Meeting Title: Brainforge x Valorian Business Strategy Discussion Date: 2025-11-21 Meeting participants: Darin’s MeetGeek Notetaker, Dana’s MeetGeek Notetaker, Darin, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:03:36.960 ⇒ 00:03:37.890 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
2 00:03:41.480 ⇒ 00:03:42.919 Darin: How’s it going?
3 00:03:42.920 ⇒ 00:03:44.309 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, good, how are you?
4 00:03:44.830 ⇒ 00:03:45.770 Darin: Wow.
5 00:03:46.470 ⇒ 00:03:47.740 Darin: I’m well.
6 00:03:48.090 ⇒ 00:03:53.689 Darin: We have my note taker, and then Dana’s notetaker. You can kick out Dana’s if you want.
7 00:03:53.980 ⇒ 00:03:55.910 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, no problem.
8 00:03:56.140 ⇒ 00:03:57.189 Darin: How’s your day?
9 00:03:57.720 ⇒ 00:03:59.739 Uttam Kumaran: Good! How about you? How’s the week going?
10 00:04:00.060 ⇒ 00:04:04.500 Darin: It’s good, it’s been, back-to-back, man, it’s,
11 00:04:05.400 ⇒ 00:04:10.670 Darin: It’s been busy. Been busy. Did a little travel this week, and then got a lot of meetings.
12 00:04:10.810 ⇒ 00:04:11.660 Darin: What about you?
13 00:04:11.660 ⇒ 00:04:15.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s… same with me. I think it’s, like, all of the above.
14 00:04:15.840 ⇒ 00:04:22.460 Uttam Kumaran: Like… Just, like, 12-hour days all week, but it’s good.
15 00:04:22.590 ⇒ 00:04:24.760 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like it’s funny because
16 00:04:25.010 ⇒ 00:04:30.440 Uttam Kumaran: It’s… none of the meetings I had, I could have canceled. Like, they were all important.
17 00:04:31.150 ⇒ 00:04:47.980 Uttam Kumaran: Which mainly means that, like, okay, some more people should be taking some of these meetings, and, like, that’s sort of, like, what we’re here to figure some of this out. But it’s going really well, like, I feel like we’re at a little bit of an inflection point in the business, trying to figure out, like.
18 00:04:48.180 ⇒ 00:04:55.970 Uttam Kumaran: overall, like, the next sort of class of operators to bring in underneath me and Robert, who both of us, sort of.
19 00:04:56.080 ⇒ 00:05:01.089 Uttam Kumaran: are running a lot of the business. We have folks that are getting more senior on the delivery side, but
20 00:05:01.210 ⇒ 00:05:04.599 Uttam Kumaran: I think truly on sales, and…
21 00:05:04.790 ⇒ 00:05:13.820 Uttam Kumaran: operations, we’re, like, still running a lot of it really half-assed. So, I feel like we sh… we’re… that’s sort of, like, what we’re…
22 00:05:13.950 ⇒ 00:05:17.189 Uttam Kumaran: Hoping in this next phase, like, okay, how do… if we’re gonna…
23 00:05:17.230 ⇒ 00:05:20.500 Darin: Sort of double and triple the size, like, what breaks, and…
24 00:05:20.500 ⇒ 00:05:29.789 Uttam Kumaran: who do we need? Right now, we have… I think we have a lot of, like, people that are great to, like, take direction and listen, but we’re still the direction givers on a lot of things, so…
25 00:05:29.950 ⇒ 00:05:45.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s good, though. We’re having a really solid, like, 2 months of sales, so, we’re… something’s working in our pitch, and we’re getting bigger clients, and we’re heading more enterprise, so it’s been really positive, yeah.
26 00:05:45.660 ⇒ 00:05:47.580 Darin: That’s awesome, man. That’s awesome.
27 00:05:47.680 ⇒ 00:05:57.640 Darin: Well, give me… give me a little bit of, why don’t we do this if, let me give you some background on me, and then we can, we can make the rest of the time about, about you.
28 00:05:57.640 ⇒ 00:05:58.300 Uttam Kumaran: Sure.
29 00:05:58.300 ⇒ 00:06:06.049 Darin: So, I spent a lot of time in, corporate America. I started out in sales, okay.
30 00:06:06.180 ⇒ 00:06:14.409 Darin: worked my way up in sales, and kind of sales leadership, and then I took over, P&L responsibilities in…
31 00:06:15.520 ⇒ 00:06:21.240 Darin: I guess, like, 2000, and… 2002, so…
32 00:06:21.800 ⇒ 00:06:25.280 Darin: It’s a long time ago, man. Probably before you were born.
33 00:06:25.280 ⇒ 00:06:27.199 Uttam Kumaran: No, I was born in 96.
34 00:06:27.200 ⇒ 00:06:30.229 Darin: Okay, I was, I was sick.
35 00:06:31.150 ⇒ 00:06:40.089 Darin: So, yeah, I did that for a while. That was with a company called, Time Warner Telecom, so, worked for them.
36 00:06:40.610 ⇒ 00:06:46.250 Darin: Moved all over the place, got to Houston in 2004,
37 00:06:46.250 ⇒ 00:07:06.640 Darin: We had a… that business unit, that I was running was about 80 million, so that was… was a fun ride. And then, honestly, man, I wanted to scratch my entrepreneurial itch, you know? I just, like, man, I’m… I’m building this business for somebody else, and, you know, what would it look like to build it for myself?
38 00:07:06.640 ⇒ 00:07:12.409 Uttam Kumaran: Was there… was there, like, a catalyst, or, like, a point where you made that decision, or was it just, like, sort of, like, building up?
39 00:07:13.130 ⇒ 00:07:21.330 Darin: Well, it was as I started to make friends in the market who were entrepreneurs, and I saw what they were doing.
40 00:07:21.950 ⇒ 00:07:37.549 Darin: you know, you know, it was kind of like a… man, that’s what I do right now, you know, and so if I could apply the skill set that I’ve been fortunate to learn, you know, in a relative safe environment, you know, what would that look like?
41 00:07:38.870 ⇒ 00:07:46.439 Darin: So, there was an opportunity, there was a data center here in Houston that was… it was… it was a distressed asset, so…
42 00:07:46.930 ⇒ 00:07:56.280 Darin: it was kind of a mess, and I’m like, sounds good to me. So we, we took that over with a group of investors, and
43 00:07:56.280 ⇒ 00:08:14.610 Darin: you know, owned and operated that 100,000 square foot facility, and we, you know, had to figure out how to correct the go-to-market strategy. We got, you know, had to do some, some debt restructuring, so I learned a ton. And then we sold that business,
44 00:08:14.750 ⇒ 00:08:18.979 Darin: In 20, 2016, late 2016.
45 00:08:19.490 ⇒ 00:08:34.340 Darin: And what was cool about that, right, I didn’t make much money, but what was cool about it was everything that I learned, but I also… the investors went from writing off that investment to everybody making 3 times. And so…
46 00:08:34.340 ⇒ 00:08:34.860 Uttam Kumaran: Wow.
47 00:08:34.860 ⇒ 00:08:36.999 Darin: It was, it was, it was cool. I’m like, okay.
48 00:08:37.360 ⇒ 00:08:39.609 Darin: Like, I can… I can do this.
49 00:08:39.610 ⇒ 00:08:40.289 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
50 00:08:40.299 ⇒ 00:08:55.679 Darin: proceeds from that, and I bought another, MSP, here in Houston called Synchronet, and, they were typical MSP, you would kind of do anything for money, and, converted that into an Amazon Web Services partner.
51 00:08:55.939 ⇒ 00:09:00.919 Darin: Great. So that’s where I met the crew who now run Fixel.
52 00:09:00.920 ⇒ 00:09:01.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
53 00:09:01.410 ⇒ 00:09:12.709 Darin: And, so, we got very focused in on a particular workload in AWS, so we were, we had built ourselves into the global experts for virtual desktops.
54 00:09:12.710 ⇒ 00:09:13.450 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
55 00:09:13.450 ⇒ 00:09:17.220 Darin: So we… we did that for a while. We sold that business in 21.
56 00:09:17.900 ⇒ 00:09:22.070 Darin: stayed a year with the company who bought us, and then we started Valorian.
57 00:09:22.070 ⇒ 00:09:31.540 Uttam Kumaran: How did… how did you, like, figure out the technical, like, ways to manage that business? Because that’s quite a jump, I feel like, to get into, like, AWS.
58 00:09:31.660 ⇒ 00:09:41.159 Uttam Kumaran: like, to focus on that, and, like, did you have a playbook coming in? Or, like, yeah, that’s, like, you glossed over so much, that’s there, sorry.
59 00:09:41.160 ⇒ 00:09:49.030 Darin: I went from, you know, running a business that was, like, selling internet and data connectivity to data centers.
60 00:09:49.090 ⇒ 00:10:01.470 Darin: So then, I was like, whoa, this data center business is hard, and I kept hearing about AWS, and I just inherently knew that there was an opportunity there. It was just really more…
61 00:10:02.410 ⇒ 00:10:05.120 Darin: just being bullish, and just… Yeah.
62 00:10:05.310 ⇒ 00:10:08.480 Darin: I can smell the opportunity, I know it’s there.
63 00:10:08.990 ⇒ 00:10:15.709 Darin: I don’t… I don’t know what to do with it, but I… but I… I’m gonna have to figure it out. And it was…
64 00:10:16.240 ⇒ 00:10:19.579 Darin: And I didn’t know anything. I could barely spell AWS, right?
65 00:10:19.580 ⇒ 00:10:20.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
66 00:10:20.350 ⇒ 00:10:39.859 Darin: Got it. So, just YouTube, and just learning, and then what I… what I recognized is I had the ability to run the business, run operations, do sales, but I didn’t… I didn’t have any technical architecture experience. So I went on… I went on Upwork, and I searched for every
67 00:10:39.880 ⇒ 00:10:45.420 Darin: Upworker that had an AWS professional certification.
68 00:10:46.000 ⇒ 00:10:55.499 Darin: Because I needed another, cert in order to move up in the partnership with AWS, and I needed somebody who, you know, could really lean on.
69 00:10:56.200 ⇒ 00:11:00.880 Darin: But I didn’t have any business, and so I’m, like, calling… I’m, like, cold calling people.
70 00:11:01.090 ⇒ 00:11:08.670 Darin: from Upwork, be like, hey, I don’t… I don’t really have a job for you, but, like, could… I will.
71 00:11:08.860 ⇒ 00:11:18.610 Darin: You want to work? You know, and every… just about everybody blew me off. They’re like, yeah, you’re dumb. Like, I got other things to do. But there was one guy…
72 00:11:18.810 ⇒ 00:11:31.329 Darin: he was like, yeah, I get it, I see what you’re trying to do, and his name is Mike Hapner, and he had a small company with, like, 5 consultants doing AWS consulting, and so we ended up acquiring
73 00:11:31.330 ⇒ 00:11:41.309 Darin: his business. And that sounds super fancy. All it was, I was like, okay, well, I’m gonna give you peace of mind, and you come over here, and we’ll structure this, and, you know, so… so it was just…
74 00:11:41.310 ⇒ 00:11:48.619 Darin: it just really worked out. And so he was with me at Synchronet, and he’s my business partner, at…
75 00:11:48.660 ⇒ 00:11:50.470 Darin: As well, so…
76 00:11:50.470 ⇒ 00:11:51.310 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
77 00:11:51.310 ⇒ 00:11:51.880 Darin: So we just…
78 00:11:51.880 ⇒ 00:11:53.790 Uttam Kumaran: Fantastic. That’s awesome.
79 00:11:53.790 ⇒ 00:11:56.069 Darin: figured it out, you know? Yeah.
80 00:11:57.100 ⇒ 00:12:05.180 Darin: And, yeah, so then we started vloring, and kind of the same way, we didn’t even know what we wanted to do, so we started,
81 00:12:05.690 ⇒ 00:12:12.630 Darin: Valorian, we kind of wiggled and had a couple of customers around technology stuff, just doing general technology consulting.
82 00:12:12.740 ⇒ 00:12:18.260 Darin: We ended up, getting exposed to, industrial services.
83 00:12:18.410 ⇒ 00:12:20.839 Darin: Okay. So, this is,
84 00:12:21.460 ⇒ 00:12:38.850 Darin: you know, petrochemical plants and refineries, right? Obviously, they have oil in one end of it and outside other products, right? Whether it’s gasoline, or diesel, jet fuel, rubber, plastics, right? It’s just, you know, that’s that process.
85 00:12:39.250 ⇒ 00:12:39.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
86 00:12:40.160 ⇒ 00:12:44.869 Darin: So these refineries and petrochemical plants, they’re just big machines, right?
87 00:12:44.870 ⇒ 00:12:45.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
88 00:12:45.330 ⇒ 00:13:01.950 Darin: There’s a large group of contractors who perform work on these machines, right? And it’s really around maintenance, repair, and operations. And so what we do is we work on, really around digital transformation.
89 00:13:02.150 ⇒ 00:13:14.610 Darin: and industrial services for petrochemical refineries for both the asset owners, the companies who own those plants, and the contractors. So those are our two target customer bases.
90 00:13:16.160 ⇒ 00:13:19.800 Darin: And, so…
91 00:13:20.160 ⇒ 00:13:35.979 Darin: That’s what we’re doing. We’re building software. We have customers like Marathon Petroleum, Leyendale Basel, Covestro, Turner, you know, probably some names that are not, you know, really familiar, but are pretty, pretty large, large companies.
92 00:13:36.210 ⇒ 00:13:42.529 Darin: And so, yeah, we just get in, we try to understand what business problems that they have, we build software.
93 00:13:42.530 ⇒ 00:13:43.120 Uttam Kumaran: Interesting.
94 00:13:43.800 ⇒ 00:13:59.179 Darin: For them, you know, we actually host it because I wanted to, you know, I wanted that reoccurring revenue. So, you know, we sit in between, kind of, your traditional custom dev shop that will just build it and shoot you the code, and then you’re off and running.
95 00:13:59.180 ⇒ 00:14:04.380 Darin: You know, and then the other side of that continuum is a SaaS provider, right?
96 00:14:04.380 ⇒ 00:14:23.199 Darin: So we kind of sit in the middle, and, you know, we have a couple of micro-products that we’ve already built that we can accelerate on, you know, so let’s say if you want a field service application, we’re going to bring it 70% done, and then we’ll customize it the rest of the way for you, and then host it and support you.
97 00:14:23.230 ⇒ 00:14:29.020 Darin: We, I can’t wait to talk to you about the AI stuff, so we’re obviously embedded. Yeah.
98 00:14:29.070 ⇒ 00:14:32.299 Darin: AI. We… we have…
99 00:14:32.710 ⇒ 00:14:50.469 Darin: kind of a three-phase… well, kind of three pillars associated with our… what I call intelligent systems, right? Because I think AI is only a piece of it. But, you know, it’s our internal stuff, it’s our products, our custom products that we build for customers, and then we’re… we’re building some platforms, as well. Great.
100 00:14:50.470 ⇒ 00:14:56.270 Darin: So… so that’s what we do. We’re focused in on that. We’re, we’re 3 years old.
101 00:14:56.300 ⇒ 00:15:01.390 Darin: You know, we’ll do, you know, close to $3 million this year.
102 00:15:01.390 ⇒ 00:15:01.850 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
103 00:15:01.850 ⇒ 00:15:06.210 Darin: We’ll do… we’ll knock on the door probably for next year.
104 00:15:06.210 ⇒ 00:15:06.860 Uttam Kumaran: Gray.
105 00:15:06.860 ⇒ 00:15:09.249 Darin: just kind of kicking along. So, that’s.
106 00:15:09.250 ⇒ 00:15:14.690 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel like the second… time around… .
107 00:15:15.370 ⇒ 00:15:17.210 Darin: It’s been faster.
108 00:15:17.210 ⇒ 00:15:26.669 Uttam Kumaran: Are you going after a market that’s, like, way bigger? Like, what… what changed in the execution and even, like, your aspiration on the second go-around?
109 00:15:26.670 ⇒ 00:15:33.590 Darin: Yeah, that’s a good question. So the first… the first go-around, I knew we had a clock on us.
110 00:15:33.910 ⇒ 00:15:44.380 Darin: You know, there was a time… because I wanted to maximize the valuation associated with cloud partners, and I knew… I knew at some point that curve was gonna break.
111 00:15:45.000 ⇒ 00:15:52.859 Darin: So, I, it was a, let’s move as fast as we can, grow as fast as we can.
112 00:15:53.360 ⇒ 00:15:59.170 Darin: And we did that. We grew to 6 million in 4 years.
113 00:15:59.350 ⇒ 00:16:05.320 Darin: We spent a lot of money doing it. You know, I gave up a lot of the company, doing that.
114 00:16:05.590 ⇒ 00:16:11.160 Darin: And, we ended up selling that business for three and a quarter times revenue.
115 00:16:11.440 ⇒ 00:16:11.950 Darin: So…
116 00:16:11.950 ⇒ 00:16:12.620 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
117 00:16:12.620 ⇒ 00:16:13.580 Darin: 20 million.
118 00:16:13.990 ⇒ 00:16:17.950 Darin: Which was great, but, you know, I gave up a lot along the way, so…
119 00:16:17.950 ⇒ 00:16:18.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
120 00:16:18.430 ⇒ 00:16:25.159 Darin: With this, and like, like you were just talking about how many hours you’re working. I was working 80 hours a week.
121 00:16:25.400 ⇒ 00:16:26.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
122 00:16:26.890 ⇒ 00:16:36.819 Darin: I was traveling probably 80% of the time, you know? I was the max tier with, like, United and Marriott and all these things, you know, wore my.
123 00:16:36.820 ⇒ 00:16:37.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
124 00:16:37.750 ⇒ 00:16:53.029 Darin: really wore myself out. So… and Mike did as well. So this go-around, we wanted to bootstrap. We wanted to just self-fund it. We knew that it was going to have an impact on growth, and it has. We haven’t grown as fast.
125 00:16:53.130 ⇒ 00:16:57.949 Darin: But man, it just feels more…
126 00:16:59.210 ⇒ 00:17:02.220 Darin: The first time felt a little bit House of Cards.
127 00:17:02.500 ⇒ 00:17:03.250 Darin: Because…
128 00:17:03.250 ⇒ 00:17:04.119 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
129 00:17:04.700 ⇒ 00:17:07.169 Darin: It was… we were building it so fast.
130 00:17:07.700 ⇒ 00:17:11.939 Darin: And we were 100% reliant on AWS for our leads.
131 00:17:12.530 ⇒ 00:17:26.679 Darin: And that was great, you know, until it’s like, oh, how are we gonna, you know, what are we gonna do to keep selling? You know, our sales motions there were go out and, you know, take the AWS reps out to dinner and drinks.
132 00:17:27.720 ⇒ 00:17:28.560 Darin: So that way they.
133 00:17:28.560 ⇒ 00:17:29.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
134 00:17:29.610 ⇒ 00:17:35.140 Darin: So we wanted something that… where we had a little bit more control over, which we do.
135 00:17:35.250 ⇒ 00:17:44.490 Darin: Right. And so that’s worked out. Now, sales cycles in this industry are long.
136 00:17:44.830 ⇒ 00:17:48.640 Darin: are really long, yeah. So… But…
137 00:17:49.450 ⇒ 00:17:56.550 Darin: I feel like there’s a… there’s a more predictable total addressable market.
138 00:17:57.030 ⇒ 00:17:57.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
139 00:17:58.020 ⇒ 00:18:10.599 Darin: And I’ll tell you, it’s super cool right now, because there’s two things that are happening. One, I would say about 70% of the business processes inside of our target market are still paper-based.
140 00:18:11.040 ⇒ 00:18:14.760 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, great, yeah. Well, not great for them, but great for you, yeah.
141 00:18:14.760 ⇒ 00:18:15.490 Darin: I know, right?
142 00:18:15.490 ⇒ 00:18:16.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hell yeah.
143 00:18:16.770 ⇒ 00:18:25.710 Darin: And it’s because only up until about 12 months ago could you have a… an input device in the plant.
144 00:18:26.710 ⇒ 00:18:27.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
145 00:18:27.440 ⇒ 00:18:41.340 Darin: or you couldn’t have them. If you did, it had to be this super expensive, very specialized piece of equipment, and that was, like, 6,000. So nobody was gonna give, you know, that to these thousands of people that are out in the field.
146 00:18:41.980 ⇒ 00:18:51.630 Darin: But now, you can use, you know, you can use just a normal device with a specific case, and so there’s a mechanism to collect data.
147 00:18:52.030 ⇒ 00:19:04.140 Darin: But there’s been an absence of data, there’s been an absence of digital process, and so people are really starting to turn now into, okay, we need to… we need to do something. But…
148 00:19:04.330 ⇒ 00:19:07.160 Darin: Dude, you would be shocked.
149 00:19:07.740 ⇒ 00:19:09.950 Darin: Shocked. At…
150 00:19:10.310 ⇒ 00:19:19.839 Darin: But how these people operate, and how big they can run, and it’s still paper, and it’s, you know, it’s crazy.
151 00:19:20.310 ⇒ 00:19:34.729 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I feel like it’s… one, it’s like, congrats on not only the first win, but doing it again, and… and, like, getting to do it your own way, you know? That’s awesome. I feel like…
152 00:19:35.040 ⇒ 00:19:49.480 Uttam Kumaran: I… a lot of people ask me, like, about this business, and, like, I… this is way harder than I thought it would be. Way harder than I thought this would be. I didn’t think it was gonna be easy, by any means.
153 00:19:49.870 ⇒ 00:20:03.930 Uttam Kumaran: But… and it’s actually… I would say the engineering, like, the work we’re doing is not that hard. Like, we’ve been doing… I’ve been doing the work, and I would love to tell you about the business. We’ve been… I’ve been doing this work
154 00:20:04.050 ⇒ 00:20:17.890 Uttam Kumaran: in my career since I started. So, none of the technology challenges have actually been that difficult. It’s actually just been learning sales, go-to-market, learning people, structure of the business, and…
155 00:20:18.060 ⇒ 00:20:30.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s… and sort of just, like, trying to grind that out. And, you know, it’s, I think, similar to how you’re doing it now, we’re completely bootstrapped. You know, we started with nothing, and…
156 00:20:31.030 ⇒ 00:20:41.749 Uttam Kumaran: sort of pulled deals and money out of thin air, and now we’re sort of getting to the point where we’re doing about one and a half, two million dollars in business.
157 00:20:41.840 ⇒ 00:20:45.719 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’re like, okay, what’s the path between now and 10?
158 00:20:45.720 ⇒ 00:20:46.940 Darin: And…
159 00:20:47.040 ⇒ 00:20:56.640 Uttam Kumaran: for us, you know, and one, we’re extremely, like, grateful to be partnered with Vixel, because they… I think without them, I don’t know…
160 00:20:57.170 ⇒ 00:21:15.880 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, maybe we would have got there, maybe we would… but at least with leveraging what we learned from them, we were able to get to this phase, but now it’s sort of something different, and part of our struggle is that I know what the next, like, 2-3 months look like, and I know what the days and weeks, but how do we think about 6 months to 2 years from now?
161 00:21:15.930 ⇒ 00:21:18.260 Uttam Kumaran: And, especially around
162 00:21:18.620 ⇒ 00:21:26.590 Uttam Kumaran: If we need to make, like… we need to take a half a million dollars of what’s gonna come in and throw it into people and, like, senior people, who do we need?
163 00:21:26.590 ⇒ 00:21:30.470 Darin: what are expectations for them? Like, those are all the next set of challenges for us.
164 00:21:30.470 ⇒ 00:21:48.529 Uttam Kumaran: But maybe to give you a little bit of background. So, I know, Robert is actually just… he traveled to Hong Kong with… to visit his wife’s family, so he’s… he’s asleep now in Hong Kong, but, both of us run the… run the business together. We were actually… so I started Brainforge a little over 2 years ago.
165 00:21:48.530 ⇒ 00:22:02.440 Uttam Kumaran: And I quit my… I was leading… my background’s in computer engineering and data engineering. I worked as a data engineer, in New York, for a number of, sort of, increasingly smaller startups. I worked at WeWork, that was my first job.
166 00:22:02.440 ⇒ 00:22:20.369 Uttam Kumaran: And then worked at, another startup called Flowcode. They do circular QR codes, they’re kind of now all over sports and ESPN, all those, like, QR codes you’re seeing, that company is one of the early employees there, and then was leading product at a data company after that, and then decided to quit and sort of, like.
167 00:22:20.750 ⇒ 00:22:27.040 Uttam Kumaran: see if I could do something. So I’ve worked at a lot of product companies, not very interested in building a product.
168 00:22:27.040 ⇒ 00:22:30.639 Darin: Extremely capital intensive, very risky.
169 00:22:30.640 ⇒ 00:22:39.589 Uttam Kumaran: And, you don’t have control. You immediately, the moment you start up that business, you have to raise money. And so I don’t have… didn’t have interest in that.
170 00:22:39.630 ⇒ 00:22:52.929 Uttam Kumaran: services was interesting. I’ve worked as a consultant before here and there, and I… I also knew that the market has filled a lot of people who make a lot of promises and don’t fulfill, so there… so if you do a good job, I feel like it’s easy to, like.
171 00:22:53.030 ⇒ 00:23:07.809 Uttam Kumaran: show that, and… but it is, like, a big relationship game, and it is… it’s a cash flow game. And so… and it’s a people game, so for other reasons, also difficult, but, like, cheap to get started, probably hard to get…
172 00:23:08.270 ⇒ 00:23:22.059 Uttam Kumaran: big, right? And so… so we started, and I was able to… I spent 3 months just called every single person I’ve ever met, and just tried to find a way to get some deals, and landed a client, and then soon after, landed 2, and then operated the business solo.
173 00:23:22.060 ⇒ 00:23:29.390 Uttam Kumaran: Until December, so I quit my job in April. In December, I was able to bring on one person part-time, and then…
174 00:23:29.450 ⇒ 00:23:43.040 Uttam Kumaran: two months after that, bring them on full-time, and then slowly, kind of, like, added. And so now we’re… we’re roughly 15 people, mix of, like, part-time, full-time people, mix of onshore, offshore people,
175 00:23:43.270 ⇒ 00:24:02.610 Uttam Kumaran: In parallel, actually, Robert was running a similar business. Mine was more technical, so, like, data engineering, data modeling, infrastructure setup. His was more on the analytics side, so given fixed data sets, he’s running product analytics experiments, A-B testing, really representing, taking data, running experiments, and
176 00:24:02.610 ⇒ 00:24:09.419 Uttam Kumaran: driving decision-making for businesses. So we were kind of, like, sitting on top of each other, and we worked on a deal together, immediately found that, like.
177 00:24:09.660 ⇒ 00:24:25.440 Uttam Kumaran: both of us having… are having… are good at things that the other wasn’t really good at. I think I’m much more on the technical delivery side, he’s much more on the sales, go-to-market side, and so we decided to sort of, like, you know, combine forces. And so that was maybe more than a year ago.
178 00:24:25.670 ⇒ 00:24:42.079 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’ve been running the business together ever since. And yeah, so as I mentioned, like, we’re kind of… we should do… like, we’re kind of on a run rate of, like, 1.5 to 2 million. In the last, sort of, 3-4 months, the business has doubled.
179 00:24:42.470 ⇒ 00:24:44.629 Uttam Kumaran: Which is great.
180 00:24:44.910 ⇒ 00:24:48.969 Uttam Kumaran: We’re starting to get much better terms, better hourly rates.
181 00:24:49.200 ⇒ 00:24:52.780 Uttam Kumaran: We sort of moved to a model where we don’t have, like.
182 00:24:52.960 ⇒ 00:25:00.939 Uttam Kumaran: freelancers working with us, and so they don’t really care about us. Everyone is, like, committed to… to Brain Forge for the most part.
183 00:25:01.050 ⇒ 00:25:06.460 Uttam Kumaran: And… Yeah, and then to tell what we do, so we’re a data and AI company, so…
184 00:25:06.460 ⇒ 00:25:26.280 Uttam Kumaran: But fundamentally, we try to drive outcomes for our clients, and what are those outcomes? These are the ability to understand and measure your business. These are the ability to make more decisions and make more accurate decisions. So, a lot of that for us is building a data platform where you can land all of your data in that’s modeled, we build reporting marts, and then on top of that.
185 00:25:26.280 ⇒ 00:25:28.680 Uttam Kumaran: We also help your team run analyses.
186 00:25:28.680 ⇒ 00:25:35.119 Uttam Kumaran: Run decision-making meetings, and then ideally start to run more tests and experiments to find new revenue
187 00:25:35.180 ⇒ 00:25:52.570 Uttam Kumaran: things around customer segmentation, churn prediction, sales channel analysis, supply chain analysis. So, once we land all the data in, it starts to enable that. And so, we sort of are, like, a full-stack data team. We don’t do any, like, staff aug work. All of our clients are, like, our own
188 00:25:52.570 ⇒ 00:26:00.820 Uttam Kumaran: partnership with their leadership, so we kind of come in top-down. And then the other thing, to your point about, like,
189 00:26:01.340 ⇒ 00:26:09.929 Uttam Kumaran: I think we… we only now are starting to do more on the partnership side. For a while, it was… it was all sort of, like, we went and… and…
190 00:26:10.560 ⇒ 00:26:27.149 Uttam Kumaran: bought our own deals. And so, we’ve invested in the brand from early on, like, trying to… to have, like, an understanding of, like, what we’re selling, who we’re selling to, the ICP, the brand around it. And so that’s something we’ve invested in, really, for, like, no ROI until…
191 00:26:27.250 ⇒ 00:26:40.210 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like brand gets you the ROI eventually. So now, I feel like we’re in a good spot in the market. Our challenge is, like, what is this gap between 2 to 5 to 10? And,
192 00:26:40.530 ⇒ 00:26:50.339 Uttam Kumaran: like, how do we get there? I think we are a completely remote team, like, I’m actually here in Austin, Robert’s in… in New York,
193 00:26:50.420 ⇒ 00:27:06.900 Uttam Kumaran: so we rely on a lot of writing, we have a lot of great team members, but as I mentioned, we have a great foundation of people that, when they get direction, they can run. And so, no problem on, like, getting the work done. We’re actually lacking the, like, lieutenants, I believe, you know?
194 00:27:06.970 ⇒ 00:27:17.500 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s sort of, like, what we’re thinking about now. I mean, of course, there’s everything for, like, also how do you build a great company culture? How do we set plans for an exit?
195 00:27:17.520 ⇒ 00:27:34.300 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s sort of, like, what we’re thinking about. We’re past the, like, are we starving stage, I think. But it’s like, that never leaves you. But we’re now in the stage where, like, both of us are slammed in meetings, clients still really love working with us.
196 00:27:34.300 ⇒ 00:27:38.769 Darin: But we’re starting to work with them for a little bit, loop in other people, but this is kind of like the…
197 00:27:38.940 ⇒ 00:27:42.540 Uttam Kumaran: The point at which our, you know, that’s kind of, like, where our company is right now.
198 00:27:42.540 ⇒ 00:27:51.830 Darin: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that’s okay. I think, you know, have you had anybody push back on, you know, you guys, having some conversation, bringing other people in?
199 00:27:52.780 ⇒ 00:28:00.850 Uttam Kumaran: No, like, inter… it’s really only… it’s really only us, you know? So me and… me and Rob are making a lot of decisions, nobody…
200 00:28:01.220 ⇒ 00:28:09.919 Uttam Kumaran: everybody just… everybody in the company is great. Like, we’ve… we’ve… it’s all people that want to work with us long-term, and nobody has any…
201 00:28:10.130 ⇒ 00:28:12.120 Uttam Kumaran: has any issues. In fact, I think
202 00:28:12.480 ⇒ 00:28:17.519 Uttam Kumaran: People would like to have more people with decision-making authority, because we’re the blockers on a lot of things.
203 00:28:17.520 ⇒ 00:28:18.190 Darin: Yeah.
204 00:28:18.190 ⇒ 00:28:19.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah.
205 00:28:19.770 ⇒ 00:28:24.030 Darin: Yeah, and that’s… Do you know that’s normal?
206 00:28:25.160 ⇒ 00:28:28.790 Uttam Kumaran: I know that’s normal, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
207 00:28:28.790 ⇒ 00:28:36.030 Darin: Yeah, so, you know, I talk to some people, and they’re, you know, they’re explaining these things, and they’re just like, man, we’re just messed up. I’m like, no.
208 00:28:36.030 ⇒ 00:28:40.200 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, I’m… I’m aware, I’m not, I’m not, like…
209 00:28:40.320 ⇒ 00:28:56.030 Uttam Kumaran: I know what’s… I know what’s reality, but of course, like, I… we have high expectations, and as you can see, like, we’ve moved fast in just a short amount of time, with, like, no money, with just, like, banking on favors and trying things, and so totally…
210 00:28:56.640 ⇒ 00:29:11.710 Uttam Kumaran: it’s like, I know where we were just 6, 7 months ago, but of course, our ambition doesn’t change, doesn’t waver. Right. So there’s always ways to make improvement, but this is where, also, we’re open. Like, I mentioned all those things that I think are what the solve is.
211 00:29:11.950 ⇒ 00:29:22.720 Uttam Kumaran: But also, like, I’m not married to… only thing I am married to is winning, is trying to win. And so, what… the path by which we get there, I’m… I… all I want to do is learn from…
212 00:29:22.890 ⇒ 00:29:32.420 Uttam Kumaran: the trials of other people and, like, how to structure… even structuring the company, structuring incentives. Like, I have no interest in doing things
213 00:29:32.560 ⇒ 00:29:45.359 Uttam Kumaran: the way that they’ve been done, unless that’s just the best way of doing things. So we have done a… we’ve done a lot, and I’ve learned a lot about running these types of firms. We also have done a lot of things differently, like, in terms of the way we use AI,
214 00:29:45.680 ⇒ 00:29:48.510 Uttam Kumaran: The way we’re structuring our team and recruiting.
215 00:29:48.860 ⇒ 00:30:07.539 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve learned a lot from my time in product startups, and we run a lot of our internal company kind of like a product startup, but… so this is way… but again, I don’t have any ego over, like, any of the ways we do things. It’s just the way… some of them were decisions, some of them were non-intentional, just the way kind of things are, so…
216 00:30:07.890 ⇒ 00:30:14.119 Darin: Yeah, so you said all you want to do is win, so what’s that… what’s winning mean for you with this… with this business?
217 00:30:14.870 ⇒ 00:30:18.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think for both of us, we’re driving towards an exit.
218 00:30:18.460 ⇒ 00:30:22.010 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and
219 00:30:23.120 ⇒ 00:30:42.600 Uttam Kumaran: again, I think, like, in joining Vixel, their intention for their portfolio companies is to drive towards… towards that. And I think for both of us, like, that would be a really successful outcome. But, look, you build a company that you want to… it’s like Otter said, like, he’s like, you build a company you want to sell, and you’ll build, like, the company you want to keep.
220 00:30:42.860 ⇒ 00:30:46.770 Uttam Kumaran: And so, for me, like, that’s kind of always been ringing in my mind.
221 00:30:47.380 ⇒ 00:31:01.050 Uttam Kumaran: But I would say, like, that’s our North Star. Do I wake up every day, like, understanding the path towards that? No, it’s like, I’m just like, well, can we get through this week? You know? So, like, it’s… we don’t have, like, a…
222 00:31:01.250 ⇒ 00:31:09.790 Uttam Kumaran: sophisticated… we don’t have all the answers, but that is, like, what I think we’re ultimately are driving towards is a good outcome for us and our team.
223 00:31:10.030 ⇒ 00:31:15.919 Darin: Yeah, so tell me, what kind of timeline do you have in your brain on that?
224 00:31:16.310 ⇒ 00:31:17.299 Darin: If any.
225 00:31:18.480 ⇒ 00:31:26.280 Uttam Kumaran: I assumed that from the point we’re at now, maybe it would be another… 5 years.
226 00:31:26.660 ⇒ 00:31:28.250 Uttam Kumaran: 3 to 5 years.
227 00:31:28.600 ⇒ 00:31:44.279 Uttam Kumaran: again, I know it’s sort of all… we have to get to that certain revenue range that you mentioned, or higher, like, and we have to make sure to have, like, a great margin profile, sort of diversity in clients and channels, so there are some things we need to do, but that was, like, my…
228 00:31:44.930 ⇒ 00:31:47.510 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of assumption that it was at least gonna be another…
229 00:31:47.710 ⇒ 00:31:49.520 Darin: 4 or 5 years to get there.
230 00:31:49.730 ⇒ 00:31:53.240 Darin: Okay, okay, yeah. And.
231 00:31:54.390 ⇒ 00:32:00.799 Uttam Kumaran: What if I… I wasn’t gonna say tomorrow, but that’d be nice.
232 00:32:00.800 ⇒ 00:32:03.859 Darin: You never know, man. You never know.
233 00:32:05.300 ⇒ 00:32:08.450 Darin: I want to write you a check. The,
234 00:32:09.150 ⇒ 00:32:21.539 Darin: So you mentioned a lot about, kind of, the, you know, decision-making and delivery. How are you feeling about your… the way your sales engine is organized?
235 00:32:22.750 ⇒ 00:32:41.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so right now, Robert and I sell the entirety of the business. And so we’ve… but we have started to develop playbooks and processes, and we do have some people supporting us, like, in more of a coordination and go-to-market, but nobody is.
236 00:32:41.590 ⇒ 00:32:42.540 Darin: is…
237 00:32:42.540 ⇒ 00:32:44.140 Uttam Kumaran: prospect-facing.
238 00:32:44.140 ⇒ 00:32:46.460 Darin: But we are starting to do…
239 00:32:46.460 ⇒ 00:33:04.520 Uttam Kumaran: we are starting to tap into several different channels for acquisition, not only… and we have some motions that are coming out of LinkedIn, but we still be trying to do a lot of events, we’re starting to do a lot with partners, a lot of which like working with us because we have… we sort of do a lot of unique things on the marketing side with
240 00:33:04.520 ⇒ 00:33:12.330 Uttam Kumaran: playbooks and white papers and events, and so we’re getting some… for our size, I think we’re getting some good love for them, and they’re able to
241 00:33:12.720 ⇒ 00:33:20.019 Uttam Kumaran: they’re starting to pass some deals over to us. And then we also just have, like, we still have a…
242 00:33:20.680 ⇒ 00:33:33.810 Uttam Kumaran: a bunch of, like, warm motions to go after some people, and we have… we haven’t… we still have a ton of circle back to do, where we’ve talked to people, you know, throughout our history, and we haven’t gone back. So I feel like what we’re getting
243 00:33:34.190 ⇒ 00:33:38.340 Uttam Kumaran: Our conversion rates are fairly high, and…
244 00:33:38.520 ⇒ 00:33:45.669 Uttam Kumaran: I would say we are underpriced, because for the most part, people aren’t, like, gawking at our prices. So…
245 00:33:46.280 ⇒ 00:33:49.310 Uttam Kumaran: That’s unfortunate, because we should be pricing higher.
246 00:33:49.490 ⇒ 00:33:54.989 Uttam Kumaran: that’s maybe some more confidence in planning around the scope. Like, I think when we go enterprise.
247 00:33:55.290 ⇒ 00:34:02.920 Uttam Kumaran: We have to come to the table with, like, a lot more sophistication on the execution path of how do we architect a year-long engagement.
248 00:34:03.190 ⇒ 00:34:15.030 Uttam Kumaran: So those are the things that… but we want to move, like, we want to avoid… right now, we do have some clients that are, like, 5K, 10K, 15K a month, like, we want to start to get to the higher end of that, because
249 00:34:15.719 ⇒ 00:34:25.499 Uttam Kumaran: And then we need to understand, sort of, like, what is our gap that’s preventing us from having those conversations? I don’t… I don’t feel like we would have a problem getting into the room.
250 00:34:25.669 ⇒ 00:34:30.099 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like we may have a problem closing and then delivering on that work.
251 00:34:30.429 ⇒ 00:34:35.269 Darin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, one of the things that I,
252 00:34:36.129 ⇒ 00:34:44.589 Darin: learned what Synchronet is selling into the enterprise space, and how different it was. So we… we got to work with 20 of the Fortune 100.
253 00:34:44.679 ⇒ 00:34:56.879 Darin: And most of our customers were Fortune 2000. So… Wow. That… it was really eye-opening. And we were super fortunate to have…
254 00:34:57.109 ⇒ 00:35:08.619 Darin: you know, the backing of AWS, right? So when we went in, we went in, based upon an AWS recommendation, which cut us a lot of slack, and gave us a lot of, room
255 00:35:08.739 ⇒ 00:35:22.019 Darin: And then what we did is we leveraged that expertise into this business, and we were able to get these larger enterprise contracts, because we know… we know what to do, we know how to structure it.
256 00:35:22.099 ⇒ 00:35:39.169 Darin: We know that it’s going to be okay, we know it’s going to take a little time, and so it’s just that experience, and a lot of people don’t want to sell it to the enterprise, they get afraid of it, you know, it takes too long, you can’t get contracts. That’s just not the truth, you know? Yeah. It’s out there, for sure.
257 00:35:39.450 ⇒ 00:35:53.680 Uttam Kumaran: I agree, and I… people are, like, we have enterprise… we have a few clients that are sort of breaking that… that… that… that level, and they love working with us, because we come in, and we… we do a great job, and we move fast, and we… we help them achieve their goals.
258 00:35:53.810 ⇒ 00:36:06.850 Uttam Kumaran: And I just think we’re almost sometimes not doing a great job helping them sell us, because we don’t have all of our ducks in a row. Like, we don’t… we’re hustling to, like, get, like, these long project plans and all these things, but…
259 00:36:07.170 ⇒ 00:36:15.889 Uttam Kumaran: they often are, like, fight… a lot of them have championed us, like, they’re fighting on our behalf internally, and so that’s what kind of more… I mean, from my perspective, like, that’s what I think
260 00:36:16.100 ⇒ 00:36:25.099 Uttam Kumaran: we’re lacking, and then, yeah, I mean, I think it’s, like, that’s where we want to start to break into, and some of these things we do for folks do take a long time, but…
261 00:36:25.210 ⇒ 00:36:30.730 Uttam Kumaran: As you know, as you get to those higher… some of the… those larger companies, they’re struggling so much.
262 00:36:30.810 ⇒ 00:36:44.749 Uttam Kumaran: And we can really come in and help them move the needle on these data and AI initiatives. Especially the AI piece, where those… these types of things can get lost in committees and, like, not knowing exactly what to do.
263 00:36:44.750 ⇒ 00:36:59.560 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we can really help them, and so I’m finding that our offering is really good, and we’re getting better at saying, like, what exactly are our existing offers and our service playbooks, and that’s a lot of the go-to-market organization that I think we have to do more on, but…
264 00:36:59.880 ⇒ 00:37:08.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re finding, like, the pitch is just getting more important for people to have their data organized in order to layer on AI on top.
265 00:37:08.980 ⇒ 00:37:16.050 Uttam Kumaran: And, yeah, so I’ve never been nervous about our development capabilities and, like, execution.
266 00:37:16.240 ⇒ 00:37:18.760 Uttam Kumaran: It’s always been about, like.
267 00:37:18.960 ⇒ 00:37:27.630 Uttam Kumaran: how are we getting into those conversations, and can we stay alive in order for that deal to get through, you know? And do we have the internal…
268 00:37:27.810 ⇒ 00:37:29.700 Uttam Kumaran: support to…
269 00:37:30.170 ⇒ 00:37:36.069 Uttam Kumaran: Keep hopping on, do those discovery, and keep grinding until the final contract makes it through, you know?
270 00:37:36.390 ⇒ 00:37:39.329 Darin: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then,
271 00:37:39.590 ⇒ 00:37:52.520 Darin: you know, pricing strategies, payment… payment strategies become important when you’re working with those larger ones, you know, like, how do you… how do you do that? You know, today we do a lot of fixed-bid stuff.
272 00:37:52.520 ⇒ 00:38:09.019 Darin: So, you know, I try to structure to get, you know, enough cash up front, because you’re right, this is a cash flow business, right? So, thinking a little bit like that, is always helpful, and I do mine. I try to get as, you know, I try to get 50% at contract sales. Yeah.
273 00:38:09.870 ⇒ 00:38:19.850 Darin: been pretty successful at it, and I’m like, okay, another milestone, a little bit farther down the road, like, if I can display, you know,
274 00:38:20.380 ⇒ 00:38:33.649 Darin: you know, a functional platform, okay? That’s another 25%, and then when it’s fully deployed, you know, get the… get the last, like, 25%. Right. 50% up front helps… helps a lot, so…
275 00:38:33.650 ⇒ 00:38:41.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and our smaller deals, we’ve been able to successfully get like, net 15, and… up front.
276 00:38:42.500 ⇒ 00:38:49.790 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s been incredible, because we were in a jam this summer. But those are, like, these are…
277 00:38:49.940 ⇒ 00:39:00.660 Uttam Kumaran: these are still fairly large, like, for most of our ICP, we don’t work with companies less than $20 million in revenue, typically, and they’re sort of north from there. And then, of course, now we’re starting to get some that are in…
278 00:39:00.840 ⇒ 00:39:04.340 Uttam Kumaran: You know, a couple hundred million. But…
279 00:39:04.600 ⇒ 00:39:10.379 Uttam Kumaran: It’s tough, like, the bigger the company, the weirder the terms can be, but you’re right, like, those are even things where
280 00:39:10.930 ⇒ 00:39:17.130 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t even know what is, like, on the table, and I’m like, should I push on this, or will this get us jammed even more?
281 00:39:17.250 ⇒ 00:39:21.810 Uttam Kumaran: You know, or how to structure it. But I also agree that I think
282 00:39:21.980 ⇒ 00:39:35.989 Uttam Kumaran: I just know that a lot of deals, the pricing has not come up, and so we’re definitely not priced, like, high enough. And part of that is probably fear, part of that is, like, maybe it’s a mix of price and terms, and we don’t know, like.
283 00:39:36.220 ⇒ 00:39:39.880 Uttam Kumaran: what the sauce is. We don’t know, like, where… what we can push on yet.
284 00:39:40.200 ⇒ 00:39:45.019 Darin: Are you guys doing hourly-based stuff, TNM, fixed bid? What do you… how are you.
285 00:39:45.020 ⇒ 00:39:50.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we have, like… so we are doing stuff both on…
286 00:39:50.340 ⇒ 00:40:05.859 Uttam Kumaran: hourly, so, like, basically different roles of different hours, and our highest right now is $2.50 an hour. And then we also, for some of the contracts, I like to structure it, because sometimes we’re coming out on multiple work streams, and
287 00:40:06.010 ⇒ 00:40:18.789 Uttam Kumaran: I’m like, hey, just… it’s gonna be 15K a month, we’re gonna tackle these milestones, and we have 3 months to tackle these milestones. And for some clients, they like it, some clients are like, no, I don’t know, we can just do hourly. Usually, they’re getting a better deal.
288 00:40:18.830 ⇒ 00:40:36.930 Uttam Kumaran: by doing the… the fix, because we end up just, like, fluctuating. And then we work with them to basically say, hey, you just added on two more work streams, we can’t account for that in our budget. So we’re almost, like, managing a budget for a couple of work streams. Because we’re going to some companies where we’re running their whole data platform.
289 00:40:36.980 ⇒ 00:40:43.990 Uttam Kumaran: or data team, you know? And so… but again, these are some of the… just the schemes we found where…
290 00:40:44.060 ⇒ 00:41:02.029 Uttam Kumaran: I think… I think a lot of the clients that are in this sort of mid-market large are open to those things, because sometimes they’re used to consultants saying, it’s going to be all these hours, and then they don’t have… they don’t work on, like, what are the deliverables, versus we come in and we try to… if we can scope it well, then I can put a budget against
291 00:41:02.060 ⇒ 00:41:07.480 Uttam Kumaran: a timeline, you know? Versus if it’s something that’s wide open, then I’m like, I can’t take the risk of…
292 00:41:08.550 ⇒ 00:41:10.419 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t take the risk, basically.
293 00:41:10.900 ⇒ 00:41:13.900 Darin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we,
294 00:41:14.440 ⇒ 00:41:21.390 Darin: We do a little bit of T&M, mostly fixed bid stuff, and I would say…
295 00:41:21.790 ⇒ 00:41:26.830 Darin: The only reason we’re able to do the, the,
296 00:41:27.410 ⇒ 00:41:33.539 Darin: The mixed bid, or the fixed bid is because, just, we had so much experience scoping stuff.
297 00:41:34.080 ⇒ 00:41:34.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
298 00:41:34.800 ⇒ 00:41:36.390 Darin: So.
299 00:41:36.390 ⇒ 00:41:37.030 Uttam Kumaran: Gray.
300 00:41:38.110 ⇒ 00:41:41.540 Darin: Most of the time, it’s worked out okay. Okay.
301 00:41:41.540 ⇒ 00:41:41.860 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
302 00:41:41.860 ⇒ 00:41:57.350 Darin: We’ve had a couple lessons learned. Yeah. But this, the industry we’re focused in on, they, man, they’re just allergic to, like, a monthly reoccurring thing. We had a ton of that in our previous business.
303 00:41:57.350 ⇒ 00:42:10.229 Darin: But this industry, they just, like, oh, no, that can’t spend, you know, I’ll, you know, do a $100,000 SOW, but I won’t do 5 grand a month. I mean, it’s… it’s like that, so…
304 00:42:10.230 ⇒ 00:42:11.600 Uttam Kumaran: Wow, yeah.
305 00:42:11.600 ⇒ 00:42:21.039 Darin: So it’s, it’s, kind of, you know, just knowing your market. So, speaking of, do you guys have any verticals that you’re trying to target?
306 00:42:21.680 ⇒ 00:42:23.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so,
307 00:42:24.840 ⇒ 00:42:33.260 Uttam Kumaran: because of our backgrounds, we have… we’ve done a lot of business in B2B SaaS, in e-commerce, and, like, consumer packaged goods.
308 00:42:33.590 ⇒ 00:42:45.310 Uttam Kumaran: as well as folks that are omnichannel, and then we also have done some work in health. Of course, we have, like, the slew of, like, random other places, but that’s where… this is another debate we have, is both on…
309 00:42:45.340 ⇒ 00:43:01.180 Uttam Kumaran: We’re trying to decide, and it’s clear, I think, for your new business, you definitely made the decision to hone in on one particular industry, as well as maybe one or two more capabilities. For us, I think we’re way… we’re much too broad still.
310 00:43:01.230 ⇒ 00:43:07.560 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, again, it’s a sort of, like, exercise of how to start to focus.
311 00:43:07.740 ⇒ 00:43:12.160 Uttam Kumaran: And maybe not only focus the industry, but the capabilities.
312 00:43:12.640 ⇒ 00:43:23.179 Uttam Kumaran: we don’t have, like, a clear lens. We are writing a lot of our coattails of great case studies in those industries that are making it easier, but strategically, I don’t think
313 00:43:23.620 ⇒ 00:43:33.550 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t… I don’t know whether those are the… those are the industries that we need to be in. And I don’t have any… I’m not married to those, apart from just, like, that’s what we know a lot about.
314 00:43:33.600 ⇒ 00:43:47.459 Uttam Kumaran: And then on this capability side, we are squarely within, reporting, like, reporting analytics, and then internal automation and workflow. So we don’t build external-facing chatbots or consumer
315 00:43:47.460 ⇒ 00:44:03.989 Uttam Kumaran: our other external business-facing AI things, a lot of our stuff is for internal automation, so we’re training staff on ChatGPT and things like that. We are building internal platforms for AI or internal workflows. We’re partnering with teams to build.
316 00:44:04.030 ⇒ 00:44:22.790 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s a lot of… and then we’re also… after we do a lot of the data work, we’re able to layer AI on top for insights, so chat with your data use cases, that’s where, like, our business… we basically… one part of our business enables all of that. But so that’s… that’s squarely, like, our capabilities.
317 00:44:23.000 ⇒ 00:44:33.700 Uttam Kumaran: I think there is an opportunity for us to go focus on one of the hyperscalers, like, just say we do snowflake work, or just say we… I think we could… we can make that decision for sure.
318 00:44:34.210 ⇒ 00:44:37.610 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know whether we have the leverage or the… the…
319 00:44:37.810 ⇒ 00:44:48.900 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just don’t know whether we can do that now, or at what point to do that, or we should drive towards that. Those are all, like, open things for us. But, like, we’re trying to move away from these, like, 5, 10K deals, because they’re just not…
320 00:44:49.600 ⇒ 00:44:53.419 Uttam Kumaran: They’re just not worth it, and so we’re slowly moving up,
321 00:44:53.720 ⇒ 00:45:05.669 Uttam Kumaran: and we’re… we’re having luck at the larger end, and there’s also the motion of, because once you’re in, like, how do we expand? How do we find more opportunities, you know, to win at? So there’s all these motions that I just don’t think we have, like.
322 00:45:05.930 ⇒ 00:45:08.620 Uttam Kumaran: Robert and I are just doing, just because we’re just…
323 00:45:08.920 ⇒ 00:45:10.899 Uttam Kumaran: Selling as much as we can, you know?
324 00:45:11.150 ⇒ 00:45:29.159 Darin: Yeah, yeah. Well, so you said something, you said your $5,000 deals are not worth it, so is that… they’re not worth it because they’re not profitable, or they’re not worth it because they’re taking your mental energy away from bigger deals? Which one?
325 00:45:29.160 ⇒ 00:45:32.229 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would say mostly the second.
326 00:45:32.880 ⇒ 00:45:38.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Like, Robert and I need to be in the field selling, like…
327 00:45:38.650 ⇒ 00:45:58.349 Uttam Kumaran: Squarely. Most of the time, or in the other percent of the time, it would be, like, helping whoever… helping somebody run a lot of delivery. Right now, I’m still involved in the delivery side on quite a bit of clients, same with Robert. More like managing team, or we’re the first people in, and then we sort of bring some people in with us.
328 00:45:58.370 ⇒ 00:45:59.540 Darin: Yeah.
329 00:45:59.860 ⇒ 00:46:09.280 Uttam Kumaran: So the 5K deal, like, if the 5K deal is, like, a shoe-in into an enterprise company that we know we can expand, fair.
330 00:46:09.560 ⇒ 00:46:16.909 Uttam Kumaran: But if it’s, like, a 5K deal where we already got pushback and stuff like that, like, I think we’re past that. Like, we’re starting to turn that stuff down.
331 00:46:17.100 ⇒ 00:46:18.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Just because, like.
332 00:46:19.190 ⇒ 00:46:22.950 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna be 3 months, they’re no… they’re not… they’re gonna gawk at the price, like…
333 00:46:23.050 ⇒ 00:46:33.810 Uttam Kumaran: We’re just out of that. And so we don’t… we’re not… we’re not a race to the bottom, compete at the low end. We want to increase our hourlies and become more refined and bespoke.
334 00:46:34.070 ⇒ 00:46:36.399 Uttam Kumaran: You know, for sure.
335 00:46:36.780 ⇒ 00:46:47.309 Darin: Yeah. Yeah, I know, the reason I ask that question is it obviously resonates when you’re… you’re in the fight, you know, and every little thing is just another cut, you know.
336 00:46:47.310 ⇒ 00:46:48.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
337 00:46:48.600 ⇒ 00:46:51.430 Darin: And,
338 00:46:51.980 ⇒ 00:47:03.169 Darin: something to think about is, how would you feel about those deals if you… if you had a team run a point on them, you know, and it wasn’t taking your time? I know for me.
339 00:47:03.170 ⇒ 00:47:14.360 Darin: My answer is very different between those two scenarios, you know what I mean? Yeah. Because looking at the profitability of it, you know, looking at the,
340 00:47:14.510 ⇒ 00:47:29.990 Darin: customer satisfaction and our team satisfaction. So, like you said, you know, if they’re giving us a hard time, they’re pushing back about stuff, just making it hard, like, that’s just gonna erode my team’s satisfaction. Yeah. And so, just, you know, it’s not worth it, right? Yeah.
341 00:47:29.990 ⇒ 00:47:39.100 Darin: you know, but if everybody’s okay, you know, and they’re clicking along, and you’re making decent margins, then, my answer’s different than if I have to deal with it.
342 00:47:39.100 ⇒ 00:47:40.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
343 00:47:40.370 ⇒ 00:47:41.000 Darin: W.
344 00:47:41.000 ⇒ 00:47:45.319 Uttam Kumaran: Did you… do you feel like at this company in the last, like.
345 00:47:45.480 ⇒ 00:47:48.409 Uttam Kumaran: There was a revenue milestone, or like…
346 00:47:48.850 ⇒ 00:47:54.079 Uttam Kumaran: client milestone that you realized, that you had to basically be like, okay, I need to…
347 00:47:54.220 ⇒ 00:47:59.429 Uttam Kumaran: parachute out of, like, a lot of day-to-day to start to get to the next place? Or, like, how did you…
348 00:47:59.610 ⇒ 00:48:05.499 Uttam Kumaran: someone described it to us as, like, they’re, like, these are, like, step functions, basically. It’s not, like, very linear, right? So, like, how did you…
349 00:48:06.130 ⇒ 00:48:11.750 Uttam Kumaran: like, what was that… what was that change for you? And, like, was that intentional? Did you…
350 00:48:12.170 ⇒ 00:48:20.129 Uttam Kumaran: was this, like, oh, we just found a couple great people that ended up growing to that? Like, how… if you could talk about that, because that’s, I feel like, the exact place, kind of, we’re in, where…
351 00:48:20.240 ⇒ 00:48:22.829 Uttam Kumaran: We ran every client, and then now it’s like…
352 00:48:23.090 ⇒ 00:48:26.250 Darin: I don’t know what… we have to get out of that, you know? Yeah.
353 00:48:26.250 ⇒ 00:48:44.220 Darin: So, two very different scenarios. So, Synchronet, you know, investor, capital to be able to bring in people, so I was… I probably over-rotated on bringing people too soon and spent too much money.
354 00:48:44.720 ⇒ 00:48:45.430 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
355 00:48:45.430 ⇒ 00:48:48.049 Darin: On this business,
356 00:48:48.050 ⇒ 00:49:08.780 Darin: to, like, today, so I do all of our, so I did a lot of sales with Synchronet. I was the primary sales driver there. Here, we actually found a guy with another small consulting business who had been in industry, so he had 30 years of industry experience and would,
357 00:49:09.170 ⇒ 00:49:12.919 Darin: Earn immediate trust with their customers through that experience.
358 00:49:12.920 ⇒ 00:49:20.590 Uttam Kumaran: So he… he does all the sales, so I do… I’m the COO, and CFO, and… Yeah. CEO. Great.
359 00:49:20.590 ⇒ 00:49:31.989 Darin: Those are kind of my roles. So I’m… I’m more like you. I’m like, I’m more… I lead all of our delivery, everything kind of roles to me, so I’m all kind of back… back into focus right now.
360 00:49:31.990 ⇒ 00:49:42.970 Darin: And, what’s funny about your timing of that question, because I just talked to my business partner, I’m like, hey man, I spent a little time this week out
361 00:49:42.970 ⇒ 00:49:56.900 Darin: getting with customers and ideation associated with solutions that we could take to the table. So I went to, a big meeting with Marathon, and man, I’m just taking notes, and I’m just…
362 00:49:56.900 ⇒ 00:49:57.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
363 00:49:57.570 ⇒ 00:50:08.119 Darin: and I come back, and there’s, like, 13 different ideas that I’m pinging the team with, right? And that’s what I used to do, and I’d go and I’d execute on those, and it was super fun.
364 00:50:08.490 ⇒ 00:50:12.339 Darin: And it’s a tremendous amount of value.
365 00:50:12.340 ⇒ 00:50:30.039 Darin: But right now, because of where we are, Randy’s driving sales, that’s our, you know, that’s our guy, he’s driving sales. I need to make sure that, our systems are scalable, we’ve got access to data, you know, so our… so my…
366 00:50:30.040 ⇒ 00:50:42.540 Darin: 2026 plan, it’s, we always have a theme of the year, theme of growth, theme of learning, you know, and so… so, next year is going to be the, the year of stability.
367 00:50:43.120 ⇒ 00:50:43.950 Uttam Kumaran: Dang.
368 00:50:43.950 ⇒ 00:50:48.479 Darin: So we’re bringing up all of our systems, we’re creating really predictable processes.
369 00:50:48.670 ⇒ 00:50:49.340 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
370 00:50:49.340 ⇒ 00:51:03.169 Darin: And then in 27, I can hammer down, right? Yeah. So, so it… so very, very different, kind of, where… where those businesses were. So, it really depends on…
371 00:51:03.560 ⇒ 00:51:05.549 Darin: I would say yes.
372 00:51:05.710 ⇒ 00:51:11.120 Darin: And I know you said this was hard to do, but thinking about what’s a one-year out, what’s a three-year.
373 00:51:11.120 ⇒ 00:51:11.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
374 00:51:12.050 ⇒ 00:51:31.189 Darin: And, you know, what do you… what do you want to do? So you know you’ve got an exit out here, let’s call it… let’s just call it 4 years out, okay? So that means, let’s put together a 3-year, plan, and here’s a secret about where you are right now in a 3-year plan.
375 00:51:32.030 ⇒ 00:51:39.370 Darin: It’s never gonna be accurate. It’s never gonna be right. But what it does is it starts letting you
376 00:51:39.370 ⇒ 00:51:52.309 Darin: put some things out there, and start working towards it, like, oh, no, let me… let me adjust that. The closer you get to that milestone, the more you’re going to adjust it, and when you get within about 12 months of that
377 00:51:52.310 ⇒ 00:51:55.850 Darin: What was a 3-year plan at that time is dialed in.
378 00:51:55.930 ⇒ 00:51:56.619 Darin: You know what I mean?
379 00:51:56.620 ⇒ 00:51:57.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
380 00:51:57.200 ⇒ 00:51:59.540 Darin: You’re not freaking out, and you kind of know…
381 00:51:59.540 ⇒ 00:52:00.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
382 00:52:00.220 ⇒ 00:52:03.199 Darin: You can… you can settle into it a little bit.
383 00:52:03.390 ⇒ 00:52:06.709 Darin: You know, right now, it probably just feels…
384 00:52:06.750 ⇒ 00:52:15.800 Darin: super unruly, right, if you’re saying you can’t look out. So, you know, I think some of the things… I don’t know if you’re doing this today, but we can…
385 00:52:15.800 ⇒ 00:52:28.130 Darin: work on some… work on some models, you know? Some, some easy things, plug in some numbers, do some thinking. What would that look like? How much money would we have? What kind of investments?
386 00:52:28.130 ⇒ 00:52:32.000 Darin: And nothing… nothing overly complicated. It’s just…
387 00:52:32.000 ⇒ 00:52:34.250 Darin: For you to be able to get your… your…
388 00:52:34.760 ⇒ 00:52:41.929 Darin: mind’s eye wrapped around it. So, like, we’re gonna start heading in that direction, okay? So…
389 00:52:43.220 ⇒ 00:52:51.530 Darin: I was in the Navy, and when you’re driving a ship, you move that ship in very small degrees, right?
390 00:52:52.150 ⇒ 00:53:01.249 Darin: Where you are right now, you’re a captain of your ship. You gotta figure out going east, west, north, south, right? So forget what 3 it is, right?
391 00:53:01.250 ⇒ 00:53:01.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
392 00:53:01.740 ⇒ 00:53:14.349 Darin: And then you’ll go, like, okay, we want to go north. Okay, well, now we’re gonna go a little northeast. Okay, so now we’re actually going to go north-northeast. So we’re gonna dial it in one little bit.
393 00:53:14.350 ⇒ 00:53:15.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
394 00:53:15.850 ⇒ 00:53:29.579 Darin: And you start to… it starts to get sharper and sharper, because it was so hard for me, especially with Synchronet, you know, I’m like, I have no idea what I want to do in 3 years, right? Yeah.
395 00:53:29.990 ⇒ 00:53:32.679 Darin: But, but you just, you just keep working on it, you know?
396 00:53:32.680 ⇒ 00:53:33.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
397 00:53:34.010 ⇒ 00:53:40.889 Uttam Kumaran: How has it been, like, in this Fixel program? Have you been advising any other companies? Like, how has it been so far?
398 00:53:41.920 ⇒ 00:53:58.829 Darin: I advised one other company, and it was, it was a little rough. They, it was the very first cohort. Okay. We were all learning at the same time. It was a company that had 3 bosses.
399 00:53:59.560 ⇒ 00:54:00.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
400 00:54:00.390 ⇒ 00:54:15.140 Darin: three heads of the snake. There was no real decision maker, and what we learned is, and Otto would probably tell you this, is that in that, we looked at their… how much revenue they were driving.
401 00:54:15.290 ⇒ 00:54:28.640 Darin: And it was almost a million dollars, but what we found is that they had Staff Aug, and they had a small PEO business in Pakistan, and that their professional service business was only about $200,000.
402 00:54:29.050 ⇒ 00:54:35.940 Darin: So, they… they hadn’t really matured enough, I think, to take advantage of.
403 00:54:35.940 ⇒ 00:54:36.710 Uttam Kumaran: Sure, sure, sure.
404 00:54:36.710 ⇒ 00:54:39.960 Darin: of the VIXL, framework, and,
405 00:54:40.140 ⇒ 00:54:45.859 Darin: And Otter and team weren’t experienced enough to vet them out.
406 00:54:46.530 ⇒ 00:54:47.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
407 00:54:47.520 ⇒ 00:54:48.930 Uttam Kumaran: Makes sense, makes sense.
408 00:54:49.230 ⇒ 00:55:00.049 Darin: The ones that have been really cool is I’ve had an opportunity to sit in and give some guidance, not as a formal BT member, but some other stuff, like ScaleSec, who just sold…
409 00:55:00.050 ⇒ 00:55:01.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, yes.
410 00:55:01.090 ⇒ 00:55:08.229 Darin: Marcia and Aaron in, you know, early days, and so that was cool to kind of see them.
411 00:55:08.230 ⇒ 00:55:08.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
412 00:55:08.980 ⇒ 00:55:23.649 Darin: You know, I get to sit in on the recent cohort graduation and provide some feedback and thoughts. So, you know, I just think a lot of, you know, Atar and Ali and Vishnu, and so for me, it’s just…
413 00:55:23.780 ⇒ 00:55:25.489 Darin: You know, it’s fun to help my friends.
414 00:55:25.490 ⇒ 00:55:26.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
415 00:55:26.190 ⇒ 00:55:29.090 Darin: And get to see some cool new businesses.
416 00:55:29.840 ⇒ 00:55:37.549 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess what, like, if, you know, I know we’re just coming up on time, like, in a company you would advise, like, where do you think,
417 00:55:37.780 ⇒ 00:55:53.750 Uttam Kumaran: like, what would you want… like, where in their company do you feel like you have, like, really the superpowers? I mean, I know from your background, I mean, you have a ton of experience in sales, but I feel like you’ve seen a lot, like, what parts of the company do you feel like you can come in and really…
418 00:55:53.750 ⇒ 00:55:59.290 Uttam Kumaran: you know, drive decision-making and tough conversations, versus maybe others where you’re like, look, I…
419 00:55:59.330 ⇒ 00:56:04.849 Uttam Kumaran: that… those things I haven’t done and… and we won’t do, like, yeah, just to kind of get a sense.
420 00:56:05.020 ⇒ 00:56:06.100 Darin: So I think…
421 00:56:06.480 ⇒ 00:56:13.580 Darin: I would have answered that question coming out of, Synchronet with, saying sales. Yeah.
422 00:56:13.930 ⇒ 00:56:28.119 Darin: That’s most of my background. You know, over the last 3 years, though, really running the business, you know, and so, I think my strongest piece is…
423 00:56:28.430 ⇒ 00:56:32.800 Darin: Identifying… You know, where to go get business.
424 00:56:32.910 ⇒ 00:56:37.869 Darin: how to think about it, and then how does it translate to the P&L?
425 00:56:38.600 ⇒ 00:56:46.460 Darin: So I think that’s probably, you know, kind of that CRO is where I have most of my experience. Yeah.
426 00:56:47.100 ⇒ 00:56:51.409 Darin: I’ve got a good base of, like, the delivery and operations.
427 00:56:52.640 ⇒ 00:57:00.140 Darin: But if that… if that piece of the business is this… this deep, you know, I’m… I’m only about, you know, 30-40% of it.
428 00:57:00.750 ⇒ 00:57:01.530 Uttam Kumaran: Makes sense.
429 00:57:01.530 ⇒ 00:57:11.170 Darin: like, top-line kind of guidance and thoughts, and hey, you’re thinking about this. I do a lot… I spend a lot of time and mental energy on culture.
430 00:57:11.360 ⇒ 00:57:21.620 Darin: what that means, how to drive that in our… in our business, that’s, that’s near and dear to me. So, you know, I’d say CRO,
431 00:57:22.040 ⇒ 00:57:26.740 Darin: culture… You know, ops, probably second to that.
432 00:57:26.740 ⇒ 00:57:27.340 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
433 00:57:27.650 ⇒ 00:57:31.620 Uttam Kumaran: And then I have, like, one selfish question. You talked a little bit about…
434 00:57:31.790 ⇒ 00:57:36.539 Uttam Kumaran: Going into oil and gas with that subject matter expert.
435 00:57:36.740 ⇒ 00:57:43.119 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like, you know, we’ve been lucky to meet a lot of friends, even in this business and just outside.
436 00:57:43.150 ⇒ 00:57:58.419 Uttam Kumaran: like insurance, for example. We have a couple of use cases that we’re developing for insurance. Very tight market. We have a couple of industries like insurance where I have some subject matter experts that either they’re independent or
437 00:57:58.440 ⇒ 00:58:18.160 Uttam Kumaran: for example, a friend of mine, he’s just a broker, so he can kind of do whatever he wants on the side. Like, how did you originally… did you start small with that guy that you were talking to? And, like, maybe if you could just give me some pointers on, like, how you initially engaged that, because I totally agree. For these industries that are very tight-knit, you have to have that wedge in
438 00:58:18.160 ⇒ 00:58:31.860 Uttam Kumaran: the jargon, and the people to talk to, and the buying cycles. We have, I feel like, a couple of those options on the table. I’m just wondering how you managed that person, or you tried to drive towards something initially.
439 00:58:32.440 ⇒ 00:58:49.739 Darin: First and foremost, you know, it’s got to be somebody that really aligns with you, like you’d want to go out and have dinner with, you know, just hang out, talk with. So that’s… so, you know, and then, so it takes a little bit to get to know the person, you know, meet with them,
440 00:58:50.190 ⇒ 00:59:02.099 Darin: and then you just talk… I just talk about the vision. Like, here’s where I think, and this is what I’m doing, and people… they get excited about it, right? You know, you’re… the more you can vision cast and… and…
441 00:59:02.500 ⇒ 00:59:09.100 Darin: People see that you’re speaking from the heart, you know, that you’ve got passion around it. They’ll gravitate
442 00:59:09.240 ⇒ 00:59:19.939 Darin: to you, you know, and you’re like, hey, I… I really think we can… we can make an inroad in insurance, and here’s what I’ve learned, and this is what I’ve done, and you know, and so…
443 00:59:20.290 ⇒ 00:59:25.730 Darin: when I’ve done that… People say, you need to talk to this person.
444 00:59:25.920 ⇒ 00:59:26.820 Darin: Okay
445 00:59:26.990 ⇒ 00:59:44.799 Darin: I go and talk to that person, right? And I learn something from them, and I visioncast, and they say, hey, you need to talk to… right? And so I spend time doing that, and so maybe that falls into the networking category, I don’t know, but it’s like that. And then you hit that right person, and you’re like, this is it, right?
446 00:59:44.800 ⇒ 00:59:45.380 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
447 00:59:45.900 ⇒ 00:59:50.360 Darin: Can you help in this? Because you’ve shaped it up. Again, you’ve kind of got that thought.
448 00:59:50.480 ⇒ 00:59:58.969 Darin: And then this person… Their puzzle piece, right, fits into that vision for you, and then it becomes about
449 00:59:59.540 ⇒ 01:00:11.660 Darin: structuring something that’s mutually beneficial, right? And it doesn’t have to be pulling cash out of your pocket. It could be like, hey, I’ll give you a piece of this, or we’ll do this, or this is your responsibility. Love for you to be a part of the team.
450 01:00:11.730 ⇒ 01:00:21.569 Darin: Yeah. Those are all attributes that kind of go into that, but I think it… I think it starts with your vision, and your passion, and
451 01:00:21.730 ⇒ 01:00:25.160 Darin: It, it, you know, creates some magnetism.
452 01:00:26.020 ⇒ 01:00:41.310 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Okay. No, that’s helpful. We have a couple of opportunities like that, that we’re thinking about pursuing, leveraging their insight to create a demo around something, and then go to market with that service, and so that’s, like, what we’re working on right now, and a couple of these industries, like insurance, where it’s just, like.
453 01:00:41.880 ⇒ 01:00:58.400 Uttam Kumaran: so hard to understand the process, let alone, like, get into it, but again, I have a close friend who’s in commercial insurance who wants to work with us on that. Of course, he has the Rolodex. We have the capacity to build and support the sales motion, so… yeah, no, that’s helpful to hear, yeah.
454 01:00:58.770 ⇒ 01:01:06.910 Darin: Yeah, cool, cool. Well, hey, man, I, I’ll have to talk with Vishnu, because I don’t know what the next steps are, but, really enjoyed the time.
455 01:01:06.910 ⇒ 01:01:10.510 Uttam Kumaran: I appreciate it. No, thank you so much. It’s so, so helpful. Yeah.
456 01:01:10.510 ⇒ 01:01:23.330 Darin: And hey, if nothing, I don’t… I don’t know how this… I really… I should, but I don’t really know, as much about this process. But regardless, man, if you have questions, or you want to brainstorm on something, or you can.
457 01:01:23.330 ⇒ 01:01:24.389 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, I appreciate it.
458 01:01:24.390 ⇒ 01:01:26.180 Darin: Or just, just call anytime.
459 01:01:26.810 ⇒ 01:01:40.830 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you so much, and yeah, if we can be helpful, of course, with anything, the next person I meet in oil and gas, like, I only have one person to call, so for whatever that’s worth, but if I can be helpful in anything… we didn’t even get to talk about AI,
460 01:01:40.830 ⇒ 01:01:51.640 Uttam Kumaran: Or data stuff, but… I know, right? Yeah. Yeah, I… I’m more than happy to be helpful. Again, I know it’s Friday afternoon, so thanks so much for taking an hour out. It means a lot, so…
461 01:01:51.640 ⇒ 01:01:53.960 Darin: Yeah. Alright, man, have a good weekend.
462 01:01:53.960 ⇒ 01:01:55.490 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you. Talk to you soon.