2025-11-16_brainforge_scaling_strategy_discussion_e857fd18

Meeting Title: Brainforge Scaling Strategy Discussion Date: 2025-11-16 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Clarence Stone, Uttam Kumaran

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1 00:00:23.380 ⇒ 00:00:24.350 Clarence Stone: Hey, Robert!

2 00:00:25.950 ⇒ 00:00:27.010 Robert Tseng: Hey, is it Clarence?

3 00:00:27.010 ⇒ 00:00:28.730 Clarence Stone: Yeah, great to meet you.

4 00:00:28.730 ⇒ 00:00:29.660 Robert Tseng: Good to meet you.

5 00:00:31.080 ⇒ 00:00:34.879 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I’m, like, I’m walking, so I’m not… I don’t have my video on.

6 00:00:35.200 ⇒ 00:00:36.830 Clarence Stone: All good, no worries.

7 00:00:38.480 ⇒ 00:00:41.389 Robert Tseng: I mean, alright, I see. I’ll have my phone.

8 00:00:41.910 ⇒ 00:00:43.080 Robert Tseng: Let’s see…

9 00:00:46.910 ⇒ 00:00:49.100 Clarence Stone: Oh, the sun’s already set. Where are you at, Robert?

10 00:00:49.100 ⇒ 00:00:50.740 Robert Tseng: I live in New York.

11 00:00:50.880 ⇒ 00:00:51.860 Clarence Stone: Oh.

12 00:00:52.050 ⇒ 00:00:52.640 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

13 00:00:53.570 ⇒ 00:00:56.190 Clarence Stone: I used to live there, I miss it.

14 00:00:56.190 ⇒ 00:00:58.820 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah? You’re… you’re in Texas now?

15 00:00:58.820 ⇒ 00:00:59.530 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

16 00:00:59.800 ⇒ 00:01:00.399 Robert Tseng: Oh, bye.

17 00:01:01.890 ⇒ 00:01:03.780 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s pretty, pretty cold.

18 00:01:04.269 ⇒ 00:01:06.489 Robert Tseng: They get started pretty early, even after.

19 00:01:06.490 ⇒ 00:01:08.200 Uttam Kumaran: It’s looking cozy there.

20 00:01:11.680 ⇒ 00:01:18.320 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I’m just watching, like, a YouTube video about New York, and I was like, oh, it’s probably just, like, so nice right now.

21 00:01:18.540 ⇒ 00:01:20.389 Uttam Kumaran: The crisp weather.

22 00:01:20.810 ⇒ 00:01:23.659 Robert Tseng: Correct. Yeah, it’s, it’s good for a walk.

23 00:01:24.080 ⇒ 00:01:25.650 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.

24 00:01:26.950 ⇒ 00:01:35.170 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Well, maybe I’ll kick it off. I got introduced to Clarence by a friend of mine here that I met.

25 00:01:35.370 ⇒ 00:01:40.189 Uttam Kumaran: through another friend’s a VC here, so, like, a couple of jumps, but…

26 00:01:40.440 ⇒ 00:01:42.089 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I think it’s been…

27 00:01:42.750 ⇒ 00:01:50.920 Uttam Kumaran: one, I think I’ve learned a lot about how to run a business like this from Clarence, but.

28 00:01:50.920 ⇒ 00:01:53.720 Robert Tseng: Who in front of me here?

29 00:01:53.720 ⇒ 00:01:55.710 Uttam Kumaran: Michael Maloney, who I’m sure you’ve heard.

30 00:01:55.710 ⇒ 00:01:57.239 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you mentioned guidelines.

31 00:01:57.240 ⇒ 00:02:01.709 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, he’s a VC here. I went to one of his company’s happy hours.

32 00:02:01.710 ⇒ 00:02:03.330 Robert Tseng: The inside pressures guy?

33 00:02:04.000 ⇒ 00:02:05.289 Uttam Kumaran: He’s from Next Coast Ventures.

34 00:02:05.290 ⇒ 00:02:07.149 Robert Tseng: Oh, next coast, okay, don’t mind that.

35 00:02:07.150 ⇒ 00:02:14.730 Uttam Kumaran: and then a guy who was there, his name is John Metcalf, runs a… John…

36 00:02:14.730 ⇒ 00:02:15.100 Robert Tseng: No way.

37 00:02:15.530 ⇒ 00:02:16.160 Uttam Kumaran: Why?

38 00:02:16.380 ⇒ 00:02:17.909 Robert Tseng: Like, the wide receiver?

39 00:02:18.230 ⇒ 00:02:22.809 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, same spelling, I think, but no relation, this guy’s white.

40 00:02:22.810 ⇒ 00:02:25.030 Clarence Stone: I do have a fun story for you, Tom.

41 00:02:25.030 ⇒ 00:02:25.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, please.

42 00:02:25.830 ⇒ 00:02:27.659 Clarence Stone: Used to be a cheerleader.

43 00:02:27.870 ⇒ 00:02:28.830 Uttam Kumaran: Really?

44 00:02:28.830 ⇒ 00:02:32.010 Clarence Stone: Like a professional, like, D1 cheerleader.

45 00:02:32.010 ⇒ 00:02:33.400 Uttam Kumaran: Wow.

46 00:02:33.650 ⇒ 00:02:37.440 Uttam Kumaran: He seems like he’s lived a couple lives,

47 00:02:37.780 ⇒ 00:02:44.219 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, he runs, like, a… he runs, like, a financing… a leasing… a renting business for Max.

48 00:02:44.650 ⇒ 00:02:46.960 Uttam Kumaran: Laptops, so, like, instead of buying them.

49 00:02:47.260 ⇒ 00:02:55.310 Robert Tseng: consumers can rent them. Yeah. And he’s actually going B2B, so I actually need to talk to him about getting laptops for us and stuff, and seeing how it costs.

50 00:02:55.310 ⇒ 00:02:55.990 Uttam Kumaran: debate.

51 00:02:55.990 ⇒ 00:02:57.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

52 00:02:57.200 ⇒ 00:03:13.609 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, then he just introduced us, and then we started talking, I mean, mostly a lot about, like, a lot of the AI stuff that we’re doing, but Clarence has a long background, not only in consulting, but… and also lived a bunch of other lives. I’ll let him tell

53 00:03:13.820 ⇒ 00:03:17.010 Uttam Kumaran: the brief story, but… yeah, I think…

54 00:03:17.280 ⇒ 00:03:33.659 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like, one, it’s… if anything, it’s been tremendous just to have him in our court, and we should continue to try our best stuff, you know, knowledge from him, but I know, Clarence, you’re deciding a little bit on

55 00:03:33.880 ⇒ 00:03:53.010 Uttam Kumaran: like, the next phase, and I feel like we have several different, you know, opportunities here that we could collaborate on that we wanted to just share with you and kind of get your perspective. We’re kind of in… and, you know, we can go deeper into it, but we’re… we’re at a little bit of an inflection point,

56 00:03:53.510 ⇒ 00:03:54.839 Uttam Kumaran: with the business.

57 00:03:55.060 ⇒ 00:04:12.359 Uttam Kumaran: in, like, how we need to scale past this… this current phase, and you know a lot about the business today, into, like, you know, how do we grow towards, like, you know, 10 million or so in revenue? There’s a lot that needs to change, and so we’re trying… we’re thinking through, like, what we model

58 00:04:12.530 ⇒ 00:04:14.730 Uttam Kumaran: Will be to kind of get us there.

59 00:04:15.100 ⇒ 00:04:20.519 Uttam Kumaran: And so, yeah, we’re starting to just kind of, like, talk to people that are definitely…

60 00:04:21.070 ⇒ 00:04:35.000 Uttam Kumaran: not just coming in and, like, filling in a gap on, like, one client or delivery, but, like, also thinking about people that want to help, like, operate the company. So if anything, I think this is just getting…

61 00:04:35.110 ⇒ 00:04:41.749 Uttam Kumaran: all of us together, and I think, Robert, it’s… we… having Clarence in our corner and taking… using…

62 00:04:41.940 ⇒ 00:04:48.210 Uttam Kumaran: his knowledge as a way for us to, you know, figure out all of our issues, I think is… would be really helpful, but…

63 00:04:48.310 ⇒ 00:04:56.889 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, Clarence, I’ll let you give an intro, and then kind of talk about what you’re also thinking about for, like, this next stage for your career, and then maybe we can just, like, kick it off from there.

64 00:04:57.500 ⇒ 00:05:14.230 Clarence Stone: Yeah, sure, and I’ll try to keep this super short. Robert, I actually grew up right across the river from where you are, in, so, I did pre-med, decided I didn’t want to do it, and ended up, just getting my biochem degree, and,

65 00:05:14.240 ⇒ 00:05:21.030 Clarence Stone: My first job ever was actually being picked up by a venture-backed accelerator, so…

66 00:05:21.030 ⇒ 00:05:21.490 Robert Tseng: Wow.

67 00:05:21.490 ⇒ 00:05:34.380 Clarence Stone: Yeah, just coming out of, like, college, I failed, you know, in business already. And I can tell you more about that, but, like, I, you know, I kind of want to share with you, like, the last 6 years.

68 00:05:34.380 ⇒ 00:05:48.329 Clarence Stone: I spent the last 5 at EY as a product innovation leader, so we were trying to figure out how to build awesome technology and implement the newest stuff for PEs, banks. I focused on, wealth asset management.

69 00:05:48.330 ⇒ 00:05:49.820 Clarence Stone: So,

70 00:05:49.890 ⇒ 00:06:14.819 Clarence Stone: earlier this year, I said, hey, we need to bring AI local so all of these companies would actually want to buy into it, and it’s actually gone pretty well. I don’t know if Utam’s told you, but, like, last week, I had two of my team members acquired, and I’m in this weird place where I go, hey, there’s an interesting inflection point, and let’s explore some opportunities, you know, outside of the product mentality that I’ve been

71 00:06:14.820 ⇒ 00:06:17.629 Clarence Stone: going with. So, yeah, that’s sort of the update.

72 00:06:18.200 ⇒ 00:06:25.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Tom mentioned that you had, yeah, you were going through transition too, so I… yeah, congrats on, congrats on that, seems like it was a…

73 00:06:25.480 ⇒ 00:06:28.829 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, instead of 13, 13, yeah.

74 00:06:29.260 ⇒ 00:06:38.129 Clarence Stone: Well, I mean, I want to highlight that, like, that kind of… those kind of moments, often seem like they’re simple from the outside, but, you know, takes a lot of… of…

75 00:06:38.480 ⇒ 00:06:41.450 Clarence Stone: internal reflection and discovery, right?

76 00:06:41.450 ⇒ 00:06:41.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

77 00:06:41.950 ⇒ 00:07:06.890 Clarence Stone: they wanted to hire my team, and I asked a lot of them on 1099s. I could have just never told them that this opportunity was there for them, and I just found it, like, immoral not to do it, right? Yeah. So, you know, there’s interesting considerations around that. So, I don’t find it unlike your current situation, where you go, hey, there’s a lot of difficulties with growth, you know, there’s a lot of introspection that needs to be done, and some…

78 00:07:07.250 ⇒ 00:07:09.939 Clarence Stone: Huge changes that need to be made, right?

79 00:07:10.210 ⇒ 00:07:10.760 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

80 00:07:10.760 ⇒ 00:07:15.159 Clarence Stone: And that’s sort of the sense that I got from your first write-up, by the way.

81 00:07:16.200 ⇒ 00:07:20.620 Uttam Kumaran: I sent Lawrence the open letter and one other doc.

82 00:07:20.870 ⇒ 00:07:33.090 Uttam Kumaran: Sure. I thought those were great, dude, like, I’ve been reading them, like, every day, but, like, I don’t really have my mind on, like, I don’t know, I don’t know how to do it, like, I’m not… I’m not one to…

83 00:07:33.430 ⇒ 00:07:41.460 Uttam Kumaran: not give my opinion, usually, if I do have one, but I’m also kind of, like, I’ve been describing it to a few people this week as, like.

84 00:07:42.270 ⇒ 00:07:54.920 Uttam Kumaran: you know, they… people would say, oh yeah, you’re evolving, like, you’re like a butterfly now, and you’re coming out of your cocoon, and I’m like, no, it’s more of, like, I’m a lizard, and I’m like, have to, like, rip my skin off to, like, get to this next phase.

85 00:07:55.230 ⇒ 00:07:56.159 Uttam Kumaran: I was talking to some people.

86 00:07:56.160 ⇒ 00:07:57.530 Clarence Stone: all about. I was like.

87 00:07:57.530 ⇒ 00:08:02.619 Uttam Kumaran: I’m talking to some people how it’s, like, ex… this one in particular, I feel really nervous about.

88 00:08:02.880 ⇒ 00:08:06.290 Uttam Kumaran: Because I just don’t know, like, I don’t know what it would be like.

89 00:08:06.540 ⇒ 00:08:11.459 Uttam Kumaran: to get those people that we outlined, or to hand off a significant portion, it just seems so…

90 00:08:12.300 ⇒ 00:08:17.620 Uttam Kumaran: different than… Like, what we’ve done to date, and…

91 00:08:17.960 ⇒ 00:08:20.690 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, but I also know that, like, as usual.

92 00:08:20.810 ⇒ 00:08:25.560 Uttam Kumaran: we’re trying to win, and so I don’t mind doing whatever it takes to…

93 00:08:25.610 ⇒ 00:08:44.620 Uttam Kumaran: to make that happen, and… but we… we certainly have a lot of changes to make on the people side, and, you know, what we’re discussing a lot about is, like, okay, are we… are we ready to make that investment? And if so, like, who do we need? And in, like, what order? And… I don’t know, but…

94 00:08:45.730 ⇒ 00:08:47.980 Uttam Kumaran: That’s timeline.

95 00:08:56.530 ⇒ 00:08:58.509 Clarence Stone: I think I lost you, dude.

96 00:09:02.700 ⇒ 00:09:04.280 Clarence Stone: Should we go cameras off, maybe at a hospital.

97 00:09:04.940 ⇒ 00:09:05.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

98 00:09:05.850 ⇒ 00:09:06.270 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

99 00:09:06.330 ⇒ 00:09:09.830 Uttam Kumaran: like… What do you think about…

100 00:09:10.040 ⇒ 00:09:13.039 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe you can even describe a little bit about, like, why…

101 00:09:13.200 ⇒ 00:09:14.240 Clarence Stone: what you think…

102 00:09:23.920 ⇒ 00:09:25.670 Robert Tseng: I think that.

103 00:09:25.670 ⇒ 00:09:26.690 Clarence Stone: Okay.

104 00:09:26.690 ⇒ 00:09:28.009 Robert Tseng: No, he’ll come back.

105 00:09:28.010 ⇒ 00:09:32.429 Clarence Stone: Yeah, he’s gonna be so bummed when I tell him that he’s gonna have to say all that again.

106 00:09:34.190 ⇒ 00:09:37.209 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess, wait, can you hear me now? Sorry, I’m just like…

107 00:09:37.760 ⇒ 00:09:39.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, you’re back. Guy, guy.

108 00:09:40.680 ⇒ 00:09:41.330 Robert Tseng: Okay.

109 00:09:41.560 ⇒ 00:09:44.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah, you were about to ask the question, then you cut out.

110 00:09:44.870 ⇒ 00:09:48.059 Robert Tseng: Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess, I just…

111 00:09:50.610 ⇒ 00:09:57.970 Robert Tseng: I guess you, you kind of read, you kind of read my, my, my notes already. I mean, it kind of just came from a place of, yeah, I mean, I think in order…

112 00:09:58.240 ⇒ 00:10:00.190 Robert Tseng: Well, it just depends on how…

113 00:10:00.540 ⇒ 00:10:02.959 Robert Tseng: And we got to this point where

114 00:10:04.410 ⇒ 00:10:08.689 Robert Tseng: What we have set up is not gonna kind of bring us to the next phase, and so…

115 00:10:08.950 ⇒ 00:10:12.829 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we kind of just need to… Like we said, like.

116 00:10:13.340 ⇒ 00:10:21.780 Robert Tseng: I mean, I actually thought the caterpillar analogy works, because, like, the caterpillar pretty much dies inside the cocoon for the chrysalis before it kind of comes out, so…

117 00:10:22.510 ⇒ 00:10:30.710 Robert Tseng: What we’ve built does actually kind of have to die, so… And obviously, that’s… that’s,

118 00:10:31.460 ⇒ 00:10:33.110 Robert Tseng: That, that part’s scary.

119 00:10:33.580 ⇒ 00:10:36.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I guess…

120 00:10:37.110 ⇒ 00:10:43.150 Robert Tseng: So, I think we just have to be around people who have kind of seen it at the 10 million plus

121 00:10:43.690 ⇒ 00:10:47.630 Robert Tseng: I mean, we’re staged, like, you know, we’re talking to…

122 00:10:48.790 ⇒ 00:10:51.370 Robert Tseng: Advisors who are now, kind of.

123 00:10:51.930 ⇒ 00:10:56.640 Robert Tseng: a few steps ahead that have done this before, built and sold companies.

124 00:10:58.280 ⇒ 00:11:03.980 Robert Tseng: that are much bigger than ours, and I think, you know, there’s a couple things that are on our mind about

125 00:11:04.110 ⇒ 00:11:11.210 Robert Tseng: You know, we have to move upmarket, track into enterprise sales, and then we also really need to just build a loyal team.

126 00:11:11.510 ⇒ 00:11:22.840 Robert Tseng: of operators, not just, like, kind of mercenaries, which is kind of what we’ve put together to get to this point. So, yeah, I think those are really the two…

127 00:11:23.460 ⇒ 00:11:28.950 Robert Tseng: like, big walls, I think, that we have to kind of, get ready to climb or knock down.

128 00:11:29.060 ⇒ 00:11:30.199 Robert Tseng: At this point.

129 00:11:35.830 ⇒ 00:11:43.569 Clarence Stone: I guess those goals make total sense, and the job description makes sense. I guess I’m trying to figure out

130 00:11:44.350 ⇒ 00:11:58.089 Clarence Stone: what is the gap that you guys are, you know, apprehensive about? What are you worried about? Because the second document kind of outlines how you want to do it, and it makes sense. And the first one is saying, this is what we want to get towards.

131 00:11:59.900 ⇒ 00:12:09.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve kind of chart… chartered… kind of chartered out kind of, like, what steps we have to take, and I mean, the past couple weeks, we’ve been talking about it more and internalizing it.

132 00:12:10.090 ⇒ 00:12:14.139 Robert Tseng: I mean, from, like, the team’s perspective, I think…

133 00:12:15.090 ⇒ 00:12:28.860 Robert Tseng: you know, the… probably their most urgent… I mean, I feel like the urgent need is either to get somebody to come in and run delivery for us, or to… or to kind of take the reins on sale. Like, I think…

134 00:12:31.670 ⇒ 00:12:51.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think both Utam and I are kind of involved in both sides of, you know, we close all the deals, and then we also kind of run all the projects, so… yeah, I think we just… we need to bring on one or two people who are just way better than us at either of those things, so…

135 00:12:51.570 ⇒ 00:12:53.889 Robert Tseng: It seems like

136 00:12:54.280 ⇒ 00:13:02.250 Robert Tseng: it seems like delivery is… is… is, probably easier to hire, I… I mean, just because…

137 00:13:02.670 ⇒ 00:13:05.670 Robert Tseng: I think, there’s just a lot of…

138 00:13:07.300 ⇒ 00:13:10.040 Robert Tseng: just tribal knowledge, I guess, about…

139 00:13:10.710 ⇒ 00:13:17.579 Robert Tseng: how we talk about the business that we’ve built up, that’s probably harder to replace, immediately.

140 00:13:18.020 ⇒ 00:13:22.650 Robert Tseng: And I also think that for us to be able to lead this,

141 00:13:23.080 ⇒ 00:13:28.549 Robert Tseng: organization to kind of the next level. We both need to continue to evolve how we

142 00:13:29.400 ⇒ 00:13:34.700 Robert Tseng: talked about the business, and we have to be comfortable in those rooms. We can’t just, like, hire

143 00:13:34.830 ⇒ 00:13:43.779 Robert Tseng: hire ourselves out of… out of doing sales at this point. So, yeah, I mean, I… I don’t think there’s so much, like, a wavering…

144 00:13:43.930 ⇒ 00:13:47.520 Robert Tseng: on, like, what needs to be done. I think we’re just starting to…

145 00:13:49.240 ⇒ 00:14:02.679 Robert Tseng: talk to people and tell them this is what we need, and see if they know someone, or if they themselves want to come in and help out in some capacity. So, I think that’s kind of what I had in mind,

146 00:14:02.850 ⇒ 00:14:06.530 Robert Tseng: popping on this call, just to see if you, Clarence, today.

147 00:14:06.820 ⇒ 00:14:14.420 Robert Tseng: you know, you have anyone in your network, or… I mean, just gotta compare your… I mean, I… yeah, see, see what…

148 00:14:15.020 ⇒ 00:14:20.659 Robert Tseng: You know, this is… if this is an opportunity that you would want to… to explore.

149 00:14:21.260 ⇒ 00:14:27.870 Clarence Stone: Yeah, okay, totally get it. Yeah, so this is where I definitely have some thoughts. So…

150 00:14:29.850 ⇒ 00:14:43.870 Clarence Stone: You’re absolutely right that the sales piece is definitely something that will take more time, that you would have to at least put some effort in, like, mentorship and doing things the

151 00:14:43.950 ⇒ 00:14:53.910 Clarence Stone: Brainforge way, and ops is something that you can definitely hire for. But weirdly, I believe that those two things should be the one job.

152 00:14:53.910 ⇒ 00:15:05.730 Clarence Stone: The person that has the face-to-face, you know, personal connection with the client should also be liable for making sure that the delivery is complete.

153 00:15:06.940 ⇒ 00:15:16.950 Clarence Stone: Because, from my personal experience, any disconnect between those two things becomes a little blurry and causes, like, internal organizational issues, right? Like.

154 00:15:16.950 ⇒ 00:15:17.660 Robert Tseng: Hey, hates.

155 00:15:17.960 ⇒ 00:15:35.349 Clarence Stone: the way I like to describe it is, if we’re gonna go on a hunt, we, you know, kill the animal, and I don’t bring it back to the camp, did I really succeed at doing, you know, at hunting? Right? You gotta bring it back and, you know, feed the people, right? So…

156 00:15:35.350 ⇒ 00:15:35.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

157 00:15:36.040 ⇒ 00:15:51.300 Clarence Stone: In consulting, they were always saying, like, hey, you gotta feed your kids, like, your staff, your team. That means you have to go win work and deliver it and get paid. So, I guess my one note to all of this is, I think eventually, you know, you should make one person responsible for both things.

158 00:15:55.670 ⇒ 00:16:00.780 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, that totally makes sense. Yeah, I guess…

159 00:16:03.580 ⇒ 00:16:13.069 Robert Tseng: I mean, apart from former consultants, I mean, I have some friends who have been in that world as well, and I was talking to a buddy of mine who’s kind of at a

160 00:16:13.400 ⇒ 00:16:17.129 Robert Tseng: Agency, around $10 million in revenue,

161 00:16:17.870 ⇒ 00:16:20.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Mike, I was just talking to Mike, what…

162 00:16:20.450 ⇒ 00:16:29.100 Robert Tseng: what brought him to, kind of, leave Big Shore Consulting, and then basically go and build a small shop, and…

163 00:16:29.570 ⇒ 00:16:35.709 Robert Tseng: I mean, I doubt his confidence is high, and I mean, there’s obviously lifestyle differences, and…

164 00:16:35.850 ⇒ 00:16:43.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we’re just, like, talking through, like, the incentives for what was in it for him to learn. For him, like, he wanted to…

165 00:16:44.480 ⇒ 00:16:49.039 Robert Tseng: He sees himself staying at that agency and working there for a couple years, and…

166 00:16:49.110 ⇒ 00:17:07.029 Robert Tseng: building up domain expertise in marketing, and he wants to go and be, like, a VP of growth at some consumer brand, later in his next step. So, for him, it was like, okay, I’ve got enough taste of, like, doing a bunch of different things that in the institu… in the bigger institutions, he just wants to focus on

167 00:17:07.319 ⇒ 00:17:14.950 Robert Tseng: marketing projects, and then he’ll kind of go in… go in that direction. He felt like the team he’s with now really sets him up to do that.

168 00:17:15.680 ⇒ 00:17:20.849 Robert Tseng: So I’m just thinking, you know, like, well, what’s the Brainforge identity? Like, what would really…

169 00:17:21.020 ⇒ 00:17:23.479 Robert Tseng: incentivize somebody who…

170 00:17:23.990 ⇒ 00:17:31.800 Robert Tseng: Has obviously, kind of, been at a bigger organization, seen it done at 10 hundredx, like, our size, and…

171 00:17:31.900 ⇒ 00:17:43.229 Robert Tseng: you know, what’s in it for them to come in and learn from us, or kind of building this organization? Like, what’s our spike, that people would be willing to…

172 00:17:43.620 ⇒ 00:17:56.030 Robert Tseng: you know, to kind of come join us. And so, I don’t really have an answer to that yet, but, I do think that that background is the kind of person that we need at this point.

173 00:17:56.680 ⇒ 00:18:13.770 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I… so, Robert, I can instantly answer that question as to why, you know, your organization or what you and UTOM are doing are so… so much more interesting to me than, you know, what’s happening in consulting as a whole. I can tell you right off the bat that consulting is broken right now.

174 00:18:13.840 ⇒ 00:18:28.360 Clarence Stone: Big Four is in terrible shape. You know, I’ve got friends at even smaller regional places, like Spur Group, who are saying that they’re just kind of a race to the bottom as implementers, right? So…

175 00:18:28.360 ⇒ 00:18:43.379 Clarence Stone: Yeah. What you guys are doing is you’re solving that problem and getting through the red tape issues, because you don’t have, you know, the weight of the organization and all of these restrictions to begin with.

176 00:18:43.450 ⇒ 00:18:49.589 Clarence Stone: And that’s super exciting, and it should be to a lot of experienced, you know, consultants.

177 00:18:50.850 ⇒ 00:18:55.880 Clarence Stone: I mean, Neil instantly was very curious with what you guys are up to, right?

178 00:18:56.060 ⇒ 00:18:56.650 Robert Tseng: Right.

179 00:18:58.540 ⇒ 00:19:03.080 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, I think that’s… that’s not really something I’ve spent too much thinking about.

180 00:19:03.500 ⇒ 00:19:06.270 Robert Tseng: I guess, like.

181 00:19:07.840 ⇒ 00:19:13.589 Robert Tseng: Why are more consultants not going off and just trying this themselves? Like, yeah, I don’t know, these…

182 00:19:13.760 ⇒ 00:19:18.149 Robert Tseng: I feel like what we’ve built… I mean, we’ve met a lot of people that are kind of just…

183 00:19:18.610 ⇒ 00:19:38.250 Robert Tseng: solo consultants that kind of maybe make a few hundred thousand, and they’re in the first year or two years, and they decide they want to go back to the house, or… I mean, the opportunity cost is pretty high for them to kind of grind it out with us for a few years, so… we’ve tried to, like, kind of send out the bat signal, and kind of hit up some other people who

184 00:19:38.840 ⇒ 00:19:41.140 Robert Tseng: Who seem like, on paper, they’re…

185 00:19:41.290 ⇒ 00:19:56.059 Robert Tseng: They have the… they have the chops, they’ve also kind of tried the entrepreneurial side, and started something themselves, but decided they didn’t actually want to build it in the way that we have, and we’ve decided to bring them… bring them on, but it’s… it’s not really…

186 00:19:56.700 ⇒ 00:20:03.069 Robert Tseng: I guess we haven’t had any luck and kind of bring anyone with that background yet, so…

187 00:20:03.170 ⇒ 00:20:06.679 Robert Tseng: Maybe we’re… there are a lot of people, we just haven’t talked to enough, maybe.

188 00:20:07.460 ⇒ 00:20:26.310 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, I guess the core question is, what kind of structure do you guys want to move towards, right? Definitely not a, you know, large tech company S-Corp style, but it seems like, you know, there is a strategic shift to something else.

189 00:20:26.610 ⇒ 00:20:28.060 Clarence Stone: So, like.

190 00:20:29.320 ⇒ 00:20:45.579 Clarence Stone: I guess part of bringing on more experienced people is also messaging to them what, you know, their opportunity space is and what the structure of the organization is going to be, right? I’ll give you one. The other day, I was talking to, partners at Anderson,

191 00:20:45.980 ⇒ 00:20:56.160 Clarence Stone: And they’re opening up a, you know, tax or finance consulting team, and off the bat, they say, hey, these are non-equity roles, right? Like, we just don’t have equity.

192 00:20:56.160 ⇒ 00:21:18.990 Clarence Stone: So, okay, I instantly know, you know, how this organization is going to be run. Technically, those partners are all MDs, and, you know, they’re probably making bonuses based on their actual sales performance, not their equity within the organization, right? So, with a new organization and a, you know, unique way that you guys are doing things, I think part of that is also defining

193 00:21:18.990 ⇒ 00:21:28.590 Clarence Stone: what that, you know, organizational structure that you’re imagining in the future looks like, and I think that’s probably the scariest, most difficult thing to do, by the way.

194 00:21:28.590 ⇒ 00:21:29.040 Robert Tseng: Hmm.

195 00:21:29.040 ⇒ 00:21:31.600 Clarence Stone: I don’t think everything that exists today.

196 00:21:31.600 ⇒ 00:21:32.659 Uttam Kumaran: It’s hard to roll back.

197 00:21:32.660 ⇒ 00:21:33.160 Clarence Stone: into what.

198 00:21:33.160 ⇒ 00:21:34.080 Uttam Kumaran: Hard to roll back.

199 00:21:34.080 ⇒ 00:21:37.659 Clarence Stone: Right? Yeah, absolutely hard to roll out on top of that.

200 00:21:38.230 ⇒ 00:21:40.710 Uttam Kumaran: No, not roll out, roll back.

201 00:21:40.710 ⇒ 00:21:43.959 Clarence Stone: Oh, rolled back. Well, yeah, it’s absolutely devastatingly difficult.

202 00:21:44.350 ⇒ 00:21:46.889 Clarence Stone: It’s pretty expensive to roll back, yeah.

203 00:21:46.890 ⇒ 00:21:56.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I… we can pivot and try things, but it’s… we’re doing… a lot of our things we can easily sort of pull back and try again.

204 00:21:56.340 ⇒ 00:22:03.280 Uttam Kumaran: But, I mean, I don’t know, like, this is also where, like, I think the reason we’re asking you the question is, like, you’re a good archetype of someone who…

205 00:22:03.730 ⇒ 00:22:13.730 Uttam Kumaran: and this is what I was talking to Robert, is, like, a lot of people, given, like, how fast we’ve moved and the types of clients we’re not working with, there’s definitely, like, I don’t think we’ve had a hard time

206 00:22:13.820 ⇒ 00:22:21.209 Uttam Kumaran: recruiting, because we don’t pay really high, and work is really hard, so we still have a lot of people, which shows that we’ve…

207 00:22:21.290 ⇒ 00:22:40.179 Uttam Kumaran: recruited well, but for this next phase, we’re almost… we can’t think about it that way. Like, I’m not very interested in just, like, getting whoever’s available, putting them in, and seeing what happens. Like, I don’t mind spending more or carving out more for the right person, because I think it’s sort of make or break, you know?

208 00:22:40.500 ⇒ 00:22:56.319 Uttam Kumaran: And that is something that we’re just trying to understand, like, okay, for a person at your level who has the optionality of going back into big consulting.

209 00:22:56.720 ⇒ 00:23:05.520 Uttam Kumaran: Thinking about starting your own agency, kind of in a similar manner.

210 00:23:06.200 ⇒ 00:23:15.710 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what is attractive about this opportunity, or, like, what would make it even more… important.

211 00:23:16.580 ⇒ 00:23:24.350 Uttam Kumaran: model, and I think that’s something that we’ve been thinking a lot about.

212 00:23:26.380 ⇒ 00:23:28.420 Uttam Kumaran: I feel…

213 00:23:28.550 ⇒ 00:23:42.279 Uttam Kumaran: kind of about, like, giving upside, because as long as we’re all hitting the goals we want to do, I feel like it shouldn’t be like that.

214 00:23:43.000 ⇒ 00:23:48.449 Uttam Kumaran: But also, we don’t want to hire…

215 00:23:53.660 ⇒ 00:23:58.929 Clarence Stone: Oh, it was almost working for a while. You said, you don’t want to hire, and then…

216 00:23:59.190 ⇒ 00:24:01.520 Robert Tseng: I’m assuming you caught the gist of what he was saying, yeah.

217 00:24:01.520 ⇒ 00:24:02.530 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah.

218 00:24:02.530 ⇒ 00:24:03.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay.

219 00:24:04.630 ⇒ 00:24:05.409 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

220 00:24:05.410 ⇒ 00:24:20.539 Clarence Stone: You’re open to giving upside, absolutely, I totally get that. I think, you know, the root of answering the organizational structure question is answering the question of how you want to incentivize your leaders

221 00:24:20.830 ⇒ 00:24:23.049 Clarence Stone: In your organization going forward.

222 00:24:23.330 ⇒ 00:24:24.080 Robert Tseng: Yes.

223 00:24:24.080 ⇒ 00:24:39.400 Clarence Stone: Like, the fact pattern I’m hearing is, hey, in order for us to scale, we need to actually scale our capabilities to approach clients, manage relationships, and deliver on what we’re selling, right? And in order to do that, you’d have to scale a pretty senior role, and to answer the question of

224 00:24:39.540 ⇒ 00:24:57.489 Clarence Stone: scaling that role is, like, what is the structure in which you want to incentivize them, right? Absolutely, totally get that you want to give upside, right? But how, right? And I think that’s a really hard question to answer, because if you incentivize people the wrong way, it’s hard to reverse, right?

225 00:24:58.980 ⇒ 00:24:59.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

226 00:25:00.660 ⇒ 00:25:03.939 Robert Tseng: So, I mean, I think we’ve talked about, like,

227 00:25:04.620 ⇒ 00:25:13.639 Robert Tseng: I mean, there’s… I don’t even know all the different ways you could do it. I think what we’ve done with our existing team is we’ve tried to give them, like, performance bonuses, like, here’s

228 00:25:13.700 ⇒ 00:25:28.059 Robert Tseng: But it is kind of weird, no one’s on a tenant, or no one’s on a W-2, and so, you know, at the end of the day, they’re all just kind of billable, and, you know, not everyone is fully utilized, or utilization is probably more like 80% or something, so it’s like they…

229 00:25:28.320 ⇒ 00:25:36.659 Robert Tseng: It’s just… it’s just weird. Like, part… most of them are really thinking about just, like, maximizing their hours. They’re not really even thinking about hitting the tiers that we’ve said.

230 00:25:36.930 ⇒ 00:25:47.909 Robert Tseng: we haven’t really offered equity to anyone yet. I mean, I think we want to be able to do that, and so, you know, if that’s… if that’s kind of… if that’s the way to go, I think we’re… we were kind of advised to basically just

231 00:25:48.300 ⇒ 00:26:02.859 Robert Tseng: figure out, like, well, what’s the… what’s the percentage we’re willing to kind of set aside, and that’s going to be allocated to what we were called… what I kind of called the founding ops team in that… in that talk. So, I think we’re open to that as well. So, I… I do think it’s probably going to be…

232 00:26:03.440 ⇒ 00:26:11.310 Robert Tseng: Well, I mean, we’ve both been on, like, kind of the… received you know, some…

233 00:26:12.850 ⇒ 00:26:26.970 Robert Tseng: some form of equity in previous rules that we’ve had. For me, it wouldn’t okay that one, like, pretty much was, like, worth not paying, like, so, I think… I mean, my opinion is that, like, I think that…

234 00:26:27.800 ⇒ 00:26:31.779 Robert Tseng: Well, we… we would prefer somebody who… who wants…

235 00:26:32.070 ⇒ 00:26:38.440 Robert Tseng: less, kind of, like, cash-eared up front, because they’re gonna be more willing… I mean, you’re permitted to staying

236 00:26:38.580 ⇒ 00:26:41.360 Robert Tseng: Staying with us to get kind of hit.

237 00:26:41.710 ⇒ 00:26:48.769 Robert Tseng: hit our exit goals in order to be able to get your reward. So that, to me, seems like that’s… that’s more…

238 00:26:49.070 ⇒ 00:26:52.320 Robert Tseng: Necessary for, you know, this type of senior.

239 00:26:52.650 ⇒ 00:26:58.459 Robert Tseng: senior level higher. But for other… for… I mean, I think for people who are just

240 00:26:59.650 ⇒ 00:27:09.900 Robert Tseng: executing on… on clients that I think that probably would not offer equity to anybody outside of this… outside of this one or few, few people. It’s kind of…

241 00:27:10.340 ⇒ 00:27:12.659 Robert Tseng: The way that, at least I think about it.

242 00:27:13.380 ⇒ 00:27:27.850 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, hard question to answer without understanding your revenue model, right? So, I mean, I can show you within the industry how incentives work at, like, different service capabilities, and how

243 00:27:28.560 ⇒ 00:27:46.999 Clarence Stone: you know, people are experiencing the upside at each rank, but I think we would have to go through the same exercise for you guys to really understand that. So, you know, I’m just popping up a quick mirror here. Oh, I don’t think… and there we go. Okay. I don’t… I don’t… you guys probably can’t see this, but I just made 3 boxes. I’ll pull it up.

244 00:27:47.000 ⇒ 00:28:01.759 Clarence Stone: So, for managed services, like, you could have a situation where your staff are incentivized by bonuses based on performance metrics, right? And that’s what you guys have today, right?

245 00:28:01.980 ⇒ 00:28:02.470 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

246 00:28:02.470 ⇒ 00:28:20.189 Clarence Stone: And then you have, your, leads, who are incentivized by, one of two things. So, managed services really is, like, the sale has already happened, and the clients already are looped in for, like, one or two, maybe three years of work, so the leads are about, you know, the efficiency.

247 00:28:20.340 ⇒ 00:28:23.770 Clarence Stone: And, delivery capability of that managed service.

248 00:28:23.770 ⇒ 00:28:24.245 Robert Tseng: 15…

249 00:28:25.140 ⇒ 00:28:26.270 Clarence Stone: Yeah, sorry.

250 00:28:26.630 ⇒ 00:28:29.139 Clarence Stone: Do you have anything, Kirby?

251 00:28:29.140 ⇒ 00:28:32.990 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s a difference between staff, staff and leads on here. Okay, okay, I see what you mean.

252 00:28:32.990 ⇒ 00:28:38.590 Clarence Stone: And then, and then, like, you’ve got your MDs or partners who…

253 00:28:38.750 ⇒ 00:28:53.579 Clarence Stone: who are actually looking at not just this managed service for this one client, but across multiple managed services for multiple clients, how do I make this more efficient and sell more, right? So, make MS cheaper.

254 00:28:53.580 ⇒ 00:29:09.769 Clarence Stone: and sell more of it. So, their incentive structure is gonna look more like a percentage of the sale that they make, and then a percentage of the efficiency gains that they deliver.

255 00:29:09.770 ⇒ 00:29:10.600 Uttam Kumaran: Great.

256 00:29:10.600 ⇒ 00:29:16.879 Clarence Stone: Each tier ends up being, effectively incentivized in various ways, right?

257 00:29:17.420 ⇒ 00:29:36.700 Clarence Stone: the top of the bucket is to fill the bucket with work, right? The leads are to make sure that everything does on a day-to-day basis, get delivered, and the staff are just to hit their, you know, performance metrics. But that’s just for managed services, because managed services are a one-time sale where the client’s, you know, just subscribed for multiple years.

258 00:29:37.410 ⇒ 00:29:38.280 Clarence Stone: Right.

259 00:29:38.510 ⇒ 00:29:42.530 Clarence Stone: Like, you also have, like, advisory models where both, you know, staff

260 00:29:42.960 ⇒ 00:29:58.599 Clarence Stone: and leads. Like, this is more of, like, the few months that I spent at McKinsey, where it doesn’t matter what rank you are, your job is to always be looking out for more work, right? And your bonuses are based on how much you’re billing.

261 00:29:58.780 ⇒ 00:30:01.859 Uttam Kumaran: What was the disincentive in that? Like, what did that cause?

262 00:30:02.210 ⇒ 00:30:20.799 Clarence Stone: This caused a lot of siloed projects where nobody’s talking, right? Because maybe I was a senior, you know, if I was a senior consultant at McKinsey, and I was already talking to a tech lead there who approved a project, I could just be, you know, advising this guy, billing a ton, you know, leadership would be happy, but they wouldn’t know

263 00:30:20.800 ⇒ 00:30:22.890 Clarence Stone: what I was actually working on with them.

264 00:30:23.790 ⇒ 00:30:25.130 Uttam Kumaran: I see, okay.

265 00:30:25.760 ⇒ 00:30:44.240 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so it caused a lot of fragmentation, and most of the time, the way we resolve this on the advisory layer is that the MDs end up having to make sure that they’re watching over their lead projects and actually scaling that, so…

266 00:30:44.240 ⇒ 00:30:46.809 Clarence Stone: in this structure, the MDs

267 00:30:47.610 ⇒ 00:30:59.460 Clarence Stone: end up doing this, but instead of making the managed services cheaper, right, make sure that advisory is scaled by similar services and capabilities.

268 00:31:03.320 ⇒ 00:31:24.099 Clarence Stone: So, I don’t know if this exercise is helpful, but, like, really, what I’m doing here is saying, okay, you’ve got, you know, a type of service or product that you’re selling. At each rank, you’re incentivizing things in a different way. And I think building this out allows you to see, you know, your advantages and disadvantages, right? Because, you know.

269 00:31:24.510 ⇒ 00:31:36.010 Clarence Stone: if I was staff in a managed service, you’re absolutely right. My day-to-day would just be, hey, I need to get more hours, and I need to hit my, you know, KPI, and then I can do nothing else, and I’ll be fine.

270 00:31:36.160 ⇒ 00:31:36.890 Clarence Stone: Right.

271 00:31:36.890 ⇒ 00:31:37.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

272 00:31:38.080 ⇒ 00:31:48.430 Clarence Stone: And in managed services, we like that, because it makes this person, a predictable resource, because these things are, like, 3-5 year contract cycles.

273 00:31:48.520 ⇒ 00:32:00.769 Clarence Stone: You know, in advisory, you might not like that. You don’t want somebody that’s just checking in. You want them to be eyes and ears on the ground for you, and actually helping you sell, and understand, you know, what your client needs, and building a relationship.

274 00:32:01.040 ⇒ 00:32:10.169 Clarence Stone: Right? So, it’s really dependent on, you know, how you want your service to be, what you’re selling, and the experience you want your clients to have.

275 00:32:14.400 ⇒ 00:32:15.280 Robert Tseng: I see.

276 00:32:18.690 ⇒ 00:32:20.319 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, right now, all of our…

277 00:32:20.630 ⇒ 00:32:39.669 Uttam Kumaran: contracts are, like, 3 to 6 months. In length, typically. I mean, we have… a lot of them are typically renewing, but we’re at the point where, one, we’re trying to think of, like, a reproducible service model, so, like, we’re at the point where we’ve done… we’re doing similar work for a bunch of people, there’s no standardization, so we need to start to standardize that. Second.

278 00:32:39.830 ⇒ 00:32:47.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we haven’t done a great job at delivery source opportunities, like, at all, because Robert and I are the only ones, sort of, like, thinking about that.

279 00:32:47.330 ⇒ 00:33:02.930 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and third is, like, we’re actually not really even attached… like, at this point, I consider everybody in our company in the staff model. Like, we have nobody that we’ve explicitly attached to KPIs that they, like, kind of do or die by.

280 00:33:03.180 ⇒ 00:33:06.960 Uttam Kumaran: There are maybe a few people that can get to the leads.

281 00:33:07.270 ⇒ 00:33:16.009 Uttam Kumaran: But again, like, what I told Robert is, like, we want people that are, like, bar raisers, and so if it happens that there are people in the company that can do that, sure, but

282 00:33:16.300 ⇒ 00:33:22.670 Uttam Kumaran: If not, that’s also okay. I’m not, like, married to bringing any of those folks necessarily up.

283 00:33:23.070 ⇒ 00:33:32.929 Uttam Kumaran: But, yeah, I mean, this is, like, kind of, like, probably what we need, and what… mainly what we need is just we need support internally, not only to, like, put this in place, but then to sort of drive.

284 00:33:33.320 ⇒ 00:33:38.300 Uttam Kumaran: The incentive, and, like, correct, you know, where people aren’t hitting, and, like, measure.

285 00:33:38.430 ⇒ 00:33:41.059 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, it’s all falling on… on us.

286 00:33:41.930 ⇒ 00:33:42.620 Clarence Stone: Yup.

287 00:33:43.390 ⇒ 00:34:01.430 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, happy to help you guys through this. This is a fun exercise to go through, because, you know, you’re absolutely right. The next thing I would kind of draw on this is this diagram is, like, what would make a staff want to be a lead, right? Well, maybe they’re… they’re gonna get,

288 00:34:02.080 ⇒ 00:34:17.889 Clarence Stone: actual performance bonuses that are related to efficiency, and they’re already super efficient. Hey, maybe they want to scale that and teach other people to do it, right? And maybe that should be the KPI for staff, so that they do want to grow into a lead. And that’s the kind of conversation that I think

289 00:34:17.889 ⇒ 00:34:22.509 Clarence Stone: You know, it might be helpful in breaking down the challenge of, like, structure overall.

290 00:34:22.510 ⇒ 00:34:30.229 Clarence Stone: But to… to answer your question about, you know, how to standardize the service delivery process,

291 00:34:30.690 ⇒ 00:34:34.319 Clarence Stone: I… I think you guys are really good with rituals.

292 00:34:34.550 ⇒ 00:34:39.509 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So, like, it’s really just putting an SOP around the rituals that work.

293 00:34:39.800 ⇒ 00:34:42.370 Clarence Stone: I don’t know if that made sense.

294 00:34:42.370 ⇒ 00:34:43.060 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

295 00:34:43.520 ⇒ 00:34:51.579 Clarence Stone: Alright, so that’s another, you know, exercise to go through, probably. But yeah, and this is fun, guys.

296 00:34:51.880 ⇒ 00:35:00.580 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, what do you, like, what is your gut instinct, like… What do you think? Is this something that you’d be interested in, like, supporting? I guess, maybe talk a little bit about, like, what…

297 00:35:00.780 ⇒ 00:35:03.960 Uttam Kumaran: What you’ve been thinking about, now that you’re kind of free.

298 00:35:04.500 ⇒ 00:35:08.220 Uttam Kumaran: About, like, what’s next, and, you know, of course, for us, I don’t think we’re, like.

299 00:35:08.860 ⇒ 00:35:15.690 Uttam Kumaran: super, like, say yes or no on the call, and we’re also… you know me, I’m, like, not a weirdo, so… more I’m interested in, like.

300 00:35:15.790 ⇒ 00:35:29.349 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, what do you… what… I’m like, what do you see now that’s compelling? What do you… what would you need to see in order to maybe make a bigger investment of your time? But also, like, what do you want? And ultimately, like, I think…

301 00:35:29.620 ⇒ 00:35:34.829 Uttam Kumaran: where, I mean, of course I play for the team, but I think we have a great opportunity, but also.

302 00:35:35.120 ⇒ 00:35:40.240 Uttam Kumaran: for this next class, I’m… like, all the people on staff, like, easily.

303 00:35:40.270 ⇒ 00:35:51.070 Uttam Kumaran: we’re like, yeah, I’m down to do this, but again, like, I think I want people that are like, okay, what is… I want to consider what’s in it for them, and I want to make it so that the positive incentive is there.

304 00:35:51.070 ⇒ 00:36:01.079 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, we’re both, you know, very interested in driving towards a sale of the business. And so, this… if there was equity involved, it’s not like that is,

305 00:36:01.100 ⇒ 00:36:06.169 Uttam Kumaran: gonna go nowhere, and like, as Robert mentioned, like, I’ve only been part of businesses where

306 00:36:06.220 ⇒ 00:36:10.400 Uttam Kumaran: That happened, or the amount was so small that it didn’t even cover, like.

307 00:36:11.410 ⇒ 00:36:18.280 Uttam Kumaran: the tax, and so it was basically useless. So for this next crowd, I’m like, okay, if we sell the business in 5 years.

308 00:36:18.420 ⇒ 00:36:24.180 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it should totally be worth your time, and we want people who wake up every day driving towards that.

309 00:36:24.280 ⇒ 00:36:26.180 Clarence Stone: I mean, yep, yeah.

310 00:36:26.180 ⇒ 00:36:50.060 Clarence Stone: The motivation dude is probably going to be an LLP structure, because, like, you do want to make a massive group of, you know, leaders who are incentivized every day to wake up and make money and drive results, right? But, you know, the partnership model has, like, so many flaws to it that I still would go through this exercise to make sure, because, like, instinctually, that’s what I would say, because it gives you the

311 00:36:50.060 ⇒ 00:36:56.649 Clarence Stone: you know, the maximum motivation to, have somebody wake up and want to sell.

312 00:36:56.890 ⇒ 00:37:03.250 Clarence Stone: Yeah, but to answer your first question of what would I want to see from you guys, well, I think…

313 00:37:03.680 ⇒ 00:37:09.250 Clarence Stone: You know, maybe we should just sit down and go through this exercise when you guys have, like, 30, 40 minutes, because

314 00:37:09.250 ⇒ 00:37:34.150 Clarence Stone: you know, I want to just find alignment. And in my current position, I’m sort of like, I’ve got half a book of business that I’m sitting on. I’d love to bring that over, too, because, you know, what’s the point of just having that sit around? And the thing is, I think I do something a little bit different than what you guys do, where you’re finding, you know, really great optimizations in the market where you can repeatably sell services, and I sit as somebody

315 00:37:34.150 ⇒ 00:37:35.570 Clarence Stone: Who, you know.

316 00:37:36.020 ⇒ 00:37:48.380 Clarence Stone: like, provides advice on very unique, targeted problems. So there’s a little bit of a difference in what I’m, you know, focused on doing today versus what you guys are working on. So, that’s my initial thoughts.

317 00:37:48.850 ⇒ 00:37:57.079 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and it’s also, like, this is just where our business is today, and we’ve sold what we know how to sell, which is a lot of data, and then increasingly AI.

318 00:37:57.320 ⇒ 00:38:14.519 Uttam Kumaran: But again, like, the business can morph, like, I think I’m honestly less concerned about the… what it is we’re selling, and more concerned about, like, how we’re making it repeatable, and the incentives. Because even if we end up in other industries or things we don’t know, I don’t think that’s necessarily negative.

319 00:38:14.620 ⇒ 00:38:18.139 Uttam Kumaran: Success is the criteria, you know, so…

320 00:38:19.390 ⇒ 00:38:32.800 Clarence Stone: So I have some initial thoughts on how to create that process to be repeatable. Do you guys know about, the double diamond, you know, design system, design thinking system at all?

321 00:38:35.640 ⇒ 00:38:38.220 Uttam Kumaran: Robert, I don’t… I have no clue.

322 00:38:38.860 ⇒ 00:38:39.690 Robert Tseng: No, what is that?

323 00:38:39.980 ⇒ 00:38:49.550 Clarence Stone: So this… they’ve modified it to actually include, like, AI project building and stuff like that, but it is, like, a interesting style of, you know.

324 00:38:49.960 ⇒ 00:38:59.840 Clarence Stone: PMing, that came out of, UX design. And, the long story short is there’s inputs and outputs to every phases.

325 00:38:59.840 ⇒ 00:39:17.980 Clarence Stone: Right? And then, you’re just gonna measure that every step is done, so it feels like, like, you guys have the rituals where those inputs and outputs are being done. You need to just write out the playbook, and I’m trying to find out. So there’s this website called Nielsen UX, if I could find it.

326 00:39:17.980 ⇒ 00:39:29.289 Clarence Stone: And it breaks down each step of the design thinking process with inputs and outputs, and gives you example activities to do to get to those inputs and outputs, so…

327 00:39:29.400 ⇒ 00:39:46.760 Clarence Stone: One, I think it’s a cool example of what a playbook could be. Two, it’s also a resource that I go to to figure out, you know, what I might be missing in terms of activities to get a good design framework through for a product.

328 00:39:47.750 ⇒ 00:39:51.119 Clarence Stone: Let me see if I can find this. Why… can’t I find it?

329 00:39:51.420 ⇒ 00:39:52.689 Clarence Stone: There we are.

330 00:39:53.460 ⇒ 00:39:54.960 Clarence Stone: Sharing screen.

331 00:40:00.440 ⇒ 00:40:01.940 Clarence Stone: So,

332 00:40:02.570 ⇒ 00:40:15.029 Clarence Stone: I guess the goal here is to create something… a process that’s repeatable, right? That anybody on your team can kind of do over and over again, but each of those steps are well covered, and…

333 00:40:15.030 ⇒ 00:40:33.690 Clarence Stone: you’re going through each exercise. So, design thinking through these six phases, right? Empathize, define, IDE, Prototype, whatever, and if you go through each of these articles, it tells you what to do to go from the start and end of each of these steps, and you can do a whole host of different activities, right?

334 00:40:33.890 ⇒ 00:40:34.480 Clarence Stone: Like…

335 00:40:34.480 ⇒ 00:40:34.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s.

336 00:40:34.920 ⇒ 00:40:49.130 Clarence Stone: empathize and define in this step, there’s, like, all of these activities that you can do, right? But as long as you do two or three of them, and you understand what the user needs, right, it doesn’t matter how you do it. You can visualize their behaviors and attitudes, or create an empathy map.

337 00:40:49.230 ⇒ 00:40:58.850 Clarence Stone: Doesn’t really matter, right? It depends on the project, but at the end of this phase, you have to make sure you have all your insights and you understand exactly what you’re building.

338 00:40:59.270 ⇒ 00:40:59.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah.

339 00:40:59.800 ⇒ 00:41:02.570 Clarence Stone: That’s sort of, like, an example of what I mean by a framework.

340 00:41:02.910 ⇒ 00:41:06.699 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, dude, we do, I would say, each of these…

341 00:41:06.900 ⇒ 00:41:16.330 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re getting more defined on some of these steps. And additionally, as we define each step, we basically are starting to build AI scaffolding around all of them.

342 00:41:16.330 ⇒ 00:41:18.659 Clarence Stone: Mix of prompts, mix of…

343 00:41:18.790 ⇒ 00:41:24.080 Uttam Kumaran: Like, stuff in our platform to assist with the gathering and execution of a step, or the handoff.

344 00:41:24.490 ⇒ 00:41:29.659 Uttam Kumaran: And so, totally, like, I don’t think we have any issue with adopting

345 00:41:29.860 ⇒ 00:41:33.820 Uttam Kumaran: a framework like this. I mean, most of our work does fall under this, and

346 00:41:34.250 ⇒ 00:41:45.369 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, for us, it’s also, like, who owns each step, who is capable, at what point you should loop more people in, things like that, but… but yeah, I guess, like, we have no problem on what…

347 00:41:45.470 ⇒ 00:41:54.600 Uttam Kumaran: sort of project management method, or what reproducibility sort of framework to adopt. I think for us, again, it’s just a muscle to adopt it.

348 00:41:55.100 ⇒ 00:41:57.119 Uttam Kumaran: And then to kind of, like.

349 00:41:57.120 ⇒ 00:42:00.519 Robert Tseng: Force, the expectation on everybody else, you know?

350 00:42:00.980 ⇒ 00:42:17.180 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so your delivery lead is gonna have to actually decompose this and say, you know, for the definition of the product step, these are the three activities I’m gonna do, I need X person to do it, and it should take them X amount of days, and this is the output that I need to see from them.

351 00:42:17.350 ⇒ 00:42:18.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

352 00:42:18.080 ⇒ 00:42:30.810 Clarence Stone: The delivery lead has to be able to decompose this and figure out exactly what activity needs to be done in each of these phases, and what good looks like at each phase, or else, you know, that ticket needs to get sent back.

353 00:42:31.820 ⇒ 00:42:32.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

354 00:42:32.710 ⇒ 00:42:41.580 Clarence Stone: So, that would be the framework, and I think… I think you guys got it in terms of, like, you know, just formalizing steps to doing that, but…

355 00:42:42.150 ⇒ 00:43:00.199 Clarence Stone: Yeah, you know, the way my team worked was I would get intake, you know, a problem, or, you know, speak to a client and identify a need. I’d turn around and say, hey, you know, here’s the problem, here’s the intended end state, and I would have a team that goes through this

356 00:43:00.200 ⇒ 00:43:03.700 Clarence Stone: Cycle by themselves, without actually needing me.

357 00:43:03.700 ⇒ 00:43:13.450 Clarence Stone: Right? I’ll give them all the content that they need along the way as they ask for more details, but, you know, in terms of, like, a good operating standalone team, they should be able.

358 00:43:13.450 ⇒ 00:43:14.060 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

359 00:43:14.060 ⇒ 00:43:15.140 Clarence Stone: Let me do this.

360 00:43:15.560 ⇒ 00:43:16.100 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

361 00:43:19.340 ⇒ 00:43:26.959 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, right now, if I was to give you, like, if that… I… we would be not only… we would be basically leading multiple steps to this.

362 00:43:27.300 ⇒ 00:43:31.600 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, across every client. I wish we had, like, yeah, like, 12.

363 00:43:32.070 ⇒ 00:43:39.230 Uttam Kumaran: So, we have people that can execute parts of each thing, but nobody that is, like.

364 00:43:39.510 ⇒ 00:43:41.560 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I’ll sort of hand off.

365 00:43:41.740 ⇒ 00:43:45.540 Uttam Kumaran: Cleanly, at any step. Or the whole thing in general.

366 00:43:45.930 ⇒ 00:43:46.540 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

367 00:43:47.670 ⇒ 00:43:48.930 Uttam Kumaran: Which blows.

368 00:43:50.290 ⇒ 00:43:51.420 Uttam Kumaran: It blows.

369 00:43:52.090 ⇒ 00:43:59.079 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, give me high touch. I think, you know, give me a lot of observation needed. Sorry, did Robert, were you saying something?

370 00:43:59.550 ⇒ 00:44:01.609 Robert Tseng: No, no, sorry, that might be the wind blowing.

371 00:44:01.610 ⇒ 00:44:09.090 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, I’d have to just observe and see, you know.

372 00:44:09.240 ⇒ 00:44:11.340 Clarence Stone: Where those links might be missing, but…

373 00:44:11.340 ⇒ 00:44:11.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

374 00:44:12.100 ⇒ 00:44:22.609 Clarence Stone: I think you guys got this. But to answer, I think, the question that you had way back for me, I think I have a better, concise way of answering it. I’m actually… Yeah.

375 00:44:22.610 ⇒ 00:44:40.150 Clarence Stone: I also applied to UT Austin’s, iSchool for UX design, for a PhD, and the topic of research is figuring out how people are actually going to implement, usable applications with, and how UX is going to change based on those.

376 00:44:40.150 ⇒ 00:44:40.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

377 00:44:40.800 ⇒ 00:45:00.670 Clarence Stone: That’s right. So I’m very fascinated in figuring out, you know, what this is gonna look like. I truly believe that everything that got us to this point is not going to be what gets us to the next point, especially with AI. This is a complete rethinking of a lot of things, so, this is an interesting challenge to solve.

378 00:45:01.610 ⇒ 00:45:02.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

379 00:45:02.790 ⇒ 00:45:05.509 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I guess, like… Yeah, go ahead, Robert.

380 00:45:05.700 ⇒ 00:45:08.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I was just gonna… I’d love to hear more about, kind of like.

381 00:45:09.140 ⇒ 00:45:15.500 Robert Tseng: the advisory kind of type work that you do, and yeah. Yeah, I’m just trying to see…

382 00:45:15.500 ⇒ 00:45:16.200 Clarence Stone: here.

383 00:45:16.510 ⇒ 00:45:22.500 Robert Tseng: how, you know, these two worlds could collide, or maybe there’s more overlap than I… than we… than I think, yeah.

384 00:45:22.880 ⇒ 00:45:29.929 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so here’s a fun one. I told you, Tom, about this. This is, Eli actually hired me back, 2 months ago.

385 00:45:29.930 ⇒ 00:45:46.460 Clarence Stone: And, the project that they needed me to lead was an AI-empowered tool that would actually automate the digitized processing of 1099 forms. So 1099s are, you know, what you get from your funds as an investor, right? Yep.

386 00:45:46.570 ⇒ 00:45:51.100 Clarence Stone: And there’s different formats of it, and for this year, there’s a crypto one.

387 00:45:51.330 ⇒ 00:46:01.409 Clarence Stone: And for all of those things, there’s now a, a method to actually digitally upload it to the IRS, so you actually never have to do paper 1099s anymore.

388 00:46:02.690 ⇒ 00:46:26.259 Clarence Stone: So, what I got bought on board to do is figure out how the infrastructure works, and the workflow works for this service, and, create market positioning in the front end, and the user experience flow of it. So, that’s the kind of, I guess, unique problem solving, because it’s super niche. This is really just solving 1099s for banks and,

389 00:46:26.380 ⇒ 00:46:34.430 Clarence Stone: private equity firms, and it’s a massive market, you know, if you can automate it and, you know, create a tool around it, so…

390 00:46:34.430 ⇒ 00:46:35.050 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

391 00:46:35.050 ⇒ 00:46:38.450 Clarence Stone: That’s an example of, you know, a weird niche one.

392 00:46:38.790 ⇒ 00:46:44.389 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I see, I see the, like, the UX design, workflow design, kind of,

393 00:46:44.550 ⇒ 00:46:47.469 Robert Tseng: kind of theme in Batworth.

394 00:46:49.070 ⇒ 00:46:57.890 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Here’s another weird one. I recently worked with, Casper Companies to, help them with,

395 00:46:58.220 ⇒ 00:47:04.880 Clarence Stone: AI image quality detection as, you know, so they have a factory that makes,

396 00:47:05.080 ⇒ 00:47:20.179 Clarence Stone: like, barrels and uppers for firearms. They wanted to create a local system that would actually, take a look at the part before it leaves the CNC and does a QRQC of that part, right?

397 00:47:20.830 ⇒ 00:47:35.309 Clarence Stone: And the only reason why I was, you know, uniquely positioned to do that was because I understood firearms and the manufacturing process for it, and vicinity actually creates, you know, local infrastructure to run models locally.

398 00:47:35.310 ⇒ 00:47:44.579 Clarence Stone: So, they had a computer imaging expert already, they just needed to create a front end to track and monitor everything that’s happening and create infrastructure for,

399 00:47:44.580 ⇒ 00:47:56.000 Clarence Stone: you know, product detection, and we built that, you know, first POC out in, like, 2 weeks, and it’s a pretty neat thing. So, yeah, I really get found to work on very niche, narrow problems.

400 00:47:58.280 ⇒ 00:47:59.120 Robert Tseng: That’s awesome!

401 00:48:00.220 ⇒ 00:48:12.640 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and they’re super fun. It’s definitely, you know, in the vein of, you know, what you guys are trying to do with being leaders that can solve, you know, uniquely complicated problems for enterprises.

402 00:48:16.950 ⇒ 00:48:20.989 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like… Well, I mean, for definitely the clients that…

403 00:48:21.140 ⇒ 00:48:26.370 Robert Tseng: We were kind of straddling this, like, weird mid-North kind of world…

404 00:48:26.540 ⇒ 00:48:33.160 Robert Tseng: I mean, that’s still most of our business, but it’s pretty undefined, and the range is quite wide, so…

405 00:48:33.270 ⇒ 00:48:50.650 Robert Tseng: I mean, on the smaller end, it’s… they’re not really… they don’t really care about workflow automation, they don’t… you know, a lot of the practices aren’t filled out, nothing’s really fine-true. That’s the project is just kind of bringing in top line… top line growth. And I think, from my background in CPG, FOB world.

406 00:48:50.830 ⇒ 00:48:58.839 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s… that’s the… that’s the type of data and insights team that I was leading before, where… we’re just, like, I’m able to…

407 00:48:59.040 ⇒ 00:49:12.849 Robert Tseng: Drive up the velocity of experimentation, be able to run a lot of analysis to basically, like, get by a thousand cuts, like, find something, find something that will just continue to unlock more and more revenue that they don’t really see.

408 00:49:13.090 ⇒ 00:49:20.010 Robert Tseng: So that’s… that’s kind of the world that I come from, and I guess on the enterprise side, we’re noticing that

409 00:49:20.590 ⇒ 00:49:24.909 Robert Tseng: Yeah, they do just have, like, a very niche brandling, and it’s so much about just, like.

410 00:49:25.030 ⇒ 00:49:26.860 Robert Tseng: Finding the right fit.

411 00:49:28.730 ⇒ 00:49:36.199 Robert Tseng: And, knowing that you’re gonna be working… you’re gonna be positioned there with, like, other experts, and you’re just kind of…

412 00:49:36.340 ⇒ 00:49:43.460 Robert Tseng: focusing on optimizing, like, one very specific workflow. That’s hard to really just, like, come at with the same

413 00:49:43.610 ⇒ 00:49:44.899 Robert Tseng: Kind of,

414 00:49:47.140 ⇒ 00:50:01.430 Robert Tseng: analogous approach that we do with smaller companies, where we just, you know, share a bunch of logos, case studies, say we’ve done something like this before, and they’re like, alright, sounds good, come in and do it. Well, on the enterprise side, it’s totally not like that.

415 00:50:01.570 ⇒ 00:50:04.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so anyway… Yeah, I mean…

416 00:50:04.500 ⇒ 00:50:17.130 Clarence Stone: Yeah, you’re definitely one of the insight, though, right? Like, with your current approach right now, I bet that you are able to tackle a much larger market, right? Your total average

417 00:50:17.290 ⇒ 00:50:20.679 Clarence Stone: You know, deal would probably be smaller, because it has…

418 00:50:20.680 ⇒ 00:50:21.150 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

419 00:50:21.150 ⇒ 00:50:22.240 Clarence Stone: complexity.

420 00:50:22.270 ⇒ 00:50:23.100 Uttam Kumaran: Correct.

421 00:50:23.650 ⇒ 00:50:27.909 Clarence Stone: Yeah, but I guess, like, on the enterprise side, like.

422 00:50:29.280 ⇒ 00:50:32.740 Clarence Stone: The kind of data work that you guys do.

423 00:50:33.140 ⇒ 00:50:35.599 Clarence Stone: Are the kind of projects that

424 00:50:36.180 ⇒ 00:50:47.889 Clarence Stone: like, I would absolutely go after and drop everything for, because if you’re able to win over the client’s data, you’re automatically able to sell them a lot more things.

425 00:50:48.970 ⇒ 00:50:51.289 Clarence Stone: Here’s an example.

426 00:50:51.490 ⇒ 00:51:06.870 Clarence Stone: Last week, my buddy was asking for help on, Morgan Stanley account, and he was having a hard time selling data services to them, and, you know, he’s like, hey, I’m really close, like, just have to figure out how to position this. I have a meeting on Thursday.

427 00:51:07.030 ⇒ 00:51:26.130 Clarence Stone: I said, hey, you’ve already built the graph infrastructure to be able to give insights on, the deal flows, because you’re ingesting that data into the snowflake you want to sell the client. Why not just create a chat agent layer on top of that, and say, this is going to be a side benefit that we offer to you automatically for making this deal with us?

428 00:51:26.570 ⇒ 00:51:30.109 Clarence Stone: And then he just sold about a million dollars worth of data work.

429 00:51:30.830 ⇒ 00:51:31.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

430 00:51:31.540 ⇒ 00:51:48.769 Clarence Stone: Right? So, I’m seeing these little AI tools as a value enhancer to selling massive data work, and then them getting really addicted to using that, right? Because this time, like, for this, like, data tool, I said no, just only the deal documents. Don’t enable it for anything else.

431 00:51:48.770 ⇒ 00:51:49.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yeah.

432 00:51:49.570 ⇒ 00:51:54.250 Clarence Stone: Right? And I bet you, I bet you in 6 months, they’re gonna come back and buy the whole damn thing.

433 00:51:54.450 ⇒ 00:51:55.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

434 00:51:55.220 ⇒ 00:51:57.880 Clarence Stone: And they’re gonna come up with ideas of stuff they want to buy later on.

435 00:51:57.880 ⇒ 00:52:03.059 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly, no, so we… so there’s kind of two problems we have. One is, like, we’re… we’re underpriced.

436 00:52:03.200 ⇒ 00:52:10.919 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re finding that out the hard way, because people are just, like, saying okay to what we’re charging pretty fast. Second is…

437 00:52:11.600 ⇒ 00:52:15.329 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we just don’t have a structure of adding on stuff.

438 00:52:15.720 ⇒ 00:52:19.140 Uttam Kumaran: Oscar.

439 00:52:19.640 ⇒ 00:52:26.050 Uttam Kumaran: So… there’s, like…

440 00:52:26.370 ⇒ 00:52:44.299 Uttam Kumaran: that we have active clients who, they’re, like, would love these, like, chat with data features, or more AI and data features, and we’re structuring, like, renewals and upsells, but again, like, we’ve already fixed on such a low price sometimes that…

441 00:52:44.520 ⇒ 00:52:51.829 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, like… I just know that, yeah, we could go do that work.

442 00:52:52.040 ⇒ 00:52:59.389 Uttam Kumaran: But the incremental gain is not gonna be great. So for us, it’s like, we’re actually having…

443 00:52:59.570 ⇒ 00:53:02.930 Uttam Kumaran: Some enterprise-level conversations.

444 00:53:03.260 ⇒ 00:53:19.440 Uttam Kumaran: We’re talking to this company, John Booze, they make booze blocks, but they’re actually… for those, like, it’s just a different sales process, but also, yeah, we just have to really be more… You know, doing the math, it’s like, one of those can pay for our entire portfolio, and, like, I’m much more interested in that

445 00:53:19.510 ⇒ 00:53:27.539 Uttam Kumaran: Versus the complexity of running 10, sort of, like, medium, small projects.

446 00:53:27.730 ⇒ 00:53:29.110 Uttam Kumaran: at a time

447 00:53:29.290 ⇒ 00:53:39.310 Uttam Kumaran: We have, like, the partner relationships in order to do that. We have the deep technical knowledge.

448 00:53:39.460 ⇒ 00:53:45.570 Uttam Kumaran: We… Don’t have, like, the bench… Island.

449 00:53:45.970 ⇒ 00:53:54.859 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t think we’re that far on the sales side to actually go sell some of those. Like, that example you’re mentioning, yeah, I mean, we just do that in our sleep.

450 00:53:55.490 ⇒ 00:54:01.070 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t think we could structure a process Around selling that.

451 00:54:01.190 ⇒ 00:54:06.699 Uttam Kumaran: like, I don’t know, I think maybe we have, like, 2 or 3 people, including me, that could do that type of work internally.

452 00:54:08.450 ⇒ 00:54:21.950 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, here’s my thought on structure and things, right? I, you know, I don’t think it’s worth it to think about creating a system or a repeatable process for a type of service until you’ve won the first one.

453 00:54:21.950 ⇒ 00:54:31.499 Clarence Stone: Because you’ll probably discover, you know, things that you didn’t realize you had to do, right? Or, you know, at the end of the process, realize that it’s really not worth

454 00:54:31.500 ⇒ 00:54:52.709 Clarence Stone: you know, the effort that you went through. You know all about my foray into government contracts, I, you know, I did that process, and then I’m like, this is not something I ever want to do. But if I did want to repeat it, you know, I’ve got so much lessons learned on how I would do it, I would take all those notes and actually, you know, create a repeatable process throughout that.

455 00:54:52.710 ⇒ 00:54:53.480 Clarence Stone: Right.

456 00:54:53.810 ⇒ 00:55:06.150 Clarence Stone: So, that’s sort of my take on it. It’s like, you don’t need a process for everything, I think. What you’ve already locked into is those repeatable small projects. Hey, there has definitely got to be a playbook for that. And then for…

457 00:55:06.370 ⇒ 00:55:12.639 Clarence Stone: Which, which should allow you guys to be off-hands, and then tackle bigger, you know, deals.

458 00:55:13.440 ⇒ 00:55:18.579 Clarence Stone: That you’ll eventually, you know, decide if you want to write a repeatable process forward.

459 00:55:20.290 ⇒ 00:55:20.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

460 00:55:20.620 ⇒ 00:55:21.670 Robert Tseng: Where’s ?

461 00:55:24.490 ⇒ 00:55:35.169 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess my question, maybe Clarence to you, is like, what do you need… what do you need to see from us? Like, what do you think? Is this compelling? I mean, of course, for us, like, we’re gonna need people that are like, okay, we wanna go…

462 00:55:35.390 ⇒ 00:55:54.550 Uttam Kumaran: we want to rip this company over the next few years, and then get an exit out of it. Like, what do you think, now hearing stuff, like, are you like, okay, I don’t know, this seems, like, cute, I can just help advise? Are you like, okay, I think I could… you know, there is an opportunity for me to go all-in with these guys and try to…

463 00:55:54.630 ⇒ 00:55:57.600 Uttam Kumaran: Try to build this up, like, what’s, like, what’s your take?

464 00:55:57.880 ⇒ 00:56:08.410 Clarence Stone: So, I’m definitely intrigued, and I, you know, above all other things, I think alignment is super important to me. So, I think…

465 00:56:08.770 ⇒ 00:56:22.170 Clarence Stone: maybe the framework should be something like the top-line, you know, things that you guys want resolved, and we sit through and create an agreement on, and then I’ll say, hey, this is how I’m gonna, you know, kill it for you, right?

466 00:56:22.170 ⇒ 00:56:22.700 Uttam Kumaran: Great.

467 00:56:23.310 ⇒ 00:56:28.300 Clarence Stone: Otherwise, yeah, until we get there, I don’t think I can honestly say I’m comfortable, because I’m gonna… Cool.

468 00:56:28.410 ⇒ 00:56:29.770 Clarence Stone: To make sure, right.

469 00:56:29.770 ⇒ 00:56:34.709 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess that’s what I… that’s more of what I want to know. You’re like, okay, there could be… there could be a path.

470 00:56:35.180 ⇒ 00:56:57.930 Clarence Stone: Yeah, absolutely. Like, let’s build the solutions together and, you know, and, you know, I can then look at it and say, I can get you there or not, right? Transparently, like, one of the reasons why I didn’t end up just taking a job at Casper Companies was because they wanted their team to be working at a weekly sprint velocity from day one. And I was like, you have, like, a

471 00:56:57.930 ⇒ 00:56:58.590 Clarence Stone: Okay.

472 00:56:58.750 ⇒ 00:57:09.810 Clarence Stone: 70% brand new team. There’s just no way any lead, whether they are freaking, you know, gods from Google, that can get a team to weekly deliveries within a few months.

473 00:57:09.810 ⇒ 00:57:10.779 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

474 00:57:11.140 ⇒ 00:57:20.169 Clarence Stone: engine that takes a while, you know? So, automatically, hey, that’s a no-go. I understand why you want it, just not an organization I’d want to work in, right? Yeah, yeah.

475 00:57:20.950 ⇒ 00:57:27.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and this is, again, like, we just… we’re… everyone in the team is actually very gung-ho and open to change.

476 00:57:27.390 ⇒ 00:57:29.409 Uttam Kumaran: And so, like, we can morph…

477 00:57:29.540 ⇒ 00:57:40.839 Uttam Kumaran: And we move very quickly, and I feel like the one thing that’s interesting about our company is, like, even if we never go sell any AI work, the amount of AI stuff we’re doing internally is, like, pretty large.

478 00:57:41.130 ⇒ 00:57:46.120 Uttam Kumaran: for a company our size, with the resources we have. So, it’s only gonna get…

479 00:57:46.480 ⇒ 00:57:49.009 Uttam Kumaran: Faster and better over time.

480 00:57:49.150 ⇒ 00:57:53.110 Uttam Kumaran: There’s even opportunities to sell those as managed services.

481 00:57:53.680 ⇒ 00:58:06.089 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and I know that’s what Neil and Amy were both sort of pressing on. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I think as a good next step, like, I’m down with that. I think what we can… if you’re… if you’re okay, we can grab some time again this week.

482 00:58:06.240 ⇒ 00:58:15.469 Uttam Kumaran: maybe we can outline a few problem areas. We can give you an outlay of… of the business to date, and then see, sort of, like, where the fit is.

483 00:58:16.150 ⇒ 00:58:16.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean…

484 00:58:16.980 ⇒ 00:58:27.669 Clarence Stone: At the end of the day, at least you guys will have an analysis, you know, even if I go, hey, I can’t deliver weekly sprints for you, so I’m not your guy, right? Some great artifacts that you’ve thought through.

485 00:58:27.830 ⇒ 00:58:41.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and look, even if, even if this ends up just being, like, we could use some help here and there, that’s a great outcome for me. I think right now we’re just embarking on having these conversations with people that are also, like.

486 00:58:41.410 ⇒ 00:58:45.239 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I want to be in the market in some way.

487 00:58:45.420 ⇒ 00:58:50.229 Uttam Kumaran: I will tell you, and you know, like, how difficult it is to start filming from scratch.

488 00:58:50.660 ⇒ 00:58:58.239 Uttam Kumaran: I would say we started something from scratch, but we’ve also grown it to something significant very fast, so there is some sauce that’s working.

489 00:58:58.440 ⇒ 00:59:06.320 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Now we just need to really take it up to a boil, and we’re just lacking the, like.

490 00:59:06.560 ⇒ 00:59:11.470 Uttam Kumaran: key intermediate leadership. Like, I don’t think we’ve ever… I don’t think…

491 00:59:11.680 ⇒ 00:59:15.200 Uttam Kumaran: Robert and I are more, like, surprised that we got here.

492 00:59:15.440 ⇒ 00:59:35.389 Uttam Kumaran: in terms of, like, our organizational ability, more just, like, it took a… it takes… every day, we have to grind. That’s honestly what’s kind of, like, the risk of the sustainability of, like, running this business. Like, I don’t… we’re not… we still haven’t done any data or AI work that I’ve been, like, nervous about, or we haven’t been… we haven’t been asked to do anything where I’m like, there’s no way we deliver that.

493 00:59:35.610 ⇒ 00:59:38.759 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we’re probably far from that.

494 00:59:38.990 ⇒ 00:59:44.329 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, that’s great, right? I think what I was mentioning to him is, like, most consultancies start by

495 00:59:44.620 ⇒ 00:59:50.519 Uttam Kumaran: it’s either… it’s, like, usually the salespeople being like, I can do this for you, and they’re like, cool, now that we’ve won the deal, let’s, like, figure out how to do it.

496 00:59:50.520 ⇒ 00:59:53.049 Clarence Stone: We’ve always known how to do these things.

497 00:59:53.120 ⇒ 00:59:59.910 Uttam Kumaran: And, you know, like, we talk about AI stuff all the time. I feel like we’re actually at… we’re actually at the edge, and we don’t, like, we’re not at the size or…

498 01:00:00.220 ⇒ 01:00:14.699 Uttam Kumaran: like, we’re not in SF, and we’re still at the edge, you know, which just shows, like, okay, like, we have something. And so, I don’t know, and I also think, like, right now, there’s a great opportunity in the market for a company like ours.

499 01:00:15.070 ⇒ 01:00:18.549 Uttam Kumaran: Not only to execute, but to be sold.

500 01:00:18.890 ⇒ 01:00:22.339 Uttam Kumaran: Especially given all the AI stuff that we’re doing, like.

501 01:00:22.630 ⇒ 01:00:26.969 Uttam Kumaran: I think there’s a huge, like, asterisk around, like, how that’s gonna impact, but…

502 01:00:27.280 ⇒ 01:00:41.809 Uttam Kumaran: we’re able to… we’re seeing that our margins are higher, we’re seeing that our pace is high, we’re seeing that everybody in the company that comes in is really AI-native, we’re building internal AI tooling, like, we’re going… like, I don’t know, it’s just working, like, the thesis there is working.

503 01:00:41.920 ⇒ 01:00:43.620 Uttam Kumaran: Which is great.

504 01:00:44.340 ⇒ 01:00:45.639 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

505 01:00:47.100 ⇒ 01:00:49.089 Uttam Kumaran: And I just don’t think a lot of folks

506 01:00:49.800 ⇒ 01:00:56.569 Uttam Kumaran: Who are in your position are gonna go big and, like, find that. And also, of course, you’re not gonna find the…

507 01:00:56.690 ⇒ 01:01:01.319 Uttam Kumaran: Here’s a big piece of the company, and also, like, here’s a path towards making that worth something.

508 01:01:01.620 ⇒ 01:01:07.360 Uttam Kumaran: starting again is also just brutal, you know, and…

509 01:01:08.230 ⇒ 01:01:18.649 Uttam Kumaran: it’s, like, we meet a lot of people that are starting consultancies again, and I’m like, I don’t have any advice apart from just, like, try every day. So we’ve skipped a lot of that for this next class of folks, like…

510 01:01:18.810 ⇒ 01:01:23.299 Uttam Kumaran: We’re really, like, okay, we need to scale this business from, like, 2 million to 10 million.

511 01:01:23.610 ⇒ 01:01:26.120 Uttam Kumaran: In revenue, and that’s the path.

512 01:01:26.500 ⇒ 01:01:27.330 Uttam Kumaran: You know…

513 01:01:27.390 ⇒ 01:01:28.600 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

514 01:01:30.140 ⇒ 01:01:34.680 Uttam Kumaran: And we want to, yeah, do this as fast and as sustainable as possible.

515 01:01:35.480 ⇒ 01:01:46.700 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so let’s talk through the approaches and see, right? Sure. I think the best way to go about it is to kind of outline things. I’ll try to come up with a framework for our discussion, at least.

516 01:01:47.040 ⇒ 01:01:52.450 Clarence Stone: And then, you know, let’s uncover what the next, you know, actual steps to the approach are.

517 01:01:52.680 ⇒ 01:01:53.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

518 01:01:53.730 ⇒ 01:01:54.290 Clarence Stone: Yeah.

519 01:01:55.730 ⇒ 01:01:56.690 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think, Robert?

520 01:01:56.690 ⇒ 01:02:02.409 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah, no, I think that sounds good as the next step. Yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time on a…

521 01:02:03.290 ⇒ 01:02:03.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, dude.

522 01:02:03.640 ⇒ 01:02:08.580 Robert Tseng: got a riff with us. Thanks, bro. Yeah, like, we’re excited for the.

523 01:02:08.580 ⇒ 01:02:12.430 Clarence Stone: I’m happy to come back inside and hang out.

524 01:02:14.300 ⇒ 01:02:20.180 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Alright guys, maybe I’ll grab some time, like, how about, Wednesday, maybe?

525 01:02:20.780 ⇒ 01:02:26.560 Uttam Kumaran: What’s your schedule, Clarence? Or you said you’re… or you said you’re gonna be back here… you said you could be actually in Austin later next week, right?

526 01:02:27.080 ⇒ 01:02:33.279 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I can be in Austin on Friday. Wednesday afternoon after 1 is looking good.

527 01:02:33.530 ⇒ 01:02:34.320 Clarence Stone: If you wanna…

528 01:02:34.320 ⇒ 01:02:44.829 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let me… let me mark off Wednesday, and then, yeah, I mean, we should… we should… we should hang out, too. So let… let me grab time on Wednesday, and then, yeah, we can go from there.

529 01:02:45.430 ⇒ 01:02:47.350 Clarence Stone: Cool, perfect. Sounds good.

530 01:02:47.900 ⇒ 01:02:56.470 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, dude. Yo, I just want to say, like, if any… no matter what happens, like, you’ve been an incredible friend of the company, so I appreciate all the advice, and

531 01:02:56.730 ⇒ 01:03:05.019 Uttam Kumaran: And help, like… it’s so weird. We’ve been only thinking so short-term for a while that, at least for me, it’s just, like, a different…

532 01:03:05.620 ⇒ 01:03:08.339 Uttam Kumaran: Beast to think about, like, okay, how do we now…

533 01:03:09.110 ⇒ 01:03:23.079 Uttam Kumaran: get to this next level. We also have just been severely lacking in the talent internally. And that’s a lot… some of it is self-induced, but also we just haven’t had a structure around hiring. We just sort of brought on everybody that we needed when we needed them.

534 01:03:23.190 ⇒ 01:03:31.159 Uttam Kumaran: And so… But, like, the flip side is, we’ve built a very… we’ve built a company that is…

535 01:03:31.460 ⇒ 01:03:35.710 Uttam Kumaran: Moving very fast is working with companies that are way above our pay grade.

536 01:03:35.900 ⇒ 01:03:39.669 Uttam Kumaran: That we’re… that are happy, that are giving us great testimonials, like…

537 01:03:40.450 ⇒ 01:03:46.780 Uttam Kumaran: Based on my chats with you and other folks about consultancies, how long they take to build, and not only that, like.

538 01:03:46.950 ⇒ 01:03:52.710 Uttam Kumaran: how long they take to get a good reputation in a market, we’ve exceeded a lot of those benchmarks really fast.

539 01:03:53.250 ⇒ 01:03:58.360 Uttam Kumaran: And so, there’s something, like, unique here, right? Like, I don’t feel like we’re competing with

540 01:03:58.960 ⇒ 01:04:06.579 Uttam Kumaran: these other companies our size. And we see that, like, we see that from the Accelerator that we’re part of, from all the people that we talk to.

541 01:04:06.850 ⇒ 01:04:13.509 Uttam Kumaran: You know, we see that from… from feedback from folks like you, from folks that you’ve connected us with, other people that are in consulting, so…

542 01:04:13.900 ⇒ 01:04:18.370 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, I just, like, also believe that, like, that feedback is honest, and that there’s…

543 01:04:18.540 ⇒ 01:04:24.909 Uttam Kumaran: We wanna… we wanna, like, weaponize that to attract the best people, you know, to achieve, like, the vision, so…

544 01:04:25.340 ⇒ 01:04:31.650 Clarence Stone: Yeah, you guys have a really unique market opportunity. It’s definitely, like, very good timing.

545 01:04:31.830 ⇒ 01:04:34.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s a very good timing.

546 01:04:36.220 ⇒ 01:04:42.170 Clarence Stone: It’s interesting to have to figure out everything as the pioneer, right? Like.

547 01:04:42.170 ⇒ 01:04:42.950 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

548 01:04:42.950 ⇒ 01:04:44.030 Clarence Stone: That’s been made.

549 01:04:44.030 ⇒ 01:04:50.289 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, what do you think? Like, would you rather have it the other way? Like, I don’t… you’ve kind of been in consulting, I mean, in the last, like, what.

550 01:04:50.430 ⇒ 01:05:02.670 Uttam Kumaran: 10, 15 years have been sort of steady state. Only maybe in the last, like, 2-3 years has, like, AI been a big thing, but, like, you were kind of in it during the wave of, like, all IT, like, cloud stuff, right? Like, what do you think?

551 01:05:02.670 ⇒ 01:05:22.209 Clarence Stone: So much easier. I used to be able to create a product just based on what I hear as a need from a client. I’d validate that and sell it to that client, then bring it to a partner and say, hey, we should, you know, process automate this, make it a service that we sell, create a one-pager, create a case study, and start selling it as part of our product suite.

552 01:05:22.750 ⇒ 01:05:27.770 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, that used to be our workflow for creating new work.

553 01:05:27.910 ⇒ 01:05:32.199 Clarence Stone: And now it’s become so different. There’s…

554 01:05:32.290 ⇒ 01:05:47.680 Clarence Stone: sort of a perspective, and I think, the biggest shift this year was from the client starting to understand what AI is and starting to ask for very unique, bespoke solutions that aren’t repeatable out of the box. So, really interesting to see.

555 01:05:47.680 ⇒ 01:05:56.579 Clarence Stone: And I think this is why a lot of consultancies are floundering right now, because they’re just not geared to be able to sell in this way. They…

556 01:05:56.580 ⇒ 01:06:21.559 Clarence Stone: you know, just have very few hunters, the rest are just building, right? And it needs to be almost an organization, but so here’s my take, guys. I think future state consulting is really, you know, gonna be a balance of more people who are bringing in work than people who are actually just sitting there to do work. So it should be more like a 60-40, 70-30 kind of split, with a heavier weight to people bringing in business.

557 01:06:21.560 ⇒ 01:06:26.200 Clarence Stone: Because it’s gonna be so much more effective and efficient to deliver solutions

558 01:06:26.200 ⇒ 01:06:37.690 Clarence Stone: So, you know, we don’t know what the right mix is, we don’t know what the right approach is, and that’s what’s exciting, but also, you know, really difficult to figure out. And you guys don’t have a playbook, you’re pioneers here.

559 01:06:38.220 ⇒ 01:06:38.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

560 01:06:39.950 ⇒ 01:06:41.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s interesting.

561 01:06:42.390 ⇒ 01:06:45.950 Robert Tseng: I gotta go, guys, but, yeah, we’ll catch up soon.

562 01:06:47.760 ⇒ 01:06:49.149 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks, guys. Appreciate the time.

563 01:06:49.150 ⇒ 01:06:50.399 Clarence Stone: Great, man. Bye.

564 01:06:50.690 ⇒ 01:06:51.960 Clarence Stone: Yep, bye!

565 01:06:52.150 ⇒ 01:06:52.720 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.