Meeting Title: Brainforge Team Catch-Up and Check-In Date: 2025-12-03 Meeting participants: Madhav Bhatia, Clarence Stone, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:00:00.000 ⇒ 00:00:02.110 Madhav Bhatia: see people, so I get it.
2 00:00:02.270 ⇒ 00:00:09.530 Uttam Kumaran: Well, yeah, I appreciate you responding. This is gonna be, you know, kind of casual, but yeah, we’ve just been reaching out to sort of…
3 00:00:09.970 ⇒ 00:00:25.710 Uttam Kumaran: folks that, you know, may be interested in something new, and would love to tell you a little bit about our company, and… and kind of just, like, hear a little bit about your background, but yeah, I, you know, run Brainforge. We’re a data and AI consultancy, about two and a half
4 00:00:25.900 ⇒ 00:00:41.139 Uttam Kumaran: years old. My background is in data engineering, and worked as a data engineer, you know, analytics engineer, led data teams, started this business, and sort of just, like, slowly built up our client base.
5 00:00:41.140 ⇒ 00:00:56.490 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, we’re about 16 people, most of the team is our engineers, either on the AI or the data side. And yeah, we’re sort of, like, coming to the point at which we have to start to think about bringing on, like, more senior folks to, like, lead.
6 00:00:56.490 ⇒ 00:01:10.280 Uttam Kumaran: You know, different… different service lines, or, you know, consider leading different parts where my time and my business partner’s time can go more into, like, you know, selling the next biggest enterprise contract and thinking about the overall strategy.
7 00:01:10.280 ⇒ 00:01:17.469 Uttam Kumaran: And so, yeah, we’re just, like, reaching out to folks that, you know, sort of may find that interesting, kind of also learning about
8 00:01:17.470 ⇒ 00:01:32.269 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t come from a formal consulting background at all. I am a consultant now, I never thought I would be a consultant in my life. Clarence has a lot of experience, he’s on the team in consulting, so sort of like thinking about what rules we can break, what rules we shouldn’t break.
9 00:01:32.290 ⇒ 00:01:37.990 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, how to build this company to, like, the next milestone. So that’s, like, a little bit about… about us.
10 00:01:38.860 ⇒ 00:01:49.469 Madhav Bhatia: That’s awesome. So, you’re saying Clarence is the one who has more background in consulting? So, Clarence, where do you fit in, in this entire picture?
11 00:01:49.470 ⇒ 00:02:10.829 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, prior to working with you, Tom, here, I was at EY, leading, AI product delivery for tax technology transformation. So, really, the focus was to bring the latest technology to bear for private equity, hedge funds, wealth asset management. So I got a lot of experience, you know, in the early days of
12 00:02:10.830 ⇒ 00:02:14.470 Clarence Stone: figuring out how to deliver AI products to clients, right?
13 00:02:15.340 ⇒ 00:02:38.399 Clarence Stone: And what I learned most was that the existing structures of the firm and the way it works is not conducive to the new world that we’re marching towards, right? And there’s different organizational layouts, different operation systems, and different team mixtures that work more effectively to get you better ROI, better results, right?
14 00:02:38.410 ⇒ 00:03:01.720 Clarence Stone: these old firms, they just can’t make those, you know, strategic changes, and be nimble in, you know, to respond to that. So, this is why I love working with Brainforge in Utah. It’s the opportunity to build things the right way, and, you know, it’s not just, you know, us doing it in the beginning and saying it works now. It’s a continual, you know, transformation.
15 00:03:01.830 ⇒ 00:03:24.920 Clarence Stone: you know, UTom is shifting his strategy and approaches as new technology comes out, so I don’t know what else to tell you, Madhav, except for the fact that this is probably the only company I’ve ever worked at that actually is AI-first from its original DNA, right? And I think that’s going to be an incredibly rare opportunity to kind of watch and see, you know, how does a company that thinks about
16 00:03:24.950 ⇒ 00:03:34.530 Clarence Stone: processes with AI, first, in its mentality, operate entirely differently and efficiently, you know, compared to these old legacy organizations.
17 00:03:35.700 ⇒ 00:03:43.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I have, like, two, probably two points to make. One is, like, I started this company sort of right after GPT 3.5 came out.
18 00:03:43.070 ⇒ 00:03:52.609 Uttam Kumaran: And so I built the business… the only reason we have a business, because I didn’t get any investment, the only reason is because I used AI, like, the whole way.
19 00:03:52.610 ⇒ 00:04:06.670 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s not, it’s not really, like, a debate in our company on, like, whether using AI will get us there, it’s, like, the only reason. So everybody that joins, everybody that is here, are all very, like, AI-first, whether it’s…
20 00:04:06.810 ⇒ 00:04:21.489 Uttam Kumaran: using ChatGPT or Custom GPT, we built our own platform, we have AI agents in Slack, so we do a lot of that. But that… not only… what that helped us to do is actually help us understand what are the,
21 00:04:22.150 ⇒ 00:04:31.680 Uttam Kumaran: like, how do we actually go to market with AI solutions that actually affect companies, right? Because we just did it in our own company. So we learned firsthand what it’s like to drive adoption.
22 00:04:31.680 ⇒ 00:04:46.980 Uttam Kumaran: how do you actually move from everybody using ChatGBT to workflows to agents? And so that’s a lot of, like, what we’re thinking about, but also how do we leverage AI in the… in our analytics function, in our data engineering function, and things like that, so…
23 00:04:46.980 ⇒ 00:04:49.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, couldn’t have said it better myself.
24 00:04:51.250 ⇒ 00:05:07.509 Madhav Bhatia: Love that entire part. Let me tell you a bit about myself. You already know much about it, because you have gone through my profile, and most of the things are already there. Just to give you a brief idea, I was in India for about 5 years, that’s where I worked in the analytics industry, started with the consulting firm Latent View.
25 00:05:07.510 ⇒ 00:05:12.070 Madhav Bhatia: Worked for the marketing part, and then got into OYO, which is a hotel…
26 00:05:12.070 ⇒ 00:05:27.639 Madhav Bhatia: online hotel booking platform, a competitor of Booking.com, and that’s where I learned the art of product analytics, got my master’s done, and now I’m working with Adobe as a consultant, and helping them out with their marketing, as well as now…
27 00:05:27.640 ⇒ 00:05:37.130 Madhav Bhatia: that’s where I could relate a lot to Clarence when I mentioned that they’re kind of like on a legacy system, it takes a lot of time for them to move into AI, like, it’s…
28 00:05:37.130 ⇒ 00:05:49.819 Madhav Bhatia: so hard to deal with all those enterprise questions, and all those security, all those related things, and then try to build something, and then get them to move on to do something out of it. They’re still dealing with structured data. Unstructured data is, again…
29 00:05:49.820 ⇒ 00:05:53.940 Madhav Bhatia: not… Do not move at fast pace for them.
30 00:05:54.330 ⇒ 00:06:03.259 Madhav Bhatia: Well, about that, all of that ran apart. How may I help you in this case, Uttam? When you’re reaching out to me, I would like to know how.
31 00:06:03.260 ⇒ 00:06:03.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
32 00:06:03.590 ⇒ 00:06:05.829 Madhav Bhatia: I fit into this entire…
33 00:06:05.950 ⇒ 00:06:21.100 Madhav Bhatia: vision that you have, because you’re a founder, you have this entire vision of, like, hey, I want to be AI native first, and I want to target these companies out this way. What are the… what do you need from my end, like, how can… maybe I’m not the right person, or maybe I’m the right person, but would like to know from that angle.
34 00:06:21.100 ⇒ 00:06:32.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let me… maybe I’ll tell you what the symptoms of the problem is, and then I’ll let Clarence sort of talk about what we’re thinking about. To give you, you know, the net-net is that we’re figuring it out.
35 00:06:32.210 ⇒ 00:06:49.100 Uttam Kumaran: I know, and I’ve asked, and one thing I am good at is I read a lot about consultancies, I know a lot about how IT consultancies are structured, like, I understand the pod program and project management and everything. I also know that our objective is to have
36 00:06:49.180 ⇒ 00:06:55.709 Uttam Kumaran: you know, outside employee happiness and outside margins, and move faster and better than every consultancy. So…
37 00:06:56.160 ⇒ 00:07:14.529 Uttam Kumaran: part of what I also know is that we can’t do everything the same way, because then we will arrive at the same margins, the same EMPS, and the same stories, you know, about consultants not being good enough. And so, for me, the problems are, one, we’ve… we’ve now grown to roughly, like, 15 clients.
38 00:07:14.530 ⇒ 00:07:20.889 Uttam Kumaran: Me or my business partner, Robert, are still involved in the delivery on all of them, in one form or another.
39 00:07:20.890 ⇒ 00:07:26.150 Uttam Kumaran: We have roughly, like, 4 or 5 different services that sometimes
40 00:07:26.270 ⇒ 00:07:33.710 Uttam Kumaran: we do one for a client, sometimes we’re doing multiple for a client. And so right now, we’re sort of thinking about, okay, how do we move…
41 00:07:33.760 ⇒ 00:07:37.179 Uttam Kumaran: Certain people into leadership positions.
42 00:07:37.180 ⇒ 00:07:56.580 Uttam Kumaran: to potentially lead a service line, to potentially… that could be on the commercial side, that could be on the technical side, but also, I am… what I… what I do know about consulting is how heavy the communication side is. My old, you know, career, I’ve worked in product companies, and so communication is, like, whatever.
43 00:07:56.580 ⇒ 00:08:02.249 Uttam Kumaran: like, you’re stuck with the group you have, and you’re… I worked at increasingly smaller startups, and so…
44 00:08:02.250 ⇒ 00:08:15.689 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like, just get whatever you can get done at whatever pace. Consulting is way different. So it’s, like, almost 50% or more communication, and it’s actually, as you get to bigger companies, of which we’re trying to sell more in enterprise.
45 00:08:15.690 ⇒ 00:08:23.340 Uttam Kumaran: Their problems are actually not that technically difficult. It’s actually more about getting the right access, winning the right people over, explaining a scope.
46 00:08:23.420 ⇒ 00:08:38.789 Uttam Kumaran: And so, for me, those are all things that we don’t have the talent internally right now, at this moment. So I have two options. One, we’re seeing how we can nurture some of the folks that we have, who has the signs of becoming that, but I’m also going to the market to look for people
47 00:08:38.789 ⇒ 00:08:54.909 Uttam Kumaran: that are, you know, and again, that are sort of in maybe your position, where you’ve grown through, you know, a company like LaytonView, you’ve seen sort of, like, consulting at different levels, with different clients, different pods, but maybe you’re…
48 00:08:55.100 ⇒ 00:09:09.320 Uttam Kumaran: frustrated by, like, hey, I’m only gonna get seen as a consultant here, I’m never gonna get opportunity to go to the commercial side, to think about delivery source opportunities, right? And so thinking about what are those things that are challenging the average
49 00:09:09.320 ⇒ 00:09:15.740 Uttam Kumaran: You know, consultant right now who has shown promise and has grown through an organization, but maybe that organization, because it’s
50 00:09:15.740 ⇒ 00:09:21.469 Uttam Kumaran: From another time is never gonna, like, give them what they… what they want, or advance them fast enough.
51 00:09:21.470 ⇒ 00:09:28.819 Uttam Kumaran: The other piece is also just, like, the operations. Like, how do we leverage AI to cut the time in which delivery takes?
52 00:09:28.830 ⇒ 00:09:40.510 Uttam Kumaran: to use that to charge higher prices, and to use that to actually pay people more and run a higher margin firm. Right, so those are the things that I’m thinking about. Maybe, Clarence, I can let you give a little bit of, like.
53 00:09:40.880 ⇒ 00:09:46.530 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, okay, what are some of the solutions that we’re thinking? And then, yeah, we can kind of get your feedback.
54 00:09:46.900 ⇒ 00:09:55.159 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so Madhav, I can put this, like, thematically for you. Your eyes lit up, and you had a big smile when I said, hey, you know.
55 00:09:55.250 ⇒ 00:10:19.900 Clarence Stone: we don’t have the same challenges legacy firms do, right? And there’s so much more flexibility and capability in what we can do. And that’s a beautiful thing, but the flip side to that is also very challenging, right? Because if you’re released from all the structures and red tape that already exists, there’s no excuse for you to say, no, I can’t do it, right? The new challenge becomes.
56 00:10:19.900 ⇒ 00:10:44.759 Clarence Stone: how do we do it most effectively? How do we question everything we already know and build something newer that solves those problems, right, by implementing better technology or processes into it? So, if I were to say, like, thematically, the kind of characteristics I’d be looking for is for people who are not just willing to do those daily deliveries, but also questioning, how do we grow this business in an effective way? What automations can we
57 00:10:44.760 ⇒ 00:11:05.329 Clarence Stone: How do we, you know, create bigger teams at scale? What are some unique ways that only we can hit the market that others can’t, right? Because, you know, the golden gift is the opportunity to be an AI-first company, and the curse is then, okay, now what do I do, right?
58 00:11:05.330 ⇒ 00:11:06.170 Clarence Stone: wrote the same thing.
59 00:11:06.170 ⇒ 00:11:10.179 Madhav Bhatia: You are the first one to actually getting to know about this.
60 00:11:10.290 ⇒ 00:11:26.829 Madhav Bhatia: One quick… one question that I have in my head about this is, generally the consulting firm, how they operate is, they work on labor arbitrage. So, they will have one person, they will have one person, they will have the billing on that… on the basis of one person. So, when we are saying, like, we want to be more efficient, deliver more, and charge more.
61 00:11:27.300 ⇒ 00:11:36.099 Madhav Bhatia: The way companies think as of today about the consulting, and the way they actually look at all the people, and the way they think about the consulting is.
62 00:11:36.320 ⇒ 00:11:37.730 Madhav Bhatia: Per person cost.
63 00:11:38.410 ⇒ 00:11:47.739 Madhav Bhatia: they do not think in terms of how much work that am I getting done. So, if this… if we are pursuing that, like, path-breaking.
64 00:11:49.400 ⇒ 00:11:57.280 Madhav Bhatia: technology or path-breaking work, one of the challenges that I’m not sure you might help me out to understand that. How do we…
65 00:11:57.710 ⇒ 00:12:15.259 Madhav Bhatia: price that effectively, to let them know that, how do we improve our… again, this… don’t want to use this word, I’m pretty sure you despise this, but margin. When you say about this, like, one person getting more stuff done, how do you charge more of them about it? Because they are still thinking from the perspective of one person getting this stuff done.
66 00:12:16.530 ⇒ 00:12:31.370 Uttam Kumaran: I’m thinking about hourly, right? Yeah. And so ultimately, like, you know, I understand the hourly equation, and they’re saying, wow, if you do it faster, we’re not going to be able to charge hourly. Yeah, duh. You know, so for us, we need to charge closer to outcome
67 00:12:31.370 ⇒ 00:12:47.200 Uttam Kumaran: and as much as possible, that is not, like, a ding. In fact, actually, we may be the only people in town that can deliver X in, like, half the time of, like, the common partners, right? At the same level of sophistication. So, for us, it’s actually not…
68 00:12:47.230 ⇒ 00:12:50.469 Uttam Kumaran: Like, a way to sort of, like, undercut
69 00:12:50.660 ⇒ 00:13:02.919 Uttam Kumaran: it’s actually… that’s our… that’s how we come to market with higher pricing, and we can get more scope at a company our size, right? Like, where we’re now able to compete with very, very large
70 00:13:02.960 ⇒ 00:13:10.719 Uttam Kumaran: consultancies on deals, but we’re winning them with absolutely no brand. Like, we’re just being in business for a few years and with a very small team.
71 00:13:10.780 ⇒ 00:13:17.809 Uttam Kumaran: The only possibility is because of pace and, like, the confidence that we show in that buying process, and all of that is…
72 00:13:17.880 ⇒ 00:13:19.830 Uttam Kumaran: you know, being augmented by AI.
73 00:13:20.390 ⇒ 00:13:32.990 Madhav Bhatia: Absolutely. And I trust you, this process is gonna work, just that one of the questions that keeps on coming in my head is, how do we price this effectively? Because we are getting more done, Uttam, over here, and sometimes the outcome is not, when you’re in the consulting mode.
74 00:13:32.990 ⇒ 00:13:38.609 Uttam Kumaran: the outcome is not in your control, because they are the ones who are making the decisions. We can recommend all those things. We can do the…
75 00:13:38.610 ⇒ 00:13:55.479 Madhav Bhatia: We can get the… all those… give them recommendations, for example, if I do the analysis from… my team is there, we are working on analytics, we are giving them recommendations. They may choose not to implement it because they have some different business priority, and at that time, we are not in the control of the outcome. That’s one of the hard parts of being in consulting.
76 00:13:55.480 ⇒ 00:13:57.289 Uttam Kumaran: This is a great point.
77 00:13:57.530 ⇒ 00:13:58.040 Madhav Bhatia: That…
78 00:13:58.040 ⇒ 00:13:58.510 Uttam Kumaran: That’s…
79 00:13:58.510 ⇒ 00:14:14.319 Madhav Bhatia: At this point, that’s where I’m not sure about the pricing perspective, because when it comes to the AI companies, they have figured it out. My pricing is gonna be either per… they were initially on the person-based, and then when they went to enterprise, they decided to become like, no, I’m gonna charge you on the basis of the tokens-based, because that’s where my money is.
80 00:14:14.320 ⇒ 00:14:30.720 Uttam Kumaran: But even the tow… but that’s where… that’s because that’s where the company’s cost basis is. Instead, you have to charge… the lovely thing about this, it gets us to really charging on the value delivered, right? For example, if we’re building an AI agent that helps your customers churn less.
81 00:14:30.720 ⇒ 00:14:47.160 Uttam Kumaran: then I want to price you on the amount of revenue saved and a fee on top of that. Is that complicated? Is that, like, not normal? Yeah, both of those are true. So, like, but that is… I don’t have a… not… I don’t have fear about that. For me, like, I think…
82 00:14:47.160 ⇒ 00:15:01.010 Uttam Kumaran: the fact that it hasn’t been done, you’re seeing there are a couple companies like Sierra, like, like some of these companies you’re seeing in… in… that are trying to augment consulting are finding these ways of pricing in that manner, but it’s also a transition.
83 00:15:01.010 ⇒ 00:15:11.100 Uttam Kumaran: some of our clients are not going to be up for it. They’re going to still want to charge hourly, and that’s fine. But we are seeing that the true companies that are thinking about their P&L in a way of
84 00:15:11.100 ⇒ 00:15:23.480 Uttam Kumaran: allocating money towards ROI, they are more than happy to do that in a way where their consultants are coming, hey, I’m gonna find you $5 million, right? And I want to charge you one.
85 00:15:23.860 ⇒ 00:15:38.410 Uttam Kumaran: who else is coming to the table in your organization with a proposition like that, right? So that’s how we’re trying to frame things. You’re right that some clients aren’t gonna do it, and maybe they’re not the right clients for us, if they don’t think that way. And that is up to us to determine, you know, whether
86 00:15:38.620 ⇒ 00:15:52.090 Uttam Kumaran: whether we can work with them or not, but I feel like what… in selling these services over the past 2 years, recently, I feel like more folks at the higher level are open to engagements in this way, because
87 00:15:52.460 ⇒ 00:16:04.450 Uttam Kumaran: we may be some of the few people that have even offered… and we are taking the risk on, by the way, you know, but I’m saying I want to… I want to drive towards the outcome, like, I know I’m taking the risk.
88 00:16:05.290 ⇒ 00:16:11.779 Uttam Kumaran: so be it. Like, I… I… that’s where, ultimately, we have to… we believe in our product.
89 00:16:11.950 ⇒ 00:16:23.459 Madhav Bhatia: Yes, I totally agree that we want to focus and we want to help them out, and that’s our pitch is always going to be. But from the pricing perspective, I think we can be… again, this is, again, my opinion. No…
90 00:16:23.460 ⇒ 00:16:24.599 Uttam Kumaran: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
91 00:16:24.600 ⇒ 00:16:35.740 Madhav Bhatia: Being very, very honest over here, and that’s… I’ll be… sometimes I’ll be honest, please. So, when we think about all those things, sometimes, as I mentioned, the outcome is not always in your control, and when you try to.
92 00:16:35.740 ⇒ 00:16:36.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
93 00:16:36.210 ⇒ 00:16:38.130 Madhav Bhatia: Your pricing in that perspective.
94 00:16:38.440 ⇒ 00:16:57.829 Madhav Bhatia: what happens is, like, you lose out on all the work that you have done, and then they did not implement it, and you don’t get to say that, what about my money that I’m supposed to get back? Yeah. People forget that, because they didn’t implement it, or they don’t have it. But at the same time, if you have such an amazing set of tools, we can always price them on the basis of
95 00:16:57.860 ⇒ 00:17:07.600 Madhav Bhatia: this is the outcome that you wanted out of these agents, and this is what they are doing now. This is how many analysis that you are getting out of them. This is how many tasks that you are getting done.
96 00:17:07.609 ⇒ 00:17:12.229 Uttam Kumaran: You stole the word out of my mouth. Exactly. There’s a spectrum of, like, KPIs that…
97 00:17:12.230 ⇒ 00:17:37.059 Madhav Bhatia: There is a spectrum of KPIs, and when consulting is right in the middle of it, and if you choose that middle ground, you’ll be… I think we might be in a great position to even put this in front of them, that, hey, this is what we agreed on, this is the agent that we wanted to deliver on, this is what they are delivering now, so this is how my pricing is gonna be. More you use, more you pay, and we continue to improve, like, continue to improve our services, and this becomes more like a product
98 00:17:37.060 ⇒ 00:17:48.459 Madhav Bhatia: That we are building a customized product for you, and this continues to increase. Like, becomes better, because we consistently get the feedback from that, that they purchased it, and they’re not… and if they’re not using it.
99 00:17:48.520 ⇒ 00:17:52.270 Madhav Bhatia: then we are in trouble. If they are using it, we continue to make the money.
100 00:17:52.270 ⇒ 00:17:52.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
101 00:17:52.820 ⇒ 00:17:53.830 Madhav Bhatia: That’s one of the ways.
102 00:17:53.830 ⇒ 00:17:57.209 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want them to pay us so they don’t use it. Like, I’m happy.
103 00:17:57.210 ⇒ 00:17:57.720 Madhav Bhatia: Exactly.
104 00:17:58.060 ⇒ 00:17:59.089 Madhav Bhatia: This is one of the reasons.
105 00:17:59.090 ⇒ 00:18:22.289 Uttam Kumaran: not getting that… so this… so what I’m trying… what I think both of me and Clarence, we’re not having enough of these conversations in the company, because there are not enough people thinking about our… both the sale and the delivery, and then turning that into something that we can continuously market and expand Brainforge, right? Like, there’s not enough of this type of conversation, and so…
106 00:18:22.290 ⇒ 00:18:24.989 Uttam Kumaran: Who we’re trying to go after are folks that…
107 00:18:25.330 ⇒ 00:18:40.610 Uttam Kumaran: want to have conversations like these, and want to actually go and say, okay, I do have 3… 3 potential clients coming up, I’m gonna go ahead and propose this, and I’m gonna forecast what this works, and let’s see if they bite. That’s the kind of people that we’re, you know, we’re looking for.
108 00:18:41.530 ⇒ 00:18:52.480 Madhav Bhatia: in that case, like, I’m… because I’ll be totally new to this kind of conversation, Suttam, because you might need some, like, you might have VCs or someone to guide you through this, and…
109 00:18:52.950 ⇒ 00:18:54.399 Uttam Kumaran: There’s nobody, don’t worry.
110 00:18:54.400 ⇒ 00:18:55.429 Madhav Bhatia: There’s nobody.
111 00:18:55.430 ⇒ 00:18:56.030 Uttam Kumaran: me.
112 00:18:56.030 ⇒ 00:19:02.049 Madhav Bhatia: You should have someone to guide you through all of, like, when to have someone who can.
113 00:19:02.050 ⇒ 00:19:12.690 Uttam Kumaran: I, I am… I am, I… don’t worry, I am… I have so much advice coming my way. It’s actually more interesting to me as who not to listen to. And so, I’m telling you.
114 00:19:12.690 ⇒ 00:19:24.779 Uttam Kumaran: the fact that you’re able to have a conversation like this shows that you have thought about this yourself. Don’t worry about me taking what you just said and, like, drowning the business. I promise you that won’t… that’s not… that’s not what’s gonna happen, but…
115 00:19:24.780 ⇒ 00:19:41.319 Madhav Bhatia: You’re doing great work, because this is kind of, like, falls into the territory of somewhere between sales and delivery, and if it is falling into that category, I’m not sure when to hire this kind of a person for your stage. I have never been through that experience, right? Yeah. So you know it better than I am.
116 00:19:41.320 ⇒ 00:19:53.800 Uttam Kumaran: My question to you, my question to you is what… what is your goal? Like, what are… what are your goals? Like, when you think about your career, you think about something next, you obviously took Message Me Back, so you’re thinking about something. What is it?
117 00:19:53.800 ⇒ 00:19:56.000 Madhav Bhatia: about all of this, otherwise I will not have this conversation.
118 00:19:56.000 ⇒ 00:19:57.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.
119 00:19:57.130 ⇒ 00:20:08.659 Madhav Bhatia: That’s why I’m having this entire discussion, like, hey, this sounds exciting, maybe this part, or maybe this part, this entire thing, all the things that you have been doing, like building all those products, and sending it, giving it, and then out.
120 00:20:08.660 ⇒ 00:20:22.980 Uttam Kumaran: pricing it on the basis of the outcome or the output that you’re giving. And we’re not doing all of our business like that, by the way. Like, a majority of our business is still the same way, but what I like to do is we have to innovate, right? We have to think about why is Brainforge different?
121 00:20:22.980 ⇒ 00:20:39.870 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to get into a sales process where we’re getting compared to somebody. We have lost at that point, right? We’re not in a bake-off with people, right? So how is working with us and us delivering for you a different experience entirely, right, is how we’re trying to think.
122 00:20:40.050 ⇒ 00:20:45.929 Madhav Bhatia: Yeah, this is an entirely different, like, this is a differentiator, let me put it this way. This is a differentiator between…
123 00:20:46.330 ⇒ 00:20:59.659 Madhav Bhatia: Brainforge versus any other consulting firm, because they will have, like, okay, what’s your problem? This is the solution that we have, this is how much we’re gonna charge for per person, right? You need how many people? Let me give you these many people. That’s how basic consulting works.
124 00:21:00.330 ⇒ 00:21:05.099 Madhav Bhatia: When you are saying that, when you are thinking more from the perspective, like, hey, this is your problem.
125 00:21:05.200 ⇒ 00:21:12.129 Madhav Bhatia: I’m gonna help you solve this, with the help from my team, which is AI Native first. And we are gonna build you agents rather than just people.
126 00:21:12.740 ⇒ 00:21:16.149 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. It’s a different mindset altogether, and different way of working.
127 00:21:16.150 ⇒ 00:21:17.920 Madhav Bhatia: Sounds super exciting, Utam.
128 00:21:18.180 ⇒ 00:21:29.179 Madhav Bhatia: how can I help you from this regard, further? What do you want me to, like… we have, like, you only have 4 more minutes, so what else I can… what other information that I can help you with?
129 00:21:30.620 ⇒ 00:21:32.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Clarence, maybe what do you think?
130 00:21:32.320 ⇒ 00:21:40.480 Clarence Stone: like, what I want to know from you, Madhav, is if you’re interested in a… in an opportunity to, you know, find…
131 00:21:40.480 ⇒ 00:21:57.130 Clarence Stone: the answers, and to be able to experiment in a format like this, because we need people who are going to have the capability to think like you do. And what I’ll say about Brainforge is it’s a company that is full of instant access to tons of information.
132 00:21:57.130 ⇒ 00:22:20.920 Clarence Stone: Without, like, I’ll say it super lightly, Tom, like, you can go into any prior meeting for any, you know, engagement, and use an LLM to ask questions on what happened. You can get a summarized, review of, like, everything that’s been going on, right? So imagine an organization like that, and what would you build on top of it? What services would you sell? How would you do it, right? Because that’s sort of…
133 00:22:20.920 ⇒ 00:22:33.670 Clarence Stone: the stage this is in. You, Tom, and Robert have found a way that works really well right now, but in order to grow it, they need more talented people who have this curiosity, that want to pick up on what they’ve learned and still push that company forward.
134 00:22:35.160 ⇒ 00:22:41.549 Madhav Bhatia: This sounds really exciting, to be honest, Clarence and Utam. So, any other… anything else that you need from my end?
135 00:22:41.780 ⇒ 00:22:50.140 Madhav Bhatia: I’m interested in knowing more about it, and learning more, but what I can do more for you from here on? Let me know.
136 00:22:51.560 ⇒ 00:22:54.310 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So, I mean, I don’t know, Clarence, what do you, what do you think?
137 00:22:54.460 ⇒ 00:23:06.250 Clarence Stone: I mean, I’m curious from you, on your side, you know, if you were to join Brainforge, what would that opportunity look like for you? What would you like to do? I think you have a good understanding of, you know, like.
138 00:23:06.460 ⇒ 00:23:27.980 Clarence Stone: what you, Tom, and team bring to bear, what tools are available, and I mean, literally, the challenge is growing it. It’s not that it doesn’t work, it works too well, he’s too busy. Right? So, it’s like, okay, then what piece of it would you want, and how would you grow it, and how, you know, and is this an opportunity that you’d be interested in? That’s what I would want to hear from you.
139 00:23:27.980 ⇒ 00:23:32.429 Clarence Stone: And you don’t have to answer right now, right? Like, think about it, you know, ask…
140 00:23:32.430 ⇒ 00:23:51.679 Clarence Stone: ask us more questions, kind of formulate in your head, you know, look up some of the case studies that are being produced, by the way, which are now done with AI-assisted generation, so there’s a case study for almost every project. So, yeah, tons of ways for you to kind of look into it, but really, like.
141 00:23:51.720 ⇒ 00:24:08.900 Clarence Stone: you know, you’re on the frontier of things, and there’s an opportunity there, like, what would you do with it? Because I already told you, right? Like, yeah, I lived through those same problems, you’re smiling because you understand that struggle, right? And then I give you the other option, you go, whoa, that’s a lot of freedom, how would I do… like, what would I do with it, right?
142 00:24:09.310 ⇒ 00:24:16.619 Madhav Bhatia: Absolutely. So, let me do one thing. Obviously, I like to write down the things, because as Utah mentioned, it’s communication and it’s true.
143 00:24:16.620 ⇒ 00:24:19.439 Clarence Stone: I’ll let Uttam be… I’ll be honest over here.
144 00:24:19.630 ⇒ 00:24:29.179 Madhav Bhatia: My role over here in the United States, when I’m working with these people, it’s not about doing any analysis. I’ll do analysis only 10-20% of the time, or I’ll be…
145 00:24:29.410 ⇒ 00:24:44.819 Madhav Bhatia: solving any of… or even I’ll be touching my keyboard to do any SQL coding or any of the coding part only 20% or 30% of the time. Only… only… only and only if it is an advanced level of something which my team is unable to deliver. That’s where I get into the picture.
146 00:24:44.940 ⇒ 00:24:55.319 Madhav Bhatia: The rest of the time is just about getting into those meetings, helping them explain all those important work that we have done. Because you might deliver tens and thousands of the things.
147 00:24:55.540 ⇒ 00:25:07.140 Madhav Bhatia: How do you put it out there and explain it to them? Because they will never get it. I’ll be honest over here, it will take you… 90% of your time… my time actually goes in synthesizing back.
148 00:25:07.160 ⇒ 00:25:22.659 Madhav Bhatia: And I have agents to build… agents built over there to actually, whatever I write, write it back in the format that can explain it back to them. And then writing… writing part, taking it async, going into the meeting, explaining it to them. This is where my time goes.
149 00:25:23.310 ⇒ 00:25:30.650 Madhav Bhatia: And again, I’m a bit frustrated by all of this, to be honest, but at the same time, I do understand why this is so important.
150 00:25:30.650 ⇒ 00:25:35.780 Uttam Kumaran: You’re very kind, by the way. I know it’s your current employer, but…
151 00:25:35.850 ⇒ 00:25:40.440 Madhav Bhatia: Hey, it’s not about the employer, it’s about the process. I’m not frustrated with the employer. I’m frustrated
152 00:25:40.860 ⇒ 00:25:58.620 Madhav Bhatia: process. My employer is great. My employers are great. People that I work with are great. It’s the process. If the process is not fast enough, I get frustrated. Things can be fast, that’s what I believe, but at the same time, gotta deal with the bureaucracy. Always. Always. That’s the part that I get into. So yeah, I try to move the…
153 00:25:59.040 ⇒ 00:26:05.079 Madhav Bhatia: rock, and if I try to… if I move the rock even by an inch, I…
154 00:26:05.080 ⇒ 00:26:05.540 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
155 00:26:05.540 ⇒ 00:26:06.430 Madhav Bhatia: I count that as.
156 00:26:06.430 ⇒ 00:26:21.869 Clarence Stone: I just want to emphasize to you, I feel that pain subdeeply. I have such great friends at EY, and, you know, like, they can give me the highest level position, there’s just no way I can organizationally fix it, because it is fundamentally, you know, from the bottom up, built with, you know, certain limitations.
157 00:26:21.870 ⇒ 00:26:38.900 Clarence Stone: And it’s a sad thing, right? You just know, you know, the position of that company isn’t going to change because of its structure, or it’s going to be a 5-10 year journey. You really want to be around for that. And then the other side, you know, Tom is here to give you the other side of the coin, is this…
158 00:26:38.900 ⇒ 00:26:41.970 Clarence Stone: you know, greenfield opportunity, right?
159 00:26:41.970 ⇒ 00:26:55.590 Madhav Bhatia: just about EY or LeytonView, it’s about the people that I work with. Like, LightenView could be helping out many companies, just that the companies that we come across, for example, and this is a struggle that maybe Utam, Brainforge will also encounter in the future.
160 00:26:55.590 ⇒ 00:26:56.110 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
161 00:26:56.110 ⇒ 00:27:00.430 Madhav Bhatia: The people that we work with, they themselves are, like, rock, and they’re not.
162 00:27:00.430 ⇒ 00:27:01.140 Uttam Kumaran: No, definitely.
163 00:27:01.140 ⇒ 00:27:06.080 Madhav Bhatia: And getting them to move in an inch, that’s actually the victory that I cover.
164 00:27:06.080 ⇒ 00:27:25.790 Uttam Kumaran: But that… but I would say that is the opportunity, right? Like, that is truly what makes a great consulting firm, that’s truly what makes a great partner, outcomes partner, is getting them to there. Yes, there’s probably something where, like, some clients are just like, we shouldn’t have ever worked with them. We promised them something, we sold them something, and no way we can do this. There’s other folks where it’s like.
165 00:27:25.790 ⇒ 00:27:27.910 Uttam Kumaran: Damn, we could do way more for you.
166 00:27:27.910 ⇒ 00:27:29.979 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like, we could deliver even more.
167 00:27:29.980 ⇒ 00:27:49.520 Uttam Kumaran: And so… and it’s also, like, you know, there’s a lot of stuff wrong with our organization, by the way, and there’s still a lot of things that hurt. We’re not perfect, but I think what we are is. Very malleable, right? Very malleable, and I’m only married to the company winning, and everybody being happy, and our clients being happy. I don’t care how we get there.
168 00:27:49.540 ⇒ 00:27:54.600 Uttam Kumaran: At all. I’m no… in fact, like, I need people to come say, how do we get there?
169 00:27:55.070 ⇒ 00:28:13.229 Uttam Kumaran: And I’ve built a lot of great primitives in this company, like, the culture, the way we’re doing things, technology. Most of our team are prior engineers, so they… we’re building stuff for ourselves and for clients, but, like, those are the ways that I’m like, okay, I’ll enable a platform for us internally
170 00:28:13.230 ⇒ 00:28:24.289 Uttam Kumaran: to then try to drive differentiated outcomes. But, like, the way we’re doing things today is no… we… there’s no reason that we have to do the same way tomorrow. Like, nothing here…
171 00:28:24.440 ⇒ 00:28:25.829 Uttam Kumaran: I… a lot of the things we.
172 00:28:25.830 ⇒ 00:28:29.340 Madhav Bhatia: It’s a line in the sand, I’ll put it this way. Yeah. A line in the sand.
173 00:28:29.530 ⇒ 00:28:30.250 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly.
174 00:28:31.130 ⇒ 00:28:43.429 Madhav Bhatia: This is great connecting with both of you. If you have anything from my… if you need anything from my end, please let me know. Meanwhile, let me go back, look into all the details, and Utam, Clarence, you will have a set of questions for my end.
175 00:28:43.430 ⇒ 00:28:43.790 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.
176 00:28:43.790 ⇒ 00:28:45.549 Madhav Bhatia: I’ll have a document all the setup.
177 00:28:45.550 ⇒ 00:28:45.910 Uttam Kumaran: Please.
178 00:28:45.910 ⇒ 00:28:51.670 Madhav Bhatia: So, it will give me some time to think also, and collect my thoughts, but…
179 00:28:51.910 ⇒ 00:28:54.529 Madhav Bhatia: Meanwhile, if you have any questions for me.
180 00:28:54.860 ⇒ 00:28:57.179 Madhav Bhatia: Let me know anything that I can help you with.
181 00:28:57.440 ⇒ 00:28:58.259 Madhav Bhatia: I’m there.
182 00:28:58.930 ⇒ 00:28:59.570 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.
183 00:28:59.790 ⇒ 00:29:00.450 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, sir.
184 00:29:01.330 ⇒ 00:29:02.730 Madhav Bhatia: Thank you for your time. Have a great day.
185 00:29:02.730 ⇒ 00:29:03.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Talk to you soon.
186 00:29:04.000 ⇒ 00:29:04.900 Uttam Kumaran: Bye. Bye-bye.