2025-12-12_brainforge_messaging_and_content_strateg_ab494052

Meeting Title: Brainforge Messaging and Content Strategy Sync Date: 2025-12-12 Meeting participants: Luke’s Notetaker, Luke Scorziell, Fireflies.ai Notetaker Joules, Robert Tseng

---

WEBVTT

1 00:00:21.020 ⇒ 00:00:22.120 Robert Tseng: Hey, Luke.

2 00:00:22.120 ⇒ 00:00:23.660 Luke Scorziell: Hey, Robert, how’s it going?

3 00:00:23.850 ⇒ 00:00:26.199 Robert Tseng: Good, how are you? Happy Friday.

4 00:00:26.200 ⇒ 00:00:29.040 Luke Scorziell: Good, yeah, happy Friday to you too.

5 00:00:29.340 ⇒ 00:00:30.609 Luke Scorziell: How’s the week been?

6 00:00:31.820 ⇒ 00:00:44.409 Robert Tseng: It’s been pretty wild, but, so it’s all good. It’s gonna… it’s just gonna press… press… keep pushing for another week, and things will start to slow down, I think.

7 00:00:45.110 ⇒ 00:00:48.999 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, for Christmas. Just wild with, sales and whatnot, or…

8 00:00:49.000 ⇒ 00:00:50.540 Robert Tseng: No, I think, like.

9 00:00:50.540 ⇒ 00:00:51.170 Luke Scorziell: animals.

10 00:00:51.650 ⇒ 00:01:09.259 Robert Tseng: I mean, I have the access to finals, and also, like… I mean, sales is… we’re not really that active right now. I think the delivery… delivery side is… is… we just have… we just have too many clients for our current, capacity, and there’s just all kinds of issues. Things are breaking there, so… sorry, I’ve been spending most of my time.

11 00:01:09.860 ⇒ 00:01:11.380 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

12 00:01:11.400 ⇒ 00:01:12.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

13 00:01:13.020 ⇒ 00:01:14.500 Luke Scorziell: Well, excited to catch up.

14 00:01:16.560 ⇒ 00:01:20.749 Luke Scorziell: Can I hear your thoughts on what I sent last night, and then maybe just get to chat over?

15 00:01:20.930 ⇒ 00:01:25.749 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. Yeah, I think having been plugged in for, like, the week now, it’s like…

16 00:01:26.780 ⇒ 00:01:28.520 Luke Scorziell: Probably have more context, and…

17 00:01:31.260 ⇒ 00:01:31.700 Robert Tseng: Great.

18 00:01:31.700 ⇒ 00:01:35.970 Luke Scorziell: more valid… more, relevant questions than I would have had before, so…

19 00:01:36.240 ⇒ 00:01:45.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I looked through everything you said. I guess, like, I’ll just kind of reference, like, I’ve been doing this with Jed as well, just kind of pulling up, like, you know, this one…

20 00:01:45.570 ⇒ 00:01:53.149 Robert Tseng: place that we have everything. So, I think basically, like, there were a couple things that you mentioned,

21 00:01:54.490 ⇒ 00:02:09.760 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’ve kind of just… I’m calling them bets, but, like, you’re… you’re kind of… you’re insides, you could just call it insights, or whatever, we don’t call it one. But, but yeah, one is, like, okay, you think we could be offering more immediate, relevant value in the cold DMs to increase your open rates? So you have some ideas around

22 00:02:09.759 ⇒ 00:02:16.319 Robert Tseng: Messaging to invite to more… to workshops, sharing better, kind of, like, educational, targeted

23 00:02:16.320 ⇒ 00:02:19.460 Robert Tseng: Targeted educational resources up fronts.

24 00:02:19.600 ⇒ 00:02:24.770 Robert Tseng: And yeah, so, does that kind of summarize one of your points?

25 00:02:25.070 ⇒ 00:02:30.229 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and, like, I’m welcome, too, to any feedback, too, if that’s, like, something…

26 00:02:30.490 ⇒ 00:02:32.769 Luke Scorziell: We’ve tried, I just know,

27 00:02:32.900 ⇒ 00:02:36.849 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, kind of the thought there is if people’s initial reaction can be, like.

28 00:02:37.330 ⇒ 00:02:41.210 Luke Scorziell: Oh, they’re trying… they found a problem that I have, and they’re trying to add value.

29 00:02:41.410 ⇒ 00:02:44.150 Luke Scorziell: To that, like, specific problem.

30 00:02:44.630 ⇒ 00:02:45.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

31 00:02:45.580 ⇒ 00:02:59.420 Luke Scorziell: And as opposed to, like… I could just imagine, like, if I get a case study or, like, a long, like, thing that’s very Brain Forge-centric… Yeah. Like, I’d be like, why is this, like, I’m just getting a lot of information that… I don’t know… Yeah.

32 00:02:59.420 ⇒ 00:03:14.910 Robert Tseng: I agree. I think, before, I was telling the team, look, like, every lead needs 3 touchpoints, needs 3 things about… or at least 3… needs to get 3 things about Brainforge, and, like, I don’t think that’s really working. Obviously, for various things, people don’t want to link outs, people don’t want to read, like, a giant blob of text.

33 00:03:14.910 ⇒ 00:03:20.090 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, I do think that there is something about, you know, can we actually have, you know, better…

34 00:03:20.270 ⇒ 00:03:28.079 Robert Tseng: value in the messaging. I would say, like, I’m not really trying to pitch people on LinkedIn, like, right away. I think what gets…

35 00:03:28.080 ⇒ 00:03:41.459 Robert Tseng: attention is really just asking, like, a relevant question, and, like, people want to connect with other people. They don’t want to be pitched at, so I think that’s… yeah, I think that’s… that’s definitely part of it. But, you know, if we could speak to a problem,

36 00:03:41.780 ⇒ 00:03:53.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think that’s why the types of connection requests that work are like, hey, saw you comment on this post over there, are you struggling with this problem? Or, like, you’re thinking about this problem? Like, would love to exchange notes. Like, that type of message, like, I feel like

37 00:03:54.260 ⇒ 00:03:57.479 Robert Tseng: we almost always get a response. So I think that’s…

38 00:03:57.480 ⇒ 00:03:58.050 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

39 00:03:58.050 ⇒ 00:03:58.420 Robert Tseng: It’s like…

40 00:03:58.420 ⇒ 00:03:59.120 Luke Scorziell: That’s cool.

41 00:03:59.450 ⇒ 00:04:00.690 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…

42 00:04:00.890 ⇒ 00:04:16.420 Robert Tseng: I think that’s helpful, or if they, like, hey, attended this event, saw you were a speaker, like, really like this one part of your presentation, like, yeah, just, like, things that make it human, like, you see that they’re engaging in some way, either online or offline, or, like, calling it out, and then being able to just, like.

43 00:04:16.470 ⇒ 00:04:33.669 Robert Tseng: say, you know, establish that there’s a mutual interest in that, rather than, like, even being pretentious enough to be like, oh yeah, like, I know your problem, and I’ve solved it, like, a bunch of times. Like, I think that could be discussed, like, on a call, but that’s not really something that I would say in a message.

44 00:04:34.010 ⇒ 00:04:37.680 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, like, weeding with that. Yeah, okay, so it sounds like kind of on…

45 00:04:38.720 ⇒ 00:04:42.189 Luke Scorziell: a similar path with that, or, like, thought. Yeah, so…

46 00:04:42.190 ⇒ 00:04:59.850 Robert Tseng: I definitely think that’s part of it, so I would… I would agree with that. So, you know, along with this, like, kind of bucket of, like, kind of work, on repeatable GTM system, so yeah, I mean, like, this is around our messaging, like, you know, I think we had discussed before you started, you’re like, look, I think we…

47 00:04:59.850 ⇒ 00:05:09.529 Robert Tseng: we just really need to spend… spend time, like, discussing our ICP, right? And then, you know, once we know that, then we’ll be able to, like, find… we’ll be able to, like, find the

48 00:05:09.970 ⇒ 00:05:18.620 Robert Tseng: like, to write a relevant message for them. And then, as far as, like, sequencing and outbound workflows, like, I don’t know if you’ve met with, kind of.

49 00:05:18.650 ⇒ 00:05:36.450 Robert Tseng: Ryan and Judd to kind of get… understand how that works, but, you know, basically, like, they would be the ones executing that. I don’t really feel like I need you jumping in and doing that work. And then… but, like, yeah, just anything strategic around, like, what are all the different pieces that we need in order to, like.

50 00:05:36.620 ⇒ 00:05:41.920 Robert Tseng: execute some of these workflows, I think is hopefully something that you’d be able to help with.

51 00:05:42.030 ⇒ 00:05:43.120 Robert Tseng: Yup.

52 00:05:43.270 ⇒ 00:05:48.619 Robert Tseng: Yeah. I think my level of conviction on this is, like, I don’t know, maybe I’ll just write, like,

53 00:05:49.180 ⇒ 00:05:59.909 Robert Tseng: like, 20% of, like, leads should… or whatever I wrote in my, management thing. Let me look… pull it up again. Management operations…

54 00:06:01.690 ⇒ 00:06:07.810 Robert Tseng: I don’t even think it’s that clear. 40%, you better make the activations. Yeah, 20% from…

55 00:06:08.070 ⇒ 00:06:10.860 Robert Tseng: 25% of leads.

56 00:06:11.230 ⇒ 00:06:14.549 Robert Tseng: From LinkedIn, email, outbound.

57 00:06:15.540 ⇒ 00:06:19.640 Robert Tseng: really just LinkedIn. We’re not really doing email. Gonna leave that off the table.

58 00:06:21.160 ⇒ 00:06:33.159 Robert Tseng: Meaning that, like, I don’t really think this is where most of our leads will be coming from. Like, I don’t… I don’t expect us to scale up to big volume, especially after we spent some time defining the ICP more narrowly, like…

59 00:06:33.160 ⇒ 00:06:41.550 Robert Tseng: I think each one will only be, like, 500 people in that target audience. Like, I… I don’t really think we’re…

60 00:06:41.600 ⇒ 00:06:49.880 Robert Tseng: like, I was speaking with Jed, and that’s why I invited him to this call, but I guess he’s on a different call. Like, he’s… he comes from a background where

61 00:06:50.450 ⇒ 00:06:54.790 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, big platform company, like, they’re… they’re… they’re, like.

62 00:06:55.500 ⇒ 00:07:04.270 Robert Tseng: they’re working through, like, a thousand leads a week, and I’m like, that’s… that’s not this business. Like, I think this business is, like, there’s probably 500 buyers.

63 00:07:04.380 ⇒ 00:07:06.189 Luke Scorziell: Like, for each…

64 00:07:06.190 ⇒ 00:07:11.229 Robert Tseng: ICP that we’re targeting, and I think that’s… that’s okay. Like, I think that’s… that’s,

65 00:07:11.700 ⇒ 00:07:17.100 Robert Tseng: Like, I don’t know, that’s why I don’t really think we need that many… that many meetings, like,

66 00:07:17.390 ⇒ 00:07:33.300 Robert Tseng: In order to kind of get to where we want to get to. And yeah, so I think that’s, you know, those are some of my initial thoughts on, like, where, like, how important this is. It’s like, yeah, I do think we… we should do enough so that, like, we have the initial sequences, just, like.

67 00:07:33.500 ⇒ 00:07:52.699 Robert Tseng: working, but it’s really just to get, like, a response. Once we get a response, like, I think we can just, like, find… we can find our way. We can find our way into, into a meeting. But even for those that don’t respond, like, how do we, like, continue to nurture them, is, is, is, you know, I think…

68 00:07:53.450 ⇒ 00:08:08.320 Robert Tseng: whatever our baseline is is very low, like, I don’t have the numbers for you in terms of, like, our response rates, but I would expect they’re generally pretty low, and but yeah, even if we were to increase them by, like, 5 to 10%, like, or something like that, like.

69 00:08:08.380 ⇒ 00:08:21.250 Robert Tseng: it’s… it’s not going to be, like, most of our… most of our lead volume still. So, it’s… like, I think that’s… that’s part of it. That’s why I think content, I think, is a bigger piece. Like, I think content should be, like.

70 00:08:21.350 ⇒ 00:08:24.060 Robert Tseng: I’m expecting content to…

71 00:08:27.380 ⇒ 00:08:31.519 Robert Tseng: I don’t think content source leads is really…

72 00:08:33.130 ⇒ 00:08:40.519 Robert Tseng: that, I don’t really know if we can measure that right now. I kind of view gone content as, like.

73 00:08:41.480 ⇒ 00:08:47.320 Robert Tseng: It just establishes that, trust more with People who, like.

74 00:08:47.930 ⇒ 00:08:54.549 Robert Tseng: see the Brainforge brand. Like, I think it should overall, like, increase

75 00:08:58.250 ⇒ 00:09:00.179 Robert Tseng: It should impact, like.

76 00:09:00.910 ⇒ 00:09:16.019 Robert Tseng: the outbound that we do, it, like, it’ll… it’ll give… give us more favor with our partners, it helps, like, our event-based activations, like, have a… have a… have wider reach, so I do think it’s maybe less…

77 00:09:18.090 ⇒ 00:09:26.389 Robert Tseng: it’s… it’s not as easy to just, like, put a target on it and say, like, 40% of our leads should come from content, like, I don’t think that’s true.

78 00:09:26.390 ⇒ 00:09:26.980 Luke Scorziell: God.

79 00:09:27.510 ⇒ 00:09:28.090 Robert Tseng: I…

80 00:09:28.200 ⇒ 00:09:40.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but that… I do think that that’s, like, like, another, like, foundational thing that needs to just kind of always be… always be on, and we should kind of be adjusting it as we go.

81 00:09:41.500 ⇒ 00:09:44.290 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, I think… That’s…

82 00:09:44.290 ⇒ 00:09:44.870 Luke Scorziell: Shad.

83 00:09:45.970 ⇒ 00:09:53.069 Robert Tseng: I don’t know if that’s written here specifically, content strategy…

84 00:09:53.330 ⇒ 00:09:58.649 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I might adjust this, because, like, I do think content is not really well…

85 00:09:58.700 ⇒ 00:10:13.339 Robert Tseng: I mean, I talk about it with you here and there, but, like, I didn’t actually put it as, like, a core thing that I want you to focus on, and I actually think that being able to help with that is probably more important than we’ve discussed so far.

86 00:10:13.940 ⇒ 00:10:20.849 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, no, yeah, and that’ll… I think that all makes sense, because I,

87 00:10:26.040 ⇒ 00:10:29.420 Luke Scorziell: I think, like, the… Just from what I’ve…

88 00:10:31.180 ⇒ 00:10:35.839 Luke Scorziell: noticed there… not just with Brainforge, but just in general, there’s, like.

89 00:10:36.040 ⇒ 00:10:36.650 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

90 00:10:37.030 ⇒ 00:10:47.250 Luke Scorziell: The long-term brand building is more of, like, how do you build long-term relationships with potential prospects and customers by, like, repeatedly offering them as much value as you can.

91 00:10:47.740 ⇒ 00:10:52.509 Luke Scorziell: Like, basically for free until they become a customer, but then, like, more short-term

92 00:10:52.720 ⇒ 00:10:55.270 Luke Scorziell: Which is not bad, necessarily, but is, like.

93 00:10:55.540 ⇒ 00:10:59.000 Luke Scorziell: Sales processes can be, like.

94 00:10:59.260 ⇒ 00:11:05.999 Luke Scorziell: you know, it’s like cold messaging until you get someone that, like, bites. And so I think, like.

95 00:11:06.830 ⇒ 00:11:12.639 Luke Scorziell: I’d be curious, too, to hear, like, what you were thinking about. And I’m also, like, maybe just context, too, like.

96 00:11:13.270 ⇒ 00:11:16.930 Luke Scorziell: For me, the way my brain works, I have a lot of ideas.

97 00:11:17.230 ⇒ 00:11:17.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

98 00:11:17.580 ⇒ 00:11:20.689 Luke Scorziell: Pretty much an ideas person, and so it’s…

99 00:11:21.040 ⇒ 00:11:27.929 Luke Scorziell: like, helpful to you if… if ever you’re like, oh, that’s not a good idea, or like, that wouldn’t work, or whatever, you can… you can let me know.

100 00:11:28.180 ⇒ 00:11:31.969 Luke Scorziell: Because I’ll just kind of, like, once I get on something, it’s easy to.

101 00:11:31.970 ⇒ 00:11:33.490 Robert Tseng: Yeah, go down a rabbit hole, sure, yeah.

102 00:11:33.490 ⇒ 00:11:39.169 Luke Scorziell: To go down that. Yeah, but, yeah, I think, like.

103 00:11:39.680 ⇒ 00:11:45.399 Luke Scorziell: I agree that I think content, and especially Case studies would be…

104 00:11:46.230 ⇒ 00:11:53.069 Luke Scorziell: are not necessarily case studies in the way that, you know, obviously we have the PDFs and stuff, but just giving insight into the process, which I think, like.

105 00:11:53.070 ⇒ 00:11:53.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

106 00:11:53.390 ⇒ 00:11:55.400 Luke Scorziell: Founder posts you’re already doing.

107 00:11:55.500 ⇒ 00:12:02.210 Luke Scorziell: Cause it is… I think, and especially identifying a couple of those pain points yesterday on the call.

108 00:12:02.460 ⇒ 00:12:14.090 Luke Scorziell: On the AI workshop, which I’m interested to keep listening to more of those, too. It was just, like, if people don’t feel like they’re experts, and AI feels, like, hard to, like, approach.

109 00:12:14.260 ⇒ 00:12:22.130 Luke Scorziell: Or, like, like… basically making Brainforge easy to, like, see, okay, like, they’re gonna come in.

110 00:12:22.280 ⇒ 00:12:23.620 Luke Scorziell: They’re gonna do this.

111 00:12:23.760 ⇒ 00:12:30.820 Luke Scorziell: they’re gonna make this… my life easier in this way. Yeah. And, like, I don’t necessarily need to know all of the, like, ins and outs of…

112 00:12:31.050 ⇒ 00:12:41.579 Luke Scorziell: like, the technical process as much as, like, I just need to know that, like, they’ve done this before, I trust them to do it for me, they’re, like, listening to me, because that’s… I love that on the workshop, too. It was like.

113 00:12:41.800 ⇒ 00:12:50.080 Luke Scorziell: Very customer-driven versus, yeah, like, it wasn’t, like, a top-down, like, you just telling them, like.

114 00:12:50.270 ⇒ 00:12:56.899 Luke Scorziell: here’s what you need to do. It’s like, oh, tell us your problems, tell us your pain points, like, help us figure out how we can solve them, so…

115 00:12:56.900 ⇒ 00:12:57.380 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

116 00:12:57.380 ⇒ 00:13:07.789 Luke Scorziell: Like, I’m making content kind of around those, and that idea of, like, wonder, like, wonder what’s possible for you, or, like, when your company has the brain.

117 00:13:08.400 ⇒ 00:13:14.529 Luke Scorziell: like, you know, the possibilities are endless. Kind of messaging like that could be interesting.

118 00:13:14.530 ⇒ 00:13:15.379 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.

119 00:13:15.620 ⇒ 00:13:21.830 Robert Tseng: No, yeah, so, I mean, I kind of, like, dropped, like, this chunk, like, you can see it in the slide, you can review it, but, like…

120 00:13:22.150 ⇒ 00:13:31.319 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so before, like, I had this idea of, like, content and, like, all these things that we were measuring, so, like, it’s all tactical stuff, like, I just needed to see some, like.

121 00:13:31.520 ⇒ 00:13:42.110 Robert Tseng: I just needed to measure, like, some effort that the team was putting in, but it… it didn’t feel like we were… like, it felt just like I was just creating all this busyness, and it kind of helped in terms of…

122 00:13:42.510 ⇒ 00:13:57.559 Robert Tseng: like, commenting on a bunch of posts, like, actually drives up awareness, like, you know, there’s just certain things that do impact the algorithm, but, like, yeah, I mean, we weren’t necessarily bringing in, like, the interest from, like, ICPs, and so that’s why I kind of just, like, cut it off. I was like.

123 00:13:57.560 ⇒ 00:14:02.450 Robert Tseng: this is distracting the people that are reaching out to me at UTAM, they’re just, like, not… they’re not really buyers, like.

124 00:14:02.450 ⇒ 00:14:17.979 Robert Tseng: And, like, sure, we continue to grow, like, our audience, but, like, I feel like we’re at a point now where we probably have, like, 10,000 people that we’re all, like, we’re connected to, or following, or that are following us on LinkedIn. I think it’s good enough that, like, we’re one or two degrees from, like.

125 00:14:19.360 ⇒ 00:14:35.179 Robert Tseng: I, you know, I always say to the team, I think we’re already connected to, or, like, one degree away from, like, buyers who would double our business, like, now. Like, I just think I could… I just believe that. And so, yeah, I think, like, how do we, like.

126 00:14:36.200 ⇒ 00:14:41.409 Robert Tseng: be writing… how do we be creating content, like, for them? Like, I don’t really think…

127 00:14:41.580 ⇒ 00:14:44.279 Robert Tseng: You know, the way that you’ve described it, just…

128 00:14:45.000 ⇒ 00:14:48.019 Robert Tseng: I mean, yeah, this was… we just… we didn’t really,

129 00:14:48.190 ⇒ 00:15:05.399 Robert Tseng: have, like, a good content strategy for that. It was just kind of, like, whatever would come out of, like, Utam and Mai’s head, like, Ryan… Ryan has the process to turn it into a post, like, we have all these different, like, processes, but then, like, the strategy isn’t there. So, I think, yeah.

130 00:15:05.880 ⇒ 00:15:09.239 Luke Scorziell: Who are… like, tell me more about that, like, who are those…

131 00:15:09.630 ⇒ 00:15:15.519 Luke Scorziell: Who are the people that you feel like you’re, like, one degree away from? Who are some of those ICPs that you think would, like.

132 00:15:16.620 ⇒ 00:15:17.900 Luke Scorziell: transform.

133 00:15:18.250 ⇒ 00:15:19.370 Luke Scorziell: In a business.

134 00:15:19.860 ⇒ 00:15:25.809 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, one example is, like, in my LinkedIn, there’s, like, the,

135 00:15:28.200 ⇒ 00:15:31.059 Robert Tseng: Yeah, maybe I’ll just pull it up. Yeah.

136 00:15:32.730 ⇒ 00:15:34.429 Robert Tseng: Let me share my screen, yeah.

137 00:15:37.890 ⇒ 00:15:46.629 Robert Tseng: So… let’s say… a SoundCloud… who’s a SoundCloud lady?

138 00:15:47.810 ⇒ 00:15:53.649 Robert Tseng: Her name’s Hope? I think her name’s Hope.

139 00:15:56.010 ⇒ 00:15:56.859 Robert Tseng: Boop, boop.

140 00:15:57.830 ⇒ 00:16:00.309 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so here’s… here’s one person, like.

141 00:16:00.990 ⇒ 00:16:10.239 Robert Tseng: she is, like, the… like, a PM, MarTech PM at SoundCloud. Like, this is a great ICP for us, like…

142 00:16:11.920 ⇒ 00:16:15.969 Robert Tseng: Like, I think… I… I think just…

143 00:16:16.070 ⇒ 00:16:27.329 Robert Tseng: The tools that you, like, the, you know, marketing technology is just, like, this, like, complicated, like, mess of stuff, and, you know, things are always, like, people are always changing tools, like, processes are changing as well, and, like, so…

144 00:16:27.690 ⇒ 00:16:38.959 Robert Tseng: like, someone in this role at a bigger company, like SoundCloud, that’s, like, probably falling behind and, like, just needs some… that’s thinking about a digital transformation.

145 00:16:38.980 ⇒ 00:16:53.710 Robert Tseng: I think she… there was interest, like, we’ve had, like, some conversations. She’s curious about things that I’ve done, and we’ve… we’ve shared some things with her. Like, this… I don’t know, like, you can look at, like, some of our… how we’ve tried to engage with her. It felt, like, a little bit clunky still. Like, she was…

146 00:16:53.740 ⇒ 00:17:11.340 Robert Tseng: interested, she’s like, you know, what could you do in lifecycle? Like, and we are hiring for this, like, we are looking for these things. And then, like, our team came back with, like, oh, here’s, like, a PDF, some stuff, and then, like, I don’t know, the conversation just died. So, like,

147 00:17:11.550 ⇒ 00:17:12.869 Robert Tseng: This, to me, is like…

148 00:17:13.060 ⇒ 00:17:23.949 Robert Tseng: I mean, I just needed to get her… I just need to get her on a call, and, like, I just feel like that will give me a lot more context. But yeah, like, some… somebody like this is, like, a great person that I feel like

149 00:17:24.710 ⇒ 00:17:41.519 Robert Tseng: Is in our… is in our… is within, like, our… an ICP that we could hit. So, I think I’ve… maybe I’ve shown you this before in services, like, if you want to know everything that we do, I think services is the place to do it, like.

150 00:17:41.790 ⇒ 00:17:43.699 Robert Tseng: It’s not…

151 00:17:44.150 ⇒ 00:17:58.349 Robert Tseng: builds out. Yeah, this is in Notion. You can learn all of our service offerings, how we think about the services that we offer by industry, and then, like, ICPs that we’re focused on in this quarter is also here. Where did I put it?

152 00:17:59.210 ⇒ 00:18:15.539 Robert Tseng: ICP and industry. So, yeah, like, one is, like, post-Series A SaaS founders wanting to kind of get their data stack stood up. So, we have two clients right now that are in this boat. They raised funding the past 6 months. They are trying to accelerate their, kind of.

153 00:18:15.920 ⇒ 00:18:25.130 Robert Tseng: setting up their data infrastructure, so they’re working with us. So Hedra is one of them, Default’s another, and so what we did is we tried to, like, turn this into, like, a…

154 00:18:25.370 ⇒ 00:18:37.839 Robert Tseng: playbook, and I had the previous person that was helping us go to market do this, it didn’t hit well. Like, we connected with a bunch of founders that are in this space, or, like, in this market, but then it just kind of was like.

155 00:18:38.060 ⇒ 00:18:45.559 Robert Tseng: hey, like, it just… it’s felt too pitchy. Like, I just, like, nobody, nobody responded. Like, I just… I felt like that was a missed opportunity.

156 00:18:45.760 ⇒ 00:18:48.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well anyway, so…

157 00:18:49.340 ⇒ 00:18:49.880 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

158 00:18:49.880 ⇒ 00:18:59.459 Robert Tseng: it’s… this is, like, less… this is, like, a… the timing is right kind of ICP, where I don’t want to be targeting these people all the time, but I just know that, like.

159 00:18:59.680 ⇒ 00:19:03.829 Robert Tseng: Last quarter of the year, they just raised some funding, like, just…

160 00:19:03.960 ⇒ 00:19:22.080 Robert Tseng: from, like, a budgeting perspective and, like, what they want to do to get ready, like, there were… there are companies that were, like, looking to get this up and running. We closed two of them, and so… and we probably talked to, like, four total, just from referrals and just people that reached out. But if we had, like, better content that was, like, kind of

161 00:19:22.330 ⇒ 00:19:36.849 Robert Tseng: targeting this… this group of people. Maybe, like, our outbound messaging was a bit… was a bit… I feel like we could… we could have gotten more of these folks. But yeah, this is, like, kind of, like, a time-based offer. This is more of an evergreen ICP, where, like.

162 00:19:36.850 ⇒ 00:19:51.610 Robert Tseng: anybody who crosses into this threshold for a CPG reban, like, I have the… Utom and I have expertise now that, like, we could speak to the problems that they’re working… that they’re struggling with from a data perspective, and we could… we could definitely help them. And, like,

163 00:19:52.030 ⇒ 00:20:09.669 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, I think this is, like, one where, like, we should… we could always be, you know, targeting them with messaging there. However, like, I don’t want most of our business to become this. Like, I… I think already, like, 50% of our business is this, and I think that’s a little bit too much. Like, I don’t really like CPG that much.

164 00:20:09.710 ⇒ 00:20:14.800 Robert Tseng: So I don’t… I don’t want to stay only in there, which is why I have multiple ICPs.

165 00:20:14.880 ⇒ 00:20:17.870 Robert Tseng: And then this one is maybe less of a pers…

166 00:20:18.110 ⇒ 00:20:24.049 Robert Tseng: like, a profile, this is more of, like, a persona. It’s like, this is basically, like, hope. It’s like…

167 00:20:24.210 ⇒ 00:20:31.659 Robert Tseng: Hope is, like, a lifecycle marketer, or, like, MarTech… Mark… MarTech, like, leader.

168 00:20:33.140 ⇒ 00:20:36.419 Robert Tseng: Like, you know, investigating,

169 00:20:39.730 ⇒ 00:20:47.720 Robert Tseng: like, new CDP solutions to adopt AI-powered decisioning, and, like, this is, like.

170 00:20:48.050 ⇒ 00:20:57.369 Robert Tseng: like, I think this is just, like, kind of… it’s just kind of hot right now. Like, I’ve attended a couple conferences where, like, this is, like, a very hot topic for people who

171 00:20:57.490 ⇒ 00:21:07.879 Robert Tseng: Are traditionally non-technical people, like, running marketing projects, but then, like, the velocity at which they’re able to, like.

172 00:21:07.910 ⇒ 00:21:18.809 Robert Tseng: run lifecycle experiments. It’s just very slow. And so, now there’s tech that allows them to, like, use AI to help them

173 00:21:19.190 ⇒ 00:21:33.349 Robert Tseng: test copy on emails, on text messages, review, kind of, like, the visuals that they’re sending out at just, like, a much faster speed with a smaller team. And, like, my wife kind of works in this space, so, like, I kind of know

174 00:21:33.350 ⇒ 00:21:39.760 Robert Tseng: this pretty well. Like, I know that her team has downsized, like, she’s at a big company.

175 00:21:39.860 ⇒ 00:21:59.370 Robert Tseng: publicly traded company, they’ve, like, lost half their team this year and are expected to do the same amount of work and more, and it’s only possible because of some of the AI tooling out there, but it’s… it is kind of clunky, the way that this is, like, kind of being rolled out. So, there is, like, a… there is a… there is room for, consultants, like.

176 00:21:59.750 ⇒ 00:22:05.460 Robert Tseng: you know, ourselves to be able to go and help brands with this. We are working with, like, one

177 00:22:05.700 ⇒ 00:22:11.850 Robert Tseng: small brand, they’re like $30to$50 million in revenue, doing this specific scope right now.

178 00:22:11.850 ⇒ 00:22:12.530 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

179 00:22:12.530 ⇒ 00:22:22.929 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I closed them from a conference that I attended in Chicago a couple months ago, and so I felt like there’s… there’s probably more, like, like them that we could… we could… we could, target.

180 00:22:23.160 ⇒ 00:22:37.440 Robert Tseng: Anyways, like, I could… I could talk about ICPs all the time. I could always tell you about, like, problems that people are… are, focused on, or… are… are wrestling with, but, like, I… I think we just… we just have to pick a couple, like, a few at a time, and, like, really…

181 00:22:37.650 ⇒ 00:22:38.530 Robert Tseng: We just haven’t really.

182 00:22:38.530 ⇒ 00:22:38.850 Luke Scorziell: Adam.

183 00:22:38.850 ⇒ 00:22:53.439 Robert Tseng: to be able to actually go after these in a meaningful way. Like, I… I feel like most of the time, I’m just, like, talking about this to my… to my team, and… I mean, apart from Utam, like, nobody really… nobody really gets it. They just want to work on, like, the projects, you know? So they’re like.

184 00:22:53.540 ⇒ 00:23:04.049 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, anyway, so, like, this has not really been… this has been more of a vanity exercise than actually translating to anything, like, tangible, so…

185 00:23:04.180 ⇒ 00:23:11.310 Luke Scorziell: No, I totally… I mean, like, I feel like I can relate in a lot of ways, just because it’s… even with my business, it’s like, you get…

186 00:23:11.780 ⇒ 00:23:18.710 Luke Scorziell: you’re like, oh, I want to go after this type of client, like, I want to do this, I want to do this, and you’re like, you get, like, a random…

187 00:23:19.000 ⇒ 00:23:24.569 Luke Scorziell: like, someone else that has nothing to do with that, and you’re like, okay, well, like, I guess we can do that, or…

188 00:23:24.570 ⇒ 00:23:25.110 Robert Tseng: Oh my gosh.

189 00:23:25.110 ⇒ 00:23:28.619 Luke Scorziell: You don’t have the time or the resources, and it’s just frustrating, because it’s like…

190 00:23:29.730 ⇒ 00:23:36.770 Luke Scorziell: like, ugh, like, man. But I think, like, at least for me, it’s been helpful to…

191 00:23:36.990 ⇒ 00:23:39.819 Luke Scorziell: Kind of, like, test out services on…

192 00:23:40.540 ⇒ 00:23:45.530 Luke Scorziell: like, different businesses that I’ve worked with, and it’s kind of given me more of a…

193 00:23:45.700 ⇒ 00:23:51.420 Luke Scorziell: Framework for, like, What is the way in with clients that…

194 00:23:51.420 ⇒ 00:23:51.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

195 00:23:51.980 ⇒ 00:23:56.709 Luke Scorziell: I can, like… Like, a problem that a lot of people have.

196 00:23:57.050 ⇒ 00:24:00.099 Luke Scorziell: that they know they have, that once I solve that problem.

197 00:24:00.200 ⇒ 00:24:03.959 Luke Scorziell: That allows me to get into the business to solve other problems that they have.

198 00:24:03.960 ⇒ 00:24:04.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

199 00:24:04.730 ⇒ 00:24:08.349 Luke Scorziell: And, so, I guess, yeah, like.

200 00:24:08.600 ⇒ 00:24:11.110 Luke Scorziell: And I know we only had 30 minutes, too, so.

201 00:24:11.110 ⇒ 00:24:13.600 Robert Tseng: No, I can go a bit over if you can, yeah.

202 00:24:13.810 ⇒ 00:24:19.600 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I can’t, I just… the only thing I can just do is come up with stuff to put on the slides for our meeting.

203 00:24:19.600 ⇒ 00:24:21.450 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay.

204 00:24:21.450 ⇒ 00:24:28.449 Luke Scorziell: But, I think this is probably more helpful. So, yeah, it was like,

205 00:24:29.980 ⇒ 00:24:31.739 Luke Scorziell: Wick, where do you feel like…

206 00:24:32.010 ⇒ 00:24:36.680 Luke Scorziell: Brainforge is best positioned, slash, do you, like, want to go?

207 00:24:37.220 ⇒ 00:24:40.490 Luke Scorziell: As… because I think, like, the messaging…

208 00:24:40.930 ⇒ 00:24:45.310 Luke Scorziell: Like, there’s, like, the… when people think of Brain Forge, it’s like, what do they think about?

209 00:24:45.420 ⇒ 00:24:46.590 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

210 00:24:47.280 ⇒ 00:24:51.550 Luke Scorziell: There’s kinda… there’s gotta be, like, some… like…

211 00:24:52.780 ⇒ 00:24:57.950 Luke Scorziell: Selection, or, like, specificity between, like, you know, you can’t appeal to everyone,

212 00:24:57.950 ⇒ 00:24:58.680 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

213 00:24:58.680 ⇒ 00:25:06.660 Luke Scorziell: And if you became, like, you know, the data and AI consulting firm for post-Series A founders.

214 00:25:07.090 ⇒ 00:25:09.739 Luke Scorziell: Like, that would be.

215 00:25:10.040 ⇒ 00:25:22.700 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s very different from these… yeah, these are two very different things. Well, I mean, like, under the hood, it’s not that different, to be honest. Like, that’s why we can serve. Like, we’re just in a weird space where, like, our… we could do a lot of things for a lot of different people, so.

216 00:25:22.700 ⇒ 00:25:23.430 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

217 00:25:23.730 ⇒ 00:25:25.810 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I… but…

218 00:25:26.650 ⇒ 00:25:32.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to write this on the website, like, it just, like, it just…

219 00:25:32.700 ⇒ 00:25:38.710 Robert Tseng: I don’t… yeah, I think we want to move away from this, like, but I think when the timing is right, like.

220 00:25:38.970 ⇒ 00:25:56.119 Robert Tseng: I’m willing to run into this, but, like, an evergreen, like, evergreen ICP that I know, like, any… any time in the year, like, we could do this. This is really, like I said, we’re just, like, taking advantage of the opportunity. It’s like, this is something that people are trying to urgently get done, but there’s a lot of risk with this type of company. It’s like.

221 00:25:56.130 ⇒ 00:26:11.410 Robert Tseng: most of the time, we’re doing more revenue than these companies themselves, and so they may die in a year, or two years, and, like, it has nothing to do with whether or not we did a good job. And yeah, so, like, I just, yeah, just long-term, like, I don’t want to be working with these types of clients.

222 00:26:11.410 ⇒ 00:26:16.229 Robert Tseng: it was, like, good to get momentum at first, but, like, we don’t… we don’t really need to target that.

223 00:26:16.230 ⇒ 00:26:17.839 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…

224 00:26:18.070 ⇒ 00:26:29.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I do think that this is a better, like, this is not going anywhere, we’ll continue to be able to serve them, but, like, we have to… yeah, like, I don’t also don’t want to… I don’t only want to be, like, CPG either, so…

225 00:26:29.850 ⇒ 00:26:30.480 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know, like…

226 00:26:30.480 ⇒ 00:26:33.609 Robert Tseng: Yeah, because we’re not only doing CPG.

227 00:26:33.780 ⇒ 00:26:39.360 Luke Scorziell: I mean, what is the broader vision for Brain Forge from you and you, Tom? Like, what are you hoping to… where are you hoping to be in, like.

228 00:26:39.530 ⇒ 00:26:40.439 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know.

229 00:26:40.890 ⇒ 00:26:41.360 Robert Tseng: Well…

230 00:26:41.360 ⇒ 00:26:42.490 Luke Scorziell: Four years.

231 00:26:42.880 ⇒ 00:26:48.440 Robert Tseng: I… yeah, I mean, I guess, to us, like,

232 00:26:54.080 ⇒ 00:27:04.569 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’d like to just sell the company in 2-3 years, is really the way I see it, and I’m just trying to figure out what’s the… what’s the best… what’s the best path forward. I think we both…

233 00:27:05.670 ⇒ 00:27:09.300 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think we… it is hard for us to…

234 00:27:10.900 ⇒ 00:27:23.609 Robert Tseng: narrow down, like, what that exit is gonna look like, just because we’re both very optimistic people and feel like we could kind of sell to anyone or do any kind of work kind of thing. So, I think realistically, though, like.

235 00:27:23.870 ⇒ 00:27:39.470 Robert Tseng: I want to sell to, like, a bigger, I mean, yeah, it’s either gonna be… I think it’s gonna be one of the two things. It’s either gonna be sell to a bigger agency, that doesn’t have, like, our capability, so some other, like.

236 00:27:39.620 ⇒ 00:27:49.939 Robert Tseng: marketing agency that wants, like, the tech services, like, ARM, and, like, we could… we could, sell to them. Or it’s gonna have to be, like.

237 00:27:50.660 ⇒ 00:28:07.200 Robert Tseng: in a particular vertical, like, we are the best at that, and, like, a PE firm or, like, a big brand wants to bring us in-house to go and just serve a bunch of clients in that particular, in that particular vertical.

238 00:28:07.200 ⇒ 00:28:14.360 Robert Tseng: Which is tough, because I think both Utam and I are not really vertically specialized, like, at this point.

239 00:28:14.480 ⇒ 00:28:26.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I could… I mean, we could… we could say we’re specialists in CPG, we’ve done enough health, and, like, we can do stuff in health, but I… unless we bring in, like, more people that are, like.

240 00:28:26.700 ⇒ 00:28:35.710 Robert Tseng: just from that world, like, I don’t think we could… the two of us could… could… could go in that direction on our own. And so, I’m not, like…

241 00:28:37.020 ⇒ 00:28:54.460 Robert Tseng: like, do I really want to, like, specialize and only go after one industry in 2026? I don’t really think we’re in a place to do that yet. Like, I think we can… we know what to say no to more now, but we don’t know what, like, is our one thing that we want to do, like, very well, I guess, so…

242 00:28:54.740 ⇒ 00:28:57.239 Luke Scorziell: What do you know, like, you don’t do now? Like, what are the no’s?

243 00:28:57.700 ⇒ 00:29:00.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think just, like.

244 00:29:00.740 ⇒ 00:29:15.469 Robert Tseng: any… any pre-revenue business, or just, like, early-stage companies. Like, I mean, we’re just excluding, like, earlier stage companies. And then, I mean, there’s certain industries we would say no to. Finance, like, I don’t really think is…

245 00:29:16.610 ⇒ 00:29:23.909 Robert Tseng: I don’t really think is in our… is in our wheelhouse right now, which is… I mean, the… the workshop that you sat in on.

246 00:29:24.080 ⇒ 00:29:27.279 Robert Tseng: It’s all ed tech and finance, or, like, banking.

247 00:29:27.520 ⇒ 00:29:27.970 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

248 00:29:27.970 ⇒ 00:29:40.639 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I… I mean, maybe I’m just saying no, because we haven’t sold to them yet. Like, I would like to. I think banking is easy. Like, the… they’re, like, the work that they do is, like, not… it’s not hard at all.

249 00:29:41.260 ⇒ 00:29:46.020 Robert Tseng: So… Yeah, I, I,

250 00:29:48.940 ⇒ 00:29:57.169 Robert Tseng: I guess I haven’t disqualified any industry yet. I guess now, as I’m talking through it, I’m just disqualifying based off budget, which is not really…

251 00:29:57.510 ⇒ 00:30:01.540 Robert Tseng: Same thing. I… I mean, it’s kind of like…

252 00:30:04.150 ⇒ 00:30:19.220 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I really only know, like, the size of the client that we want to work for now. I don’t… I don’t really know the, like, the industry. Yeah. I want to sell into legal, we are doing stuff with insurance, like, we’re, like, trying to explore these other, like.

253 00:30:19.590 ⇒ 00:30:22.320 Robert Tseng: Non-techy services, like…

254 00:30:22.530 ⇒ 00:30:27.949 Robert Tseng: one of our biggest clients is, like, they’re a home services company, biggest home services company in Texas, like.

255 00:30:28.200 ⇒ 00:30:40.589 Robert Tseng: So that’s, like, a good one for us, like, that’s also pretty easy, because that’s a hundred… it’s a 100-year-old company, and there’s just so many easy things for us to do for them that they’d be willing… that they’re willing to pay us for.

256 00:30:40.900 ⇒ 00:30:48.230 Robert Tseng: But there aren’t that many home services companies either out there, so… I don’t know if we want to brand ourselves as, like, the…

257 00:30:48.660 ⇒ 00:30:51.390 Robert Tseng: Digital transformation partner for, like.

258 00:30:51.610 ⇒ 00:30:59.890 Robert Tseng: low-tech companies, like, that… that… that felt like how we… I mean, when I was doing my own thing, that was, like, where I was…

259 00:31:00.100 ⇒ 00:31:09.419 Robert Tseng: that’s what I was focused on. I worked with legal tech, I worked with manufacturing, I did, like, mining, like, I did some of those types of clients, but…

260 00:31:12.370 ⇒ 00:31:14.879 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, like, I think, like…

261 00:31:14.910 ⇒ 00:31:21.759 Robert Tseng: We only started to do more, like, tech stuff the past year, year and a half, because, like.

262 00:31:23.830 ⇒ 00:31:27.390 Robert Tseng: we, like, the tools, I think…

263 00:31:29.520 ⇒ 00:31:37.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I don’t think we intentionally went… went into tech. We just… I don’t know why we have all these tech clients now. Like, it’s not really worth who I’ve wanted to sell to.

264 00:31:37.660 ⇒ 00:31:38.330 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

265 00:31:38.540 ⇒ 00:31:41.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, maybe I’ve strayed.

266 00:31:41.490 ⇒ 00:31:54.929 Robert Tseng: quite a bit. We’ve just kind of chased whatever, like, whatever pays the bigger deal. Like, I think it’s kind of what has happened. And we’ve gotten pretty good at it. We’ve, like, our business is doing, like, 2 to 3 million in revenue now. Like, we just…

267 00:31:55.020 ⇒ 00:32:07.640 Robert Tseng: just, like, we just, like, learned how to sell anything to anyone, and, like, I don’t know, we just somehow ended up here, and, like, I think now we’re stuck, because we don’t really know where… where to go from here, yeah.

268 00:32:08.070 ⇒ 00:32:15.080 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, great job getting to that point. It’s a point that a lot of… a lot of businesses don’t get to, so…

269 00:32:15.290 ⇒ 00:32:15.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

270 00:32:18.220 ⇒ 00:32:20.119 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I think, like.

271 00:32:22.200 ⇒ 00:32:33.550 Luke Scorziell: defining, and it doesn’t need to be, like, industry-specific, because I think a lot also with… like, all this is experimentation, and it’s kind of seeing what works, what clicks, what doesn’t work, what doesn’t click.

272 00:32:34.200 ⇒ 00:32:42.829 Luke Scorziell: But finding, like, a few, maybe just pain points, and maybe you’ve already done this too, so if you haven’t, maybe pointing me in that direction, like.

273 00:32:43.400 ⇒ 00:32:46.979 Luke Scorziell: That you guys think you consistently, like, want to solve?

274 00:32:47.240 ⇒ 00:32:50.259 Luke Scorziell: Or… or just to get people in the door, like…

275 00:32:50.500 ⇒ 00:32:52.159 Luke Scorziell: Like, what are the things that…

276 00:32:52.560 ⇒ 00:32:55.090 Luke Scorziell: Customers are coming to you and saying, like.

277 00:32:56.050 ⇒ 00:33:04.370 Luke Scorziell: oh, like, I saw this, and this is why I wanted to get on a call with you, or… and then… and then I think with a content strategy, it’s really, how do we start building

278 00:33:04.610 ⇒ 00:33:16.240 Luke Scorziell: like, trust around those pain points, credibility, and that you’ve done stuff in the past, and, like, connection and relatability. So, honestly, I think, like, the founder LinkedIn posts have already been…

279 00:33:16.410 ⇒ 00:33:29.159 Luke Scorziell: Pretty great, but it might just be kind of getting that out of the, like, techy… or not… I think when I see a lot of your guys’ language and stuff, it’s a little foreign to me, just because I’m not in the…

280 00:33:30.190 ⇒ 00:33:32.229 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and I don’t want to be…

281 00:33:32.830 ⇒ 00:33:45.929 Robert Tseng: pushing it to tech people, like, yeah, I… I mean, you’re right, like, I’m looking at a website… I don’t look at this website very often. I’m looking at it, like, we’re not really speaking to anyone specific, we’re just, like, saying, these are the things that we do, and it’s like.

282 00:33:46.060 ⇒ 00:33:55.559 Robert Tseng: yeah, we can help businesses figure out where their customers are dropping off, and, like, help them, like, get more customers. Like, I think that’s something we’re really good at. And then, from the

283 00:33:55.880 ⇒ 00:33:58.130 Robert Tseng: engineering side, it’s like, if you have a bunch of, like.

284 00:33:58.290 ⇒ 00:34:16.390 Robert Tseng: separate kind of systems that don’t talk to each other, like, we can help you get it all in one place and, like, help you to make better decisions. And then there’s, like, the… you have all these, like, slow processes, we’ll help you streamline it with AI. Like, those are really, like, the core things that we do across any industry. So, yeah.

285 00:34:16.590 ⇒ 00:34:20.910 Luke Scorziell: And what is different about, like, working with Brainforge than if I were to just…

286 00:34:21.380 ⇒ 00:34:27.389 Luke Scorziell: like, hop on ChatGPT and figure out how to do some AI stuff, or if I use, like.

287 00:34:27.730 ⇒ 00:34:31.589 Luke Scorziell: built-in AI platforms on, like, other,

288 00:34:32.360 ⇒ 00:34:42.010 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I mean, the problem is that none of those things work out of the box. Like, they’re good for demos, like, I think there’s kind of, like, this idea of we making the, you know, we actually get AI right, because, like.

289 00:34:42.510 ⇒ 00:35:00.040 Robert Tseng: If you just go and you chuck everything to ChatGBT, like, ultimately, AI problems are data problems. If you don’t know data, and you just, like, throw things into, these, like, AI platforms, you’re gonna… it’s not gonna be very, like, useful. You still have to structure your data in a way

290 00:35:00.110 ⇒ 00:35:07.749 Robert Tseng: And you still need to be able to help the AI to prioritize, like, what are the important things. So, there is this type of, like.

291 00:35:08.200 ⇒ 00:35:12.569 Robert Tseng: making, yeah, making AI projects, like.

292 00:35:15.340 ⇒ 00:35:22.049 Robert Tseng: Like, deploying them to production is, like, a lot more comp… it takes, takes, takes engineering work.

293 00:35:22.150 ⇒ 00:35:36.909 Robert Tseng: So, like, for example, with, like, the text, you should read into all the work that we do with ABC for specifically, this is the home services company. Our foot in the door was, like, working with customer service. And so…

294 00:35:37.040 ⇒ 00:35:46.479 Robert Tseng: I think other, you know, other big consultancies, like the McKinsey’s of the world, like… I mean, I have a friend, actually, at BCG who’s doing a very similar project.

295 00:35:46.530 ⇒ 00:35:51.340 Luke Scorziell: She runs a team of, like, 20 people working with a big telco.

296 00:35:51.340 ⇒ 00:35:58.590 Robert Tseng: And why it takes 20 people is because, like, 15 of them are building this, like, chatbot that’s for, like, that’s customer-facing.

297 00:35:59.070 ⇒ 00:36:00.170 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

298 00:36:00.170 ⇒ 00:36:03.440 Robert Tseng: And it’s like, you just need that many people in order to, like.

299 00:36:03.500 ⇒ 00:36:21.319 Robert Tseng: manage all these different, like, edge cases, and, like, make sure that it’s… it’s, like, not risky, your chatbot’s not, like, giving everyone, like, random discount. They can’t be just, like, you know, like, you know, you’re adding all these guardrails to this, like, customer-facing chatbot, that, like, anybody in the world could interact with.

300 00:36:21.340 ⇒ 00:36:25.910 Robert Tseng: For us, like, our approach to that is, like, we’re not gonna build a chatbot that’s like a…

301 00:36:25.940 ⇒ 00:36:29.329 Robert Tseng: Just really expensive and really hard to maintain.

302 00:36:29.370 ⇒ 00:36:47.859 Robert Tseng: So instead, we’ll build a chat agent, like a co-pilot, for your internal customer service team. And so it’s low risk. It’s, like, not really for your end customer, but instead, we’re, like, keeping the human in the loop, we’re, like, not relying, and we’re just, like, it becomes more of, like, a knowledge, knowledge graph exercise.

303 00:36:47.860 ⇒ 00:37:04.610 Robert Tseng: we’re pulling together existing knowledge sources, and then being able to build tooling and a better chat experience that’s like an… it’s like, as if, like, if your CS rep didn’t know what to do, and they needed to, like, go and talk to the lead, they could just talk to this tool instead. So this is, like, this tool we’ve built called

304 00:37:04.610 ⇒ 00:37:10.229 Robert Tseng: called ANDI, or whatever, for… for their, for their customer support team. And so.

305 00:37:10.230 ⇒ 00:37:27.700 Robert Tseng: like, we measure their usage, like, and if our tool helps them to, like, sell more services, we get a cut of their, of their, of that upsell. Oh, right. So, yeah, so yeah, like, so that’s a way that we’ve introduced, like, some creative variable pricing to it as well.

306 00:37:27.740 ⇒ 00:37:41.199 Robert Tseng: And it only takes, like, two people on my team to, like, to build and maintain that, because it’s… it’s very low risk. You know, it’s like, if they… if they say the wrong answer, like, okay, whatever, like, the rep is not going to, like.

307 00:37:41.200 ⇒ 00:37:47.930 Robert Tseng: It’s just not gonna take it. They’re like, you know, they’re still going to, like, qualify it a bit before they tell the end customer.

308 00:37:48.170 ⇒ 00:38:05.210 Robert Tseng: So it’s just, like, certain ways that we approach problems like this, like, that’s, like, one end of the extreme, where, like, if you’re a big enterprise and you could throw all the money that you want to, like, go after the sexy project, you’ll build a chatbot. But for us, like, we’re just, like, we’re not gonna do that, we’ll just build something that’s more pragmatic, that’s, like, that’s…

309 00:38:06.720 ⇒ 00:38:17.530 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, you know, like, and that actually just… that actually just works. Whereas, like, the opposite end of the extreme is, like, you just, you just ask ChatGPT, like.

310 00:38:17.530 ⇒ 00:38:32.899 Robert Tseng: and you just throw a bunch of files into ChatGBT and have your team start using it, well, like, the accuracy is going to be terrible, like, there’s just no way that they’re going to be able to compete with the solution that we’ve built. So, like, that’s kind of… we sit somewhere in the middle between, like, the…

311 00:38:32.960 ⇒ 00:38:36.620 Robert Tseng: You do it yourself, and it, like, kind of…

312 00:38:36.620 ⇒ 00:38:54.930 Robert Tseng: It, like, it has the potential, but doesn’t… is not actually reliable to, like, you know, other bigger… the biggest consulting firms will sell you the world and spend… may have you spend, like, millions of dollars to, like, build something that is still, like, not that much better than what we’d be able to build.

313 00:38:55.420 ⇒ 00:38:58.190 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting, I’ve,

314 00:38:58.930 ⇒ 00:39:04.249 Luke Scorziell: I use a software called High Level, and it has, like, a built-in chatbot feature that you can

315 00:39:04.410 ⇒ 00:39:09.359 Luke Scorziell: use for clients, so I built, like, a knowledge base, which I’m sure is a lot more rudimentary than

316 00:39:09.630 ⇒ 00:39:16.330 Luke Scorziell: But, like, for one of my mudspa clients, I’m like, I don’t know, BCG was charging millions of dollars to… but…

317 00:39:16.330 ⇒ 00:39:16.969 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah.

318 00:39:16.970 ⇒ 00:39:20.319 Luke Scorziell: It basically helps, like, it answers simple questions.

319 00:39:20.480 ⇒ 00:39:24.060 Luke Scorziell: And it’ll help book appointments.

320 00:39:24.060 ⇒ 00:39:24.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

321 00:39:24.530 ⇒ 00:39:34.240 Luke Scorziell: And so… but yeah, I think it’s interesting, so I did a podcast interview with,

322 00:39:34.800 ⇒ 00:39:40.380 Luke Scorziell: Which I haven’t published yet, but… it’s, she was, like, the head of AI at Shakey’s.

323 00:39:40.500 ⇒ 00:39:41.030 Luke Scorziell: And…

324 00:39:41.030 ⇒ 00:39:41.550 Robert Tseng: Okay.

325 00:39:41.550 ⇒ 00:39:44.130 Luke Scorziell: She talked about how they had the worst

326 00:39:45.460 ⇒ 00:39:49.959 Luke Scorziell: Like, one of the worst turnover rates in CPG… er, not CPG, QSR.

327 00:39:50.110 ⇒ 00:39:52.690 Robert Tseng: Like, quick service restaurants? Yeah.

328 00:39:53.440 ⇒ 00:39:55.520 Luke Scorziell: And she was like, it’s already really high.

329 00:39:56.030 ⇒ 00:40:05.930 Luke Scorziell: like, no one stays in that industry too long, but they had a particularly bad one. And so, when they did some investigating, and what they found was that

330 00:40:06.110 ⇒ 00:40:08.970 Luke Scorziell: The…

331 00:40:10.200 ⇒ 00:40:15.840 Luke Scorziell: main issue is that people didn’t know how to utilize, like, the leadership handbook, so, like, middle management.

332 00:40:16.080 ⇒ 00:40:16.460 Robert Tseng: Hmm.

333 00:40:16.460 ⇒ 00:40:20.780 Luke Scorziell: They would have, like, these hard conversations come up, and, like, all this stuff, and they wouldn’t know, like.

334 00:40:21.110 ⇒ 00:40:28.660 Luke Scorziell: Or that it’s just, like, very tedious to go through and be like, okay, this person said this, like, how am I supposed to respond? So what they did is they built

335 00:40:28.820 ⇒ 00:40:31.490 Luke Scorziell: Basically, like, a leadership bot.

336 00:40:31.600 ⇒ 00:40:35.140 Luke Scorziell: That was trained off of the material in their handbooks.

337 00:40:35.530 ⇒ 00:40:48.490 Luke Scorziell: And then managers could go, and if they had, like, a hard conversation coming up, or, like, someone was late repeatedly, and they needed to, like… then they would go, and they would ask, and it would, like, give them a response specific to them based on the handbook.

338 00:40:49.060 ⇒ 00:40:51.740 Luke Scorziell: And they…

339 00:40:52.130 ⇒ 00:40:59.560 Luke Scorziell: Like, massively decreased their, turnover rate, and, like, people felt a lot more empowered, a lot more, like.

340 00:40:59.700 ⇒ 00:41:00.540 Luke Scorziell: just…

341 00:41:01.240 ⇒ 00:41:07.650 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, it ended up being a pretty big net positive, at least the way that she explained it to me. Yeah. So.

342 00:41:08.240 ⇒ 00:41:10.299 Robert Tseng: That’s great, yeah, I love that.

343 00:41:10.300 ⇒ 00:41:13.170 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and like, it’s… so, for me, it’s kind of like…

344 00:41:13.930 ⇒ 00:41:20.720 Luke Scorziell: like, I don’t know if you’ve read, like, Freakonomics, but it’s like those problems where you’re, like, you wouldn’t connect them to…

345 00:41:21.070 ⇒ 00:41:27.749 Luke Scorziell: like, you wouldn’t connect, like, oh, we have a high turnover rate to, like, we need an AI chatbot. Like, if I’m reading on LinkedIn, I’m not gonna be like.

346 00:41:28.120 ⇒ 00:41:30.099 Luke Scorziell: Oh, this company says they’ll, like.

347 00:41:30.530 ⇒ 00:41:30.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

348 00:41:30.910 ⇒ 00:41:32.090 Luke Scorziell: Make me the right…

349 00:41:32.360 ⇒ 00:41:42.739 Luke Scorziell: the best AI decision maker that, you know, it’s like… I’m like, actually, I’m not even worried about that, I’m worried about all my people that are turning over. But then you might come in and say, oh, well, actually, we could, like.

350 00:41:43.020 ⇒ 00:41:44.770 Luke Scorziell: You know,

351 00:41:45.970 ⇒ 00:41:51.870 Luke Scorziell: Build you a chatbot that’s gonna help you to train your… or that’s gonna leverage the material that you already have

352 00:41:52.140 ⇒ 00:41:54.250 Luke Scorziell: In your system.

353 00:41:54.250 ⇒ 00:41:54.820 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

354 00:41:54.820 ⇒ 00:42:01.640 Luke Scorziell: And I think, like, for me, and just where my head is at with thinking about Brainforge a lot, is…

355 00:42:01.970 ⇒ 00:42:15.839 Luke Scorziell: taking, like, just personally, when I read, like, data engineering, analytics, strategy, automations, and AI, it immediately, for me, as a non, like, technical person, is like, like, okay, this probably isn’t for me.

356 00:42:15.950 ⇒ 00:42:20.830 Luke Scorziell: Versus, like… Like, I’d be curious, too, to hear from you, like.

357 00:42:21.020 ⇒ 00:42:29.620 Luke Scorziell: what have been some, like, stories of, like, customers just being, like, massively transformed? Or, like, like the before and after, you know, where they’re, like.

358 00:42:29.910 ⇒ 00:42:36.030 Luke Scorziell: yeah, before we had this, and then… but now we have, like, you know, with ABC, maybe it’s, like, now…

359 00:42:36.310 ⇒ 00:42:44.009 Luke Scorziell: Like, prior to this, like, our customer service reps would give incorrect answers, and it was costing us, like, this amount of time.

360 00:42:44.170 ⇒ 00:42:52.920 Luke Scorziell: And now we have… now we’re actually selling more, because the AI bot is empowering our… reps to,

361 00:42:53.370 ⇒ 00:42:55.450 Luke Scorziell: Like, upsell and whatnot, and like…

362 00:42:55.450 ⇒ 00:42:55.990 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

363 00:42:55.990 ⇒ 00:43:02.650 Luke Scorziell: you know, so… so those kind of, like, emotional outcomes then kind of hit the, like, oh, I wonder if…

364 00:43:02.780 ⇒ 00:43:06.939 Luke Scorziell: Like, they could do that for me, type of thing.

365 00:43:07.290 ⇒ 00:43:14.039 Robert Tseng: Yeah… I don’t even really know how much of this stuff. It needs to taste any.

366 00:43:18.400 ⇒ 00:43:24.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think something like this… I mean, this is the case study that I was referring to.

367 00:43:25.330 ⇒ 00:43:26.160 Luke Scorziell: Yeah.

368 00:43:29.120 ⇒ 00:43:33.179 Robert Tseng: I guess you have to, like, link out to it in order to get to there.

369 00:43:33.560 ⇒ 00:43:36.940 Robert Tseng: Huh.

370 00:43:37.980 ⇒ 00:43:47.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, so we have a bunch of these, like, before and after stories that are kind of in these case studies. It’s, like, the challenge or the solution,

371 00:43:51.080 ⇒ 00:44:03.470 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like, in the bigger data consultancy, like, we look at, like, a PH data or something, like, they’re all very generic, like, it’s not, like, they’re not writing that much on their site. Like, I’m fine with us being very personalized on

372 00:44:03.480 ⇒ 00:44:17.039 Robert Tseng: social media and, like, other forms of content, but to me, the website has just gotta… it’s just gotta cover the bases and be like, oh yeah, these are the capabilities, like, we can use, like, targeted landing pages and stuff to, like, kind of experiment with that.

373 00:44:17.150 ⇒ 00:44:20.409 Robert Tseng: So I’m okay with a more generic website, this is kind of…

374 00:44:21.070 ⇒ 00:44:25.529 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I don’t really think people know exactly what we do when they read this stuff, so, like…

375 00:44:26.210 ⇒ 00:44:27.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…

376 00:44:27.410 ⇒ 00:44:34.060 Luke Scorziell: Because I think, like, and this is kind of what I was saying in my message last night, so I’d be curious to learn, or I gotta read through the services and stuff.

377 00:44:34.180 ⇒ 00:44:35.060 Luke Scorziell: But…

378 00:44:35.240 ⇒ 00:44:43.849 Luke Scorziell: like, and the name, Brainforge, is kind of like, we help forge the brain of your company, like, put everything in one place, because I think, like, huge…

379 00:44:43.990 ⇒ 00:44:46.220 Luke Scorziell: Like…

380 00:44:46.330 ⇒ 00:44:54.499 Luke Scorziell: costs to businesses, and listening to that ABC interview, too, it’s like, that guy, Lee, he’s, like, leaving, right? And he has all this.

381 00:44:54.500 ⇒ 00:44:54.860 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

382 00:44:54.860 ⇒ 00:45:00.290 Luke Scorziell: And stuff built up over the years, and, like, when he’s gone, Like, the company’s gonna lose…

383 00:45:00.600 ⇒ 00:45:01.300 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah.

384 00:45:01.300 ⇒ 00:45:04.079 Luke Scorziell: stuff that he knows. If some way you could…

385 00:45:04.270 ⇒ 00:45:08.519 Luke Scorziell: you know, I just… obviously, I’m not on the product team, but if it’s, like.

386 00:45:08.640 ⇒ 00:45:11.760 Luke Scorziell: We’re gonna sit down and interview your, like, leaders.

387 00:45:11.980 ⇒ 00:45:21.239 Luke Scorziell: to get all the knowledge they know so that we can plug it into an AI database, or just stuff like where it’s, like, you could kind of solve, like.

388 00:45:21.470 ⇒ 00:45:30.400 Luke Scorziell: problems that people wouldn’t think about, like, and maybe even creating, like, a series or some kind of post on that, but, like, like, like.

389 00:45:31.130 ⇒ 00:45:36.120 Luke Scorziell: You know, companies lose employees all the time and have a lot of knowledge.

390 00:45:36.270 ⇒ 00:45:41.890 Luke Scorziell: at Brain Forge, one thing we specialize in is, like, I’m just making… but.

391 00:45:41.890 ⇒ 00:45:42.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

392 00:45:43.130 ⇒ 00:45:46.580 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, kind of stuff like that, that then it’s like, they’re like, oh, shoot, like.

393 00:45:46.740 ⇒ 00:45:49.300 Luke Scorziell: That’s what they do. Versus, like.

394 00:45:49.850 ⇒ 00:45:52.269 Luke Scorziell: I’ve run… I’ve run in their, like.

395 00:45:52.440 ⇒ 00:45:57.270 Luke Scorziell: mom, at the moment, is just AI this, AI that, AI whatever, and it’s like…

396 00:45:57.690 ⇒ 00:46:07.450 Luke Scorziell: like, people are, I think, pretty turned off to AI in a lot of ways, because they’re afraid of it and worried. But if you can kind of say, like, oh, actually, like.

397 00:46:07.780 ⇒ 00:46:10.820 Luke Scorziell: Here’s how we empowered humans.

398 00:46:11.040 ⇒ 00:46:13.529 Luke Scorziell: So, yeah, I don’t know, those are just,

399 00:46:16.700 ⇒ 00:46:19.869 Luke Scorziell: I can kind of think about how to integrate that into a content strategy, too.

400 00:46:20.360 ⇒ 00:46:30.579 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, no, like, that’s… I think… I like… I like that more than, kind of, you know, obviously, I do think AI, like, people are gonna be turned off by it more and more, especially going…

401 00:46:30.690 ⇒ 00:46:48.430 Robert Tseng: next year, like, I mean, I do think this is a… this is a bubble, like, you know, it’s not… it’s not really yielding the returns that people think… think it is, and it’s not as… I mean, people aren’t talking about chatbots anymore and stuff like that, because it’s actually not as… as great as people think it is. So, at the end of the day, it’s still about… it has to be a very human experience, like.

402 00:46:49.100 ⇒ 00:47:07.719 Robert Tseng: streamlining workflows, like, solving problems, like, we haven’t really moved away from that. It hasn’t really been, like, oh yeah, AI just, like, comes in and does everything, like, it’s just not… it’s just not like that. So, yeah, I mean, I like what you said about what you think of when you think of the Brainforge brand. It’s like, I didn’t actually make that connection, that we just, like.

403 00:47:08.940 ⇒ 00:47:23.240 Robert Tseng: we help forge, like, kind of the knowledge, like, yeah, we force the brain of an organization, like, yeah, like, connecting all the different things that, like, are disconnected with an org… that is very much true, and .

404 00:47:23.240 ⇒ 00:47:23.900 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

405 00:47:23.900 ⇒ 00:47:29.360 Robert Tseng: But yeah, I don’t think we really would really brand ourselves that way, so I think that’s… that’s… that’s interesting.

406 00:47:29.480 ⇒ 00:47:30.000 Robert Tseng: Yup.

407 00:47:30.000 ⇒ 00:47:37.480 Luke Scorziell: Well, it’s… yeah, it’s interesting, too, because I just listened to Sam Altman’s biography, and…

408 00:47:37.680 ⇒ 00:47:43.460 Luke Scorziell: Just an interesting takeaway from that was, like, There was no…

409 00:47:44.680 ⇒ 00:47:49.150 Luke Scorziell: nothing special about ChatGPT, necessarily, other than that

410 00:47:49.890 ⇒ 00:47:57.909 Luke Scorziell: OpenAI just decided to kind of make public something that everyone else already had, but they just didn’t think was, like, a…

411 00:47:58.290 ⇒ 00:47:59.450 Luke Scorziell: I,

412 00:48:00.740 ⇒ 00:48:14.929 Luke Scorziell: like, that impactful, like, because AI chatbots have kind of been tried before, and, like, didn’t really work and whatnot, and then… so everyone’s kind of focused specifically more on, like, the models, and on, like, how to come up with general, artificial general intelligence.

413 00:48:15.070 ⇒ 00:48:15.440 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

414 00:48:15.440 ⇒ 00:48:18.969 Luke Scorziell: And they just, like, released ChatGPT, and then it became a hit, and it was, like.

415 00:48:19.230 ⇒ 00:48:20.979 Luke Scorziell: Oh, that’s not even, like…

416 00:48:21.470 ⇒ 00:48:27.560 Luke Scorziell: that’s just, like, a fringe use case of what we’ve been working on, but now it’s kind of everyone’s, like.

417 00:48:27.810 ⇒ 00:48:33.089 Luke Scorziell: You know, kind of, oh, like, we can build this, we could do that, we could do this, and all using, like.

418 00:48:33.180 ⇒ 00:48:50.300 Luke Scorziell: kind of like GPT and stuff like that. But the interesting thing is, like, at the very core, all it is is the chat feature that runs off of one of these models, and so… Yeah. If the bubble pops, and that’s all that’s left, it’s like, at the very least, if Brainforge can just be, like.

419 00:48:51.010 ⇒ 00:48:57.450 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, we just build up knowledge bases so that you have the knowledge and data that your company needs to make good decisions.

420 00:48:57.600 ⇒ 00:48:58.590 Luke Scorziell: And…

421 00:48:58.770 ⇒ 00:49:10.300 Luke Scorziell: the way that you can access that for right now is with a chatbot, and then we can also build you a ton of, like, super cool AI-powered automations, to make your life easier. That’s like a…

422 00:49:10.720 ⇒ 00:49:14.680 Luke Scorziell: Like, you’re, you know, you’re not promising the world, and it’s a very specific…

423 00:49:14.980 ⇒ 00:49:18.570 Luke Scorziell: Like, use case, because that, yeah.

424 00:49:19.000 ⇒ 00:49:19.630 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

425 00:49:19.880 ⇒ 00:49:20.640 Luke Scorziell: So…

426 00:49:21.030 ⇒ 00:49:21.500 Robert Tseng: I like that.

427 00:49:21.500 ⇒ 00:49:22.759 Luke Scorziell: Does that land with you? Or, like.

428 00:49:22.760 ⇒ 00:49:38.299 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, I really think that’s true. Like, I think why I like being a services company in this… in this kind of current state of affairs is, like, product companies, they have to promise you the world. They have to tell you that they are, like.

429 00:49:38.920 ⇒ 00:49:48.459 Robert Tseng: you know, disrupting this and, like, gonna give you all these features, whatever. Like, for services business, we don’t have to do that. Like, we’re able to close deals off of making just, like.

430 00:49:48.550 ⇒ 00:50:00.389 Robert Tseng: well, we’ll solve, like, one problem for you. And, like, it’s like a… we don’t have to have a fully-fledged demo to show you, we just have to convince you, you just have to trust us that, like, we can do it, and then you’ll give us budget to go and figure it out.

431 00:50:00.580 ⇒ 00:50:12.100 Robert Tseng: it comes from a different budget as well, as, like, product… as, like, as, like, products that organizations have to purchase, it’s usually budgeted differently. And so, usually, if you just find, like, one champion.

432 00:50:12.290 ⇒ 00:50:30.180 Robert Tseng: that just likes you, they’ll just… they’ll just… they’ll be able to sign that… sign that deal, you know, for generally anything under, like, I don’t know, like, 50 grand or whatever. But, like, so yeah, so, like, I think that’s… that’s kind of why, you know, even with our, like.

433 00:50:31.910 ⇒ 00:50:48.970 Robert Tseng: spray-and-pray kind of approach, like, we’ve been able to, like, kind of get something out of this, is because I feel like we’re just, like, riding this wave of, like, of the AI stuff, and at the end of the day, most of our work is just data work. It’s not, like, most of it… we’re not building any, like.

434 00:50:49.190 ⇒ 00:50:55.569 Robert Tseng: cutting-edge, like, AI solutions. Like, it’s all just kind of… stuff that people…

435 00:50:55.770 ⇒ 00:51:05.399 Robert Tseng: can do themselves, but, like, they just never got organized around it. Their data is really messy, and so we are still doing a lot of, like, the same old, like.

436 00:51:05.410 ⇒ 00:51:10.110 Robert Tseng: Core data engineering work of, like, getting all your data into a single place.

437 00:51:10.110 ⇒ 00:51:24.479 Robert Tseng: making sure that everyone is thinking about it the same way, the metrics that your company uses when you say revenue, when you say repeat customers, like, it’s all kind of consistent. Like, those are all part of the same… every project has that, and

438 00:51:24.480 ⇒ 00:51:30.339 Robert Tseng: Then whether or not someone wants a chatbot, or they just want reporting, like a visualization layer on top of it.

439 00:51:30.480 ⇒ 00:51:46.790 Robert Tseng: like, the deliverable looks different, but, like, that’s… there’s more organizational dependent. But yeah, like, I think the process is all the same. It’s all, like, we have to just get it all in one place, do some cleaning or transformation, and then, like, it can be plugged into some

440 00:51:46.790 ⇒ 00:51:55.249 Robert Tseng: Tool, whether we build it custom or we buy it out of the box somewhere else, and it’ll get you what… into the format that you want.

441 00:51:56.030 ⇒ 00:52:04.399 Luke Scorziell: Huh. So, I mean, it’s really, like, the core belief, then, of the company is that once your data’s organized, then you can leverage all of the…

442 00:52:04.640 ⇒ 00:52:06.270 Luke Scorziell: other technologies.

443 00:52:06.270 ⇒ 00:52:06.880 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

444 00:52:07.360 ⇒ 00:52:08.050 Luke Scorziell: But…

445 00:52:09.280 ⇒ 00:52:18.099 Luke Scorziell: Because, like, theoretically, I could, you know, go about, oh, I’m gonna code, like, this bot on my own, but if I don’t have all the data that I need, and like that, I don’t know.

446 00:52:18.220 ⇒ 00:52:21.090 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. I think that’s maybe a myth that AI is…

447 00:52:21.250 ⇒ 00:52:29.899 Luke Scorziell: what’s coming out of this bubble is, like, you can vibe code a whole app without really knowing anything about coding. You can do this, you can do that. So, okay, yeah.

448 00:52:30.240 ⇒ 00:52:32.310 Luke Scorziell: This is super helpful.

449 00:52:33.770 ⇒ 00:52:39.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, one more thought on the vibe coding thing. So, like, one of the deals that we’re working on,

450 00:52:40.040 ⇒ 00:52:40.840 Robert Tseng: Alright.

451 00:52:40.970 ⇒ 00:52:51.289 Robert Tseng: I mean, yeah, they’re… they’re, like, it’s… it’s, like, the client’s paying us $100K for, like, one month of work, right? And it’s, like, crazy, because, like, they’re, like.

452 00:52:51.740 ⇒ 00:53:07.899 Robert Tseng: they worked with another, like, outsourced, like, engineering team that would just vibe-coded this, like, product for them. They’re trying to build out this, like, custom EMR system, and it’s like a full-stack application that was mostly… like, most of the code is, like, AI-generated code.

453 00:53:08.120 ⇒ 00:53:18.190 Robert Tseng: the demo looked good, and, like, that… our client bought the thing for $100K, and it’s been, like, 6 months when they’ve been trying to, like.

454 00:53:18.330 ⇒ 00:53:22.530 Robert Tseng: Integrated into their actual, like, business doesn’t work.

455 00:53:22.700 ⇒ 00:53:26.670 Luke Scorziell: And so, basically, I have to redo it from scratch, and so we were like, alright, we’ll just…

456 00:53:26.790 ⇒ 00:53:35.179 Robert Tseng: charge you the same price, and like, we’ll… but we’ll do it in a month, just kind of building it up foundationally. And it’s not like the AI code was useless, like, we are building on top of it.

457 00:53:35.180 ⇒ 00:53:47.120 Robert Tseng: But it’s just, like, without, like, real engineering expertise, you can’t run a real business on bicoded applications. Like, it’s just, like, not possible. I think within, like, a contained environment, like a Meta or a Google.

458 00:53:47.120 ⇒ 00:53:48.040 Robert Tseng: where, like.

459 00:53:48.040 ⇒ 00:54:01.380 Robert Tseng: all the data is pristine, the documentation is pristine, like, they have dedicated teams, like, making sure that all their backend systems are good. Then the AI model on top of that is great. But, like, most organizations

460 00:54:01.390 ⇒ 00:54:19.109 Robert Tseng: don’t have anything close to that, and so when they, like, try to do a similar type of, like, AI-assisted development, it just doesn’t get anywhere near, like, ready for production. Even if the UI may look beautiful, which, like, I think the applications that you’re vibecoding, like, they look good on the surface.

461 00:54:19.110 ⇒ 00:54:24.519 Robert Tseng: But can you actually process 100,000 orders a month on it? Like, probably not. And so,

462 00:54:24.920 ⇒ 00:54:27.730 Robert Tseng: I think that’s, like, what people are seeing. Yeah.

463 00:54:27.730 ⇒ 00:54:30.240 Luke Scorziell: I made a quiz for a client on Lovable.

464 00:54:30.430 ⇒ 00:54:36.950 Luke Scorziell: And it’s… my girlfriend was a math of computation major at UCLA. Okay.

465 00:54:37.070 ⇒ 00:54:40.439 Luke Scorziell: She’s just like, how are you building this? Like, you don’t know anything about coding.

466 00:54:40.440 ⇒ 00:54:43.269 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s cool, no, you could do that, yeah.

467 00:54:43.270 ⇒ 00:54:48.489 Luke Scorziell: And, but, but the thing is, like, use, like, Supabase, and…

468 00:54:48.650 ⇒ 00:54:51.429 Robert Tseng: Yep. There was some kind of issue, and it…

469 00:54:51.960 ⇒ 00:55:00.030 Luke Scorziell: I just… I had built this, like, massively kind of complex… or, I mean, it’s not, like, massively complex, but it was, like, a decently complex app.

470 00:55:00.110 ⇒ 00:55:01.260 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

471 00:55:02.020 ⇒ 00:55:05.000 Luke Scorziell: And I just had, like, I have no clue how to fix, like.

472 00:55:05.000 ⇒ 00:55:05.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

473 00:55:05.530 ⇒ 00:55:11.849 Luke Scorziell: that, because it’s just… I got it to the point where it’s, like, cool, and I can show it to the client, and the client’s like, oh, this is dope, like…

474 00:55:12.010 ⇒ 00:55:13.410 Luke Scorziell: But then it’s like…

475 00:55:13.560 ⇒ 00:55:22.220 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know how to make the underlying changes, so I think that could also be a pretty interesting point of, like, a content strategy, or even the brand is, like.

476 00:55:22.640 ⇒ 00:55:29.070 Luke Scorziell: Hey… You know, we’re kind of calling this out early, but, like, there’s a myth right now.

477 00:55:29.280 ⇒ 00:55:29.670 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

478 00:55:29.670 ⇒ 00:55:33.059 Luke Scorziell: We don’t… we won’t need engineers or computer science people

479 00:55:33.330 ⇒ 00:55:40.660 Luke Scorziell: Yeah. In the next year or two, or that you can do everything yourself, and, like, you don’t want to make it feel like condemning, but, like.

480 00:55:40.860 ⇒ 00:55:41.190 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

481 00:55:41.190 ⇒ 00:55:46.599 Luke Scorziell: It more could be like, hey, you know, would you trust yourself to, like.

482 00:55:46.810 ⇒ 00:55:59.279 Luke Scorziell: do your car, or do this, or do that, so, like, what… you know, if you don’t know actually how the internal stuff works, I don’t know what the best analogy would be. Because there’s actually a lot of risk for companies in using

483 00:55:59.530 ⇒ 00:56:01.320 Luke Scorziell: these…

484 00:56:01.640 ⇒ 00:56:17.160 Luke Scorziell: like, people that know what they’re doing, but all that they’re doing is really just prompting AI, because it’s like, at the end of the day, you still need the knowledge about whatever field that you’re using AI in to build on top of that. And so, I think, like, that could be a pretty…

485 00:56:17.640 ⇒ 00:56:22.570 Luke Scorziell: strong, like, pillar of the brand, too, that’s maybe not being…

486 00:56:22.750 ⇒ 00:56:32.070 Luke Scorziell: talked about right now is, like, we use AI, but more… more than that, we’re, like, a data company that… that will help you structure,

487 00:56:32.480 ⇒ 00:56:35.700 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, I have to kind of massage that verbiage, but, like.

488 00:56:35.880 ⇒ 00:56:36.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

489 00:56:36.570 ⇒ 00:56:39.780 Luke Scorziell: basically, like, Like, we are still experts.

490 00:56:39.900 ⇒ 00:56:41.690 Luke Scorziell: We’re not just a team of, like…

491 00:56:41.870 ⇒ 00:56:52.069 Luke Scorziell: You know, 20 to 30-year-olds… Yeah. …who are, like, Getting rich off of, like, StratGBT and…

492 00:56:52.070 ⇒ 00:56:52.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

493 00:56:52.520 ⇒ 00:57:00.509 Luke Scorziell: And all this stuff. So, because then… because there’s real risk, like, that company paid $100,000. Also, EMR, there’s, like, all kinds of HIPAA

494 00:57:00.630 ⇒ 00:57:07.540 Luke Scorziell: Like, compliant stuff that they need to do, and, like, it’s very sensitive, like, so the risk there is, like.

495 00:57:07.870 ⇒ 00:57:09.980 Luke Scorziell: the… like…

496 00:57:10.480 ⇒ 00:57:17.450 Luke Scorziell: If that system didn’t work properly, or something, like, got messed up, it could be, like, massive lawsuits, or, like, class action, or something, like…

497 00:57:17.600 ⇒ 00:57:19.080 Luke Scorziell: you know, I don’t know, but…

498 00:57:19.080 ⇒ 00:57:19.660 Robert Tseng: Yeah, totally.

499 00:57:19.660 ⇒ 00:57:20.060 Luke Scorziell: company.

500 00:57:20.060 ⇒ 00:57:20.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

501 00:57:20.570 ⇒ 00:57:25.219 Luke Scorziell: But it’s like, you know, do you really just want to trust that to, like.

502 00:57:25.810 ⇒ 00:57:28.810 Luke Scorziell: someone that doesn’t have the expertise. So, yeah.

503 00:57:29.120 ⇒ 00:57:29.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

504 00:57:30.440 ⇒ 00:57:34.609 Luke Scorziell: Anyways, I should probably put a few bullet points on my slide.

505 00:57:34.610 ⇒ 00:57:38.619 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, sorry, I know we took up a lot of time this direction, but…

506 00:57:38.620 ⇒ 00:57:56.569 Luke Scorziell: Is… is this, like, and maybe, I don’t know, like, it’s easy for me to kind of have these, like, brainstorming, like, again, tons of ideas. Maybe, like, if there are things that stood out to you, too, that you’re like, oh, this would be, like, good to action on, or, like, maybe we could, like, touch base just on that, and then I can start building.

507 00:57:56.710 ⇒ 00:57:57.340 Luke Scorziell: Okay.

508 00:57:57.950 ⇒ 00:58:06.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so let’s kind of, yeah, let me just take a couple minutes to just, like, kind of bring it home. So, you know, obviously, you look through this stuff, and then,

509 00:58:06.720 ⇒ 00:58:16.690 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, kind of what I mentioned, like, I think, I think you have the right intuition on all this stuff, which is great, because, like, I, you know, I think I just got really excited talking to you, because, like.

510 00:58:16.740 ⇒ 00:58:33.350 Robert Tseng: nobody else that I brought in at this role has been able to… they just, like, take orders from me. I’m like, I don’t… I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for somebody who can think on their own and come with some ideas as well. For sure, like, some work needs to get done, and, like, we need to… we need to, like, figure out how to drive for something.

511 00:58:33.860 ⇒ 00:58:40.119 Luke Scorziell: I don’t know what I thought, when you… when you talked to me, I was like, oh, this is perfect, because I… I don’t really thrive in the roles where it’s like.

512 00:58:40.240 ⇒ 00:58:42.889 Luke Scorziell: someone just giving me a list of things to do.

513 00:58:42.890 ⇒ 00:58:43.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

514 00:58:43.550 ⇒ 00:58:44.009 Luke Scorziell: Where do they work.

515 00:58:44.010 ⇒ 00:58:44.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

516 00:58:44.340 ⇒ 00:58:45.640 Luke Scorziell: away from Allentown.

517 00:58:45.640 ⇒ 00:58:49.129 Robert Tseng: That’s definitely not what I want, not from, like, this… this… I mean, like…

518 00:58:49.210 ⇒ 00:59:02.299 Robert Tseng: everyone else on the sales team is like that, like, I… I’m tired of telling them what to do, to be honest. So, yeah, anyway, so here, like, I think this is the right… yeah, this is the right intuition, like.

519 00:59:02.300 ⇒ 00:59:15.130 Robert Tseng: I agree that there is probably something around, like, just initial messaging, but this is probably not the most immediate thing, right? It’s, like, kind of the positioning conversation that we have here, like, how do we actually, like, one level up, like.

520 00:59:16.280 ⇒ 00:59:27.900 Robert Tseng: what are, like, the types of messages that we want to put out there, like, kind of more of that brand perception, so I think that exercise is the right exercise to do, because I think this will kind of come after that. Yeah, 100%.

521 00:59:27.900 ⇒ 00:59:28.530 Luke Scorziell: percent.

522 00:59:28.790 ⇒ 00:59:34.119 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then, like, you had this idea, which we didn’t talk about much, but building one core product.

523 00:59:34.300 ⇒ 00:59:37.249 Robert Tseng: Sorry, I know we’ll be a bit late to the other meeting, but it should be 5 minutes.

524 00:59:37.250 ⇒ 00:59:37.700 Luke Scorziell: That’s okay.

525 00:59:37.700 ⇒ 00:59:48.009 Robert Tseng: And I mean, we kind of touched on this in our discussion, you’re basically trying to create, like, what’s, like, one point of entry for people to kind of really latch onto when they come to Brainforge?

526 00:59:48.210 ⇒ 01:00:03.140 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I tried to, like, kind of write some stuff out. I think there are a few messages now, like, we’ve kind of discussed. We have, like, the get your, you know, forge your brain, like, get all your, like, knowledge, data.

527 01:00:04.130 ⇒ 01:00:13.020 Robert Tseng: data into a single place, then it makes you ready for AI, tech, and anything else

528 01:00:13.020 ⇒ 01:00:24.589 Robert Tseng: That, that comes afterward, like, and anything that comes with, with this, right? And then there’s also the, what, what you had just said, which was, like,

529 01:00:25.380 ⇒ 01:00:28.880 Robert Tseng: the, you know,

530 01:00:30.260 ⇒ 01:00:40.179 Robert Tseng: Tell us, like, your problem, or like, you know, you’re facing some sort of, like, you’re facing some crisis

531 01:00:41.120 ⇒ 01:00:44.580 Robert Tseng: Crisis moments, like, you know,

532 01:00:44.730 ⇒ 01:00:53.610 Robert Tseng: Like, don’t know how to turn it… Around, like, you know, solution… Built on Shicky.

533 01:00:53.910 ⇒ 01:00:59.239 Robert Tseng: shaky foundations, like, still need, like, true…

534 01:00:59.470 ⇒ 01:01:10.570 Robert Tseng: engineering expertise, like, I don’t know, something like that, like, I don’t know if this is… yeah, so, like, I think these are multiple messages that we kind of… like, but, like, so we can maybe consolidate that a bit more.

535 01:01:10.960 ⇒ 01:01:13.219 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, and that last one, too, even,

536 01:01:14.160 ⇒ 01:01:20.779 Luke Scorziell: Like, you get… if Brainforge took that on, and obviously you have to make sure it resonates and it’s a direction that the team wants to go.

537 01:01:20.780 ⇒ 01:01:21.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

538 01:01:21.310 ⇒ 01:01:31.499 Luke Scorziell: But, like, that’s… that’s, like, a bold statement to say in an environment where computer science, like, education and, like, everyone’s basically, like, panicking. But to say, like.

539 01:01:31.900 ⇒ 01:01:38.769 Luke Scorziell: actually, we’re doubling down on the fact that you need… like, that’s gonna be… I think that would be a pretty, like.

540 01:01:39.260 ⇒ 01:01:47.650 Luke Scorziell: That’d be a pretty good stake to put in the ground, because it’d sound a lot different than what other people are doing, and then you would attract people who are still wanting to study

541 01:01:47.870 ⇒ 01:01:50.700 Luke Scorziell: And, like, work in computer science, and who are very techy.

542 01:01:50.870 ⇒ 01:01:52.230 Robert Tseng: So it’s like…

543 01:01:52.430 ⇒ 01:01:57.420 Luke Scorziell: If it’s just, like… We’re like everyone else, you know, type of thing.

544 01:01:57.420 ⇒ 01:01:58.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

545 01:01:58.500 ⇒ 01:02:08.750 Robert Tseng: So… I think if I were to prior… like, rank these, I like this the most. Like, this, to me, just sounds like it’s provocative, but, like, also, like, I think we have… we can… we can back it up a bit.

546 01:02:08.820 ⇒ 01:02:19.509 Robert Tseng: And also, like, just from, like, a business perspective, I’d love to sell, like, you know, I only… you know, the easiest, easiest 100 grand we’ve ever made. Like, this thing is, like.

547 01:02:19.510 ⇒ 01:02:35.610 Robert Tseng: It was, like, the easiest sale we’ve ever closed, too. It was just, like, I mean, they waited until a crisis moment, and, like, now, I didn’t really have to do much convincing. It was just… I mean, they already work with us on other projects, and they just, like, gave us a deal pretty easily. But there must be other people out there, and it’s like…

548 01:02:35.880 ⇒ 01:02:44.669 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, we struggle so hard to close other, like, 5K to 10K dollar… 5K to 10K deals.

549 01:02:44.670 ⇒ 01:02:58.589 Robert Tseng: And, like, the sales cycles are, like, two to four weeks long, and all this nurturing, and whatever. I’d rather go and find people, and, like, just be like, hey, look, if you have a crisis, come talk to us, and, like, you know, we’ll solve the problem. And, like, they’re willing to pay whatever for it, and…

550 01:02:59.120 ⇒ 01:03:02.619 Robert Tseng: Like, I think this is… this… this is great. And then for this, it’s like.

551 01:03:02.770 ⇒ 01:03:12.520 Robert Tseng: this is really gonna be bubble-proof, I think, because, like, beyond… everyone already knows chatbots are not as sexy anymore now, and, like, what’s the next thing in AI? Well, it’s like.

552 01:03:12.600 ⇒ 01:03:26.270 Robert Tseng: AI-generated visualization and insights and stuff like that, and, like, at the end of the day, all the foundations sit on top of, like, organized, clean data all in a single place. And so, I do think that what we’re doing there is, is, like, necessary.

553 01:03:26.300 ⇒ 01:03:30.299 Luke Scorziell: And then this is, like, maybe the current message that’s, like, very much, like.

554 01:03:31.410 ⇒ 01:03:39.619 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I just… this is… we’re not saying this out loud, but, like, yeah, within our current clients, the ones that work with us for over a year.

555 01:03:39.640 ⇒ 01:03:52.619 Robert Tseng: But it’s because we’ve replaced, like, we’ve kind of given them a new paradigm for how to work with, like, an AI or data engineering team. You don’t need to be spending a million dollar a year budget on having five to seven people

556 01:03:52.840 ⇒ 01:04:03.399 Robert Tseng: kind of building this out, you can just work with Brainforge, pay a flat fee of, whatever, $30Kto$50K a month, and we can pretty much just, like, calibrate

557 01:04:03.620 ⇒ 01:04:20.620 Robert Tseng: whoever we need to staff onto that project for that specific need, and we have better output than when you were paying for 5 to 7 people on your team. And so, like, this is, like, we don’t say this out loud, but, like, this is why, for our… the clients that have stayed with us the longest, like, this is what, like, they get out of it.

558 01:04:20.670 ⇒ 01:04:21.340 Luke Scorziell: Huh.

559 01:04:21.340 ⇒ 01:04:22.020 Robert Tseng: Yeah.

560 01:04:22.100 ⇒ 01:04:23.330 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, okay.

561 01:04:23.590 ⇒ 01:04:24.510 Luke Scorziell: Sweet. Yeah.

562 01:04:24.810 ⇒ 01:04:31.839 Robert Tseng: Okay, alright, sorry, I know we’re late, and we should go to another call, but I had… this was… I had a lot of fun with this conversation.

563 01:04:31.840 ⇒ 01:04:36.620 Luke Scorziell: Yeah, likewise. So, let’s keep… yeah, keep these up. So, alright, I’ll see you on the next one.

564 01:04:36.860 ⇒ 01:04:37.690 Robert Tseng: Alright, see you, Luke.