ve been out the last couple weeks, so I just want to level set with her, see where things stand.
122 00:15:54.970 ⇒ 00:16:00.280 Alexander Lubka: And then, the meetings are, mondays at 5 o’clock Central.
123 00:16:00.280 ⇒ 00:16:24.529 Alexander Lubka: So if you can make it, I’d love to include you in that starting, the week after, so the 15th or something, and have you in those meetings, so we can go through. We talk about, you know, the status of her projects, issues that she’s having, documentations that… or documentation that she’s working on. You know, right now we’re at the OKR stage, so we do have, like, at the end of the month that I’ll include you in, of, like, our quarterly review of the PMO and the processes that we put in.
124 00:16:24.670 ⇒ 00:16:43.929 Alexander Lubka: how is it working? How’s it not working, any feedback is, so things like that, I’ll incorporate you into our review. And like what Tom was talking about, we’re starting to put together our Q4 OKRs, so definitely want you to be a part of that conversation, too. But I think a good first step are those things of just, like, getting into the documentation, getting you into these conversations with Amber.
125 00:16:43.930 ⇒ 00:16:52.389 Alexander Lubka: And then maybe I’ll schedule some time with you one-on-one with you, maybe next week or something after we do that, to see where you’re at and how I can help. But that’s… that’s my initial thinking.
126 00:16:52.890 ⇒ 00:17:03.939 Justin Breshears: I love that. Yeah, turn me loose in Notion. I want to read all the documentation. Like, I want to see everything that you have currently. And I actually wrote the onboarding workbook that we use at our company for,
127 00:17:03.940 ⇒ 00:17:05.310 Uttam Kumaran: There it is. Perfect.
128 00:17:05.310 ⇒ 00:17:10.779 Justin Breshears: So, like, that’s… I’m passionate about onboarding, so I’ll definitely, like, go through that with a fine-tuned.
129 00:17:10.780 ⇒ 00:17:17.809 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s actually a really, yeah, it’s actually a really good month to see everything, because one, I think this is our first month where we have
130 00:17:18.010 ⇒ 00:17:25.409 Uttam Kumaran: pretty serious OKRs, like, we’ve done them loosely last two quarters, mainly just because I think we didn’t have, like.
131 00:17:25.599 ⇒ 00:17:44.599 Uttam Kumaran: this sort of, like, a little bit… we now have some leadership in the middle of the company that are now assigned to some of those, but now for next quarter, I think we’re really, really in the… this month thinking about, like, what they should be. But you can see all of them across the company, and then I think this is a great month to start to see our current systems.
132 00:17:44.600 ⇒ 00:17:50.009 Uttam Kumaran: And then decide on what it’s gonna look like for next quarter, so you’re… it’s a good timing.
133 00:17:50.170 ⇒ 00:17:51.590 Uttam Kumaran: Love it. Love it.
134 00:17:51.590 ⇒ 00:18:08.079 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, and so… Yeah, go ahead. No, and I… and just when I go with, talk to Amber on Monday, I just want a level set of, like, the current state of some of these projects, and to determine, like, what one or two clients may be a good place for you to start on there, and then start onboarding you into that space and having her on-ramp you.
135 00:18:08.490 ⇒ 00:18:11.009 Uttam Kumaran: That’s exactly right. There’s no, like, rush.
136 00:18:11.280 ⇒ 00:18:16.830 Uttam Kumaran: But there is, like, active pain. So, like, yes, the earlier we can take it off, sure, but…
137 00:18:17.060 ⇒ 00:18:23.129 Uttam Kumaran: like, I want to go at a speed that is, like, fair, and that isn’t, like.
138 00:18:23.240 ⇒ 00:18:31.319 Uttam Kumaran: here’s our worst client coming out when you don’t know anything, so that’s kind of, like, how I feel. But, like, again, it’s…
139 00:18:31.490 ⇒ 00:18:37.580 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll give you the safety net, you could bust through that if you want, like, I don’t… I don’t mind either way.
140 00:18:37.830 ⇒ 00:18:49.559 Justin Breshears: I’m ready to get going, and it’s not gonna take me long to get started, so just turn me loose with your documentation, let me get a little bit more familiar with your processes, maybe over the next couple of days, and then, like…
141 00:18:49.790 ⇒ 00:18:52.329 Justin Breshears: Next week, we can look at, like, maybe meeting.
142 00:18:52.330 ⇒ 00:18:52.720 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
143 00:18:52.720 ⇒ 00:18:55.169 Justin Breshears: I’m totally fine with that.
144 00:18:55.170 ⇒ 00:18:55.720 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
145 00:18:55.720 ⇒ 00:19:02.860 Justin Breshears: My biggest hurdle right now is going to be, the unpredictability of my day job schedule.
146 00:19:02.860 ⇒ 00:19:06.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, so maybe talk about that, like, what… how are things right now?
147 00:19:06.790 ⇒ 00:19:19.130 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so I have my, two projects that I’m running, like, as a PM myself in my job, and then I’m responsible as oversight for all of my team’s projects, which means that
148 00:19:19.470 ⇒ 00:19:23.839 Justin Breshears: anytime something goes wrong on their projects, like, I’m the first line of escalation.
149 00:19:24.040 ⇒ 00:19:35.649 Justin Breshears: And that’s where the unpredictability comes from, because I can set my own project schedule fairly easily, and that’s kind of set in stone, but as soon as, like, a fire gets, you know, put out, that’s where, you know.
150 00:19:35.650 ⇒ 00:19:35.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
151 00:19:35.970 ⇒ 00:19:39.960 Justin Breshears: it a little bit more tough, for me to predict. So,
152 00:19:40.120 ⇒ 00:19:43.860 Justin Breshears: That’s the only thing that concerns me about, like.
153 00:19:44.350 ⇒ 00:19:48.840 Justin Breshears: you know, set client meetings, schedules, like that. And then.
154 00:19:48.840 ⇒ 00:19:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: I…
155 00:19:49.400 ⇒ 00:19:51.429 Justin Breshears: Tuesdays are typically just, like.
156 00:19:51.500 ⇒ 00:20:10.489 Justin Breshears: murder for me. For whatever reason, Tuesdays is when every meeting happens. Mondays and Fridays are typically pretty open. I leave it that way on purpose for… because nobody likes meetings on Mondays and Fridays, as we sit here in a Friday morning meeting.
157 00:20:10.490 ⇒ 00:20:22.600 Uttam Kumaran: No, I put all my meetings on… unfortunately, all my core meetings are on Monday, because I have to just, like, set the tone. But then I try, yeah, I’m trying, and I’m the same way.
158 00:20:23.000 ⇒ 00:20:30.569 Justin Breshears: But, I mean, that’s the only thing, like, I just wanted to call out, because, like, you know, obviously that’s gonna be the bulk of where my income comes from, so I have to
159 00:20:30.990 ⇒ 00:20:39.929 Justin Breshears: protect my day job until I get rid of it, right? But, I do… I don’t perceive it, like, being an issue as far as, like, getting hours in. It’s just, like.
160 00:20:41.220 ⇒ 00:20:53.479 Justin Breshears: for projects that I’m running, like, if there’s a client, you know, meeting scheduled at a fixed time, and, like, I have something blow up at work, like, that’s the only thing I can foresee as a risk in my mind.
161 00:20:53.480 ⇒ 00:20:59.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so there’s a couple, I think, like, good alleviations. One, some of the clients I’m thinking about.
162 00:21:00.150 ⇒ 00:21:09.979 Uttam Kumaran: either don’t already have an EPM rituals, because they’re, like, becoming new clients, or some are just very light, where, like, I’m on there, and so…
163 00:21:10.090 ⇒ 00:21:16.229 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m able to sort of, like, do a lot of stuff in Slack, and so some of these are, like, 2 meetings a week.
164 00:21:16.510 ⇒ 00:21:28.200 Uttam Kumaran: The rest is mostly updates in Slack. And again, for our most, like… some of our clients are so, like, pro-Slack that they’re just looking… we’re just looking for a constant stream of communication there.
165 00:21:28.330 ⇒ 00:21:47.630 Uttam Kumaran: But also, this is, I think, a great opportunity for us to try AI stuff. Like, your time constraint is a great opportunity for us to find out, okay, like, given that limited time, is it possible to run some of these? What AI solutions do you need around you in order to make that happen? So, I feel okay with that. Okay.
166 00:21:47.890 ⇒ 00:21:53.740 Uttam Kumaran: I think you’ll see that it’s not too strict either way. And, look, even if you put on a client meeting.
167 00:21:54.090 ⇒ 00:22:03.030 Uttam Kumaran: if… and you can’t make it, if there’s engineers around there, most of the folks on here are client… like, they can all handle client-facing stuff. We’re… we’re not, like.
168 00:22:03.340 ⇒ 00:22:08.389 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t have, like, we don’t have, like, a ton of junior people, or people that can’t be in front of a camera, so, like.
169 00:22:08.500 ⇒ 00:22:10.239 Uttam Kumaran: it’s pretty…
170 00:22:10.420 ⇒ 00:22:14.099 Justin Breshears: chill. Like, that’s already happening, so that’s, I guess, what I’ll say.
171 00:22:14.100 ⇒ 00:22:33.799 Justin Breshears: Well, good. I mean, like I told you on today, like, my… I promise I’m always gonna just be open and transparent about everything, so I just wanted to lay that out as, like, the real risk that I see, but if that is the way it’s set up, then I don’t think there’ll be an issue at all. And I really don’t foresee it being a huge issue, because the number of times that that probably would happen is very low, but…
172 00:22:33.800 ⇒ 00:22:40.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and the biggest thing is, like, if you’re… if you’re like, hey, this is happening, and then we can work around it, or someone subs, like, that’s… that’s it, right?
173 00:22:40.650 ⇒ 00:22:56.910 Justin Breshears: Yeah, that’s kind of what’s nice about, like, taking this time to kind of do a trial run with some of this stuff, and, you know, figure it out, how it works. So, love it, we’re on the same page. Okay, so, biggest thing is get me into all of Notion, let me start digging through that.
174 00:22:56.910 ⇒ 00:22:58.290 Alexander Lubka: It’s on Mondays?
175 00:22:58.290 ⇒ 00:22:59.460 Justin Breshears: Oh, sorry.
176 00:22:59.460 ⇒ 00:23:00.509 Alexander Lubka: Two Mondays, yeah.
177 00:23:00.840 ⇒ 00:23:01.759 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead, Alex.
178 00:23:04.360 ⇒ 00:23:08.489 Alexander Lubka: No, I was just saying, if, you know, you’re the PM, so if you want your meetings on Mondays, put them on Mondays.
179 00:23:08.490 ⇒ 00:23:11.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you could totally decide on all the meetings.
180 00:23:12.160 ⇒ 00:23:19.569 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Right now, right now it’s just being decided by the existing PM, so nobody… nobody’s too opinionated.
181 00:23:19.750 ⇒ 00:23:20.420 Justin Breshears: Cool.
182 00:23:20.650 ⇒ 00:23:22.230 Justin Breshears: And then the Monday, 5 o’clock…
183 00:23:22.230 ⇒ 00:23:28.379 Alexander Lubka: And I also… I also wanted the automation, so I was… Great. Sounds good.
184 00:23:28.560 ⇒ 00:23:29.469 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, okay.
185 00:23:30.780 ⇒ 00:23:33.939 Justin Breshears: Sorry, there’s, like, a delay or something. I don’t mean to cut you off, Alex.
186 00:23:33.940 ⇒ 00:23:38.189 Alexander Lubka: No, I’m sure. I’m in the woods somewhere in Connecticut, so I’m sure it’s me.
187 00:23:41.150 ⇒ 00:23:42.969 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, okay.
188 00:23:43.110 ⇒ 00:23:44.410 Uttam Kumaran: I’m fine with it.
189 00:23:44.410 ⇒ 00:23:58.649 Justin Breshears: Let me… let me dive into all the documentation, over the weekend and stuff, and I can start reading that. Next week, we could start talking about, like, which projects I can take over in the transition plan on that, start getting me integrated next week.
190 00:23:58.710 ⇒ 00:24:09.020 Justin Breshears: I need, you know, access to, like, Slack, you know, maybe a Brainforge email, whatever, like, you know, accounts and things that I need set up. And then, just, like, the project artifacts for
191 00:24:09.150 ⇒ 00:24:13.969 Justin Breshears: Those projects, start looking through the sows and… and everything, would be great.
192 00:24:14.540 ⇒ 00:24:22.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and this is a great item. I think, like, this would be a great stretch opportunity for you to see through all the clients. Right now.
193 00:24:22.590 ⇒ 00:24:26.060 Uttam Kumaran: Robert and I are doing all of this.
194 00:24:26.160 ⇒ 00:24:34.899 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s so sporadic, and it’s usually for clients that ask us. It’s… we’re not, like, actively pursuing these.
195 00:24:34.900 ⇒ 00:24:40.319 Alexander Lubka: It’s a huge bottleneck. I mean, two great outcomes of this is, one, yeah, maybe we find.
196 00:24:40.320 ⇒ 00:24:41.670 Uttam Kumaran: additional work.
197 00:24:41.980 ⇒ 00:24:47.709 Uttam Kumaran: Second is just training the other two on how to sort of, like, isolate these as well, you know?
198 00:24:47.900 ⇒ 00:24:48.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
199 00:24:49.460 ⇒ 00:24:54.620 Justin Breshears: I know we spoke at length about that on Sunday, and that’s something, like, I would want to just start.
200 00:24:54.920 ⇒ 00:25:00.359 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, as I mentioned, it’s just hard for me to play both… it’s just hard to play both roles, so… Yeah.
201 00:25:00.360 ⇒ 00:25:02.260 Justin Breshears: And that’s where I can step in and help.
202 00:25:02.480 ⇒ 00:25:03.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
203 00:25:03.360 ⇒ 00:25:07.589 Justin Breshears: If I want to create the budget for me to come on full-time, then I can do it.
204 00:25:07.590 ⇒ 00:25:16.720 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, I mean, that’s a… that’s a great, like, call your shot type of moment. Yeah, and also, you’ll see, like, you’ll see everyth, like.
205 00:25:16.720 ⇒ 00:25:29.270 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll add you to everything. You’ll see everything. I’m happy to… you can get access to HubSpot, or whatever all the systems are, to see all the active clients. We are… you also, like, again, we have marketing, we have…
206 00:25:29.270 ⇒ 00:25:37.800 Uttam Kumaran: Some people on the go-to-market, like, content side, so in case you’re curious about, like, how we’re sourcing deals, or the stuff we’re doing for marketing and promotions, like.
207 00:25:37.800 ⇒ 00:25:50.799 Uttam Kumaran: all those people are also available. The nice thing is, a lot of our clients, we… we’re starting to do a lot of, like, lookalike-based campaigns. So as we get a win with Eden, for example, is one of our clients, they’re, like, a GLP-1
208 00:25:50.800 ⇒ 00:26:01.480 Uttam Kumaran: e-commerce pharmacy, we can go to other ones that sort of do that. We have a telehealth company, right? So now I did a… I emailed a past telehealth company I was talking to, and now they want to come back on the phone.
209 00:26:01.480 ⇒ 00:26:14.459 Uttam Kumaran: Because we… they know we’re working. So, like, there’s these opportunities that I think, once you start to see all… and we’ve worked… we think our, like, Rolodex is, like, almost, like, 30 or 40 at this point. So you’ll see, like, all the past people we’ve done work for, and…
210 00:26:14.530 ⇒ 00:26:16.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think it’ll spur some ideas.
211 00:26:16.940 ⇒ 00:26:17.799 Justin Breshears: Very nice.
212 00:26:19.280 ⇒ 00:26:24.199 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, so let me… Let me today…
213 00:26:24.390 ⇒ 00:26:29.890 Uttam Kumaran: get back to you on this. If anything, what I’m gonna try… I’ll be able to get back to you is I’ll get you…
214 00:26:30.330 ⇒ 00:26:35.860 Uttam Kumaran: like an NDA, and, like, an agreement there. That way, I’ll just give you access.
215 00:26:36.090 ⇒ 00:26:48.519 Uttam Kumaran: I have to call Robert to make this call, but I will try to get him on the phone. He’s in Kyrgyzstan right now. What? He’s on, like, a little bit of, like, a volunteering trip.
216 00:26:48.580 ⇒ 00:27:06.339 Uttam Kumaran: But, just like any trip, it turns into business. He’s actually talking to, like, their… the government’s technology arm, and he’s doing a series of presentations with, like, the government of Kyrgyzstan about, like, improving AI and getting, like, more technology resources there.
217 00:27:06.380 ⇒ 00:27:07.650 Alexander Lubka: Jesus Christ.
218 00:27:07.650 ⇒ 00:27:10.250 Uttam Kumaran: He got, like, invited through some… some group.
219 00:27:10.250 ⇒ 00:27:10.930 Alexander Lubka: That’s so funny.
220 00:27:10.930 ⇒ 00:27:22.789 Uttam Kumaran: They said his timing is really off today, so I don’t know when I’ll chat with him. But… yeah, then he called me, he was like, dude, there’s, like, great leads out here, we gotta disclose some of these. So, he’s always off.
221 00:27:22.790 ⇒ 00:27:31.059 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re always on business there, but yeah, it’s, it’s, I’ll hopefully have sent some pictures today, but yeah, so let me get back… yeah, let me get back about this.
222 00:27:31.060 ⇒ 00:27:33.869 Alexander Lubka: Justin, you’re okay for going out there for our clients?
223 00:27:33.870 ⇒ 00:27:36.739 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry, Ferguson.
224 00:27:36.740 ⇒ 00:27:37.729 Justin Breshears: For it, man.
225 00:27:39.040 ⇒ 00:27:44.120 Uttam Kumaran: I had to look on the map, it’s like, somewhere, north, like,
226 00:27:44.350 ⇒ 00:27:51.360 Uttam Kumaran: northwest of, like, Ukraine, so, like, kind of, like, kind of in the middle near Poland, somewhere in a weird area.
227 00:27:51.460 ⇒ 00:27:52.130 Uttam Kumaran: However…
228 00:27:52.130 ⇒ 00:27:54.959 Alexander Lubka: Did you know… is there a direct player from JFK? Do you know?
229 00:27:55.610 ⇒ 00:27:56.560 Uttam Kumaran: No.
230 00:27:57.190 ⇒ 00:27:58.089 Alexander Lubka: I have no… I.
231 00:27:58.090 ⇒ 00:28:01.910 Uttam Kumaran: Turkistan? I don’t know, I think he went through, he went through Turkey, so there’s no way.
232 00:28:01.910 ⇒ 00:28:04.379 Alexander Lubka: That’s so funny.
233 00:28:04.380 ⇒ 00:28:07.070 Uttam Kumaran: direct from Austin… no direct from Austin, at least, yeah.
234 00:28:07.300 ⇒ 00:28:11.079 Alexander Lubka: Then we’re not doing it. Our onsite’s not gonna be there then, sorry.
235 00:28:11.080 ⇒ 00:28:12.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
236 00:28:12.650 ⇒ 00:28:14.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
237 00:28:14.020 ⇒ 00:28:22.909 Alexander Lubka: Cool, Tom, can you just let me know when all this keeps… moves forward, can you let me know when, you’ve set up, Justin’s credentials, and I can send him stuff and add him to things?
238 00:28:23.070 ⇒ 00:28:24.040 Uttam Kumaran: Sure, okay.
239 00:28:24.760 ⇒ 00:28:25.120 Alexander Lubka: Thank you.
240 00:28:25.120 ⇒ 00:28:29.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m basically in meetings until, like, noon, so it’ll probably be after that, yeah.
241 00:28:29.400 ⇒ 00:28:32.789 Alexander Lubka: No problem, and I’m away for the rest of the weekend, so I’ll probably do it on Monday.
242 00:28:32.970 ⇒ 00:28:34.329 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, okay, perfect.
243 00:28:35.660 ⇒ 00:28:36.700 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
244 00:28:36.860 ⇒ 00:28:41.010 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Well, yeah, if any other notes, Justin, like, put it in here. Again, like, let’s…
245 00:28:41.170 ⇒ 00:28:44.909 Uttam Kumaran: I think let’s leave this TBD, these two.
246 00:28:44.910 ⇒ 00:28:45.640 Justin Breshears: Okay.
247 00:28:45.640 ⇒ 00:28:51.729 Uttam Kumaran: kind of decide. These, I think we’re pretty good on. I’ll just fill it out with what we heard today.
248 00:28:52.530 ⇒ 00:28:53.670 Uttam Kumaran: I know.
249 00:28:53.670 ⇒ 00:28:56.050 Justin Breshears: A couple other questions that I had in here, if you…
250 00:28:56.050 ⇒ 00:28:56.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
251 00:28:56.470 ⇒ 00:28:57.360 Justin Breshears: my forum.
252 00:28:57.360 ⇒ 00:28:58.329 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
253 00:28:58.510 ⇒ 00:28:59.569 Justin Breshears: So, I know, like.
254 00:28:59.720 ⇒ 00:29:16.259 Justin Breshears: everybody that you are… have on projects is kind of working, partially allocated to each of them and stuff, so I’m curious, like, how y’all are handling, like, daily stand-ups and stuff with your team. Is that, like, one general stand-up where everybody kind of reports on all the projects they’re working on, or are you setting up.
255 00:29:16.260 ⇒ 00:29:16.960 Uttam Kumaran: Good question.
256 00:29:17.540 ⇒ 00:29:19.930 Uttam Kumaran: So we… we used to do that.
257 00:29:20.040 ⇒ 00:29:23.150 Uttam Kumaran: And then it became too much. Now every team…
258 00:29:23.580 ⇒ 00:29:31.130 Uttam Kumaran: for the most part, has individual stand-ups. I say for the most part, because we also, like.
259 00:29:31.770 ⇒ 00:29:47.119 Uttam Kumaran: part of the PM team, they need some support from the AI team, so they also have, like, an AI stand-up that they do, where they talk about, like, hey, can we get something automated? But every team has, like, fixed standups that are distinct.
260 00:29:47.420 ⇒ 00:29:54.449 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think we have a client where we’re doing… like a two-for-one anymore.
261 00:29:54.600 ⇒ 00:29:57.629 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m not in all of them anymore, either, I’m just in, like.
262 00:29:58.740 ⇒ 00:30:04.190 Uttam Kumaran: I’m added to a bunch, but I’m… I have to be at, like, probably two of them, so… but yeah, everything’s distinct.
263 00:30:04.790 ⇒ 00:30:10.390 Justin Breshears: Cool. But I was curious, because it’s like, there’s probably a lot of overlap between.
264 00:30:10.390 ⇒ 00:30:15.899 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think the… basically, the… the thing is, like, not every client has daily stand-ups.
265 00:30:15.900 ⇒ 00:30:16.550 Justin Breshears: Okay.
266 00:30:16.550 ⇒ 00:30:20.699 Uttam Kumaran: So some are on, like, a twice-a-week,
267 00:30:21.100 ⇒ 00:30:27.890 Uttam Kumaran: Just because the… for example, if a team is just, like, two people, and both those people are extremely good at, like.
268 00:30:27.930 ⇒ 00:30:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: communicating through linear async, we might as well just reserve the… because of the constraints, let’s just keep the meetings that we have with the clients, everything else we can try to do over Slack. So that’s sort of what happens. But the thing we’re not doing is, I don’t think for some of the clients we’re doing
269 00:30:46.020 ⇒ 00:30:54.670 Uttam Kumaran: grooming, and we’re doing strict planning. Like, I think we sort of loop all that into the first meeting of the week. Like, we’re running almost like a PM light
270 00:30:54.780 ⇒ 00:31:08.050 Uttam Kumaran: type of situation. What you’ll… you’ll probably see some of that in the documentation, where we have these, like, two modes. This is, again, open for discussion. I think we’ve gone back and forth on, like, some clients are really small, should we run every ritual?
271 00:31:08.180 ⇒ 00:31:27.519 Uttam Kumaran: does it help to run every ritual so that we get them bigger? Does it just help to run every ritual so we, like, don’t talk about having alternatives? So, it’s an open thing. I… I said I didn’t want their client to be without at least, like, stand-ups, and at least some, like, joint stand-up planning, but, like.
272 00:31:27.650 ⇒ 00:31:39.689 Uttam Kumaran: again, it’s totally open for discussion. I think if you do an audit and you see all of them, which you’ll see, like, we do a… on Mondays, we do a delivery meeting, we go through every client, we go through the statuses, like, changes in contracts.
273 00:31:39.820 ⇒ 00:31:43.170 Uttam Kumaran: And so… We can talk about that there as well.
274 00:31:43.580 ⇒ 00:31:50.880 Justin Breshears: Perfect, yeah. Are you… I don’t know if we’ve talked about it, but how are you organizing, like, the backlog? Is it… do you use Jira, or do you have no.
275 00:31:50.880 ⇒ 00:32:05.889 Uttam Kumaran: We use linear. Okay, linear, that’s right, you mentioned that before. Yeah, linear… I mean, the only reason I chose… one, we got, like, a really great startup discount, so I won’t have to pay for another year, which is good. Second is, it’s… they just have a really nice API.
276 00:32:06.090 ⇒ 00:32:08.840 Uttam Kumaran: And they’re, like, they do a lot of AI stuff.
277 00:32:08.990 ⇒ 00:32:15.580 Uttam Kumaran: So I… I don’t know, I don’t… for us to develop on Jira would be… it’s a little bit painful.
278 00:32:15.710 ⇒ 00:32:18.100 Justin Breshears: I don’t love Jira, so I’m…
279 00:32:18.100 ⇒ 00:32:22.539 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t really like… I think it’s just, like, we’re not… the stuff we’re doing is not, like…
280 00:32:22.750 ⇒ 00:32:35.340 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t need all that, like, as long as they link to… tickets can get linked to PRs, you can comment, and, like, we can consume those events and, like, use them for automations, like, that’s what… yeah, so everybody’s on linear.
281 00:32:35.440 ⇒ 00:32:41.709 Uttam Kumaran: And then some of our clients want us to get that sort of visibility. Some of our clients…
282 00:32:42.200 ⇒ 00:32:50.950 Uttam Kumaran: don’t care. Like, they just want to be… it’s usually, like, more communication in Slack, or sending screenshots of tickets, or things like that, so…
283 00:32:51.600 ⇒ 00:32:52.250 Justin Breshears: Gotcha.
284 00:32:52.250 ⇒ 00:32:52.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
285 00:32:53.330 ⇒ 00:32:56.490 Justin Breshears: I’m sure, like, I’ll learn a lot more about this one.
286 00:32:56.490 ⇒ 00:32:57.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
287 00:32:57.010 ⇒ 00:33:00.949 Justin Breshears: Dig into the documentation and stuff, but, like, how are you doing status reports?
288 00:33:01.880 ⇒ 00:33:21.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so right now, the requirement of the team is to do at least, like, one weekly status report. They will all mostly go out today, which is just, like, an overview of, like, what was accomplished. So what do we… what do we start to take on this week? What was accomplished? What are open blockers or new things that got added? We just have, I think, a…
289 00:33:21.290 ⇒ 00:33:28.260 Uttam Kumaran: the PM team on today will send a bunch of them. I’ll sort of go through and just, like, spot check, and then be like, approve, approve, approve.
290 00:33:29.690 ⇒ 00:33:40.149 Uttam Kumaran: the main habit I’m trying to bring is that we just do that every week. The second habit is, I want to just try… and this is where we’re able to use AI really easily, it’s just like sending a summary after every client meeting.
291 00:33:40.350 ⇒ 00:33:42.959 Uttam Kumaran: And we have a great…
292 00:33:43.230 ⇒ 00:33:49.549 Uttam Kumaran: like, AI prompt to do that, and you just shove the transcript in, and it’s, like, 90% there. And you can…
293 00:33:49.550 ⇒ 00:33:51.440 Justin Breshears: just the Zoom transcripts, or do.
294 00:33:51.440 ⇒ 00:33:58.719 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we… so I’ll also give you access to, like, our internal… we built, like, a little platform where all of the Zoom meetings
295 00:33:58.870 ⇒ 00:34:10.419 Uttam Kumaran: just get added to, like, a really easy interface where you can copy-paste a transcript, chat with the meeting, watch the meeting, and it’s like a Brainforge little…
296 00:34:10.570 ⇒ 00:34:11.719 Justin Breshears: Amazing.
297 00:34:11.810 ⇒ 00:34:25.999 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’re starting to add helpful things, like, you could immediately… every time you open one of those, at the bottom, you could just copy the summary really quickly, and like… so that’s the stuff where we’ve gone, like, an inch deep in a couple of areas for automation, but
298 00:34:26.139 ⇒ 00:34:29.750 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a lot more to be done, but yeah, so right now you can go in there.
299 00:34:30.100 ⇒ 00:34:38.639 Uttam Kumaran: By client, it’s segmented, you can click on your client, you can see all the meetings that have happened for that client, you can go into one, copy the transcript, and then…
300 00:34:39.000 ⇒ 00:34:42.969 Justin Breshears: use it however you want. Oh, I’m sorry.
301 00:34:42.969 ⇒ 00:34:43.719 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, God.
302 00:34:43.719 ⇒ 00:34:47.049 Justin Breshears: Could you take it a step further and have that automatically.
303 00:34:47.050 ⇒ 00:34:52.210 Uttam Kumaran: We do… we do that as… we have that get automatically sent into Slack, into our internal Slack.
304 00:34:52.260 ⇒ 00:34:53.449 Justin Breshears: Okay. So…
305 00:34:53.560 ⇒ 00:34:58.200 Uttam Kumaran: You could… so you could copy-paste it from there. So right now, most meetings.
306 00:34:58.380 ⇒ 00:35:17.739 Uttam Kumaran: Once they get recorded and, like, dropped into the platform, we do, like, a matching between who was on that meeting and, like, what was the topic to, like, the team, unless it’s, like, very explicit, and then an update gets sent into that internal channel with, like, this meeting just happened. We actually send two things. We send both a…
307 00:35:17.780 ⇒ 00:35:32.210 Uttam Kumaran: what was talked about, like, what was the agenda, like, any, like, action items or blockers, and, like, what are the… who’s assigned, and then also we send, like, a meeting quality score with, like, a little overview, like, was this a good meeting? Like.
308 00:35:32.380 ⇒ 00:35:43.700 Uttam Kumaran: was there… were people prepared? Was there a discussion? Right now, we’re not doing anything with that, it’s just getting sent. But that, yes, that automatically goes into Slack. But that’s kind of where we stopped. Like, I didn’t push it beyond that, because
309 00:35:44.440 ⇒ 00:35:46.949 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I, I, I think… but there’s, there’s…
310 00:35:47.520 ⇒ 00:35:52.599 Uttam Kumaran: The AI team would love to get more requirements about how to take that further, I just haven’t given them more.
311 00:35:52.600 ⇒ 00:35:53.210 Justin Breshears: up.
312 00:35:53.570 ⇒ 00:35:57.699 Justin Breshears: For the status reports, are those automated in any way, generating those?
313 00:35:58.310 ⇒ 00:36:09.519 Uttam Kumaran: Not right now. The team does use AI and, like, a mix of transcripts and Slack messages and, like, their own notes to write the first draft.
314 00:36:09.650 ⇒ 00:36:20.560 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I think that probably gets them 60% of the way there now. The weekly stat, to give you a sense of how that could be automated, right now, we are bringing in all,
315 00:36:21.100 ⇒ 00:36:29.700 Uttam Kumaran: Slack messages from every channel, all, all Zoom meetings.
316 00:36:30.030 ⇒ 00:36:35.810 Uttam Kumaran: And so, what you could do is, if you go to the AI team and say, hey, for every client, I want… I want to take
317 00:36:35.980 ⇒ 00:36:43.260 Uttam Kumaran: the last 7 days, or last week’s worth of that data, shove it into AI and generate me this, they’ll… they’ll have that for you.
318 00:36:43.370 ⇒ 00:36:48.850 Uttam Kumaran: I think they… there isn’t… there is some version of that right now, but I don’t think it’s, like.
319 00:36:49.070 ⇒ 00:36:53.440 Uttam Kumaran: too polished, where on Fridays, it sends an update with some… with…
320 00:36:53.660 ⇒ 00:36:57.490 Uttam Kumaran: the week’s worth of updates, but I don’t know whether it’s getting used right now.
321 00:36:57.830 ⇒ 00:37:04.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. But we have all the data piped in to go do that, and yeah, so can be done.
322 00:37:04.340 ⇒ 00:37:04.820 Justin Breshears: Yeah.
323 00:37:04.820 ⇒ 00:37:10.139 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, that was one of my comments I put in, above, where we talked about the, reporting and stuff, and…
324 00:37:10.440 ⇒ 00:37:12.489 Alexander Lubka: Maybe that could be one of the AI use cases.
325 00:37:12.830 ⇒ 00:37:24.409 Justin Breshears: Yes. I think reporting’s an easy automation focus for… there’s just… if you can take, like, what you’re already tracking in linear, and then just put it into a digestible…
326 00:37:24.410 ⇒ 00:37:24.870 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
327 00:37:24.870 ⇒ 00:37:30.250 Justin Breshears: at the end of the week, and then, you know, you just polish here, polish there, and send it off. That makes it easy.
328 00:37:30.550 ⇒ 00:37:40.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think the biggest, probably, piece is, like, one, what is the final format? And then second, our AI team is, like, they’re all extremely good, so if you just tell them what you need.
329 00:37:40.970 ⇒ 00:37:51.600 Uttam Kumaran: they’ll build it for you, and then you can iterate. Yeah. They’ll… whatever you need, they’ll build it. The only reason, like, we haven’t gone the distance is I’m not the user.
330 00:37:51.690 ⇒ 00:38:01.360 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I can build this, I can tell them what to build, but, like, it’s built for… it will be built for me, not for the team. And so for me, it’s more of, like, hey, I have… we have…
331 00:38:01.490 ⇒ 00:38:09.829 Uttam Kumaran: all the linear data, all the GitHub data, everything is there. Now we can build stuff on top of it, so now we need to associate
332 00:38:09.830 ⇒ 00:38:21.829 Uttam Kumaran: we have stakeholders. So one of the… for the AI team, they have OKRs about everybody across the company using AI, and starting to build a little bit of, like, an index on, like, how’s everybody using AI?
333 00:38:21.900 ⇒ 00:38:27.520 Uttam Kumaran: versus, like, ChatGPT, versus the platform, versus in Slack, and so…
334 00:38:27.940 ⇒ 00:38:40.550 Uttam Kumaran: those kind of teams have to meet where the AI team is a platform, they also handle clients, and then other teams will have stakeholders, like, you’ll be a stakeholder for them, sales will be a stakeholder, you know, things like that.
335 00:38:40.890 ⇒ 00:38:41.470 Justin Breshears: Yeah.
336 00:38:42.120 ⇒ 00:38:49.530 Justin Breshears: Is it a variable cost for that team? Like, every time we request a new thing, it increases your cost, or is it…
337 00:38:49.530 ⇒ 00:38:52.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, we’re not… we don’t… I mean, this is where, like.
338 00:38:53.360 ⇒ 00:39:01.389 Uttam Kumaran: It is a bet in that these automations are saving us time, and that we make it back. It is… but it is but a bet, versus… meaning…
339 00:39:01.890 ⇒ 00:39:09.659 Uttam Kumaran: It is not an immediate, like, revenue generator, right, for me to generate… to start to put dollars there, but…
340 00:39:09.830 ⇒ 00:39:14.719 Uttam Kumaran: like… I don’t know, I think this is the edge. So, I don’t mind…
341 00:39:14.830 ⇒ 00:39:17.750 Uttam Kumaran: having them do that. They will spend as much time as they have
342 00:39:17.880 ⇒ 00:39:32.219 Uttam Kumaran: outside of client work, which before, it was a lot more, now they’re a little bit slammed. But also, this is, like, what… this is actually, like, they like to do this stuff more than the client work, because our stuff is a little bit more advanced, typically.
343 00:39:33.640 ⇒ 00:39:39.039 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, I wouldn’t worry too much, but they’ll… they’ll tell you, like, what timeline they can do it on and stuff like that.
344 00:39:39.040 ⇒ 00:39:50.300 Justin Breshears: Sure. Well, I just want to make sure, like, you know, we’re prioritizing what’s most important, and you’re, you know, approving of everything, and not just saying frivolous, silly things.
345 00:39:50.300 ⇒ 00:39:55.689 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, I think, I think anything that you’ve thought of, we’ve either thought of or tried.
346 00:39:56.020 ⇒ 00:39:56.730 Justin Breshears: Yeah, shit, huh.
347 00:39:56.730 ⇒ 00:39:57.320 Uttam Kumaran: First level.
348 00:39:57.670 ⇒ 00:39:58.870 Justin Breshears: Sounds like y’all are.
349 00:39:58.870 ⇒ 00:40:15.799 Uttam Kumaran: So for me, we need someone to actually, like, start to take advantage, so we’ve already sunk some money into that stuff, so if you can start using some of the updates to some of the platform that we’re using, and it can tie directly into PMs being able to take an extra client or skip a meeting, like, those are really important KPIs.
350 00:40:16.080 ⇒ 00:40:22.150 Justin Breshears: Yeah, for sure. And I would be, you know, an end user on that stuff, that could come at it from that perspective, so I think.
351 00:40:22.150 ⇒ 00:40:22.750 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
352 00:40:22.750 ⇒ 00:40:24.040 Justin Breshears: I can take over on there.
353 00:40:24.150 ⇒ 00:40:25.100 Uttam Kumaran: coffee.
354 00:40:26.410 ⇒ 00:40:28.930 Justin Breshears: I think I will wait for…
355 00:40:29.080 ⇒ 00:40:35.289 Justin Breshears: Notion documentation, and then start a list of all of my questions and things that pop up from there.
356 00:40:35.290 ⇒ 00:40:35.800 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
357 00:40:35.800 ⇒ 00:40:41.360 Justin Breshears: I think if we can just give me access to that, and then, you know, access to Slack would be nice, because.
358 00:40:41.410 ⇒ 00:40:49.959 Uttam Kumaran: Sure. Email’s great and all, but it’s not great, so… No, no, no, I’ll give you access… Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we’ll get you Brainforge email and everything. Cool.
359 00:40:50.480 ⇒ 00:41:01.619 Justin Breshears: Yeah, sounds good. Well, then I think I’m good. Ready to start rolling. I’m… I’m considering, like, starting now, if you are, and then we can figure out the… the compensation details.
360 00:41:01.620 ⇒ 00:41:15.620 Uttam Kumaran: I’m game with that. I mean, I just wanna… yeah, I mean, I’m always… I’m of course fine with that. I will try to do my best to get you there as fast as I can, even if this weekend, if I can do that, but I appreciate the trust. Yeah, like, that’ll all get sorted out, like, within the next…
361 00:41:15.620 ⇒ 00:41:26.809 Justin Breshears: I’d love to dive into some of that over the weekend, so yeah, if we can get it, that’d be great. Yeah, we can figure all that out later, but I know you’ll be fair, and then we can, we can just get this thing rolling. I’m excited.
362 00:41:26.810 ⇒ 00:41:27.140 Alexander Lubka: Hi, man.
363 00:41:27.140 ⇒ 00:41:27.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
364 00:41:27.680 ⇒ 00:41:35.809 Alexander Lubka: Okay, great. Yeah, we’ll get some stuff on their calendar for next week. I’ll talk to Amber about setting up one-on-one with her, which you start talking initially, too, and yeah, we’ll get this thing going next week.
365 00:41:35.810 ⇒ 00:41:36.400 Uttam Kumaran: Excellent.
366 00:41:36.400 ⇒ 00:41:46.129 Justin Breshears: Perfect. And yeah, those 5 o’clock meetings on Mondays, perfect for me. That’s never gonna have a conflict or anything, because I, I will shut down the other job right at 5, so.
367 00:41:46.130 ⇒ 00:41:59.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and we use Slack really heavily, like, we’re not… I mean, we do have a lot of meetings. I’m in a lot of meetings in the company, but most people are not, and most teams run very, like, efficiently just on Slack.
368 00:41:59.490 ⇒ 00:42:16.819 Uttam Kumaran: So I think you’ll find it, like, a welcome experience, not having to jump into a meeting to, like, talk about a very small thing. I cannot go… I cannot do… I won’t go to that sort of stuff, so nobody in the company is expected to go to something that could not… that could just be a Slack message.
369 00:42:16.820 ⇒ 00:42:24.619 Justin Breshears: I love that, because my life these days is just running from one meeting to the next. Like, my calendar is literally back-to-back all day, every day.
370 00:42:24.620 ⇒ 00:42:31.359 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but what happens is, like, you do other work during the meeting, or you tend to, like, yeah, I don’t know, it’s not good, it’s, like, not healthy at all.
371 00:42:31.360 ⇒ 00:42:35.310 Justin Breshears: Oh, yeah, dude, I’m constantly, like, on a meeting doing 5 other things.
372 00:42:35.310 ⇒ 00:42:36.400 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s…
373 00:42:37.720 ⇒ 00:42:49.269 Justin Breshears: Yeah, this is what I told you the other day. I think you’re building this thing the right way, which is why I’m excited to jump on and get started with you. Like, I… everything that you said about how you are building.
374 00:42:49.270 ⇒ 00:42:56.570 Uttam Kumaran: One of the AI team’s OKRs is to measure our calendars and look at how many hours people are in meetings, and for that to go down. That is, like.
375 00:42:56.570 ⇒ 00:42:57.070 Alexander Lubka: Hell yeah.
376 00:42:57.070 ⇒ 00:43:07.539 Uttam Kumaran: That is their OKR. I think I gotta see whether they… they went for it, but we’re bringing in all the calendar data, and I’m like, you need to… first, someone needs to tell me how many hours of meetings, and then someone needs to tell me, like.
377 00:43:07.770 ⇒ 00:43:09.850 Uttam Kumaran: If we can bring that down.
378 00:43:09.850 ⇒ 00:43:11.580 Alexander Lubka: So…
379 00:43:11.700 ⇒ 00:43:13.670 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re trying everything.
380 00:43:14.700 ⇒ 00:43:18.520 Alexander Lubka: Well, if you can… if you could turn that into a product, we’ll be, rich pretty quick.
381 00:43:18.760 ⇒ 00:43:25.729 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s… that’s other… if it works for us, okay, I’ll be… I’ll be convinced, yeah. Yeah.
382 00:43:25.730 ⇒ 00:43:33.439 Justin Breshears: Awesome. I appreciate y’all. Thanks so much. If I don’t talk to y’all, have a great weekend. Alex, sounds like you’re gonna have a great…
383 00:43:33.440 ⇒ 00:43:34.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude, jealous.
384 00:43:34.450 ⇒ 00:43:38.300 Justin Breshears: So, enjoy it, don’t get lost in the woods.
385 00:43:38.670 ⇒ 00:43:42.520 Alexander Lubka: Appreciate it, don’t worry about me this weekend. Justin, looking forward to it, and we’ll talk next week.
386 00:43:42.800 ⇒ 00:43:43.420 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.
387 00:43:43.420 ⇒ 00:43:44.100 Justin Breshears: playable.
388 00:43:44.100 ⇒ 00:43:44.530 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, guys.
389 00:43:44.530 ⇒ 00:43:45.809 Alexander Lubka: Good one, guys. Bye.
390 00:43:45.810 ⇒ 00:43:46.200 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.