Meeting Title: DE-AE-AI Standup Date: 2025-12-10 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Greg Stoutenburg, Elizah Joy, Rico Rejoso, Henry Zhao, Amber Lin, Samuel Roberts, Ashwini Sharma, Zoran Selinger
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1 00:01:25.010 ⇒ 00:01:25.990 Robert Tseng: Hey, Greg.
2 00:01:26.830 ⇒ 00:01:28.030 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey, good morning, how’s it going?
3 00:01:28.200 ⇒ 00:01:29.120 Robert Tseng: Good, how are you?
4 00:01:29.860 ⇒ 00:01:30.870 Greg Stoutenburg: Doing pretty good.
5 00:01:32.110 ⇒ 00:01:33.429 Greg Stoutenburg: Remind me where you live?
6 00:01:33.930 ⇒ 00:01:34.880 Robert Tseng: I’m in New York.
7 00:01:35.430 ⇒ 00:01:39.460 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s right, that’s who you said before, but you were somewhere else very recently, so I think that’s what threw me off.
8 00:01:39.460 ⇒ 00:01:43.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I might have been in Hong Kong when I first talked to you.
9 00:01:43.270 ⇒ 00:01:48.430 Greg Stoutenburg: When we first talked, you were in Hong Kong. That’s… I forgot about that. Yeah. It was 10 PM.
10 00:01:48.430 ⇒ 00:01:49.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
11 00:01:49.930 ⇒ 00:01:53.760 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s right. Yeah. Well, good morning.
12 00:01:54.620 ⇒ 00:01:55.280 Robert Tseng: Yep.
13 00:01:56.300 ⇒ 00:02:08.579 Robert Tseng: I mean, I guess we can… we can jump into it while the other people trickle in. I think we just go straight to doing README first. Yeah, I guess, like, I looked through your doc. I think this is a good…
14 00:02:10.100 ⇒ 00:02:17.110 Robert Tseng: Yeah, this is a good plan to talk through things. I think I kind of want to give them a heads up this is coming, so,
15 00:02:18.890 ⇒ 00:02:21.570 Robert Tseng: I think… we should
16 00:02:21.820 ⇒ 00:02:36.190 Robert Tseng: I mean, I can… I can pretty much just cut this down into a Slack message, and I’ll send it, and probably add you, introduce you there, as, like, this is, like, our proposed agenda. They may kind of push back, or whatever, like, I think that’s fine. I think it’s just better to kind of lead off with this.
17 00:02:36.310 ⇒ 00:02:39.559 Robert Tseng: What would be great?
18 00:02:39.690 ⇒ 00:02:45.280 Robert Tseng: I mean, I don’t think we’re gonna be able to talk about all these things, so… No.
19 00:02:45.280 ⇒ 00:03:00.699 Greg Stoutenburg: No, no way. This was more like, here are several options, and we could maybe pick something, pick a direction, and, you know, and I could also fill out what a timeline or roadmap for any of these things might be, but yeah, I didn’t… this was… my thought was, let’s…
20 00:03:01.320 ⇒ 00:03:03.040 Greg Stoutenburg: These are the things we could offer them.
21 00:03:04.250 ⇒ 00:03:09.380 Robert Tseng: Okay, great, I see, I see that, yeah. It’s like, okay,
22 00:03:11.920 ⇒ 00:03:16.379 Robert Tseng: I mean, if I were kind of putting myself in their shoes, like.
23 00:03:16.830 ⇒ 00:03:26.469 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think they’d be like, yeah, the onboarding analysis is, like, kind of what you’re doing, so they’re gonna… they’re gonna be okay with that. Retention and engagement, yeah, I think they…
24 00:03:27.330 ⇒ 00:03:30.909 Robert Tseng: I think they would… they’d be… I think they would bite at that as well.
25 00:03:31.090 ⇒ 00:03:38.979 Robert Tseng: I think, yeah, just being opinionated about, like, what it means for us to go deeper on conversion, I guess, like, there’s, like, a…
26 00:03:39.180 ⇒ 00:03:52.119 Robert Tseng: you’re… like, we need the instrumentation to be better, we need the strategy in order to go deeper on conversion. Like, that’s basically what you’re trying to tell them, so… Yes, it is. I think we should stick to that narrative,
27 00:03:52.640 ⇒ 00:04:01.349 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I… yeah, anyway, so I think that’s… that’s probably… how we position that.
28 00:04:03.080 ⇒ 00:04:06.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess whatever this doc is ready to share, I think I would…
29 00:04:06.870 ⇒ 00:04:18.780 Robert Tseng: try to just give them a pre-read. They do read docs before calls, so, yeah, I guess, like, you know, whenever you feel like this is ready to share, we could do that, but I’ll, I can send the message first.
30 00:04:19.370 ⇒ 00:04:23.410 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, yeah, I can, I’ll brush it up then so that it’s external facing.
31 00:04:23.730 ⇒ 00:04:24.360 Robert Tseng: Great.
32 00:04:25.000 ⇒ 00:04:29.470 Robert Tseng: Met a couple things, I did get around to…
33 00:04:29.860 ⇒ 00:04:34.990 Robert Tseng: Doing the… some of the reporting, that’s probably what we want to show tomorrow as well.
34 00:04:39.760 ⇒ 00:04:40.899 Robert Tseng: I see you.
35 00:04:40.900 ⇒ 00:04:51.289 Greg Stoutenburg: making a note. Yeah, I have, I have a question slash comment slash thought. So, for the booster growth, no, not that one.
36 00:04:52.460 ⇒ 00:04:54.900 Greg Stoutenburg: booster pack usage filter.
37 00:04:54.900 ⇒ 00:04:55.310 Robert Tseng: Yep.
38 00:04:55.310 ⇒ 00:05:05.170 Greg Stoutenburg: I put a comment in Slack yesterday, using the event that was identified there, which is the add-on success, only 6 users show as having performed that event in the last week.
39 00:05:05.550 ⇒ 00:05:11.299 Greg Stoutenburg: So, my… I have two thoughts here. One is, let’s confirm that that’s definitely the right event.
40 00:05:11.590 ⇒ 00:05:26.739 Greg Stoutenburg: And then, if it is the right event, then maybe we should go back to the client and say, hey, do you want us to break out all these charts in this way? There doesn’t seem to be a way to apply a global filter, so it would be editing of lots of charts to show
41 00:05:26.890 ⇒ 00:05:30.460 Greg Stoutenburg: Probably not very much data, given that that group is so small.
42 00:05:31.310 ⇒ 00:05:37.040 Robert Tseng: Okay, can you turn this into, like, a Slack message with a screenshot of what you’re seeing, so that I could just forward it to the channel?
43 00:05:37.510 ⇒ 00:05:38.180 Greg Stoutenburg: Yes.
44 00:05:38.180 ⇒ 00:05:39.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Will do.
45 00:05:39.470 ⇒ 00:05:42.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s a good question to ask, to clear it up.
46 00:05:42.690 ⇒ 00:05:49.660 Robert Tseng: I know there’s a couple other things, like the booster growth improvement analysis, and the trial relaunch.
47 00:05:49.780 ⇒ 00:05:52.809 Robert Tseng: you know, I… I guess I don’t… do you think…
48 00:05:52.940 ⇒ 00:05:54.670 Robert Tseng: You think you’ll get to that today?
49 00:05:56.050 ⇒ 00:06:10.069 Greg Stoutenburg: So, I have the trial relaunch analysis, I saw that that’s today, the booster growth improvements, I can take both of those on, yeah, and that’s just add AI Booster. It… this is the description here in 70, right? The whole thing is just make.
50 00:06:10.070 ⇒ 00:06:13.849 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, that’s very much all they did. They made a couple chances, yeah.
51 00:06:13.850 ⇒ 00:06:21.369 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s pretty small. And then, same for trial relaunch analysis. They just want to see those two success metrics since the fifth.
52 00:06:21.730 ⇒ 00:06:28.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah, ideally, they just kind of sit on top of the same… I think Mishafa has… I don’t know if you… you looked at the,
53 00:06:29.190 ⇒ 00:06:31.420 Robert Tseng: I’ll just maybe flash it real quick.
54 00:06:31.970 ⇒ 00:06:34.660 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, he shared his dashboards with me, and made me an editor.
55 00:06:34.900 ⇒ 00:06:37.189 Robert Tseng: Okay, great.
56 00:06:37.320 ⇒ 00:06:48.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but, like, the folder structure, like, they were getting confused by all the reports that were in there, so I kind of just, like, created, like, a broad staging environment. And, yeah, I guess they’re only looking at…
57 00:06:48.900 ⇒ 00:06:54.690 Robert Tseng: the live report, sorry, live staging. So, oh, I’m not sharing my screen.
58 00:06:55.900 ⇒ 00:07:07.539 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so there’s a space called self-service conversion. I threw everything into staging, but then there’s one thing in live, so this is… huh.
59 00:07:09.610 ⇒ 00:07:11.480 Robert Tseng: I suppose?
60 00:07:11.690 ⇒ 00:07:19.720 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we didn’t move anything into live. So, whatever we’re ready to share, so, like, this Executive Growth Dashboard, I would move…
61 00:07:20.530 ⇒ 00:07:22.340 Robert Tseng: Let’s do it into live.
62 00:07:22.740 ⇒ 00:07:27.439 Robert Tseng: The pricing experiments, I believe we’re also ready to move those.
63 00:07:27.840 ⇒ 00:07:31.400 Robert Tseng: And then… I want to say…
64 00:07:32.560 ⇒ 00:07:38.200 Robert Tseng: I think you basically will just add your… what you’re doing as an extension to this, right? Yeah.
65 00:07:38.200 ⇒ 00:07:38.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
66 00:07:38.970 ⇒ 00:07:46.049 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, so I’m gonna move this one also to live, and you’ll just make the edits directly.
67 00:07:46.800 ⇒ 00:07:47.560 Robert Tseng: There.
68 00:07:48.110 ⇒ 00:07:48.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.
69 00:07:49.040 ⇒ 00:07:49.950 Greg Stoutenburg: Sounds good.
70 00:07:51.330 ⇒ 00:07:51.690 Robert Tseng: Okay.
71 00:07:51.690 ⇒ 00:08:07.560 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay, so my actions then are I’ll brush up the, the recommendations for README, share it with you when you can send it to them, and then I’ll, yeah, I’ll draft a Slack message that you can pass along for what I’m seeing for the,
72 00:08:07.720 ⇒ 00:08:10.970 Greg Stoutenburg: Booster pack usage. Booster pack usage.
73 00:08:12.230 ⇒ 00:08:16.979 Robert Tseng: Yep, that sounds good. Just gonna move this to blocks, and then this is…
74 00:08:17.420 ⇒ 00:08:19.909 Robert Tseng: More or less in review.
75 00:08:20.520 ⇒ 00:08:23.650 Robert Tseng: And we’re gonna get these done today.
76 00:08:27.790 ⇒ 00:08:28.640 Robert Tseng: Okay.
77 00:08:33.650 ⇒ 00:08:35.699 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s all we got for Remy.
78 00:08:36.600 ⇒ 00:08:37.350 Greg Stoutenburg: Sounds good.
79 00:08:37.350 ⇒ 00:08:38.240 Robert Tseng: Okay? Alright.
80 00:08:38.240 ⇒ 00:08:39.030 Greg Stoutenburg: Talk to you later. See ya.
81 00:08:39.039 ⇒ 00:08:39.569 Robert Tseng: Right.
82 00:08:41.569 ⇒ 00:08:52.139 Robert Tseng: Alrighty, let’s go to Honey Stinger. So, Amber, I did kind of leave you some feedback, so, I think overall…
83 00:08:52.140 ⇒ 00:08:53.310 Amber Lin: Reading your comments.
84 00:08:53.310 ⇒ 00:09:01.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, just… I’ll just talk quickly over it. I’m not gonna go into each comment. I think, overall, I think this is…
85 00:09:01.600 ⇒ 00:09:03.700 Robert Tseng: Good for follow-on.
86 00:09:04.130 ⇒ 00:09:11.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think there’s just some touching up before we share it out. Yeah, and then…
87 00:09:13.270 ⇒ 00:09:26.209 Robert Tseng: What did I have to say about this? I think I already made some of the edits directly. This one, I felt like there wasn’t really a real recommendation. And also, you don’t have to force a recommendation. If your question leads to another question, I think that’s totally fine. So…
88 00:09:27.120 ⇒ 00:09:27.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
89 00:09:27.740 ⇒ 00:09:39.939 Amber Lin: Yeah, I just… all I cared about in this pass was just the title and the image, so I didn’t do any of the formatting edits yet. This was just my copy and paste format slides.
90 00:09:40.020 ⇒ 00:09:47.820 Robert Tseng: No, I think, I think this approach is fine, and then, yeah, I mean, overall, like, I, I think, I think these are, these are good.
91 00:09:49.770 ⇒ 00:09:59.789 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, I kind of thought, like, also just cleaning up some of the methodology key assumptions, yeah, well, so let’s, like, you know, I, you know, I, I think I…
92 00:10:00.110 ⇒ 00:10:16.340 Robert Tseng: added, like, a longer comment here. So, I think, basically, what I’m seeing from your analysis is, like, okay, look, like, people who reorder the most, like, they’re not using discounts, and, you know, they have higher AOV,
93 00:10:16.670 ⇒ 00:10:21.470 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, we’re just trying to under… I think the question… the next question is, like, well, how do we…
94 00:10:21.670 ⇒ 00:10:33.149 Robert Tseng: like, who are those customers that aren’t using the discounts, or just those who do, right? And, like, what can we know about them? And you may not have the data for that just off of Shopify, but I think that’s worth having the conversation with them.
95 00:10:33.150 ⇒ 00:10:44.620 Robert Tseng: to… to see, like, where… what other data we need to pull into this. So, I have examples of how we’ve… how I’ve… I mean, how we can enrich this, but, yeah, anyway, like, I think that’s… that’s basically the follow-on.
96 00:10:44.620 ⇒ 00:10:48.480 Robert Tseng: I mean, this is a good slide, like, I think this is a great way to show
97 00:10:48.560 ⇒ 00:10:50.280 Robert Tseng: Kind of like…
98 00:10:50.860 ⇒ 00:11:07.050 Robert Tseng: yeah, just the summary stats of, like, what the groups are. Obviously, these are pretty rudimentary segments, so, like, I think, being able to… I know we defined it here, but, yeah. Anyway, so, like, I’m curious, like, how they’ll react to that.
99 00:11:08.280 ⇒ 00:11:23.769 Amber Lin: Do you think… my question here is, do you think this is a good way to segment? Like, does this segment make sense of people who never discount and sometimes discount? Because I define sometimes as they have at least used
100 00:11:24.240 ⇒ 00:11:42.279 Amber Lin: have one order with discount and one order without discounts, at least. Yeah. So, the bare minimum sometimes is that they at least order two times, whereas the never and always, the minimum order is one order, because they don’t have to satisfy two requirements.
101 00:11:42.680 ⇒ 00:11:47.930 Amber Lin: Yeah, I mean, if you have time to break it out, I think what I would do is, like, first-time discount.
102 00:11:48.450 ⇒ 00:11:49.140 Amber Lin: Mmm.
103 00:11:49.140 ⇒ 00:11:51.620 Robert Tseng: I mean, probably for, I would say.
104 00:11:51.760 ⇒ 00:12:01.929 Robert Tseng: for those that are using discount, probably their first orders discount, but it’d be interesting to see, like, are there people who are not discounting on their first one, but they’re, like, discounting later on? Like, I think
105 00:12:02.260 ⇒ 00:12:04.100 Robert Tseng: You could break this up a couple more ways.
106 00:12:04.100 ⇒ 00:12:05.799 Amber Lin: Okay, that makes more sense. Yeah.
107 00:12:06.350 ⇒ 00:12:09.829 Amber Lin: There’s already a very small segment, I think.
108 00:12:11.110 ⇒ 00:12:11.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
109 00:12:12.080 ⇒ 00:12:17.560 Robert Tseng: I think, and then what else is missing here is, like, segment size. So, just.
110 00:12:18.190 ⇒ 00:12:18.699 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m bad.
111 00:12:18.700 ⇒ 00:12:22.030 Amber Lin: I put it in the 23rd slide, so…
112 00:12:23.220 ⇒ 00:12:28.380 Robert Tseng: Oh, right, okay. Yeah, anyway, so there’s, like, some way to… Just…
113 00:12:28.630 ⇒ 00:12:30.750 Robert Tseng: In terms of making the table cleaner.
114 00:12:30.800 ⇒ 00:12:32.050 Amber Lin: Okay.
115 00:12:32.540 ⇒ 00:12:43.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that was the feedback there, and then on the PO analysis, yeah, I think these trends make sense, like, the patterns we’re able to do year over year,
116 00:12:44.310 ⇒ 00:12:52.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I didn’t really understand the takeaways here. I felt like all we did was, like, do comparisons over time, so I feel like this is a little bit less developed than the Shopify one.
117 00:12:53.940 ⇒ 00:13:13.069 Amber Lin: Yeah, this essentially just says one thing, is that the monthly performance and category performance are consistent monthly, even if Amazon year-over-year sales are growing. Like, that’s… it also puts… it’s just a follow-up of one thing.
118 00:13:13.880 ⇒ 00:13:15.740 Robert Tseng: Yeah,
119 00:13:15.930 ⇒ 00:13:23.190 Robert Tseng: Okay, well, I mean, like, are we… are we at a dead end with this, or, like, kind of… does that… I don’t exactly remember what their question was.
120 00:13:23.190 ⇒ 00:13:41.939 Amber Lin: Not a specific question. This was… this one was decently quick. I did it under an hour. Utam had a question when we were in the call of, can we break down the monthly growth insights a bit more, so this is… I plan to just keep it in appendix.
121 00:13:42.130 ⇒ 00:13:49.760 Amber Lin: Okay. To support our insights. It’s supporting… Hmm.
122 00:13:51.330 ⇒ 00:13:57.810 Amber Lin: I think supporting slide… Yeah, just supporting slide 24.
123 00:13:58.790 ⇒ 00:14:01.969 Amber Lin: To show them what’s… What’s going on?
124 00:14:01.970 ⇒ 00:14:03.629 Robert Tseng: Okay, do these still hold true?
125 00:14:04.830 ⇒ 00:14:10.619 Robert Tseng: Like, are this… is this what we’re pursuing next? Or, like, kind of… yeah, or… that’s why I’m asking, like…
126 00:14:11.180 ⇒ 00:14:25.820 Amber Lin: I see. Yes, I think this does give us… Actually, not from… Hmm.
127 00:14:25.980 ⇒ 00:14:34.990 Amber Lin: Yeah, the follow-up did give us some insight on product behavior. The second one…
128 00:14:40.240 ⇒ 00:14:45.359 Amber Lin: The second one, I don’t know how far… how much more analysis I can do.
129 00:14:47.450 ⇒ 00:14:54.580 Robert Tseng: Okay, so, I mean, I think this is fine. I think… well, really, like, Demi is, like, the Amazon expert there.
130 00:14:56.930 ⇒ 00:15:04.999 Robert Tseng: I would like us to… I mean, we can pause here, like, I think it’s fine, like, I think the Shopify direction is fine, I think, but…
131 00:15:05.000 ⇒ 00:15:05.530 Amber Lin: Yeah.
132 00:15:05.810 ⇒ 00:15:12.140 Robert Tseng: I don’t exactly remember. I just wanted… like, we had… these were our recommendations on next steps, and…
133 00:15:12.790 ⇒ 00:15:19.519 Robert Tseng: if you could just match this against, like, the meeting notes, just make sure that, like, we have clear next steps. Like, I just… I just feel like this…
134 00:15:19.520 ⇒ 00:15:20.210 Amber Lin: Yeah, I can…
135 00:15:20.210 ⇒ 00:15:24.439 Robert Tseng: The fall analysis was, like, yeah, I don’t… you know, it was…
136 00:15:24.650 ⇒ 00:15:26.620 Robert Tseng: Pretty light in terms of, like.
137 00:15:27.420 ⇒ 00:15:32.999 Robert Tseng: what we did, and then, like, I don’t… I don’t… it’s not clear to me, like, what… what are… what are we driving towards?
138 00:15:33.750 ⇒ 00:15:35.319 Amber Lin: Yeah. Cool.
139 00:15:35.580 ⇒ 00:15:40.830 Amber Lin: I do know they check these slides, so it’s a good thing that we’ll update this.
140 00:15:43.400 ⇒ 00:15:50.419 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so it’s fine if you don’t have a further analysis to do, I think it’s just that, okay, on the next call, well, then, like.
141 00:15:50.800 ⇒ 00:15:58.340 Robert Tseng: what… if we… if we… if we… if we get stuck, then we basically just have to find a different angle. It’s like, okay,
142 00:15:59.490 ⇒ 00:16:01.079 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and I…
143 00:16:01.340 ⇒ 00:16:14.320 Robert Tseng: Or we just say, alright, I think we’ve run to the end of the road with this channel, we’re gonna put it to the… we’re gonna put it to the side, we’re gonna do something else. I just… I just feel like this state of, like, limbo or kind of being inconclusive is not where we want to be.
144 00:16:14.450 ⇒ 00:16:16.250 Amber Lin: Okay, I hear you.
145 00:16:16.250 ⇒ 00:16:16.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
146 00:16:16.970 ⇒ 00:16:17.770 Robert Tseng: Okay.
147 00:16:18.320 ⇒ 00:16:23.550 Robert Tseng: Alright, so that’s all I’ll say about that. Anything else here?
148 00:16:23.940 ⇒ 00:16:29.109 Amber Lin: Yeah, I did not give Byron the tagging tracking scope yet, I didn’t get around to that.
149 00:16:29.110 ⇒ 00:16:31.529 Robert Tseng: Trying to do it today.
150 00:16:31.960 ⇒ 00:16:36.539 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I’m just gonna make these due today for myself.
151 00:16:38.830 ⇒ 00:16:42.450 Robert Tseng: I also need to look through Looker dashboards.
152 00:16:46.810 ⇒ 00:16:47.600 Robert Tseng: What?
153 00:16:47.780 ⇒ 00:16:49.019 Robert Tseng: What’s going on?
154 00:16:52.890 ⇒ 00:16:53.760 Robert Tseng: Okay.
155 00:16:54.660 ⇒ 00:16:59.120 Robert Tseng: I really don’t like linear sometimes. Makes it very difficult to do things.
156 00:17:00.280 ⇒ 00:17:02.310 Robert Tseng: Okay.
157 00:17:02.510 ⇒ 00:17:05.380 Robert Tseng: Is this all… to do…
158 00:17:08.650 ⇒ 00:17:14.329 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I feel like we just got stuck here. So,
159 00:17:17.589 ⇒ 00:17:20.890 Robert Tseng: I mean, I guess I could nudge Utam on this, but .
160 00:17:21.170 ⇒ 00:17:23.850 Amber Lin: Is that… is that, is that the action?
161 00:17:23.940 ⇒ 00:17:24.860 Robert Tseng: Let’s see…
162 00:17:27.300 ⇒ 00:17:30.339 Robert Tseng: How do I even grab the link of this thing? Okay.
163 00:17:31.370 ⇒ 00:17:37.180 Robert Tseng: A stinger… breaks.
164 00:17:41.920 ⇒ 00:17:42.720 Robert Tseng: Okay.
165 00:17:47.880 ⇒ 00:17:52.489 Robert Tseng: And… Acosta. So, any more, kind of.
166 00:17:53.480 ⇒ 00:17:56.849 Robert Tseng: headway into this. This was due yesterday, so…
167 00:17:57.850 ⇒ 00:18:02.780 Henry Zhao: No, I haven’t had a chance to make any headway on this yet. But, Amber, maybe we can meet on this later today.
168 00:18:03.570 ⇒ 00:18:04.970 Amber Lin: Cool. Okay.
169 00:18:05.190 ⇒ 00:18:06.200 Amber Lin: We can do that.
170 00:18:06.820 ⇒ 00:18:07.510 Robert Tseng: Okay.
171 00:18:11.190 ⇒ 00:18:12.400 Robert Tseng: Great.
172 00:18:12.840 ⇒ 00:18:15.919 Robert Tseng: Alright, anything else?
173 00:18:19.840 ⇒ 00:18:24.729 Amber Lin: Anything on the demand plan that Ira wanted?
174 00:18:27.670 ⇒ 00:18:47.390 Robert Tseng: I had not… well, I think that’s tied to the Acosta, so… I mean, I kind of, like, had assigned that to Henry to kind of figure out, like, how to get him ready on the demand plan, but I also haven’t seen anything there, so if this is something I need to take back, like, I… I want an answer on this call, probably.
175 00:18:49.390 ⇒ 00:18:50.910 Henry Zhao: Can you give me till end of day?
176 00:18:51.710 ⇒ 00:18:52.370 Robert Tseng: Okay.
177 00:18:55.790 ⇒ 00:18:59.080 Robert Tseng: Sure. Where is the demand plan ticket?
178 00:19:00.960 ⇒ 00:19:03.809 Henry Zhao: I already closed that one, this one is basically just a duplicate of that one.
179 00:19:05.650 ⇒ 00:19:06.360 Robert Tseng: Okay.
180 00:19:08.090 ⇒ 00:19:10.170 Henry Zhao: It’s like, analyze to make a demand plan, yeah.
181 00:19:13.510 ⇒ 00:19:15.090 Robert Tseng: I don’t see it.
182 00:19:16.460 ⇒ 00:19:19.460 Robert Tseng: I don’t know why you closed it if nothing was done, right? So…
183 00:19:28.110 ⇒ 00:19:29.079 Henry Zhao: I don’t know where it is either, hold on.
184 00:20:02.130 ⇒ 00:20:04.220 Robert Tseng: Okay, there it is, back on.
185 00:20:07.240 ⇒ 00:20:10.090 Henry Zhao: I think it was the Han 64, I think I just renamed it.
186 00:20:11.340 ⇒ 00:20:13.000 Robert Tseng: Okay.
187 00:20:14.000 ⇒ 00:20:17.919 Robert Tseng: Well… Regardless, that’s what needs to be done.
188 00:20:18.530 ⇒ 00:20:18.970 Amber Lin: Yeah.
189 00:20:18.970 ⇒ 00:20:19.630 Robert Tseng: Okay.
190 00:20:20.180 ⇒ 00:20:27.759 Amber Lin: I’m thinking of pushing 77 to next cycle. It’s questions on subscriptions.
191 00:20:27.760 ⇒ 00:20:29.610 Robert Tseng: Oh yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Okay.
192 00:20:31.480 ⇒ 00:20:33.700 Robert Tseng: Sure.
193 00:20:34.540 ⇒ 00:20:35.430 Robert Tseng: Great.
194 00:20:36.380 ⇒ 00:20:42.790 Robert Tseng: Alright, let’s, move on to… I’ll do Insomnia last.
195 00:20:43.380 ⇒ 00:20:50.030 Robert Tseng: Because it’s just… Amber on this call, anyway. So, we’ll do Eden first.
196 00:20:50.760 ⇒ 00:20:55.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I know we have a deck review later today, but I don’t think it’s ready for review yet, but…
197 00:20:55.480 ⇒ 00:20:59.470 Henry Zhao: I’m trying to get it ready before the deck review, so I can get your next-level feedback.
198 00:20:59.850 ⇒ 00:21:01.240 Robert Tseng: Okay.
199 00:21:01.240 ⇒ 00:21:02.620 Zoran Selinger: The supply chain as well.
200 00:21:03.140 ⇒ 00:21:03.850 Robert Tseng: Alright, yeah.
201 00:21:03.850 ⇒ 00:21:04.770 Zoran Selinger: That’s room.
202 00:21:04.970 ⇒ 00:21:09.149 Henry Zhao: Zoran, can you also help me with the risks and mitigation slide? I don’t really have anything else.
203 00:21:09.460 ⇒ 00:21:10.740 Henry Zhao: Other than what I put.
204 00:21:15.180 ⇒ 00:21:16.600 Zoran Selinger: Let me come alive.
205 00:21:17.780 ⇒ 00:21:24.830 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, as far as new requests, I find it hard to believe that these are the only requests that we got in the past 2 weeks.
206 00:21:24.960 ⇒ 00:21:26.870 Robert Tseng: And then, for this…
207 00:21:28.100 ⇒ 00:21:37.439 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah, I mean, I think, Zoran, there are risks, like, we’re gonna be talking to, like, we… this is the stuff that we’ve talked about with Mitesh, so… a risk to me is, like.
208 00:21:37.440 ⇒ 00:21:48.139 Robert Tseng: if ELT, or leadership, or your stakeholders, they’re uncertain about something, like, I’ll just, like, add one. Like, I feel like I probably need just some help here. Like, risk is…
209 00:21:48.240 ⇒ 00:21:57.209 Robert Tseng: Marketing… Going to another tagging tracking agency.
210 00:21:57.420 ⇒ 00:22:03.320 Robert Tseng: Right? Like, that’s… that’s the risk. Like, that’s what they’re investigating. So…
211 00:22:05.410 ⇒ 00:22:14.350 Robert Tseng: I don’t think description is necessarily the right way to put it, but it’s like, okay, well, like, what… what, like, what’s our perspective on this, right?
212 00:22:15.800 ⇒ 00:22:21.649 Robert Tseng: And, like, how are we mitigating that? Like, I think that’s really the heart behind, like, this…
213 00:22:21.740 ⇒ 00:22:38.289 Robert Tseng: table. Like, this is an opportunity for all of the objections that I kind of bring up in these calls, because people are messaging me here and there, ELT’s unhappy about this, I find out that they’re looking at a different marketing agency. Like, I’m giving you guys the risks, so…
214 00:22:39.860 ⇒ 00:22:46.010 Robert Tseng: I mean, that’s why I’m gonna be on the call with Natasha on Wednesday, or, like, today, in an hour, because…
215 00:22:46.220 ⇒ 00:22:55.129 Robert Tseng: I… he’s telling me, oh, well, it’s actually… it’s because I’m not, like, confident that, like, the solution that we built actually works.
216 00:22:55.380 ⇒ 00:23:06.300 Robert Tseng: And so, it’s… it’s not necessarily, like, an engineering problem. This is part of, like, the… the account management, stakeholder, like, management piece that, like, I feel like…
217 00:23:06.790 ⇒ 00:23:14.509 Robert Tseng: Zaron and Henry, like, you guys need to… to… to… to own this more. Like, it can’t just be, like…
218 00:23:14.690 ⇒ 00:23:16.730 Robert Tseng: You guys… I…
219 00:23:16.890 ⇒ 00:23:23.340 Robert Tseng: I don’t know what… I understand that there’s, like, a good cop, bad cop kind of, like, play here, where
220 00:23:23.410 ⇒ 00:23:37.809 Robert Tseng: they will be nice to you, and then, like, because I’m very direct with them, they can’t, like, hide behind their answer. Like, I literally called Mitesh out. I was like, hey, I saw that your team is looking at this agency, what’s going on?
221 00:23:38.070 ⇒ 00:23:44.190 Robert Tseng: he’ll, like, then he’ll have to… he has to tell me. So, like, there’s… there is something about, like.
222 00:23:44.640 ⇒ 00:23:54.579 Robert Tseng: just being aware of, like, what the risks are, like, I don’t… I feel like it’s not… like, it doesn’t… like, I don’t know why I’m the one bringing up the risks, because…
223 00:23:54.660 ⇒ 00:24:03.549 Robert Tseng: I’m not the one that is kind of in most of the meetings at this point, so I just poke around in Slack here and there, like, I feel like you guys should understand the risks
224 00:24:03.550 ⇒ 00:24:18.589 Robert Tseng: better than I do, you should be proactively bringing them up, mentioning them during these, like, stand-ups, and so we can talk about, like, what needs to happen, right? So, like, the tagging and tracking thing came up yesterday, I immediately follow up with Mitesh in front of ELT and everything, and
225 00:24:18.590 ⇒ 00:24:29.679 Robert Tseng: we’ll have the call today, like, Zoran already met, we met, we’re gonna talk about it. But like, yeah, anything like that needs to be nipped, like, right away. Like, we don’t want Eden spending
226 00:24:29.710 ⇒ 00:24:40.389 Robert Tseng: another few weeks going to go and hire some other agency, we lose scope, they end up… it doesn’t end up being good… doesn’t end up going well for them, or whatever. So, like.
227 00:24:40.400 ⇒ 00:24:57.790 Robert Tseng: Like, this is… this is part of the dynamic that, like, is… is unseen, like, past the tickets. Like, this is just part of, like, you guys being kind of the main, like, client-facing people on this client that you… you guys have to… you guys have to own.
228 00:24:58.770 ⇒ 00:25:14.570 Robert Tseng: Like, I guess, like, is that… is that clear? Like, there’s no way it can be nothing. Like, I just don’t believe that. There will be stuff that comes up every week that we will just have to address. Like, I think that’s just part of, like, how this goes.
229 00:25:16.730 ⇒ 00:25:25.429 Zoran Selinger: Sure, sure. I mean, this is basically… I wasn’t sure that I have to write anything there. I thought you were going to.
230 00:25:25.630 ⇒ 00:25:35.349 Zoran Selinger: You, you pinged me on other slides, so I just didn’t look in that one, because there was no ping, but sure, obviously, we can, we can add to it.
231 00:25:35.550 ⇒ 00:25:36.859 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, yeah, I mean…
232 00:25:36.860 ⇒ 00:25:42.959 Zoran Selinger: get a couple more requests, so I’ll also add a few themes from yesterday to that slide.
233 00:25:43.160 ⇒ 00:25:43.820 Robert Tseng: Okay.
234 00:25:43.960 ⇒ 00:25:44.740 Robert Tseng: Great.
235 00:25:44.850 ⇒ 00:25:50.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah, because, like, yeah, anyway, so I don’t have to… I don’t have to belabor the point.
236 00:25:50.820 ⇒ 00:25:52.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…
237 00:25:53.390 ⇒ 00:26:03.129 Robert Tseng: I… I think that’s that. Yeah, I think… I think this works. I thought this was good. I kind of just gotta tweaked it a little bit in terms of, like, formatting, but I thought that was good.
238 00:26:03.160 ⇒ 00:26:15.469 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I thought these objectives are clear, so I don’t have any issues with the MarTech stuff. Yeah, like, I thought, I thought this was great. So, if anything, like, yeah, obviously these are wrong, you’re not really putting out analysis slides, like.
239 00:26:15.810 ⇒ 00:26:24.190 Robert Tseng: it’s fine, but not every… every week needs to have that. I do think… I did think that these two mixed panel points were generally good, like, I think…
240 00:26:24.320 ⇒ 00:26:30.410 Robert Tseng: these are the right questions to ask, and then… I mean, I think maybe the formatting here is kind of weird, so, like, I…
241 00:26:30.410 ⇒ 00:26:31.479 Henry Zhao: What is that table, by the way?
242 00:26:31.940 ⇒ 00:26:33.770 Henry Zhao: Doesn’t seem relevant to Mixed panel.
243 00:26:33.770 ⇒ 00:26:38.360 Robert Tseng: It… it’s not, like, but this was your slide before. Like, your slide was like this.
244 00:26:38.540 ⇒ 00:26:39.250 Robert Tseng: So, like.
245 00:26:39.250 ⇒ 00:26:39.949 Henry Zhao: Okay, alright.
246 00:26:40.220 ⇒ 00:26:44.710 Robert Tseng: Well, I think you should probably… Organize it differently.
247 00:26:44.710 ⇒ 00:26:45.290 Henry Zhao: Okay.
248 00:26:45.290 ⇒ 00:26:46.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
249 00:26:49.830 ⇒ 00:26:57.839 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I’m not gonna kind of go through the rest of this. I think I already spent, like, 30 minutes kind of going through all of these.
250 00:26:57.840 ⇒ 00:27:00.949 Henry Zhao: What should I… what should I do for stylistic changes? Is it not…
251 00:27:02.270 ⇒ 00:27:10.880 Robert Tseng: I think you would just kind of reference what I’ve been doing here. So, you know, I shrink your images, I give you space to be able to, like, write insights. I don’t think…
252 00:27:11.040 ⇒ 00:27:28.759 Robert Tseng: the purpose of a call-out bubble, like, I kind of wrote it in one of my comments, is not to fill up the space. A call-out bubble is, like, if you were hovering over something, because you’re like, oh, I don’t really know what that means, then you’re, like, doing it. Like, the insight, if there’s an insight, you should just write it out, or, like, make it.
253 00:27:29.360 ⇒ 00:27:40.610 Robert Tseng: Yeah, make it clearer. So, and you can have multiple call-out bubbles, I think that’s perfectly fine. I… it’s more of an art than a science, but, like, I don’t know, just visually, I just…
254 00:27:40.890 ⇒ 00:27:42.240 Robert Tseng: I would, you know.
255 00:27:43.300 ⇒ 00:27:53.719 Robert Tseng: I don’t… I would not… I would not send this. So, I mean, I feel like I’ve sent plenty of, like, slide examples. Amber’s work is, like, pretty good, like, it gets closer to the heart of, like, what
256 00:27:53.830 ⇒ 00:28:05.540 Robert Tseng: what we’re trying to accomplish here, in terms of, like, clarity and brevity. But yeah, I think these are… these are just, like, housekeeping things on how…
257 00:28:05.650 ⇒ 00:28:07.069 Robert Tseng: on how I should work.
258 00:28:07.840 ⇒ 00:28:09.850 Henry Zhao: Okay, I’ll look at the Honey Stinger slides and try to…
259 00:28:09.990 ⇒ 00:28:11.359 Henry Zhao: Like, you’re better before a call.
260 00:28:11.660 ⇒ 00:28:19.789 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Like, I made some changes here, right? Your correlation bubble was, like, really big before, and you kind of had, like, this giant thing, so…
261 00:28:19.830 ⇒ 00:28:38.209 Robert Tseng: you know, just call it out, it’s .02. You can make this thing a bit shorter, or if you have multiple insights, then share it. I would say your slides are not really insights, they’re just stating the obvious. You’re just saying, like, correlation is 0.2, or, like, there are few orders. So, like, there’s an order of magnitude that’s not being communicated here,
262 00:28:38.280 ⇒ 00:28:39.160 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
263 00:28:39.290 ⇒ 00:28:55.780 Robert Tseng: consider… I mean, okay, fine, if I need to specify this, like, consider moving orders from pharmacies with bad SLAs for better… like, this is kind of like a no-duh, like, kind of, like, situation, right? So, if you’re trying to make a recommendation, it’s like, well.
264 00:28:56.050 ⇒ 00:29:00.130 Robert Tseng: move it from Booth Wynn to Carixa, but you gotta be sure. You’re like.
265 00:29:00.630 ⇒ 00:29:15.929 Robert Tseng: why? Can… can Carixa actually support it? Like, you don’t… do you really know that? Actually don’t say that, because Carixa is actually no longer with that. So, like, you know, if that’s not the point of the slide, and you’re just trying to show, look, we can actually do SLA comparison, I think that’s…
266 00:29:16.130 ⇒ 00:29:30.039 Robert Tseng: that’s fine, but, like, you know, we’re not making general sweeping statements. Like, this is, like, this to me is like a Google Trend style, like, kind of takeaway, where you’re just like, something’s moving up, something’s moving down. Like, this…
267 00:29:30.040 ⇒ 00:29:38.879 Robert Tseng: you know, once again, you’re presenting it to, like, C-level people, they’re gonna know their business. They’re gonna know everything generally better than we do.
268 00:29:39.080 ⇒ 00:29:45.209 Robert Tseng: But the only edge we have is that we have seen the data in a unique way.
269 00:29:45.950 ⇒ 00:29:57.259 Robert Tseng: that, like, helps them to segment something, to look at something in a very specific way that they didn’t notice before. We’re just trying to get their… their… their brains kind of, like, turning on, like, what, what, like.
270 00:29:57.260 ⇒ 00:30:10.040 Robert Tseng: what they should be thinking about. So, anything like this, I think, is just gonna be shot down. Like, I just, like, don’t think it’s ready. Like, I know you shared this with me yesterday. I thought you were…
271 00:30:10.170 ⇒ 00:30:14.850 Robert Tseng: Or I don’t know when you shared it with me. I thought there was more, like, and I don’t think there is.
272 00:30:14.880 ⇒ 00:30:31.659 Robert Tseng: basically, I’m gonna hide all of these slides, because, like, I don’t really think that these are ready to share. If, you know, if by the time I come back to this later, I’m gonna send it around 1PM, or whatever, like, it is what it is. But, like, you know, so you got, like, an hour, two hours to kind of…
273 00:30:31.660 ⇒ 00:30:37.630 Robert Tseng: come up with stuff, but I… I would rather you take the time to actually, like.
274 00:30:38.150 ⇒ 00:30:43.729 Robert Tseng: you know, I gave… I gave some recommendations here, right? Like, and I also… I also put it in Slack, like.
275 00:30:45.480 ⇒ 00:30:53.159 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I… I do… I mean, I could spend a few more minutes and belabor the point here, but, like, if that’s helpful,
276 00:30:53.740 ⇒ 00:31:09.869 Robert Tseng: Like, you’re doing a product-level, like, breakdown of… of cogs and margin. I’m sure they know this. I’m sure they know that their product… which products have, like, the… have the best margin, the highest pricing, whatever. But, if you’re trying to look for opportunities to, like, have good conversation.
277 00:31:09.910 ⇒ 00:31:26.039 Robert Tseng: It’s like, look, this is actually how much you’re spending on Bask piece, like, across all these different products. It’s clearly weighted heavier for, like, the more expensive products, like, there’s something to, like, how much are we losing to BASC? Not just, like, right, this is… your takeaway right now is.
278 00:31:26.040 ⇒ 00:31:38.149 Robert Tseng: move orders to lower COGS pharmacies. Like, that’s also, like, a no-shit kind of, like, like, takeaway that I would not want to put in front of Josh and Danny. So, like, I think there’s, like.
279 00:31:38.520 ⇒ 00:31:51.109 Robert Tseng: you know, if we’re gonna break this down, like, yeah, just… I think… I mean, you clearly know how to break things down, like, I just… like, I don’t know, like, you gotta… a second order, insight is, like.
280 00:31:51.110 ⇒ 00:32:00.530 Robert Tseng: you look at this, you ask the second question, you answer that question, and that becomes, like, a takeaway, or a call-out or something. Like, that’s… I think that’s all this exercise really is, like…
281 00:32:00.530 ⇒ 00:32:02.150 Robert Tseng: I could send you, like.
282 00:32:02.430 ⇒ 00:32:09.700 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, a bunch of different examples of this from work that we’ve done across clients. Yeah, anyway. So, like.
283 00:32:10.040 ⇒ 00:32:26.529 Robert Tseng: But yeah, this makes me nervous, because ops is, like, their… is their thing. They’re going to know that… they’re going to know this the most compared to some of this other stuff. So, if you’re not able to kind of, like, be the operational or financial, like, thought partner to them.
284 00:32:26.610 ⇒ 00:32:37.130 Robert Tseng: that’s fine. I would rather know that sooner rather than later, but, like, yeah, like, I… I definitely, like, cannot… like, yeah, this is… this is definitely not ready.
285 00:32:37.450 ⇒ 00:32:38.090 Henry Zhao: Okay.
286 00:32:38.600 ⇒ 00:32:39.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
287 00:32:41.410 ⇒ 00:32:46.630 Robert Tseng: Okay, so… You know, we’ll do what we can with it.
288 00:32:46.750 ⇒ 00:33:03.490 Robert Tseng: I know there’s, like, multiple, like, work streams. There’s finance, there’s farm ops, there’s product. Product, I’m gonna just kick in. Like, I’ll take that on, but I’m not gonna do it this week. So if you could just kind of narrow your focus on the pharmacy side, farm ops and finance side, just, like.
289 00:33:03.490 ⇒ 00:33:14.509 Robert Tseng: really dial in there, like, that’s… that’s what we’re looking for, right? And I’ve given you four to six weeks at this point to really, like, gonna find… find your way. So I’m, like, starting to get nervous, because it’s like.
290 00:33:14.530 ⇒ 00:33:23.119 Robert Tseng: you know, we’re end of Q4 now, and I still feel like these are just, like, pie-in-the-sky, like, ideas, and we’re not really, like, moving on any of these, so…
291 00:33:23.120 ⇒ 00:33:23.500 Henry Zhao: Okay.
292 00:33:23.510 ⇒ 00:33:29.840 Robert Tseng: Like, that may not be true, but that’s… that’s the feeling that I get, so that makes me anxious about it.
293 00:33:30.170 ⇒ 00:33:31.359 Henry Zhao: Okay, got it.
294 00:33:31.360 ⇒ 00:33:32.010 Robert Tseng: Okay.
295 00:33:32.230 ⇒ 00:33:36.979 Robert Tseng: Alright, I think that’s… that’s all I want to say about the… the slide.
296 00:33:37.480 ⇒ 00:33:42.480 Robert Tseng: anything else on, like, the tickets here?
297 00:33:45.700 ⇒ 00:33:48.230 Robert Tseng: On, like, actual things that are moving.
298 00:33:50.320 ⇒ 00:33:51.660 Robert Tseng: Saran, I guess.
299 00:33:52.730 ⇒ 00:33:59.929 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so finishing up, finishing up… the, the meta?
300 00:34:00.410 ⇒ 00:34:03.060 Zoran Selinger: Model still.
301 00:34:03.510 ⇒ 00:34:16.709 Zoran Selinger: Then I’m going to do the reverse ETL part, that’s… I’m only gonna need an hour or so to do it, so I’m really hoping we can get that. I’m pushing with Tashvini this week to finish this.
302 00:34:16.909 ⇒ 00:34:19.830 Zoran Selinger: Cause we’ve been dragging it for a couple of weeks now.
303 00:34:19.949 ⇒ 00:34:20.830 Robert Tseng: Okay.
304 00:34:21.300 ⇒ 00:34:31.809 Zoran Selinger: And then… I really wanted us to have Catalis, cost imports for NordBeam today as well.
305 00:34:33.110 ⇒ 00:34:35.020 Zoran Selinger: Sorry, this week,
306 00:34:35.290 ⇒ 00:34:45.799 Zoran Selinger: But I haven’t, I’m waiting for Sweeney to finish it. I’m… I’m guessing he’s going to… he’s the one, to do it. Also,
307 00:34:47.179 ⇒ 00:34:53.770 Zoran Selinger: I see the ticket for Catalyst attribution update is still open.
308 00:34:54.050 ⇒ 00:35:01.020 Zoran Selinger: I’m not sure if this is… if this is officially done or not, so that’s a vicious ticket.
309 00:35:02.700 ⇒ 00:35:06.320 Robert Tseng: I’m sorry, I don’t really know. Can you point me to what you’re looking at?
310 00:35:06.320 ⇒ 00:35:09.150 Zoran Selinger: The scroll up of Aishi’s up there.
311 00:35:10.990 ⇒ 00:35:12.490 Robert Tseng: I only see Metal Plane on wage.
312 00:35:12.490 ⇒ 00:35:14.280 Zoran Selinger: That’s another one.
313 00:35:14.760 ⇒ 00:35:16.149 Zoran Selinger: I’ll find it.
314 00:35:16.600 ⇒ 00:35:21.929 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so it’s 1179. The ticket is 1179.
315 00:35:27.760 ⇒ 00:35:28.340 Zoran Selinger: Yeah.
316 00:35:28.340 ⇒ 00:35:32.260 Robert Tseng: Oh, this was not brought in. He’s working on this, you said?
317 00:35:33.150 ⇒ 00:35:36.449 Zoran Selinger: I think we’ve done it already, like, a week ago.
318 00:35:38.200 ⇒ 00:35:39.550 Robert Tseng: Okay…
319 00:35:40.170 ⇒ 00:35:47.360 Zoran Selinger: You see that I was… I asked for… for an update, just was confused to see that still in there.
320 00:35:47.600 ⇒ 00:35:48.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
321 00:35:48.390 ⇒ 00:36:01.219 Zoran Selinger: And Ryan is asking for an update, because we… the update kind of comes in GTM as well, not just from our model, in our model, so we just… I just wanted the confirmation there.
322 00:36:03.830 ⇒ 00:36:04.500 Robert Tseng: Okay.
323 00:36:04.770 ⇒ 00:36:09.239 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, so I told him, I told Ryan that this is done, but I,
324 00:36:11.230 ⇒ 00:36:15.040 Zoran Selinger: I don’t think I’ve… I have a final confirmation from Ovesh, actually.
325 00:36:15.160 ⇒ 00:36:15.970 Zoran Selinger: Yet.
326 00:36:18.710 ⇒ 00:36:21.419 Zoran Selinger: Yeah. So that’s…
327 00:36:21.970 ⇒ 00:36:37.270 Zoran Selinger: that’s basically it. They really want, like, Stuart wants to have that Norbim thing done. We… I need to figure out… I started the conversation about downloading the… the spreadsheet for Applance.
328 00:36:37.810 ⇒ 00:36:41.200 Zoran Selinger: So that’s ongoing as well.
329 00:36:41.840 ⇒ 00:36:52.340 Zoran Selinger: the cost import for… for upwards. But obviously, like, this… this ovacious meeting kind of took precedence yesterday,
330 00:36:52.500 ⇒ 00:36:56.269 Zoran Selinger: So I was kind of preparing for that a little bit more.
331 00:36:58.190 ⇒ 00:36:59.690 Zoran Selinger: So we’ll…
332 00:37:00.480 ⇒ 00:37:08.419 Zoran Selinger: We still have two… two days. Demilar is also figuring out the… what can we do in terms of automation.
333 00:37:08.580 ⇒ 00:37:16.670 Zoran Selinger: For affluence, because they have no programmatic, apart from we can download a sheet and, you know, do something with it.
334 00:37:19.550 ⇒ 00:37:24.170 Zoran Selinger: By the way, that’s, discussing, affluence import.
335 00:37:24.530 ⇒ 00:37:28.530 Zoran Selinger: prompted Mitesh to bring up the point of, you know.
336 00:37:29.150 ⇒ 00:37:35.240 Zoran Selinger: there being a problem. Can’t really… I don’t know, it just…
337 00:37:36.740 ⇒ 00:37:42.929 Zoran Selinger: unfortunate that we don’t have any… any API capabilities in there, in that tool.
338 00:37:46.690 ⇒ 00:38:00.410 Robert Tseng: Okay, I mean, I’m not really touching your tickets too much, Zoran, like, I kind of just assumed that you’re taking care of it. With Matess’s call, I’m going to be joining that. Do you feel ready to basically talk through all the things that we discussed?
339 00:38:02.570 ⇒ 00:38:03.400 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, that’s.
340 00:38:03.400 ⇒ 00:38:07.720 Robert Tseng: Questions he’s gonna ask, and we know how to… Bye.
341 00:38:08.210 ⇒ 00:38:16.369 Robert Tseng: Right? The outcome is, I want Mitesh walking away from this feeling like he’s confident, and that he’s not going to go and get that other agency.
342 00:38:17.510 ⇒ 00:38:29.859 Zoran Selinger: Yeah, I mean, yeah, even that, that’s… yeah, sure. I mean, that’s… again, that’s not an agency, that’s just a, just a freelancer, platform that he’s gonna get who knows who.
343 00:38:31.490 ⇒ 00:38:37.209 Robert Tseng: Okay, I mean, I don’t need to belabor, I think we already went through the prep yesterday, I’m just… Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s fine.
344 00:38:37.560 ⇒ 00:38:38.510 Robert Tseng: Okay.
345 00:38:39.390 ⇒ 00:38:51.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah, with, Sesame’s ticket, like, okay, great. So she had a few notes from here, a couple deliverables, sure, like, I’m still gonna just give her the benefit of the doubt until next week, but…
346 00:38:52.120 ⇒ 00:38:53.700 Henry Zhao: We’ll give you daily updates on that.
347 00:38:58.010 ⇒ 00:39:01.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay. And then, I guess for you.
348 00:39:02.570 ⇒ 00:39:08.139 Henry Zhao: I’ll probably push this to next week, then, because I’m just gonna focus on Honey Stinger and the deck today.
349 00:39:10.500 ⇒ 00:39:11.230 Robert Tseng: Okay.
350 00:39:11.530 ⇒ 00:39:16.020 Robert Tseng: That’s… Fine.
351 00:39:17.620 ⇒ 00:39:24.839 Robert Tseng: And I also just don’t believe that these are… these are pretty much just done.
352 00:39:25.820 ⇒ 00:39:31.260 Robert Tseng: done… I don’t think Dame Milate is working on these, but I’m not gonna touch them.
353 00:39:32.260 ⇒ 00:39:50.080 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, I mean, like, you know, it’s midweek. I kind of asked for… Henry, I know you added some more modeling tasks for the engineering team. I still think that we’re under-scoping. Like, we’re just, like, I just… I feel like you’re,
354 00:39:50.460 ⇒ 00:40:06.759 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, I don’t think we have enough work on this client, and that worries me, because this is a leading indicator of the contract going to shrink. Like, if they feel like our velocity goes down.
355 00:40:07.040 ⇒ 00:40:21.069 Robert Tseng: then, like, why… why are they… why would they be paying us? So, like, I think, I’m still… that’s… I’m still not convinced that, like, we’re in a good place in terms of, like, having enough work and, like, planned out for the next… for the next…
356 00:40:21.340 ⇒ 00:40:26.820 Robert Tseng: next few months. So… Like, I… like…
357 00:40:26.980 ⇒ 00:40:33.160 Robert Tseng: I don’t know what you want me to do. Like, I feel like I’ve given you plenty of time to try to do this.
358 00:40:33.390 ⇒ 00:40:41.279 Henry Zhao: Yeah, I think part of it is just that, like, it’s end of year, right? They’re all focused on strategy and planning. I do think it’ll grow again in January.
359 00:40:45.260 ⇒ 00:40:47.859 Robert Tseng: Like, what do you mean it’ll grow again? Like…
360 00:40:50.170 ⇒ 00:40:52.929 Henry Zhao: Like, I feel like it’s just a kind of like an end-of-year lull, you know what I mean?
361 00:40:53.920 ⇒ 00:40:58.129 Robert Tseng: No, I don’t know what you mean. Like, there’s no lull on any other client, like…
362 00:40:59.430 ⇒ 00:41:14.199 Robert Tseng: we… we… we build our own roadmap. If you don’t know what to do, you should be, like, working with the stakeholders, or, like… I mean, I don’t know, like, and… like, I… and, I mean, I… yeah, there’s… I don’t… I don’t understand that. It’s not like people have stopped working.
363 00:41:15.900 ⇒ 00:41:19.720 Henry Zhao: Yeah, but, like, just requests have come in a lot less the past few weeks.
364 00:41:19.720 ⇒ 00:41:25.939 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but, like, that… isn’t that the position you want to be in? To not be fielding requests? Like…
365 00:41:26.050 ⇒ 00:41:45.359 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I don’t know, like, we worked so hard to get this data team to a place where, like, we have the agency to decide whatever you want to work on. Like, yes, it has to be qualified, you have to show, like, it’s… like, I don’t know, like, I just… I find it hard to believe that, like, we don’t… like, it just… I’m not… I’m not convinced.
366 00:41:48.040 ⇒ 00:41:48.660 Henry Zhao: Okay.
367 00:41:48.970 ⇒ 00:41:54.340 Henry Zhao: I’ll spend some time today to look at other work that we can bring on and bring to the client.
368 00:42:02.740 ⇒ 00:42:06.569 Robert Tseng: Because, like, you have no tickets assigned to you for the rest of the week, so, like, what are you working on?
369 00:42:06.960 ⇒ 00:42:13.510 Robert Tseng: Aren’t you supposed to be doing 15 to 20 hours a week on this client? Like, I don’t… I don’t see that time being… it’s not… it’s clearly not reflected here.
370 00:42:15.630 ⇒ 00:42:17.950 Henry Zhao: Yeah, I didn’t have much this week.
371 00:42:18.840 ⇒ 00:42:20.949 Henry Zhao: I’m just trying to finish the slides.
372 00:42:21.450 ⇒ 00:42:22.870 Henry Zhao: For the analysis.
373 00:42:27.840 ⇒ 00:42:31.949 Robert Tseng: Okay, I mean, I… I will cool off, like, I’m not gonna…
374 00:42:32.090 ⇒ 00:42:34.509 Robert Tseng: say much more now. But, like.
375 00:42:34.780 ⇒ 00:42:40.410 Robert Tseng: I’ve… I’ve given plenty of time on… on this client. Like, I… I mean, I’m not gonna… I just…
376 00:42:40.510 ⇒ 00:42:45.910 Robert Tseng: I think the… I will… I will… I will make some changes, but, like, we’re…
377 00:42:46.250 ⇒ 00:42:48.980 Robert Tseng: You know, at least… at least get the slides done.
378 00:42:49.190 ⇒ 00:42:51.289 Robert Tseng: I’m s- I’m gonna send this out, like.
379 00:42:51.450 ⇒ 00:43:07.409 Robert Tseng: I just… you’re completely relying on me to wing it on conversations with ELT. I can just talk up stuff for our team, but, like, I know that I’m standing on shaky foundations. Like, the… we’re at… we’re 30% under capacity at this point, and, like, there are…
380 00:43:07.410 ⇒ 00:43:20.369 Robert Tseng: one of the leaders on this client is doing no work. Like, it just, like, doesn’t make sense. Like, it… there’s only so much that my, like, storytelling will be able to, like, kind of extend… extend things. So, if, you know, to me, this is, like.
381 00:43:20.370 ⇒ 00:43:36.679 Robert Tseng: risky, and, like, I will need to… I will need to get back into the fray in order to build up, like, a roadmap for the next, like, the next couple months. Like, that’s… that to me is, like, what I… what I think is gonna end up happening. But, yeah, I mean, I guess we’ll… we’ll kind of… we’ll kind of see how that… how that goes, one… one step at a time.
382 00:43:37.100 ⇒ 00:43:46.189 Robert Tseng: Okay, that’s… that’s all I’ll say for Eden. Yeah, sorry guys for that, guys. We can talk about insomnia.
383 00:43:48.220 ⇒ 00:43:58.309 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, Amber, I’d grab time with you and Sesan later this afternoon. I do want that message to go out to the CEO and Chief of Staff.
384 00:43:58.840 ⇒ 00:44:01.339 Robert Tseng: I guess, like, did you have anything you wanted to discuss?
385 00:44:01.890 ⇒ 00:44:03.170 Robert Tseng: Like, tickets-wise, yeah.
386 00:44:03.170 ⇒ 00:44:10.940 Amber Lin: Robert, I don’t see the meeting. I did see the invite. Is it for today, or did you accidentally put it on a different day?
387 00:44:11.320 ⇒ 00:44:14.480 Robert Tseng: Not sure. Let me see.
388 00:44:17.420 ⇒ 00:44:19.799 Robert Tseng: I… did put it for today.
389 00:44:20.120 ⇒ 00:44:20.840 Amber Lin: Momph.
390 00:44:21.930 ⇒ 00:44:27.770 Robert Tseng: But you were out of office or something, I’m not really sure. I mean, it’s a whole, like, I would… I mean, I’m not, like…
391 00:44:27.890 ⇒ 00:44:33.039 Robert Tseng: I would really prefer not to take it at that time, but I’m just… I just… it’s like a hold, like, I…
392 00:44:33.090 ⇒ 00:44:35.770 Amber Lin: Oh, all good, I would… I can join.
393 00:44:35.970 ⇒ 00:44:39.559 Robert Tseng: Oh, sorry, I only saw the hold, and it looks like the other meeting.
394 00:44:39.560 ⇒ 00:44:40.720 Amber Lin: Gotcha, I got it.
395 00:44:40.920 ⇒ 00:44:42.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, okay.
396 00:44:43.150 ⇒ 00:44:49.770 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean… leading up to that, like, I would…
397 00:44:50.210 ⇒ 00:44:59.170 Robert Tseng: you know, I think I’ve already asked for, kind of, like, did you… did you take a first pass, like, you sent me a notion or something, so is that what I should review?
398 00:44:59.170 ⇒ 00:44:59.590 Amber Lin: Just didn’t.
399 00:44:59.590 ⇒ 00:45:01.049 Robert Tseng: around to it. I got stuck kind of.
400 00:45:01.050 ⇒ 00:45:07.159 Amber Lin: It’s not ready for review yet. I’m just drafting the message, and then…
401 00:45:07.990 ⇒ 00:45:27.610 Amber Lin: I’ll… I’ll ping you when it’s ready for review. Currently, I’m thinking of mostly following the lifecycle story arc, because now that we did do a campaign test, I want to add that in to just show them that we follow through and close gaps. Also, do want to mention…
402 00:45:27.720 ⇒ 00:45:30.060 Amber Lin: SESM’s work.
403 00:45:30.250 ⇒ 00:45:35.330 Amber Lin: In there, because we’re… that directly impacts what the execs see.
404 00:45:35.440 ⇒ 00:45:36.540 Amber Lin: So… Yo.
405 00:45:37.100 ⇒ 00:45:42.630 Amber Lin: Probably have that story arc, have this, and have a section of… .
406 00:45:42.870 ⇒ 00:45:47.879 Robert Tseng: Did you already talked to her? Like, I did ask her to make some changes to her,
407 00:45:48.190 ⇒ 00:45:52.529 Robert Tseng: like, I didn’t think what she had put out was ready for executive as well, so, like, I.
408 00:45:52.530 ⇒ 00:46:00.350 Amber Lin: Haven’t talked to her. Is there something you would like me to confirm with her? I can help her with the formatting and then how things look, but…
409 00:46:00.620 ⇒ 00:46:04.670 Robert Tseng: I… Yeah, I mean, it’s…
410 00:46:05.400 ⇒ 00:46:09.990 Robert Tseng: Well, she basically kind of rebuilt, like, a V2 of the, like, of the tracker, which,
411 00:46:10.400 ⇒ 00:46:22.589 Robert Tseng: I think it just needed some stylistic meetingups, like, I… I mean, I just don’t know if that got done yet, but I would expect it to be done by, like, our call, so that, like, we can hit send right afterwards.
412 00:46:22.590 ⇒ 00:46:24.130 Amber Lin: Gotcha, okay.
413 00:46:24.130 ⇒ 00:46:24.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
414 00:46:24.910 ⇒ 00:46:27.380 Amber Lin: Let me see if I can grab time.
415 00:46:40.490 ⇒ 00:46:41.150 Robert Tseng: Okay.
416 00:46:53.910 ⇒ 00:47:03.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah, anything else on, like, the… there’s some stuff that’s kind of box search analysis, recommendations, like, I’ve seen stuff in progress, but I’m not really…
417 00:47:08.460 ⇒ 00:47:23.060 Amber Lin: I did the, like, our campaign results analysis. I… the only thing I want to do this week, also, is to recommend Birdie some campaigns. All the other… the other… otherwise, it’s mostly just that message.
418 00:47:23.690 ⇒ 00:47:24.330 Robert Tseng: Okay.
419 00:47:26.020 ⇒ 00:47:32.940 Robert Tseng: Alright, that’s fine. Alright, I… I think that’s it. I’ll… I will.
420 00:47:32.940 ⇒ 00:47:36.060 Henry Zhao: Can you stay on with me after this call, just for a few minutes?
421 00:47:37.910 ⇒ 00:47:38.910 Robert Tseng: Sure.
422 00:47:39.160 ⇒ 00:47:39.969 Henry Zhao: Okay, thanks.
423 00:47:40.300 ⇒ 00:47:42.349 Robert Tseng: Okay, alright, everyone else, you can drop.
424 00:47:51.260 ⇒ 00:48:01.329 Henry Zhao: Hey, so Robert, so this is probably obvious that this talk is coming, but, like, just based on the feedback today, I’m start… obviously, I’m having some, like, second thoughts on, like, if I’m…
425 00:48:01.690 ⇒ 00:48:04.489 Henry Zhao: a fit for this role, you know what I mean? So…
426 00:48:04.630 ⇒ 00:48:13.080 Henry Zhao: I don’t know how we want to proceed. I wonder if there’s, like, anything you can do for me to kind of, like, give me guidance on maybe, like, a course that I should take, or…
427 00:48:13.200 ⇒ 00:48:28.930 Henry Zhao: some sort of thing that I can do to try and see if I can, be better at this, you know what I mean? Or maybe shadow some people, and then I wonder if you maybe want to bring on, like, a more senior analyst, and then maybe cut my hours to just give me time to kind of…
428 00:48:29.020 ⇒ 00:48:35.239 Henry Zhao: learn and grow and just make sure that I am able to do this work. Because I don’t want to put Brainforge at risk, obviously.
429 00:48:36.350 ⇒ 00:48:51.800 Henry Zhao: And right now, there’s no excuses anymore. It’s not like I don’t have bandwidth, it’s not like, I have health problems anymore, it’s just like I don’t feel like… I feel like I’m trying my best, and it’s not good enough. So, I want to know what I can do to up-level myself, you know what I mean?
430 00:48:52.600 ⇒ 00:49:05.539 Robert Tseng: Sure, I mean, like… like, look, dude, I don’t… I mean, I… I… I think you always come with, like, you know, very self-aware and apologetic and things just fine. I just, like, I don’t really know, like, how to help you. Like, I just, like…
431 00:49:06.080 ⇒ 00:49:12.359 Robert Tseng: I feel like I get, you know, it sounds like you’re getting things out of, like, our one-on-ones, and then, like.
432 00:49:12.680 ⇒ 00:49:30.169 Robert Tseng: Well, like, it’s fine if, like, the scope is more than what you can take on, like, I… I’m fine with that. Like, we can… we are trying to, like, hire other people as well. I think, yeah, like, that’s… that’s an active conversation, like, I think that’s…
433 00:49:30.650 ⇒ 00:49:38.050 Robert Tseng: like, yeah, I think that’s… that’s not really, like, a problem to me, so… but, like.
434 00:49:38.200 ⇒ 00:49:42.710 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, if you… you…
435 00:49:44.320 ⇒ 00:49:47.189 Robert Tseng: if you don’t… like, it… I… I…
436 00:49:49.350 ⇒ 00:50:04.760 Robert Tseng: like, I feel like… I mean, I need you to kind of define your own role, like, kind of, like, as well. Like, I can’t… like, I have been advocating for you as much as I possibly can, like, I try to, like.
437 00:50:05.020 ⇒ 00:50:06.780 Robert Tseng: Tailored to your strengths.
438 00:50:07.320 ⇒ 00:50:11.739 Robert Tseng: for Eden, I give you… I’ve been giving you, like, I feel like I’ve been giving you…
439 00:50:12.020 ⇒ 00:50:20.099 Robert Tseng: the most opportunity out of everyone on that… on that client. Like, I have been trying to, like, help you see a path to, like.
440 00:50:21.010 ⇒ 00:50:32.609 Robert Tseng: basically be at the strategist level, so I can, like, truly be out of the client. Like, I… you… you are… you are… you are… you have the most number of hours on our largest client. Like.
441 00:50:32.760 ⇒ 00:50:44.099 Robert Tseng: no other client comes close. Like, it’s… it’s just like… I mean, yes, the stakes are gonna be higher. Like, I… I think that’s… that’s… that’s what it is. And, if…
442 00:50:44.700 ⇒ 00:50:59.970 Robert Tseng: I mean, if that’s not what you want, well, then, like, I don’t know, like, you’re… you’re not a junior analyst either, you’re kind of, like, mid-level, like, I… it’s… it… this is… this is just kind of, like, you have to decide for yourself, like, how do you…
443 00:51:00.090 ⇒ 00:51:03.800 Robert Tseng: want to, like, move forward. Like, I… I don’t know where you…
444 00:51:03.800 ⇒ 00:51:09.899 Henry Zhao: what I want, but I’m feeling incapable, you know what I mean? And I’ve done analysis before, so I know I can do it, but I’m just feeling like…
445 00:51:10.830 ⇒ 00:51:13.529 Henry Zhao: I just feel like I’m struggling so much at Brainforge, you know what I mean?
446 00:51:15.030 ⇒ 00:51:17.989 Henry Zhao: Okay, I mean, like… And I don’t really know why.
447 00:51:19.050 ⇒ 00:51:25.030 Robert Tseng: I, I, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know why either. Like, I, I…
448 00:51:29.730 ⇒ 00:51:35.640 Henry Zhao: And obviously, I spent a lot of time reflecting on this, but it’s just like, I kind of feel like I’m in a spot where I’m kind of stuck, you know what I mean?
449 00:51:36.610 ⇒ 00:51:41.439 Robert Tseng: Okay, I mean… I, I, I hear, I hear you,
450 00:51:43.180 ⇒ 00:51:48.809 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I don’t have an answer for you right now. I think, like, my instinct is just to, like.
451 00:51:49.050 ⇒ 00:52:02.750 Robert Tseng: go back in and, like, just take over for a couple weeks, and I believe that, like, if I spend a couple weeks there, like, I’ll build out another, like, 2 or 3 month roadmap, and, like, it’ll be fine. Like, I… and I… I don’t really…
452 00:52:02.910 ⇒ 00:52:16.010 Robert Tseng: like, I don’t… I don’t really see another… another way forward, like, right now. Like, even if we bring someone on, it’ll take forever, it’ll take so long to ramp them up and stuff, but, yeah, like, I… like, that’s kind of how… how I see things, like…
453 00:52:16.020 ⇒ 00:52:32.910 Robert Tseng: I guess what’s unique to Braveforged… I can’t… I can’t speak to your situation. I can only speak to Braveforged. Like, I don’t really know… I don’t want to speak on… on your behalf. So, at Brainforge, there is no, like, mid-level. Like, it’s junior or it’s senior. Like, I think that’s what’s unique about it. Like, I think…
454 00:52:32.940 ⇒ 00:52:48.670 Robert Tseng: We’re not, like, a large-scale product company where, like, we have, like, a long runway to, like, incubate, like, do low leveling to get people up, or whatever, like, there’s nothing like that. You either come in as a junior, and you’re just kind of… you’re being told exactly what to do.
455 00:52:48.670 ⇒ 00:53:00.170 Robert Tseng: or you’re a senior, and you’re expected to be client-facing, you are performing as, like, I mean, I guess Clarence is kind of articulating these different tenets, but, like.
456 00:53:00.520 ⇒ 00:53:03.969 Robert Tseng: you need to manage… you need to do your… you need to PM your own work.
457 00:53:04.170 ⇒ 00:53:13.499 Robert Tseng: You need to, be able to build roadmap, you need to be an account manager, like, those are all skills, like, that you, that you need to have as a senior person.
458 00:53:13.500 ⇒ 00:53:28.810 Robert Tseng: not everyone’s gonna be good at all three, but you need to have at least one or two at most. And, like, I think that’s the expectation across the board for everybody that’s operating in some sort of, like, senior… senior, like, role, which… which… which, like, you… which you are. So…
459 00:53:29.090 ⇒ 00:53:34.689 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, I mean, like, the… for you to just…
460 00:53:35.110 ⇒ 00:53:41.610 Robert Tseng: like, kind of step back and just be kind of, like, told what analysis to run. Like, there isn’t really, like.
461 00:53:42.030 ⇒ 00:53:45.300 Robert Tseng: there’s not really a world for that currently. Like, I… like, I just…
462 00:53:45.300 ⇒ 00:53:45.730 Henry Zhao: Excellent.
463 00:53:45.730 ⇒ 00:53:46.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I…
464 00:53:46.930 ⇒ 00:53:56.920 Robert Tseng: we need more leaders, like, in this org. Like, I think that’s… that’s what it is. So, in which case, like, you would, you know, you would just kind of…
465 00:53:59.060 ⇒ 00:54:09.540 Robert Tseng: status quo is, like, I don’t… I don’t really know how else to… what… what to do with you until we bring in somebody, to kind of, like, come in… kind of come in above you, but, like.
466 00:54:09.630 ⇒ 00:54:12.599 Henry Zhao: Otherwise, we’re just gonna keep running through the situation over and over again.
467 00:54:12.600 ⇒ 00:54:13.500 Robert Tseng: So…
468 00:54:13.610 ⇒ 00:54:32.039 Robert Tseng: like, I’ve been… I’ve cut different domains, like, Martech is completely in Zoran’s world, I’m moving marketing stuff off of him. You’re telling me you have finance background, you do operational reporting, like, I see it in your experience, and so I’m trying to just, like, narrow you in just that area, but, like.
469 00:54:32.150 ⇒ 00:54:34.790 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I’m not really seeing you kind of, like.
470 00:54:35.380 ⇒ 00:54:53.829 Robert Tseng: kind of go deep in that either. So, like, I don’t really know what to say. I spent some time with you breaking down, like, there are 3 types of analysis. There’s top-down, there’s bottoms-up, and then there’s operational analysis. Like, you gotta… at your level, you gotta have a specialty in one of those, like, so for us to be able to know where to slot you in.
471 00:54:53.830 ⇒ 00:54:59.979 Robert Tseng: And right now, it just feels like you’re… you’re not… you don’t… you don’t have… you don’t feel confident in doing any of them.
472 00:54:59.980 ⇒ 00:55:13.840 Robert Tseng: And, I mean, you have the… you’re able to do it, but, like, you just… you’re not willing to, like, take a leadership role in any of them. Like, that’s… that’s, like, that’s what makes you very hard to read and hard to staff you, because, like.
473 00:55:14.060 ⇒ 00:55:33.540 Robert Tseng: we… it… it feels like we could put you anywhere, but then you’re also, like, not able to run autonomously anywhere. So, like, I… it’s like a weird, like, in-between where, it doesn’t really fit into any of our categories currently. So, like, I… I mean, I struggle to, like, know, like, what to do… what to do with… with… with that situation as well.
474 00:55:34.270 ⇒ 00:55:35.060 Henry Zhao: Yeah.
475 00:55:35.090 ⇒ 00:55:40.539 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, I don’t… does that… does that make sense to you? Like, what… I don’t know what… what thoughts you got there. Yeah, it does.
476 00:55:40.540 ⇒ 00:55:45.110 Henry Zhao: Yeah, it does, but I just need to think about, like, how I can become that leader, you know what I mean?
477 00:55:45.250 ⇒ 00:55:48.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah. And, like, what I need to do to get there.
478 00:55:48.890 ⇒ 00:55:52.690 Henry Zhao: And I probably just need some more time to, like, reflect on that, and do my best in the meantime.
479 00:55:53.030 ⇒ 00:56:08.099 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, the different things, like, Clarence is here to coach on, like, the other qualities that senior people need to have. If you need to know how to better roadmap plan, you should just bring it to him, just sit with him, he’s gonna spend time, he’ll teach you how to roadmap plan, because that’s kind of where it is.
480 00:56:08.100 ⇒ 00:56:14.060 Robert Tseng: like, on the account management side, I actually think you’re fine. Like, it’s not like any client has come to me and been like, oh, like.
481 00:56:14.120 ⇒ 00:56:16.880 Robert Tseng: Henry’s a terrible communicator, or whatever. Like, I…
482 00:56:16.990 ⇒ 00:56:33.460 Robert Tseng: I mean, we already worked through some of the quirks on, like, you know, what you… what you should or shouldn’t say, and… but it’s not like you’re… I mean, you’re… you’re an American, you work in different countries, like, your communication is above… way above average, right, for… for a technical person. There’s a reason why I’m not throwing them a lot in front of clients, and…
483 00:56:33.460 ⇒ 00:56:39.519 Robert Tseng: Or whatever, I mean, I don’t want to… sorry, I shouldn’t throw people under the bus. I just… I was just throwing out an example. But, like,
484 00:56:39.530 ⇒ 00:56:46.730 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, there… at least you have that, and then… but then you’re not good at creating tickets, so, like, PMing work, like…
485 00:56:46.830 ⇒ 00:56:58.820 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, I’ve given you Sezzin for 2 weeks, I’m like, I have no idea what the heck she’s doing, like, I don’t think you’ve been able to really, like, help me to understand, like, how you’re managing her, like, whether or not, like, how you break down her work.
486 00:56:58.980 ⇒ 00:57:02.239 Robert Tseng: she needs to be told exactly what to do. She is a junior person.
487 00:57:02.550 ⇒ 00:57:03.150 Henry Zhao: Okay.
488 00:57:03.150 ⇒ 00:57:21.179 Robert Tseng: And then, like, from a roadmap planning perspective, like, you’re not able to build roadmap either. So, like, it’s… it’s, you’re missing, like, two out of the three skills that we expect at the, at the senior level. yeah, so, like, there is, like, some coaching that needs to be done there, and, like, I understand that’ll take time.
489 00:57:21.310 ⇒ 00:57:37.450 Robert Tseng: But… but yeah, like, I… I… I just wish that, like, you have these conversations with me earlier, like, you don’t tell… you don’t spring it on me, like, last minute. Like, that’s when I start to panic, because, like, I’ve been giving you time to do this, like, I can, like…
490 00:57:37.530 ⇒ 00:57:43.019 Robert Tseng: I’m… the ELT, like, deck… it’s expected to go out in an hour and a half, like, I…
491 00:57:43.020 ⇒ 00:57:45.750 Henry Zhao: I thought about… real quick, I thought it was next week, though. I thought last week you.
492 00:57:45.750 ⇒ 00:57:54.840 Robert Tseng: I’m not meeting with them, but, like, I’m gonna send it out, like, it’s, like, I, you know, it is what it is. Like, I… we operate with some, like, level of consistent urgency, like…
493 00:57:54.910 ⇒ 00:58:14.610 Robert Tseng: Like, I, I, yes, I could keep delaying it, but, like, they haven’t received a deck from us in… since, since before, whatever, Thanksgiving, or, or whatever that was. So, yeah, like, I just… that’s, like, to me, that’s… that’s unacceptable. If I were in their shoes, like, I… that would be unacceptable to me. So.
494 00:58:15.680 ⇒ 00:58:25.769 Henry Zhao: I’ll meet with Clarence to kind of get some tips on roadmapping. But I think it’s clear that you kind of laid out the 3 skills that I need to have and where I need to develop. I think that’s good guidance.
495 00:58:26.020 ⇒ 00:58:41.359 Robert Tseng: Like, I don’t need to teach you anything, like, about technical, like, ability, like, I’m sure you could do it. You run… you probably… you know SQL better than I do, like, you can use all these tools, like, I’m sure you could do any type of analysis. I think just at the senior level, it’s no longer about execution, right? It’s about, like,
496 00:58:41.900 ⇒ 00:58:49.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, it’s about the way that you influence decisions, like, and the recommendations that you make. Like, you’re actually trying to, like.
497 00:58:49.750 ⇒ 00:58:52.100 Robert Tseng: turn… like…
498 00:58:52.680 ⇒ 00:59:02.839 Robert Tseng: the answers that you’re used to going to fetch, you’re turning them into, like, strategy. Right. And, yeah, like, that’s… that’s really the skill set that, like.
499 00:59:02.840 ⇒ 00:59:17.480 Robert Tseng: you know, regardless if you’re at Brainford or somewhere else, I mean, I feel like if you want to continue at a senior… at a senior level, you’re gonna lead some team somewhere, like, that’s what you will need to do. So, like, I… like, I… like, yeah, I think…
500 00:59:17.490 ⇒ 00:59:19.600 Robert Tseng: You know, we…
501 00:59:20.980 ⇒ 00:59:30.290 Robert Tseng: I feel like we have a very gracious environment here, like, we, like, give people many chances, like, we understand that, like, everybody needs to kind of
502 00:59:30.610 ⇒ 00:59:39.370 Robert Tseng: Like, we don’t throw anybody into the deep end. Like, you have redundancy on everything that you’re doing. It’s just kind of…
503 00:59:39.640 ⇒ 00:59:53.640 Robert Tseng: on you to kind of own your own trajectory, like, to be honest, like, with us, like, up front, like, we’re… we’re not… we don’t hide anything. Everything is very open, like, that’s the only way that we can run the business. So, like, if you’re just gonna kind of, like.
504 00:59:53.640 ⇒ 01:00:04.489 Robert Tseng: swallow it and just keep waiting until, like, a breaking point, that’s not gonna work. Like, you’re gonna… you’re gonna feel, like, big ups and downs, like, all the time, and, like, I know that’s a very difficult way to work, so…
505 01:00:04.490 ⇒ 01:00:13.779 Robert Tseng: Like, I… I… I would, you know, I, you know, it’s okay to ask for help, like, I just… I mean, I just… you should have done it, like.
506 01:00:14.010 ⇒ 01:00:21.740 Robert Tseng: weeks ago, at this point. So, like, I… like, I… I… that’s… that’s… that’s my feedback to you, like…
507 01:00:21.740 ⇒ 01:00:24.240 Henry Zhao: There was a problem weeks ago, yeah, it’s just…
508 01:00:26.820 ⇒ 01:00:29.880 Robert Tseng: Well, to me, it’s like, post… like, after…
509 01:00:29.950 ⇒ 01:00:47.809 Robert Tseng: Like, you’re… you’re… you’re… you can… you can do the firefighting. If there’s an urgent problem to solve, and people… someone’s telling you exactly what to do, like, yeah, you’ll figure out how to solve the problem. Like, you clearly have that ability. But then, when it’s, like, nobody’s coming after you for, like, fires, like, yeah, like, it feels like you don’t really know what to do with, like, when…
510 01:00:47.810 ⇒ 01:00:51.589 Robert Tseng: When you have the ability to, like, the freedom to be able to, like, plan.
511 01:00:51.590 ⇒ 01:00:54.250 Henry Zhao: Plan your next, your next, your next project.
512 01:00:54.250 ⇒ 01:00:57.339 Robert Tseng: Which, yeah, like, I guess…
513 01:00:57.340 ⇒ 01:00:58.299 Henry Zhao: Yeah, that’s a good point, yeah.
514 01:00:58.300 ⇒ 01:01:11.930 Robert Tseng: That’s… it is a different skill set, but it is also kind of the dream that every data team wants to get to, that you’re not just, like, taking a bunch of, like, random query requests from people, but, like, you’re actually, like, building towards something.
515 01:01:11.930 ⇒ 01:01:12.490 Henry Zhao: Yeah.
516 01:01:13.140 ⇒ 01:01:16.020 Henry Zhao: more proactive, I think that’s the takeaway here.
517 01:01:16.150 ⇒ 01:01:17.150 Henry Zhao: is like…
518 01:01:17.410 ⇒ 01:01:29.169 Henry Zhao: I think, just in my mind, for some reason, I just felt like it was gonna be, like, a December lull, and that I was gonna just work less hours for Eden and kind of improve our margins, but I should have been more proactive and, like, roadmapping and thinking about what we should bring to the client.
519 01:01:30.070 ⇒ 01:01:48.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t need you to improve our margins. Like, I will do that by… with pricing. Like, yeah, like, Eden pays us, like, more than that. Like, the margins are okay on Eden. Like, I don’t really care about that. Like, I… yeah, like, for anything, improving the margins, and then losing the client, or, like, getting the rev… like, getting our…
520 01:01:48.190 ⇒ 01:02:00.900 Robert Tseng: getting our… this account, like, cut in half, like, that to me is a… that’s a loss. Like, once… once we… once I sell up, like, I want to stay at that level, like, and we’re just not… we’re not operating at that level right now.
521 01:02:00.980 ⇒ 01:02:01.780 Robert Tseng: So…
522 01:02:02.280 ⇒ 01:02:06.429 Robert Tseng: Like, I don’t know what kind of data teams you’ve led, I’m gonna jump to that call soon, but, like.
523 01:02:06.580 ⇒ 01:02:10.849 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, at Ruggable, like, my budget was, like.
524 01:02:11.230 ⇒ 01:02:28.630 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, I have, like, 5 direct reports. Each one of them’s probably, like, you know, somewhere between 130 to 160 base. You know, their total comp’s probably, like, closer to 200, including all the things. So, what, that’s, like, a million… that’s, like, a million dollar… million dollars in, like, headcount under… under me. And, like, that’s…
525 01:02:29.040 ⇒ 01:02:32.350 Robert Tseng: double, like, what I get from Eden, but, like.
526 01:02:32.360 ⇒ 01:02:45.459 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I mean, I do think that the way that we operate, like, this way is very unique, like, with less hours, people could be more tactical, like, I’m not… like, there’s a lot of… it was a very inefficient team that I had ran.
527 01:02:45.460 ⇒ 01:02:56.390 Robert Tseng: previously at Ruggable. So, like, I think the way that I think about this is very different than when I… when I did it there. And, like, yeah, like, I… like, we have, like.
528 01:02:56.560 ⇒ 01:02:59.020 Robert Tseng: Anyway, like, I… it just… like, that…
529 01:02:59.380 ⇒ 01:03:08.879 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, in any organization where you’re running a data team, like, you’re gonna have to be working with budgets that size, and you have to justify why your team should be paid that much.
530 01:03:09.050 ⇒ 01:03:11.200 Henry Zhao: At some point, I couldn’t justify it.
531 01:03:11.200 ⇒ 01:03:14.859 Robert Tseng: I couldn’t keep a million dollar team. Like, it just wasn’t possible, so…
532 01:03:15.250 ⇒ 01:03:19.180 Robert Tseng: people got laid off, I had to get moved around, like, I left, because it was just, like, a…
533 01:03:19.500 ⇒ 01:03:19.840 Henry Zhao: Gotcha.
534 01:03:19.840 ⇒ 01:03:34.850 Robert Tseng: bad situation. So, like, I understand the pressure of, like, how to hold a team with a big budget. Like, I… and it’s… there is no, like… yes, there are slow… there are slower periods, but those are the times to kind of build up your roadmap for the next
535 01:03:34.850 ⇒ 01:03:46.699 Robert Tseng: the next couple months to quarters, like, even if you just go and you sit in meetings, you learn the business, you truly become, like, a good partner and an expert in some way, like, that’s what… that’s what your time is best spent doing. So, like.
536 01:03:46.700 ⇒ 01:03:54.140 Robert Tseng: Anyway, like, that’s… that’s… I mean, that’s… that’s kind of how… that’s… that’s kind of how… I mean, that… at least to me, that’s how I think it works.
537 01:03:54.180 ⇒ 01:03:57.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Okay.
538 01:03:57.120 ⇒ 01:04:09.800 Henry Zhao: Understood. Okay, so I think I have guidance now on how to move forward, and I’ll just continue to be in touch with you to kind of just have checkpoints and make sure that I’m kind of doing better.
539 01:04:10.380 ⇒ 01:04:25.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, our one-to-ones should not be spent on doing, like, tactical reviews and stuff. Like, we should be talking about stuff like this. Like, it’s like, I… yeah, I mean, I… the way that I help you is not, like, reviewing your work and your analysis at this point, or telling you how to handle a ticket, like.
540 01:04:25.520 ⇒ 01:04:35.499 Robert Tseng: it’s gotta be about stakeholder influence, and, like, that’s why I want you to ask me these, like, higher-level questions, because, like, I think these are the more important things to solve for you.
541 01:04:35.540 ⇒ 01:04:37.839 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, so…
542 01:04:38.170 ⇒ 01:04:56.059 Henry Zhao: Yeah, I think the diagnosis here is, like, I’ve been acting too much like a junior analyst, and I need to think about, like, the things I need to do as a leader and as a thought partner, and just always thinking about furthering the Eden business, instead of just doing, like, reactive analysis, which I think I’ve been doing a little too much of, you know? So, I think… I think it’s clear.
543 01:04:56.810 ⇒ 01:05:05.619 Robert Tseng: Okay. All right. Well, yeah, appreciate you kind of taking the feedback. I kind of lost my cool for a bit, and I shouldn’t have done that, so…
544 01:05:05.620 ⇒ 01:05:11.470 Henry Zhao: No, no, it’s totally justified, but it’s a good wake-up call for me, and I’ll take action on the feedback.
545 01:05:11.730 ⇒ 01:05:12.980 Robert Tseng: Okay, alright.
546 01:05:12.980 ⇒ 01:05:15.599 Henry Zhao: I’m still very nervous about creating slides, but we’ll talk about that later.
547 01:05:16.160 ⇒ 01:05:21.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, the slide stuff is… I feel… okay, well, whatever, you’ll pick it up, we’re… yeah.
548 01:05:21.990 ⇒ 01:05:23.210 Henry Zhao: Okay, we’ll talk about it later, thank you.
549 01:05:23.210 ⇒ 01:05:24.390 Robert Tseng: Okay, bye. Bye.