Meeting Title: Brainforge Weekly Client Check-in Date: 2025-10-13 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Rico Rejoso, Samuel Roberts, Awaish Kumar, Demilade Agboola, Henry Zhao, Robert Tseng
WEBVTT
1 00:00:35.600 ⇒ 00:00:36.700 Rico Rejoso: How you, Tom?
2 00:00:37.190 ⇒ 00:00:38.300 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how are ya?
3 00:00:38.760 ⇒ 00:00:39.420 Rico Rejoso: Good.
4 00:00:39.610 ⇒ 00:00:42.340 Rico Rejoso: I was just replying to the LinkedIn messages.
5 00:00:44.460 ⇒ 00:00:45.580 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
6 00:00:47.950 ⇒ 00:00:54.839 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, a couple things. One, do you know what the README contract details are? Can we get that into here?
7 00:00:55.880 ⇒ 00:00:56.440 Rico Rejoso: Sure.
8 00:00:57.790 ⇒ 00:00:58.960 Uttam Kumaran: just the dates.
9 00:01:17.280 ⇒ 00:01:20.459 Rico Rejoso: That’s for… let me, put it there.
10 00:01:21.370 ⇒ 00:01:21.930 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
11 00:02:35.980 ⇒ 00:02:37.509 Rico Rejoso: Is it for the start date?
12 00:02:38.400 ⇒ 00:02:39.600 Uttam Kumaran: Start and end date.
13 00:02:41.110 ⇒ 00:02:43.100 Rico Rejoso: Yep, I think I have it there already.
14 00:02:44.780 ⇒ 00:02:46.130 Rico Rejoso: Oh, where?
15 00:02:46.820 ⇒ 00:02:48.580 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, sorry. Okay.
16 00:02:49.500 ⇒ 00:02:51.480 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
17 00:03:02.540 ⇒ 00:03:06.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then… That’s fine.
18 00:05:07.110 ⇒ 00:05:07.960 Uttam Kumaran: Go.
19 00:05:14.010 ⇒ 00:05:14.970 Samuel Roberts: Hello, everyone.
20 00:05:15.310 ⇒ 00:05:16.270 Awaish Kumar: I’m gonna…
21 00:05:16.610 ⇒ 00:05:17.530 Uttam Kumaran: Hi.
22 00:05:19.970 ⇒ 00:05:21.110 Samuel Roberts: That one’s Monday.
23 00:05:22.150 ⇒ 00:05:24.690 Uttam Kumaran: This is a great day. Been so much done.
24 00:05:25.020 ⇒ 00:05:25.590 Samuel Roberts: Don’t.
25 00:05:26.650 ⇒ 00:05:27.740 Uttam Kumaran: We’re crushing it.
26 00:05:45.340 ⇒ 00:05:46.780 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
27 00:06:35.570 ⇒ 00:06:39.209 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everyone else’s day? What, it’s a couple hours in?
28 00:06:40.590 ⇒ 00:06:45.750 Uttam Kumaran: I had a great… I had a great sales call right before this, that was really good.
29 00:06:47.120 ⇒ 00:06:49.379 Awaish Kumar: It seems like that. We look happy.
30 00:06:50.300 ⇒ 00:06:52.429 Uttam Kumaran: I look happy, dude, I’m always happy.
31 00:06:53.880 ⇒ 00:06:56.200 Uttam Kumaran: When? You gotta tell me if I look angry.
32 00:06:58.620 ⇒ 00:07:02.880 Uttam Kumaran: When is the last time I looked? I don’t know, I’m usually, like, either just, like.
33 00:07:03.660 ⇒ 00:07:15.359 Uttam Kumaran: okay, or I’m happy. I don’t think I usually get too angry. I’m glad… I feel happy that I get to talk with everybody here, at least now, once a week. I feel like the last 4 months have been so, like.
34 00:07:15.650 ⇒ 00:07:23.229 Uttam Kumaran: so much that, like, I’m glad we’re having this meeting with everybody, at least this today, and then we’ll also do this on Wednesday briefly, so…
35 00:07:24.370 ⇒ 00:07:26.659 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, no, I’m happy to see you guys.
36 00:07:29.730 ⇒ 00:07:34.460 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, no, that is… that is nice. It can be hard with a fully remote team with that sometimes.
37 00:07:34.880 ⇒ 00:07:39.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we just grinded on sales, we just grinded on sales for 4 months, and so…
38 00:07:40.460 ⇒ 00:07:41.440 Samuel Roberts: Totally.
39 00:07:41.440 ⇒ 00:07:45.210 Uttam Kumaran: We just, like, had to figure out a bunch of stuff, which is good, like, it’s getting better.
40 00:07:45.210 ⇒ 00:07:45.820 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
41 00:07:48.260 ⇒ 00:07:51.930 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, Rico, do you want to ping? Who else were we waiting for?
42 00:07:52.650 ⇒ 00:07:53.830 Uttam Kumaran: Robert?
43 00:07:55.750 ⇒ 00:07:59.900 Uttam Kumaran: Start it.
44 00:08:01.610 ⇒ 00:08:03.090 Rico Rejoso: Yes, only Robert.
45 00:08:03.640 ⇒ 00:08:05.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, you wanna send him a note?
46 00:08:05.510 ⇒ 00:08:07.620 Rico Rejoso: I will, on operations, just a sec.
47 00:08:07.620 ⇒ 00:08:08.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
48 00:08:19.170 ⇒ 00:08:21.010 Uttam Kumaran: Okay…
49 00:08:24.040 ⇒ 00:08:39.880 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. I think last week was a lot. This week, this meeting should be good. I have a couple of things we can align on. Still have… don’t have, like, reporting 100% set up, but I will share what I do have with y’all. And then next week, we should have
50 00:08:40.299 ⇒ 00:08:41.839 Uttam Kumaran: what I need, pretty.
51 00:08:42.270 ⇒ 00:08:51.049 Uttam Kumaran: pretty, pretty much in one place, so. Cool, like, let’s get started. So, big things from…
52 00:08:51.270 ⇒ 00:09:01.440 Uttam Kumaran: our side is… so one, kind of, like, what I’ll be looking for each week is I’m just sort of, like, looking at, like, what renewals are coming up. And so, looks like we have,
53 00:09:01.640 ⇒ 00:09:13.030 Uttam Kumaran: basically a renewal conversation with Interlude and with Hype, and then we’re sort of coming up on the end of our first contract with Ellie. For Interlude, like, I talked to Robert, this is one that
54 00:09:13.250 ⇒ 00:09:19.059 Uttam Kumaran: I just feel like it’s probably not gonna go anywhere. I don’t think it’s our team’s fault, I think,
55 00:09:19.190 ⇒ 00:09:26.429 Uttam Kumaran: it’s… it’s actually their team’s fault. And so… I’m actually… we may lose this client. I’m actually not that…
56 00:09:26.830 ⇒ 00:09:36.140 Uttam Kumaran: annoyed by. I think we… we’ve executed this client with… in margin, and we did what we could, so we’re gonna kind of see what the next couple days looks like, but…
57 00:09:36.430 ⇒ 00:09:38.879 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re gonna assume that that’s gonna…
58 00:09:39.170 ⇒ 00:09:46.040 Uttam Kumaran: gone. I think, Robert, good timing. I wanted to ask about Hype and Ellie. Seems like we’re coming up on our first
59 00:09:46.840 ⇒ 00:09:53.450 Uttam Kumaran: our first contract for… for Hype next week, or 10 days.
60 00:09:53.450 ⇒ 00:09:54.010 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
61 00:09:54.010 ⇒ 00:09:59.509 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like probably the best thing is just to just sign another one, like, extend.
62 00:10:00.280 ⇒ 00:10:01.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think so.
63 00:10:01.690 ⇒ 00:10:06.139 Uttam Kumaran: We have scope and everything, so I can own pushing that forward. You’re okay with that. Okay.
64 00:10:06.140 ⇒ 00:10:11.649 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think just, you know, we could just let him… I mean, I can text, I can email Audrey.
65 00:10:11.650 ⇒ 00:10:21.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you can… you could tell her, I mean, you just said, yeah, I think she’s familiar with all the stuff we’re doing, and I would just ask her if she has any questions, yeah, so if there’s anything, if not, I would just… I would try to…
66 00:10:22.140 ⇒ 00:10:24.860 Uttam Kumaran: Aim to sign one, at least going into…
67 00:10:25.200 ⇒ 00:10:28.790 Uttam Kumaran: But towards the end of the year, so I would sign a… aim to sign a 3-month one.
68 00:10:29.000 ⇒ 00:10:29.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
69 00:10:29.830 ⇒ 00:10:34.389 Uttam Kumaran: You could tell her she has a… basically a 14-day out, and, like, we’re… that’s it, so…
70 00:10:34.610 ⇒ 00:10:35.220 Robert Tseng: Okay.
71 00:10:35.700 ⇒ 00:10:46.839 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, and then Ellie is coming up on October 29th, so I have a meeting with Allison tomorrow, we have a meeting with another person in IT. Is this a push for more scope thing? Like, what’s… what’s your… what’s the play here?
72 00:10:47.680 ⇒ 00:11:02.429 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, if they’re gonna give us access to Azure, we’re gonna be able to hook Zoron’s solution up, then I think that will open the conversation for just… I wanna… I wanna bring back up the scope that I tried to get them to sign before, and be like, hey, this is, like, a good time to do it.
73 00:11:02.430 ⇒ 00:11:11.999 Robert Tseng: I mean, my guess is… I mean, she was… she’s not gonna be able to prove it until January, is what she said last time, but I think it’s… I mean, we should still bring it up anyway.
74 00:11:12.710 ⇒ 00:11:18.240 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, great. And then, so she’s gonna be out…
75 00:11:18.760 ⇒ 00:11:33.770 Uttam Kumaran: For… okay, cool. So yeah, we still have time, so I guess by the end of this week, I want to, set you up for that conversation, so I’ll give you all the details. Our part of it should be in a good place, and then…
76 00:11:34.090 ⇒ 00:11:39.879 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we can go from there. So I will have met her, and met whoever the gatekeeper is on the Azure stuff.
77 00:11:39.990 ⇒ 00:11:43.060 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ll just push as much as we can. Great.
78 00:11:43.660 ⇒ 00:11:51.380 Uttam Kumaran: And then, for Eden, do we have paper, like, on the… like, do we have an existing contract in place? Should we, like.
79 00:11:51.840 ⇒ 00:12:00.790 Uttam Kumaran: Push to get… something signed, I don’t know what… like… The process has been there.
80 00:12:00.980 ⇒ 00:12:07.049 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, it was just whatever was signed with Pungo before, and then, I mean, it’s just…
81 00:12:07.340 ⇒ 00:12:09.250 Robert Tseng: Month to month, I guess, so…
82 00:12:09.990 ⇒ 00:12:14.629 Robert Tseng: we can get them to sign something new, but I was thinking if we were to do that, then…
83 00:12:14.630 ⇒ 00:12:16.290 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, we should wait for the new. Okay, yeah.
84 00:12:16.290 ⇒ 00:12:18.799 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we should do it for the new… in the new contract.
85 00:12:18.800 ⇒ 00:12:19.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
86 00:12:19.270 ⇒ 00:12:23.699 Robert Tseng: I’m working with them on. I’m hoping to get that through this web.
87 00:12:24.150 ⇒ 00:12:35.070 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. And then otherwise, I have… we’re still working on an upsell proposal for ABC, although this month we should hit our Tier 1 10K, so that.
88 00:12:35.070 ⇒ 00:12:35.450 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
89 00:12:35.450 ⇒ 00:12:44.540 Uttam Kumaran: basically get the margin for this client, and we have an upsell working. They’re thinking about our solution versus a vendor, so it’s kind of an interesting play for them.
90 00:12:44.540 ⇒ 00:12:45.530 Robert Tseng: for ABC.
91 00:12:45.530 ⇒ 00:12:46.739 Uttam Kumaran: For ABC, yeah.
92 00:12:46.740 ⇒ 00:12:47.720 Robert Tseng: What vendor?
93 00:12:48.240 ⇒ 00:12:57.110 Uttam Kumaran: a call source. They’re using call source for, like, call monitoring, but it’s… but the AI features are really crappy, and I think we can do a better job.
94 00:12:57.280 ⇒ 00:12:58.430 Uttam Kumaran: So… Okay.
95 00:12:58.670 ⇒ 00:13:00.210 Uttam Kumaran: I’m basically…
96 00:13:00.730 ⇒ 00:13:16.570 Uttam Kumaran: I think our solution will not only take what they’re… what they’re doing, but also it’s gonna be much better. And I basically am like, guys, you’re gonna pay for this vendor, they clearly sold you on something that they can’t do, and it’s actually, like, would be cost-effective to just build it with us.
97 00:13:16.680 ⇒ 00:13:19.259 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m putting together a scope.
98 00:13:19.490 ⇒ 00:13:21.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I wonder what their pricing is.
99 00:13:21.960 ⇒ 00:13:26.189 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I got screenshots of it. They didn’t tell me how much they’re paying for it.
100 00:13:26.190 ⇒ 00:13:28.210 Robert Tseng: Doesn’t say anything on the website either, so…
101 00:13:28.570 ⇒ 00:13:29.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so…
102 00:13:31.120 ⇒ 00:13:33.140 Samuel Roberts: I’d love to see those at some point.
103 00:13:33.520 ⇒ 00:13:37.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, for, can you forward it? It’s in my,
104 00:13:37.960 ⇒ 00:13:41.679 Uttam Kumaran: You see, there’s an email with Janiece where I asked her for the screenshots.
105 00:13:41.680 ⇒ 00:13:42.420 Samuel Roberts: food.
106 00:13:42.810 ⇒ 00:13:47.260 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. And so I feel good about everything else.
107 00:13:48.780 ⇒ 00:13:58.180 Uttam Kumaran: now that I… I’m gonna start getting access to these folks, slowly I’ll start making sure we book monthly project reviews and stuff like that, so I feel pretty good about everything.
108 00:13:58.350 ⇒ 00:14:09.280 Uttam Kumaran: In terms of new upcoming clients, I don’t think anything for this team to really discuss right now. Main thing I just want to hear about is just, like, how we feel about
109 00:14:09.280 ⇒ 00:14:25.710 Uttam Kumaran: existing clients. So, I feel pretty good about Remo. I feel like last week was a shitshow. This week seems like we’re better, in that, like, we’re still… we’re continuing to drive towards something. Ellie seems to be in a better spot. Hype is in a much better spot.
110 00:14:25.850 ⇒ 00:14:38.470 Uttam Kumaran: read me, I think, after today and tomorrow, we should be in a better spot. Interlude, I think we’re just gonna consider churn, unless I hear something in my conversation with Matthew this week.
111 00:14:40.580 ⇒ 00:14:51.270 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, like, anything anybody on this call is, like, worried about, client-wise, or, like, any of these aren’t, like, any of the yellow ones, we should be turning to green soon.
112 00:14:53.150 ⇒ 00:15:10.740 Uttam Kumaran: So, anything, like, I would say the only concern that came up past with Eden is just hours. So, one thing that I’m going to be looking at today is, like, how many hours we booked last week. I think, slowly, as I’m getting more involved, this team will get a little bit better about saying no to certain things and pushing certain things out.
113 00:15:11.250 ⇒ 00:15:17.939 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then just having your help on, like… I mean, to this day, I still don’t have, like, I mean, I want to tell them.
114 00:15:18.660 ⇒ 00:15:31.060 Robert Tseng: Adam, like, put… give… give us, like, a 10K marketing analytics budget, keep my current team on 30K, and then, you know, Remo’s gonna expand to 10K. Like, I want to be able to have that type of conversation.
115 00:15:31.060 ⇒ 00:15:31.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
116 00:15:31.560 ⇒ 00:15:33.510 Robert Tseng: Which… I have not been able to.
117 00:15:33.820 ⇒ 00:15:36.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I have to try to set you up.
118 00:15:36.140 ⇒ 00:15:38.169 Uttam Kumaran: We have to try to set you up for that, yeah.
119 00:15:39.180 ⇒ 00:15:44.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I do think that… yeah, I do think that Eden is… can… can be bigger than what it is, so…
120 00:15:45.620 ⇒ 00:15:52.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess tell me about, like, other clients on here, like… I mean, I know the ones I’m involved in. Do you think anyone else can significantly
121 00:15:53.150 ⇒ 00:15:55.930 Uttam Kumaran: expand? Like, Insomnia’s probably in that…
122 00:15:56.160 ⇒ 00:16:07.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah, insomnia isn’t that… yeah, I mean, insomnia has just been eating up so much of my time last week, and this… I need one more week to turn… to… to kind of get it back on, or to get it on a good track, I think.
123 00:16:08.250 ⇒ 00:16:16.600 Robert Tseng: But yeah, then it’s like, I don’t really know who I’m gonna hand it off to, so it’s… it feels like it’s, like, a almost 10 hours a week kind of situation for me right now.
124 00:16:17.010 ⇒ 00:16:17.620 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
125 00:16:17.860 ⇒ 00:16:18.470 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
126 00:16:18.470 ⇒ 00:16:31.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I… that I have to solve. So, like, if we… when we talk about, like, I think one of the things I’ll… I’ll start to note down, Rico, we can update this template, is just do, like, a hiring thing. So, one, I think we certainly need… I mean, we need, like, just a…
127 00:16:32.020 ⇒ 00:16:44.530 Uttam Kumaran: We just need, like, marketing analysts slash… marketing, like… PM. I don’t know how Describe it, but, like… Yeah.
128 00:16:44.530 ⇒ 00:16:47.360 Robert Tseng: Someone who beat me has the potential, too. Sorry, Mayor, not to jump.
129 00:16:47.360 ⇒ 00:16:48.710 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, go, go ahead, go.
130 00:16:48.710 ⇒ 00:16:55.869 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I was gonna say, I think README has the potential to actually, you know, become, like, a 10K consistent… 10K a month consistent thing.
131 00:16:56.870 ⇒ 00:16:57.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
132 00:16:59.520 ⇒ 00:17:00.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
133 00:17:02.940 ⇒ 00:17:10.560 Robert Tseng: like, I know they have… I know they have cash, they have a budget for it, they don’t have an analytics, like, it just… they… I think they… they fit a lot of the…
134 00:17:10.660 ⇒ 00:17:11.359 Robert Tseng: Like…
135 00:17:11.640 ⇒ 00:17:16.010 Robert Tseng: at best, like, it could become a default situation, is what I want to see it become a team.
136 00:17:16.770 ⇒ 00:17:23.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I think we just need… we need, a consistent, like, marketing analyst. I think…
137 00:17:23.859 ⇒ 00:17:31.440 Uttam Kumaran: Henry, we’ll kind of see how this week goes with you starting to take on those items, but I definitely want to know whether that’s
138 00:17:31.630 ⇒ 00:17:35.349 Uttam Kumaran: Something that we can handle with our existing crew, or we want to…
139 00:17:35.750 ⇒ 00:17:48.690 Uttam Kumaran: find someone else. I mean, I think basically we have both the finding data, but then we have the analysis layer, and so I think part of it will be, Robert, you continue to invest time in those, like, weekly office hours to train folks up.
140 00:17:48.730 ⇒ 00:17:50.089 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
141 00:17:50.090 ⇒ 00:17:52.870 Uttam Kumaran: So they hit your benchmark, but there also is this, like.
142 00:17:53.050 ⇒ 00:17:57.310 Uttam Kumaran: presentation component to it that I want to make sure
143 00:17:57.440 ⇒ 00:18:07.430 Uttam Kumaran: we separate out, and ideally, the person who presents doesn’t have to do a lot of the digging, like, we can pass that to parts of the folks on the team, but this seems like a really easy one to accomplish, so I think…
144 00:18:07.800 ⇒ 00:18:15.589 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Henry, I think for the next week’s meeting, I’ll… I mean, we’ll be working together all week, but I’d be wanting to see, like, how we’ve improved on README.
145 00:18:15.890 ⇒ 00:18:16.500 Henry Zhao: No problem.
146 00:18:17.060 ⇒ 00:18:17.820 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
147 00:18:18.330 ⇒ 00:18:25.480 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, how does everyone feel on, out of office.
148 00:18:25.730 ⇒ 00:18:29.409 Uttam Kumaran: Actually, maybe one thing that just came to mind. So…
149 00:18:29.960 ⇒ 00:18:39.820 Uttam Kumaran: and this is maybe dumb a lot, I can talk to you about, about Urban Stems, which is Perry, one of their, like, very core financial analysts, is just left.
150 00:18:39.990 ⇒ 00:18:57.570 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think this opens up scope for us to actually probably stay on, in a bigger way. So I was planning on messaging Zach, basically being like, what’s your plan on Perry? But I guess, Demolata, I guess I’d be interested to hear, like, what your thoughts are on urban stems, or.
151 00:18:58.300 ⇒ 00:19:07.190 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, so I was thinking about urban stems just generally. So the way we are right now, we are more in the modeling aspect of it.
152 00:19:07.560 ⇒ 00:19:13.860 Demilade Agboola: And we kind of leave the dashboarding analysis to their internal team.
153 00:19:14.170 ⇒ 00:19:18.110 Demilade Agboola: One of the key people is Perry, and she’s leaving.
154 00:19:18.580 ⇒ 00:19:27.669 Demilade Agboola: So basically, I feel like there is the room to expand, and the room for us to be more in touch with the actual end result of what they do with their data.
155 00:19:27.810 ⇒ 00:19:30.590 Demilade Agboola: So if we can potentially get an analyst
156 00:19:30.850 ⇒ 00:19:42.029 Demilade Agboola: Number one, so for instance, like, it would help us with troubleshooting, because the person will be more in the weeds with their data. So when, their CEO comes in and says, like, hey, their daily rev is off.
157 00:19:42.250 ⇒ 00:19:49.930 Demilade Agboola: Person has already… interacted very well with that data. Allows us to troubleshoot and triage much faster.
158 00:19:50.140 ⇒ 00:20:00.400 Demilade Agboola: Because right now, when things come up, we have to first go to the dashboard, understand what’s going on there, figure out where the data is coming from, troubleshoot there.
159 00:20:00.500 ⇒ 00:20:11.400 Demilade Agboola: And it takes… it takes us quite a bit of time to be able to get to the root cause of any issues. But I feel like being able to do that, and also our current bottleneck is Emily.
160 00:20:11.690 ⇒ 00:20:23.409 Demilade Agboola: So if Emily doesn’t push something into production, or in Looker, Emily’s the internal analyst, for those who are not on the project. If Emily doesn’t push things into production, or she’s, you know, handicapped by a lot of things.
161 00:20:23.670 ⇒ 00:20:29.269 Demilade Agboola: Her work is kind of blocked until she takes over that aspect and pushes things.
162 00:20:29.540 ⇒ 00:20:34.549 Demilade Agboola: I’m so… I feel like there’s just room for expansion with that, potentially.
163 00:20:34.870 ⇒ 00:20:37.880 Demilade Agboola: Getting us an analyst on the team.
164 00:20:38.010 ⇒ 00:20:40.170 Demilade Agboola: Just expanding the budget if possible.
165 00:20:41.000 ⇒ 00:20:41.650 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
166 00:20:42.000 ⇒ 00:20:52.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t think we have the internal… I mean, I think all of us are, like, pretty much at capacity, or soon will be, so I… this is something that we have to find. I mean, I haven’t found…
167 00:20:53.470 ⇒ 00:20:55.100 Uttam Kumaran: someone that…
168 00:20:55.410 ⇒ 00:21:12.270 Uttam Kumaran: can do this yet, but it is, like, something we should figure out. I think one thing while we’re on the subject, Rico, can you put a note to follow up with this girl, Sydney? She’s in my LinkedIn messages about for an analyst role. We sent her a note.
169 00:21:12.340 ⇒ 00:21:23.569 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll just put it here. I don’t know if she could potentially be this, but someone to look into. This person would have to be pretty significant finance and e-com, like, this is, like, a lot of…
170 00:21:24.240 ⇒ 00:21:30.419 Uttam Kumaran: inventory, ERP, SKU data, but it’s a lot of the type of work that we’re getting from a lot of other people, so… okay.
171 00:21:30.650 ⇒ 00:21:32.409 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you, that makes sense.
172 00:21:32.570 ⇒ 00:21:39.390 Uttam Kumaran: Any concerns about how, like, Amber’s out-of-office stuff is going? I mean, I’ve sort of…
173 00:21:40.010 ⇒ 00:21:45.730 Uttam Kumaran: change everything, and I’m involved in everything, so… I feel like we’re generally…
174 00:21:45.930 ⇒ 00:21:56.459 Uttam Kumaran: Everyone should feel okay. I think I’m getting more involved in the Eden side. For ABC, I feel like we’re okay. So, Sam, I’m kind of, like, trusting that you kind of have a good sense of that stuff, but I’m…
175 00:21:57.000 ⇒ 00:22:03.530 Uttam Kumaran: Generally, I feel okay with what they’re asking for. Any concerns right now for the next 3 days?
176 00:22:09.450 ⇒ 00:22:10.699 Henry Zhao: Nope, I think we’re all good.
177 00:22:11.350 ⇒ 00:22:15.680 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. And then, let’s talk about stuff that’s high risk.
178 00:22:15.840 ⇒ 00:22:32.800 Uttam Kumaran: So I think, still, I’m looking at Eden, I think we’re still spending quite a bit of time, so one thing is I want to find out, with this new motion of, like, let’s try to say no to stuff this week, how much I can push off. So I’ll need a little bit of help, though, from the team to assign, like.
179 00:22:33.220 ⇒ 00:22:45.849 Uttam Kumaran: priority, and then I’m gonna compile stuff for Friday, so that Robert can get approval from ELT. So, that’s what I’m gonna ask for. I don’t think… I think we’re… the team is really efficient here.
180 00:22:45.850 ⇒ 00:22:47.649 Henry Zhao: But we need to work on…
181 00:22:47.920 ⇒ 00:22:49.310 Uttam Kumaran: Pushing things off.
182 00:22:49.490 ⇒ 00:22:51.460 Uttam Kumaran: more. And then…
183 00:22:51.460 ⇒ 00:22:55.419 Henry Zhao: I think we’ll be in a good spot, honestly, especially after the meeting with Eden today.
184 00:22:56.340 ⇒ 00:22:57.020 Uttam Kumaran: Tell me.
185 00:22:57.190 ⇒ 00:23:08.069 Henry Zhao: just, they have two big priorities, right? It’s the attribution stuff, and paying Catalyst the right amount. Literally, Cutter said today, you guys, if you can solve this, you can take a week off. So, like, it just feels like…
186 00:23:08.240 ⇒ 00:23:13.600 Henry Zhao: we really are, like, gonna be in a good spot. And then my next focus is gonna be Mixpanel.
187 00:23:13.990 ⇒ 00:23:20.110 Henry Zhao: like, I don’t see this being, like, a consistent… us having to… keep fighting…
188 00:23:20.790 ⇒ 00:23:23.789 Henry Zhao: like a waterfall, you know, I do believe that.
189 00:23:23.790 ⇒ 00:23:27.210 Uttam Kumaran: So, what were the two things? The attribution for Catalyst, and then…
190 00:23:28.240 ⇒ 00:23:35.979 Henry Zhao: And then just gen… and then making sure that we’re paying the right amount, which might even just be solved today if BASC did what they said they did.
191 00:23:36.890 ⇒ 00:23:38.759 Uttam Kumaran: This is paying right amounts for affiliates.
192 00:23:38.760 ⇒ 00:23:39.410 Henry Zhao: Yeah.
193 00:23:39.980 ⇒ 00:23:42.760 Uttam Kumaran: Catalyst is, like, their… Catalyst is their sale…
194 00:23:43.350 ⇒ 00:23:45.970 Uttam Kumaran: Catalyst is the sales, like,
195 00:23:46.710 ⇒ 00:23:48.469 Uttam Kumaran: Account management platform, what is it?
196 00:23:48.470 ⇒ 00:23:50.769 Robert Tseng: It’s like an affiliate management platform.
197 00:23:51.730 ⇒ 00:23:54.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, default is about to start using these guys, too.
198 00:23:56.210 ⇒ 00:23:58.349 Uttam Kumaran: Is it, like, what is it called?
199 00:23:58.860 ⇒ 00:24:01.139 Robert Tseng: It’s K-A-T-A.
200 00:24:04.750 ⇒ 00:24:07.739 Robert Tseng: And it’s not with… there’s no T, it’s just… yeah.
201 00:24:08.190 ⇒ 00:24:10.259 Uttam Kumaran: Catalyst. Oh.
202 00:24:13.060 ⇒ 00:24:17.429 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, interesting, okay, nevermind. I think default is using Catalyst.
203 00:24:17.870 ⇒ 00:24:21.350 Uttam Kumaran: With a C. It’s like a… it’s like Gainsight.
204 00:24:21.560 ⇒ 00:24:25.210 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like a B2B… Yes. Okay. Okay, cool. I’m just gonna save this.
205 00:24:28.450 ⇒ 00:24:33.860 Uttam Kumaran: Eden loves using tools. I love the tools. Okay, so hype I feel good about.
206 00:24:34.180 ⇒ 00:24:38.069 Uttam Kumaran: I think, Rico, the biggest thing is I want to get that message out today.
207 00:24:38.400 ⇒ 00:24:46.630 Uttam Kumaran: Remo, we feel good about. Insomnia… how did that… how did the thing go today, Robert?
208 00:24:46.920 ⇒ 00:24:53.609 Robert Tseng: It was good. I think it was, I kind of made a big push for, like, changing the way that we do our readout.
209 00:24:53.670 ⇒ 00:25:09.519 Robert Tseng: I think that’s, like, the thing for me, like, I can… I can really push things to change, but then, like, kind of standing it up afterwards is, like, that just takes a lot of, time, so… Yeah. That’s why I’m saying I think I need one more week, because I, like, proposed a bunch of changes to how we were doing these readouts.
210 00:25:09.530 ⇒ 00:25:22.049 Robert Tseng: We rescheduled it. The CMO actually walks out, she thinks it’s too chaotic, so… I mean, anyway, I think it’s good. We’re just, like, paring down the room, and I think that opens up more opportunity for me to bring folks from our team to go in and do the readouts instead, so…
211 00:25:22.480 ⇒ 00:25:32.119 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but like I… anyway, so I… it’s… it’s still kind of… kind of be shaky as you’re running this rituals for another one or two weeks, but I’m… I’ve been really steering the ship there.
212 00:25:32.530 ⇒ 00:25:35.480 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I still think if you can just, like.
213 00:25:35.720 ⇒ 00:25:43.279 Uttam Kumaran: nail that, I can start to dig myself deep into getting stuff pushed around, meeting with our IT guy, blah blah blah.
214 00:25:43.280 ⇒ 00:25:43.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
215 00:25:43.640 ⇒ 00:26:01.089 Uttam Kumaran: So, if you keep, like, that part moving, I’ll start working in the background on that, and then… yeah, I think part of this is going to be getting Mustafa up to speed on just digging stuff up for you, and thinking about… similarly thinking about, like, a lead analyst versus, like, analyst coordinator kind of thing, ideally, and then
216 00:26:01.160 ⇒ 00:26:05.309 Uttam Kumaran: Well, we’re gonna have to find someone who can come on and…
217 00:26:05.500 ⇒ 00:26:08.799 Uttam Kumaran: be presentation-ready on a client like Insomnia.
218 00:26:09.090 ⇒ 00:26:09.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
219 00:26:09.430 ⇒ 00:26:20.750 Uttam Kumaran: side, whether that’s Kayla or somebody. So, I think we know there. So, I mean, overall, on clients, I feel pretty good. Like, I think last week, we had a bunch of these that were, like, near death.
220 00:26:20.870 ⇒ 00:26:35.810 Uttam Kumaran: Or, like, close to dying, and saved a bunch of them. How do we feel about… I mean, that’s how I feel. When I walked in on Wednesday, I was… or Thursday, I was like, what the fuck is going on with some of these? And it’s not this… none of these teams’ fault, but I was like.
221 00:26:36.250 ⇒ 00:26:48.219 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, this could be… we’re just a couple of, like, messages away from, like, figuring all this out, so I feel better. Like, okay, cool, so that’s on that. Allocation and utilization, so I think…
222 00:26:49.390 ⇒ 00:27:09.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think, Henry, I think get a sense of how stuff is going for README, and then we’ll kind of see whether there’s other opportunities. Ideally, again, as you move… as Eden starts to go down, we’ll move that time somewhere else, so that’s… that’s what I want. On the internal side, I think, Rico, it’s up to you to kind of look at some of our internal team,
223 00:27:09.240 ⇒ 00:27:19.149 Uttam Kumaran: measurements, I think the… probably the only thing I want to confirm with you is, like, Ray looked like he was hovering around what he needed. Looks like Anne did a little bit more time, so I think for both of those.
224 00:27:19.210 ⇒ 00:27:38.160 Uttam Kumaran: that’s what you need to look for. And then I think, Sam, I think we’re kind of pretty aligned. I think the biggest thing, Sam, for me is, like, I need to get us another client with some larger architecture work. Definitely. Because I think the internal team budget, again, will… will slowly increase, but the bulk of… the bulk of everybody’s time is going to be
225 00:27:38.240 ⇒ 00:27:43.020 Uttam Kumaran: Hopefully, like, 90% or 80% external, so our job is to find you
226 00:27:43.160 ⇒ 00:27:47.979 Uttam Kumaran: an additional client to sort of start to put work on.
227 00:27:48.950 ⇒ 00:28:04.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think we understand, sort of, what the skill role gaps are. The other piece I want to flag to everybody is, we’re open to start to work closely with Surf. Surf has pretty deep, full-stack background, and so any on our… any of our clients that they’re trying to build applications, or
228 00:28:04.610 ⇒ 00:28:21.189 Uttam Kumaran: like, do anything in, like, really deeper back-end engineering work, Surf is gonna be our guy for that. I’m not sure… some of that work is not what we do at Brainforge, so we may just punt it all to him and, like, his crew. Some of that may just be, like.
229 00:28:21.520 ⇒ 00:28:29.299 Uttam Kumaran: light we work on… we’re working on on the side, and it’s, like, a one-time thing. So those are the things. I think part of this we did for Eden before.
230 00:28:29.310 ⇒ 00:28:40.380 Uttam Kumaran: like, some of the work we’re doing for Ellie is kind of in this world, where it’s, like, some type… so it’s like some of the work that Zoran is doing. So I don’t want us to stray and say yes to every single thing.
231 00:28:40.380 ⇒ 00:28:51.130 Uttam Kumaran: But we should say yes, and hunt to a partner. And so, I want us to still make our main thing the main thing, but identify that there is upsell opportunity, and we’ll find a way to service it.
232 00:28:53.500 ⇒ 00:28:53.990 Samuel Roberts: So he is…
233 00:28:53.990 ⇒ 00:28:54.500 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.
234 00:28:54.710 ⇒ 00:28:58.060 Samuel Roberts: Is he dead front and back end, and he has other people, so, like, is he a…
235 00:28:58.130 ⇒ 00:29:07.479 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so basically, Serf’s background is, like, he’s kind of, like, a fractional CTO, so he’ll come on and build, like, the initial, like, basically full-stack applications.
236 00:29:07.480 ⇒ 00:29:07.820 Samuel Roberts: Totally.
237 00:29:07.820 ⇒ 00:29:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: Front end, back end, off, everything. Like, you know, and so that’s stuff we don’t do. Right. Although we may come in and do part of it.
238 00:29:16.530 ⇒ 00:29:17.219 Samuel Roberts: I was gonna say, yeah.
239 00:29:17.220 ⇒ 00:29:30.170 Uttam Kumaran: project, but it’s not something that I want to do, because it’s not our skill set, at this point. So, if there… if you find out in a client, like, for example, even the stuff we do for ABC, maybe part of that is.
240 00:29:30.170 ⇒ 00:29:30.550 Samuel Roberts: Damn.
241 00:29:30.550 ⇒ 00:29:32.090 Robert Tseng: Should kind of rip that.
242 00:29:32.130 ⇒ 00:29:39.409 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and we just… we just direct the AI piece. Yeah. You know, because he can handle auth and stuff and rip that way easier, so…
243 00:29:39.410 ⇒ 00:29:42.320 Samuel Roberts: That’s exactly what I was just thinking. That’s why I was curious.
244 00:29:44.390 ⇒ 00:29:47.080 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. And then…
245 00:29:47.300 ⇒ 00:29:59.039 Uttam Kumaran: I guess I wanted to spend a moment and just talk about, like, these meetings and sort of our meeting process that’s gonna change. So, does anyone have any feedback on, like, how stand-ups have been running?
246 00:29:59.210 ⇒ 00:30:05.880 Uttam Kumaran: Is everyone okay with… Like, how it’s been going the last, like, 3-4 days.
247 00:30:06.470 ⇒ 00:30:07.020 Henry Zhao: Yup?
248 00:30:07.780 ⇒ 00:30:08.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
249 00:30:08.690 ⇒ 00:30:14.200 Uttam Kumaran: The other thing I want to confirm is we need to do, like, planning?
250 00:30:14.400 ⇒ 00:30:33.279 Uttam Kumaran: like, for some of these clients, I can do planning into stand-ups like I did this morning, but for larger clients like Insomnia, I want to book time to do, like, at least a 30-minute plan of what we’re gonna do this week. Is everyone, right now, looking at, like, the schedule? Like, my… we kind of do stand-ups in the morning.
251 00:30:33.540 ⇒ 00:30:40.000 Uttam Kumaran: And then I could either… we could do one thing. We could either do planning in the afternoon.
252 00:30:40.210 ⇒ 00:30:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: Or I could replace the AM with just, like, planning sessions for each client.
253 00:30:46.350 ⇒ 00:30:51.129 Uttam Kumaran: what… what would you guys like? Because we sort of will lose a little bit of the morning.
254 00:30:51.560 ⇒ 00:30:58.619 Uttam Kumaran: there are… for Insomnia and for Eden, I want to make sure that we talk before y’all go and speak with a client.
255 00:30:58.910 ⇒ 00:31:08.239 Uttam Kumaran: but I also want to spend, like, at least 30 minutes doing a longer-term planning. Would end of the day work for, like, two of those? Like, if we were to do README,
256 00:31:08.400 ⇒ 00:31:14.990 Uttam Kumaran: Ellie and, like, Insomnia… like, we’re gonna do Insomnia after this, like, is that okay with everybody?
257 00:31:15.130 ⇒ 00:31:19.300 Uttam Kumaran: Does anybody really care? Otherwise, I’ll just… Figure out what works.
258 00:31:21.940 ⇒ 00:31:24.440 Samuel Roberts: I think afternoon works, as long as, you know.
259 00:31:24.790 ⇒ 00:31:28.209 Samuel Roberts: Structurally, it works with getting stuff done. Maybe Monday might be different, but…
260 00:31:28.300 ⇒ 00:31:29.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and this…
261 00:31:29.590 ⇒ 00:31:35.060 Samuel Roberts: This week, yeah, this week, last week I wanted to figure out stand-ups, this week we’ll figure out planning, and then next week…
262 00:31:35.400 ⇒ 00:31:45.839 Uttam Kumaran: and then also later, we’ll figure out grooming, so the next thing for me to figure out is planning. So if nobody has problems with that, I’m just gonna book meetings. Again, you just tell me if it’s overbearing or if it’s useless.
263 00:31:46.040 ⇒ 00:31:48.890 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
264 00:31:49.710 ⇒ 00:32:00.010 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, I wanted to maybe, Robert, talk a little bit about, like, I don’t know if you guys ended up talking about this, but how do we go identify
265 00:32:00.130 ⇒ 00:32:13.849 Uttam Kumaran: opportunities within existing clients, and sort of, like, how do we get this crew of folks to help on framing those conversations for me and you to have from the sales perspective? Like, did you… you may have talked a little bit about that on the services meeting, but.
266 00:32:14.470 ⇒ 00:32:31.739 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’ve been setting… I set up, like, a monthly call with these guys, so basically, you know, we’re gonna… we go through all the services. That’s less client-specific, and that’s more from, like, a service offerings perspective, where I’m sharing out, this is how we’re talking about the services we offer, if you guys have other
267 00:32:31.740 ⇒ 00:32:39.550 Robert Tseng: ideas that you want to bring to the table for us to package services to go sell them, like, that’s kind of what that calls for. So we don’t really have something right now that’s
268 00:32:39.550 ⇒ 00:32:44.539 Robert Tseng: like a strategic account management check-in for people that are talking about Fi specifically?
269 00:32:44.590 ⇒ 00:32:48.990 Robert Tseng: I think that would be great. I mean, I… you know, I could see that being…
270 00:32:50.090 ⇒ 00:32:53.549 Robert Tseng: I mean, I don’t know if I want to add more meetings for it, but, like, if that’s.
271 00:32:53.550 ⇒ 00:32:55.910 Uttam Kumaran: No, I would like to do that in this meeting. Yeah.
272 00:32:55.910 ⇒ 00:32:58.639 Robert Tseng: I, I think that’s, that’s worth, that’s worth talking through.
273 00:33:00.180 ⇒ 00:33:03.100 Uttam Kumaran: So, if I want to talk about, like, expansion.
274 00:33:03.380 ⇒ 00:33:13.249 Uttam Kumaran: plus… let’s talk about expansion plus renewal, right, and, like, what we have coming up. So we have, like, ABC, we have README, we have,
275 00:33:13.900 ⇒ 00:33:19.320 Uttam Kumaran: Urban Sems, right? So these are 3 where I do think that the…
276 00:33:19.490 ⇒ 00:33:22.999 Uttam Kumaran: The technical leads on each of these could contribute to this?
277 00:33:23.660 ⇒ 00:33:24.030 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
278 00:33:24.030 ⇒ 00:33:38.709 Uttam Kumaran: APC, I think, Sam, you’ve generally contributed to, like, that initial project plan. I think what I’ll probably get help from you this week on is for an hour, just to help me wrap up. They just ask a couple more questions, sort of wrap up, like, what they’re buying and what the pricing is, so we can work on that.
279 00:33:39.090 ⇒ 00:33:43.519 Uttam Kumaran: For REMI and for Urban Sems, it’s clear that there’s opportunities, too.
280 00:33:43.910 ⇒ 00:33:44.500 Robert Tseng: Yep.
281 00:33:48.660 ⇒ 00:33:52.560 Uttam Kumaran: So I think one thing is, like.
282 00:33:53.330 ⇒ 00:34:06.450 Uttam Kumaran: as… I want to get more people involved in this so we can start to talk about this on a weekly basis of, hey, what opportunities came up, and how do we structure the sales conversation around it? So, for Urban Stems, I think this is something Demolade, like, I would love to get
283 00:34:06.460 ⇒ 00:34:25.929 Uttam Kumaran: your help on is framing the conversation to Zach in, like, a simple… it’s… Zach is great at, like, reading whatever we send him, so I would want to frame it really easily on, like, here’s what you’re paying us, here’s what we’ve done, here’s what, like, additional budget could get if we were able to do some of the analyst work.
284 00:34:25.949 ⇒ 00:34:39.260 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s something that me and you can collaborate on. And then to say the quiet part out loud, like, I want everybody who gets involved in the upsell process, you guys will get a piece of that if that closes. So, this isn’t just…
285 00:34:39.350 ⇒ 00:34:40.190 Uttam Kumaran: like…
286 00:34:40.199 ⇒ 00:34:51.980 Uttam Kumaran: this isn’t just, like, free sales for Brainforge, like, I want you guys to all get cut in on that as well. So if you go into these clients and you identify that, this is the opportunity to go make some money on that.
287 00:34:51.980 ⇒ 00:35:00.830 Uttam Kumaran: So the Urban Stems one is something, Rico, let’s maybe… if you can book time with, like, me, you, and Demolade sometime later this week, the three of us can…
288 00:35:00.920 ⇒ 00:35:03.600 Uttam Kumaran: work on a short dock and try to get something to Zach.
289 00:35:07.690 ⇒ 00:35:08.189 Henry Zhao: Yeah, I gotta…
290 00:35:08.190 ⇒ 00:35:09.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
291 00:35:09.400 ⇒ 00:35:10.569 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, okay.
292 00:35:10.790 ⇒ 00:35:15.690 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I know Eden’s meeting folks have to drop. So anything else we want to discuss?
293 00:35:16.280 ⇒ 00:35:31.969 Uttam Kumaran: like, in this meeting, I think probably where I have some work to do is to get everybody a readout on allocated hours versus billed hours. I have it in front of me, and like, it’s… I’ll just get everybody a readout of that, so we know that we’re tracking the budget.
294 00:35:33.030 ⇒ 00:35:35.719 Uttam Kumaran: But otherwise, like, I feel like these meetings, I can…
295 00:35:36.110 ⇒ 00:35:42.410 Uttam Kumaran: If everything’s going well, these are uneventful, so we can hop off early if we feel good about stuff.
296 00:35:48.380 ⇒ 00:35:49.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
297 00:35:49.470 ⇒ 00:35:58.980 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So, I think probably the biggest thing is, I know, Awash, you’re… sort of have your hands in a bunch of stuff, just let me know if things get busy. I’ve asked Rico to ping…
298 00:35:59.110 ⇒ 00:36:11.590 Uttam Kumaran: you and Mustafa to help work on some reporting for this meeting and for the PM team, so you have some time to work on that this week, that would be helpful. Which is, like, measuring clockify hours, stuff like that, in our Omni instance.
299 00:36:12.720 ⇒ 00:36:13.480 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
300 00:36:16.700 ⇒ 00:36:22.060 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. Alright guys, appreciate it. Yeah, let me know if I can help with anything.
301 00:36:24.570 ⇒ 00:36:25.230 Samuel Roberts: blue.
302 00:36:25.530 ⇒ 00:36:26.090 Rico Rejoso: Thanks, guys.
303 00:36:26.090 ⇒ 00:36:26.940 Samuel Roberts: Thank you. Alright.
304 00:36:27.280 ⇒ 00:36:27.870 Samuel Roberts: Bye on.
305 00:36:28.350 ⇒ 00:36:29.030 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.