Meeting Title: Friday Brainforge Demos & Retro Date: 2025-09-05 Meeting participants: solrios, Samuel Roberts, Rico Rejoso, Uttam Kumaran, Ryan Brosas, Hannah Wang, Mustafa Raja, Amber Lin, Shreya Chowdhury, Casie Aviles, Raymund Verzosa, Anne, Awaish Kumar, Demilade Agboola, Henry Zhao
WEBVTT
1 00:03:18.670 ⇒ 00:03:19.880 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, everyone!
2 00:03:22.200 ⇒ 00:03:23.329 Rico Rejoso: Hey, guys.
3 00:03:24.290 ⇒ 00:03:25.020 solrios: Warning.
4 00:03:25.150 ⇒ 00:03:26.160 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, good morning.
5 00:03:27.230 ⇒ 00:03:27.960 Samuel Roberts: Hello.
6 00:03:30.900 ⇒ 00:03:31.640 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Sam
7 00:03:40.600 ⇒ 00:03:42.139 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the kiddo, Sam?
8 00:03:42.620 ⇒ 00:03:48.949 Samuel Roberts: He’s doing alright. He’s doing alright. He had an okay night. Those are kind of the biggest question marks still right now, you know?
9 00:03:50.690 ⇒ 00:03:56.619 Samuel Roberts: But he’s… he’ll sleep a good few hours, and then he doesn’t stay up, but he gets a little…
10 00:03:57.050 ⇒ 00:03:59.730 Samuel Roberts: Fussy here and there, but he had a good night.
11 00:04:00.100 ⇒ 00:04:01.400 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.
12 00:04:01.400 ⇒ 00:04:08.630 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I still gotta post about… I gotta find a good pic… that’s really why I haven’t posted, is because I’m like, oh, the picture’s not good enough to share. Oh, that picture’s not good enough to share.
13 00:04:08.630 ⇒ 00:04:09.760 Uttam Kumaran: Don’t ask her why.
14 00:04:10.120 ⇒ 00:04:16.639 Samuel Roberts: That’s kind of what I was like, I kind of floated that to her, I was like, I want you to approve the picture that goes out. So, it’ll happen.
15 00:04:59.179 ⇒ 00:05:01.899 Uttam Kumaran: Amber, you’ve fully moved yet, or not yet?
16 00:05:02.570 ⇒ 00:05:09.530 Amber Lin: I’m still in Lake Arrowhead. We’re moving this Saturday to Culver City.
17 00:05:09.690 ⇒ 00:05:11.800 Amber Lin: So, I’m moving tomorrow.
18 00:05:13.170 ⇒ 00:05:19.700 Uttam Kumaran: Culver City, okay, so we need the office there. That’s, like, the only place… like, the only place I’ve been in LA, really.
19 00:05:21.040 ⇒ 00:05:22.530 Uttam Kumaran: is when I came and visited.
20 00:05:32.760 ⇒ 00:05:34.990 Samuel Roberts: Like, across LA, I didn’t realize where you were.
21 00:05:39.550 ⇒ 00:05:41.579 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Rico, maybe we get started?
22 00:05:44.710 ⇒ 00:05:45.270 Rico Rejoso: Yep.
23 00:05:46.530 ⇒ 00:05:49.369 Rico Rejoso: I think everyone’s here, let me share my screen real quick.
24 00:06:01.870 ⇒ 00:06:08.439 Rico Rejoso: Okay, good morning, everyone, and happy Friday.
25 00:06:09.090 ⇒ 00:06:13.950 Rico Rejoso: I’ll be hosting today’s Brainforge Retro.
26 00:06:14.420 ⇒ 00:06:17.210 Rico Rejoso: So let’s Jason Move to the next one.
27 00:06:18.240 ⇒ 00:06:21.029 Rico Rejoso: Here’s our agenda for today, and…
28 00:06:21.670 ⇒ 00:06:24.920 Rico Rejoso: To start off, let’s start with an icebreaker.
29 00:06:25.470 ⇒ 00:06:32.129 Rico Rejoso: So… Mechanics for this one is, I have a set of
30 00:06:32.310 ⇒ 00:06:39.840 Rico Rejoso: would-you-rather questions? And, we’re just gonna call out an individual, then that individual will then call a friend.
31 00:06:39.980 ⇒ 00:06:43.059 Rico Rejoso: Or, call someone after him or her?
32 00:06:43.580 ⇒ 00:06:50.699 Rico Rejoso: to answer the next set of, to answer the next question. So these are all random questions, not specifically related to work or anything like that.
33 00:06:51.220 ⇒ 00:06:54.170 Rico Rejoso: So, let’s start.
34 00:06:54.710 ⇒ 00:07:01.860 Rico Rejoso: I could, start picking the first, who would answer, so let’s go for…
35 00:07:05.470 ⇒ 00:07:06.780 Rico Rejoso: Let’s go for Ryan.
36 00:07:10.390 ⇒ 00:07:11.190 Rico Rejoso: Alright?
37 00:07:11.720 ⇒ 00:07:14.100 Ryan Brosas: Hey, sorry?
38 00:07:14.990 ⇒ 00:07:20.259 Rico Rejoso: I’ll be… Posting the question on chat, so…
39 00:07:21.210 ⇒ 00:07:23.370 Rico Rejoso: You can refer to that one.
40 00:07:24.970 ⇒ 00:07:27.800 Rico Rejoso: So you could have a better understanding as well, okay?
41 00:07:29.980 ⇒ 00:07:31.120 Rico Rejoso: One second.
42 00:07:38.400 ⇒ 00:07:42.620 Rico Rejoso: So you just have to answer… choose an answer on the would-you-rather question.
43 00:07:44.390 ⇒ 00:07:46.909 Uttam Kumaran: Is everybody answering, or is it just Ryan?
44 00:07:46.910 ⇒ 00:07:48.040 Rico Rejoso: Just Ryan.
45 00:07:48.390 ⇒ 00:07:50.649 Rico Rejoso: So no one has to, you know, be prepared for it.
46 00:07:51.080 ⇒ 00:07:55.200 Rico Rejoso: Each one can get, or will be… will have different set of questions.
47 00:07:56.290 ⇒ 00:08:04.330 Ryan Brosas: Oh, okay. So, yeah, so would you have unlimited time or unlimited money?
48 00:08:04.610 ⇒ 00:08:17.649 Ryan Brosas: I think unlimited time would be, the one that I would choose, because if you have unlimited time, you would be having unlimited money also. It depends on how you use it.
49 00:08:18.250 ⇒ 00:08:21.409 Ryan Brosas: And I think, yeah, I will choose that.
50 00:08:24.850 ⇒ 00:08:27.039 Ryan Brosas: Because time is more expensive.
51 00:08:28.950 ⇒ 00:08:34.409 Rico Rejoso: I agree on that. Okay, would you mind calling the next individual?
52 00:08:35.240 ⇒ 00:08:38.010 Ryan Brosas: Yeah,
53 00:08:41.520 ⇒ 00:08:43.320 Ryan Brosas: I think… Amber?
54 00:08:45.320 ⇒ 00:08:46.130 Amber Lin: Okay.
55 00:08:46.560 ⇒ 00:08:48.159 Amber Lin: What’s my question?
56 00:08:52.980 ⇒ 00:08:53.710 Rico Rejoso: Posted.
57 00:08:56.580 ⇒ 00:09:05.210 Amber Lin: Well, I feel like these both have… Dire consequences.
58 00:09:05.380 ⇒ 00:09:06.880 Uttam Kumaran: This is awful, I don’t know.
59 00:09:07.600 ⇒ 00:09:08.250 Amber Lin: Hurry.
60 00:09:08.250 ⇒ 00:09:09.749 Shreya Chowdhury: Can someone catch me up?
61 00:09:10.230 ⇒ 00:09:14.319 Uttam Kumaran: We’re doing, popcorn, would-you-rather questions.
62 00:09:15.640 ⇒ 00:09:18.799 Uttam Kumaran: And so, Amber, the question… there’s a question in the chat.
63 00:09:19.690 ⇒ 00:09:20.369 Amber Lin: Would you rather have?
64 00:09:20.370 ⇒ 00:09:25.840 Uttam Kumaran: Never doubt yourself again, or never care what others think of you, so Amber is on the… hooked up.
65 00:09:26.780 ⇒ 00:09:29.590 Uttam Kumaran: Pick one and lock in.
66 00:09:32.330 ⇒ 00:09:37.879 Amber Lin: I’ll probably take the one that has less consequences. I’m…
67 00:09:38.340 ⇒ 00:09:47.450 Amber Lin: I would pick the first one, since I think if I never cared what other thought of me, it would have some bad consequences.
68 00:09:48.910 ⇒ 00:09:51.729 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like the first has a consequence, because then, like.
69 00:09:51.730 ⇒ 00:09:52.250 Amber Lin: Smart.
70 00:09:52.250 ⇒ 00:09:57.110 Uttam Kumaran: You just, like, you’re never like, oh, am I doing the wrong thing here?
71 00:09:57.620 ⇒ 00:10:07.500 Amber Lin: But then you still have to do it, right? That’s true, I guess then it’s… I don’t know, you start to think it’s always somebody else’s fault, because you never doubt yourself.
72 00:10:09.190 ⇒ 00:10:09.930 Amber Lin: Hmm.
73 00:10:10.790 ⇒ 00:10:11.560 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
74 00:10:12.500 ⇒ 00:10:13.380 Amber Lin: Tough.
75 00:10:16.790 ⇒ 00:10:24.739 Amber Lin: I made a somewhat answer of picking one, but I don’t think that’s a good answer.
76 00:10:24.990 ⇒ 00:10:29.570 Amber Lin: Can… what’s someone else’s answer? Can I popcorn this question to someone else?
77 00:10:30.520 ⇒ 00:10:31.380 Rico Rejoso: Sure.
78 00:10:32.050 ⇒ 00:10:33.339 Amber Lin: Okay, Sam.
79 00:10:33.540 ⇒ 00:10:38.109 Samuel Roberts: Oh, no. I was thinking, never doubt yourself again.
80 00:10:38.860 ⇒ 00:10:53.930 Samuel Roberts: Because I feel like self-doubt can be a strong thing for some people, and I think I have that a lot, and so I think just nixing that would be, like, a superpower that would maybe have bad consequences, but the benefits would outweigh it, so…
81 00:10:54.910 ⇒ 00:10:55.970 Samuel Roberts: That’s my thought.
82 00:10:58.420 ⇒ 00:10:59.329 Rico Rejoso: Okay. There you go.
83 00:11:01.090 ⇒ 00:11:05.120 Rico Rejoso: How about we get to our next individual? Awesome.
84 00:11:05.490 ⇒ 00:11:08.279 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, utom, your turn.
85 00:11:10.090 ⇒ 00:11:13.020 Rico Rejoso: Okay, let’s have a different question, Surycome.
86 00:11:20.650 ⇒ 00:11:24.940 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like my life is mostly the latter anyways at this point.
87 00:11:25.600 ⇒ 00:11:34.279 Uttam Kumaran: I make most… I have to ask so many questions, and then have to just make the decision, even if I don’t get the answer.
88 00:11:34.840 ⇒ 00:11:43.260 Uttam Kumaran: know the… no… I don’t… but I don’t get it, like, what is the… like, what is the situation where I would know every answer, but… but never be able to share it? Like…
89 00:11:44.370 ⇒ 00:11:48.410 Uttam Kumaran: what would that, like, really help with? I don’t know, can you do, like…
90 00:11:50.780 ⇒ 00:11:55.149 Uttam Kumaran: Always be able to ask the right question, but never know the answer.
91 00:11:57.890 ⇒ 00:12:01.649 Uttam Kumaran: At least, I feel like in that sense, you at least get to, like, hang out with people.
92 00:12:01.910 ⇒ 00:12:16.950 Uttam Kumaran: Like, so I would probably go with the latter, because you still get to, like, hang and ask… you become by the question person, like, oh, I always ask the perfect question, like, maybe we should just start running workshops. Yeah, that’d probably be great.
93 00:12:17.210 ⇒ 00:12:19.829 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, seminars, that’d be, like, Tony Robbins.
94 00:12:19.980 ⇒ 00:12:25.800 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. I’ll, I’ll popcorn to Seoul.
95 00:12:29.110 ⇒ 00:12:29.680 Rico Rejoso: Right?
96 00:12:30.600 ⇒ 00:12:32.840 Rico Rejoso: So let’s have a different question for you.
97 00:12:33.050 ⇒ 00:12:34.110 solrios: Okay.
98 00:12:35.070 ⇒ 00:12:40.510 solrios: You’d rather gain unlimited knowledge, but no wisdom, or unlimited wisdom.
99 00:12:40.990 ⇒ 00:12:47.659 solrios: Hmm… Well, I think… affect wisdom, definitely.
100 00:12:47.660 ⇒ 00:12:49.370 Uttam Kumaran: What is the difference between the two?
101 00:12:49.920 ⇒ 00:12:53.700 Uttam Kumaran: Like, in words. I don’t… like, I get to kind of get, like, wisdom is, like.
102 00:12:54.570 ⇒ 00:12:56.999 Uttam Kumaran: are these, like, I don’t know, what’s, like, what’s the difference?
103 00:12:57.960 ⇒ 00:13:06.049 solrios: I would say wisdom’s more about, like, experience stuff, you know, like, more real-life things, and knowledge is something…
104 00:13:06.680 ⇒ 00:13:07.449 Uttam Kumaran: Like, book smart.
105 00:13:07.450 ⇒ 00:13:14.609 solrios: You know? Exactly, like… But I think wisdom is more valuable than knowledge.
106 00:13:15.070 ⇒ 00:13:29.639 solrios: Because besides, I think wisdom is acquired just through experiences. Knowledge, you can just… I mean, just read. Not saying, like, reading is not… reading is easy, but wisdom’s more difficult to… to get, because you need to…
107 00:13:30.080 ⇒ 00:13:36.439 solrios: spend time, or, you know, have time, basically. So, yeah, wisdom, definitely.
108 00:13:38.520 ⇒ 00:13:40.619 solrios: Yeah, probably, yeah, I…
109 00:13:40.790 ⇒ 00:13:46.739 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like you start in your career, you start with knowledge, and then it becomes wisdom towards the end, right?
110 00:13:46.870 ⇒ 00:13:47.320 solrios: Yeah.
111 00:13:47.320 ⇒ 00:13:47.910 Rico Rejoso: figure it…
112 00:13:48.140 ⇒ 00:13:48.790 solrios: Yeah.
113 00:13:48.790 ⇒ 00:13:49.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
114 00:13:49.860 ⇒ 00:13:51.909 solrios: I will go away with Zoom, yeah.
115 00:13:53.010 ⇒ 00:13:53.800 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
116 00:13:53.800 ⇒ 00:13:54.899 solrios: All right.
117 00:13:55.110 ⇒ 00:14:04.290 solrios: The next person, what if we go with, I see here, Mustafa?
118 00:14:08.080 ⇒ 00:14:08.840 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
119 00:14:08.980 ⇒ 00:14:12.630 Rico Rejoso: Mustafa, one second, let me just pick up… I’ll pick out a question.
120 00:14:18.080 ⇒ 00:14:18.770 Rico Rejoso: Alright.
121 00:14:19.130 ⇒ 00:14:20.010 Rico Rejoso: This one.
122 00:14:25.020 ⇒ 00:14:25.810 Mustafa Raja: Hmm.
123 00:14:25.950 ⇒ 00:14:29.120 Mustafa Raja: I’d live with no human contact for a year.
124 00:14:30.450 ⇒ 00:14:32.689 Uttam Kumaran: It was so quick to answer the question.
125 00:14:34.740 ⇒ 00:14:37.000 Mustafa Raja: And I’ll pop on to Casey.
126 00:14:37.250 ⇒ 00:14:38.670 Uttam Kumaran: Alright.
127 00:14:39.930 ⇒ 00:14:43.059 Rico Rejoso: No further elaboration. A bit of an explanation for that one.
128 00:14:46.960 ⇒ 00:14:47.980 Rico Rejoso: I’m Mustafa.
129 00:14:51.590 ⇒ 00:15:02.589 Mustafa Raja: I’m an introvert, so I can’t leave technology, to be honest, and I guess I can work with no human contact. It’s only a year, right?
130 00:15:03.240 ⇒ 00:15:04.570 Rico Rejoso: Only a year.
131 00:15:05.510 ⇒ 00:15:06.599 Samuel Roberts: You know, there’s an end.
132 00:15:08.190 ⇒ 00:15:09.149 Rico Rejoso: I get, yeah.
133 00:15:10.080 ⇒ 00:15:13.189 Rico Rejoso: Yep. Who were you, calling for?
134 00:15:13.370 ⇒ 00:15:14.460 Mustafa Raja: Casey.
135 00:15:15.610 ⇒ 00:15:16.440 Rico Rejoso: Casey.
136 00:15:20.270 ⇒ 00:15:21.080 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
137 00:15:21.260 ⇒ 00:15:22.100 Rico Rejoso: Casey?
138 00:15:23.310 ⇒ 00:15:24.280 Casie Aviles: Yep, I don’t know.
139 00:15:25.760 ⇒ 00:15:26.690 Rico Rejoso: How about this?
140 00:15:30.910 ⇒ 00:15:31.580 Casie Aviles: Hmm.
141 00:15:34.240 ⇒ 00:15:39.880 Casie Aviles: I think I’ll just… Do one day from your feature, because
142 00:15:40.670 ⇒ 00:15:42.429 Casie Aviles: I, I, I tend to, like.
143 00:15:43.040 ⇒ 00:15:50.500 Casie Aviles: I like to, like, prepare for stuff, like, rehearse even the most mundane stuff, so… I like to see ahead.
144 00:15:51.480 ⇒ 00:15:55.000 Casie Aviles: So yeah, I would do, I would do the latter.
145 00:15:55.470 ⇒ 00:15:58.140 Uttam Kumaran: So you just get, like, one day in the future?
146 00:15:58.450 ⇒ 00:16:00.570 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, yeah, I don’t know.
147 00:16:01.290 ⇒ 00:16:05.139 Samuel Roberts: I’d be able to really figure out a lot of stuff from the future, though, if you knew.
148 00:16:05.620 ⇒ 00:16:10.379 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, a lot of context foods, but this is also… they say, like, do you… that may…
149 00:16:10.540 ⇒ 00:16:15.510 Uttam Kumaran: will that impact, one, your ability to get there if you start to know that, right? It’s like butterfly effect stuff.
150 00:16:15.650 ⇒ 00:16:18.710 Uttam Kumaran: Second, like, if it’s kind of not great.
151 00:16:19.480 ⇒ 00:16:22.410 Uttam Kumaran: I really don’t wanna know, to be honest.
152 00:16:23.570 ⇒ 00:16:27.140 Uttam Kumaran: I think in the… I think maybe a few years ago, I was more interested in that.
153 00:16:27.580 ⇒ 00:16:31.490 Uttam Kumaran: nowadays, I feel pretty… actually, like, feel pretty happy.
154 00:16:31.650 ⇒ 00:16:34.900 Uttam Kumaran: And I, honestly, yeah, it’d be nice to just go back to, like.
155 00:16:35.280 ⇒ 00:16:38.790 Uttam Kumaran: I was hanging out with family or friends, just do it again one day, like…
156 00:16:40.620 ⇒ 00:16:43.970 Uttam Kumaran: What does everyone else think? Like, I don’t know.
157 00:16:44.700 ⇒ 00:16:51.700 Rico Rejoso: I think the hardest, I think the hardest part for that one is to choose, what day in the future.
158 00:16:52.070 ⇒ 00:16:57.270 Rico Rejoso: Because, I mean, it’s a random one day, and it could really affect how you think about the.
159 00:16:57.270 ⇒ 00:16:58.030 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
160 00:16:59.060 ⇒ 00:17:01.899 Rico Rejoso: Rather than knowing what to look back in the past.
161 00:17:02.630 ⇒ 00:17:05.650 Samuel Roberts: Do you get to pick the day in the past, or is it random as well?
162 00:17:06.050 ⇒ 00:17:12.990 Rico Rejoso: Well, you get to pick the one day in the past, so since you’ve been there, you can, like, nitpick which one you want.
163 00:17:12.990 ⇒ 00:17:13.880 Samuel Roberts: I’d go with that then.
164 00:17:14.150 ⇒ 00:17:16.609 Samuel Roberts: Definitely.
165 00:17:19.730 ⇒ 00:17:22.630 Casie Aviles: Okay, I guess I’ll pick somewhere.
166 00:17:23.750 ⇒ 00:17:24.790 Casie Aviles: Who else?
167 00:17:25.720 ⇒ 00:17:29.120 Casie Aviles: Let’s do… Raymond.
168 00:17:31.670 ⇒ 00:17:32.520 Raymund Verzosa: Okay.
169 00:17:33.160 ⇒ 00:17:34.910 Rico Rejoso: Okay, Raymond.
170 00:17:35.660 ⇒ 00:17:37.249 Rico Rejoso: Let’s have this one for you.
171 00:17:45.520 ⇒ 00:17:47.819 Raymund Verzosa: I’ll just do the wrong thing and prosper.
172 00:17:49.060 ⇒ 00:17:53.789 Raymund Verzosa: Because I keep… I keep… I keep messing up sometimes, so I’d rather do this.
173 00:17:56.990 ⇒ 00:17:59.170 Uttam Kumaran: I will have to do the first thing, I don’t know.
174 00:17:59.460 ⇒ 00:18:02.080 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I ruminate a lot on…
175 00:18:03.900 ⇒ 00:18:13.500 Shreya Chowdhury: But suffer to what degree? Because I feel like, imagine always doing the right thing, and you’re just always, like, just down in life.
176 00:18:14.700 ⇒ 00:18:16.479 Shreya Chowdhury: I think it would get hard.
177 00:18:17.000 ⇒ 00:18:18.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, true.
178 00:18:21.730 ⇒ 00:18:23.860 Raymund Verzosa: Oh, popcorn.
179 00:18:24.470 ⇒ 00:18:25.810 Raymund Verzosa: to Ryan.
180 00:18:27.230 ⇒ 00:18:29.129 Rico Rejoso: Ryan is done, I guess.
181 00:18:29.130 ⇒ 00:18:31.730 Raymund Verzosa: Oh, okay. Anne?
182 00:18:36.780 ⇒ 00:18:38.740 Rico Rejoso: Okay, Anne, one second.
183 00:18:55.120 ⇒ 00:18:58.190 Anne: Wow, thank you for that wonderful question.
184 00:18:58.690 ⇒ 00:19:02.200 Anne: Maybe I’ll just go for the second one.
185 00:19:03.000 ⇒ 00:19:12.779 Anne: Yeah, because for me, I don’t want to be misunderstood. I like to… Explain myself if something is…
186 00:19:13.290 ⇒ 00:19:16.700 Anne: bad, or… Right?
187 00:19:17.250 ⇒ 00:19:18.010 Anne: Yeah.
188 00:19:19.590 ⇒ 00:19:21.010 Anne: That’s all.
189 00:19:24.060 ⇒ 00:19:25.120 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
190 00:19:26.350 ⇒ 00:19:28.469 Rico Rejoso: So, I think we can have the last one.
191 00:19:28.700 ⇒ 00:19:30.370 Rico Rejoso: How can you pick the last one?
192 00:19:32.790 ⇒ 00:19:37.359 Anne: I’m actually late, so I don’t know…
193 00:19:41.100 ⇒ 00:19:41.500 Uttam Kumaran: Well, no.
194 00:19:41.500 ⇒ 00:19:43.580 Rico Rejoso: have… I could pick one.
195 00:19:43.580 ⇒ 00:19:44.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
196 00:19:44.380 ⇒ 00:19:46.699 Rico Rejoso: Gotcha. Let’s have, Shreya.
197 00:19:49.770 ⇒ 00:19:50.890 Rico Rejoso: Here’s your question.
198 00:19:54.340 ⇒ 00:19:56.660 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh man, depends on the year.
199 00:20:04.140 ⇒ 00:20:09.590 Shreya Chowdhury: When you press rewind once a year, can I pick how much to rewind it by?
200 00:20:10.730 ⇒ 00:20:17.199 Shreya Chowdhury: Or is it just it rewinds the entire year? Because if it does the entire year, I think I would rather do the first.
201 00:20:23.650 ⇒ 00:20:27.280 Shreya Chowdhury: Otherwise, maybe the second. I used to wish for that.
202 00:20:27.570 ⇒ 00:20:37.749 Shreya Chowdhury: when I was younger, I, like, whenever I was running late for something, like, I used to always wish that I could pause for just a little bit, so I could finish, like, doing whatever it is I needed to do.
203 00:20:38.480 ⇒ 00:20:41.410 Shreya Chowdhury: But yeah, I don’t want to rewind the whole year, but sometimes, like…
204 00:20:41.670 ⇒ 00:20:47.889 Shreya Chowdhury: like, if I do something that I’m, like, embarrassed by or something, it would be useful to be able to rewind, like.
205 00:20:48.540 ⇒ 00:20:52.580 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh, just 10 minutes, and that’s, like… My quota for the year.
206 00:20:54.890 ⇒ 00:21:00.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think so, too. I don’t know, pause could be nice, too.
207 00:21:00.520 ⇒ 00:21:03.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, I could get a little nap.
208 00:21:04.100 ⇒ 00:21:04.590 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
209 00:21:04.590 ⇒ 00:21:09.520 Uttam Kumaran: Sleep in a little bit longer.
210 00:21:09.520 ⇒ 00:21:11.920 Shreya Chowdhury: I think you just need more hours in the day, though.
211 00:21:12.490 ⇒ 00:21:29.589 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I could use more. The thing is, I don’t need that, though, because I would just work, like, it’s not like I’m using it. I don’t think I’d use it productively. Oh, I think I’d use it productively, but it would be boring, like, I would just work more. So, I don’t know, that’s not the solution here.
212 00:21:31.300 ⇒ 00:21:38.050 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I guess if you pressed pause, you would still, like, at that point, you would still spend that time working, but it’s like, you’d have more hours in the day…
213 00:21:39.600 ⇒ 00:21:45.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I would use pause if, like, I was hanging out somewhere, and then, like, I had to run to something.
214 00:21:45.630 ⇒ 00:21:48.900 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’m like, let’s just, like, hang out for, like, 30 minutes longer, like…
215 00:21:48.900 ⇒ 00:21:51.760 Shreya Chowdhury: Okay. Just to skip the commute.
216 00:21:52.430 ⇒ 00:21:55.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, commute from, like, where, like, over there to, like, sitting down right here.
217 00:21:57.230 ⇒ 00:21:57.920 Shreya Chowdhury: Okay.
218 00:22:01.450 ⇒ 00:22:02.080 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
219 00:22:02.080 ⇒ 00:22:02.560 Rico Rejoso: Alright,
220 00:22:02.560 ⇒ 00:22:04.030 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, Rico, this is great.
221 00:22:05.390 ⇒ 00:22:12.680 Rico Rejoso: Thank you guys for, participating. Let’s move to our next one, LabShare.
222 00:22:13.950 ⇒ 00:22:18.220 Rico Rejoso: So, for this one, I guess it’s more of share.
223 00:22:18.570 ⇒ 00:22:25.870 Rico Rejoso: Anything you wanted to share with the team? So I couldn’t think of anything, so I will just be sharing what I went through for the
224 00:22:26.140 ⇒ 00:22:28.959 Rico Rejoso: past month, or for the month of August.
225 00:22:29.230 ⇒ 00:22:32.049 Rico Rejoso: So, I just do a bunch of sports.
226 00:22:32.220 ⇒ 00:22:36.440 Rico Rejoso: To be honest, just try to…
227 00:22:36.860 ⇒ 00:22:40.390 Rico Rejoso: at least live a healthy lifestyle. I do,
228 00:22:40.840 ⇒ 00:22:47.729 Rico Rejoso: basketball, volleyball, and cycling. I’m also into, like, I mean, here in Asia, motorcycles, so, like.
229 00:22:48.420 ⇒ 00:22:51.559 Rico Rejoso: A big thing, since cars are very expensive.
230 00:22:51.720 ⇒ 00:22:58.050 Rico Rejoso: So, yeah, like, customizing, gathering, but I do also, like, you know, buying stuff.
231 00:22:58.250 ⇒ 00:23:03.080 Rico Rejoso: For a motorcycle, and at the same time,
232 00:23:03.190 ⇒ 00:23:09.809 Rico Rejoso: I’ve also been handling my parents’ construction firm. Not really a firm, but, like.
233 00:23:10.090 ⇒ 00:23:15.899 Rico Rejoso: He’s a contractor, so I’ve been taking over it for quite some time since…
234 00:23:17.110 ⇒ 00:23:22.119 Rico Rejoso: I don’t know, my parents are getting old, so those are, like, the few things that I’ve been, like.
235 00:23:22.610 ⇒ 00:23:28.809 Rico Rejoso: Going through, or let’s say, I’ve been busy with for the past month, or the month of August.
236 00:23:35.410 ⇒ 00:23:36.680 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
237 00:23:37.460 ⇒ 00:23:40.990 Uttam Kumaran: Do you have a bike? Well, do you have a bike, and do you have a scooter?
238 00:23:41.550 ⇒ 00:23:44.290 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I’ve been doing,
239 00:23:44.480 ⇒ 00:23:47.240 Rico Rejoso: do a lot, since I was young.
240 00:23:47.770 ⇒ 00:23:53.640 Rico Rejoso: I have, like, 3 bikes, 2 mountain bikes, and 1, road bike.
241 00:23:53.640 ⇒ 00:23:54.430 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
242 00:23:55.740 ⇒ 00:24:01.449 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. I have a specialized road bike, but I need to use it more. I don’t use it that much.
243 00:24:02.850 ⇒ 00:24:07.300 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, it’s fun, but, you know, sometimes.
244 00:24:07.750 ⇒ 00:24:11.230 Rico Rejoso: I mean, it gets you from point A to point B, same time.
245 00:24:11.360 ⇒ 00:24:21.229 Rico Rejoso: Keeps you healthy and stuff, but, the roads here, it’s not really ideal for bikes, so we tend to go to province and stuff, 100 kilometers away from home.
246 00:24:22.250 ⇒ 00:24:22.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
247 00:24:25.410 ⇒ 00:24:32.989 Rico Rejoso: That’s what I’ll be sharing for, today. Thank you so much. We can move to the next slide.
248 00:24:33.130 ⇒ 00:24:33.859 Rico Rejoso: This one?
249 00:24:34.670 ⇒ 00:24:35.410 Uttam Kumaran: Fair.
250 00:24:37.790 ⇒ 00:24:38.310 Rico Rejoso: Cute.
251 00:24:41.190 ⇒ 00:24:46.509 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Can you, escape and then reshare? I just made a couple updates.
252 00:24:55.610 ⇒ 00:25:10.180 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. So I wanted to share this. This was our August 2025, like, progress. We just closed August since we last chatted, so a lot of these are green, some are still yellow.
253 00:25:10.240 ⇒ 00:25:18.759 Uttam Kumaran: But thankfully, no, like, red, so, like, no… no items here where we haven’t made, like, some progress.
254 00:25:18.800 ⇒ 00:25:27.399 Uttam Kumaran: So, really, this was a lot about, like, moving towards, like, that Monday planning meeting schedule, bringing on new product analysts.
255 00:25:27.400 ⇒ 00:25:44.970 Uttam Kumaran: Shreya’s here, and we’ll do some intros in the next slide. Mid-level PM, so we are… we’re just giving a offer to a new, project manager that we’re very, very excited about. His name is Justin, he should be sort of involved with stuff next week.
256 00:25:45.090 ⇒ 00:25:58.660 Uttam Kumaran: That was a huge undertaking. As you may or may not know, we don’t have, like, full-time recruiting staff at Brainforge. I am your full-time recruiter, me and Rico now, thankfully, so…
257 00:25:58.840 ⇒ 00:26:13.700 Uttam Kumaran: It’s been incredibly, you know, exciting that we can actually go from sourcing candidates to putting them into a process to them getting them onto the team. There are still a lot of hiccups, which, again, we’ll talk about in the next slide.
258 00:26:13.700 ⇒ 00:26:23.499 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m really, really happy that we can, you know, have a rich pipeline of folks and actually, you know, have a company where we can attract great talent, so it’s really exciting.
259 00:26:25.090 ⇒ 00:26:43.700 Uttam Kumaran: On the, sort of bottom, I think we started to establish sort of our bonus and raise program, some efficiency reporting, so that’s still sort of, like, being decided on. On the book club side, it’s something we started last week, and we’ll sort of start to run every, two weeks.
260 00:26:43.830 ⇒ 00:26:49.039 Uttam Kumaran: But overall, I’m pretty… feeling pretty happy about where we ended up.
261 00:26:49.100 ⇒ 00:27:05.879 Uttam Kumaran: Of course, like, we want everything to be green, but at least nothing here is something that we haven’t thought about. And I think this is the first… like, this month and last month, we started tracking these, like, overall, sort of objectives, and I think it’s been really great to sort of check these off.
262 00:27:06.180 ⇒ 00:27:08.129 Uttam Kumaran: If you want to go to the next slide…
263 00:27:08.710 ⇒ 00:27:16.880 Uttam Kumaran: I want to kind of share what the goals are for September, and kind of, like, what we’re planning on for Q4, so…
264 00:27:16.880 ⇒ 00:27:33.300 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll probably, maybe just kick off by having, sort of, two new folks on the team give a little bit of a intro. So we have Sol, she’s joining our, sales team, sort of helping with all things coordination. I would love,
265 00:27:33.300 ⇒ 00:27:44.639 Uttam Kumaran: you know, so maybe in just one second, I’ll have you give a little bit of a brief intro, but try not to give the work intro, like, you can give it, like, a life intro. I’ll handle the work stuff, but she has a long background in, sort of.
266 00:27:44.640 ⇒ 00:27:54.710 Uttam Kumaran: company building and in various startups in various industries, so really, really happy to have her here. And then Treya is joining us as a lead product analyst.
267 00:27:54.730 ⇒ 00:28:01.030 Uttam Kumaran: Again, a huge role that we’ve been really, really excited to finally have the opportunity to bring someone on.
268 00:28:01.120 ⇒ 00:28:04.359 Uttam Kumaran: Also, long background in data.
269 00:28:04.490 ⇒ 00:28:17.949 Uttam Kumaran: She was previously at Shopify, working on a lot of stuff there, but maybe Sol and then Sherry, if you guys want to give a brief intro to the team. I’m sure you met everybody through the last week or so, but yeah, feel free.
270 00:28:19.960 ⇒ 00:28:30.969 solrios: Hey guys, well, my name is actually pretty long, it’s Maria Soledad, and in Spanish, that sounds like if I am 60 years old already, but not yet.
271 00:28:30.970 ⇒ 00:28:40.890 solrios: So that’s why, Seoul is short, you know, and I think catchy. I currently live in Mexico, Guadalajara.
272 00:28:40.980 ⇒ 00:28:48.190 solrios: Where the tequila is from, so if you, one time, would like some tequila, here’s the tequila.
273 00:28:48.210 ⇒ 00:28:54.509 solrios: I, what I do, it’s, I mean, like, when Rico was talking about.
274 00:28:54.510 ⇒ 00:29:09.339 solrios: bikes and those things. I love biking. I mean, that’s… that’s the way I transport here around the city. Pretty much, I just, like, stay home and go to the gym. That’s the only time I go out. Just love being in my house.
275 00:29:09.430 ⇒ 00:29:29.209 solrios: And pretty much that’s it. I’m just pretty happy to join the team here with… with you, with Otam, Robert, Hanna has helped a lot, too, Rico, Ryan, so the team there, just, learning from the industry, from… from the company, but… but very excited about the opportunity here with you.
276 00:29:30.240 ⇒ 00:29:31.120 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.
277 00:29:34.900 ⇒ 00:29:36.639 Uttam Kumaran: And Sherry, if you want to go ahead?
278 00:29:36.980 ⇒ 00:29:40.330 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, so…
279 00:29:40.330 ⇒ 00:30:01.790 Shreya Chowdhury: I joined maybe, like, two-ish weeks ago now, and I’ve still been, like, onboarding a little bit, but it’s been really nice, joining the team and getting to meet everyone. I’m currently based in, like, just outside of San Francisco. I lived there for the last, like, couple years, just moved out a few months ago.
280 00:30:01.830 ⇒ 00:30:04.189 Shreya Chowdhury: So that’s been, like.
281 00:30:04.460 ⇒ 00:30:17.329 Shreya Chowdhury: my project outside of work, I’ve been, like, working on finishing moving and unpacking. I feel like it’s been a month and there’s still, like, boxes and things everywhere. I keep finding things I didn’t know I had.
282 00:30:17.780 ⇒ 00:30:20.689 Shreya Chowdhury: Other than that,
283 00:30:22.240 ⇒ 00:30:27.839 Shreya Chowdhury: Dang, life intro is almost harder than work intro. I feel like I’m blanking, like, I forgot everything about myself.
284 00:30:27.840 ⇒ 00:30:30.170 Uttam Kumaran: The work intros is so boring, I gave the work intro.
285 00:30:30.170 ⇒ 00:30:31.099 Shreya Chowdhury: No, yeah, yeah, you did.
286 00:30:31.100 ⇒ 00:30:31.540 Uttam Kumaran: I’m.
287 00:30:31.540 ⇒ 00:30:35.050 Shreya Chowdhury: I feel like I just forgot everything about myself.
288 00:30:36.090 ⇒ 00:30:43.400 Uttam Kumaran: Well, here’s a couple of questions. Where are you from? Do you have family? What’s your, what’s your typical weekend?
289 00:30:43.520 ⇒ 00:30:44.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
290 00:30:44.410 ⇒ 00:30:57.679 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, yeah, my family’s… my family’s really nearby, so I just, like, moved back in with them temporarily while I’m, like, in between apartments, so I’m here for, like, the interim, but…
291 00:30:57.700 ⇒ 00:31:05.140 Shreya Chowdhury: Previously, I lived, like, 40-ish minutes away from them, and then after that, like, 20 minutes away,
292 00:31:05.480 ⇒ 00:31:09.759 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, so they, like, they live here, I grew up here,
293 00:31:09.830 ⇒ 00:31:23.290 Shreya Chowdhury: my typical weekend, I feel like it’s either, like, going out with friends or rotting, and that’s why, like, I feel like I really need… I need to spend one day doing each, because otherwise…
294 00:31:23.290 ⇒ 00:31:36.209 Shreya Chowdhury: I… I… doing both… both days, if I’m just rotting away at home both days, it feels like a waste of a weekend, but I feel like I have to… sometimes my friends will be like, oh, like, let’s go out again the next day, and I have to decline.
295 00:31:40.050 ⇒ 00:31:46.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like bedrock culture really became big in the last two years.
296 00:31:46.640 ⇒ 00:31:50.079 Shreya Chowdhury: I can’t tell if it’s, like… I can’t tell the degree to which
297 00:31:50.290 ⇒ 00:32:07.540 Shreya Chowdhury: like, how bad it is for you, because I feel like if I don’t get it, then I can’t really function either. Like, in between, like, a bunch of things, like, whenever I’m on vacation and we’re, like, I’m with my Type A friends, we have, like, a schedule that we’re like, we gotta do this, this, this, and this, and in between, I’m like, guys, I need a few hours just to, like.
298 00:32:08.680 ⇒ 00:32:14.580 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, no, literally. But I also know that if you do it, like, it’s definitely…
299 00:32:15.120 ⇒ 00:32:20.079 Shreya Chowdhury: Like, I can tell the effects on my attention span, I can tell.
300 00:32:20.080 ⇒ 00:32:26.150 Uttam Kumaran: Also, where in the, where outside of SF are you, right now?
301 00:32:26.550 ⇒ 00:32:28.910 Shreya Chowdhury: I’m in, like, Union City.
302 00:32:28.910 ⇒ 00:32:29.690 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
303 00:32:29.690 ⇒ 00:32:30.460 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
304 00:32:30.680 ⇒ 00:32:33.510 Uttam Kumaran: So I grew up in San Ramon, and then…
305 00:32:33.510 ⇒ 00:32:34.330 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh, nice.
306 00:32:34.330 ⇒ 00:32:36.880 Uttam Kumaran: I grew up in Fremont, and then I lived in San Ramon last month.
307 00:32:36.880 ⇒ 00:32:38.879 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I grew up in Fremont, too.
308 00:32:38.880 ⇒ 00:32:43.770 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, okay, cool. So yeah, next time… I mean, are you gonna be in, like, East Bay somewhere?
309 00:32:43.770 ⇒ 00:32:57.229 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I’m gonna be here for a while. I just, like, my last lease ended, and I was kind of like, oh, I don’t really know where I want to go, so I didn’t want to commit to a lease for, like, another year. So I was like, okay, back to mom and dad’s.
310 00:32:57.970 ⇒ 00:33:01.979 Uttam Kumaran: Well, you have team now in a lot of different areas. I’ll plug for Austin.
311 00:33:02.170 ⇒ 00:33:10.639 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, you can go to Culver City. Now, we’re gonna have two people in Culver City. Sam’s in Ohio, could go to Mexico with Seoul.
312 00:33:10.640 ⇒ 00:33:15.160 Shreya Chowdhury: go to the Philippines with the crew, they’re in a bunch of different areas.
313 00:33:15.160 ⇒ 00:33:21.569 Uttam Kumaran: You could go to Malta. Demolati’s in Malta. That’s probably, like, the hit, like, spot to go to, frankly.
314 00:33:21.570 ⇒ 00:33:25.550 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I was thinking this year, so I’ve pretty much worked remote
315 00:33:25.930 ⇒ 00:33:32.239 Shreya Chowdhury: like, the majority of my… I think, oh, my entire career has been remote, and, like, I’ve been remote,
316 00:33:33.190 ⇒ 00:33:56.740 Shreya Chowdhury: like, I was remote in college, too, because that’s when we, like, COVID started, yeah. But, like, so the first couple years, I was kind of like, oh, like, it was a lot to get used to, because I would see, like, a lot of my friends going into offices, and, like, they would hang out with their friends, and I would get jealous, but now, like, they all have to commute every day, and I don’t, and so I just, like, will travel places, or my other remote friends, like, we’ll just bring our laptops and go, like.
317 00:33:56.750 ⇒ 00:34:04.500 Shreya Chowdhury: wherever. So that was my plan this year. That was, like, I’m gonna try and travel a lot more, like, while working.
318 00:34:04.700 ⇒ 00:34:11.090 Shreya Chowdhury: I feel like I didn’t fully take advantage of remote work the first two years, so now I have to overcompensate.
319 00:34:12.070 ⇒ 00:34:17.269 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I like going… there was something nice about going to the office every day, like, when I was in New York.
320 00:34:17.620 ⇒ 00:34:20.959 Uttam Kumaran: But it was a complete waste of time to, like.
321 00:34:21.290 ⇒ 00:34:39.360 Uttam Kumaran: like, if you’re good at your job, you don’t really need that, but it’s also, like, Zoom isn’t, like, much easier. It’s a lot of time in front of a screen, and most people overcompensate by just having a lot of meetings, which I think we’re trying to do less of overall here. I think most people can see that we do a lot in Slack.
322 00:34:39.460 ⇒ 00:34:43.179 Uttam Kumaran: But, yeah, that’s cool. Great.
323 00:34:43.870 ⇒ 00:34:55.919 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, I think hybrid… hybrid is cool. I think every day, like, it really depends on the job, but for certain things, I’m like, there’s just no way. You guys need me in there 5 days a week, like, there’s no way.
324 00:34:55.929 ⇒ 00:35:03.579 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, it was good and bad, like, it was fun because, yeah, like, I made a lot of friends at work, and it was sort of, like, fun hanging out. I would just…
325 00:35:03.929 ⇒ 00:35:06.679 Uttam Kumaran: write SQL all day and, like, hang out with.
326 00:35:06.849 ⇒ 00:35:08.189 Shreya Chowdhury: my friends.
327 00:35:08.269 ⇒ 00:35:09.339 Uttam Kumaran: But…
328 00:35:09.339 ⇒ 00:35:11.250 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah, that part does seem fun.
329 00:35:11.250 ⇒ 00:35:15.089 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then also, like, there was, like, team happy hours, like, events.
330 00:35:15.090 ⇒ 00:35:15.860 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
331 00:35:16.610 ⇒ 00:35:22.670 Uttam Kumaran: But then, yeah, also, I had to commute every day, wake up early.
332 00:35:23.050 ⇒ 00:35:36.059 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Like, I think for me, I don’t know if we’ll do, like, hybrid where we have an office, because sometimes, if some people are in an office, and some people aren’t, it can be, like, really bad, because the people who are in the office get a lot of FaceTime.
333 00:35:36.710 ⇒ 00:35:53.249 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I would like to see everybody at least once a quarter. I think that’s kind of, like, what… in reading a lot about building remote companies, I think that would be… if I can accomplish one thing, it’d be, like, getting the budget so we can all meet somewhere centrally, like, once a quarter.
334 00:35:53.300 ⇒ 00:36:12.180 Uttam Kumaran: or at least, like, once every half year would be, like, amazing. Whether that’s, like, somewhere in the States or somewhere in between, like, that would be ideal. And then for the people that are in the country, I think we could do it more often. Like, now we have, like, three of you guys are in Cali, and Robert is actually from…
335 00:36:12.270 ⇒ 00:36:17.840 Uttam Kumaran: South Bay as well, and I’m from the East Bay, so we both go back all the time.
336 00:36:17.840 ⇒ 00:36:18.630 Shreya Chowdhury: Oh, nice.
337 00:36:18.630 ⇒ 00:36:25.510 Uttam Kumaran: And Robert lived in LA for a while, too, so, like, both of us are, like, are back in California a lot, so we should do something next time.
338 00:36:25.730 ⇒ 00:36:30.170 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll see whoever else is in states, Sam, you can come out to Cali, and we can all hang out.
339 00:36:30.740 ⇒ 00:36:38.319 Uttam Kumaran: Or come to Austin, like, Austin is a much cheaper, much more spacious off-site area, and everybody can stay at the house if you want.
340 00:36:38.320 ⇒ 00:36:43.839 Shreya Chowdhury: It’s like the classic, like, everyone who moves from California to Austin, Texas, propaganda, like…
341 00:36:43.840 ⇒ 00:36:56.690 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, although I did… I did… I did one more jump in between. I went to Austin, then I went to Pennsylvania, and then I went to New York, and then I went here. But I did check. I’m, like, a transplant from both the places that people in Austin don’t like.
342 00:36:56.690 ⇒ 00:36:57.280 Shreya Chowdhury: Yeah.
343 00:36:57.280 ⇒ 00:37:00.570 Uttam Kumaran: We’ll ask, like, where are you from? Like, I’m from both of those places.
344 00:37:00.570 ⇒ 00:37:03.079 Shreya Chowdhury: But people from both those places love Austin.
345 00:37:03.080 ⇒ 00:37:07.550 Uttam Kumaran: I love it here, I think it’s the best place. But I also, like.
346 00:37:07.720 ⇒ 00:37:15.820 Uttam Kumaran: mainly work, hang out with the dog, and, like, hang out with a couple friends. I don’t do… it’s a lot slower living here, I feel like.
347 00:37:15.980 ⇒ 00:37:16.840 Uttam Kumaran: you know.
348 00:37:17.740 ⇒ 00:37:34.080 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So, yeah, really, really pumped to have, you know, of course, new people join. Maybe a couple things that I’ll just breeze through, because I want to let us look at a lot of marketing stuff today. So, we did spend some time on, Q3 OKRs and Q4 OKR planning.
349 00:37:34.080 ⇒ 00:37:39.980 Uttam Kumaran: If… if ever… I’ll actually send this link
350 00:37:40.350 ⇒ 00:37:49.499 Uttam Kumaran: to everybody here in the Slack chat, but if you haven’t seen this, I think this is great to just keep an eye on. We will be going through this
351 00:37:49.890 ⇒ 00:38:05.530 Uttam Kumaran: on Mondays, as part of, like, core planning meetings, but these are the OKRs that we currently have for Q3. As you can see, there’s a couple of things. There are a lot of red, which means some of these need to be measured. Some of these are on track, some of these are not on track.
352 00:38:05.930 ⇒ 00:38:22.240 Uttam Kumaran: that is okay. Like, this is our first, I think, quarter where we’ve actually been able to put these into action. Last quarter, we actually decided on a bunch of them, but then they kind of, like, were on our mind. This quarter, I think we have them all listed, and we’re starting to track.
353 00:38:22.640 ⇒ 00:38:39.469 Uttam Kumaran: If you’ve been in a com- as I said before, if you’ve been in a company that’s done OKRs, most of the time they are completely useless. That is not the goal at this company. I want to make sure that they are actually meaningful, that there are fewer of them, and that they actually are essential to accomplish. So…
354 00:38:39.610 ⇒ 00:38:45.990 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what you’re seeing on the OKR page. There’s an AOR sheet. AOR’s area of responsibility.
355 00:38:46.390 ⇒ 00:38:54.430 Uttam Kumaran: This is where we’re actually listing out the core responsibilities in the company, and looking at who can do that, and who is backed up.
356 00:38:54.510 ⇒ 00:39:10.429 Uttam Kumaran: As you can see here, my name is listed a lot of places, Robert’s name is listed a lot of places, so this is how we decide on, like, what gaps there are in the company, is we have listed out what the responsibilities that are being done. It’s not… it’s not extensive yet, but
357 00:39:10.430 ⇒ 00:39:27.019 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve started to understand, sort of, what are the core responsibilities of the company. In getting feedback from our advisors and people that run these businesses, I think we’re on the right track with having artifacts like this. I have never been part of a company that’s, like, dissected
358 00:39:27.020 ⇒ 00:39:40.369 Uttam Kumaran: what happens in the company to this degree, so I’m very excited to do this, because it makes it very painfully obvious who signed up for too much, or where we don’t have redundancy, and lack of redundancy is risk.
359 00:39:40.370 ⇒ 00:39:47.949 Uttam Kumaran: If something happens to me, if something happens to one other person, there is a huge hole that needs to get filled.
360 00:39:48.420 ⇒ 00:40:04.750 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I want to make sure that we start to map that out, and we’re transparent about who’s taking on what. So, really excited to have that. We’re working on recruiting and onboarding SOPs. I think this is something also that probably RICO, as we have new people that have onboarded.
361 00:40:04.830 ⇒ 00:40:17.910 Uttam Kumaran: we could probably go back and ask them for feedback on the process. I don’t think it was perfect, I think there’s a lot that we can learn, but I would like us to do that, and how we can give candidates a better experience.
362 00:40:18.050 ⇒ 00:40:24.059 Uttam Kumaran: How we can make the first day, week, month, 60, and 90 days better for our team.
363 00:40:24.070 ⇒ 00:40:37.380 Uttam Kumaran: And this is something that I would like to start to see plans towards. So, Rico, it’ll probably be me and you working on this over the next month, but now that we’ve had… you’ve seen some people go through the process, I think we can start to gather that feedback.
364 00:40:37.380 ⇒ 00:40:45.359 Uttam Kumaran: We’re also doing… we also have end-of-week and end-of-month, sort of, rituals now. These are mostly on the finance and, like, the business side.
365 00:40:45.760 ⇒ 00:41:01.569 Uttam Kumaran: A lot of this is related to making sure all of our Clockify hours are there, that we can close books on the accounting side and the… both the revenue and the expense side, and we can start to report out on what was accomplished at the end of every week. This is…
366 00:41:01.600 ⇒ 00:41:19.080 Uttam Kumaran: until we find a way to… to AI stuff for Clockify, we’re going to have to continue to sort of do ours. We will make it… I think we’ll find opportunities for us to streamline that, but it’s really important that we get that data in so we can measure efficiencies, ideally on a weekly basis.
367 00:41:19.080 ⇒ 00:41:30.009 Uttam Kumaran: This is just sort of common in sort of building sort of this type of service business. The other piece I wanted to share is the work I’ve done on services offers, reusable epics, and delivery playbooks.
368 00:41:30.250 ⇒ 00:41:33.310 Uttam Kumaran: Big mouthful there. But…
369 00:41:33.720 ⇒ 00:41:43.170 Uttam Kumaran: This is sort of some work that I have been putting off for a while, that I really had the benefit of working on this week, which I…
370 00:41:43.370 ⇒ 00:41:49.379 Uttam Kumaran: drank a large coffee, and I tried to crush through on Tuesday.
371 00:41:49.640 ⇒ 00:41:57.989 Uttam Kumaran: As you can see here, basically, when it comes down to a service business like ours, there are several things that we do.
372 00:41:58.250 ⇒ 00:42:00.660 Uttam Kumaran: We have services that we offer.
373 00:42:00.680 ⇒ 00:42:10.569 Uttam Kumaran: As part of those services that we sell, there are playbooks that we run on the engineering side in order to deliver that service and deliver the outcomes associated with that service.
374 00:42:10.580 ⇒ 00:42:22.240 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s more on the engineering side. On the sales side, when we sell a service, we have offers associated with it, right? So let’s say we’re selling product analytics, hey, we’re… this…
375 00:42:22.400 ⇒ 00:42:30.450 Uttam Kumaran: this, this quarter, we’re offering our product analytics sprint. It’s 5 grand, you got this, this, and this out, and those…
376 00:42:30.510 ⇒ 00:42:34.480 Uttam Kumaran: Are, like, the offer, so that’s more on the customer-facing side.
377 00:42:34.510 ⇒ 00:42:50.290 Uttam Kumaran: And then the reusable epics are really, kind of, probably parallel with this… these handbooks that we’re working on. This is how, like, we can take off the shelf, okay, let’s say a client signs up for A-B testing and for data warehouse, cool.
378 00:42:50.290 ⇒ 00:42:54.819 Uttam Kumaran: We know roughly what goes into delivering that
379 00:42:54.860 ⇒ 00:43:13.730 Uttam Kumaran: that part of the service, and so that could literally be a reusable epic, which is a reusable linear milestone with… with pre-planned tickets, with pre-estimations, and so we get to the point where every client, we’re doing a lot of similar things for, and now we want to start to package those.
380 00:43:15.110 ⇒ 00:43:32.019 Uttam Kumaran: I am so excited to work on this. This is something, again, that many companies our size do not prioritize. Many companies will build… it’ll take them 100, 200 people before they start to look at, like, what are the things we’re doing across clients, across services.
381 00:43:32.210 ⇒ 00:43:44.239 Uttam Kumaran: What this helps us with is a lot of stress. Going client after client after client, not building these playbooks, forces us to look at every client as brand new.
382 00:43:44.240 ⇒ 00:43:53.009 Uttam Kumaran: And that causes so much inefficiency and so much pain. So we are going to start to architect systems where, yes, there will still be some bespoke and some unknown things.
383 00:43:53.010 ⇒ 00:44:03.939 Uttam Kumaran: with clients, but ultimately, for the most part, most of our clients are asking for similar things, and we want to start to define those really well. The last piece I didn’t get to is also the demos.
384 00:44:04.370 ⇒ 00:44:18.310 Uttam Kumaran: So as part of our offers and services, we will have demos associated with them. So these are on the AI side, we have a lot of these demos. On the data side, I think we’ve talked, Shreya, this week, about starting to put together some of the A-B testing demos. That could be a deck.
385 00:44:18.310 ⇒ 00:44:26.449 Uttam Kumaran: That could be a fake dashboard, like, it’s just a way of us showing versus just telling what the outcomes are.
386 00:44:26.450 ⇒ 00:44:40.570 Uttam Kumaran: I think this is a great area for us to innovate on the sales side. Many consultancies, and I’m happy to, you know, if you want, I’m happy to share all of our sales calls, and you can watch sort of how we pitch, but most of it is talking.
387 00:44:40.620 ⇒ 00:44:52.119 Uttam Kumaran: The problem is, some people, that’s a great way of buying something. Some people are very visual, and they need to see what the output is. And most consultancies do not sell that way. They talk, they do decks.
388 00:44:52.120 ⇒ 00:45:02.149 Uttam Kumaran: they do long SOPs, they do a lot of jargon, like, we will… we can do that, that’s fine, but I also want to have things where people can interact
389 00:45:02.290 ⇒ 00:45:08.609 Uttam Kumaran: And almost try before you buy as much as possible. It’s another way where we’re gonna try to push the…
390 00:45:08.750 ⇒ 00:45:17.000 Uttam Kumaran: the limits on, like, how do you sell services when we want to move towards selling outcomes and selling predefined outcomes, so…
391 00:45:17.840 ⇒ 00:45:27.820 Uttam Kumaran: Feel free to poke around at all this. If you have any comments, just put it in there. If you’re like, something isn’t captured, or… like, why are we… what is this sort of, like, way we’re architecting?
392 00:45:28.040 ⇒ 00:45:42.409 Uttam Kumaran: But as you know, like, we are mostly engineers here. In sales, there is a lot of art, but there’s also a lot of engineering, and so these are the core objects when we talk about how we position the delivery part of our organization.
393 00:45:44.860 ⇒ 00:45:55.230 Uttam Kumaran: Great, I think we want to go to the next slide. I’ll just do a quick highlight, and then I’ll pass it to the marketing team. So, these are some of the notable leads in progress. This is not everybody.
394 00:45:55.260 ⇒ 00:46:08.959 Uttam Kumaran: But we’re talking to a couple of really interesting companies. If you’ve watched CES before, which is, like, the big consumer electronics show that happens in Vegas every year, we were talking to their new head of data analytics. I was previously talking to their, like.
395 00:46:09.380 ⇒ 00:46:23.030 Uttam Kumaran: I think they’re COO for a while, they’re hiring a data person, I’m talking to her next week, so we’re… we’re ideally gonna come in and see if we can do some work for them. We’re talking to Cognition. Cognition is the company that just bought Windsurf, which is a big AI tool.
396 00:46:23.330 ⇒ 00:46:25.740 Uttam Kumaran: I got hooked up with their head of product growth.
397 00:46:26.160 ⇒ 00:46:34.700 Uttam Kumaran: And so speaking with him about potential data opportunities, they actually bought this other company, their data stack sucks, they’re having a hard time merging it.
398 00:46:34.760 ⇒ 00:46:46.529 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, this is, like, what we do. Televero was a company we previously pitched maybe, like, 8 months ago, very similar to Ellie. I emailed them yesterday with our new AI deck and said, hey, we’re working with Ellie.
399 00:46:46.920 ⇒ 00:47:04.659 Uttam Kumaran: doing blah blah blah, then we hop on the phone. They said, would love to hop on the phone, so really excited there. Hype, HIP plus access, these guys are really interested to come. They’re a non-profit, really focused on building these brick-and-mortar, medical facilities in New York for this particular type of.
400 00:47:04.660 ⇒ 00:47:08.310 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s a bone disease or some type of debilitating injury.
401 00:47:08.330 ⇒ 00:47:13.239 Uttam Kumaran: So very interesting company, and we are, sort of, like, in the signing periods for them.
402 00:47:13.310 ⇒ 00:47:23.160 Uttam Kumaran: FoamPro, and NEFCO are probably the most, like, they’re, like, the most interesting companies on this list. FoamPro is,
403 00:47:23.490 ⇒ 00:47:27.780 Uttam Kumaran: This company, it’s really paint.
404 00:47:28.050 ⇒ 00:47:29.960 Uttam Kumaran: And paint applicators.
405 00:47:30.320 ⇒ 00:47:43.280 Uttam Kumaran: So we’re talking to them about, data opportunities to help them sell more paint applicators. I actually was at Home Depot, I totally forgot to take a picture of it, but yeah, they’re very well known in the
406 00:47:43.470 ⇒ 00:47:46.730 Uttam Kumaran: Paint application brush category.
407 00:47:46.860 ⇒ 00:47:57.739 Uttam Kumaran: To Robert’s talking to them, and then Nefco, NEFCO is a large industrials, B2B e-commerce company. They sell…
408 00:47:58.080 ⇒ 00:48:05.679 Uttam Kumaran: Tons of stuff, like… I, like, adhesives, lighting, hardware, electronics, tools, welding.
409 00:48:05.820 ⇒ 00:48:12.349 Uttam Kumaran: Huge industrials comp… but they have both a very manual sales process and an e-commerce presence.
410 00:48:12.660 ⇒ 00:48:16.229 Uttam Kumaran: We’re actually selling them on AI needs.
411 00:48:16.400 ⇒ 00:48:20.269 Uttam Kumaran: We ran a free workshop with them last week, and yeah, it’s,
412 00:48:20.400 ⇒ 00:48:34.420 Uttam Kumaran: I have to get them a new proposal, soon. So, yeah, very excited. It’s a couple of really interesting companies. Also, notable wins, we’re signing Insomnia Cookies to an extension, which is really, really great. Probably the biggest consumer
413 00:48:34.640 ⇒ 00:48:44.719 Uttam Kumaran: logo that we’ve had so far. Everybody I talk to knows that company, and so that’s really, really cool.
414 00:48:44.870 ⇒ 00:48:53.279 Uttam Kumaran: We’re continuing work with Interlude. Interlude is a Series A-B design studio for startups. We’re continuing doing AI work for them.
415 00:48:53.470 ⇒ 00:49:02.909 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re continuing to work with ABC, of course, on the AI side. So, yeah, some just notable stuff on the sales side. Sort of let Robert probably give more updates when he’s back.
416 00:49:05.160 ⇒ 00:49:13.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, with that, I’ll hand it to, sort of, marketing to give, you know, a review of, like, everything we’ve been working on, probably the last, like, month, month and a half.
417 00:49:15.440 ⇒ 00:49:24.830 Hannah Wang: Hello, I feel like for this, maybe I can share my screen, because… It’s all design and…
418 00:49:25.070 ⇒ 00:49:27.140 Hannah Wang: Whatnot. So…
419 00:49:28.010 ⇒ 00:49:37.299 Hannah Wang: Let me share my whole screen. Okay, so I don’t know how many of you have seen the previous iteration of our website.
420 00:49:37.810 ⇒ 00:49:39.179 Hannah Wang: I don’t know
421 00:49:39.510 ⇒ 00:49:53.140 Hannah Wang: if it’s live anymore, I can dig up the designs, but anyway, we worked a lot on the past, like, month and a half, I guess, two months of just redesigning our homepage, making it more…
422 00:49:53.160 ⇒ 00:50:07.909 Hannah Wang: information dense, just adding a lot more oomph to it, because we do do a lot of things, and I think our previous website version, it was good, it was pretty, but I think it just didn’t kind of showcase all the things that we can do.
423 00:50:07.930 ⇒ 00:50:14.070 Hannah Wang: So we worked a lot on… also on, like, something called a brand script, which is just, like.
424 00:50:14.410 ⇒ 00:50:26.050 Hannah Wang: how we phrase things, and the copy, and the content, so it was a huge work in progress, I guess the last quarter, basically. But yeah, this is the new website, Utom Spaces.
425 00:50:26.170 ⇒ 00:50:39.080 Hannah Wang: Right there. Which is good, because we want people to know that we’re actual humans and not just, you know, whatever. So, this kind of plays like a short YouTube video, shout out to Ray.
426 00:50:39.080 ⇒ 00:50:47.010 Hannah Wang: Who put this together. Lots of logos here, and yeah, feel free to dig through our website, but it…
427 00:50:47.020 ⇒ 00:51:05.569 Hannah Wang: it’s a lot more, I guess, information dense, like I said, than previously. I really like our testimonial carousel now, and you can, like, hover over it, and it even… you can even, like, go to the case study associated with it, which is awesome.
428 00:51:06.410 ⇒ 00:51:25.829 Hannah Wang: Yeah, proven frameworks, CTAs everywhere, call to actions for those of you who are not familiar, a bunch of demos and just screenshots of things. This cool… I don’t even know what this animation is called, but a cool before and after kind of sliding thingy.
429 00:51:26.700 ⇒ 00:51:29.539 Hannah Wang: And yeah, so Ann and I worked…
430 00:51:29.740 ⇒ 00:51:49.460 Hannah Wang: on this, and we had our, web dev kind of build this out, and so we not only did the homepage, but we also did, well, this navbar. Previously the navbar… I don’t know what it looked like, I’m forgetting, but now, it does a cool… it does cool.
431 00:51:49.460 ⇒ 00:51:51.750 Uttam Kumaran: So good, it looks so nice.
432 00:51:51.750 ⇒ 00:51:56.919 Hannah Wang: Okay, because Uten was complaining about the previous navbar, so glad you like it now, so…
433 00:51:56.920 ⇒ 00:52:06.230 Uttam Kumaran: I just, like, I don’t know, I was, like, I… I don’t know, Sam, you probably… actually, we should have got your feedback, Sam, on some of this too, but, like, I don’t know, I used to just be in product.
434 00:52:06.550 ⇒ 00:52:13.809 Uttam Kumaran: And I, like, navs suck, like, people just really don’t do a good job, and it’s something that I just wanted to nail, so, yeah.
435 00:52:14.600 ⇒ 00:52:30.099 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let me just pull it up, what it looked like before. It was just, like, a sticky… I also, like, I’m not gonna blame anyone. I’m the one that, like, was, like, just shipped whatever our old nav bar was, so… not like I, like… yeah, I’m to blame, but I’m also very happy that we took a real…
436 00:52:30.920 ⇒ 00:52:32.160 Uttam Kumaran: Hard look at it.
437 00:52:32.160 ⇒ 00:52:36.679 Hannah Wang: I don’t even know where it is, but this is kind of what our website looked like before,
438 00:52:36.850 ⇒ 00:52:41.310 Hannah Wang: I don’t even know what Alex is, but Alex was there, I guess.
439 00:52:41.590 ⇒ 00:52:49.419 Hannah Wang: So anyway, this is the new case studies page, so, I think it looks very clean,
440 00:52:49.980 ⇒ 00:52:56.200 Hannah Wang: And yeah, it just looks a lot different than what it looked like before. Again, we’re kinda…
441 00:52:56.380 ⇒ 00:53:12.029 Hannah Wang: We’re trying to pitch, like, our free 60-minute workshop. This is, like, our lead magnet for, I guess, until the end of the year. So we’re just trying to put this everywhere. Adding a bunch of logos, more case studies, and kind of reusing some of the components from the homepage.
442 00:53:12.160 ⇒ 00:53:21.340 Hannah Wang: So yeah, those are the two, I guess, main pages that we kind of worked on. There’s also, like, an overview page of all our case studies.
443 00:53:21.490 ⇒ 00:53:34.339 Hannah Wang: So kind of the next thing we’re gonna try to tackle is our services, and this is kind of in line with what Utam showed previously with the Notion page of all the services that we offer, so this is kind of the previous
444 00:53:34.870 ⇒ 00:53:54.750 Hannah Wang: V1 of the services that we had, and yeah, we need to redo these pages, because they kind of look like our previous V1 of the website, and obviously we were, like, trying to revamp everything. So we’re gonna redo that, also redo, like, the About Us page, and
445 00:53:54.780 ⇒ 00:53:57.649 Hannah Wang: The pricing page and whatnot, so…
446 00:53:57.940 ⇒ 00:54:01.390 Hannah Wang: Yeah, we slowly worked through this,
447 00:54:01.800 ⇒ 00:54:05.240 Hannah Wang: So that’s kind of the website stuff. I’m forgetting what else I put.
448 00:54:05.590 ⇒ 00:54:09.750 Hannah Wang: Oh, new sales assets, so…
449 00:54:09.930 ⇒ 00:54:24.710 Hannah Wang: this was more of, like, a recent thing that we put together, but previously we had, like, a capabilities deck that was, like, more general, but this is kind of… we’re kind of niching into AI and data. So this is the AI deck,
450 00:54:25.540 ⇒ 00:54:36.070 Hannah Wang: I don’t know what else to tell you here, except that we just added a bunch of information that is helpful when we kind of pitch to leads,
451 00:54:36.210 ⇒ 00:54:40.820 Hannah Wang: And… Yeah, I think we’re just trying to send these out to…
452 00:54:41.220 ⇒ 00:54:57.889 Hannah Wang: all the leads that need AI services. And then similarly, we’re working on the data capabilities deck now, so I’ll just be reaching out to everyone on the AI and data side, as I have been doing, just to take a look at this and give feedback, and kind of help me
453 00:54:57.970 ⇒ 00:55:11.829 Hannah Wang: put these together. And as always, we’re adding new case studies, so I know Casey and Mustafa, I’ve met up with you, and I think on the data side, I’m also gonna try to meet up with
454 00:55:12.440 ⇒ 00:55:14.719 Hannah Wang: Folks from there,
455 00:55:14.990 ⇒ 00:55:25.279 Hannah Wang: But, yeah, we… we’re trying to build out a ton of case studies, so you can see that we’re continuing to grow this list here, and…
456 00:55:25.840 ⇒ 00:55:35.209 Hannah Wang: I say this every time, but if there’s a project that is cool and could be useful in pitching us, let me know so we can make a case study for it.
457 00:55:36.740 ⇒ 00:55:55.909 Hannah Wang: And let’s see… another thing that we’re doing, I know we’re short on time, so I’ll kind of breeze through this, but, we met up with Utam’s friend, Nick, and he kind of parsed through our LinkedIn, and just kind of helped us figure out, yeah, why we’re not generating leads from it. I think our LinkedIn…
458 00:55:56.130 ⇒ 00:56:07.169 Hannah Wang: we have a lot of content, we’re pushing out content, and I think people are looking at it, but it’s not generating… like, people are not clicking through to book a meeting, basically. So, we’re kind of doing…
459 00:56:07.590 ⇒ 00:56:11.550 Hannah Wang: Fun things, kind of spicing it up to see if
460 00:56:11.960 ⇒ 00:56:15.930 Hannah Wang: Changing up the strategy will be helpful in…
461 00:56:16.160 ⇒ 00:56:28.340 Hannah Wang: pushing people to view our page more and book meetings. So I know, Ryan, you, like… or I don’t know who did it, either Utomo or Ryan, but there’s, like, a meme… a post that has a meme on it, and I think it’s doing fairly well.
462 00:56:28.340 ⇒ 00:56:32.619 Uttam Kumaran: Pretty well, yeah. I mean, Nick was basically, like, spot on. Yeah.
463 00:56:33.760 ⇒ 00:56:52.740 Hannah Wang: So I guess people like memes. I like memes. We’re also trying to do more, like, authentic posts, so if you scroll through Uten’s LinkedIn, which I guess… I already have it open, cool. A lot of it is… yeah, like, very heavy branded, posed.
464 00:56:52.900 ⇒ 00:56:54.010 Hannah Wang: I guess…
465 00:56:54.390 ⇒ 00:57:02.700 Hannah Wang: images, but I think we’re trying to maybe change it to be more like selfies, and not branded, and just, like, more authentic.
466 00:57:03.040 ⇒ 00:57:20.589 Hannah Wang: I guess, posts, and to see how those do. And I know Ryan has been working really hard on kind of curating all of that, and kind of digging into what performed well in the past, and copying that, and applying that to our LinkedIn strategy.
467 00:57:21.550 ⇒ 00:57:30.100 Hannah Wang: Yeah, so that’s LinkedIn, and then I guess the last thing that we did, I think it was last week, was we had a webinar with Propel,
468 00:57:30.630 ⇒ 00:57:35.419 Hannah Wang: I wish I remembered what that company does, but they do stuff, so we…
469 00:57:35.420 ⇒ 00:57:41.679 Uttam Kumaran: They do, they do segment mixed panel, like, event analytics instrumentation work.
470 00:57:41.980 ⇒ 00:57:43.990 Uttam Kumaran: We called them because
471 00:57:44.170 ⇒ 00:57:55.159 Uttam Kumaran: we, like, I mean, I think Henry was the only person, like, about 2 months ago that was… or a month ago, and then we were like, we may need help. We started talking to them, and then we ended up
472 00:57:55.450 ⇒ 00:58:04.760 Uttam Kumaran: doing it ourselves, but they’re a cool company and smart guys, so there could be a chance for us to work together, but… yeah, they were like, do you want to come and do this webinar? And yeah, it was really nice.
473 00:58:05.210 ⇒ 00:58:13.650 Hannah Wang: Yeah, so I think there was good turnout there, a lot of signups, so I think we’re trying to run a campaign to kind of target everyone who signed up, and just pitch
474 00:58:13.860 ⇒ 00:58:28.950 Hannah Wang: whatever service offering that we’re doing currently, so that was cool, and yeah, we have a lot of other activations coming up, like with another company called Glimpse around the Shop Talk fall. That’s, like, a CPG Founders
475 00:58:29.390 ⇒ 00:58:42.489 Hannah Wang: consumer packaged goods founders kind of conference that Robert is going to in Chicago. And I know… yeah, Utam and Robert are constantly going to conferences and stuff, so we’re trying to be more strategic on how to
476 00:58:42.490 ⇒ 00:58:51.400 Hannah Wang: put ourselves out there. So, that’s it for the marketing side. Again, if you have any feedback, please let me or Anne know so that we can…
477 00:58:51.700 ⇒ 00:58:53.459 Hannah Wang: Make it better.
478 00:58:53.840 ⇒ 00:58:58.689 Hannah Wang: Yeah, I think we can move on to the next slide. I don’t know what that is.
479 00:59:02.220 ⇒ 00:59:03.700 Hannah Wang: Shoutouts, I guess?
480 00:59:03.800 ⇒ 00:59:08.030 Hannah Wang: Or I don’t know if Amber had anything to share for PM stuff.
481 00:59:08.570 ⇒ 00:59:09.330 Hannah Wang: But…
482 00:59:09.900 ⇒ 00:59:17.119 Amber Lin: Not much from this end, mostly just the OKRs that Uten talked about, so that will be for next week.
483 00:59:19.350 ⇒ 00:59:27.159 Amber Lin: I can… I think next time we meet, I can also report on client health, or we can keep that in the Monday meeting.
484 00:59:27.630 ⇒ 00:59:28.619 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that could be nice.
485 00:59:28.620 ⇒ 00:59:29.290 Amber Lin: Okay.
486 00:59:29.680 ⇒ 00:59:30.990 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
487 00:59:35.780 ⇒ 00:59:38.439 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Rikas, what’s, what’s next?
488 00:59:41.580 ⇒ 00:59:42.819 Uttam Kumaran: You’re on mute.
489 00:59:44.290 ⇒ 00:59:47.320 Rico Rejoso: Alright, on Nexus Shoutouts…
490 00:59:49.950 ⇒ 00:59:53.460 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. I guess I’ll shout out,
491 00:59:54.010 ⇒ 01:00:09.080 Uttam Kumaran: Mustafa and Casey, I think they’ve both been kind of crushing stuff on clients with me. I’ve probably been working closest with them on the AI side, so they’ve been doing, you know, a great job. Also, shout out Devil Lade, I think he’s…
492 01:00:09.090 ⇒ 01:00:16.150 Uttam Kumaran: sort of been holding down the fort on the AE side for Eden, and then working with me on a very, like…
493 01:00:16.290 ⇒ 01:00:22.819 Uttam Kumaran: complex, nasty repo at Urban Stems that we’re, like, dealing with, so…
494 01:00:22.940 ⇒ 01:00:34.459 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, just, I’ve been doing some more development work over the last two weeks, so it’s nice to be working with y’all on that sort of stuff, and using Cursor a bunch, and yeah, it’s been great.
495 01:00:38.370 ⇒ 01:00:42.590 Amber Lin: I was gonna shout out the, the Eden team.
496 01:00:43.160 ⇒ 01:00:54.360 Amber Lin: Because we know we had some personal shifts, and he left us, so this week we were, I guess, especially Henry was thrown into the deep end of…
497 01:00:54.360 ⇒ 01:00:57.369 Uttam Kumaran: dashboarding, and I think…
498 01:00:57.620 ⇒ 01:01:07.769 Amber Lin: Henry’s doing a great job, and our team is doing great, because I think we’re supporting each other a lot better. I had a call.
499 01:01:07.830 ⇒ 01:01:09.110 Uttam Kumaran: with…
500 01:01:09.450 ⇒ 01:01:13.239 Amber Lin: It attaches the stakeholders on the marketing team, and then…
501 01:01:13.380 ⇒ 01:01:31.349 Amber Lin: Demolade was so helpful there, I could not… I just could not have done it, I was so scared, because I know nothing about Tableau that we’re doing. And then, also, Awish has been helping with all the tasks that pop up, all the estimations, and then,
502 01:01:31.640 ⇒ 01:01:35.680 Amber Lin: Asking people, hey, when this is, like, when…
503 01:01:35.840 ⇒ 01:01:45.120 Amber Lin: when this should be done, so I feel like we’re a smaller team on Eden, but we’re working, very closely and a lot better now.
504 01:01:54.400 ⇒ 01:01:55.520 Uttam Kumaran: Anyone else?
505 01:01:56.320 ⇒ 01:01:59.619 Rico Rejoso: I guess I’ll shout out to Mustafa.
506 01:02:00.370 ⇒ 01:02:01.870 Rico Rejoso: When…
507 01:02:02.770 ⇒ 01:02:21.349 Rico Rejoso: Sorry, when I did the, I mean, when I take over the PM side for Interluding default, he was, like, guiding me throughout the process, along with, Amber definitely, providing the guidance on that one, but Mustafa also was, like, explaining how everything works on their side.
508 01:02:21.390 ⇒ 01:02:27.719 Rico Rejoso: Which, at first, I don’t have a clue at, but eventually figured things out, with his guidance.
509 01:02:28.400 ⇒ 01:02:29.380 Rico Rejoso: Thanks, man.
510 01:02:31.620 ⇒ 01:02:32.470 Mustafa Raja: Thank you.
511 01:02:33.600 ⇒ 01:02:36.399 Amber Lin: Also, on the…
512 01:02:36.620 ⇒ 01:02:49.160 Amber Lin: Also want to say on the ABC side, Casey built a database from scratch, it’s crazy, he’s an AI engineer, and then he built a database. It was so, it was so impressive, and then,
513 01:02:49.580 ⇒ 01:02:56.749 Amber Lin: We’re already testing it now, so… I just… I just can’t believe he became a data engineer.
514 01:02:58.280 ⇒ 01:03:07.890 Uttam Kumaran: They are very close, they’re just different in semantics. Like, it’s… there… there’s a lot of overlap of data engineering and AI stuff.
515 01:03:08.090 ⇒ 01:03:12.340 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, I think it should go vice versa. I think the folks on the data side, you’d be surprised
516 01:03:12.730 ⇒ 01:03:18.450 Uttam Kumaran: like, the AI stuff is actually not as complicated as you think. So, yeah, it’s awesome.
517 01:03:25.980 ⇒ 01:03:28.429 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Any more shout-outs for this week?
518 01:03:29.920 ⇒ 01:03:35.889 Casie Aviles: I guess I’ll shout out Sam, and also wish for the help, and yeah, also Amber.
519 01:03:36.230 ⇒ 01:03:39.910 Casie Aviles: I wouldn’t have been able to do all of that, so…
520 01:03:40.250 ⇒ 01:03:45.730 Casie Aviles: Without your support as well, so thank you guys. And of course, O’Donnell as well, and Mustafa.
521 01:03:48.710 ⇒ 01:03:49.839 Casie Aviles: Thank you, guys.
522 01:03:51.780 ⇒ 01:03:52.680 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome.
523 01:03:55.860 ⇒ 01:03:56.800 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
524 01:03:57.310 ⇒ 01:04:07.679 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I know we’re right at time, so yeah, appreciate it, guys. This week has been really, really great. I think also August has been a lot of change, so, I’m really excited going into… into…
525 01:04:07.790 ⇒ 01:04:22.990 Uttam Kumaran: next month, in the quarter, I feel, like, really, really excited to bring on another project manager. We’re continuing to grow our client base, which is great. With, you know, we did have some, like, churn, but it’s definitely…
526 01:04:23.380 ⇒ 01:04:26.800 Uttam Kumaran: It’s to be expected, and we’re constantly learning from that.
527 01:04:27.100 ⇒ 01:04:30.910 Uttam Kumaran: Probably the only thing, and I talked to Awash a little bit about this today, is
528 01:04:31.070 ⇒ 01:04:35.589 Uttam Kumaran: Continue to reach out to people on your team and spend time in a remote business.
529 01:04:35.720 ⇒ 01:04:44.130 Uttam Kumaran: those types of… that trust and those relationships don’t get built without those conversations. Although we do a lot of Slack, it’s very hard to, like.
530 01:04:44.190 ⇒ 01:05:03.610 Uttam Kumaran: know people, and so if you have a free moment just to call someone and say, hey, how’s it going? Tell me about what you’re working on. You guys know I do a lot of that, but I am very, very strapped on time, so I would love to do as much as I can, but that’s probably my only ask going into these next two weeks before we all come back together, is
531 01:05:03.690 ⇒ 01:05:19.419 Uttam Kumaran: Find a moment to just hop on the phone with another person, whether they’re on your team or otherwise, and build the relationships. That glue, will help for a lot of unspoken communication things down the road, especially as we start to grow, so that’s probably my only ask.
532 01:05:22.320 ⇒ 01:05:26.330 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Have a great weekend if I don’t speak to you.
533 01:05:27.550 ⇒ 01:05:28.189 Rico Rejoso: Bye. Thanks, guys.
534 01:05:29.060 ⇒ 01:05:29.670 Uttam Kumaran: Right?